I was too tired last night to attempt to say much of anything intelligent, let alone eloquent. But I’ll start by repeating my congratulations to President-elect Obama. From snippets that I’ve heard this morning, his acceptance speech was appropriately gracious to his opponent, but I have to confess that I didn’t hear the whole thing because I had gone to bed. My impression is that it didn’t differ a lot from his stump speech, except he left out the lies about his opponents.
As I noted last night, one thing that I am not unhappy about, and is a large silver lining in a larger dark cloud, is that we have elected an African American (in this case, quite literally) to the highest office in the greatest nation on the planet. I always expected the first black president to be a Republican (or at least a conservative of some stripe), because I didn’t anticipate a Barack Obama, who between his apparent (not at all to me, but clearly to many) charisma and the aid of a fawning press that refused to discuss his history with any seriousness, managed to transcend not just his skin tone, but his far-left political history. I hope that Michelle is finally proud of America, and that we can finally get past race. But I fear that we’re not yet there, for those who are more comfortable continuing to play the easy role of victim. Either way, Barack Obama is the next American president, which means, for better or worse, that he is my president. (As usual) I agree with Lileks:
I’m off to the Mall to sell razor blades so people can scrape off their “Question Authority” bumper stickers. Just remember: Dissent is still the highest form of patriotism. Except now it will be practiced by the lowest form of people.
Seriously, though: congratulations to President-elect Obama. Right or wrong – and I hope for more of the former, obviously – he’s my President now, dammit, and I’m not going to spend four years treating him with the contempt the Kos side heaped on Chimpy McPretzelchoker. He could turn out to be a horrible President. He could turn out to be a great one. History pushes people in unexpected directions.
I am on long-standing record as calling him unelectable in this nation. How did I get it wrong?
I don’t think that his election was at all inevitable. It was a combination of many factors–the country going crazy in the wake of the financial crisis, the overwhelming amount of money brought to bear (much of it raised illegally) in his support, the truly egregious bias of the press, and an awful campaign by John McCain. I have to confess that I also expected the Clintons to do more than they did to sabotage him. It’s surprising, in retrospect, that it was as close as it was.
With regard to McCain’s campaign, Jennifer Rubin has a list of the many things that McCain did wrong, though I don’t know if he could have won it. But he could have made it a lot closer, and helped staunch the bleeding down ballot even more. The one thing she didn’t mention (though she hinted at it with some of her particulars) was that he should have been running against the most unpopular institution–Congress–which makes George Bush look like a rock star in popularity by comparison. He should have pointed out all of the things that have happened in the two years since the Democrats took over the Hill. Indeed, he should have simply pointed out that it was the Democrats who were running Congress, because much of the electorate seemed to be unaware of that fact. He shouldn’t have voted for the bailout bill. But he couldn’t do it, because he is John McCain. He is a great man, but a mediocre candidate, and would not likely have been a great president.
I’m glad that part of the reason that he lost is because of his own atrocious (and yes, that’s the word for it) and unconstitutional McCain-Feingold legislation, and that by completely blowing past it, Barack Obama has rendered it meaningless and irrelevant for future elections, even if it’s not actually rescinded. I would also note that while I do think that the Obama campaign violated federal campaign finance laws on a massive scale, by deliberately disabling AVS on their on-line credit-card donations, I also think that they’re bad laws. I hope that we can change them to remove contribution limits, but require full disclosure. Frankly, I don’t even care if foreigners want to contribute to American political campaigns, as long as we know who is doing it and how much. That is information that the voters deserve to know, and should be a legitimate campaign issue. The Clintons played the same dirty game, with Riady and the Chinese, but the media refused to dig into it and point it out.
And as I’ve noted before, because the press refused to air Obama’s dirty Chicago laundry during the campaign, we’re going to have another Clinton-like presidency, in which scandals from the past continue to pop up. Will he pardon Tony Rezko? Why didn’t anyone ask him? Will he replace Patrick Fitzgerald (indeed, every US Attorney, as Bill Clinton did)? I also fear that (as with the Clintons) the thuggery displayed in the campaign–against Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber, anyone in Missouri who had the temerity to “lie” about the Obama campaign–will continue in the new administration, except this time with the full power of the Justice Department and the FBI behind it. It is going to be an interesting four years.
