I have advice for my friend Andrew Coyne – “Never equate the obvious with the unlikely”.
In other words – sometimes he thinks too much;
Barack Obama’s campaign for president has barely begun, and already the questions are mounting. Is he experienced enough? Is he tough enough? And, bizarrely, is he black enough?
[…]
It’s a pointless debate, by and large: black voters, for whose benefit the arguments for and aganst Mr. Obama’s blackness are supposedly being advanced, will decide for themselves whether and on what terms they will support him. Still, it’s fascinating that the issue should have arisen, and if it is pointless, it’s useful to know why it’s pointless. One of the things Mr. Obama’s candidacy may achieve is to confirm, not the irrelevance of race as a political issue, but the incoherence of it — the maddening, irresolvable undefinability of it.
“It’s fascinating that the issue should have arisen”…. Really?
The Obama campaign is running on melanin because it can’t run on track record.
Having elevated a biomolecule to the status of “political virtue”, what other outcome is possible, than to provoke debate about whether it is present in sufficient purity and quantity?
The Obama campaign may be running on melanin, but I can’t agree that it’s running exclusively on that. They’re also running on youth and charisma, make of that what you will.
Andrew, first clue. Who brought it up? On the right? or on the left? It was Sharpton, was it not? So Andrew, why would Sharpton bring it up?
Each according to their need, multiplied by the inverse of their reflectivity.
Andrew has a first-rate mind and I value him highly as a columnist. But, Kate, this surely explains the Obama phenomenon more clearly and succinctly than anything else I’ve read:
“Having elevated a biomolecule to the status of “political virtue.”
I seldom agree with Coyne anymore… he’s too wedded to Ottawa running things instead of de-centralizing. However…
… I do agree with him on this. Race doesn’t make sense anymore. Our kids are colour blind .. God bless ’em.
I’m very heartened by examples of that, e.g. a kid will tell me that I know one of their friends and I’m trying to recall meeting them; after long descriptions I’m finally told that so-and-so is a certain colour. Then I’ll say. .oh yeh, that kid. Which makes everyone role their eyes at me, the old dinosaur, who still mentally files by colour.
Obama has all the qualities to make a great anti-Christ. Maybe he is the chosen to save us from the Islamists. Watched his speech and it was real scary to see the adulation that was given him by his followers. Think before you act is a good thing. Where was he born? Has spent time in a Madrassa and also claims to be a Christian. A very good mix to bring the factions together and the charisma is there. Hes’ young has no experience to speak of but the charisma carries the day.
einstein said – if i am right the world will say i am a jew and the germans will say i am german. if i am wrong the world will say i am german and the germans will say i was a jew.
obama will have the same fate no doubt.
Obama will never get the nomination for one simple reason. He is a cigarette smoker! Seriously, that has been kicked around in the Dem Party and many are appalled that he would be considered a serious contender because of that. How PC can you get!
Most Black voters in the US want a Black President that will even the score with Whitey. That means free welfare for all blacks and every break and benefit they can dream of with Whitey paying for it. If that doesn’t destroy America then they will continue with this until Whitey is all dead. I think that Zimbabwe would be an example of the kind of “revenge regeme” that I am hinting about.
according to Dickenson , he is not black at all. in the new PC world. black is the decendant of slaves , a re-definition. like in Canaduh- bilingual does not mean two languages it means french/english only.
http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/050446.html
Obama will be black enough if his policies suit the “Court Party” arbiters of political correctness and left-wing social policy; otherwise he will not be black enough.
So we have a cigarette smoker and Hillary who “stands by her man” no matter how embarrassing Bubba is to her, nor how many times he does it. Would she stand by her imam too?
I still think the Giuliani/Romney ticket will win by acclimation.
Obama is the American Trudeau, anointed by the MSM, with bonafide leftist credentials, charisma and possibly arrogance, effortlessly spewing vacuous platitudes, untainted with experience, and best of all, the right ethnic and religious background for PC reverse discrimination against all potential competition while being shielded from closet skeletal pursuit.
I saw Obama on a newscast the other day. He was a stuttering inept way less than average speaker . he was not good on the stump without a written and now obviously well rehearsed speech.
He will soon be relegated to the dark dustbins of history.
One of the virtues of the exhausting US system of choosing nominee is that there is lots of time to see what a candidate is really about.
It makes surprises less likely. The last time it happened was Bill Clinton but things have changed so that doesnt happen anymore, but even with 1992 all the things Clinton was were on display in that primary, people just chose not to see.
Obama wont survice the lengthy process….lots of time.
I didn’t like Barack Obama when he starred as the Black Vulcan in the Star Trek: Enterprise series with Scott Bacula, and I don’t like him now.
“He is a cigarette smoker”
Bill was a non-smoker although he was using the business end of a cigar for exploratory surgery on his interns.
Is it about now that Thankless Wells wanders on here, drops some verbal turd and then gets his ass handed to him by a girl?
I mean, its Valentine’s Day, after all.
Obama was a cigarette smoker – he quit recently. His opponents need only exploit his crankiness and sudden weight gain, although his politically contentious skin is probably now covered with nicotine patches.
Obama came across very well on 60 Minutes. Relaxed and self deprecating. He even admits that this whole campaign will probably come down to a learning experience for him. He’s a likeable guy, quite apart from how ready he is for higher office.
I agree with Coyne on this one – questions about his race exposes the bizarre contortions that the politically correct go to in order to fit reality into their world view. No wonder so many believe that prejudice is equality, and censorship is freedom.
If Obama’s main claim on the qualification scale is his heritage, half Black, or whatever, he has a bit of work to do.
