Blaming People for Saying the Truth

The Democrats' race for the presidential nomination continues, and is growing more vicious. One hopes that the Pennsylvania primary will mark the end of this internecine battle, but that was said before — in February and in March, several times, to no avail.

That the standard bearer for the party is chosen through a protracted series of contests that keep them in the limelight for weeks is not a bad thing per se. On the contrary, one might argue that many Republican voters have been disenfranchised by the early consecration of John McCain — and I'd be surprised if many of them felt motivated to vote in the remaining state primaries, given how little meaning they have left.

However, extending the ideological contest between Clinton and Obama would be fine it it served to shed light on their policy proposals, and if it wasn't destructive to the survivor's chances in November. Unfortunately, on both counts, the trend is exactly in the wrong direction.

Witness the latest clash about Obama's remarks to the effect that some people, feeling left out by shrinking federal (non-military) spending and disproportionally hurt by the recession, "cling to their guns and their religion" and their anti-immigrant sentiments to make sense of their lives. Since he said that, both Clinton and the Republicans have attacked him, the media have been all over his case ("elitist" being the milder adjective employed to describe him), and he has himself backpedaled — all in spite of one simple, all too easily ignored factoid: he is right!

The populist mood in the country (and the inability to discuss religion in factual terms) is such that making the statement he did is toxic. Clinton is now wrapping herself in a very ill-fitting cloak for her: someone who is "close to real America" — and by implication, is so unconditionally embracing it that the idea of critiquing how people form their judgments is considered tantamount to treason.

Yet it is true that some of the most vociferous opponents of gun control, the most pious proponents of school prayer or of the dismantling of barriers between church and state, and the most xenophobic (and, let's say it, racist) people in the U.S. are Democrats, not Republicans. Especially in southern states or in poor rural areas. This is not unlike the xenophobic current that existed in the Communist party in France in the 1980s and 1990s, based on the same fear that "they are taking our jobs," which led to this revolving door phenomenon in which people disappeared from the extreme left to reappear on the extreme right and vote for Jean-Marie Le Pen, thus proving that the political continuum is not a straight line, it is a circle!

I was, and I still am, positive about a Clinton presidency because of her ability to tap into a large talent pool of advisers and potential cabinet members. I was, and still remain, concerned that in a tight election, the lingering "race factor" could throw the election to McCain in some southern states if Obama is the candidate. But Clinton's tactical move last week — joining the critics rather than supporting Obama by acknowledging at minimum that his remarks, however undiplomatic, raise a real issue — do not reflect well on her character. If she wins because she cannot have the honesty to support an "inconvenient truth," then there will be some sadness mixed in that victory. But if Obama wins because he retracted what he knows to be correct, then it is equally sad.