Geraldine Ferraro is right... sort of

The big kerfuffle in the Democratic presidential race this week -- albeit largely overshadowed by the trials and tribulations of New Year's "pay for luv gov" -- has been the controversy over Geraldine Ferraro's comments suggesting that Barack Obama wouldn't be where he is now if he weren't a black man.

[Caveat: I've only followed this story cursorily, as I've been much more interested in basketball the last few days. As such, take my opinion with a grain of salt. For instance, I haven't actually watched any of the interviews with Ferraro, so if the details of her initial or subsequent comments are more (or less) outrageous than what's reflected in the bare-bones news and blog reports I've read, I may not be aware of that. The point of this post is more to react to the general concept of someone saying that Obama's race helps him, rather than to pass judgment on Geraldine Ferraro specifically.]

From what I know of it, I regard this controversy as much ado about not much. Ferraro's comments were unnecessary and inappropriate, in the sense that they serve no possible purpose except to inflame racial tensions and further divide the party. And yet, they're also not "racist," any more than it'd be "sexist" to say that Hillary Clinton wouldn't be where she is now if she were a man, or if she weren't Bill Clinton's wife. (Or, for that matter, to say -- as Ferraro herself did -- that Ferraro wouldn't have been the 1984 vice-presidential nominee if she were a man.)

The fact is, in a certain sense, Ferraro's actually right -- and I say that as an Obama supporter (in the primary at least). Obama is a talented and impressive politician; he's earned his accomplishments to date by his own efforts and talents. No question about that. And yet, a big part of his appeal in this presidential race is -- as his own supporters often say -- his ability, or at least perceived potential, to heal racial divides and bring the nation together. The symbolic significance of his campaign is crucial to his success, and it's inextricably tied up in his race.

If Obama were just some white guy from Illinois, he'd probably still be in the U.S. Senate on the strength of his intrinsic political skills, but as for the presidential nomination? I'd wager he never would have been seriously considered as a candidate in 2008 -- with only two years of senatorial experience when he first entered the race -- and if he had run, he'd probably have flamed out faster than Joe Biden.

Bottom line, if Hillary were running against a "white Obama," she would most likely have the nomination wrapped up by now. (On the other hand, if Hillary were just some broad from Arkansas who'd never met Bill Clinton, John Edwards would most likely have the nomination wrapped up by now. And if George W. Bush were just some failed Texas businessman without George H. W. Bush for a father, he'd never have become president. I could go on.)

So, does this mean Obama's people are unjustifiably "playing the race card"? Eh, sort of. But on the other hand, Ferraro is kind of asking for it. No matter how true they are, there are certain things you just don't say, at least not in public when you're a public figure, because they can serve no useful purpose (after all, Obama is black, and he's always going to be black, so what difference does it make that things would be different if he weren't black?), and they are inevitably going to piss people off, rightly or wrongly. There's just no good reason to say them out loud.

For instance, suppose some prominent Obama supporter came out and proposed the equally true counterfactual that Hillary wouldn't be where she is if she wasn't a woman, or if she wasn't Bill Clinton's wife. As with Ferraro's comments about Obama, this statement about Hillary doesn't necessarily imply a denial of her talents and skills; it merely suggests that her gender and her marriage have allowed her to skip to the head of the line, if you will. And as such, it's clearly true. And yet, is there any doubt that Hillaryland would explode in rage against such a statement, calling it "sexist" and so forth?

Similarly, if somebody on either Democratic campaign dared verbalize that John McCain wouldn't be where he is politically if he hadn't been tortured in Vietnam -- that he's, in a purely political sense, "lucky" to have had such a horrible experience in his past -- they'd be called unpatriotic. Yet that's true, too. Again, there are some things you just don't say, even if they're true.

Look, I'm very much opposed to race-baiting. But for me, this situation is fundamentally different than the unjustified smearing of the Clintons based on their substantive, non-racist statements about MLK/LBJ and Obama's alleged Iraq "fairy tale" -- a smear campaign which I objected to vigorously, as you'll recall -- because those statements had a substantive purpose (even if they were substantively rebuttable and indeed incorrect), yet instead of being rebutted on their merits, they were twisted into "racist" statements, which they clearly weren't. That's a problem, because we can't afford to have a president who will be effectively immune from legitimate criticism because any and all substantive criticisms will be decried as "racist" (or "sexist," or "unpatriotic," or whatever).

