Shelby Steele on Obama, Pastor Wright and You.

[preservanation]

This man's name is Shelby Steele, and is one of my most admired writer/author and social/foriegn policy philosophers of today.
He is a truly transcending figure in Americana.

I hope his article will help us put this pastor Wright embroglio as well as the Obama phenomenon in some perspective.
The Obama Bargain
By SHELBY STEELE
March 18, 2008

Geraldine Ferraro may have had sinister motives when she said that Barack Obama would not be "in his position" as a frontrunner but for his race. Possibly she was acting as Hillary Clinton's surrogate. Or maybe she was simply befuddled by this new reality -- in which blackness could constitute a political advantage.

But whatever her motives, she was right: "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position." Barack Obama is, of course, a very talented politician with a first-rate political organization at his back. But it does not detract from his merit to say that his race is also a large part of his prominence. And it is undeniable that something extremely powerful in the body politic, a force quite apart from the man himself, has pulled Obama forward. This force is about race and nothing else.

The novelty of Barack Obama is more his cross-racial appeal than his talent. Jesse Jackson displayed considerable political talent in his presidential runs back in the 1980s. But there was a distinct limit to his white support. Mr. Obama's broad appeal to whites makes him the first plausible black presidential candidate in American history. And it was Mr. Obama's genius to understand this. Though he likes to claim that his race was a liability to be overcome, he also surely knew that his race could give him just the edge he needed -- an edge that would never be available to a white, not even a white woman.

How to turn one's blackness to advantage?

The answer is that one "bargains." Bargaining is a mask that blacks can wear in the American mainstream, one that enables them to put whites at their ease. This mask diffuses the anxiety that goes along with being white in a multiracial society. Bargainers make the subliminal promise to whites not to shame them with America's history of racism, on the condition that they will not hold the bargainer's race against him. And whites love this bargain -- and feel affection for the bargainer -- because it gives them racial innocence in a society where whites live under constant threat of being stigmatized as racist. So the bargainer presents himself as an opportunity for whites to experience racial innocence.

This is how Mr. Obama has turned his blackness into his great political advantage, and also into a kind of personal charisma. Bargainers are conduits of white innocence, and they are as popular as the need for white innocence is strong. Mr. Obama's extraordinary dash to the forefront of American politics is less a measure of the man than of the hunger in white America for racial innocence.

His actual policy positions are little more than Democratic Party boilerplate and hardly a tick different from Hillary's positions. He espouses no galvanizing political idea. He is unable to say what he means by "change" or "hope" or "the future." And he has failed to say how he would actually be a "unifier." By the evidence of his slight political record (130 "present" votes in the Illinois state legislature, little achievement in the U.S. Senate) Barack Obama stacks up as something of a mediocrity. None of this matters much.

Race helps Mr. Obama in another way -- it lifts his political campaign to the level of allegory, making it the stuff of a far higher drama than budget deficits and education reform. His dark skin, with its powerful evocations of America's tortured racial past, frames the political contest as a morality play. Will his victory mean America's redemption from its racist past? Will his defeat show an America morally unevolved? Is his campaign a story of black overcoming, an echo of the civil rights movement? Or is it a passing-of-the-torch story, of one generation displacing another?

Because he is black, there is a sense that profound questions stand to be resolved in the unfolding of his political destiny. And, as the Clintons have discovered, it is hard in the real world to run against a candidate of destiny. For many Americans -- black and white -- Barack Obama is simply too good (and too rare) an opportunity to pass up. For whites, here is the opportunity to document their deliverance from the shames of their forbearers. And for blacks, here is the chance to document the end of inferiority. So the Clintons have found themselves running more against America's very highest possibilities than against a man. And the press, normally happy to dispel every political pretension, has all but quivered before Mr. Obama. They, too, have feared being on the wrong side of destiny.

