Posts from — March 2008

Isn’t it interesting that when Senator Obama hits back at all the criticism being leveled at him by the Clinton campaign the media jumps all over him for not running the type of dignified campaign he has promised, yet when he doesn’t strike back they assail his as being too passive.

For example the day after Clinton’s adviser blasts Senator Obama for not distancing himself from Rev. Wright, the Obama campaign releases a photo showing then President Clinton with Rev. Wright at the White House and gets accused of dirty politics.

Personally I don’t think Hillary was prepared to have someone like Senator Obama meet her head on but the good thing is now the African American community is getting a real education and hopefully won’t be taken in so easily by some saxophone playing perpetrator who charms them with platitudes while they skip joyfully to his songs like mice after the pied piper.

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So Clinton has apologized for comments made by Geraldine Ferraro. And I don’t suppose that Hillary understands that by apologizing to a “black audience” she will be perceived as pandering to the African American community, which in some people’s minds will only underscore Ferraro’s comments.  Why couldn’t’ she have made her comments while campaigning to a larger mixed audience in Pennsylvania, that would have appeared more sincere, or could it be that she did not want to be perceived by her white supporters as making concessions to the black community.

By speaking to a specific audience she has provided additional fodder to those who already agree with Ferraro’s despicable remarks and also provided me with an additional reason I would never in good conscience vote for anyone as calculating as Hillary Clinton.

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Comments made by Congressman Rep. Steve King are exactly the type of hate mongering that demonstrates the huge gulf between Republicans and other intelligent, reasonable people.  On a talk show the Congressman asserted that based Senator Obama’s pledge to pull troops out of Iraq, his Kenyan heritage and his middle name, Hussein were all causes for serious alarm.  According to Rep. King:

“The radical Islamists, the al-Qaida … would be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on Sept. 11 because they would declare victory in this war on terror,” King said in an interview with the Daily Reporter in Spencer.

Rep. King also hinted at what he thought the rest of the world would be thinking to see Obama as President, an insight I can’t imagine how he would have acquired given his party’s typical “us against the rest of the world” mentaily.  He might, however, as well have completed his sentence by saying precisely what he was hinting at; that seeing a black face as head of a country that claims historical figures such as Patrick Henry, George Washington and the Founding Fathers would almost certainly be blasphemous.  He might as well have completed his thought because at the end of the day we know exactly what he meant.

The problem with this type of Republican paranoia is that they miss the entire picture.  In a country where black people have a history not too far removed from slavery and where the lines of disenfranchisement and second class citizenry are still clearly visible; the overwhelming sense of anger that one thinks would have led to treachery has not manifested itself in  any meaningful way.  Indeed given an opportunity, most African Americans only want to claim their part of the American dream so they can provide for their families and create some type of posterity.  What in that is to be feared somehow escapes me.  Black people and white people in the United States know their histories are inextricably bound, more so than in most other countries and in many ways Senator Obama embodies that reality.

This one candidacy in many ways strips away many of the stereotypes that have been pervasive on both sides of the racial coin and has instead shown us the best in both of us.  In short the reality of a Barack  Obama clearly shows us what a unified America can be.  Rep. King’s remarks are clear proof of a train of thought that is embarrassing, ignorant and increasingly irrelevant in a world where a new day is dawning and that is moving forward in the 21^st century.

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