Affirmative action Obama?

A recent article in the Washpost attacked Obama in most venomous terms as an 'affirmative action' President. It was a very nasty piece that it was only his colour that got him elected.

Let me begin with a principle of American politics that is continually forgotten and neglected. Namely, American presidential elections are popularity contests. You know this. We are not like the UK and Europe and their strong party/ideology base. but rather like the audience of the X Factor voting for the candidate that best takes possession of us. Granted, we don't always get it right, but often our choice is not the best of the best, but the best of less desirable candidates.

To be sure, O grabbed our attention. He was the candidate of the moment and the moment was historical. He offered America the opportunity to make serious history, i.e. the election of the first black president. He did this by exercising his personality skills to demonstrate that he was decidedly not a home boy with black talk, hip hop, rap, and palpable chips on his shoulder. So, we experienced some mass hysteria, not his fault, but ours.

The author makes the point that O got through the ivy league and entered politics on the back of various positive action programs. OK, let's accept that as more or less true. So what? It is not as if we took someone like Michael Jackson, Sonny Liston, Mohamed Ali or other popular black figures and cultivated them. Indeed, O was selected because he had some content and was a likely prospect for success. I sometimes wish that some benefactor had discovered me and offered opportunities to socialize with the elite.

Who says that community development is a second class job? OK, it is not glamorous, but it is a real job and we have many of them and some CO's excel in what they do. I get the impression the author wants to equate this profession with that of a security officer patting down fliers in search of contraband and taking the odd grope. Also, the CO position gave access to American grass roots politics. In this case, in a riot torn, criminal, alienated and impoverished black ghetto. Did not Martin Luther King assume a similar role?

O had a poor legislative record. The author's first point of substance. I am not sure that making a big name for oneself is permitted among junior legislators in Washington, but never mind. I accept the point.

Next, let's discuss O's troubling associations, namely Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers. Granted, O's slipped through the dragnet with respect to the witch hunt that followed exposure of his relationship with Wright. I cannot explain it, but I believe  there are explanations. I have some fanatical friends, but as a package deal, they offer me more insight and knowledge than their quirks. I also find it odd that as a non-religious person, O is so heavily branded as an acolyte of Jeremiah Wright. Lastly, there are some truths in Wright's preaching. We remain a largely racist society. What we have learned over the past two decades is that racism includes not only whites but blacks, Hispanics, Jews, Muslims and other minorities including Mormons.

Bill Ayers was quite a piece of work in his youth. So was I. We shared a distrust of government, antipathy toward those who would have us fight in Viet Nam, larger than live social values about fairness, equality and civil rights. Bill went far in his expression of these beliefs; I did not. Does the author expect that O would behave like Uncle Tom? If so, he would most probably be doing menial work in Hawaii. O managed, so far, to walk the very precarious line between improving the lot of black Americans and appealing to middle America.

Another thing, the author calls upon the  "incomparable Norman Podhoretz" as an authority on O's weaknesses. I suggest you read Wikipedia's synopsis of Norman. He is a hawk, favorite of George Bush, likely Neo-con and generally right wing. What would one expect Norman to say about O? Also, I suspect his strong links with Israel feed Norman's dislike for O.

A few American Presidents entered the White House with fixed ideas about reforming our relationship with Israel. These ideas tend to go in the direction of relaxing ties enough to allow America enough breathing space to credibly speak about the need to compromise over Palestinian issues. Most such presidents quickly abandon these fixed ideas in favor of  strong, unqualified support for Israel. I cannot explain this, but suspect it has to do with the strength of Jewish influence in Washington. O's decision to give a bit more space to the Palestinian perspective seriously offended Israel, particularly Bibi Netanyahu and his Likud Party. I am of the opinion that O, considering his family background and race, decided to give greater latitude to the Palestinians and Muslim countries than was previously the case. This could be construed as a huge tactical error, but it could also be understood as an offer for a new dialogue with the Muslim world. This in itself is not condemning.

My favorite example of trite criticism is that O uses a teleprompter. So effing what? Big deal. Winston Churchill read some of his speeches. I suspect he would have used a teleprompter had they been discovered in his time. I can personally attest to the clarity and quality of impromptu speeches on O's part. I have also seen him stumble, hem and haw. I cannot abide the many critics who condemn O's use of the teleprompter. He gives countless speeches and delivers his messages well. Full stop.