And yet, in the end, Barack Obama's candidacy is not qualitatively different from Al Sharpton's or Jesse Jackson's. Like these more irascible of his forbearers, Mr. Obama's run at the presidency is based more on the manipulation of white guilt than on substance. Messrs. Sharpton and Jackson were "challengers," not bargainers. They intimidated whites and demanded, in the name of historical justice, that they be brought forward. Mr. Obama flatters whites, grants them racial innocence, and hopes to ascend on the back of their gratitude. Two sides of the same coin.

But bargainers have an Achilles heel. They succeed as conduits of white innocence only as long as they are largely invisible as complex human beings. They hope to become icons that can be identified with rather than seen, and their individual complexity gets in the way of this. So bargainers are always laboring to stay invisible. (We don't know the real politics or convictions of Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan or Oprah Winfrey, bargainers all.) Mr. Obama has said of himself, "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views . . ." And so, human visibility is Mr. Obama's Achilles heel. If we see the real man, his contradictions and bents of character, he will be ruined as an icon, as a "blank screen."

Thus, nothing could be more dangerous to Mr. Obama's political aspirations than the revelation that he, the son of a white woman, sat Sunday after Sunday -- for 20 years -- in an Afrocentric, black nationalist church in which his own mother, not to mention other whites, could never feel comfortable. His pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is a challenger who goes far past Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson in his anti-American outrage ("God damn America").

How does one "transcend" race in this church? The fact is that Barack Obama has fellow-traveled with a hate-filled, anti-American black nationalism all his adult life, failing to stand and challenge an ideology that would have no place for his own mother. And what portent of presidential judgment is it to have exposed his two daughters for their entire lives to what is, at the very least, a subtext of anti-white vitriol?

What could he have been thinking? Of course he wasn't thinking. He was driven by insecurity, by a need to "be black" despite his biracial background. And so fellow-traveling with a little race hatred seemed a small price to pay for a more secure racial identity. And anyway, wasn't this hatred more rhetorical than real?

But now the floodlight of a presidential campaign has trained on this usually hidden corner of contemporary black life: a mindless indulgence in a rhetorical anti-Americanism as a way of bonding and of asserting one's blackness. Yet Jeremiah Wright, splashed across America's television screens, has shown us that there is no real difference between rhetorical hatred and real hatred.

No matter his ultimate political fate, there is already enough pathos in Barack Obama to make him a cautionary tale. His public persona thrives on a manipulation of whites (bargaining), and his private sense of racial identity demands both self-betrayal and duplicity. His is the story of a man who flew so high, yet neglected to become himself.

Mr. Steele, a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and the author of "A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win" (Free Press, 2007).http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120579535818243439.html

Man!
As usual Steele is right on.
Don't dismiss this.
Step outside yourself and your own desire for "white innocence", and ask yourself what Obama's potential nomination means to you.
Is he the blank slate for his white supporters to paint their own picture over him in order to assuage their guilt for the sins of the past and present day bigotry which might be lurking under their own hearts and minds... or are we going to delve into Obama the man who has the opportunity to become the most powerful man in the world?

Don't be scared, we are in a transcending and important time in history, and hard questions must be asked not only of our candidates, but of ourselves.

[AlanC]

This is an amazing piece. I think he makes a grand case for something that has been largely unexplainable.

[Buck Laser]

See Obama's speech today before you make any decisions regarding what Shelby Steele had to say.

[nevadamedic]

This man's name is Shelby Steele, and is one of my most admired writer/author and social/foriegn policy philosophers of today.
He is a truly transcending figure in Americana.

I hope his article will help us put this pastor Wright embroglio as well as the Obama phenomenon in some perspective.
The Obama Bargain
By SHELBY STEELE
March 18, 2008

Geraldine Ferraro may have had sinister motives when she said that Barack Obama would not be "in his position" as a frontrunner but for his race. Possibly she was acting as Hillary Clinton's surrogate. Or maybe she was simply befuddled by this new reality -- in which blackness could constitute a political advantage.

