No, YOU Be Serious, Marty

Peretz:

C'mon Barack: your preacher said many truly awful things about America, certainly more awful than that one suggestion that you might be a phony.

Do not go vain on us.

But to distinguish between others' distorted beliefs about the world, and others' assertions about one's own beliefs about the world, makes perfect sense. While others are entitled to believe all sorts of kooky things, they are NOT entitled to tell other people what YOU believe (e.g. "you don't really believe so-and-so; you're only saying that because you're a politician"), or to appropriate something that is not theirs or at least not theirs alone (like the meaning of the 'black church'). To put it in terms Marty can understand, it's fine for him to believe whatever he wants about the Middle East and to support Israel in whatever fashion he chooses, but it is not acceptable for him to define the meaning of 'pro-Israel' for everyone else, any more than it is acceptable for Rev. Wright to pretend to be the ultimate arbiter of what is or isn't the 'black church.' (Actually, these are terms that Marty, alas, cannot understand.)