Home » Judging Obama’s judgment: it’s found wanting

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Judging Obama’s judgment: it’s found wanting — 76 Comments

  1. It’s just that guy from office space again.

    [But Obama cleared it all up!] Can’t you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?

    heh… yeah… anyone not buying it is biased one.. right…

  2. Now today he says:

    “The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity. But she is a typical white person. If she sees somebody on the street that she doesn’t know. . .there’s a reaction in her that doesn’t go away and it comes out in the wrong way.”

    Typical White person scared of somebody different.

    Obama–when he finds himself in a hole, he has the audacity to keep digging.

  3. I am amazed that the spotlight has not been cast on Obama’s uncritical acceptance of the stable of advisers that Soros’ think-tank and money set him up with.

    Samantha Power (now gone, for the time being)
    Zbigniew Brezhinski
    Robert Malley
    Anthony Lake

    All people with a clear record of how they would handle national security matters and foreign policy. Lake was so odious that he was unanimously rejected by both parties in 1995 when he was nominated to head the CIA. The dossier on his “leaking” of sensitive matter when he was at the State Department and as national security adviser was thick.

    The evidence of his poor judgment will keep piling up. I prefer not to spend much time over his speech and the Wright affair because there is a teflon quality about this – just enough wiggle room afforded by the variants of “guilt by association” that the faithful in his camp are completely unaffected and the media will remain in the tank for him. And the media’s role in his campaign is shameless. That’s a factor that is not going to change going forward, and the implications of this store of advocacy journalism for the nation is awesome.

  4. Fredjr: Yes, the post was getting too long, so I didn’t include other examples of very poor judgment. In his career in Illinois politics, he seemed to feel he had to kiss a lot of frogs: Bill Ayers and Rezco, for example. The real question is whether or not he considers them frogs or princes, or whether he even cares until he gets into trouble for it. And his advisors leave a great deal to be desired, as well.

    Poor, poor, poor judgment.

  5. The questions about Obama have much more to do with judgement than with race. As Fredjr notes above, his choices of national security and foreign policy “advisors”; his association with Tony Rezko (certain to provide more dirt); and his inability to recognize the albatross that “Rev.” Wright was and is. Eloquence can mask a lot, but at bottom, Obama is nothing more or less than an ultra-liberal Chicago machine stooge. Fortunately for the country, more and more people are beginning to find this out.

  6. I love the typical white person remark. We also have tiny little penises.

    Somebody needs to ask Mr. Bridge Builder why he’s dealing in racial stereotypes. I can’t see an honest discussion of race in America based on cliches. I thought the idea was to get past that level of discourse.

  7. “This from a man who tells us at almost every stop along the campaign trail that he has the “judgment to lead.””

    Indeed, from a man who tells us, “Words matter!”

  8. ack! retry. neo, if you read this, please delete the above.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    this news article in the Houston Press:
    http://www.houstonpress.com/2008-02-28/news/barack-obama-screamed-at-me/print

    It was the year 2000 and I was a young hungry reporter in Chicago covering a young hungry state legislator
    by Todd Spivak
    2/28/08

    discusses Obama’s rise in Illinois. Repubs had dominated the Illinois State Legislature for many years. When Dems took control in 2002, Democrat Emil Jones Jr. became majority leader. Savvy political veteran Jones saw an opportunity to gain influence and power in Washington, D.C. He chose Barack Obama as his vessel. Spivak:

    [Emil] Jones had served in the Illinois Legislature for three decades. He represented a district on the Chicago South Side not far from Obama’s. He became Obama’s ­kingmaker.

    Several months before Obama announced his U.S. Senate bid, Jones called his old friend Cliff Kelley, a former Chicago alderman who now hosts the city’s most popular black call-in radio ­program.

    I called Kelley last week and he recollected the private conversation as follows:

    “He said, ‘Cliff, I’m gonna make me a U.S. Senator.’”

    “Oh, you are? Who might that be?”

    “Barack Obama.”

    Jones appointed Obama sponsor of virtually every high-profile piece of legislation, angering many rank-and-file state legislators who had more seniority than Obama and had spent years championing the bills.