But whatever her motives, she was right: "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position." Barack Obama is, of course, a very talented politician with a first-rate political organization at his back. But it does not detract from his merit to say that his race is also a large part of his prominence. And it is undeniable that something extremely powerful in the body politic, a force quite apart from the man himself, has pulled Obama forward. This force is about race and nothing else.

The novelty of Barack Obama is more his cross-racial appeal than his talent. Jesse Jackson displayed considerable political talent in his presidential runs back in the 1980s. But there was a distinct limit to his white support. Mr. Obama's broad appeal to whites makes him the first plausible black presidential candidate in American history. And it was Mr. Obama's genius to understand this. Though he likes to claim that his race was a liability to be overcome, he also surely knew that his race could give him just the edge he needed -- an edge that would never be available to a white, not even a white woman.

How to turn one's blackness to advantage?

The answer is that one "bargains." Bargaining is a mask that blacks can wear in the American mainstream, one that enables them to put whites at their ease. This mask diffuses the anxiety that goes along with being white in a multiracial society. Bargainers make the subliminal promise to whites not to shame them with America's history of racism, on the condition that they will not hold the bargainer's race against him. And whites love this bargain -- and feel affection for the bargainer -- because it gives them racial innocence in a society where whites live under constant threat of being stigmatized as racist. So the bargainer presents himself as an opportunity for whites to experience racial innocence.

This is how Mr. Obama has turned his blackness into his great political advantage, and also into a kind of personal charisma. Bargainers are conduits of white innocence, and they are as popular as the need for white innocence is strong. Mr. Obama's extraordinary dash to the forefront of American politics is less a measure of the man than of the hunger in white America for racial innocence.

His actual policy positions are little more than Democratic Party boilerplate and hardly a tick different from Hillary's positions. He espouses no galvanizing political idea. He is unable to say what he means by "change" or "hope" or "the future." And he has failed to say how he would actually be a "unifier." By the evidence of his slight political record (130 "present" votes in the Illinois state legislature, little achievement in the U.S. Senate) Barack Obama stacks up as something of a mediocrity. None of this matters much.

Race helps Mr. Obama in another way -- it lifts his political campaign to the level of allegory, making it the stuff of a far higher drama than budget deficits and education reform. His dark skin, with its powerful evocations of America's tortured racial past, frames the political contest as a morality play. Will his victory mean America's redemption from its racist past? Will his defeat show an America morally unevolved? Is his campaign a story of black overcoming, an echo of the civil rights movement? Or is it a passing-of-the-torch story, of one generation displacing another?

Because he is black, there is a sense that profound questions stand to be resolved in the unfolding of his political destiny. And, as the Clintons have discovered, it is hard in the real world to run against a candidate of destiny. For many Americans -- black and white -- Barack Obama is simply too good (and too rare) an opportunity to pass up. For whites, here is the opportunity to document their deliverance from the shames of their forbearers. And for blacks, here is the chance to document the end of inferiority. So the Clintons have found themselves running more against America's very highest possibilities than against a man. And the press, normally happy to dispel every political pretension, has all but quivered before Mr. Obama. They, too, have feared being on the wrong side of destiny.

And yet, in the end, Barack Obama's candidacy is not qualitatively different from Al Sharpton's or Jesse Jackson's. Like these more irascible of his forbearers, Mr. Obama's run at the presidency is based more on the manipulation of white guilt than on substance. Messrs. Sharpton and Jackson were "challengers," not bargainers. They intimidated whites and demanded, in the name of historical justice, that they be brought forward. Mr. Obama flatters whites, grants them racial innocence, and hopes to ascend on the back of their gratitude. Two sides of the same coin.