I’m glad that it wasn’t the blowout that many hoped for, and many feared. He won convincingly, but not sufficiently to have a mandate (particularly considering how gauzy his campaign promises were). Neither the House or the Senate had the gains expected by the Dems, and while having Stuart Smalley in the Senate would be entertaining (though not deliberately so on his part), I’m glad to keep one more vote to staunch a Democrat tide. I’m also glad that any changes on SCOTUS are likely to replace leftist squishes, and not true liberals (such as Roberts, Scalia and Alito), thus preserving the status quo rather than shifting it further against freedom.
I don’t envy the president elect. I pointed out when he won the nomination that it was almost an accident–he wasn’t supposed to win this year; it was just a practice run. Now, he’s in another moment of the dog who finally caught the car that he’s been chasing–what does he do with it? He’s got the choice of going with his leftist instincts (I’m assuming that he really does have these, and isn’t as completely cynical as he would have to be in order to have hung out with vile people with whom he completely disagreed politically, such as Ayers, Dorhn and Klonsky) and alienating much of the country (which truly doesn’t understand what they just elected), or moving to the center and being more politically successful, but outraging the Kossacks and Moveoners at his betrayal. That, too, will be interesting to watch.
My biggest feeling right now, frankly (and I’m sure that it’s one shared by almost everyone), is relief that this ridiculously long campaign is over. It’s time for defenders of human freedom to regroup, take stock of the world as it is, rather than as we’d like it to be, and figure out how to move it from the former to the latter. Whether the Republican Party will be the appropriate vehicle for this remains to be seen, but as has been clear to me for most of my adult life, the Democrat Party will never be. They remain children of Rousseau, though they don’t realize it, and I will continue to follow Locke.
[Update a while later]
Steven den Beste says it’s not the end of the world, and has some predictions, one of which is quite disturbing. I loved this ending line:
…no one will be spinning grand conspiracy theories about this administration’s Vice President being an evil, conniving genius who is the true power behind the throne.
If I were a praying man, I’d pray for Senator Obama’s health every day. I’m continuously amazed at people who think that Joe the Biden is presidential material, or even of above-average intelligence. Or even average.
[Another update a couple minutes later]
John McWhorter says that it should be the end of racism as a political issue, and makes the same point that Thomas Sowell has been making for years:
The new frontier, however, is apparently people’s individual psychologies: Not only must we not legislate racism or socially condone it, but no one is to even privately feel it.
The problem is we can’t entirely reach people’s feelings. The social proscription has changed a lot of minds, especially of younger people who never knew the old days. But an America where nobody harbors racist sentiment? The very notion goes against everything we know about human hardwiring: Distrust of the other is inherent to our cognition.
Psychology has provided us with no method for rewiring brains to eliminate that. After describing one of countless studies revealing subliminal racial bias, Nicholas Kristof recently intoned “there’s evidence that when people become aware of their unconscious biases, they can overcome them.”
Oh, really? “Can,” OK–but how often do they? How do we reach everybody? Do we mean overcoming bias so thoroughly that a test looking for what’s “out there” would not still reveal it? It’s a utopian pipe dream.
Now, if this racism of the scattered and subliminal varieties were the obstacle to achievement that Jim Crow and open bigotry were, then we would have a problem. But yesterday, we saw that this “out there” brand of racism cannot keep a black man out of the White House.
Might it not be time to allow that our obsession with how unschooled and usually aging folk feel in their hearts about black people has become a fetish? Sure, there are racists. There are also rust and mosquitoes, and there always will be. Life goes on.
It should be time, but as I said, it’s a lot easier to continue to play the victim, and blame white racism rather than community pathologies for your problems. I was glad to hear Barack Obama tell young men to pull up their damn pants, and hope he continues to do so. I hope that he comes up with a job in the administration of some sort for Bill Cosby.
My ongoing fear of the Rousseauians is that they believe that they can remake man. They believe in thought crimes, and will attempt to both detect them, and stamp them out.
[Update a few minutes later]
One other thought on racism. Does anyone imagine that, with his resume, Barack Obama would be president elect if he were Barry O’Toole, a white guy?
[Mid-morning update]
Tim Ferguson has thoughts on the battle for individualism.
[Update a few minutes later]
I (as is often the case) agree with Mark Steyn:
Obama was wrong about the surge, and McCain was right. But, because he was right, Iraq went away, and his rightness and Obama’s wrongness didn’t matter. And, in his closing address in that final debate, McCain was left using tough, hard words like “honor” and “sacrifice” that seemed utterly ridiculous after an hour and a half in which the candidates had been outcompeting each other to shower federal largesse for those behind with a couple of mortgage payments. But that gets to my basic point: You don’t want “issue” candidates. You want candidates who can place whatever the headlines happen to throw at you within an internally consistent worldview.
