Some observations about the presidential campaigns thus far:
We are glad, on some level, that the Barackster has raised the dialogue on race. We all dance around it. Most of us pretend to be comfortable with it, but few of us understand it because it is not our experience. We do believe he brings an unusual perspective, given his life experience, and we think he continues to struggle with his own identity to this day. Cynical people will debate his motive, but we think his addressing his own life and problems with his culture add momentum to understanding. We just do.
We don't for one second think Obama's defense of his former pastor, however, is going to go away. The speech had impact, was elegant and won't be soon forgotten. It will allow him to dodge it in the primary season, but he can expect it to return if indeed he does meet John McCain in the general election. The debate he'll face has been fully outlined on talk radio this week. Republicans can hardly wait to take him on.
We do fee like this Democratic primary season is over. The Barackster feels more presidential. While he's talking about issues, Hillary is whining about delegates. He's leading the conversation. She's reacting. Sure she's fighting for her political life, but in Michigan, trust us here, voters care about jobs, finances and feeding their families. Her parachuting into Detroit — a once-proud place that has been sold out by corruption — looked calculated if not desperate.
If we are to do the cipherin' here — quoting the great math scholar Jethro Bodeen — she can't win. Not even a do-over primary in Michigan would tip it. How she exits elegantly, we are uncertain. One thing we believe is this: video did kill the radio star and with the younger generations, having someone who is the face of hope is a big deal. Whether he can deliver is hard to say. But for the youth of this country at least — and it's uncertain if they'll vote — they want someone who projects hope, who looks vibrant, not like their grandfather, who can make them believe that politics and our whole Democratic process isn't just something in textbooks. On that level, Obama is energizing people who didn't care before.
In other funner news, the first J-Lo baby pics are online today at PEOPLE.com. Everyone, it seems, is preggers or giving birth in Hollywood these days. They are among the few who afford kids, it would seem.
— Andrea Billups, The Washington Times
Comments (5)
I am sure it will be a wonderful, enlightening campaign conducted at the highest levels of civility and class by all parties involved.
Let me guess. From the Right it will be a non-stop litany of outrageous quotes from anyone who has ever been within 10 feet of Obama and from the Left we will hear non-stop allusions to McCain's impending dementia every time he misspeaks himself.
Barring a very serious gaffe by either Obama or McCain, the election will probably be determined by the state of the economy and the perceived success -- or lack thereof -- of the war in Iraq.
Posted by Lucita | March 20, 2008 11:40 AM
I don't need Obama, the good shepherd, to lead me out of the racial darkness in which I don't live: race isn't something that leaves most of us feeling lost or marooned. I mean, I live with a sense of history, and with a sense that racial equality is a sensitive issue about which I have to take a proactive moral stand to keep things moving in the right direction - unlike Obama and his wife and Wright and Farrakan and Sharpton and Jackson...but with no sense of racial guilt. If Obama wants to cash in on slavery and oppression then he must tell the whole story: free Blacks owned slaves. Africans owned other African slaves. Africans and all other people sold their own into slavery. Children and women are still sold into sexual slavery and labor slavery and I don't see Obama righting that wrong. Slavery is the problem and the guilt of ALL people. Blacks are not innocent of that immoral tragedy. Obama never tells things as they are - he's an equivocator, like Bill Clinton. As Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby noted, "When Don Imus uttered his infamous slur on the radio last year, Obama cut him no slack. Imus should be fired, he said. 'There's nobody on my staff who would still be working for me if they made a comment like that about anybody of any ethnic group.'" So when an issue suits his purpose, Obama seizes it and when an issue doesn't serve his purpose, Obama's moral and ethical guideline disappears. He had the same problem with Rezko. The Obamas had no problem dealing with a criminal when the Obamas profited - that mansion they own was just too good to pass up to let ethics get in the way.
Slavery was everywhere - white people didn't invent it so any incomplete discussion of it is unworthy of a candidate who self-presents as above it all - morally superior to everyone else even though he condoned Wright's racist ugliness by sitting through those sermons and exposing his daughters to that vile garbage. Obama thinks Americans are fools and blind. We are neither and we don�t see Obama the way he sees himself, primarily because that image doesn't exist. His hope is hopeless when he crushes it with his false self.
What little institutional racism there is - and not just against Blacks - exists in airless pockets where public scrutiny has not yet found it. When it's found, it's crushed as it should be.
The race card that Obama plays isn't valid anymore and white guilt doesn't exist. Americans owe no one their votes and especially not because of the color of their skin or their gender. Obama and Clinton are both pathetic in their attempt to make either any part of a presidential bid. Americans care about policy and truthfulness and honor and love of their great country, not the pitiful, contemptible, paltry attempt to garner our votes through pity and supposed righting of injustice. Obama and Clinton are shams and should be embarrassed by their falsity. Their failure to be so supports their emptiness and dangerous self-centered ambition.
Posted by scarlettsnow | March 20, 2008 5:26 PM
Barack Obama played "the race card" to win the South Carolina primary. Those accusations of "racism" did not come from thousands, or even hundreds of African American voters all over the coutnry "seeing" any racism in the Clinton's verbiage.
Those accusations of racism came directly from the Obama campaign. They were caught RED-HANDED Pushing those accusations to The PRESS - in an internal campaign MEMO ... obtained and published online by the Huffinton Post.
