ffhand, it might seem that George Wallace and Barack Obama have only three things in common: (1) both were born in the United States; (2) both are men; and (3) each sought (with Obama still seeking) the office of President of the United States.  Well, they both have a fourth commonality, namely that each affiliated himself with a racist ideology.  Wallace affiliated himself with racist ideology against blacks; Obama affiliated himself with racist ideology against whites.

There was a time in George Wallace’s life when KKK folks were heroes for Wallace.  Likewise, there was a time when a man called Jeremiah Wright was a hero for Obama.  (There is also the case of Pastor James Meeks, but let us leave that aside.) 

Wallace freely chose to identify himself with the racist ideology of the KKK.  Obama freely chose to identify with the racist ideology of Pastor Jeremiah Wright.

Before the end of his life, George Wallace repudiated the racist ideology of the KKK.  And in doing so, he made no excuses for his past identification with those who espoused that racist ideology.  He did not claim that this or that Grand Master of the KKK was rather like an uncle or a father figure to him.  No, Wallace entirely repudiated that past.

Although Barack Obama has, of late, distanced himself mightily from Pastor Wright, there is the truth that Obama has sought to excuse his affiliation with Pastor Wright, claiming that the Pastor is rather like an old racist family member with whom one disagrees but nonetheless tolerates.  What a bankrupt analogy for such a smart man. 

Now, it is a fact about life that people make moral mistakes—even moral mistakes that I find rather unfathomable.  Just so, there is nothing that beats fully owning the moral mistake that one made.  Of course, sometimes we make a moral mistake because we have been deceived or misinformed.  That was not so with Wallace.  That was not so with Obama.

Wallace once took blacks to be niggers.  Obama profoundly identified, of his own free will, with a black minister who took whites to be an incarnation of the devil himself.  Surely, both ideology are utterly inexcusable.

Now, before someone reminds that blacks, unlike KKK members, have not gone around lynching whites, let me just note that if ne’er a KKK person had lynched a white the KKK ideology itself would rightly be deemed utterly despicable nonetheless and any white who identified with that ideology would be correctly countenanced as a racist.  After all, there are lots of ways to be racist without ever lynching a black.  One could merely go around insisting that all blacks are vastly inferior to blacks.  This would be horrible though ne’er a black is lynched.

In a like vein, racist blacks can be racist towards whites in lots of ways without ever lynching a white.  One form of black racism could be the horrendous sullying of the moral character of all whites.

Getting back to the difference between George Wallace and Barack Obama, I ask a very simple question: Who is the more morally upright person in terms of how he dealt with his racist inclinations of the past?  It should come as no surprise that I regard Wallace as the more morally upright person.  What is more, in the absence of some very strong considerations that I have not taken into account, I think this is the correct comparative assessment of the two.

Notice that I am more than prepared to allow that Obama made a mistake in associating with and identifying with the ideology of Pastor Jeremiah Wright.  What I find absolutely unconscionable is Obama’s attempt to excuse his doing so.  Try as I might, I cannot find a way to excuse his doing so, though I can accept without any difficulty a genuine admission of wrongdoing in this regard. 

Now, it seems to me that a great many of my liberal friends are prepared to excuse Obama’s embracing of racist ideology in the name of justified black rage against whites.  Well, this is just so much nonsense.  Obama received a B.A. from Columbia University (1983) and a J.D. from Harvard University (1991).  This makes Obama rather privileged—not just more privileged than most blacks in the United States but more privileged than most whites in the United States. 

Without denying for a moment that Obama has experienced some form of racism, it is simply not plausible for him to maintain that racism was a serious impediment to his succeeding in life.  That is, the justified black outrage strategy gains very little traction in the life of Obama. 

If Obama were to claim that a family had been lynched by a white racist, then a plausible case for moral outrage on Obama’s part towards whites would at least be understandable.  But one cannot, as a black, have his life of remarkable good fortune and then have a case for warranted moral outrage towards whites.  This is a most fulsome stance.  There are far too many of whatever ethnic identity who can barely dream of the life that Obama has been fortunate enough to live for it to be remotely plausible that he has a case for black rage. 

To my mind, this makes Barack Obama’s identification with Pastor Jeremiah Wright even more suspect and unacceptable.  Why, I can think of a number of blacks whose views I find problematic who nonetheless I have stopped considerably short of identifying with the ideology of Pastor Wright.  These include Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.  Let me also point out that Cornel West, who reminded us of his bouts with racism in Race Matters, has nonetheless stopped considerably short of embracing views that are akin to Pastor Wright’s views.

So let me note once more that Wallace fully acknowledged the wrong of his despicable past.  He made no attempt to excuse it.  Obama, by contrast, has endeavored to excuse it when he could simply have acknowledged that he was wrong and that he no longer identifies with that line of thought.

Of course, we know precisely why Obama has not done that.  For it is not at all clear that he would have distanced himself from Pastor Wright had his affiliation with Wright not become an albatross.  So, if George Wallace were alive and running for office, there can be no doubt that from the standpoint of racial equality Wallace would make a far more morally superior candidate than Barack Obama. 

In a word, here is the difference: Whereas Wallace had the courage to denounce unequivocally his racist past, it is precisely that kind of defining courage that Obama manifestly does not have.  It is only with one of these individuals that we have an upright person.  Or so it is at least with regard to the issue of race.