But bargainers have an Achilles heel. They succeed as conduits of white innocence only as long as they are largely invisible as complex human beings. They hope to become icons that can be identified with rather than seen, and their individual complexity gets in the way of this. So bargainers are always laboring to stay invisible. (We don't know the real politics or convictions of Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan or Oprah Winfrey, bargainers all.) Mr. Obama has said of himself, "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views . . ." And so, human visibility is Mr. Obama's Achilles heel. If we see the real man, his contradictions and bents of character, he will be ruined as an icon, as a "blank screen."

Thus, nothing could be more dangerous to Mr. Obama's political aspirations than the revelation that he, the son of a white woman, sat Sunday after Sunday -- for 20 years -- in an Afrocentric, black nationalist church in which his own mother, not to mention other whites, could never feel comfortable. His pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is a challenger who goes far past Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson in his anti-American outrage ("God damn America").

How does one "transcend" race in this church? The fact is that Barack Obama has fellow-traveled with a hate-filled, anti-American black nationalism all his adult life, failing to stand and challenge an ideology that would have no place for his own mother. And what portent of presidential judgment is it to have exposed his two daughters for their entire lives to what is, at the very least, a subtext of anti-white vitriol?

What could he have been thinking? Of course he wasn't thinking. He was driven by insecurity, by a need to "be black" despite his biracial background. And so fellow-traveling with a little race hatred seemed a small price to pay for a more secure racial identity. And anyway, wasn't this hatred more rhetorical than real?

But now the floodlight of a presidential campaign has trained on this usually hidden corner of contemporary black life: a mindless indulgence in a rhetorical anti-Americanism as a way of bonding and of asserting one's blackness. Yet Jeremiah Wright, splashed across America's television screens, has shown us that there is no real difference between rhetorical hatred and real hatred.

No matter his ultimate political fate, there is already enough pathos in Barack Obama to make him a cautionary tale. His public persona thrives on a manipulation of whites (bargaining), and his private sense of racial identity demands both self-betrayal and duplicity. His is the story of a man who flew so high, yet neglected to become himself.

Mr. Steele, a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and the author of "A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win" (Free Press, 2007).http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120579535818243439.html

Man!
As usual Steele is right on.
Don't dismiss this.
Step outside yourself and your own desire for "white innocence", and ask yourself what Obama's potential nomination means to you.
Is he the blank slate for his white supporters to paint their own picture over him in order to assuage their guilt for the sins of the past and present day bigotry which might be lurking under their own hearts and minds... or are we going to delve into Obama the man who has the opportunity to become the most powerful man in the world?

Don't be scared, we are in a transcending and important time in history, and hard questions must be asked not only of our candidates, but of ourselves.


:clapper::clapper::clapper:

Obama has been lying and playing the race card from day one. He said he never heard the good reverand make any racial sermons but in todays speech he said he was in attendance for some of them.

The Democrat's are being taken by an excellent used car salesman. They do have a candidate (Hillary) who would make a good President and has the experience needed as well, but instead they would rather fall victim of a conman and a very good one. This guy lies and admits he lied and they just act like nothing happened.

[suedanim]

If only this author had psychoanalyzed for America, the horror of a George Bush/Dick Cheny candidacy, he could have possibly saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people! If only he'd taken as close a look at the neocon phenomena that has ripped the GOP down to its britches leaving it with candidate McCain, who needs putting under the microscope with equal vigor.

If only this author would take as close a look at the covert and overt racism within white, evangelical churches and the religious rightwing and explain to us what a danger they are to America.

I understand Shelby Steele is a black conservative, so rightwingers will cling to his words as though they are undeniable truth. But, his views, imo, are tainted by his political affiliation.

Remember... this article is a point of view. Whenever you post a point of view, even if its by someone you regard as an "expert", you leave the door open for opposing points of view, which are also valid.

Shelby Steele, Armstrong Williams, Thomas Sowell are all apt and gifted black conservatives. No one denies that. But, for all their well intentioned and intelligent opinions and beliefs, there are many other "experts" who disagree and oppose them with equally vigorous and intelligent arguments.