    “I took all the beatings and insults and endured all the racist comments over the years from nasty Republican committee chairmen,” State Senator Rickey Hendon, the original sponsor of landmark racial profiling and videotaped confession legislation yanked away by Jones and given to Obama, complained to me at the time. “Barack didn’t have to endure any of it, yet, in the end, he got all the credit.

    “I don’t consider it bill jacking,” Hendon told me. “But no one wants to carry the ball 99 yards all the way to the one-yard line, and then give it to the halfback who gets all the credit and the stats in the record book.”

    During his seventh and final year in the state Senate, Obama’s stats soared. He sponsored a whopping 26 bills passed into law – including many he now cites in his presidential campaign when attacked as inexperienced.

    It was a stunning achievement that started him on the path of national politics – and he couldn’t have done it without Jones.

    Barack is the face, the smile, the good looks, the charisma, the personality, and the empty shell. Barack is apparently an excellent student. He is not a politician to take lightly. He has married well. Beyond that: what has he done? What. Has. He. Done?

    Everyone he’s run against has gotten knocked out of the race against him, for one reason or another: fake signatures on an application for candidacy; sealed divorce/child custody court testimony mysteriously leaked to Chicago media(egads!).

    What has he done? Well, he did twice throw his own grandmother under the bus. So, we know he’s ruthless. There is that.

  9. More sophist moral relativist reductionism and issue deflection from the left. Rev Wright is no more, no less a racist that you, yourself or anyone you hang with are. And besides, Wright is merely talking “truth to whitey”.

    What a despicable lot.

  10. These sermons are preached in many black churches according to Newsweek, via James Taranto, WSJ. Is it any wonder when young black students come from their schools and neighborhoods to the universities and colleges and work world they feel hostile environments? They are taught to hate and fear by their leaders and mentors. And the whites are oblivious. Turn on your radio any Sunday morning to an a.m. station.

  11. The Obamas claim that Barack can “heal our broken souls” or something to that effect. Obama promotes himself as a transcendent, post-racial leader who can unite a divided America.

    How pathetically un-self aware the Obamas are of their actions. If they truly wanted to help a new generation move forward, away from the old prejudices and hatred, they wouldn’t subject their precious daughters (the next generation) to an anti-Semite, anti-white, anti-U.S. liar who distorts history to frighten and further isolate his parishioners.

  12. poignant observation from Christopher Hitchens: he would sell out his grandmother used to be a metaphor for the behavior of sleazy politicians. Obama actually did it.

  13. I remember when I was 13 years old confronting a Baptist preacher about Judgment Day and who could and could not get saved. It seemed unfair to me and I told him so. At 13….

  14. Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh….

    Stop worrying…

    Your pain and hate will go soon go away…

    Your bigotry will disappear…

    You will be reborn into a better world…

    HE will accept your sin…

    All will be forgiven…

    Let Father shoulder your worries…

    Obama 20008

  15. The questions about Obama have much more to do with judgment than with race.

    Very true statement, he did his judgment about the Iraq war, but for twenty years with his godfather pastor Wright he never judged this pastor? Why?

    BTW, where was Pastor Wright before his “Son” promoting himself for presidency?

    BTW, Who is Pastor Wright ?

    Pastor Wright church is a separatist church, Barak’s Mother can’t go to Wright’s church?

  16. Step back and look at what Obama and Wright offers a Hamas or any other islamic terrorist group.

    A network of untouchables inside America. I’m still betting we won’t see this church touched by any serious investigation into its tax exempt status.

  17. Neo: I apologize for my ad hominem; I should not have written in the heat of the moment: sometimes it is difficult to be polite when talking about politics. Re bias: I meant political inclinations. It is just my sense that whereas before the rhetoric was that Obama was “empty”, now he is being filled with all sorts of bad things–for assuredly, if it wasn’t his church, it would be something else that reveals his poor judgement, moral cowardice, etc.

