nyone can suffer an absolutely horrendous wrong.  And in many respects, it is irrelevant whether the wrong can be characterized as an institutional wrong or an individual wrong.  For the interesting question, in either case is: How does one surmount that wrong?  How does one get on with one’s life in a meaningful way?  In this regard, human beings are unlike any other creature on the face of the earth.  For only human beings can, in the most literal sense of the word, choose how they are going to respond to a wrong that they have suffered.  Only human beings can actively participate in their moral healing.

In responding to wrongdoings, there are two very broad approaches: the hostage approach and the transcendent approach. 

The hostage approach makes the fact that one has been wronged the very center of one’s life.  Just about anything that one might do or not do is explained by reference to the wrong that one has suffered.  Certainly, any respect in which one feels uneasy is explained by reference to one’s having been wronged.  Most regrettably, the hostage approach makes it impossible to take one’s future seriously. 

With the transcendent approach, by contrast, one makes a conscious decision not to let the wrongs that one has suffered in the past determine the reality of one’s future, thereby exuding a creativity that often defies all reasonable expectations.

A victim of rape can take the hostage approach or the transcendent approach.  A victim of social injustice, such as racism, can take the hostage approach or the transcendent approach.

So far so good.  Now things get interesting.  We might understand that a victim of rape might succumb to the hostage approach.  But we all think that she is better off for taking the transcendent approach.  This we think without supposing for a moment that her having been the victim of rape is something that she can forget.  Just so, we unequivocally hold that a victim of rape is better off in every way if she can use that experience to forge a path in her life that is in some way inspirational.  And it is not a trivial fact that woman can do, and have done, just that.  So many woman have in fact taken the transcendent approach that those who do not can be seen as having fallen into a pitiful state. 

This, needless to say, is quite significant, since it is agreed by all that rape is one of the most horrific wrongs that a person can experience.  Kant even thought that death was preferable to rape; and while we might disagree with him, the idea does not seem all that implausible.

Now, by contrast, it is most interesting that when it comes to social injustices that go by the name of racism, the preferred approach seems to be the hostage approach rather than the transcendent one.  One is not black enough or Asian enough or Native American enough or whatever unless the weight of past racial injustice is rather like an ever-tightening noose around one’s neck.  One is not true to the suffering of one’s people unless one confesses to there being some insurmountable burden before one.  And, of course, if one fails to succeed, there is the ever-present excuse of past injustices.

As no doubt one has surmised, I take the hostage approach to wrongdoing to be utterly incompatible with moral healing, whereas the transcendent approach to wrong doing is the way in which moral healing is forged.  So it is whether we are talking about a horrendous wrong at the individual level or a horrendous institutional wrong. 

Nothing vanquishes the soul like the sense that one cannot make a difference for the better in one’s own life.  And it is a most profound truth that it is very, very rare that a person cannot make a difference for the better in her or his own life.  To be sure, a person may have to re-design, if you will, how she or he will proceed.  Indeed, it may be necessary to change goals altogether.  But these things are often necessary even without being the victim of wrongdoing.  If there is only one prize for which both Rachel and Abrams are competing: well, one of them is going to have to live without that prize, no matter how confident either was that she or he was going to obtain it. 

In the face of painful losses, precisely what we hold is that people need to get on with their lives.  In other words, when faced with a painful loss, people need to take the transcendent approach.

Well, there is a very straight forward sense in which being the victim of a wrongdoing constitutes suffering a painful loss.  Indeed, it is not only that one failed to gain something, but one also ended up with less of something. 

It is more or less an axiom of morality that there really is no way that a horrendous wrong that one has suffered can ever be made up for.  But this truth does not at all entail that there are not truly wonderful things that one can go on to do—things forged by one’s wrestling with and surmounting the very pain that one has experienced. 

More precisely, from the fact that there really is no way that a horrendous wrong that one has suffered can ever be made up for, what absolutely does not follow is that one has to be hostage to that wrong.  So it is whether we are talking about the wrong of egregious social injustice or a horrific individual wrong.

