The answer to this question may not be entirely clear, but at least a
partial answer lies within the pages of the current New Yorker
magazine. The controversial edition has generated far more attention
for the political cartoon on its cover than for the content of the
accompanying article. This often overlooked cover story includes two
telling anecdotes. One story recounts Obama's explosive reaction to
being "embarrassed" on the floor of the Illinois state legislature, and
the other explores Obama's tepid reaction to the carnage of September
11, 2001. Both stories illustrate Obama's tendency to reserve his
harshest attacks for perceived political affronts while treating true
outrages with heavy doses of nuance.
According to the New Yorker article, State Senator Barack Obama ignited
a verbal dispute with a colleague during a 1997 legislative session in
Springfield. Obama had "accidentally" voted against a child welfare
bill, and a political rival rose to criticize Obama's vote. Obama
didn't take kindly to being called out and purportedly approached the
offending party, threatening to "kick [his] ass."
Although he's been able to steer clear of issuing physical threats
during his presidential campaign, Obama has gotten his dander up on a
number of occasions. Despite having countenanced 20 years of
anti-American and racist bile from Jeremiah Wright, Obama finally
became incensed with his reverend earlier this year. What was the
minister's crime? No, it wasn't stirring up racial tensions by accusing
the US government of inventing diseases to kill people of color. It was
Wright's assertion that Obama is a calculating politician who says what
he needs to say in order to get elected. This diss enraged Obama, who
at long last managed to muster some indignation toward his soon-to-be
former pastor. Their longstanding relationship ended on a very bitter
note.
On May 15, President Bush offered a fairly standard, boilerplate
denunciation of appeasing outlaw regimes during a speech to the Israeli
Knesset. In Barack Obama's myopic universe, the President's words were
interpreted as nothing less than direct political attack on Obama
himself, prompting days of hysterical tantrums from the candidate and
his surrogates. Obama delivered an angry speech in North Dakota on May
16, exclaiming, "George Bush and John McCain have a lot to answer for."
His fury unquenched, Obama announced he was spoiling for a fight. "If
John McCain wants to meet me anywhere, anytime to have a debate about
about our respective policies…that is a conversation I'm happy
to have," he thundered. It turns out Obama was just kidding about that
last part, as he continues to duck and dodge joint townhall meetings
with McCain.
Ultimately his message to the State Senator, Rev. Wright, and President
Bush was clear: Disrespect me in public, and you'll pay the price.
Obama's outrage threshold appears to be a great deal higher when it
comes to terrorists who slaughter thousands of innocent Americans. The
New Yorker piece highlights Obama's reaction to the events of September
11, 2001, as chronicled in his Hyde Park Herald op-ed published barely
a week after the towers fell: "The essence of this tragedy, it seems to
me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the
attackers," he wrote. "Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the
pain of a child or the desperation of a parent, is not innate; nor,
history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion, or
ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence,
and may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. Most often,
though, it grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance,
helplessness and despair."
His assumption about the relationship between poverty and terrorism
was, and remains, dangerously ignorant. The radical Islamists who
planned and carried out the ghoulish attacks were mostly
middle-to-upper class, and many were well educated. These guys weren't
going hungry; they were, however, thirsty for the blood of infidels.
After misdiagnosing the "root causes" of the extremists' actions, Obama
spilled more ink, fretting about the possibility of retaliatory hate
crimes against Muslims—which mostly proved to be figments of the
Left's imagination. Although Obama's public reaction to 9/11 was far
less unhinged than that of his longtime pastor ("America's chickens are
coming home to roost!"), it is still deeply troubling that the man who
may be our next president apparently spent the aftermath of the
devastation wringing his hands about empathy, fallacious "root causes,"
and possible racist reprisals against Muslims. How many Americans
listed those issues among their chief concerns immediately following
the worst terrorist attack in US history?
A contributing factor to President Bush's popularity directly after
September 11 was a widely-held belief that he shared the American
people's deep grief and justifiable anger. The gauntlet was down. A
hateful ideology had come to our shores and massacred our people by the
thousands. Defeating the enemy and protecting Americans' lives were the
consensus priorities; not waxing philosophical about empathy and
tolerance.
The President of the United States ought to be angrier at the nation's
mortal enemies than at his domestic opponents. His ire should be more
easily raised when thousands are killed than by political ego bruises.
It's impossible to determine the exact nature of Sen. Obama's immediate
reaction to the events of that awful day, but the newspaper piece he
wrote as the ashes still smoldered in lower Manhattan, he offered us a
glimpse into his thought process. His words merit close scrutiny. As
his political opponents have discovered, hell hath no fury like an
Obama disrespected. Whether our nation's enemies will ever experience
similar levels of righteous indignation remains an open—and
vitally important—question.