But that's not an issue with regard to Ferraro's comment, because it has no real substantive purpose. It's an accurate statement, yes, but it's also a non-sequitur, with no underlying point except the racial one. Yeah, Obama wouldn't be where he is if he were white, but who cares? What purpose is served by saying that, other than to annoy people?

Pretty much everybody at the highest levels of American politics has something unrelated to their political resumé that allows them to get there, whether it's a particular race or gender or marriage or last name or inherited wealth or good looks or what-have-you. Like it or not, our political scene is not a pure meritocracy. Pointing out this obvious fact with regard to one particular candidate accomplishes nothing except to make the campaign needlessly personal and bitter.

If Obama were purely an empty suit with nothing going for him except his race, that would be worth noting (though the important part would be the "empty suit" part, not the "he's black" part). But the truth is, Obama's a skilled politician who has worked hard to get where he is. That his skin color has given him a "boost" is not something that particularly matters, in light of the reality that just about everybody at this level of politics has got something "boosting" them.

Comments

[B. Minich]

I think that Ferraro said that she wouldn't be where she is today if she were a man . . . and she's also done this in the past, saying the same thing about Jesse Jackson during his presidential run. While there's some truth there, it was still one of those things that, as you said, you just DON'T SAY.

[Angrier and Angrier]

You should watch the clip where Ferraro went on NBC Nightly News and 1) complained because a reporter covered her remarks in the first place and 2) accused Obama of playing the race card.

I don't think Ferraro is racist, but she is an idiot.

[Joe Mama]

I suspect that Obama's spiritual mentor, Jeremiah Wright, will do the Clinton camp the favor of pushing this Ferraro kerfuffle off the front pages fairly quickly. Wright's odious rants, and the fact that Obama won't be able to distance himself from Wright very easily, stands in stark contrast to Obama's purported ability to "heal racial divides and bring the nation together."

[Joe Mama]

Didn't mean to hijack this thread, though. Wright is obviously a whole other subject, and Ferraro's comment and its place in the identity politics of the Dem primary is obviously worthy of discussion in itself.

[Angrier and Angrier]

Regarding Wright, how many sermons have you been to, Joe Mama, where a pastor or reverend has said something you have cringed at? I happen to attend a church with an excellent pastor with a great reputation who has, on occasion, said things that would never pass muster in the media using the criteria of political correctness.

While I don't like what I have heard from Obama's pastor, I have to give credit to Obama for not being the political animal people suspect him of being and dumping the guy the first time he heard a sermon like this. I wonder how many pastors Hillary has gone through in her time on Earth?

[gahrie]

Obama is a White man, and he's from Hawaii, not from Illinois. He has just as much White blood as Black blood (and I firmly believe that if you have even one drop of White blood that makes you White), and he was raised mostly by his White Grandparents in Hawaii (he has as much right to claim he is from Illinois as Hillary does to claim she is from New York...none).

If Obama truly did intend to transcend race, at every speech he would be announcing that he was every bit as much a White man as he was a Black man, and that he was just as proud of being White as he was Black.

[Brendan Loy]

"at every speech," gahrie? Really?

That's a pretty ridiculous demand, if you ask me. He doesn't explicitly invoke his blackness "at every speech" -- indeed, he rarely explicitly evokes it at all -- yet you're demanding that he explicitly mention his whiteness "at every speech"?! Why on earth should he??

You claim Obama should say, "at every speech," that he's "just as proud of being White as he was Black." But when has Obama ever talked about being "proud of being Black"? That's not his shtick. His pastor's, maybe, but not his. You want him to talk about white pride at every speech? Well then, show me where he's talked about black pride at every speech. Otherwise your logic falls apart.

I suppose the argument is that just by standing there, and looking black, and basking in the adulation that comes with being the Great Racial Healer, Obama is implicitly declaring his pride in being Black. Essentially, because his blackness is visually on display "at every speech," whether he mentions it or not, you want him to offset that implicit/unspoken black-pride message by declaring his pride in being White (whatever the hell it even means to "be White").

You're essentially demanding that he constantly rebut his own appearance.

By those terms, every single black candidate with "even one drop of White blood" would be required to constantly, explicitly remind everyone of his partial whiteness, since of course any "black-looking" candidate is going to be treated by the media and the public as "black," whether they like or not. You're putting the burden on multiracial candidates to rebut that phenomenon, even though they didn't create it and can't undo it. Surely you see the problem there.

Look, Obama has hardly hidden his life story, nor tried to conceal his multiracial identity. As he said in his Iowa victory speech, in the only line of that speech that explicitly dealt with race at all:

Hope -- hope is what led me here today. With a father from Kenya, a mother from Kansas and a story that could only happen in the United States of America.