He may have a bit of trouble when Al Gore, the Enviro Expert, throws his hat in the ring. Hillary, Al and Obama, should make for good stumping.
It’s along the same line of thought as the Lefty Liberals, Dion and company, pledging to have 33% candidates women. Their qualifications will start with their gender as the top consideration. This they figure, will add to their appeal to women, who are already in love with Liberals.
Desperation leads down some strange paths. It isn’t going to happen, can’t be done and should not be done.
from DNC keynote speech) “There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America. There’s the United States of America. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states. We coach Little League in the blue states, and have gay friends in the red states. There are patriots who opposed the war, and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the Stars and Stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.”
Its not exactly “never in the field of human conflict stuff is it”
In his essay, Mr. Coyne writes that Al Sharpton said, “Just because you’re our colour doesn’t make you our kind”. Mr. Sharpton is correct. It doesn’t matter what one’s colour is, one can still not be evil, unlike Mr. Sharpton and his kind.
Question: How did Stephie Dion get this 33% figure for women to run? Like I mean women make up 50+% now so why 1/3? I always thought the best qualified person should get the job/nomination/whatever but then what do I know.
Only reason Obama got as far as he did was because Jeri Ryan’s ex couldn’t keep it in his pants. Although it is okay for a Democrat President, the Republicans don’t cotton to that type of thing.
Has spent time in a Madrassa
This at least is not true. He spent time in an ordinary secular state-run school in Indonesia, as most of them are there. Don’t continue to spread debunked lies – you don’t like it when your opposition does it to your favourites.
randal g; Where did you read on sda that he spent time in any school? Or did you just make that up out of thin air.
Let’s see. Black father, white mother. Too black for some and not black enough for others. Sounds like we need some new descriptions. How about whack or blite?
Spike, the italics were quoted from a comment above – I am sure you can find it if you look.
Randal was referring to Eliza’s 1:09 PM comment, Spike. A agree with Randal.
Spike, in case you weren’t aware, a few weeks ago some conservative publication (don’t remember which – may have been British) reported that Obama was schooled at a madrassa in Indonesia when he was a child – this would have been in the 1960’s. There was a brief flurry in the right-side blogosphere but quickly died down. CNN sent a crew to the school and interviewd the headmaster. Lots of shots of little girls and boys in cute uniforms playing, no veils to be seen. The kids receive some education in their own religion be it muslim or christian. Turned out to be entirely innocent. This by the way is why I generally prefer the right wing side – not just for ideological reasons. They are more willing to face the facts and apply criticism to their own when warranted. You don’t see that on the left.
Obama has had his 15 minutes of fame at the begginning of this election cycle, count on it. And, the Hildabeast has yet to determine the date and scandal of his ending. If he isn’t useful in her getting the black vote, he’s dead meat. He won’t be.
Al Frankin, the Dem’s radio rottweiller moonbat, is now a candidate for the Senate in Minnesota. The MSM herd have their hands full, so many moonbats to sanitize, so little time.
Sorry I misspelt your name, Randall. Rereading this thread, I agree with Eugene too. I don’t see where Mr. Obama’s campaign, so far, has been running on melanin, as Kate put it (emphasis mine).
I don’t have to like it, but I’ve come to understand that in political campaigns there is an us versus them phenomenon that finds illogical expression in humans’ amagdylas. To some degree that has to be accommodated.
But some bad guys go out of their way to take advantage of this (in my opinion negative) behaviour of humans, and thus we get the Sharptons, Jacksons, Dukes, and no end of litany of hate-mongering shysters. We have this same sort of problem with respect to some people and the matter of gender, too.
Race and gender are not volitional. You can’t judge a person on either of those matters, because you can only judge a person on the basis of the volitional choices they have made.
So, exactly how much do you know about Mr. Obama? Sure, he’s left of the aisle, and he’s a Democrat, but he’s also a young candidate who is quite new to this level of campaigning.
How will he turn out, after he’s tempered by the experience? Will he move to the radical left, or might he stand on the shoulders of some other thinkers like Thomas Sowell and Bill Cosby, and chuck the shysters, and become a sound candidate for left-centrist policies? I’m not talking about this election, I’m taking about next time.
Now, I don’t know the answers to those questions. Neither, I think, do you. For me, it’s a moral issue: I think Mr. Obama should be judged qua Mr. Obama, not per Mr. Sharpton.
The only people who bring up Obama’s skin colour are people who don’t like him. What does that tell you?
Yes, and one of them, Jose, is Mr. Sharpton. What does that tell you?
Vitruvius,
Here’s a starter: http://www.opinionjournal.com/federation/feature/?id=110009664 “The Ever-‘Present’ Obama”
Cheers
The link you provided to the Wall Street Journal, Heinrichs, presents a number of good arguments against Mr. Obama’s position, most of which I agree with. That was not my point. Notice that said Journal essay contains no mention of race (other than the electoral race), or colour (black, white, or otherwise), or geo-heritage (for example, African).
For that, the Wall Street Journal must be commended. I doubt I’d vote for Mr. Obama, unless, say, Peter Popoff was the alternative, but I’d rather base my decisions on my interpretation of the character of his policies, than on the color of his skin.
His blood is red too, just like the rest of us.
Upon rereading my previous comment I find that I overstated my case when I said unless. Considering the range of possible candidates, it would be more correct for me to represent my position as: I doubt I’d vote for Mr. Obama, but I certainly would if Peter Popoff was the alternative. Sorry about that.
you would vote for someone whose previous experience is running something as complex as an icecream stand with two flavours?
I think he should go back on startrek as the vulcan officer.