  18. One last thing, from EJ Dionne in today’s Washington Post, a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968: “God didn’t call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war. . . . And we are criminals in that war. We’ve committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world, and I’m going to continue to say it. And we won’t stop it because of our pride and our arrogance as a nation. But God has a way of even putting nations in their place.” King then predicted this response from the Almighty: “And if you don’t stop your reckless course, I’ll rise up and break the backbone of your power.”
    Now– as Dionne says, this does not excuse Obama’s church association, if excuse is needed; but it does say something about the sometimes overheated rhetoric of church ministers.

  19. So we’re supposed to pretend that we don’t already know the following.. in other words,… as you say.. just keep looking for any ole reason to dismiss him?

    – Attends racist church for 20+ years
    – Racist pastor is his father figure
    – Has shady associates with Antoin Rezko
    – Was a stooge for Emil Jones
    – “Plagerizes” other people’s past political rhetoric
    – Lies about what he knew about his church
    – Crumbles under the assault of EIGHT whole questions by the media
    – Gives a typical Democatic Party non-apology apology regarding his associations with racists and implies that all of america is racist, not him
    – Mischaracterizes the nature of his evil white g-mother’s racism
    – He has two public lives and one of them is a lie. The typical Cook County Democratic Party loyalist.. or Messiah for all Leftists.

    And then of course are all his socialist and unilateral disarmenent policies that would destroy this country.

  20. Not all that long ago Jesse Jackson said h was pained about it but when he heard footsteps behind him late at night he was relieved if the person was white.

    So Jesse and Grandma have similar reactions. What’s so racist about Grandma’s, then?

    I live in Detroit and I can state, unhappily, that even among many black leaders who can by no stretch of the imagination be termed antisemitic, antisemitism itself is not a disqualification in others.

  21. Jews and working class whites are a good part of traditional Democrat constituency. Now Obama can lose many, may be, a majority of these votes. In a rather close contest of general election this fact can not be ignored, and now Democrat leadership stands before a very hard decision.

  22. md:
    “We’ve committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world, and I’m going to continue to say it. And we won’t stop it because of our pride and our arrogance as a nation.

    Not that a despicable liberal like yourself is able to make that distinction. Truth to moonbat is that we’ve liberated many more millions than the self serving mealy mouthed empty rhetoric spouting liberals like your self and your socialist European brothers that sit back and watch atrocities happen then give excuses for why they cant intervene in some cases, or deploy to the odd African hotspot and make victims of ethnic wars victims of a sex slave trade.

    You people have absolutely no grounds to judge, being the greatest hypocrites than any other religious cult out there.

    Have a nice day.

  23. I almost wish this whole business had never come up. For a while there, I was NOT thinking of Obama as “the black candidate.” I’m also thinking that Obama wasn’t running as “the black candidate.” Which I thought was nice for America.

    Guess I can forget about that now. I’m always whining about the previous election being all about Vietnam. Looks like this one’s all about Reconstruction. Can’t escape history, can we?

  24. Bugs , we can easily escape history when a black candidate runs for office who has proper experience and a forthcoming policy agenda.

    This person will be a Republican.

  25. I have been maligned, denigrated and insulted.

    Do I get my moment in the sun or do I have to shut up because the ancestors of other people indulged in slavery?

    Just wonderin’.

  26. Roger that, Bill, I just wanted to make sure that I would be properly forgiven for the sins of others if I vote for the black guy. This is quite painless when you think about it.

    One more question: if I assist in getting the Messiahâ„¢ elected, will the idea of reparations finally go away? I have a hard time ponying up the cash for past slavery considering my ancestors didn’t wash-up at Ellis Island until the early 1900’s.

    Please advise and send an “Obama for All Purpose Healer 2008” sign for my yard.

  27. > One more question: if I assist in getting the Messiahâ„¢ elected, will the idea of reparations finally go away? I have a hard time ponying up the cash for past slavery considering my ancestors didn’t wash-up at Ellis Island until the early 1900’s.

    Me too. If the idea is that slavery is a hereditary and racially-assigned sin that can be offset by dollars, surely the life of one of my ancestors from Indiana who fought in the the Civil War amongst other things to end slavery must offset that assigned sin? Maybe I can get a rebate since the entire lost life of my great-great-grandfather would seem to be worth more than my assigned share of guilt for whatever fractional portion of a slave I am guilty for by race?

