Does Obama Denounce and Reject Farrikhan?

Honestly, so far I haven't been a fan of imagining that Obama really supports Farrakhan. I really have imagined that he is not in support of that dude. In fact, I think if he was really in support of Farrakhan it would be a game-changer for him. So I was thinking back to the Tim Russert challenge on this topic during the Obama / Hillary fight for the democrat nomination and how Obama said that he both "rejected" and "denounced" the support of Farrakhan. Naturally, I am crazy about researching this stuff and I wanted to be sure I have a clear understand.

Now, I want to be reasonable and imagine that Obama himself doesn't support him, based on his words. And I was able to quickly find his words. I also did some research to find out what Farrakhan really said about Obama and the fact is that he calls him the "Messiah", and specifically calls him "the stone that the builders rejected" and the "chief cornerstone" (both New Testament references to Jesus, basically calling Obama the second coming.) Farrakhan is mobilizing his followers to vote for Obama under this rhetoric. That is pretty scarry stuff. But in response to that Obama has said that he doesn't want nor has he solicited Farrakhan's support and more specifically he says that he rejects and denounces the things Farrakhan is saying.

To be fair and reasonable, I tend to believe that candidates do in fact believe the last thing they have said, but I temper my trust in that by examining what they said previously on the same issue. Now, I cannot find any previous statements about Farrakhan from Obama except for what he has said on this topic. It only seems at best that Obama moved from saying that his pastor's award to Farrakhan was for something specific and had nothing to do with anti-semetic statements, and then within a short period moved over to rejecting and denouncing. Some might look at that history and say that Obama minimized Farrakhan perspective and then later denounced it (showing yet another flip-flop once revealed.) At the minimum, it seems that Obama has never said anything directly supportive of Farrakhan. But really, that is not what this blog post is about.

I am writing this blog post because I have bumped into the same rhetorric of support for Obama despite various revelations of his contraditory opinions.

A few weeks ago I wrote about a conversation I had with a friend who felt that Obama isn't like McCain with regard to war and strategy, even though he is currently pandering toward McCain's perspective over the weeks gone bye. More importantly, he said that even though Obama sounds more and more like McCain, he is convinced Obama will end up being the Obama that he liked at some previous point during the campaign. he feels that the current tougher version of Obama is just pandering and that inevitably Obama will return to the version that my friend liked the most.

Jump over to the Chicago Sun-Times. With all of this rejecting and denouncing of Farrakhan, it seems like Obama is poised to lose the support of Farrakhan supporters. Surprisingly that is not the case. Why you might ask, like me? You would think that if Obama is seriously rejecting and denouncing Farrakhan then both Farrakhan and his supporters would be up in arms and definitely not supporting him. Check out this quote from Sun-Times Columnist Mary Mitchell.

"When Sen. Barack Obama "rejected" and "denounced" the support of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan during the MSNBC debate last week, it wasn't his finest hour.

Fortunately for Obama, most black people understand the game."

You can read the entire article here which communicates that while black people are upset at Obama for denouncing and rejecting Farrakhan, that the black population understand the game, implying that Obama must reject Farrakhan to get broader support, but black people really know that Obama is playing a game.

Now I am not agreeing or disagreeing with what she is saying. Rather I am surprised at this common dialog. The shocking piece of this would be that people can't seem to justify the contradictions of Obama. The harder part of the contradictions would be that they go against the fundamental reasons they were originally going to vote for Obama (e.g. His fight against warmongers, timelines for getting out of Iraq, being anti-nuclear power, various entitlement programs that have changed, etc.) So rather than continuing to support Obama's new platform, they, like the author above, have decided that Obama is just playing a game and he will return to an earlier version of himself once he is President.

This is the worst kind of politics and the emptiest hope of all. Here is the miracle of what seems to be Obama's political approach:

1. You say you believe in perspective "A"
2. As a result all perspective "A" voters come running to vote for you
3. Later you say you believe in perspective "B" but sell it as "A+amendment 1"
4. As a result all perspective "B" voters come running to vote for you. They doubt you ever really believed in perspective "A" -- you were only "pandering"
5. As a result all perspective "A" voters still vote for you and they doubt you every really believed in perspective "B" -- you were only "pandering"

The inevitable danger as a voter is... you really don't know who you are voting for. Is this candidate 1-version A or candidate 1-version B?

Frankly I am not sure how to figure this out, but I would rather the American people just demand that the candidates truly speak out a resoundingly consistent message without pandering.

Here is my new definition for pandering: Pandering is not telling the truth. It isn't a game. It isn't a half-truth. It is a lie, and we shouldn't send a signal that we will be OK with seeing them lie if it means they get to be president.