:grrrr:

[nevadamedic]

If only this author had psychoanalyzed for America, the horror of a George Bush/Dick Cheny candidacy, he could have possibly saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people! If only he'd taken as close a look at the neocon phenomena that has ripped the GOP down to its britches leaving it with candidate McCain, who needs putting under the microscope with equal vigor.

If only this author would take as close a look at the covert and overt racism within white, evangelical churches and the religious rightwing and explain to us what a danger they are to America.

I understand Shelby Steele is a black conservative, so rightwingers will cling to his words as though they are undeniable truth. But, his views, imo, are tainted by his political affiliation.

Remember... this article is a point of view. Whenever you post a point of view, even if its by someone you regard as an "expert", you leave the door open for opposing points of view, which are also valid.

Shelby Steele, Armstrong Williams, Thomas Sowell are all apt and gifted black conservatives. No one denies that. But, for all their well intentioned and intelligent opinions and beliefs, there are many other "experts" who disagree and oppose them with equally vigorous and intelligent arguments.

:grrrr:


You Liberal's are being sold a load of crap by the worlds biggest fertalizer salesman.

[AlanC]

See Obama's speech today before you make any decisions regarding what Shelby Steele had to say.



Actually I think his speech today is a perfect example of what Steele is saying. Look and listen to the words. His whole speech is a bargain to seperate himself from his pastor.

The trouble is when it comes to seeing if Obama can match his rhetoric with his actions. He preaches an inclusive and moderate line with great oratory and uplifting rhetoric.

But what little he has done, has not matched that rhetoric. His votes in the Senate, though unremarkable have specifically avoided those ocassions when he could have joined bi-partisan efforts on legislation. His voting record shows a far left ideologue that has no interest in joining together with the other side, in seeking compromise and unity. Rather it shows someone who is firmly entrenched on the left side of his party.

[4Reaganomics]

not just the left side AC, the hard left

the anti-America left

[cronic]

See Obama's speech today before you make any decisions regarding what Shelby Steele had to say.

I'll give it an honest hearsay... but.. sorry to say.. all I have ever gathered from his other speeches is his coping of Hillary's views and ideas.. and alot or arrogance from his tone and appearance..[hr]

Thanks for the very informative article pres.. and I will be looking for more of steeles work..
i like what he says and it all makes alot of sence..


hardly a tick different from Hillary's positions. He espouses no galvanizing political idea. He is unable to say what he means by "change" or "hope" or "the future." And he has failed to say how he would actually be a "unifier.

These are more reasons why I can't give my vote to Obama... It gets old hearing the word hope and change but never hearing how or where this hope and change is going to come from
Also.. this man has, I feel very little pride or conviction concerning America's welfare.. he speaks like he wants to save the world..and not the usa.. moreover.. The usa is gonna foot the bill


Step outside yourself and your own desire for "white innocence", and ask yourself what Obama's potential nomination means to you.

Most likely for me.. it means I will be voting for McCain
Not because I want him for president..
but because I don't want Obama ( at this point )
This will be one of them years I will have to decide who is the lesser of both evils


The Democrat's are being taken by an excellent used car salesman. They do have a candidate (Hillary) who would make a good President and has the experience needed as well, but instead they would rather fall victim of a conman and a very good one. This guy lies and admits he lied and they just act like nothing happened.


I think his actions carry more then anything else.. and speaking ill of ones words isn't enough.. Obama still calls wright his paster..and the fact that he doesn't cut his ties with him and that church proves her "merit" IMO.
I couldn't agree more with your quote... Hillary is still the answer in my voting booth.

When the African American race starts preaching how "oppressed" they are.. thats a major turn off for me.. Obama's pastor buddy, sounds way to much like the most racist person in the world and that is IMO...
Al Sharpton...
When Obama sits in his church and allows his children to hear the sort of rhetoric this man passes on to all his followers.. ..he is only hurting America..( before becoming president yet ), not helping..

[nevadamedic]

See Obama's speech today before you make any decisions regarding what Shelby Steele had to say.