    This math is too hard. I think I’ll shut up and vote for racial healing too.

  28. Unless your ancestor was a member of one of the black regiments of the Union Army, you are completely out of luck. It matters not that they fought to end slavery because they were white and were therefore “typical” of whites everywhere who are afraid of people who don’t look like them.

    Also, since you are descended from such a typical white person, you too are typical, i.e. you are afraid of people who don’t look like you.

    So yes, please vote for the Messiahâ„¢ and consider your conscience cleansed.

    You will still have to pay for reparations though.

  29. Let’s be honest if you dislike Obama because of ‘his callous use of his grandmother in this recent speech’ well then you’re not really thinking much. Talk about a trivial trivial thing.
    In fact why dislike him at all? Why not just disagree and move on.
    Let me answer my own question.
    Could it be because you are unable to move on and talk about real issues? That it is easier to bash Obama in the same trivial way the Left bashes those they dislike?
    Let’s have a real discussion about his stance on the war, on immigration, on NAFTA etc.

  30. Even MLK bought Cronkite’s lies and misleading commentary about Vietnam.

    That was the point, md, right?

  31. TWP, I’ve thought the same thing re Ellis Island.

    To immigrant walking down gangplank: “Welcome to America, you white racist oppressor of the black man!”

    Immigrant: “What?” or “Cosa? or “Que?” or “Was?an “

  32. Character is a real issue, Matt. By far the most important issue, since it provides insight into a candidate might react to a presently unforeseen contigency.

  33. I am contemptious of Obama because he has two public faces.. one of which is a lie. I dont respect liars. I am not “inspired” by liars. I am not fooled by their insincere and calculated rhetoric.

    And also, I am from Chicago. So I know a bit about his world of politics works and it’s a cesspool.

    Plus he’s brittle when challenged and a lightweight when he has to speak without prepared text.

    The text below is me copy and pasting from a comment i made earlier.

    THese items all show a profound difference from the man he pretends to be on the campaign trail:

    – Attends racist church for 20+ years
    – Racist pastor is his father figure
    – Has shady associates with Antoin Rezko
    – Was a stooge for Emil Jones
    – “Plagerizes” other people’s past political rhetoric
    – Lies about what he knew about his church
    – Crumbles under the assault of EIGHT whole questions by the media
    – Gives a typical Democatic Party non-apology apology regarding his associations with racists and implies that all of america is racist, not him
    – Mischaracterizes the nature of his evil white g-mother’s racism
    – He has two public lives and one of them is a lie. The typical Cook County Democratic Party loyalist.. or Messiah for all Leftists.

    And then of course are all his socialist and unilateral disarmenent policies that would destroy this country.

    So no.. we are not being trivial.

    What are your reasons for supporting him? Please try not to be trivial when you list his accomplishments and your substantiation for any claim of his potential ablities.

  34. Occam’s Beard
    What character are we talking about? That he hates his grandmother or something silly like that?

    Dare I suggest that many on the right are making an issue out of this because his grandmother is an elderly woman? In other words, it’s a political correct position that feeds our maternal feelings but doesn’t really make a point beyond that.
    If he had said the same thing about his [white] cousin Tom I can guarantee you nobody would be saying, ‘He threw his cousin Tom under a bus!”

  35. No, you’ve missed the point entirely. That he pubicly repeated something his grandmother said in a private moment, thereby thrusting her into the glare of publicity, all to save his worthless ass. Nothing to do with her age or sex. You’d think raising Obama – when no one, and I mean no one, not even his mother, and God knows not his worthless father – wanted him would earn the grand parents a scintilla of respect and affection.

    But then you’d be wrong. Serpent’s tooth and all that. That sucks.

  36. Occam’s Beard

    With respect. Obama gave a 45 minute speech. This was one small part of his speech.
    And what’s the big deal about admitting that your grandmother might — you know — harbor these thoughts? She’s from a different generation and it can be difficult for people to understand that. When Obama was young he had to deal with this white / black divide. I am sure it surprised him that she had such thoughts. And so he is personalizing this matter to illustrate a point that one cannot disown those we love because they harbor feelings we are uncomfortable with.
    At this point I think this is simply just a silly Left / Right issue. No Democrat I have talked to ground down his entire speech to one sound byte. Instead they heard it as a time to talk about race and rise above acrimony, bitterness and, yes, Reverend Whites despicable diatribes.
    I think Obama is ready for that conversation.
    You?

