Frank Rich, in his regular Sunday column, gives us his take on Obama's choice of Rick Warren as Master of Ceremonies at his inauguration:

As we saw during primary season, our president-elect is not free of his own brand of hubris and arrogance, and sometimes it comes before a fall: “You’re likable enough, Hillary” was the prelude to his defeat in New Hampshire. He has hit this same note again by assigning the invocation at his inauguration to the Rev. Rick Warren, the Orange County, Calif., megachurch preacher who has likened committed gay relationships to incest, polygamy and “an older guy marrying a child.” Bestowing this honor on Warren was a conscious — and glib — decision by Obama to spend political capital. It was made with the certitude that a leader with a mandate can do no wrong.

Rich doesn't bother with the whingy antics of the likes of Andrew Sullivan.  He admits to having seen at least a hint of hubris in Obama from early on, and now echoes Barney Frank when the latter, voicing disappointment at the choice of Warren, wonders aloud if maybe Obama "overestimates his ability to get people to put aside fundamental differences.”

"That’s a polite way of describing the Obama cockiness," Rich spells it out for us. "It will take more than the force of the new president’s personality and eloquence to turn our nation into the United States of America he and we all want it to be."

I'm not sure we all want it to be whatever it is we're all supposed to want it to be, which, I guess, is where Warren comes into the picture, and why he's such a jarring choice for so many.  Openly gay Episcopal Priest Gene Robinson recently said of Warren: "the God that he’s praying to is not the God that I know.” (Of course, many in Robinson's own church have said the same of Robinson — the threat of schism ever-looms.)

Indeed, as Rich states, "Obama may not only overestimate his ability to bridge some of our fundamental differences but also underestimate how persistent some of those differences are."  Furthermore, "when Obama defends Warren’s words by calling them an example of the 'wide range of viewpoints' in a 'diverse and noisy and opinionated' America, he is being too cute by half. He knows full well that a 'viewpoint' defaming any minority group by linking it to sexual crimes like pedophilia is unacceptable."

Or does he?  Rich himself calls the move "tone-deaf".  Could it be that our soon-to-be Commander-in-Chief is not equipped with gaydar?

Rich reasons that the choice of Warren is a "tiny infraction," echoing the opinion of Timothy McCarthy of Harvard who served on Obama's LGBT Leadership Council.  McCarthy offers that the choice of Warren is "symbolic," something Obama apologists have been flogging off as an argument to those who have expressed outrage.  But calling it "symbolic" when the whole ceremony is symbolic, doesn't explain, justify or mitigate the choice.

What it is symbolic of we'll have to wait and see, I guess.

Whatever it ends up being symbolic of, as Rich concludes, "it does add an asterisk to the joyous inaugural of our first black president. It’s bizarre that Obama, of all people, would allow himself to be on the wrong side of this history."