This is why I used the example of rape.  No one forgets that she was raped.  Nothing makes compensates for the fact that one was raped.  Yet, no woman has to be hostage to the fact that she was raped.  What is more, it is manifestly clear that those women victim of rape whom we most deeply admire are those who refused to let themselves be hostage to the wrong of rape, it being roundly clear that not letting oneself be hostage to the wrong of rape is not even remotely close to forgetting about having been the victim of that wrong. 

The right response to the past of racial oppression has to be exactly the same.  From this it follows that minorities have done themselves more harm than good by taking the hostage approach to racial injustice. 

Moral healing is inextricably tied to moral empowerment—that is, to experiencing oneself making a difference for the better.  The real harm of evil lies in the fact that evil straight-jackets its victims psychologically.  This is not to belittle the physical damage done.  Rather, the point is that in most cases the greater harm in fact lies elsewhere, namely in the belief that we are now powerless to make a difference for the better.  Indeed, if I can get a person to believe that about herself or himself, then I have done considerable moral damage to that person although I have not so much as harmed a hair on the individual’s body.

Now, the truly sublime point here is that moral healing is a gift that we human beings can give to ourselves; for we can choose to do that which will make a difference for the better.  To be sure, this may require changing course.  But, with rare exception, the option to make a difference for the better is always there. 

Am I blaming the victim?  Generally speaking, no one is to blame for the wrongs that others commit against her or him.  But we rightly make assessments regarding how a person responds to that wrong.  And the simple truth is that no one can better contribute to a person’s own moral own healing—to the individual acquiring a sense of moral empowerment—like the victim herself or himself.  And a person who is absolutely faultless in terms of the wrong visited upon her or him, may be anything but faultless in terms of the actions taken by that individual to bring about moral healing on her or his part—actions that no one else could possibly take for the person. 

Do we have a thin line here?  Absolutely.  But life is full of thin lines that make all the difference in the world, depending upon which side one is on, as the difference between pleasant flirting and sexual harassment makes abundantly clear. 

In any case, far from blaming the victim, the approach taken in this essay merely severs the conceptual tie insisted upon by many between being a victim and being important. The lives of far too many, across a multitude of differences, serve as testimony to this truth. 

owadays, it seems that people feel entitled to just about everything.  What grounds this feeling of entitlement seems to be none other than a strong desire for the thing in question.  This new view of entitlement seems to be that a persistent desire over time becomes an entitlement simply in virtue of its persistence.  Notice that entitlement thus understood is not even about to what a person in fact needs in order to live, but merely what about what a person continues to want and want and want.  Needless to say, entitlement thus understood is most problematic. 

Surely no one is owed something merely because she or he has a strong and abiding desire for it.  Indeed, this conception of entitlement very much trivializes the humanity of others. 

What intrigues me, though, is that this conception of entitlement effectively undermines the sentiment of gratitude; for nowadays, people take themselves to be getting what they are owed, since they have a persistent and intense desire for it. 

Of course, strictly speaking, entitlement does not preclude gratitude; for there is a multitude of ways in which we can do for others what we ought to do for them.  We can, for one, do so most begrudgingly.  Or, for another, we can do so with great joy, taking enormous delight in being able to do for the other what we owe them.  Gratitude is owed in this latter instance. 

Still, a spirit of entitlement is having an adverse impact upon the sentiment of gratitude, as increasingly people place more importance upon getting what they want than the spirit with which others act on their behalf. 

It is no accident surely that the proliferation of entitlements has coincided with the decline of moral objectivity.  One of the defining features of moral objectivity is that it identified rights and wrongs that were not determined simply by our desires.  Indeed, rights and wrongs were often enough diametrically opposed to our desires.  Not only that, it was expected that people would do what is right even though they felt very much inclined to act otherwise. 

The decline of moral objectivity created a moral vacuum; and increasingly that moral vacuum has been filled with the desires that people have. 