I realize there are black people in Kansas, but I think the clear implication of that sentence is that his father was black and his mother was white. I think that's what he intended people to take away from it, and I think most people did.

But I guess that's not explicit enough for you. You want him to jump up and down and say "I'm half white! I'm half white!" (Even though he never jumps up and down and says "I'm black!" or "I'm half-black!", so it would totally out-of-character for him to be more explicit about either aspect of his racial background.)

You want him to "transcend race" by talking about his race more? What a transparently bogus, bullshit argument. And if he actually did what you're asking him to do, you'd no doubt criticize him for making race an issue! "Identity politics!" you'd cry. "Those Democrats are voting on skin color, not ideas!"

Basically, you're creating an absolute, 100% non-issue, then manufacturing an absolute, 100% non-solution to that non-issue, even though you absolutely, 100% would not agree with his actions if he actually followed your proposed non-solution to the non-issue. I see this as the first official case of Obama Derangement Syndrome here on the blog.

[gahrie]

Brendan:

Are you seriously trying to pretend that Obama is not using his Blackness as a political tool? Seriously?

I know he hasn't explicitly come out and said "vote for me, because I'm Black", but are you trying to say his supporters haven't? What of the man he claims has had the most profound religious and philosophical effects on him? The man he consults with regularly, the man whose sermon he named his book after?

Hillary is not the only one framing this as the Black man versus the White woman primary.

[gahrie]

"Identity politics!" you'd cry. "Those Democrats are voting on skin color, not ideas!"

Uhmmm...have you looked at the breakdowns of Democratic voting this primary season by race and gender?

I'll give you one guess as to who 75% to 90% of Black voters have voted for, and who the majority of White women have voted for.

If you want me to pick a Democrat who has truly attempted to transcend race, I'll go for Bill Richardson long before Obama.

[Joe Mama]

Since you ask, A&A, I haven't been to any religious sermons where a pastor or reverand has said something that made me cringe. Of course, being God of my world, I don't need to attend that many sermons.

But please, Wright's sermons go well beyond being merely un-PC (and I'll thank you in advance for being consistent and likewise dismissing any hateful rhetoric emanating from any "right-wing" preachers that McCain or other Republicans may be associated with in the future). Claiming the U.S. brought on 9/11 because we're a state sponsor of terrorism isn't un-PC, it's complete jackassery that has no place in any reasoned discourse. Obama's own campaign calls it "inflammatory rhetoric". The notion that Obama should be given credit "for not being the political animal people suspect him of being and dumping the guy the first time he heard a sermon like this" is absurd. Wright is a hateful jerk, and "the first time Obama heard a sermon like this" was before Wright married Obama and his wife, baptized their two daughters, and gave Obama the title of his book.

[Brendan Loy]

Gahrie, I made perfectly clear what I am saying, and it is certainly not what you claim I'm saying. Why don't you respond to my actual comment? You're not even addressing it. I'm not going to repeat myself.

[Aaron]

I'm just going to ignore the turn this thread has taken, because I liked this comment from Ezra Klein:

if Hillary Clinton were a black man, it's unlikely that she would have been a national political figure for the past 15 years, as it's unlikely that she would have married another man from Arkansas, and unlikely that the country would have put an interracial, same sex couple in the White House. But so what? This is an election, not Marvel's "What If?" series.

[Brendan Loy]

P.S. Uhmmm...have you looked at the breakdowns of Democratic voting this primary season by race and gender?

Yes, I have, but my point about "identity politics" point was (quite obviously) NOT that the Democratic race is currently free of identity politics, but that IF Obama did what you (bogusly) claim to believe he should do -- i.e., constantly invoke his whiteness, and his "pride" therein, as a rebuttal to his visually apparent blackness -- the result would be that he'd spend a lot more time talking explicitly about race, which you would then use against him, decrying his "identity politics."

Your argument is as bogus as a raging anti-war lefty saying that the Iraq War was wrong because it distracted us from Afghanistan and/or the better targets would have been Iran and/or North Korea -- even though said raging lefty opposed the war in Afghanistan and would oppose any war in Iran or North Korean. In order to bash an opponent you dislike, you're dishonestly advocating for a solution that you would oppose.

Anyway, again, I encourage you to actually respond to my actual comment, not pick-and-choose side issues therefrom and totally ignore the thrust of my argument.

