WE ARE CLEANSED

Posted at 5:45 a.m. ET

There is arrogance and there is extreme arrogance.  Ever since Mr. Obama's election we've had a flood of arrogant, self-righteous, preciously pompous statements coming from spokesmen all over the world, and from self-proclaimed intellectuals.  They inform us that they are pleased, that we have passed one of their "global" tests, that some of us, those who voted right, are welcome back to the bosom of civilization.  We are told that Mr. Obama has restored our soul, a soul that many of these presumptuous yakkers never found in the first place.

There has to be a prize for arrogance.  There are prizes for everything.  For first prize I humbly nominate Desmond Tutu, once a hero in the South African resistance movement, but in recent decades a man for whom democracy and dictatorship seemed roughly equal.  Bishop Tutu condescends to comment, and finds America on the mend.

CAPE TOWN I am rubbing my eyes in disbelief and wonder. It can't be true that Barack Obama, the son of a Kenyan, is the next president of the United States.

Yeah.  True.  We're takin' it pretty much in stride.  Notice no riots in American streets.

...for those of us who have looked to America for inspiration as we struggled for democracy and human rights, these past seven years have been lean ones.

When have you ever struggled for human rights, except in your own country?  And have you noticed that Iraq is now a democracy, extremism is being battled in Afghanistan, Libya has given up its WMD programs, and Muslims come and go in America without harassment?  What's lean about that? 

A few days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, we had our first shock, hearing your president respond not with the statesmanlike demeanor we had come to expect from a U.S. head of state but like a Western gunslinger. Later, it seemed that much of American society was following his lead.

A few days after September 11th, Bishop Tutu, the BBC was on the air with vicious, anti-American programming.  President Bush was attending a mosque and assuring Muslims that this was not a war against them.  And precisely what "demeanor" did you expect, in the face of an attack that killed more Americans than Pearl Harbor?

When war began, first in Afghanistan and not long after in Iraq, we read allegations of prisoner abuse at Bagram air base in Afghanistan and of rendition to countries notorious for practicing torture. We saw the horrific images from Abu Ghraib and learned of gruesome acts performed in the name of gathering information. Sometimes the torture itself was couched in the government's euphemisms -- calling waterboarding an "interrogation technique."

When war began, Bishop?  How about, when war was forced on us?  And do you have anything to say about the regime of Saddam Hussein?  Any human-rights concern there?  You seem to criticize the United States and Israel, and that's about it.

The Bush administration has riled people everywhere. Its bully-boy attitude has sadly polarized our world.

Against all this, the election of Barack Obama has turned America's image on its head. My wife was crying with incredulity and joy as we watched a broadcast of the celebrations in Chicago. A newspaper here ran a picture of Obama from an earlier trip to one of our townships, where he was mobbed by youngsters. It was tacitly saying that we are proud he once visited us.

Precisely who has President Bush bullied?  Name that person or country.  And why do you assume that "human rights" will have a better outing under Mr. Obama? 

The fact that Obama's Kenyan grandfather was a convert to Islam may -- shamefully -- have been controversial in parts of the United States, but elsewhere in the world, Obama's multi-faith heritage is an inspiration.

This is particularly disgusting.  What "parts of the United States" are you referring to?  What is that a code phrase for?  Devout Christians?  Jews?  Southerners?  Do you have anything to say about the treatment of minorities in Muslim countries?  I guess not.

In the midst of this celebration, however, a word of caution is appropriate. In the first days after 9/11, the United States had the world's sympathy, an unprecedented wave of it. President Bush squandered it.

One of the great myths.  The "sympathy" for the United States lasted a few days, at most.  It didn't take much time for the international left, of which Tutu is a part, to start explaining the "root cause" of the attacks.  The universities revved up almost immediately.  The root cause, of course, was us.

Among other things on Tutu's laundry list for Obama, is this:

And it would be wonderful if, on behalf of the nation, he would apologize to the world, and especially the Iraqis, for an invasion that I believe has turned out to be an unmitigated disaster.

Apologize?  How would that go down with the millions of Iraqis who are now permitted to vote, for the first time in their lives?  Of course, who needs democracy when you have Desmond Tutu to guide you?

Obama's election has given Americans the message that hope is viable, that change is really possible.

My friend, we have always had hope and change here.  It's nothing new to us.  I have no idea what history books you like to read, but they're the wrong ones.

His (Obama's) triumph can help the world reach the point where we realize that we are all caught up in a delicate network of interdependence, unable to celebrate fully our own heritage and place in the world, unable to realize our full potential as human beings, unless everyone else, everywhere else, can do the same.

But when President Bush spoke in precisely these terms, you opposed him.  We have long memories.

Now you know why Desmond Tutu gets first prize for arrogance.

November 10, 2008.