  37. Matt doesn’t seem to know that Obama has attituted Grandma’s racism to two mutally exclusive things.

    In his book, Obama blames Granny’s racism on a very specific physical attack or threat upon her by a black man.. which stayed with her from then on.

    And yesterday , Obama blames Granny’s racism on her being a “typical white person”

    No need to go searching our personalities when the facts are there in the open to distrust Obama.

  38. one of which is a lie. I don’t respect liars.

    Yap, GWB and all who around him what are they?
    They Are bunch of lairs, isn’t Vince P?

    This style of administrations well fit to lead US nation in the future?

    People like Sally and other who sympathized with lairs and argue OK here if some one lie,then they deserve to follow lairs.

  39. Vince P
    That’s not my reading from Obama’s book. It is not uncommon for white folks growing up in the 50’s and 60’s to be wary of black folks. It’s an ugly honest truth. If she was threatened then that would make her more wary. Not racist perhaps.

    Second the ‘typical white person’ remark is out of context. Even Chris Wallace over at FOX admits this and asks that people stop Obama bashing.

  40. I dont respect GWB. Who said I did?

    Oh yah, supporting his mighty God war in Iraq, or with all what US in doing in Iraq, all this and coming here telling you are not? who is the ” idiot” here?

  41. Matt, he hung her out to dry, before a worldwide audience. That’s a personal betrayal of the first water. He might have been dismayed to hear her comment (I gather made in the heat of the moment), but then she’s probably dismayed to find out what’s been said in Obama’s church – and not in the heat of the moment, but on cold reflection.

    Suppose Granny now called a press conference and announced that Obama confessed to her that he had gay tendencies as a youth, or said that Obama had not had any racial consciousness (not so hard to do in Hawaii) until rejected by a blue-eyed haole girl, after which he became “black.”

    That would suck, don’t you think, because Granny would be betraying a trust?

    Furthermore, everyone – everyone – has said something disparaging about another group, something that he wouldn’t want repeated in public. (Cut someone off in traffic and then read their lips if you doubt this.)

    Obama probably calls Hillary a “white bitch” (or worse) on an hourly basis, when out of microphone range. (Recall Jesse Jackson’s “Hymietown” remark – to a reporter, no less! Imagine what he says to the brothers.)

    As for talking about race, we’ve done that way too much already. (God knows there’s been no shortage of talk about it the last 40 years.) Race hucksters love it, because it keeps them in full employment, but it does no one else any good. It’s time to move past extreme racial sensitivity, and that includes talking about it incessantly.

  42. Ah, well its nice to see that Obamessiah has to come down to earth with the rest of us, at least for the time being.

    Sorry but you can’t disown your past and Barry’s past happens to include a long association with a racist demagogue. People want an explanation, not a cursory brush-off that we just don’t understand.

  43. Matt likes to ask the questions, but apparently trying to get him to answer is another story.

    Still waiting for the answer to :

    “What are your reasons for supporting him? Please try not to be trivial when you list his accomplishments and your substantiation for any claim of his potential ablities.”

  44. Vince P
    I’m not sure I support him. I’m a Democrat who has little choice. I wouldn’t mind Hillary but I think Obama sets a tone as an outsider willing to change. Trivial perhaps. The lack of experience doesn’t mean much. He won’t be in Washington alone. He’s also more liberal than Hillary and [gasp] I’m a liberal. But, again, a lack of choice leaves much to be desired. And I won’t vote for McCain – although it’s nice to see a moderate for a change.

    Occam’s Beard
    Tomato – tomatoe. Where I see a personal story you see violation. I still think if he said it about a white male cousin nobody would have made a fuss.

    Typical White Person
    I’m not sure what that means?

  45. Matt: and if Obama had said it about a white random person on the street people wouldn’t have been as upset, either.

    But it just so happens he didn’t. He said it about his grandmother, who loved and raised him and is in her 80s right now and ill.