[denverdem]

Umm...Obama moved to Chicago right after graduating college and worked as a community organizer in some of the worst neighborhoods in the entire US. After 3 years at Harvard, he immediately returned to Chicago where he worked as a civil rights attorney and adjunct professor at University of Chicago before beginning his political career. To say he's no more from Chicago than Clinton is from NY is pretty ridiculous and has no basis in fact.

[Brendan Loy]

I think it's pretty clear that, when it comes to Obama, gahrie has no interest in facts or logic. Hence my statement that this is the first documented case of Obama Derangement Syndrome here on the Irish Trojan Blog.

[Sandy Underpants]

Geraldine isn't a racist, just a dummy. She may believe that she was unqualified to be Vice President back in the 80s and that she was only selected because she was a woman, and a landslide of Americans agreed with that. However, it makes no sense to suggest a 'black guy' would have an advantage in an election because of his race. It's not like America has had a rich history of electing black men president.

Regarding the identity politics, you can tell that Republicans are the one's obsessed with race when this blog's reps Gahrie, Joe Mama, and Alisdair dwell on it with their every post, and the Republican party has never in its history nominated someone who isn't a white man. The Republican primary choices this year was 9 white men, again. Well there was one black guy, Alan Keyes, but they wouldn't let him on television. That's diversity for ya.

[gahrie]

He has no experience to speak of, either in the Illinois legislature or the U.S. Senate.

There is almost no ideological differences between Obama's and Clinton's politics and ideology except Clinton's intial vote on Iraq, and the Democrats have finally realized that Iraq is a losing issue for them. (have you noticed the media doesn't lead with Iraq anymore?)

What does Obama stand for that Clinton, Richardson, Dodd and Edwards didn't stand for?

The thing that has seperated him from the rest of the Democratic field is that the clear narrative of his campaign is that he is going to be the Black man that redeems America from it's White guilt and he will lead us into a grand future that will transcend race. There is a reason why he is spoke of in religious terms and his supporters often behave as if they were at a revival service.

Look, I have no real beef against Obama. If it came down to it, I'd much prefer him to Clinton as president. But until he repudiates Wright and his hateful statements, and embraces his White heritage as much as his Black, forgive me if I fail to genuflect.

[Aaron]

Joe Mama, we don't have to wait for "in the future." We have - right now - John Hagee, whose worldview is every bit as offensive and a good deal nuttier than Wright's. That's not to say I disagree with you about Obama's church connections. They are the thing I like least about him, by a wide margin. This would actually be true even without the anti-American rhetoric of his pastor. I'd prefer a candidate who just ignored religion completely - or better yet, an atheist or hard-agnostic. But that ain't gonna happen in this country any time soon. Maybe never.

[Brendan Loy]

until he ... embraces his White heritage as much as his Black, forgive me if I fail to genuflect.

Gahrie, as I already pointed out, Obama does embrace his multiracial heritage.

Look... of course he gains a significant advantage from the "racial healer" thing. I've acknowledged that already. But so long as he's not procuring that advantage through illegitimate tactics -- and if you want to argue that, be my guest, but at present your argument seems to be that it's illegitimate for him to get any advantage from it at all, regardless of his actual tactics or actions -- I'm not sure how he can be faulted for allowing his supporters to see him as an agent of change in this regard. What is he supposed to do? Say "no, I won't heal the racial divide in this country"? Talk about white pride, as you cartoonishly suggest? If he's not saying it explicitly, yet other people project it onto him, what is he supposed to do? Reject their votes?

If you want to demand that he "repudiates Wright and his hateful statements," I have no problem with that. My problem is with your claim that he should "embrace[] his White heritage as much as his Black," even though his "embrace" of his Black heritage is almost entirely implicit and symbolic and inherent. You're asking him to meet an impossible burden. As I said before, you want him to constantly, explicitly rebut his own appearance. Again: why should he?

[gahrie]

I think it's pretty clear that, when it comes to Obama, gahrie has no interest in facts or logic.

Now this is simply unfair. My statements and beliefs are based entirely on the facts.

1) Obama is 1/2 White and 1/2 Black.
2) Obama had almost no contact with his Black father or his family. He was raised mainly by his white grandparents.
3) Obama was not raised in Illinois, where his Black skin would have shaped his childhood. He was raised in Hawaii, a place Obama himself says was so multicultural that his skin color played little part in his childhood.
4) According to Obama his most important religious and philosophical advisor is Rev. Wright, a man who preachs hate, racism and divisiveness.
5) Obama makes claims of uniting America and transcending race.

