It looks as though, when it comes to dealing with wrong-doers, Obama has chosen the path of unifying through reconciliation rather than that of punishing through meting out justice. That's not the approach my gut would prefer. But Obama may well be choosing wisely.

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Does Joe Lieberman deserve to be stripped of his powers by the Democrats he betrayed? He certainly does. Would it have gratified me if they'd done so. Yes, I like seeing treachery punished.

Do the Bushites deserve to be prosecuted for their crimes? Yes, the Bushites deserve such punishment perhaps more than any office-holders in American history. Would I like seeing them held accountable like the criminals they are? Yes, every Hollywood movie about justice/revenge that I saw growing up trained me to crave just such a retribution.

But it appears that neither of these gratifying inflictions of justice is going to happen. Our president-elect has apparently chosen otherwise.

Do I think he's chosen wrongly? It is certainly possible that he has. It's possible that the course Barack Obama has taken will do the country less good than would have been done by imposing justice on wrong-doers. For people to get away with wrong-doing does undermine the integrity of righteousness. That certainly is a cost of such a course.

But it would be a great mistake to jump firmly to the conclusion, as so many in the progressive netroots movement have done, that Obama has either decided foolishly or shown a lack of true moral concern.

Three points should be made.

First, the criterion for evaluating what Obama does should be this: in what condition will he leave America at the end of the path of his leadership of this country? Whatever leaves it in the best condition-- morally, spiritually, environmentally, economically, geopolitically, etc.-- is the best choice.

The criterion should not be what FEELS BEST to us at the moment: although those two criteria may be the same in some instances, they are not necessarily identical. (The insistence that our feelings be gratified is particularly suspect when the feeling at the root of our insistence is ANGER: "Overcome anger by non-anger," said the Buddha, and Jesus, too, in other words.) And when the two criteria point in different directions, what matters is the long-term health and goodness of the nation (and, for that matter, the earth and humankind generally).

Second, though I feel pretty sure that, in Obama's position, I would have chosen otherwise, I find powerful reasons to give Obama a good deal of the benefit of the doubt.

Here's a guy who has achieved great things already, and he's done them HIS way, which has often been different from mine. * [See note, at the bottom of this piece, which is from something I wrote on February 29 of this year, just as Hillary was throwing the "kitchen sink" at Obama.] It is because of this difference in his ways of dealing with evil that it wasn't until mid-January that I saw Obama as having transformational possibilities: because he was not going energetically up against the Bushite evils, I had assumed that Obama could not provide what America needs to repair the damage of this dark Bushite era.

Yet, look how far he's already gone in achieving the transformation America needs. His achievements, it should be noted, are not just a matter of his "success" or his "climb to power": they are also, in my view, clearly triumphs of good over evil.

It is by doing things HIS way that Obama has already transformed the image of this country in the world. It is by doing things HIS way that Obama created the moment where so many hundreds of thousands of people, standing late at night in and near Grant Park in Chicago, showed such beautiful, joyful, loving, open expressions on their faces. How different is that face of America from the one that the Bushites imposed as our nation's face to the world! Obama, in his non-confrontational way, has managed to drive the evil forces deeper toward the margins of our national life, in considerable dissarray.

As they say in the investment world, "past performance is no guarantee of future results," but, to change the arena to sports, winners of the Cy Young Award generally know how to win ballgames.

It is the third point, however, that perhaps most needs to be made. America's darkness has been at bottom a spiritual crisis, and the battle for America's soul must be won above all at the spiritual level.

Obama's candidacy seemed to recognize this, and the worldwide response to his victory is a manifestation of the recognition by many millions that Obama's victory was a spiritual victory. And what Obama seems to be doing now seems best interpreted not as a caving in, nor as a sign of moral indifference, but as indicating what spiritual strategy he has chosen.

He has chosen a strategy of reconciliation, of reaching out beyond the ranks of his allies to enlist even his former opponents in supporting his mission to heal America.

Justice --with its laying bare of dark truths, its holding to account, its meting out of retribution-- is one strategy for cleansing a system permeated with the toxins of evil. But it is not the only strategy.

Reconciliation does not fight evil, but it does UNDO it. For one of the evils that the Bushite forces unleashed upon the nation --indeed the one that was at the heart of their political strategy-- is the evil of divisiveness. (See "By Their Fruits" at click here Fomenting divisions among people is one of the clearest of the manifestations of evil; likewise, bringing people together across their divisions to enable them to make common cause based on their shared values is one of the manifestations of goodness.

If Barack Obama can achieve a healing of our national polarization, that in itself would be a major accomplishment in repairing the damage lately done to this country. And this seems to be the approach to launching his presidency that Obama has chosen.