    I disagree that people wouldn’t have made a fuss about the white male cousin, by the way. They just would have made a lot less of a fuss then his talking about his grandmother. If you don’t get the difference, I can’t explain it to you.

    And the fuss they would have made (even about the cousin) is this: there is no equivalence between Wright’s racism, which is overt, and includes a hatred for the US, and the mild remarks of whatever relative Obama is quoting. There’s no “on the one hand, this, on the other hand, that.”

    And, by the way, I don’t dislike Obama. He’s actually a likeable guy. But we’re not going out for drinks together (which I wouldn’t mind doing). He’s running for POTUS.

    And—let me repeat this one more time—he shows a remarkable lack of the judgment and character and backbone required for that office.

    Oh, and also—why wouldn’t you vote for McCain? Lots of Democrats—even liberals—are considering it.

  46. Well said, neo. I don’t dislike Obama either; he sank in my estimation for stepping on Granny, but not irretrievably so, although owing to his politics I have no intention of voting for him.

    I find a great contrast between Obama ratting out Granny (as I see it – I know you don’t) and McCain refusing to tell Elisabeth Bumiller the substance of Kerry’s private conversation with McCain re running as his VP (the video clip on McCain’s jet a few weeks ago). McCain acted as I would have; Obama did not. A private conversation is a private conversation, not to be repeated without permission. I know we see the matter differently, Matt, so let’s just agree to disagree, then.

    The curious thing for me is that Obama doesn’t seem to resent his father, who abandoned him as an infant. Perhaps neo can shed some light on this, but I’d have thought that dear old long-gone Dad would come in for some opprobrium (make that a lot of opprobrium).

  47. Sorry, the “I know you don’t” was directed to Matt, not neo. I recast the paragraph and overlooked that bit.

  48. Our country is under seige on all fronts by radical Islam.. Iran is on the verge of having nuclear weapons. The country is basically at the breaking point in regards to carrying any more debt.. the currency is in the crapper.. Baby Boomer retirees are about to dip into their retirement investiments and the entitlement programs are on the verge of going insulvent.

    And the democrat here who is so agaisnt “triviality” leans toward Obama because Obama reads a script about what a swell guy he himself is. Apparently not concerned at all about all the deceptions that have already been uncovered, by chance, in the course of about two weeks.

    This country is getting everything it deserves. A nation with our heritage, power, and responsibliy is filled with self-centered ignorant leftists who reject all of it because they want a utopia.

    Well the utopia is coming and will end as they always do.

  49. Matt: The lack of experience doesn’t mean much. He won’t be in Washington alone.

    No, he won’t. And that puts its finger right on the problem — lack of experience coupled with, putting it at its mildest, questionable judgment, particularly in the choice of associates or advisers, should give even liberals some serious concerns. Those not still hypnotized by the Glow, that is.

  50. neo-neocon

    While, yes, a grandmother is typically more off limits than some random cousin – I don’t think Obama is using his grandmother for political gain. But if he is using her for political gain then conversely by pointing out that he ‘threw her under a bus’ are you not too doing the same? Trying to make points against Obama for being cold and insensitive to an elderly grandmother?
    I have no doubt Obama [or you] are sincere here. But I don’t see the calculated politician that you perhaps do. But even if he was mistaken to use the comparison I see the entirety of his speech. And it was a good one.

    McCain is a strong supporter of continuing this war. While I am all for getting Al Quada I don’t think the Iraq war has been the way to do it. I think it has burned more bridges than it has made. Staying the course has not worked. McCain won’t change the course. Otherwise, I think McCain is a good guy. [Although the Keating affair does raise eyebrows].

  51. Occam’s Beard: I wrote a post today about Obama and his father. I don’t know whether you saw it yet.

    The answer to your question is that it’s very common to make allowances for the parent who left and rejected you. The anger is often reserved for the one who stays, because it’s safer to use that parent as a target. The child yearns for the love of the one who left.

  52. Matt: when last I checked, I wasn’t running for office. So I’m not using anyone for political gain.

    Also, when last I checked, Obama was not a beloved relative who’d raised me. And so I don’t quite see the equivalence.