Are any of these facts incorrect? What facts am I ignoring?

[Sandy Underpants]

Gahrie, Obama has held public office for 12 years, which is longer than Hillary Clinton. He began his public service career when he was elected to the Illinois State legislature in 1996.

"White Healing" is a nice narrative, but like most of what you say-- it's bullcrap. I'm for Obama because he isn't a republican and he isn't a clinton. That doesn't have anything to do with race.

[Sandy Underpants]

Once again, it's only the Republican(s) that makes this a race issue. He's black AND white. He's really more white than black. But since he's barely black he says he's mostly black and that's unfair because Americans always select the black to run for president.

Do everyone a favor and YouTube one of his speeches at random, get a stop-watch and time how long he talks about race. If it were longer than 90 seconds in a 40 minute speech I would be absolutely shocked.

[Brendan Loy]

Gahrie, no. Your statements here aren't based "entirely" on those facts, because you also claimed that Obama talks, apparently in "every speech," about how he's "proud of being ... Black." The whole argument that he should declare his White Pride is fundamentally premised on that notion. And it's a very different notion from merely saying that he "makes claims of uniting America and transcending race."

And incidentally, his claims of "transcending race" are usually couched in terms of transcending all the things that divide us, including race. Many politicians over the years have used similar rhetoric. You're holding Obama to a different standard because he makes these statements while being black, and others see him as more likely to carry out his rhetoric because he's black. But the rhetoric itself is unremarkable, and not in any way specific to black politicians.

[gahrie]

Brendan:

I want Obama to explicitly tell his supporters that the least important thing about him is his skin color. I want him to explicitly state that it is time to reject the politics of race, that is it time to reject identity politics. In short I want him to live up to his promise to transcend race.

I'm not asking him to be proud of being White, I'm asking him to stop being proud of being Black, and to help build a world where neither one matters. I want him to stop saying things like:

"I wouldn't be here if I wasn't tough,” Obama said. “Nobody gave me…Listen I'm a black guy named Barack Obama running for president. You can’t tell me I ain't tough. Shoot!"

[gahrie]

Once again, it's only the Republican(s) that makes this a race issue.

Really? When did Ferraro, the only person with the balls so far to explicitly to comment about Obama's race, change partys?

[Brendan Loy]

Gahrie @ 11:39: "If Obama truly did intend to transcend race, at every speech he would be announcing that he was every bit as much a White man as he was a Black man, and that he was just as proud of being White as he was Black."

Gahrie @ 1:18: "I'm not asking him to be proud of being White"

It was your 11:39 comment that set me off. I find your 1:18 comment far less objectionable. I think Obama's already done a lot of the things you want him to do, re: "explicitly stat[ing] that it is time to reject the politics of race." But I'll admit he could do more. I also hold, however, that even if Obama were to say those things, exactly the way you want him to, over and over again, a lot of his supporters would still see him as the Great Racial Healer, and the media would still obsess over him being black... and I suspect that you would still blame him for their race-centric myopia, as you have throughout this thread. But I can't prove that, of course. I just hope you understand that there are two very distinct things at work here: 1) what Obama says/does, and 2) how people react to what he says/does. And he can only be faulted for things that fall into the former category.

Okay, I'm done with my lunch and done with this thread. Back to work. :)

[Sandy Underpants]

Well, you've been talking about race for about 10 posts in this thread, the Fox News makes it an issue, republican mouth-pieces like Hannity, Rush, Ingraham, etc. make it the issue daily. So saying that Ferraro is the first and only person to mention it is just silly.

And again, no one can try and smear republicans by saying that their primaries are about "identity" because their identity is an old white man, and it always has been.

[gahrie]

I merely expect him to acknowledge all of his racial history, not just the half that benefits him politically. Especially when his White heritage had much more influence on his childhood than his Black heritage.

In my 11:39 comment, my intent was to express my desire that he reject race as determinate, and make the point that he is as much a White man as he is a Black man.

As I have quoted, he does make explicit comments in his speeches about his Blackness.

gahrie and Sandy Underpants are actually the same person.

[Angrier and Angrier]

Joe Mama-

As I said, I don't like what Wright said. The difference between Obama and McCain, though, is that McCain actively sought out endorsements from Jerry Falwell and John Hagee after they made their repulsive and well-publicized remarks (showing a total lack of judgment and pandering) while Wright was Obama's pastor first before these issues came up.