The Mainstream & TV media subsequently "reported" ... that FACT ... ever so sightly and ever so Briefly. Tim Russert on an MSNBC debate the following night ... while rustling a copy of the 4 page MEMO in his hand ... murmured a question to Obama ... your campaign was pushing those accusations of racism to the press ... what do you have to say about that?
Obama muttered a few remarks about how people in both campaigns got carried away & said things they shouldn't. AND THERE THE MATTER was DROPPED by the TV News/Mainstream Media.
OBAMA never had to REPUDIATE those accusations, Apologize for those accusations, or FIRE anyone for making those accusations. HE and the Press just let the TV "news" go on and on with "talking heads" & Obama surrogates on TV everyday repeating those accusations ... UNCHALLENGED ... day after day.
The day after he won the South Carolina primary Obama said: "I'm not the 'black candidate'. I'm the candidate for all the people."
No. He was not the 'black candidate' UNTIL he Made Himself the Black Candidate, and, continued making himself the black candidate - by proceeding to this day with his -RIDICULOUS-accusations of "racism" against the Clintons.
In REALITY he is HALF-Black but he very obviously does not "identify" with his white ancestors/family. He attends a black church. He threw his white grandmother, who sacrificed for him and loves him, under the bus -by bringing her -into- a contretemps about his pastor.
Then, today, he calls his grandmother "a typical white woman". Diminishing, demeaning, and dismissing her as ... nobody special, to him ... just "a typical white woman". No words of sympathy or understanding for her feelings or past experiences -- he just said that her insensitive words made him Cringe.
Reserved his words of sympathy and understanding for the Rev Wright's feelings and past experiences - rendering the Rev. Wrights' insensitive remarks .. A-Ok, not cringeable?
It is obvious to me that Obama resents and finds fault with his white grandmother's ... politically incorrect remarks ... while failing to resent or find fault with his black pastors remarks.
Obama has not come to terms with his mixed Whiteness/Blackness accepting BOTH into a unified WHOLE Self. He values and identifies with black - resents and repudiates his own whiteness and the "whiteness" of others ... just as his ... spiritual leader ... the Rev. Wright does.
Now, if its Ok for 91% of black people to vote for Obama because he's black - is it Ok for 91% of white people to vote for Clinton because she's white? ... and ... 91 % of women to vote for her because she's a woman?
The FACT is Obama would have been OUT of this race months ago IF he had not Played the RACE CARD and MADE HIMSELF the Black Candidate.
Posted by elme | March 21, 2008 2:02 AM
As a 58-yr old white guy, I don't mind Obama referring to his grandmother as "a typical white person". I just take it as him granting permission to me to refer to someone else as "a typical black person". My only problem is, I don't know any "typical" black people. I have many friends, of many colors, from many different stations in life. None of them can be called "typical" of whites, or blacks, or Asians, or Jews.
Posted by Nick in Virginia | March 21, 2008 12:29 PM
Here is the main problem with talking to anyone about racism in America and especially with black people. It doesn't matter what color you are except if you're black.
To me, being black does not have anything to do with the life that I am living...I have a beautiful wife and wonderful pet. Every place I go for entertainment, education, work and especially vacation and church do not care that I am black. WHY??? Because I don't care what color the people that I deal with are. We are making a big deal about racism in America because we are being told by the Media that we are supposed to make a big deal about it. I give you the best advice that I ever heard on this or any other issue that most become offended by - my father. "Don't ever argue with the ignorant, people won't be able to tell who is winning."
Seems to me that the Rev Jeremiah Wright Jr is the most ignorant man in the news right now. If you are a baby-boomer, than he is no different than a lot of the folks that we grew up watching on those old news reels that we used to watch about segregation and the south in the 1950's and 60's. Maybe in his church he has signs posted "Black's Only" and "All Others", but I digress.
I believe more in nature than in people. Nature doesn't lie to you, whatever you see...that's pretty much it. Barack Obama and his family have spent 20+ years in this church listening to this man and voluntarily nodding (agreeing) weekly to whatever came out of this guy's mouth. Now, the Democratic Party want Mr. Obama to be the next President of the United States. We as the people in America have only one problem that we should have figured out with Bill Clinton and George Bush, WE DON'T HAVE ANY CONTROL WITH OUR VOTE WHO GETS TO BE THE PRESIDENT!!! This is controlled by the Electoral College, if they can't get it right then it is up to the Senate of the United States to cast their votes. We the people stopped counting a long time ago. If you don't believe me, try going to the Capitol Building sometime soon. You know, the people's building...just getting into the place requires hazzard pay. And what has caused all this grief with racism? The American People's Lack Of GUTS!
Today, the American People are COWARDS!!! They don't want to offend anyone by saying anything that could even be thought of as politically incorrect. Now it seem that by not being so offended that now we want and are willing to put another racist in the White House. Don't think that there haven't been racist men in this position...just take a look at the the Presidential list. From George Washington to George W. Bush, I believe that you can pick 5 leaders at best who would not be considered racist.
The rantings of an ignorant "minister" and a foolish "I'm So Sorry" speach by Mr. Obama who refers to his own grandmother as a "typical white person" and the "here-here's of Mrs. Clinton and suddenly the Presidential race is a sunny, happy place to be and everyone is wonderful and love each other. If these people are the best that we can do for the biggest job in America than we as Americans deserve whatever it is we get.
Good Luck
Posted by Thomas Wood | March 23, 2008 2:41 AM