    I sometimes think one of the strangest habits of some liberals I know is the one you just demonstrated—a bizarre sort of equivalence of the part standing for the whole. Is all criticism alike to you?

  53. Matt: Can you highlight examples from history where one side in a war decides it doesnt’ want to fight anymore and the other side of the war is determined to destroy thier enemy… and so the former stops fighting.. what effect did that have on thier commited foe?

  54. Interesting, neo, thanks.

    No, I hadn’t seen it. I’m (nominally, at least) working (yes!) in between posts, and hadn’t noticed it yet. The psychology is fascinating, and just shows how irrational we humans can be.

  55. We have white people accused of “typically”being suspicious and judgemental of blacks.

    You have people like Rev Wright giving whites perfectly plausible reasons for being suspicious.

    Could we possibly be seeing evidence that blacks are secretly terrified of not being propped up by this cycle of pseudo oppression?

    I think so.

  56. Giving Obama (and Matt) the benefit of the doubt – do you think it’s even possible for anyone to give any sort of speech about race in this country and not say something stupid?

    If you or any of us could write the definitive uplifting speech about race in America, how would it go?

  57. neo-neocon

    Yes, there is gain for you. You have a political blog. Why else would you post opinions about a candidate you don’t want to win unless you were hoping to be heard and thus make a difference? Nothing wrong with that. But that’s working within the system and thereby gaining something in return – like a Republican victory. Or gratification as a political analyst. You are not in an echo chamber or just posting as you would a private diary. If so what’s the point? I have an art blog. Why? Because I want to introduce art, or music or videos that I like to people.

    And so I don’t quite see the equivalence
    You mean making a point about Rev Wright and his grandmother? If so, I clearly see the equivalence. Both of these people are important to him. That’s the point. He loves them despite their imperfections.

    Is all criticism alike to you?
    Not sure what you mean?

  58. Matt: Your problem—and this is true for almost all your arguments here—is that you don’t understand that differences in degree are important. For example, most human actions have some sort of self-interest or gain involved. So that yes, of course, I get some sort of gain and satisfaction from writing this blog. And yes, I suppose in some tiny way (and believe me, it’s pretty infinitesimal at this point) I do get to influence politics. But to compare any political gain or influence I get from this blog to the gain or influence Obama seeks from his quest for the Presidency is utterly absurd.

    And yes, of course, Obama loves both people despite their imperfections. But that is hardly relevant to the point I was making, which is about the relative degree of those imperfections. There is no comparision whatsoever. It’s like comparing gangrene to a paper cut. And Obama owes more loyalty to his grandmother than he does to Wright, so his criticism of her is worse in that sense as well.

    I can’t make it any clearer than that.

  59. A modest proposal: since both Obama and neo get satisfaction from influencing politics, I propose that they both eschew all political activity henceforth.

    Fair enough? /g

  60. neo-neocon
    you don’t understand that differences in degree are important.

    I’m asking for you to understand nuance in Obama’s speech and you turn the tables and say I don’t understand degree? Love it.
    I still say many are playing politics and making political points by using this to essentially peg Obama as an ungrateful grandson – therefore a bad person – therefore a bad candidate, etc.
    I DO think Obama has a problem due to Rev Wright – that we can agree on. But I don’t believe he compared his grandmother to Wright. He is instead talking about the nature of racism and his personal feelings to try and understand it. There is a degree of difference there.
    That said I see almost no way he could denounce Wright given their history. But one CAN denounce someone’s viewpoint or politics and still like them. Would you agree?
    I won’t say you are wrong. It is your viewpoint. Maybe we are essentially both right. But perhaps that’s too postmodern?

  61. I’m asking for you to understand nuance in Obama’s speech
    NUANCE: Obama made his grandmother’s and Wright’s statements equivalent. What NUANCE is involved there?

    He called his grandmother a “typical white person,” as if the typical white person finds out that the father of the son-in-law does not want his family sullied by the blood of a white woman, as if the typical white person raises an interracial grandchild for 8 years. That isn’t NUANCE, that is a SLEGEHAMMER.

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