As for not hearing anything in church that hasn't made you cringe, I don't think you have been to enough services. I remember my pastor endorsed the invasion of Iraq. Half the congregation was applauding him and half were up in arms. I continued going to the church and continued considering the pastor my pastor despite my disagreeing with his views.

[gahrie]

angrier and angrier:

Where is your evidence that McCain sought the endorsements of Hagee? To my knowledge it was unsolicited just as Farrakhan's endorsement of Obama was. McCain has been far more explicit in his denunciation of Hagee than Obama of Farrakhan.

And as for Wright, he was preaching hate and divisiveness long before he recruited Obama to his church.

[gahrie]

Sandy:

I was among those encouraging both Colin Powell and Condi Rice to run for president. I also believe that Bobby Jindal, Michael Steele and Sarah Palin all have bright futures in the Republican party.

Is McCain a member John Hagee's church? Does McCain give 5-digit contributions to Hagee's church?

gahrie,

McCain gave a speech before the organization Hagee founded - "Christians United for Israel" - where he was introduced by Hagee himself. Does that not count as seeking an endorsement?

[Aaron]

A&A,

I think you missed Joe Mama's point, which unless I'm mistaken was that he doesn't go to church services at all. There are some of us, remember, for whom going to a church as anything other than a wedding guest or a tourist seems faintly bizarre.

[gahrie]

So everytime a politician gives a speech and is introduced by someone they are seeking an endorsement?

C'mon.....

[Aaron]

I really shouldn't have tried to speak for Joe Mama on a subject like that. sorry.

And the previous comment addressed to gahrie was me.

[Aaron]

So everytime a politician gives a speech and is introduced by someone they are seeking an endorsement?

If you want to apply an extremely narrow meaning of the word "endorsement," then no. But that's clearly not what A&A meant, so your objection was just silly pedantry.

[Marty West]

In the name of the invisible man, the zombie, and the ghost....amen.

[Joe Mama]

No worries, Aaron, you're quite right -- while I'm technically Roman Catholic, I don't attend church regularly and am not particularly religious (which I can say because I'm safely cloaked in anonymity from my mother!)

Moreover, a pastor saying he supports the invasion of Iraq is actually much more akin to the "un-PC" characterization A&A charitably gave to Wright's comments. Reasonable people can disagree over whether to support the Iraq war. Wright's crackpot rantings are nowhere near as benign, and no reasonable person would countenance them IMO.

And by the way, while there are some significant distinctions between McCain/Hagee and Obama/Wright, McCain said he was "very honored" by Hagee's endorsement, so whether McCain was "actively seeking" Hagee's endorsement or not, it doesn't really matter . . . he got the endorsement and was "very honored" by it.

[Brendan]

This one's easy, folks:

1) Wright is a legit issue/problem for Obama.

2) Hagee is a legit issue/problem for McCain.

[Angrier and Angrier]

gahrie-

McCain didn't seek Hagee's endorsement? That's funny. McCain held a press conference with Hagee!!! FYI - Get your facts straight.

Joe Mama-

On the subject of Wright, while I don't agree with what he said, it isn't too different from what Ferraro said in terms of some core truths. For instance, would Al Qaeda have attacked the U.S. if there had been no U.S. presence in the Middle East for the past 50-some years? I'm not saying our presence rises to terrorism. I am saying "familiarity breeds contempt." I don't agree with Wright's framing of the argument, especially a week after 9/11.

But I also don't agree with Ferraro's framing of her Obama argument, ignoring that both she and Hillary have been the beneficiaries of the same kind of attention given to Obama.

[Joe Mama]

This one's easy, folks:

1) Wright is a legit issue/problem for Obama.

2) Hagee is a legit issue/problem for McCain.

I disagree. Wright is bigger problem for Obama than Hagee is for McCain, for at least three reasons:

1) Obama has a much closer relationship to Wright than McCain has to Hagee;

2) McCain is much more of a known quantity to the electorate than Obama, so the random endorsement of a crazy right-wing preacher isn't as likely to tarnish his image as much among mainstream voters; which leads to

3) McCain receiving the endorsement of Hagee will probably be seen (correctly IMO) as political pandering to the right wing base of the Republican Party, which McCain needs to turn out in November. In other words, not very many people who know or follow McCain will think he actually believes in Hagee's views . . . he's just trolling for votes (recall that McCain famously castigated Falwell and Robertson in his 2000 campaign -- he was probably being sincere then and is prostituting himself now). Obama, on the other hand, has the problem that the anti-American views of the spiritual mentor with whom he is closely associated look like they may fit a larger pattern, e.g., his wife not being proud of her country, Obama refusing to hold his hand over his heart, wear the flag lapel pin, etc. -- some of these are trivial things to be sure, but when added together, may have the effect of confirming the worst fears voters have about Obama . . . that he doesn't love his country enough to be President. After all, there's a reason presidential candidates (and presidents) fall all over themselves to tell the voters how much the love the USA. If the President isn't going to do it, who the hell will?