For what it’s worth, I never want to hear the word “maverick” again as long as I live. As I said a while back, that’s an attitude, not a philosophy.
I’m not unhappy that John McCain lost. He’s an admirable man, but much less so as a politician. I’m just unhappy that the Republicans couldn’t come up with someone better, and that the Democrat won.
I am on long-standing record as calling him unelectable in this nation. How did I get it wrong?
You’re often wrong, don’t take it so hard. In this case, you were wrong because you are old, white, and out of touch.
This was simply delicious; I just love the fact that you’ve wasted two years of your life trying to convince your readers that Obama was “unelectable”.
Hey Mike, whatever happened to that Whitey tape????? Must suck to be you, today.
I just love these classy anonymous morons who take advantage of my liberal commenting policy to insult the host of this web site.
Are you proud of yourself when you look in the mirror?
I, for one, do not accept Barack Insane Obama as my president. What we saw was a victory of the Obama fraud machine against the US. I fully expect that with their new power the democrat (ick) party will impose the ‘fairness doctrine’, and otherwise attempt to insure that their fraud machine wins more and more elections.
I just hope that the Obamabots get a clue when he fails to deliver on impossible expectations.
Are you proud of yourself when you look in the mirror?
Quite, thanks. What, I should be ashamed because I insulted someone who regularly hurls insults at those he disagrees with? Riiiiight.
Really? You’re proud to be too cowardly to use your real name when you leave feces at my web site?
Well said Rand.
I hope that Michelle is finally proud of America
Me too, but I suspect it may be too much to ask for. And I hope you keep your liberal comment policy, it will be enlightening to see more anon morons expose themselves for the classless jackasses they are.
Just addressing your comment that you didn’t stay up for Obama’s speech: I would encourage you to read the transcript or watch it online. While it wasn’t an amazing speech, it was not the stump speech either. One notable aspect of the speech was that it invited the listener to imagine 106 years into the future, and I think that’s a helpful stance for politicians to adopt, particularly when technological change is considered. The speech cleverly hinted at the issue of technological change even while not addressing that theme head-on.
Enough already.
You start with the right tone, bring up some very important and worthy points and then manage to degenerate into a negation of all the positives and descend finally into inuuendo.
I am on long-standing record as calling him unelectable in this nation. How did I get it wrong?
You fucked up. You insisted on logic and evidence when a plurality of voters was interested only in sunbeams and cucumbers. You also didn’t anticipate a 100-year financial flood just a few weeks before the election.
If Barry O’Toole had been from Missouri, Virginia, or North Carolina, and had an accent and speech patterns to match, then yes, he would have won.
If Barry O’Toole had been from Missouri, Virginia, or North Carolina, and had an accent and speech patterns to match, then yes, he would have won.
You miss my point. That Barry O’Toole wouldn’t have gotten the nomination.
“then manage to degenerate into a negation of all the positives”
What are we to do? Just suddenly take all of our opinions and ideas and throw them out the window and pretend they were never said? Sorry, I know that it what you all probably want us to do. Just suddenly say, “Oh, I see, I get it now, 54% of the country IS right and Obama IS going to bring us hope and change!” That is just not going to happen.
What will happen is that you will see how the Republicans in a minority position respectfully handle themselves compared to democrats. Democrats are sore when it comes to losing and grade-A assholes when it comes to winning. I’d say, “now try to prove me wrong”, but it appears that ‘Ill’ has already nominated himself as the sphincter numero uno.
Re: the Democratic primaries. O’Toole might not have stood a chance against Hillary Clinton, as she had her star power, her gender, an established funding base, and her own considerable abilities all working for her. That’s an astonishing set of attributes, and you’d need to either remove Clinton from the race or make O’Toole a woman. A female O’Toole with Obama’s non-racial attributes such as his deliberative intellligence and calm demeanor (no tears in NH) could have beaten Clinton in the primaries — many Americans who wanted to see a female president wanted to avoid either nepotism, a return to the Clinton years’ divisions or both. But take Clinton out of the race, and yes, O’toole could have won without resort to any identity politics except regionalism, which is code for cultural values. Maybe even without regionalism, if the Southern candidate had been Edwards.
Barry O’Toole (aka John Edwards) *didn’t* get the nomination, so that’s one question answered.
