The title of this piece is sarcastic of course and I want to take a moment to reiterate and focus on what defenders of Obama have said to me this morning. I happen to be an expert on racism - not in the academic way, but in the writer's way. I've isolated it philosophically and can be very precise in discussing it in the context of my worldview. It's not moving anywhere in my head.
Essentially it boils down to this. Calling Obama 'socialist' is 'racist'. Because it's a lie that he's socialist and there's only one reason people would lie about Obama - because he's black. There. I've said it. I have encapsulated the accumulated outrage of 20 million Americans in two sentences. I'm just brilliant, I am.
But I'm being sarcastic there too. What I think is really going on, quite seriously, is that Obama's weaknesses are turning the spotlights on all the cockroaches. When they run out of good reasons to support the man, and they refuse to understand why others do not, they assume the worst. What started off as a kind of awe inspired moment just a few months ago has soured into a lot of paranoid backbiting. I can recall when the overwhelming sentiment of blackfolks I was hearing was a kind of inspired pride and wistful longing that if only their dead grandparents could be around to see this day. And now that there is a possibility that Obama might lose - that this newbie can't win the world series his first time out, that it only proves their worst fears about racism are true. Obama has not demonstrated that he can unite the country. Nor has McCain, for that matter. 10% of blackfolks are still undecided. 20% of independent voters can't make up their minds. The issues that matter most have not been sufficiently addressed. We have a genuine Red vs Blue battle, not quite as starkly as 2004 but vivid nonetheless with a moderate Conservative and a moderating Lefty. But there are people out there for whom this difference *has* to be about race.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, another way. Sarah Palin is enormously popular with Americans. So is NASCAR. So is hunting, fishing and hockey. Dogsledding and snowmobiling... ehh no. But there are many Americans who feel perfectly comfortable going out of their way to disrespect those who enjoy NASCAR. As far as I'm concerned the only people who have a right are F1 and Rolex Cup fans like me. (Go Hamilton!) My point is that it's an old tired gripe that is destructive. I don't think that the people who say these things have any idea how their commentary is taken - I don't imagine they must care much. Their sense of outrage outweighs all other considerations. I find it tiresome and undignified, and I personally don't believe that Obama would approve their messages.
At least one of my interlocutors had the good sense to suggest that the controversy of Wright was indeed racial - and that's what it was all about. Some like to think it meant more than it did and of course they had their moment in the glare. But that was something everybody could see. There's a reason, of course, that the race card has to be played here. Because there are racists in America. (gasp). For those people who feel that it's the racists who are the cause of the attenuation of their hopes and dreams, there will always be some public figure for them to glom onto. It pays for Obama to have that demographic pushing his truck, but don't believe he'll let them under the hood. He swapped out the Wright engine. He swapped out the Ayers engine. He'll swap out the cockroaches too. Cool it baby. Mark my words.
I also want to say something else that I don't think I've said often enough, but my absolutely favorite Right Radio show is the Dennis Miller Show. Every day he genuinely does make me bust a gut laughing - but he's also an extraordinarily fine judge of character, and like me, he's a post-9/11 convert with a genuine grown ass man perspective on the loony-tunes that pass for thinking people. As stand-up guy in Hollywood, he really knows, and his get on Obama is spot on.
What is Miller's take? Basically that he's Mr. Smooth and smart enough to know exactly how long he needs to hang on to a deniable asset.
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