By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, August 27th, 2010 
The day after Obama presented his Iftar remarks, in a statement made in passing to a reporter, he “clarified” his position. He was not specifically endorsing the project, he maintained, but was standing on principle and trying to emphasize what the stakes are. (link)
“I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there. I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding. That’s what our country is about.”
This statement was interpreted as a reversal of position by the center’s opponents and by those who are critical of Obama’s every move, but also by relatively objective media reports. And some of those who had most passionately celebrated Obama’s remarks were dismayed by his apparent change of position. They all paid attention to the first sentence of his second statement and not to the second two sentences, which, I think, were more central. They paid attention to the apparent implications of the statement, but not to its meaning.
As the controversies about the center have raged, Obama’s fundamental position has been lost to the political noise. While the politics around the controversy always revolved around the question, for or against the “Ground Zero Mosque,” he at all points emphasized that free and diverse religious practices are an American right and definitive of American identity. We have paid attention to the politics of the moment.
Will it hurt the Democrats and help the Republicans? Will Rick Lazio’s bid to be the Senator from New York sink or swim on this? Will this episode confirm the suspicions about Obama coming from the left and the right? But we have not considered seriously the broader politics, beyond the obsessions of the here and now, beyond our national borders. In his second statement, Obama wanted to emphasize his concern with such broader issues, as he has tried to distance himself from the immediate controversy. The condensed nature of the passing comment led to confusion. He was trying to thread a needle, but the sensibility of public discussion was too coarse for this . . .
Read more: Obama Attempts to Walk a Fine Line in Park51 Debate
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, August 26th, 2010 
In his remarks at the Iftar Dinner at the State Dining Room of the White House, President Obama continued to discharge his responsibilities as Storyteller-in-Chief with distinction.
He clearly illuminated fundamental principles of the American polity. He highlighted their long history, and he applied the principles with their historical resonance to a pressing problem of the day. Yet, the politics of the day, concerning the so called “Ground Zero Mosque,” confused matters, and his attempt to respond to the politics has added to the confusion. I hope in the coming days and months he addresses the confusion. But, in the meanwhile, we need to remember what the issues are apart from the silly interpretations of the 24/7 news machine. His remarks should be deliberately considered.
Today, remembering the significance of the speech. Tomorrow, a consideration of the confusion which followed. Obama welcomed his guests, including members of the diplomatic corps, his administration and Congress, and offered his best wishes to Muslims from around the world for the holy month of Ramadan. He recalled the several years that the Iftar dinner has been held at the White House, as similar events have been hosted to celebrate Christmas, Passover and Diwali. He observed how these events mark the role of faith in the lives of the American people and affirm “the basic truth that we are all children of God, and we all draw strength and a sense of purpose from our beliefs.” The events are “an affirmation of who we are as Americans,” with a long history, illuminated by Obama by citing the words of Thomas Jefferson in the Virginia Act of Establishing Religious Freedom and remembering the First Amendment of the Constitution.
This tradition of religious diversity and respect has made the United States politically strong and open to vibrant and multiple religious traditions, the President noted, making us “a nation where the ability of peoples of different faiths to coexist peacefully and with mutual respect for one another stands in stark contrast to the religious conflict that persists elsewhere around the globe.”
Yet, he recalled, there have been controversies, most recently . . .
Read more: Obama’s Iftar Dinner Speech
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, August 25th, 2010
 Stanley Fish has an interesting piece on conspiracy theorists on the left posted in the today’s Times. His general point is that the belief in hidden conspiracies is held across the political spectrum, not only among those who believe that Obama is Muslim and not an American citizen.
I suppose he is right. He is underscoring an important fact which highlights a significant challenge to democratic life. Conspiracy theories are the ultimate form of political cynicism. They are the opposite of criticism. They undermine the capacity for democratic deliberation, as they explain everything and justify not taking into account those who have different understandings and interests. This is why I often declare: As a matter of principle I am the last one to recognize a conspiracy.
