One of William F. Buckley‘s most famous quotes goes something like this: “I am obliged to confess I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.”
Uttered some 50 years ago, the phrase still has relevance today, especially for those who have read Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy’s guest column in the latest TIME. It chides President Obama for not doing enough to denigrate the United States.
[I]n line with previous Presidents, Obama lauds the pioneers who “blazed” a westward trail but never mentions the systematic acts of ethnic cleansing by which the U.S. wrested lands from Indian nations. He praises the Founding Fathers, making no mention of the slaves who fled them or of the fact that many more blacks and Indians fought on the side of King George than with George Washington.
Sure, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison countenanced slavery. But the consequence of their bargain with human bondage, Obama implies, redeemed them. After making a deal with Republicans over tax policy, Obama criticized the Democrats who had opposed it, remarking that “this country was founded on compromise.” Ironically, the first black President thus embraced the nation’s Founding Deal, eschewing the denunciations of abolitionists who maintained, in the words of William Lloyd Garrison, that the Constitution was “a covenant with death.”
One can almost — almost — see why some people contend our 44th president is moderate.