[Alasdair]

Where to start ... ?

"Look, Obama has hardly hidden his life story, nor tried to conceal his multiracial identity. As he said in his Iowa victory speech, in the only line of that speech that explicitly dealt with race at all:

Hope -- hope is what led me here today. With a father from Kenya, a mother from Kansas and a story that could only happen in the United States of America.

I realize there are black people in Kansas, but I think the clear implication of that sentence is that his father was black and his mother was white. I think that's what he intended people to take away from it, and I think most people did. "

Brendan - it takes *active* racism to have the prejudices that a father from Kenya has to be black and that a mother from Kansas has to be white - not necessarily malicious racism, yet still prejudiced racism ...

I would have a lot more respect for Senator Obama if I heard/read him emphasising that his mother is/was white, at least more frequently than I can find currently ... he is not obligated to do so - yet he would EARN a lot more respect if he did so - even as he would lose the votes of racist black voters ... sorry, identity-politics voters - I almost forgot to be PC ...

Ferraro was put on the ticket as a quota pick, a token ... she lacked gravitas way more than our current President ever did ... from her VP debate appearance, she showed she was not ready to occupy the Office of President of the United States ... (the fact tht she was on Mondale's ticket merely confirmed her lack of suitability - it would be like being on a Kucinich ticket or a Ron Paul ticket) ...

Compared to Ferraro, Senator Clinton has gravitas and suitability ... (OK, in Hillary's case, it's more pants-suit-ability, but it's still closer than Ferraro ever was) ...

[Joe Mama]

VDH nails it:

The problems with Rev. Wright and Sen. Obama are fivefold. They won’t go away, but they will raise dilemmas for him that have no analogy, no parallel with other religious leaders of dubious past declamations who have supported the other candidates:

1) The Obamas were not merely endorsed by, or attended the church of, Rev. Wright, but subsidized his hatred with generous donations, were married by him, and had their children baptized by this venomous preacher; there is nothing quite comparable in the case of Sens. Clinton and McCain.

2) Rev. Wright’s invective is not insensitive or hyperbolic alone, but in the end disgusting. And when listened to rather than read, the level of emotion and fury only compound the racism and hatred, whether in its attack on the Clintons, or profanity-laced slander of the United States and its history, or in gratuitous references to other races. Its reactionary Afrocentrism, conspiracy-theory, and illiberal racial separatism take us back to the 1970s, and compare with the worst of the fossilized Farrakhan—and have no remote parallel in the present campaign.

3) Sen. Obama has proclaimed a new politics of hope and change that were supposedly to transcend such venom and character assassination of the past. Thus besides being politically dense, he suffers—unless he preempts and explains in detail his Byzantine relationship with the Reverend—the additional charge of hypocrisy in courting such a merchant of hate. And then he compounds the disaster by the old-fashion politics of contortion and excuse by suggesting the Rev. Wright is not that controversial, or is analogous to the occasional embarrassing outburst of an uncle—some uncle.

4) There is a growing sense of betrayal among some of his supporters. Sen. Obama promised to transcend race; millions of sincere people of both parties took him at his word and invested psychologically and materially in his candidacy. Part of his message was that collectively America had made great progress, and their Ivy League and subsequent careers, in addition to his rhetoric of inclusiveness and tolerance, bore witness to that progress in racial equality. Now we learn, that for much of his career, he was not only attending hate-filled sermons against “rich white people” and the “g-d d——d America” (in hopes of solidifying his racial fides in regional Chicago politics?), but subsidized that ministry of intolerance. So while he promised an evolution beyond the race-identity politics of Jesse Jackson or the Rev. Sharpton, his own minister trumped anything that either one of those preachers might have sermonized. All in all—a betrayal.

5) The timing is especially troubling. In delegate mathematics, Obama seems to have the nomination; but this scandal—and it is a scandal despite the best efforts of sympathetic journalists to downplay it—will only cause worry for the super delegates, who now must either nominate a candidate (no doubt the vast right-wing conspiracy is examining the multivolume DVDs of Rev. Wright’s collective corpus of hatred) who will bleed all spring and summer, or “steal” the nomination from the “people” and “hand it over” to Hillary.

