For those not clicking the link, it’s a Washington Post editorial which points out that Obama — no, not Obama — er, Obama’s minister — no, no, wrong again — ahem — Obama’s minister’s daughter runs a magazine which last year recognized the "achievements" of Louis Farrakhan, a man widely known for his anti-semitic views.
Even though the author of the editorial acknowledges that Obama probably doesn’t share the views of Farrakhan, and is on the record as to often disagreeing with his minister, he wants to establish this connection anyway. ("Why hasn’t Obama disavowed this?") And now another news cycle will be devoted to this silly question.
It’s a hack piece. And what’s to follow? How eeeevil Hillary Clinton is for somehow getting this editorial written (and/or not disavowing the editorial). And then that becomes the next news cycle.
Sigh.
UPDATE: Henry at Crooked Timber opines:
I strongly suspect that Barack Obama is being asked to condemn Louis Farrakhan not because there’s some bogus two-degrees-of-separation thing going on, but because Barack Obama is black, and because black politicians are supposed to condemn Louis Farrakhan before they can be trusted. This isn’t racism, but it’s an implicit double standard, under which black politicians have a higher hurdle to jump before they deserve public trust than white ones.
I think that’s true. Nobody is asking Romney condemn the racism of the Mormon Church, or asking Huckabee to condemn some nutty thing that some Southern Baptist has said, or asking Giuliani to condemn the Catholic Church’s Pedophile Priest coverup for so many years, are they?
And this from The Carpetbagger, who clearly has been thinking along the same lines as me:
I’ve read Cohen’s piece several times now, trying to understand what possessed him to write it (and what possessed his editors to publish it). I’m at a bit of a loss.
At first blush, there’s clearly a degrees-of-separation problem. Obama belongs to a Christian church. The church has a pastor. The pastor has a daughter. The daughter helps run the church magazine. The magazine featured some praise for Louis Farrakhan last year.
Cohen sees this and insists, in his nationally-syndicated column, that Obama has a personal “obligation to speak out” — not because Obama has been connected with Farrakhan or anti-Semitism in any way, but because his church’s pastor’s daughter’s magazine said something complementary about Farrakhan.
This is utterly ridiculous and Cohen ought to be embarrassed for putting his name on such nonsense. Cohen’s been around long enough to know that he and his paper are above these kinds of attacks. Or, they’re supposed to be.
***
If recent history is any guide, Democratic supporters of Obama will take Cohen to task for writing inane tripe, and Democratic critics of Obama will suggest that somehow Cohen has a point.
I’d like to think we can reach a point at which Dems can just be Dems, and criticize stupidity, no matter which Democrat is the target. Cohen’s column should be Exhibit A.
Yup.