Must-read of the day
TV writer Cinque Henderson writes an insightful piece in The New Republic titled “Maybe We Can’t – The black case for Obama-skepticism.” In it, he talks about the fact that he is a minority within the minority – a black man who supports Hillary Clinton, and points out, as other writers (including yours truly) have, about how the Obama campaign played the race card in SC. He also slams Obama himself for his race speech in Philadelphia. Snippets:
[…] As the son of a Baptist minister, I can attest that Wright is and was an extreme aberration from how the overwhelming majority of black Christians worship. In church, black people hear about Peter, Paul, Mary, and how to get into heaven. How to forgive. How to love. Not how to vote.
But here was Barack suggesting that Wright’s behavior was commonplace in black churches: “I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.” He generalized Wright’s ridiculousness to distract from his individual choice to worship under a buffoon for two decades. I have a cousin who attended Wright’s church for three weeks and then left, never to return. She had no interest in hearing his nonsense from the pulpit.
Barack obscured the true nature of black religious life because, to do otherwise, he would have had to answer the question, “Why are you a member of a church that is this racially divisive and such a sharp aberration to how the rest of black people worship?” When Barack beautifully suggested that the beliefs pronounced from the pulpit of Trinity in Chicago are not uncommon, he was feeding us garbage. But Barack needed to protect his reputation as a race-healer and unifier, so he told a lie about black religious life to help keep the glow of his own reputation alive. And now the evidence suggests that Barack didn’t, in the end, break with Wright over his outrageous racial claims, but over his suggestion that Barack is just a politician.
That so many people have a stake in ignoring these real concerns is troubling. At least the Hillary supporters I know seem to be aware of her more unsavory traits: that she carries a knife with her that she could pull out at any minute. Not so with Obama’s fans. It’s nearly impossible to get them to admit any wrong in him. Given the choice, I prefer to side with the group that knows their candidate can be a jerk, rather than the group that believes their candidate is Jesus.
Read the whole thing.
In related news, Barry O. has, unsurprisingly, taken issue with President Bush’s implication while in Israel that the O-man and other Democrats favor the appeasement route over all others when it comes to fighting terror. For the record, Bush never actually said Obama’s name, but according to CNN, WH aides “privately acknowledged” it was a dig at Obama and other Democrats.
Well, when you admit you’d meet unconditionally with some of the world’s most notorious despots, you kinda sorta set yourself up for those kinds of accusations …
Update: Isn’t it mildly amusing to see the Obama campaign so defensive about this? Considering Bush didn’t name anyone specifically in his speech, it’s interesting that Obama apparently just assumed it was about him. Methinks the gent doth protest too much, eh?