A video has surfaced showing Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell heaping praise upon Minister Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam at a Philadelphia church on April 14, 1997. Andrew Sullivan is in an uproar:
One thought that this video inevitably raises: what if Obama had ever said such a thing or been to such an event? Given what we know now about this campaign, would it not be the conventional wisdom that it would be the end of his candidacy? And yet, Rendell is still a pillar of the Democratic party, central to the Clintons' Pennsylvania strategy, and praised as a classic old-style white ethnic pol. I don't imagine his credibility or reputation will be affected one iota by this. Even if it were Rendell running for president this year, I don't think this video would have Hannity and O'Reilly and Steyn and Coulter in a lather. What do we learn from this? That Obama has to be even more distanced from these things because he's black. That's all....
First off, let me just say that I condemn unequivocally Rendell's shameless pandering to the Nation of Islam. But let it also be noted that Rendell has always been a shameless panderer, as is the candidate he has endorsed in the Democratic primary. And this is why Sullivan's wrong. Race is not what drives the concerns about Obama's connection to Rev. Wright, Farrakhan, or William Ayers. It's convenient to blame it on that and be done with it, but Sullivan should know better than anyone that Obama is to be held to a higher standard because unlike Hillary, Obama is not a shameless panderer. Rendell is indeed a sleazy, machine politician, which is why everyone can watch this and know he doesn't believe a word of what he's saying. But Obama keeps promising us that he's different, and Sullivan keeps insisting it's true. The problem, then, is that if Obama is different, people have to assume he sat in the pews of Trinity United because he likes hearing God Damn America from the pulpit on Sunday mornings and not simply because his political career demanded it. If Obama would only get off his high horse, and if his supporters would only concede that not everything he says or does is the product of deep conviction, then the connections to Ayers and Wright would largely be dismissed as shameless pandering to his Chicago community.