I'll give it an honest hearsay... but.. sorry to say.. all I have ever gathered from his other speeches is his coping of Hillary's views and ideas.. and alot or arrogance from his tone and appearance..[hr]

Thanks for the very informative article pres.. and I will be looking for more of steeles work..
i like what he says and it all makes alot of sence..


hardly a tick different from Hillary's positions. He espouses no galvanizing political idea. He is unable to say what he means by "change" or "hope" or "the future." And he has failed to say how he would actually be a "unifier.

These are more reasons why I can't give my vote to Obama... It gets old hearing the word hope and change but never hearing how or where this hope and change is going to come from
Also.. this man has, I feel very little pride or conviction concerning America's welfare.. he speaks like he wants to save the world..and not the usa.. moreover.. The usa is gonna foot the bill


Step outside yourself and your own desire for "white innocence", and ask yourself what Obama's potential nomination means to you.

Most likely for me.. it means I will be voting for McCain
Not because I want him for president..
but because I don't want Obama ( at this point )
This will be one of them years I will have to decide who is the lesser of both evils


The Democrat's are being taken by an excellent used car salesman. They do have a candidate (Hillary) who would make a good President and has the experience needed as well, but instead they would rather fall victim of a conman and a very good one. This guy lies and admits he lied and they just act like nothing happened.


I think his actions carry more then anything else.. and speaking ill of ones words isn't enough.. Obama still calls wright his paster..and the fact that he doesn't cut his ties with him and that church proves her "merit" IMO.
I couldn't agree more with your quote... Hillary is still the answer in my voting booth.

When the African American race starts preaching how "oppressed" they are.. thats a major turn off for me.. Obama's pastor buddy, sounds way to much like the most racist person in the world and that is IMO...
Al Sharpton...
When Obama sits in his church and allows his children to hear the sort of rhetoric this man passes on to all his followers.. ..he is only hurting America..( before becoming president yet ), not helping..


:clapper::clapper::clapper:

[cronic]

:clapper::clapper::clapper:


Liked that aye?.. lol..
pssst..
So did I!!!!
AHHHHHHHHH..

[Truth_and_Power]

So, don't vote for obama because I only like him because he's black?
Perhaps I only like hillary because she's a female?
So I should vote for the old white man because atleast then I know race/gender won't have been a factor?

LOL..Owww.. oxymoron headache..

[bishop]

excellent piece pres..

for me, though, i won't be voting for obama because i don't have any taste for his policies or his voting record.

[Go Fish]

Obama's handlers are running a brilliant campaign. Not once has he had to explain a single policy matter. Not once.
Thusfar, he has only had to deal with his pop-star status, (All those phony phainters), Hillary's desparate attempts to be likable (As if THAT could ever happen) and now this painfully divisive matter of him attending a racist church.
These things have precisely nothing to do with his qualifications or his prospects for the presidency of the greatest nation in the history of the planet Earth. Smoke and mirrors. Sleight of hand.
Great article, but just exactly what he needs if he hopes to defeat McCain. Too bad that Steele couldn't have turned that incisive mind toward the road to the presidency and away from the heavily-trodden footpath of racial tension.
We're not going to the polls to elect a DNA chain, folks. We're going to the polls to elect the next president of the United States. It's time to ramp up the standards.

[lily]

Actually I think his speech today is a perfect example of what Steele is saying. Look and listen to the words. His whole speech is a bargain to seperate himself from his pastor.

I don't get it Alan......I didn't watch the whole speech, but I did see the part where he told of his inter-racial background.

[AlanC]

Lily,

Steele made these points in the article.

Bargainers make the subliminal promise to whites not to shame them with America's history of racism, on the condition that they will not hold the bargainer's race against him. And whites love this bargain -- and feel affection for the bargainer -- because it gives them racial innocence in a society where whites live under constant threat of being stigmatized as racist. So the bargainer presents himself as an opportunity for whites to experience racial innocence.