My question is: can we now abolish Affirmative Action? It’s been pretty thoroughly debunked at this point.
Edward’s final 3rd place position in the primaries, beating out guys with better resumes, including Richardson, who was running as a Hispanic candidate and had a great resume, shows that an O’Toole who was male, white, and with a thin resume could have won the Democratic Party’s nomination. (And the right guy with such resume could won the Republican party’s nomination as well. Twiddle the rules so that they match the Democratic Party’s representational apportionment of delegates, and Huckabee could have won, even if he had Obama’s or Edward’s resume.)
I already miss the 2008 race!
I’ll be damned. The Whitey Tape was just released!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZi6U811hxE
This isn’t the first time a candidate has won on the basis of style divorced from substance with the aid of a fawning MSM – Kennedy was perhaps the first. Every Democratic candidate since him has clearly benefited from the same bias.
On the other hand, every Republican Presidential candidate has to fight two opponents and only the most capable or lucky can accomplish a win.
If anything was different this time, it was the fact that Obama’s race was a tremendous advantage for him, as blacks voted tribal identity over substance and white liberals felt it more important to expiate their guilt rather than vote their own interests (especially supporters of Israel).
Also, as with Bill Clinton’s two wins, Republicans nominated a much older and non-ideological candidate who could not compete on image. Let’s face it, the Democratic Party has a history of nominating slick con men and winning with them.
The only hope for the Republican Party is to become more ideological and offer consistent pro-freedom ideas to counter the Democrats growing but still not totally focused Collectivism.
Regarding Steven’s predictions, I remember how he predicted that after the Saddam was overthrown, the people who called Bush 43rd a fascist would see what real tyranny looked like and be ashamed of themselves. But of course the real result was like in this Cox & Forkum editorial cartoon:
http://www.coxandforkum.com/archives/000440.html
Steven is dead wrong on the harm Democrats are about to inflict being reversible. Just one example: once the national health care is in, we’ll be stuck with it forever. If you think it can be disbanded when the country sees what a disaster it is… look no further than Department of Education.
I don’t like Obama’s politics, period. He’s the Prez and I’ll give him a chance to not be who he has been all his adult life. That said, the people who should REALLY be mad are 51% of the electorate who were disenfranchised. African-Americans make up 12% of the population. Women make up 51% and they are O-fer in just the VP slot. They didn’t get the vote nationwide until 1919 and are scarce in national offices. Sounds like a chance at identity politics to me. Just a thought Republicans…
Since he is for change, does this mean we get a white male Secstate? Oh the irony.
That anon idiot with the O’toole maybes doesn’t get he’s just doing woulda, coulda, should but can’t think of one who actually did it. Give up already.
Bill Maron should a) learn what disenfranchisement means, b) look up what percent of women who voted picked Obama, and c) note that our host was the one who posed the O’Toole question. It was a good question, and it deserves a serious answer.
Democrats are sore when it comes to losing and grade-A assholes when it comes to winning. I’d say, “now try to prove me wrong”, but it appears that ‘Ill’ has already nominated himself as the sphincter numero uno.
Oh, this is grand! Two years of right wing frothing at the mouth, and we’re assholes because we win? Goose, gander, and all that.
…we’re assholes because we win?
No. Based on history, though, it’s not surprising that you’re too stupid to understand why you’re an asshole.
III wrote:
You’re often wrong, don’t take it so hard. In this case, you were wrong because you are old, white, and out of touch.
The troll is strong in this one.
I believe that the American populace that voted for Obama has fallen for the biggest ‘Bait and Switch’ scam ever perpetrated. In the final days of the election, Obama began to show his true stripes:
– calling those who want lower taxes ‘selfish;
– Biden lowering the mythical $250k to $150k (and then his surrogate, Richardson from NM, lowering it to $120k);
– having his advisors tell the press that the public should not expect the grand changes that were promised as the job will be much tougher.
My real concern is that Obama, as publicity conscious as he is, will cow-tow to pressure from Reid/Peolsi and push that radical agenda (by the way, iII, how well did that universal health care do over in Hawaii???)
Lastly, as many of us here are like Rand (you know, “old, white, and out of touch”), can you please provide us with some perspective from someone ‘young, non-white, and in touch? How will you chosen one change the nation for the better?
/cue crickets
How will you chosen one change the nation for the better?
Cuz he ain’t Bush, he doesn’t look like Bush, and he doesn’t smell like Bush. The simple fact that he sent the Right Wingnuts packing has ALREADY changed the nation for the better.
