Niebuhr and Obama

ONE EVENING IN spring of 2007, Barack Obama, drooping off Senate floor, paused for an interview with New York Times columnist David Brooks. His voice, Brooks later recounted, measured and fatigued, and he was taking those little pauses candidates take when they're afraid of saying something that might hurt them later on. In midst of interview, Brooks spontaneously severed his line of questioning about development aid and asked Obama, Have you ever read Reinhold Niebuhr? Obama perked up: love him, he said. He's one of my favorite philosophers. Divers writers have dissected and probed this assertion, seeking to explicate how affinity for Niebuhr will or will not manifest itself new president's governance. though, they have assumed that statement provides extensive insight into his mental life. It does not. For detecting exactly what it is that Obama loves about Niebuhr is tricky, not only because positions are inclined to blurriness but because Niebuhr's thought is extensive and itself frequently less than forth-right. One needs more than a scalpel and probe to figure out connection between Obama and Niebuhr; indeed, one may need more tools just to get at crux of Niebuhr alone. IN SEPTEMBER, 2005, Daily Kos blog ran a lengthy letter from Obama which he defended those Democratic senators who, unlike himself, had voted to confirm John Roberts as Supreme Court's chief justice and were taking heat from some liberals because of it. To degree that brook no dissent within Democratic Party, and demand fealty to one, 'true' progressive vision for country, Obama wrote, we risk very thoughtfulness and openness to new ideas that are required to move this country forward. It is language of a centrist. And yet, Obama specifically rejected that label by urging Democrats not to tack centrist but steer their liberal agenda toward more audacious and innovative waters. Too often, he wrote, the 'centrist' label seems to mean compromise for compromise sake, whereas on issues like health care, energy, education, and tackling poverty, I don't think Democrats have been bold enough. And while happy to chide intolerant liberals, Obama refused to analogize left-wing activist groups to their rightwing counterparts because Fighting on behalf of poor and vulnerable is not same as for homophobia and Halliburton. Such is style of America's new president. Their tendency toward lapidary construction notwithstanding, his sentences can seem contradictory. In Daily Kos letter, Obama defended some centrist Democrats and rebuked others; he applauded certain forms of what is called centrism and disavowed others. He compared left-wing litmus tests to right-wing ones but then found his own comparison inapt because concerns of conservative groups (e.g., fighting for homophobia) are fearful while those of liberal groups are hopeful. He applauded idea of disagreeing without being disagreeable, but certain Republican ideas, those he doesn't like, he called dumb. That Barack Obama is an enigma has been aplenty noted: Last year, Washington Post editorial page published The Obama Enigma, David Broder penned Obama's Enigma, and Victor Davis Hanson wrote of Obama, After more than a year of campaigning, he still remains an enigma. then-presidential-candidate could not be pinned down. Larissa MacFarquhar, writing New Yorker 2007, found that in his view of history, his respect for tradition, his skepticism that world can be changed any way but very, very slowly, Obama is deeply conservative. There are moments when he sounds almost Burkean. He distrusts abstractions, generalizations, extrapolations, projections. Fine, but was this not man--purportedly so skeptical of change and abstractions--who built a winning presidential campaign on abstractions about change? …