Quote:
Originally Posted by wetibbe
Know why I stopped bashing Obama a long time ago. Two reasons. One is private and the other is people such as the author of the article.
I'll take one exception that agitates me. The author called Obama black. I like to think of myself as an honest person fundamentally fair and objective
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The author called Obama black? Obama is black. Further, he's hardly a lone voice in the wind referring to the president as an African-American. Almost everyone does. He's not called the first "mixed-origin" president. He's contemporarily perceived as the nation's first "black" chief executive. And this perception is not limited to folks on the political right or in the middle. People on the left are the first to take note of it. When Michael Moore and others complain about Jan Brewer pointing fingers, or Obama's low approval numbers among middle-class voters, they're not complaining that "many Americans" are having "a problem" with "a mixed-race president." They commonly speak about many "whites" disapproving of a "black man" leading the nation.
Further, this author's observations are spot on (and I've been saying the same thing for a couple years now). Wrap Obama up in white skin and he never even wins the Democratic Primary in 2008. This guy being whisked into office, with his credentials and baggage, was a U.S. national election phenomenon w/o precedent. It was really the crest or high water mark of the political correctness wave/fever that has gripped this country and held sway for the past 20 years.
It's not that I think the guy's brain dead or entirely w/o merit. It's just that he's not presidential material in the same fashion as Sonia Sotomayor has no business being on the U.S. Supreme Court. Rightly or wrongly, middle-class Americans largely hold members of unsuccessful minority groups to a lower standard in this country. Further, a whole bunch of us are desperate to see them succeed. We commonly take many of the most promising ones and hand them positions/rewards that they wouldn't have obtained had they been Asian or white. In the name of diversity our best colleges aggressively seek out Latinos and blacks to attend classes on their campuses. Our newspapers and media celebrate occasions when a person of color attains a CEO or political office position that has been previously occupied by members of the majority group. These things are part and parcel of our contemporary national culture.
When this author says that Affirmative Action is a whole lot about making white liberals feel good about themselves, he is spot on. Obama accomplished very little in the real world prior to obtaining the presidency. His career has been entirely unremarkable in Academia, Law, and as a Legislator. Hell, he's not even credited w/ having accomplished much as a "community organizer." Further, his political orientation/ideology is well outside the American mainstream. He's very far left. Candidates far away from the political center (in either direction) rarely obtain the presidency.
Here's reality: If Dennis Kucinich, Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean, or any other white Democrat you can name, had been associated with Bill Ayres, they would never have obtained the nomination. Further, none of them would have been allowed to hide their academic transcripts while campaigning as the Democrat presidential nominee. We simply don't hold blacks and Hispanics to the same standards as we do other Americans. For whatever reason, it's true, and w/o this Affirmative Action mindset, Barack Obama never makes it as far as the U.S. Senate, let alone 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.