Even moral if the idea of moral objectivity as people once embraced it is indefensible, this much is clear: It is even more indefensible to base entitlements merely upon desires. 

In order to have a stable society, there has to be well-defined limits to the claims that people can make upon both society and one another.  And that is impossible if desires alone suffice to generate entitlements.   

It goes without saying, if course, that not all desires are held to give rise to entitlements.  No one thinks, for instance, that the pedophile is entitled to have sexual access to young children merely because he desires them.  And this example is telling.  For it is not the desires of the child that makes pedophilia wrong, since the typical child is shorn of desires regarding sexuality one way or the other.  And certainly pedophilia would be wrong even if most adult human beings did not think so. 

More generally, insofar as children should be protected, this truth cannot be ground merely in desires. 

The preceding remarks are illuminating in another direction.  The very idea of entitlements is supposed to speak to something that is both very deep and precious about human beings.  Innocent children can be seen as a representation of this truth.  They are surely precious.  They cannot speak for themselves; they cannot protect and provide for themselves.  Yet, in the spirit of H. L. A. Hart, if there are creatures who have natural rights, surely children do.  The present tendency to base entitlements upon desires is at odds with this truth; and that is good reason to think that it is considerably misguided. 

Now, there is an interesting irony here.  As adults increasingly advance a view of entitlements tied to the satisfaction of their desires, whereby they (the adults) increasingly excuse the ways in which they are neglecting their children, it turns out that children are increasingly feeling less and less gratitude towards their parents. 

The sentiment of gratitude requires a nourishing environment; and a world of entitlement based merely upon desires cannot provide any such environment.  Indeed, a world of entitlement based merely upon desires is rather like moral quicksand in that it is incapable of withstanding the weight of those obligations that we all owe to one another, whether we like it or not.  Gratitude is owed to those who embrace those obligations with grace, goodwill and purity of heart, because their respect for the other has been forged in their loins. 

f one takes seriously the family as an independent and autonomous unit, then there are important respects in which the idea of equality opportunity makes no sense at all.  This is because, to state the obvious, there are few things that make more of a difference in a child’s life for better or for worse than a child’s family.  From simple tastes in food or clothing to vocabulary to intellectual interests to modes of self-mastery, including self-discipline, resourcefulness, and foresight, the family is easily the most significant influence in a child’s life.  And if there is anything that it is true, it is true that families differ widely in the aforementioned areas of life. 

It is a simple reality that the fundamental shaping of character on a child’s part comes about through the behavior that is modeled by the child’s parents.  If the smallest unexpected event is a crisis for parents, the same is likely to be true for the child whom they raise.  By contrast, if the parents are brilliantly resourceful in handling with finesse and equanimity the unexpected, their child is apt to be equally resourceful. 

Then there what I call dispositional fits.  Resourcefulness and self-discipline tend to go hand-in-hand, although they are not exactly the same thing.  And in a like manner, where we have resourcefulness and self-discipline, we also tend to have foresight. 

Needless to say, parents who model before their children the dispositional package of resourcefulness, self-discipline, and foresight, give their children one of life’s most valuable gifts of the self.  Yet, if anything is true, it is true that families differ widely in this regard.  With some families, the home is like a war zone; whereas with others, the home is something akin to paradise. 

I once watched a very tired husband who had had a most demanding day at the office ask his beloved wife the following question: “Dear, shall I get some more macaroni and cheese for the table?”  Of course, she got some more of the dish and served him first.  But what a wonderful way for this utterly exhausted man to ask his wife for some food.  And you know, their sons are equally judicious in every respect. 

Now, of course, families also differ widely in the vocabulary that they use around their children as well as forms of amusement and entertainment that they seek.  It goes without saying that the tendencies of parents in these areas also have an enormous impact upon their children.  From the standpoint of a child’s learning, there is all the difference in the world between the following two statements, although we have a compliment in each case: “Dear, what an exquisitely delicious meal you prepared for dinner” and “Dear, that was a damn good meal you cooked this evening”.  And what we get here is not just a difference in character, but also a difference in moral posture.  The utterance “That was damn good” can be said about any number of things in any number of contexts, but not so with “The meal was exquisitely delicious”. Thus, we have two unequivocal compliments that yet differ significantly in their uptake. 

