Father Greeley on Obama

Image of Obama the pol misses the point

May 21, 2008 -- Chicago Sun-Times
http://www.suntimes.com/news/greeley/960984,CST-EDT-greel21.article"

BY FR. ANDREW GREELEY

Rev. Wright said it: Barack Obama says what he says because he's a politician.

I am not a politician. I work for God. Many Americans, perhaps, would accept that contrast.
From the point of view of the Catholic social theory to which I subscribe, the contrast is not valid. Both of them -- the politician and the cleric -- work for God, though in different ways.

The cleric presides over the community meal and preaches the good news. He must strain to keep a balance between comforting the frightened and frightening the comfortable. His most serious temptation may be the inclination to frighten everyone, to stand for the wrath of God, and pay little attention to God's love. Challenge is easier than comfort.

While the cleric must exhort his people to generosity and forgiveness and hold up the example of the saints as an ideal to strive toward, the politician must create compromises and coalitions. His goal is to persuade people to settle for the lowest common denominator of what his coalition can live with. The cleric urges the maximum, the politician settles for the minimum. The former holds up the ideals, the latter works to preserve the common good. Both are essential for the good of society.

The paradigmatic narrative for the politician is the story of the brave young idealist who eventually sells out for votes. For the cleric, it might be the fervent prophet who accepts the limitations of the human condition. Both are stories of failure, of loss of nerve, of disillusion. Both paradigms oversimplify the complexities of human behavior. Both the cleric and the politician must go beyond the constraints of disillusion and failure.

The paradigm of the idealist who becomes a crafty politician is being applied freely these days to Obama by both the New York Times and by Time magazine. The senator, it is said, became ambitious and damped down his liberalism. He learned to compromise in the harsh internecine world of Chicago politics.

Both the New York Times and Time articles were carefully researched and well written, but they miss a couple of points. Obama learned in his community work, among the Catholic parishes on the Southeast Side when the mills were closing, that one must expand the borders of one's activity to include as many people as possible.

His insistence on drawing people together -- the basic theme of his campaign -- is the heart of his style of politics. You try to draw to the bandwagon everyone you can possibly attract to it. That's what Machine politics means to many idealistic people -- compromising to get the votes.
Moreover, Obama's voting record surely suggests he is on the liberal side of the political spectrum, but you can't govern with just liberals on your side. And, more dangerously, you must sympathize with both Jews and Palestinians.

Will Obama be able to put together such coalitions, should he be elected?

Will there be movement toward change on peace, health care, energy, immigration, college education, income redistribution in favor of the poor and the middle class against the great wealth of the super-rich corporations and their CEOs? A consensus on peace will be a much easier task than one on immigration, where the level of hatred is still strong in our society.
I do not think that even Michael the Archangel and all his crowd could accomplish these changes.
If Barack Obama should become President Obama, he won't achieve compromises on all issues. The best one can expect is moderate success and painful failures. Such is the lot of the politician in God's service -- and the cleric, too.