Many are criticizing the President’s speech for a mistaken moral equivalence. They include Victor Davis Hanson, Charles Krauthammer, Hugh Hewitt, David Frum, Max Boot, Mark Steyn, and Jennifer Rubin.
While others like Ed Morrissey and Paul Mirengoff gave the President positive overall remarks, I lean towards the other side.
The President took his usual above-it-all approach, where everyone has made mistakes in the past that had nothing to do with him, and we can all get along now that he is here. The best illustrations of this are his various implied equivalencies in the speech, which include comparing the Palestinians’ plight to that of enslaved African Americans, Israeli and Palestinian views on their rights to exist and their treatment of each other, Iran’s nuclear aspirations versus our possession of nuclear weapons, Iran’s troubling actions and America’s involvement in the Iranian overthrow of Mossadeq, and the oppression of women in parts of the Muslim world and any women’s struggles here.
While Obama adopted plenty of Bush’s rhetoric, the misleading review of history and implied equivalence that Obama uses in his speeches are part of his branding improvements over Bush. The question is whether those branding improvements are a net positive or they do more harm than good.
Obama’s attempts to imply that because we’ve all made mistakes and no one can therefore claim supremacy are wrong and dangerous. Imagine taking a 1-15 football team and a 15-1 team and saying that because they have both lost, neither one is any better than the other. This would of course be absurd, and it would overlook what the teams have done to contribute to their successes and failures. The 1-15 team might learn something from the 15-1 team that could help them improve, but only if they acknowledge what the 15-1 team does better.
President Obama does not do this, and President Bush was often criticized for doing it. But the reality, however, is that we must differentiate between good and bad, better and worse, so that we don’t punish the good and legitimize the bad. Forgetting principles makes it difficult to defend them, and it’s easy to forget principles when they are given equal footing with contradicting principles.
Bush critics will continue to say that it is arrogant for America to stand for its principles when they differentiate between right and wrong. Those critics wrongly believe that our enemies oppose us because we are arrogant and lack respect for their goals and ways of life. Whether Obama completely believes these notions, or just uses them to pander is unknown, considering he often says one thing and does another, particularly on national security issues.
What we need are more stances like this one from Obama:
America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election. But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere.
These things he mentions need to be distinguished from their alternatives. There is just too much blurring of morality in the speech that drowns out statements like that one.
While Obama’s branding my earn him the political capital in the short term to enact his agenda, the long term risks of his moral equivalence are significant, as people may find it difficult to stand for what is right if they forget what that is.
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