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, August 25th, 2010 
My recent reflections on the debate over the Park Islamic Cultural Center have been fueled and inspired by my personal experiences surrounding the September 11 attacks and their aftermath.
After 9/11, I despaired. As I put it in The Politics of Small Things, it hurt to think. I knew that the people who attacked the World Trade Center really were a threat, but the political responses to the threat seemed to me to be wrong.
The attack hit very close to home. Two close friends were in the Towers, one survived, a childhood friend, Steve Assael, but one was killed, Mike Asher, my closest adult friend . On that fateful day, I didn’t know what had happened to either of my friends. In the days, weeks and months that followed, as I attended to personal consequences of the attacks, I was dismayed by the public response.
A war on terrorism was declared which didn’t make much sense, as the very real threat of Al Qaeda was not sufficiently recognized by anti-war critics. Terrorism and anti-terrorism seemed to be replacing Communism and ideological anti-Communism (the most radical and resolute form of which were Fascism and Nazism), and many who were critical of these tendencies were not realisticly facing up to the challenges of the day. Simple Manichaeism again overlooked global complexity across the political spectrum. There did not seem to be any alternative, as the Republican President was getting carried away, pushed by a broad wave of popular support, and the Democrats in Congress, and reporters and commentators in the media, dared not question the patriotic effervescence.
My book, which was dedicated to Mike, was an attempt to explore how alternatives on the margins did provide grounds for hope. Specific small interactions provided alternatives to faulty grand narratives, people meeting each other on the basis of shared concerns and commitments, speaking and acting in each other’s presence, developing a capacity to act in concert, i.e. constituting political power in the sense of Hannah Arendt. I knew how important such power was in the development of the democratic . . .
Read more: Park 51 and the Politics of Small Things
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, August 24th, 2010 
Why is an Islamic community center dedicated to intercultural and interreligious understanding in any way a desecration to the memory of the victims of the attacks?
Why is the planning of the center provocative or insensitive?
There are problems with facts and truth, as I have reflected upon in my previous posts, but there are also problems with interpretation and evaluation. Given the facts, the community center can only be considered an affront if there is something fundamentally wrong with one of the great world religions. This center is clearly not the work of radical fundamentalists. Its goal is dialogue and understanding. If these are jihadists, all Muslims are. If we publicly speak and act with such interpretation, we are effectively declaring a religious war, playing the game of the religious fanatics.
And isn’t it odd that it is now, 9 years after the attacks of 2001, and not in the immediate aftermath of the September 11th attacks, that a broad fear of Muslims seems to be sweeping the country? So many major political leaders are complicit in the Islamophobia: from those who are stoking the flames, Gingrich and Palin and their media facilitators at Fox and company; to those who fear opposing the hysteria, Harry Reid and the like?
Even President Obama has not been clear about the problem (more about that in a later post). I think that Islamophobia, not Islam, now presents a clear and present danger to American democracy, not only because it compromises our fundamental principles, but also because it challenges our security. See for a report on this issue: U.S. Anti-Islam Protest Seen as Lift for Extremists
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, August 24th, 2010 
The court of public opinion has been making decisions based in myth–not fact. These sometimes bizarre rumors seem like they should be a joke, but are instead, frighteningly real. With this in mind, I want to discuss the ramifications of the debate surrounds the proposed Muslim center near the site of Ground Zero.
The battle between intelligence and ignorance has intensified since the election of Barack Obama, and it often has a surreal partisan edge, centering around the biography and the identity of the President. A disturbing report in today’s New York Times: “a new poll by the Pew Research Center finds a substantial rise in the percentage of Americans who believe, incorrectly, that Mr. Obama is Muslim. The president is Christian, but 18 percent now believe he is Muslim, up from 12 percent when he ran for the presidency and 11 percent after he was inaugurated.” (link)
This is puzzling. “Obama is a Muslim.” “He is not an American citizen.” Can people seriously believe such things? Apparently they do. They ignore the facts to the contrary, either cynically or because they allow their convictions to blind them from the stubborn truth of factuality. Mostly this seems amusing. The material for nightly satires on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. But in that a major source of news, Fox News, regularly confuses fabrication with facts and many people base their opinions upon this confusion, suggests that there is a cultural crisis, a cultural war worth fighting.