It may be true in some sense or the other that all families are equal.  But to paraphrase Mr. George Orwell, “Some families are more equal than others”.  So it is across every conceivable ethnic difference and social class.  So what, in the name of equality, should we do about that? 

If equal opportunity for all is what we really want, then we must surely eliminate differences between families that have a most profound influence upon the development of the child.  For a child who is born in a family whose parents lack self-discipline and foresight and who are also not at all resourceful is most certainly at a disadvantage in terms of development vis ã vis the child whose parents exhibit in abundance all three of these traits.  And this is so without raising the issue of differences in vocabulary and interests. 

Of course, there are outside influences.  Every now and then a mentor comes along who can only be described as a godsend.  But it is extremely rare that outside influences have more of an impact than parenting; and it is rarer, still, that someone who can only be described as a godsend comes along.

Plato, it would seem, grasped that in order to eliminate the advantages and disadvantages that come with parenting among individuals, children should be raised in a cooperative way. 

We characteristically take liberalism to be superior to the concept of the state that Plato envisioned.  But is this true of liberalism?  Ironically, one answer turns out to be that liberalism is superior only if one holds that to a considerable extent liberty of the family is more important than excellence on the part of the child.  And a most interesting question is: Why is the liberty of the family more important than excellence on the part child?

No one is more vulnerable and innocent than a child.  No one is more in need of guidance than a child.  So how can it be that whether or not a child receives these things is essentially left to chance? 

The question takes on even greater significance if one assumes, as Plato did, that the stability of the state is tied to children being properly raised. 

Liberalism presupposes that if children are given the right education in schools, then it matters considerably less what the child’s family is like.  Nothing could be further from the truth, as long as the family has a privileged standing in the life of the child, then the family invariably has a major impact upon the child.  As long as parental affirmation or lack thereof is a sine qua non in a child’s life, then school will rarely make the family considerably less significant.

History reveals that children have been used in all sorts of horrible ways.  So we know that there is nothing about the biological tie between parents and children that entails that parents will treat children properly.  Most interestingly, not even the sacred texts give children a kind of independent moral standing that all parents should have to meet.  Certainly, none of the sacred texts even come close to suggesting that parents should put the needs of the child before their own needs. 

What justification can there be for parents having the liberty that they have with their children, given that children are so very needy of the right sort of psychological and moral nurturing if they are to become wholesome adults?  Or to put the question another way: What justification can there be for allowing families to put children at considerable risk in terms of general moral, psychological, and intellectual development?  I see none.  What justification can there be for any society allowing adults to take chances with the most innocent and vulnerable of all, namely children?  Again: None.

In an odd way, the point has far more force now than it did in the past, precisely because we now know so much more about the psychology and needs of children than did folks who lived merely 100 years ago, to say nothing of those who lived a thousand years ago. 

Folks are more worked up over global warming than insuring that all children receive a base-line of moral and psychological and intellectual support in their lives from their parents.  Surely this is a sign of warped priorities. 

panish is no doubt a beautiful language.  But it is my view that no one born in the United States speaking English should have to learn Spanish in order to attend to her or his basic needs.  And those who in the name of courting the Latino vote insist upon such a thing or who turn a blind eye to that possibility do what is extremely cruel.  What are the implications of my view?  For one, I certainly have no qualms with anyone being bilingual.  I, presumably, am bilingual and I take that reality about my life to be an extremely rewarding one.  Personne ne peut comprendre ma joie sauf celui qui est bilingue.  Béni soit Lui qui me permit à vivre une telle vie. 

Nor, again, am I opposed to having Spanish speaking staff.  This is obviously a good thing, since there are numerous people in the United States who can only speak Spanish fluently. 

