NEWSWEEK: Your grandfather was Muslim, but you are a Christian. What did you think of the pope’s original comments about Islam and how the reaction played out?
Barack Obama: Well, I think that we live in a time where there are enormous religious sensitivities, and I have no doubt that the pope did not intend to offend the Muslim faith any more than many of us sometimes say things in a different context that aren’t intended to cause offense. But I think all of us, particularly religious leaders, have to be mindful that there are a lot of sensitivities out there. Now, the flip side is that there are those in the Muslim community who are looking to take offense and are constantly on the lookout for anything that would indicate that the West is somehow antagonistic toward Islam.
Did he say anything that he needed to apologize for?
You know, I leave it up to the pope. He made an apology and I wouldn’t challenge his judgment on it.
Did you read what he said?
I read what he said. And, as I said, I think he is mindful that he did not want to cause offense or pain, and to the extent that he did, I think he felt it necessary to apologize. My point, I guess is that all sides in the current environment have to be very careful how we talk about faith. I gave a speech recently in which I said that Democrats, for example, should not be afraid to talk about faith. But I think we’ve got to do so in a way that admits the possibility that we are not always right, that our particular faith may not have all the monopoly on truth, and we’ve got to be able to listen to other people. You know I think one of the trends we are seeing right now, and which I think is causing so much political grief both domestically and internationally, is that absolutism has become sort of the flavor of the day.
Have you read the Qur’an?
I can’t say that I have read all of it.
Have you read enough of it to have an opinion as to whether Islam is what the 14th-century Byzantine emperor said in his argument that it was, in other words, a religion of violent conquest?
I think there are so many different interpretations of Islam as there are so many different interpretations of Christianity, that to somehow fix or define a religion based on one particular reading of the text is a mistake.
Why did you call your new book “The Audacity of Hope”? Why is hope audacious?Because we live in some tough times. Because when you look around the world you see crisis in Darfur, you see conflagrations in the Middle East, you see political polarization at home, you’ve got environmental crisis, 46 million without health insurance, inner-city children that are trapped in despair. So you know I think it is easy sometimes to say that there is nothing much we can do about it. And you know that the title is a line that I got from a sermon my pastor gave once, which made the point that sometimes it’s easier to be cynical and give up hope. But part of our character as a nation has been a sense of optimism, a sense that we can overcome.
The reaction you get around the country is remarkable. Why are people reacting to you the way they are?
It’s always hard to stand outside yourself and know what it is that people are reacting to. Some of it is just dumb luck. I was elected based on a campaign that was positive and that was hopeful, and somehow it worked and it was multiracial and I got votes from farmers and I got votes from suburbanites and inner-city blacks. And I think that there is a hunger right now for America coming together, and my campaign sort of captured that wave, and I expressed it as best I could during my speech in the 2004 election and that seemed to resonate. It probably says less about me than an indication that people want a different kind of politics.
Is it fair to say that you are a human embodiment of the kind of unity you think people are hungering for?
I don’t know that I am a human embodiment of it. I think that probably it helps that I’ve got pieces of everybody in me.
If your name were Joe Smith, mightn’t there be less enthusiasm?
You never know. The original assumption was that I could never win an election statewide with a name like Barack Obama. I actually write in the new book about a political consultant in Chicago who had originally been interested in me running statewide [who met] with me right after 9/11 and [said,] “There’s a picture of [Osama] bin Laden on the magazine cover. Boy, this is really bad for you.”
But it’s just the opposite, isn’t it?
You know, that’s the kind of thing that is hard to tell. It’s very hard to speculate on what’s going on. But let’s take some other examples. Deval Patrick’s victory in Massachusetts. He’s a dear friend, and I endorsed him early and campaigned for him early, and I think he embodies a different kind of politics.
You’d better mention Rep. Harold Ford , for the Senate in Tennessee, or you are going to get in a lot of trouble with Don Imus.
I was just going to mention him. I did a fund-raiser for him in New York two days ago. In the black community there are people like Ford and Patrick and [Mayor] Cory Booker Newark. But it’s also in the white community. You look at somebody like [gubernatorial candidate] Eliot Spitzer, who is doing terrific work in New York. And at the other end of the geographical arena you’ve got people like Gov. [Brian] Schweitzer in Montana. What you just get a sense of is that there is a political transition that is going to happen nationally, where people try to break out of some of the conservative-liberal sharp divisions.
Do you worry that people are piling too many expectations and hopes on you? Some people seem to say, “OK, there is an easy answer, it’s Barack Obama.”
I go back to the quote from the speech I just gave: Justice [Louis] Brandeis saying that “the most important office in a democracy is that of citizen.” I come from a community-organizing background and a civil-rights background. I always believe that ultimately, if people are paying attention, then we get good government and good leadership. And when we get lazy, as a democracy and civically start taking shortcuts, then it results in bad government and politics.
But the paradox is that you’ve got this moment, this “dumb luck” to be seen by some as a vehicle for hope, but of course it’s not that simple.
These issues are never simple. One thing I’m proud of is that very rarely will you hear me simplify the issues.
What is the current formulation of your answer to the question, “Are you running for president in 2008?”
I’ve said I wasn’t the day after I was elected [to the Senate]. That was almost two years ago. There is nothing so far that has changed my mind.
So under no circumstances would you seek or accept the 2008 Democratic nomination?
I am not prepared to say that I could never change my mind on something, but, at this juncture, I have no intentions of running.
Someone I know played basketball with you at Harvard Law School, and he complimented you on your game. He said you ran the floor and shared the ball. How would you describe your game?
I was a slasher—somewhere between Alan Iverson and LeBron James, but keep in mind that the gym in law school was pretty short, shorter than regulation. The last time I played was actually in Djibouti, with [U.S.] troops. I was terrific for the first five minutes.