It is not primarily a partisan battle, or at least it shouldn’t be. It is a struggle to make sure that factual truth is the grounds for public life. It is in this context that I think the case of the so called Ground Zero Mosque should be understood. The controversy itself indicates a major cultural and political defeat. The struggle is to get beyond the controversy, and it seems to me that the only outcome must be to build the Park Islamic Cultural Center.
It should be clear to anyone who wants to know the facts that Barack Obama is an American citizen, born in Hawaii, raised . . .
Read more: A Proposed Mosque at Ground Zero Prompts Unfounded Debate
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, August 23rd, 2010
Politics in the Kagan confirmation hearings, like that of Sotomayor, were clearly on display. I think E.J. Dionne had it right in Kagan’s case, “Something momentous has happened to our struggle over the Supreme Court’s role when Republicans largely give up talking about “judicial activism,” when liberals speak of the importance of democracy and deference to elected officials, and when judges are no longer seen as baseball umpires.” (link)
In Kagan’s hearings significant changes were revealed in how the parties approach justice. It was the Democrats who were concerned about legislation from the bench, concerned as they were by the threat the Court poses to the Democratic political agenda, from regulating oil drilling, to delivering healthcare reform, to controlling the use of guns in this very violent country of ours. The Republicans, on the other hand, while making gestures against judicial activism, were cheering it as it served their political ends, equating campaign contributions as speech, granting corporations the right of free speech, selecting a President.
For many, on the Republican extreme, indeed, the Constitution has come to be identified with their anti-government agenda, their agenda for keeping the Reagan revolution alive. At the Kagan confirmation hearings this political confrontation was perfectly clear. I do worry about the balance and direction of the court, given my political commitments. I wish the balance of the court would change, just as those who are happy with the character of Roberts’ Court would like to see it sustained. I observed the hearings with an understanding of the two sides, and I knew which side I was on, which team I was rooting for. I think that the confirmation hearings were a great success demonstration of the political issues involved. In this sense they were a great success.
But I have a special concern, a sociological one that is not strictly speaking political. It concerns the issue of free speech and free public life more generally. I fear that a political cultural ideal is being compromised, by one side, the other side of the great political debate. I know that a free public life depends upon keeping intellectual traditions . . .
Read more: A Tale of Two Justices: Kagan
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, August 23rd, 2010
The confirmations hearings of Barack Obama’s two Supreme Court Justice nominees were more about politics than about justice, and the politics revealed were not attractive:
Thoughts on Sotomayor:
A significant portion of the population in the United States is not comfortable with an African American President. This very seriously has shaped official public debate, clearly in the confirmation hearings of Justice Sonia Sotomayor. The New York Times reported about Sotomayor’s leading critic in the Senate before the confirmation hearings: Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the highest-ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said the fairness issue was “the core of the American system” and was central to Republicans’ qualms.
“Every judge must be committed every day to not let their personal politics, their ethnic background, their biases, sympathies influence the nature of their decision-making process,” Mr. Sessions said Sunday on the CBS program “Face the Nation.”
Mr. Sessions pointed to what he called Judge Sotomayor’s advocacy positions and to her widely publicized remark that a “wise Latina woman” would make better judicial decisions than a white man.