But what is unequivocally wrong is to hire people who only speak Spanish.  Speaking Spanish should not be privileged in the United States in this way.  It is wrong and it submits people born in the country speaking English to an egregious injustice.  In this regard, I hold that Latinos who insist that it is morally permissible that a person in a public position speak only Spanish are cruel and horrendously insensitive to the history of this country. 

Indeed, this is one of the few times in my life when I think that it is most appropriate to play the “race card”.  For I hold that no one in this country who was born in the United States as a descendent of slaves should have to learn Spanish because Latinos deem that doing so would benefit them. 

In fact, few things make it more clear to me that most Latinos do not take seriously the history of black suffering in the United States than the way in which they privilege Spanish.  And this point holds with equal force for whites who support Latinos in this regard. 

One might make a similar kind of argument with regard to the elderly.  No elderly person born and raised speaking English in United States should have to learn Spanish in order to attend to her basic needs.  These include grocery shopping; medicinal concerns, and home repair. 

Those who now see everything good in advancing the Spanish language, be they Latino or not, are guilty of turning the virtue of equality into the vice of morbid self-interest. 

I now favor making it official that English is the national language of the United States.  This is because it is now clear to me that greedy politicians and myopically self-interested Latinos are willing to turn their back on those who surely have a right to being able to conduct the affairs of their personal life in English.  This is such a basic form of decency that only greediness and myopic self-interest can explain Latinos and those who fawn all over them not seeing it. 

Interestingly, my thinking here is roundly supported by what I have seen in France.  All sorts of people in all sorts of positions can speak a little English.  Some, in fact, can speak English very well.  But one thing is very clear, no one born and raised in France speaking French shall ever have to wonder whether one day she or he will need to learn English or Spanish or Arabic or Chinese or whatever in order to conduct business pertaining to her or his basic needs. 

At grocery stores, I have watched elderly who have not a clue how to count coins in Euros.  They cannot understand the value of things in Euros—only the French franc.  These elderly individuals trustingly hand their purse over to the cashier to collect the appropriate amount for the purchase and to return the appropriate amount of change.  Yet, one can always count upon being able to communicate with the cashier in French, although it may be too obvious for words that the cashier was not born and raised in France.  Many, for instance, are Asian. 

I claim that every American born and raised in the United States speaking English is entitled to the exact same set of expectations in terms of being able to communicate in English. 

France is particularly illuminating here because it has a huge Arabic and Asian population.  One can find neighborhoods where, for instance, Arabic or Chinese is spoken more often than French.  Yet, again, no one born speaking French in France will ever have to worry that she or he will have to learn Arabic or Chinese in order to get on with her or his life in France.  More significantly, Arabs and Chinese speak French with considerable pride. 

People from other countries who take residency in the United States should speak English with pride.  Speaking English with pride, no more than speaking French pride, and I speak both, does not imply that other languages are less important or less interesting or less rich in all sorts of ways.   

Earlier I distinguish between the virtue of equality and the vice of self-interest.  I shall remind one that equality is something for which people have admirably made sacrifices; for their aim is not just to make the world a better place for them, but to make the world a better place for all.  Self-interest, by contrast, invariably seeks to privilege one perspective above all others even when others are wrongly made to pay a heavy price for that privileging. 

Owing to the black struggle for equality, with all of its shortcomings, Latinos have benefited mightily.  Oh how wonderful it would be if, in their insistence upon Spanish being spoken, it should happen that Latinos would find it within themselves to bear in mind the hardship that they are creating for, on the one hand, those who descended from slaves and, on the other, the elderly.  That would mark the difference between Latinos struggling for equality and Latinos being ruthlessly self-interested. 

ife without trust is unbearable.  So recently I posed to the women my feminism class a quite interesting question.  “What does it mean for you to trust a man not to commit rape?”  Trust is not just about predicting how a person will behave.  For one can predict that and not at all trust a person, as when I rightly predict that someone will attempt to rob me.  It is an abomination of the language to say that I trusted the person to rob me.  When we trust a person have reason to believe that she or he will do the right thing, even when the person could easily get away with doing what is wrong.  So if a woman actually trusts that a man will not commit rape, this means that she thinks that he would not commit rape even if he could do so without getting caught.