III
You’re that guy who mumbles under his breath when someone cuts in line in front of you or takes a chair from your table at a bar or even steals your girlfriend. You just do nothing. but you’re real good in a crowd where you can hide and yell out and no one knows it’s you.
Cuz he ain’t Bush, he doesn’t look like Bush, and he doesn’t smell like Bush.
I don’t think that cowardly cretins like this are going to realize how empty and pathetic their lives are when they no longer revolve around George Bush.
steals your girlfriend
Do you think that a scumbag coward like this would ever have a girlfriend to steal? Actually, I suspect that he’s a bottom for his boyfriend.
Broken record, repeating the same mantra over and over, what are you going to do now? Who will your ‘bogey-man’ be?
You are right, though, he isn’t Bush. He isn’t strong enough to carry Bush’s jock. He’s just a willow in the field, going whatever way the prevailing wind blows. And just like that willow, when the wind stops blowing and the hard times come, he will simply shrivel and finally crumble.
Also, as you seemed to miss the rest of the post, I’ll ask again:
Just how well did universal health work out in Hawaii?
Bueller, Bueller, Bueller
You are the best type of rube, too conceited and arrogant to realize you’ve been scammed – lets the con-artists just keep ripping you off. You certainly back up the premise that P.T. Barnum was right.
My question is: can we now abolish Affirmative Action? It’s been pretty thoroughly debunked at this point.
One would think. And it was actually on the ballot in CO and NE. Passed in NE but, incredibly, didn’t in the crazy state I live in, which voted for Obama 55-45. I can only shake my head in puzzlement.
I am on long-standing record as calling him unelectable in this nation. How did I get it wrong?
Well I am on record as apologizing for being instinctively contrary, and one-sided in the sense that I wouldn’t admit when I agreed with you. I stand by that apology.
That said, my answer to the question of how you got it wrong is that I don’t think you’d believe my answer. We’re separated by a gulf of perceived bias. And I’m not particularly optimistic that it will ever be bridged.
I became more and more confident that Obama would win because I learned a lot from fivethrityeight.com. That site said that Obama would win 52% to 46%, and he won 52% to 46%. The site also had a nearly perfect picture of which states were safe and which states would be close. Obama had plenty of fairly safe states to win, never mind the tossup states.
You on the other hand described a qualitative picture of Obama as unqualified and a leftist. In particular there was the repeated comment that he was “lost without his teleprompter”. But I saw the three debates and he clearly wasn’t lost without his teleprompter. Palin didn’t have a teleprompter either in her debate, but she did shuffle through her notes for the whole hour. Obama and McCain didn’t have notes in their debates. If the McCain campaign truly thought that Obama would be lost without prepared notes, then that was a miscalculation.
What is or is not leftist is a partisan question, so I won’t go there.
A few other answers on the same theme:
Will he pardon Tony Rezko?
No.
I have to confess that I also expected the Clintons to do more than they did to sabotage him.
The theory that Bill and Hillary are Tony Soprano and Lady MacBeth never had much credibility.
Will he replace Patrick Fitzgerald (indeed, every US Attorney, as Bill Clinton did)?
Probably, because all presidents do that. Bush 43 also replaced every US Attorney. The controversy in Clinton’s case is not that Clinton replaced all of the US Attorneys, it’s that Clinton didn’t let the old US Attorneys finish cases pending from Bush 41. The controversy in Bush 43’s case is that he fired eight US attorneys that he had appointed himself.
You’re that guy who mumbles under his breath when someone cuts in line in front of you or takes a chair from your table at a bar or even steals your girlfriend. You just do nothing. but you’re real good in a crowd where you can hide and yell out and no one knows it’s you.
If you’re ever that other person, I guess you’ll find out, won’t you!
I don’t think that cowardly cretins like this are going to realize how empty and pathetic their lives are when they no longer revolve around George Bush.
Feel better?
Do you think that a scumbag coward like this would ever have a girlfriend to steal? Actually, I suspect that he’s a bottom for his boyfriend.
LOL, Rand, you are such a hater.
Yeah, I do agree with that.
Rand, you really do have a tremendous capacity to hate. At least you sure give that impression.
Rand, you really do have a tremendous capacity to hate. At least you sure give that impression.
Only to idiots who don’t understand the meaning of the word “hate.” I have very little capacity to hate. “Hate,” like “racism” has become meaningless due to over/misuse by projecting leftists.
