Obama's prayer: What's the truth, now? – UPDATED

:::UPDATE:::Okay, so after writing all the reasons why I believed Obama and his campaign meant his prayer at the Western Wall to be private…there comes word from the Israeli paper Ma’ariv – which came under attack for publishing the prayer – that the prayer was released to the press as Obama was leaving the hotel. Which throws everything into doubt. Was the prayer “stolen” or not? Was it ever, in fact, “personal and private” or not? Was the whole thing, after all, staged to gain the sympathy of the religiously inclined, who have been mistrustful of Obama? Am I a schmuck for choosing to believe the best of Obama and his campaign, and not the worst? Has cynicism really trumped everything? What is the truth of this story? Will we EVER know? Will the press EVER ask? Oy!

Big Lizards writes:

Numerous newspapers and other media outlets reported that Maariv claims that “Obama submitted a copy of the note to media outlets when he left his hotel in Jerusalem,” before visiting the wall. This is either true or false:

* If it’s false, why didn’t the reporting media who had reporters present with Obama in Israel say something like, “however, our reporter did not receive any copy of this prayer?” That would certainly have put the onus back on Maariv to prove their statement.

* Contrariwise, if it’s true, then shouldn’t the reporting media point that out in the story, thus putting the lie to the Obama campaign’s claim that this was a terrible violation of the privacy of his divine conversations?

Yet instead of providing the evidence they clearly had, evidence that would either have supported Obama or Maariv, every last media source chose to stand silent. Why?

Donald Sensing tries to make sense of this.

…Ma’ariv’s rather outrageous claim that prayer of non-Jews don’t enjoy privacy protection at the Wall simply will not hold up before rabbinic responses…Anyway, Ma’ariv’s statement that it published what was essentially a press release from Obama’s staff does change the entire tenor of the affair, and makes the seminary student’s confession and repentance somewhat curious.

Is there one mainstream reporter out there who understands that – if the Obama camp released his prayer (and then allowed to stand reports that it was only published because the thing was “stolen”) – this becomes very big deal to the very believers he wishes to court? Is there a reporter out there who will look into it? I won’t hold my breath.

If Obama abused the goodwill of those who wished to believe the best of him – and who decried the publication of his “private” prayer (and many believers did) – that will be pretty shabby, and needlessly cynical. So much for “change.”

I will not say I was wrong to want to think the best, and I’m still going to try to – because I think it’s really important to TRY to think the best – but if this is true…I’ll be incredibly disappointed in Obama, especially since I came down pretty hard – for his sake – on some who may have had his number, after all. Some of my rant – about people criticizing the content of the prayer and reprinting what we thought was private – is still valid…but we don’t know if anything else was.

I thought this was going to be the “candidate of clarity” the “transparency candidacy” – a little clarity here would be welcomed.

Jim Geraghty has more questions.:::END UPDATE:::

:::Original Post Below:::

The Seminarian who removed Obama’s prayer from the Western Wall has returned it:

The yeshiva student who pried Barack Obama’s prayer note from the Western Wall has apologized.

Identified only by the first initial of his name, Aleph, and with his face obscured, the student went on Channel 2 television Sunday to confess that he took the presidential contender’s note last week and passed it to the press.
…
“I’m sorry. It was a kind of prank,” Aleph said, his hands shaking as he fingered the tightly wadded-up sheet of King David Hotel letterhead. “I hope he wasn’t hurt. We all believe he will take the presidency.”

This weekend I received many emails – a few of them pretty insulting – from people on the right who either mocked me as naive, or castigated me as a stupid dupe for believing that this prayer was really stolen, and that the whole event was not a choreographed publicity stunt from the Obama camp, meant to garner sympathy from the religious right.

It must be said that the religious right – by and large, and to its credit – was horrified by this theft, and defensive of Obama’s right to private prayer. One cannot help wondering if – had the exact same circumstances occurred to President Bush – anyone on left, religious or otherwise, would have been able to manage even a sneeze of outrage on the president’s behalf.

And that is the point.

As I responded to many of these emailers, there were several reasons why I rejected the notion that the Obama camp had staged the theft, the most obvious being that the campaign would have to realize that such a “choreography” would immediately be suspected, as we are all too savvy and too cynical to be “taken in” by much these days. Consider how many people dared to criticize the content of the prayer, either because it was too vague and “safe” sounding, or because it did not whistle The Stars and Stripes Forever upon opening, and you realize that no campaign would be stupid enough to stage something so bound to be a lose/lose for their candidate, where “too much” or “too reverent” a prayer would offend the left and too little would offend the right.

Secondly, the reaction of the Obama campaign told me that the theft was real. Had it been manufactured, the campaign, which sometimes seems like it employs a roving “Outrage of the Day Department” was quiet about it. I know that had my prayer been stolen and published, I would not wish to add to the abuse of that prayer by making statements and drawing further attention to it. I’d simply let it go, and that’s what Obama did. (There is something to be said for heeding the advice of Atticus Finch, and walking around in the other guy’s shoes for a while.)

Thirdly – as some of you know from our email exchanges – I refused to think the matter was staged because I did not want to become like the Bush-haters I know, who are incapable of naming “one good thing” about the man. I refused to give up that much of my own humanity, in order to de-humanize Barack Obama.

That is the trend, these days, of course. Name-call, deride, mock, disbelieve and in all ways go negative – on every issue, in every instance, unto perpetuity – on any politician with whom you disagree, and any pundit you don’t like, and any blogger who does not see things the way you see them. In that way, they immediately become less human to you, and the less human they seem, the easier they are to hate, and continue to hate.

We see it all the time, all over the blogosphere: repellent hate. It begins with calling someone a nasty name, which seems like nothing. But it is the beginning of the whole process of dehumanization, and it is why one of my rules about comments is that name-calling of presidents is off-limits. Bush becomes “Chimpy.” Obama becomes “O-Bambi.” Rosie O’ Donnell becomes “Rosie Oaf Donnell.” Cindy McCain becomes “the pill-addict Cheerleader,” (ah, the tolerant and compassionate!) and John McCain becomes “McShame,” and from there, it’s a very short walk onto the endless and descending pier of hate, which leads you to a place where we can no longer see anything good in “the other,” because you have made yourself willfully blind, and willfully hard-hearted.

When you reach that point, you are no better than the person you hate; you may be much worse.

I believed Obama’s prayer had been stolen and I would not give in to the easy suspicions of cynicism, because I realized that as long as I could name “one good thing,” about Obama – and in this case it would be that he left a real prayer, in real humility, at the wall – I could still see him as a real person and not an object of revilement.

And it would mean I hadn’t completely lost my humanity, either.

I can name other good things about Barack Obama, but for now, let’s concentrate on naming “one” good thing. It is a helpful gauge – a way to keep some perspective.

Early in this blog – to my everlasting shame – I found myself treading the “everyone on the other side is vile” pier, and I did not like where it led.

There be monsters, all reflecting myself.