Now, I then asked the men whether or not we actually earn the trust of women in this regard.  That is, are we trust worthy in this regard.  Most poignantly, it does not follow that we are trustworthy merely because have not committed rape or even because it is unlikely that we will commit rape.  After all, if it is unlikely for most of us that we will ever have access to one million dollars all at once.  Thus, it is unlikely that we will in fact ever steal that much money, although the reason why this is true does not reflect positively upon our moral character. 

It is one thing not to commit rape.  It is quite another to have a self-concept from which it follows that we find rape morally repulsive, because we have a self-concept whereby we actively underwrite those values according to which rape is a tremendous moral horror.  Having a self-concept of this sort requires more than saying that rape is wrong.  That is easy enough to do.  Most men pay lip service to that moral precept.  Indeed, as Thrasymachus would assert, it is in the self-interest of most men to make that claim.

What makes this question particularly interesting is that it happens often enough that men in war commit rape.  With war, we often have a State of Nature mentality; and it is evident enough that men act quite inappropriately in that scenario.

So here is the question: In order to be quite clear, in a most robust manner, that we who are men would not commit rape, is it necessary that we have been in something akin to a war zone without having committed rape? 

Extreme scenarios often bring out the worse in us.  As many have observed: but for the grace of God we would be Nazis or slaveowners.  Presently, it is easy enough for all of us to express our vehement opposition to such practices.  Just so, there is the reality that most of us have absolutely no reason whatsoever to believe that we would steadfastly refrain from embracing the inappropriate ideology in question were we raised in the appropriate social era. 

And that ever so poignant truth raises the question of war and rape.  How might a man know, independent of having been in precisely that sort of situation, that he would not commit rape were he to find himself stuck in war zone for weeks on end?  Is trial by fire the only thing that warrants a man in believing that he would not commit rape in a war zone?

Now, this question is more than of just philosophical.  For I am supposing that for a woman the knowledge that a man would commit rape in a war zone changes her perception of that man as being trust worthy in terms of not committing rape.  Either that, or she holds that rape in a State of Nature scenario is excusable.

Many forms of self-knowledge presuppose a conception of how we would behave in novel circumstances: that is, in circumstances which we have not been and which are significantly unlike the circumstances in which we have been.  One would like to think that self-knowledge about how we would act in the future in truly novel circumstances does not amount to mere hope.  If it does, then behaving morally is more in need of social moorings than most of us would ever have imagined. 

I assume that men who commit rape when they find themselves situated in war zones for a significant period of time did not at the outset entertain the thought that being stuck in a war zone would give them the opportunity to commit rape.  Rather, I assume that being in a war zone is transformative.  And therein lies the force of my question in the preceding paragraph. 

In Civil Society, it is easy enough to embrace and live by the ideal that rape is wrong.  The issue is whether we could sustain precisely that disposition in the State of Nature.  And the very point is that we cannot infer from the fact that we sustain an anti-rape mindset in Civil Society that we would do so in the State of Nature; for the two states are wildly unalike. 

Of course, a war zone is not exactly tantamount to the State of Nature as the great moral philosophers conceived of it.  But that truth makes my question all the more pressing because, as I have already noted, one supposes that some of the men who commit rape when in a war zone do not go there with that thought. 

To conclude with a final unhappy note: I think that many men would not comment rape in a war zone because they are just too squeamish.  While from a woman’s point of view a squeamish man in this regard is most preferable to being a victim of rape, there is still the unsettling truth that if, in the final analysis, this is the best explanation that a man has for not committing rape, then the explanation that he has falls considerably short of being a morally commendable one. 

