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I’ve been watching with interest the explosion of indignation on the left following Sarah Palin’s cracks about Barack Obama’s “community organizer” experience. Most famous, of course, is the t-shirt about how “Jesus was a community organizer; Pilate was a governor.” But in addition, blogs and news sites have hastened to publish rhapsodies about how truly wonderful community organizers are, while ordinary citizens have been putting up YouTube videos in hopes of lecturing the Alaskan governor about the importance of this exalted office. It’s amazing how many great people were community organizers, and the rest of us never even knew it! In addition to lefty heroes like Susan B. Anthony and Martin Luther King (two people who wouldn’t have gotten my vote for president) I’ve seen cited Mother Theresa and, of course, Our Lord as excellent examples of community organizers.
So I was thinking about this, and it dawned on me. Barack Obama should not be our next president. He’s much too good!
Time and time again he’s told us how much he wants to bring people together in unity, to build bridges and break down walls, to show us how much we’ve all got in common. Well, that all sounds pretty good to me… but surely in that case he won’t want a job like president, which would require him to make all kinds of compromises and controversial decisions, alienating people and inevitably (this is just how politics is) making life harder for at least some among the world’s poor. You inevitably make some enemies as President of the United States; if you’re actually committed to “change”, you make a lot of enemies. That would sure be a waste, wouldn’t it, of such great bridge-building skills?
Then we have his experience as a community organizer, in which he proved his real concern for the poor and downtrodden and apparently put himself in company with Mother Theresa and — you almost can’t say this too many times — Our Lord. Now, obviously this kind of heartfelt charity is just wonderful to see. But I have to ask: is it really fitting for such holy people to run for office? Isn’t Washington rather a hard and cynical a place for a true humanitarian like Barack Obama? Surely he’d prefer opening children’s hospitals in Myanmar, or perhaps starting his own religious order. That would be community organization for you! And honestly, the tawdry wheelings and dealings of politics are far beneath a person like that.
We should all admire the generosity of a man who’s willing to give himself up to a life that obviously does not suit him, but really, it would be sad to see all those talents go to waste. Let’s relieve him of the burden by not voting for him!
In all seriousness… these comparisons between silly politicians and truly holy people are amusing in their way, but they’re also pretty pathetic and sad. Barack Obama is not a modern-day saint. But if he did have the kind of burning saint-like compassion that his supporters are attributing to him, he’d probably still be in the slums of Chicago. Mind you, I’m not calling him a failure; I myself have dabbled a bit in this sort of thing (not “community organizing”, but living among the poor and trying to offer a little help) and eventually moved on in life. It’s a good thing to do when you’re young, and there are lots of places where extra hands can be useful, but a little youthful idealism, combined with an appetite for new and interesting experiences, does not make a person either extraordinary or holy. It’s sad that there are so many people who don’t know the difference.
You can define “community organizer” in such a way as to include half of the most influential people in history, but the point is that the title wouldn’t have been listed as such on their resume. But for those who are interested, I thought this article was actually quite interesting on the subject of Obama’s career as a community organizer, what he accomplished, and what it says about him as a candidate.
St. Louis-Marie de Montfort,
Pope St. Pius X,
St. Joseph,
St. Ambrose of Milan,
St. Thomas Aquinas,
St. Francis (and St. Clare),
St. Catherine of Siena,
St. Alphonsus Ligouri,
St. John Chrysostom,
I find it extremely ironic that the Right in this country fought so hard against Big Government by advancing the idea of community sovereignty and private charity . . . until an opponent actually practiced that ideal. Then it became a sort of meaningless road that didn’t really have “actual responsibilities.”
You bring up a good point though, Clara, in mentioning that Obama, for all his talk on bringing us together, will have to make some enemies. Ideally, these enemies would be those whose corporate interests have superseded the common dignity of man and the Jewish Zionists and increasingly Christian Evangelicals who control our foreign policy. Unfortunately, Obama has not made these types of issues a point of his campaign. In fact, he appears to be another great friend to AIPAC.
I thought the article you link to from the National Review was fair for the most part, except, you have to realize that Obama did the organizing when he was 24-27 years old. With age comes not only experience and therefore, wisdom, but a legitimacy in the eyes of others that a 24 year old black kid does not really get the advantage of having.
I guess it doesn’t seem so ironic to me, Luke, for two reasons.
First, the kind of thing Obama did as a community organizer isn’t really the sort of thing envisioned in, say, Catholic principles of subsidiarity (or in Republican ideas of small government). The idea there is to build strong communities that help solve problems among themselves. Whereas community organizers, as I understand it, seem mainly to encourage people to agitate for the government to fix more of their problems. That’s a pretty big difference.
But second, I don’t think people would sneer at Obama’s work as a community organizer if his campaign hadn’t been trying to make it sound like some kind of major qualification for executive office. It’s fine to have done service to communities, and it’s even okay to talk about it or let your campaign use it a little bit as general, anecdotal-type evidence of your having been a good, socially concerned sort of guy from a young age. But socially concerned people don’t necessarily make good executives, and insofar as Obama’s work as a community organizer is being trotted out in response to criticisms about his inexperience, I do think that’s pretty bogus, and a reasonable target for Republican jokes.
Honestly, the more the Obama campaign tries to polish up his resume, the better I feel about myself. Obama’s an amazing individual because he has some years of community service under his belt, as well as an Ivy League degree. Hey cool… I have those things! Elect me!
I think you’re right that we should bear in mind, when evaluating his work as a community organizer, that he was still very young. However, I must object to one little thing that you said, or at least enter a proviso. Age and experience can lead to wisdom. They don’t necessarily.