It's not simply a matter, for example, of trying to get a "filibuster-proof" majority in the Senate that Obama has chosen to leave Lieberman in place (according to my interpretation), but a more general signal that he wants to begin his presidency on the basis of harmonizing between adversaries, and not of finishing the fights that others have picked, now that he has the power to impose his will on them as George W. Bush so delighted in stomping upon those whom he had defeated.

It could be a wise choice, empowering him to accomplish much else. Bringing America together --not everyone, of course, for the right-wing crazies cannot handle harmony, cannot live without enemies-- COULD be the best way for Obama to maximize his capacity to make the other changes in the nation that he desires. Time will tell.

Reconciliation will doubtless not be enough in every situation. There ARE enemies who will not be reconciled, and there are battles that must be fought. Obama may or may not have in his repertoire all the tools and all the weapons that he'll need as president.

But, as I indicated in the second point, above, Obama has gone up against some formidable enemies already and, without becoming warlike or punitive, it is he --not Hillary Clinton, with her "kitchen sink," and not the Republicans, with their "paling around with terrorists"-- who has prevailed.

For me, the bottom line is this: I trust this man's heart, I trust his intentions. And as for strategy and tactics, my instincts and inclinations have not yielded results as impressive as his, and so I am willing to wait and watch. And continue to have the audacity to hope.


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* Note-- Here's what I wrote at the end of February, 2008:

Obama is showing something different from anything of mine. He seems to have a much more indirect way of dealing with conflict than what I, as a Schmookler, could ever have learned.

I was amazed at some of the ways he was able to deflect Hillary’s attacks on him in the most recent debate: when she tried to make a big deal about “reject” or “just denounce,” he said he was happy to do both, if she thought there was an important difference– thus making her look like a phony nitpicker, and him look agreeable and eager not to get into petty stuff. When they played the tape of her mocking him about the clouds opening etc., his response was to applaud her performance and good humor.

I am certain that I would have used that as an opportunity to talk about hope vs. cynicism, and about the importance right now of a sense of possibility in America, so that no, it would not just automatically happen, but that if the American people are inspired, truly, great things are possible. And that it is the job of leadership to inspire that energy, to summon forth the best of our possibilities and, by channeling that energy to the hard work ahead, help the American people fulfill their potential to create a better, healthier, more honest, more harmonious society.

I would have gone head at her, because that’s how I got trained to deal with things. I am marveling at his very different way, and thinking that just possibly it is his genius for defeating the forces of evil by deflecting them while using the path of hope plus moral devotion and discipline to rebuild the society and defeat evil indirectly through the process of destruction.

I wonder: does he see it this way? Is he as aware as we here of the nature of the darkness America has descended into? Does he recognize that the Bush regime has operated in America like a criminal enterprise?

If he does not, there’s something seriously wrong with him. But I believe he does see it, but sees it in a different spirit from mine.

Mine has been the spirit of the prophet, denouncing and rejecting And calling on the American system to rise up and defeat and repudiate this lawless, lying bunch.

His is a different spirit, which maybe I understand or maybe not. From his book, I get the impression that he tends to see the human drama with less emphasis on moral judgment, and more in terms of compassionate understanding. In his book, he shows plenty of flawed people: and he shows himself to see their flaws and their misbehavior. But he does not get angry with them for their defects. He just sees that this is the way things are, and is present in a way that doesn’t encourage the brokenness and sometimes tries to infuse some energy for goodness.

I don’t know if he has ALL the necessary tools to deal with evil in America. But he certainly has shown he has some really fine moves in the contest, more like akido than my more Greco-Roman form of grappling. And it is possible that he has more in his repertoire that he would know how to use if it were necessary.

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**Note...Here's a passage from that commentary, broadcast on Public Radio in New Mexico early in 2005:

Just as this presidency has sown division between Americans, so also between America and the world. Till now, America was more trusted than any hegemon in history. But even before 9/11, this president had alienated our longtime allies. And since, with his war of choice in Iraq, he has continued losing our friends and multiplying our enemies, while also keeping the ugly picture of continuous bloodshed at the center of the global stage.

This pattern of creating division and strife is no small clue to the moral nature of this leadership. Turning people against each other –rendering the human drama into an Us against a Them—has been the practice of bad rulers throughout history.

When people are focused on their conflicts, they’re unable to build a more whole world based on their common humanity.

Authors Bio:
Andy Schmookler, an award-winning author, political commentator, radio talk-show host, and teacher, was the Democratic nominee for Congress from Virginia's 6th District. His new book -- written to have an impact on the central political battle of our time -- is WHAT WE'RE UP AGAINST. His previous books include The Parable of the Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social Evolution, for which he was awarded the Erik H. Erikson prize by the International Society for Political Psychology.