The issue in the end this: The question is not merely what reason do women have to trust we who are men.  It is also: What reason do we have to trust ourselves? 

s the front runner in the democratic primary, Hilary Clinton’s claim that she is not being treated fairly because she is a woman is utterly appalling, and so most inexcusable.  And if I had been inclined to vote for her, I would surely now be disinclined to do so.  I would not want a woman for president who needs to rely upon charges of sexism in order to silence or, at any rate, to attempt to silence her critics.  The very idea of victory by any means, including unwarranted charges of sexism, is most despicable on various fronts. 

To begin with, there is the simple truth that we have enough genuine injustices in the world to occupy us for a very long time.  We should not muddy the moral and political waters by making false charges of injustice.  For that is a grievous form of injustice in and of itself.  It is to engage in a form of malicious character assassination. 

For another, making false charges, be they regarding sexism or racism or whatever, sets a horrendous moral example.  Furthermore, doing so bespeaks a profound lack of moral integrity. 

The issue is not whether there is sexism in the world.  Of course, there is.  Rather, the issue is whether Ms. Clinton has been a victim of sexism in her bid for the democratic presidential candidate by the other candidates and reporters.  And there is absolutely no evidence of that at all.  She has enjoyed extraordinary privilege and clout. 

On the issue of whether illegal immigrants should be granted a driver’s license, as Governor Eliot Spitzer of New York wants to institute, Hilary Clinton equivocated mightily.  And it was not at all unfair of anyone to zero in on this fact.  This is a major issue; and where she stands on the matter is rightly taken to be of great national interest. 

Clinton wanted to be in support of Spitzer’s proposal in order to have his support but yet not quite be in support of the idea giving a driver’s license to illegal immigrants as such.  Which part of drawing attention to this glaring inconsistency is sexist? 

Barack Obama may be surprised that blacks are not giving him nearly 100% of their support.  But he has not been foolish enough to suggest that blacks who fail to support him are Uncle Toms or servile or ashamed of their African heritage or whatever.  And this is to his credit, though it is far from obvious to me why either he or his wife, Michelle Obama, should expect support from blacks merely because he, candidate Obama, is black.  I did not know that skin color counted as a qualification for the presidency.

And if the idea is that some sort of ethnic solidarity requires blacks to vote for Obama, then it is not clear to me how the Obama campaign could expect whites to vote for Obama.  And once we have privileged ethnic identity, why on earth should we stop there.  Let us go for gender identity, too.  This is all absurd.  Besides, I digress.

Although Michelle Obama has expressed her indignation that blacks are not running to Obama on the order of some sort of Pavlov-like reaction, Barack Obama must be given credit for not having expressed such a stupid view and a blatantly indefensible view.

But back to Ms. Clinton.  An ounce of foresight suggests that she is doing herself more harm than good by playing the “sexism card”, precisely because she makes herself look weak.  The stakes are high; and the males in the campaign are not going to refrain from going after her because she makes the charge of sexism.  Quite the contrary, she give them a reason to continue their pursuit in the hopes that she will continue to call attention to the fact that she is a woman by making the charge of sexism. 

As for Governor Spitzer’s proposal: It is obviously a red herring for her.  By that is her problem and not anyone else’s.  And her campaign ought to have been smart enough to have talked to Spitzer about this at the outset. 

So it is now apparent that she is a bit inept.  For it is does not take an Einstein to figure out that the Spitzer proposal raises deep, deep issues for the presidential election—especially for a New York member of the United States Senate who is running for president.  Her campaign ought to have brought Spitzer’s silence by promising him a key position in the cabinet.  This would have been the savvy thing to do.  Or would that have been too much to expect from a woman such as Mrs. Hilary Clinton?  People who make charges of racism or sexism, whenever it is convenient to do so, make for awful leaders.  They do not inspire confidence; and they cannot be trusted. 

The hope of a better America does not lie in a presidential candidate who is willing to sully people’s character with the charge of sexism in order to secure power or to block criticism.  Quite the contrary, the country suffers a major moral setback should any such person obtain the Oval Office.