The Ethics Scoreboard will stipulate that Senator Obama's Philidelphia speech about perceptions of race was superb, especially when compared to what passes for political oratory these days. The fact that one of the contenders for the presidency is capable of discussing such complex issues and willing to do so elevates the entire election process. But the Ethics Scoreboard only slips into political commentary when it is relevant to ethical issues, and by ethical standards, the speech contained an unfortunate number of slippery rhetorical devices, and it did not—repeat, did not—explain or justify Obama's tolerance for the outrageous and hateful remarks of his spiritual mentor. This doesn't render the speech, as a political moment, less significant. But the willingness of the media to allow pure rhetoric, no matter how well-executed, to paper over a matter that goes to the heart of Obama's fitness for leadership is both disappointing and frightening.

The central dishonesty in Obama's speech was laid out concisely and correctly by columnist Charles Krauthammer. Because he is a conservative pundit, Krauthammer was immediately attacked by Obama apologists on the Left, but his critique was factual and logical, not partisan. I can hardly improve upon it…

"…Sure, says Obama, there's Wright, but at the other "end of the spectrum" there's Geraldine Ferraro, opponents of affirmative action and his own white grandmother, "who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe." But did she shout them in a crowded theater to incite, enrage and poison others?

"I can no more disown [Wright] than I can my white grandmother." What exactly was Grandma's offense? Jesse Jackson himself once admitted to the fear he feels from the footsteps of black men on the street. And Harry Truman was known to use epithets for blacks and Jews in private, yet is revered for desegregating the armed forces and recognizing the first Jewish state since Jesus's time. He never spread racial hatred. Nor did Grandma.

Yet Obama compares her to Wright. Does he not see the moral difference between the occasional private expression of the prejudices of one's time and the use of a public stage to spread racial lies and race hatred?

…Obama was supposed to be new. He flatters himself as a man of the future transcending the anger of the past as represented by his beloved pastor. Obama then waxes rhapsodic about the hope brought by the new consciousness of the young people in his campaign. Then answer this, Senator: If Wright is a man of the past, why would you expose your children to his vitriolic divisiveness? This is a man who curses America and who proclaimed moral satisfaction in the deaths of 3,000 innocents at a time when their bodies were still being sought at Ground Zero. It is not just the older congregants who stand and cheer and roar in wild approval of Wright's rants, but young people as well. Why did you give $22,500 just two years ago to a church run by a man of the past who infects the younger generation with precisely the racial attitudes and animus you say you have come unto us to transcend?"

We know the answer to Krauthammer's question, though, don't we? The answer is that it was politically expedient for Obama not to oppose a minister who was popular with the senator's political base. Oprah Winfrey, it should be recalled, left Rev. Wright's church (and was attacked by him from the podium for doing so) because she felt his divisive rhetoric was wrong. But Winfrey wasn't running for office. Politicians make moral and ethical trade-offs; to some extent, that's their job. One can finesse it, seek to minimize it, fight against it, but in the end, no politician succeeds without making significant and painful compromises of principle. The main task is to avoid complete corruption and cynicism in the process. Dick Morris, that ethics-free embodiment of political expediency who somehow makes a living as a political pundit while trying to wreak vengeance on the Clintons for firing him, has opined that Obama's Wright connection won't hurt him because the public will presume he was just playing politics.

Well, it hurts him with the Ethics Scoreboard. Tolerance of outspoken racists is bad; tolerance of racist leaders who try to provoke racism in others—and that is what Wright is—is worse. Financially supporting such racist leaders, for Krauthammer's figures on Obama's contributions is correct, for political expediency is cowardly. And support for such racist leaders for 20 years by a candidate whose message is racial reconciliation is, quite simply, unforgivable. I don't care if Rev. Wright was his grandmother. If Obama didn't see that he was doing terrible harm by, for example, claiming that the "all-white" US government was hatching plots to poison and infect black citizens, and wouldn't respond by, at very least, having the courage to join another church, then he is not the man he is claiming to be.

How could he be?

A personal story: In 1981, I was asked by my then employer to make a speech promoting a grassroots organization to an Amway convention in Roanoke, Virginia. Before I was due to speak, the leading Amway "Diamond" in the area, who had organized the rally (there were about 15,000 people in the convention center) gave a boisterous stem-winder that would have made Rev.Wright (or Benito Mussilini—name your favorite vicious demagogue) proud. It was full of outrageous, offensive, hateful statements, outright lies, homophobic rants, and paranoid nonsense. He claimed, I remember, to have documents proving that Jimmy Carter was setting up the country to be taken over by the Russians. I briefly considered walking out, or even beginning my speech by pointing out some of the more absurd lies to the crowd, even at the risk of being brought down in a hail of bullets (the speaker had been very well received.) But I was there to do a job, so I delivered my speech, left, and rushed back to my hotel to take a shower, hoping to wash some of the hate off. I have always felt a little guilty about not doing more. I feel as if, by simply adding to the program, I was somehow supporting the despicable sentiments that preceded me. But I didn't go back…every week for twenty years…have the loudmouth Baptize my kids…or declare him to be my spiritual advisor. That would have really been something to be ashamed of, don't you think?

Young people looking for a hero, media reporters hungry for some spiritual substance, Democrats desperate for a competent and admirable candidate, and any American who believes that a black president would mean so much to the nation—I am in this latter category— can be excused, I suppose, for searching desperately for an explanation that doesn't diminish the promise of Barack Obama too much. But they haven't found it. Many of them have responded with, to be blunt, embarrassingly lame rationalizations, to be blunter, unfair and intellectually dishonest attacks on critics who have asked the right questions, and, to be bluntest, inexcusably stupid analogies. Obama's long-time embrace of a racist, white-hating preacher is not remotely the same as Bush or any other candidate accepting political support from whacko evangelicals like the late Jerry Falwell, or John McCain accepting the endorsement of John Hagee. It is not the same as having a friend whom you disagree with on some issues. It is not conceivable that Obama did not know about his pastor's most offensive comments, and again, he has to be held to a high standard, because he himself has articulated a high standard.

Thus it is perplexing and disorienting to see Governor Bill Richardson make this argument, citing the Philadelphia speech, to his supporters in announcing his recent endorsement of Senator Obama:

"He asked us to rise above our racially divided past, and to seize the opportunity to carry forward the work of many patriots of all races, who struggled and died to bring us together," he wrote.

But by all means, don't seize the opportunity to stop an influential friend from encouraging thousands of African-Americans to hate whites, their elected government, and America!

I wish I could conclude otherwise. But it doesn't add up.