“I am really flabbergasted by the depth and consistency of her philosophical critique of the ideal of impartial justice,” Mr. Sessions said. “I think that’s a real expression of hers.” (link)
The underlying theme of the Republican questioning of Sotomayor was revealed in Sessions’ statement. There was the proposition that because she thought that the special insights and experiences of people with different identities could improve the quality of justice, she somehow was less committed to the ideals of impartial justice. Over and over, the Republican Senators returned to one quotation from her public speeches, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” (link)
The principle reason given for opposing Sotomayor was that she didn’t believe in equal justice. Could it be that this was serious? What she meant is really not complicated. Bringing in new perspectives improves the pursuit of justice. People who have been excluded add something important, and they can be proud of it. Of course, . . .
Read more: A Tale of Two Justices: Sotomayor
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, August 23rd, 2010 
While the Tea Party and other political-right opposition attacks President Obama’s policies with outlandish arguments, Obama is forced to contend with both emotional arguments without factual basis and defending his administration’s positions persuasively. He has been criticized by party leaders and citizens alike for his mediated approach to attacks from the political right: will his calm censure be enough to have his argument heard? Only voters from the right and left will decide. My fear: The opposition’s tactics and arguments, while ridiculous, may be effective in swaying the voting public.
It has always been the case that the politics of America is a blend of cynicism and real democratic deliberation. I wrote about this extensively in my book, The Cynical Society. There are the sound bytes and the serious modes of deliberation. There are the media circuses and the deliberative chambers. And, there are slogans and extended reasonable arguments. But the proportions of the blend changes. During the election, Obama used serious persuasion more effectively than his opponents and his predecessors as a political tool. He consistently did this, most strikingly in his famous race speech in Philadelphia. A provocative compilation of the words of his minister Reverend Jeremiah Wright was used to insinuate that Obama was an angry Black man, a reverse racist. He responded with a carefully reasoned speech, addressing the problems and promise for racial understanding.
He has tried during his Presidency to do the same. This has led to aggressive attacks by his opponents. They attack not only in substance, but also in form, as he insists upon reasoned deliberate debate, his opponents flee from reason. Many have wondered whether his cool reasoned response to this has been wise. His critics within his Party, his fellow progressives, are most interesting in this regard.
There has been a concern that Obama has not been tough enough. That he has been too open to an opposition that has been unbending. He has offered respect and cooperation, while they have vilified and demonized him. And when his opposition does not demonize, it . . .
Read more: The Far, Far Right Battles Reason with Fear-Mongering
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, August 23rd, 2010 
The health care debate pitted the current administration against some familiar feeling foes. Though President Obama doesn’t seem to have expected it, the Republican-attack machine that distracted and embarrassed the Clinton administration is up to its old tricks. Using minute and displaced facts as well as fishing-boat whoppers to dissuade and disillusion an already frighted public, conservative lawmakers challenge this administration to fight back in kind–or risk losing the battle altogether.
Cynicism versus democracy the battle continues almost every day during the Obama Presidency. There was a serious debate to have on economic policy and health care reform, for example. There was a broad consensus that aggressive government action was necessary at the height of the financial crisis. Even the leading conservative economists understood that aggressive action was necessary. (link) But there have been reasonable debates about the shape of the action, (link) and after its success, there has been a debate about what actions should follow. (link) Yet, the tone of the opposition has not generally followed this course of criticism and opposition. Instead there have been the accusations of socialism and fascism.
On health care reform, there were crazy assertions of death panels and even a Republican senator who was engaged in a bipartisan effort at reform, warned about “pulling the plug on Grandma.” And thus serious conservatives wanting to engage in a serious debate about the issue found it impossible to do so. (link)
In the face of this gap, Obama actively acted as if he had faced a reasonable opposition for a long time, despite the evidence to the contrary, to the consternation of many of his supporters. He has faced the same sort of Republican attack machine that the Clintons did, and he has not prepared to meet it head on. As Paul Krugman put it “So far, at least, the Obama administration’s response to the outpouring of hate on the right has had a deer-in-the-headlights quality. It’s as if officials still can’t wrap their minds around the fact that things like this can happen to people who aren’t . . .
Read more: The Health Care Debates Rages: the Sleeping Elephant Rears its Head
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