So now in place of a critical discussion of issues from taxes to the war, welcome to the Politics of Change.

[Alasdair]

Joe Mama - he sure does !

[Mike]

Brendan - it takes *active* racism to have the prejudices that a father from Kenya has to be black and that a mother from Kansas has to be white - not necessarily malicious racism, yet still prejudiced racism ...

No, Alasdair, it doesn't. But even beyond that, Brendan didn't say that a woman from Kansas has to be white, or that a man from Kenya has to be black. He's merely arguing that it lends people to assume these things. Such assumptions, in turns out, are justified. Let's look at the data. According to the 2006 census estimate, Kansas is 89.1% white. According to CIA World Factbook, tribal identity in Kenya lists 1% as "non-African (Asian, European, and Arab)". Assuming that someone from Kansas is white/Caucasian and someone from Kenya is black/African is not racist, in the same way that assuming that someone named Sam who is 6'2" is a man isn't sexist. The overwhelming majority of people in Kansas are white, the overwhelming majority of people from Kenya are black, and the overwhelming majority of people who are 6'2" and named Sam are male. There will be exceptions, of course, but it's not racist or sexist to make assumptions about aggregates which are borne out by the data.

[Sandy Underpants]

I was watching "Hannity's America" on Fox last weekend, that made Bush's America look great btw. But the way Hannity was connecting Obama to terrorists and extremists seems like a slam-dunk case, until you actually consider the facts, and how ridiculous the things Hannity was representing as facts were.

I don't know how Reverend Wright speaks for Obama or represents Obama's opinions. I really don't think Americans are going to fall for this garbage again, they've voted out a lot of Republicans since Saddam Hussein's Iraq was substituted in for Ossama Bin Laden, and WMD was substituted with "Regime Change", and "Regime Change" was substituted with "Securing the Nation", and "Security" was substitued with "The Surge". Everybody's sick of it, and by the time summer rolls around and the News starts reporting on Iraq again, it's going to be obvious that this endless war is no better today than it was before the Surge began or when the war ended in 2003 (or 2004 when Hussein was captured and his sons dead).

83 US Soldiers dead this year. That's more than 1 a day, and "The Surge" is working?

No feeding the troll.

[gahrie]

Question:

Given Wright's God Damn America sermons et al, shouldn't Obama's refusal to wear a flag lapel pin or to recite the pledge of allegience be revisited?

[Alasdair]

Mike - I happen to be one of those folk who believe that a rational recognition of statistical probabilities isn't anything-ist - it's simply recognising realities ...

A mother from Kansas *is* indeed likely to be white ...

And yet my cousin born and raised in Rhodesia is clearly melanin-disadvantaged - so much for statistics ...

The prejudice occurs when Brendan says "in the only line of that speech that explicitly dealt with race at all" and then goes on to quote something that peripherally *might* be able to be construed as referring to race, but doesn't actually explicitly mention race ...

"Hope -- hope is what led me here today. With a father from Kenya, a mother from Kansas and a story that could only happen in the United States of America. " - there is no explicit reference to race in those words - there is barely a thinly-veiled suggestion of race-reference, and tends to occur only to those in this PC society who subscribe to identity politics ...

Let me go on the record that I do not in any way think of Brendan as any form or even any hint of David-Duke-racist ...

I do, however, see him falling into the same PC trap that tends to the thoughts that Kansas = white and Kenya = black ...

It is prejudice that stops people from standing in front of 18-wheelers that are going at 55 MPH on a freeway ... they don't know from personal experience that it's a Bad Thing to do, but they have a valuable prejudice which stops 'em from doing it ...

Prejudices *can* have value as long as facts can overcome prejudice ... when the prejudice becomes more important than the facts, *then* we have a problem ...

[gahrie]

Re: Wright

Obama has apparently decided to go with the Casablanca defence.

"I'm shocked, shocked to find that hate, racism and divisiveness is going on in here!"

[jalypso]

Blacks are making one last wish and hoping
with all they have that it comes true!!!
Even if it is blind faith to vote
only on color!!!I can't do it! I need
to try to make the best choice I can
for it might truly be the last time to
make a good choice. Voice use it wisely
rap artist and bloggers.

[jalypso]

If Obame wins I will be forced to vote for
him.I shall not vote for what Mccain is
giving out.He is worst than Bush!!!They
want to out do each other those Republicans.{The True Emperors Club}
The gods have spoken