I don’t hate idiots, or even anonymous trolls. I just think they’re idiots and anonymous trolls. Hate is much too intense an emotion to waste on them. Or much of anyone.
An anonymous threat from an anonymous coward. That one broke my irony meter.
Sonny, you just don’t get it and you probably never will.
Well, I have to say this election’s outcome had one stunningly negative effect on my view of race in America — right up to the last minute, I really believed that at least 40% of pro-life black voters (which make up 60% of the black vote) would find themselves unable to vote for someone who has very clearly promised to sign FOCA, allowing unlimited late-term abortion, and to expand taxpayer funding of abortions home & abroad.
The total percentage of blacks that didn’t vote for obama? 10-11%. Even if you assume all of them were pro-life, you’re left with no other conclusion than that nearly 85% of all black pro-life voters allowed race to trump this issue entirely.
And that, I’m afraid speaks poorly not only of pro-life blacks, but of black voters in general. And that is a shame. It says that, although a still majority-white nation has moved past race as a serious issue, the black community as a whole still holds it as tightly as it has since the 1960s.
Hopefully the coming onslaught of anti-life initiatives over the next two years at least, will cause black pro-life voters to reassess the importance taking their vote seriously on ALL issues. Or hopefully, all black voters will now be forced to grow up and take responsibility for the non-racial issues they must consider when casting their votes.
If everything bad that happened in the last 8 years was the fault of the Right,
Then everything bad that happens during the next 4-8 years will be the fault of the Left.
Or, will they still just blame Bush, Rove, Haliburton, Blackwater, et al.
It’s getting sick out there. On my way into work I was almost lynched by a pair of rabid Obama supporters. Seriously, they threatened physical harm and followed me when I got off the train. Granted, I had loudly insulted them as idiots and denounced Obama as a con man and would be slave master, but that didn’t excuse violence.
The worst shocker, one assailant claimed that because Obama had been elected he could get away with it.
Only a couple security guards at the train stop allowed me to get away.
Bill Maron wrote:
An anonymous threat from an anonymous coward. That one broke my irony meter.
I gotta get over this bad habit of subconsciously seeing the word “moron” when I read your last name. And, btw, it wasn’t a threat…rather, a warning not to be too presumptuous about who or what I am, or what my response might be to a given situation.
Sonny, you just don’t get it and you probably never will.
If I never get what you have, then I’ll likely continue to lead a happy, productive life.
“Hey Mike, whatever happened to that Whitey tape????? Must suck to be you, today.”
Not at all!
Obama’s first stock market and it will likely close down 400 today.
Enjoy your poisoned chalice suckers! Bwahahaha!
III wrote:Oh, this is grand! Two years of right wing frothing at the mouth, and we’re assholes because we win? Goose, gander, and all that.
You have curiously omitted the 8 years of left-wing frothing at the mouth. Pot, kettle, and all that.
Jim C. wrote:
“You have curiously omitted the 8 years of left-wing frothing at the mouth. Pot, kettle, and all that.
LoL! Good one Jim.
Rand,
Perhaps “Rousseaux”, rather than the unwieldy “Rousseauians”?
Mourning in America:
Rand, I chose your blog for my first comment as the dust is settling.
I do not trust Obama. He has too much radical baggage, about which he promoted too many lies and kept too many secrets, for me to trust him. In the closing weeks of the campaign, as more and more of his radical friends came to light, my opinion of him shifted from amiable dunce to Communist fellow-traveler.
You are welcome to celebrate the first black president. I rather expect that the folks who are a few years older than me will have that instinct.
It’s not my instinct. I am of the narrow demographic who came of age in the 70’s when the Civil Rights movement was all about securing racial preferences in employment and education, not about stopping the lynching. As I came of age, all the lies the New Left told about Vietnam fell to earth as much of the world collapsed into Soviet hands. I am of the generation whose memory of Southeast Asia is not My Lai, but boat people, re-education camps, and the Khmer Rouge genocide. In short, I couldn’t care less that Obama’s dad is African, but I care a great deal if he plans to bring Communism to this country. I think it’s mildly racist to focus on his skin color and it’s more than blind to give him a pass on his Communist friends.
My thin hope is that, like many Presidents, he will disappoint his base and court his enemies. But I wouldn’t count on it. Unfortunately, too many Communists in too many countries have shown that the way to keep power is to silence your enemies and prevent them from organizing resistance.
BBB