And then this one in describing Jesse Jackson, Reverend Wright and Al Sharpton, et al...

They intimidated whites and demanded, in the name of historical justice, that they be brought forward. Mr. Obama flatters whites, grants them racial innocence, and hopes to ascend on the back of their gratitude. Two sides of the same coin.

Then in todays speech, Obama had this or words like it in several places.

As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

So he is recognizing what Steele is saying about Reverend Wrights commments and style as being challenging. And he is offering language to set aside that "divisive" language and bring whites and blacks together. That is the guilt free deal that Steele described in his article.

This speech personifies every aspect of that article and it explains a great deal of the Obama phenomenon.

But the two problems that are still there and come from his long time association with the likes of the good Reverend and others are these: Does he really believe what he is saying? And if he does, exactly how is he proposing to execute this process of bringing everyone to the table?

His record shows no such ability. In fact his record, from what I can see shows just the opposite.

[preservanation]

excellent piece pres..

for me, though, i won't be voting for obama because i don't have any taste for his policies or his voting record.

Thanks!
Wish I could take credit for it!

Everything I've read by Steele really makes me think, and kinda tilts the prism just enough so I can see thing a little clearer.

His book "White Guilt" is a classic and should be required reading for every college frosh or even an elective in senior high.
Under the current education system run by the current group of people this will never happen.
They're much more likely to be reading the works of Ward Churchill, Malcolm X or Chomsky.

[bishop]

well, i did my undergrad in poli sci and never read any political punditry of any brand. maybe that's why i turned out to be such an equal opportunity hater (i.e. objective ;))..

race is nothing more than a distraction from the issues, as obama said yesterday.. what we ought to scrutinize is what matters most - his record and positions on the issues. and in that regard, his record/positions are worse than his relationship with uncle wright as far as i'm concerned.. do you dream of a socialist paradise? vote obama.

[nevadamedic]

So, don't vote for obama because I only like him because he's black?
Perhaps I only like hillary because she's a female?
So I should vote for the old white man because atleast then I know race/gender won't have been a factor?

LOL..Owww.. oxymoron headache..


If you are black and vote for Obama simply because he is black that is racist.

[Truth_and_Power]

well, i did my undergrad in poli sci and never read any political punditry of any brand. maybe that's why i turned out to be such an equal opportunity hater (i.e. objective ;))..

race is nothing more than a distraction from the issues, as obama said yesterday.. what we ought to scrutinize is what matters most - his record and positions on the issues. and in that regard, his record/positions are worse than his relationship with uncle wright as far as i'm concerned.. do you dream of a socialist paradise? vote obama.


From what I can see hillary's economic policies are to the left of obama's. She's just a bit more hawkish.

[bishop]

how do you come to that conclusion? their voting records are virtually identical.

if there is a difference, i'd wager that it's negligible.

[suedanim]

Obama has been lying and playing the race card from day one.

The Democrat's are being taken by an excellent used car salesman. They do have a candidate (Hillary) who would make a good President and has the experience needed as well, but instead they would rather fall victim of a conman and a very good one. This guy lies and admits he lied and they just act like nothing happened.


Educate me.

Please state the lies (quotes with links please) and exactly how Obama has played the race card from day one. Post with links provided to examples where he has played the race card.

You say he is a conman. How so? Show me how with links please or is that just empty rhetoric?

Please state Hillary Clintons experience ... with links.

I'm very interested in hearing what you have to say, but do back up your claims with proof.

btw... unlike you I refuse to act juvenile and give you a negative rating simply because I disagree with you.

[Truth_and_Power]

how do you come to that conclusion? their voting records are virtually identical.

if there is a difference, i'd wager that it's negligible.


from your perspective and mine, that's true.

[nevadamedic]

Obama has been lying and playing the race card from day one.

The Democrat's are being taken by an excellent used car salesman. They do have a candidate (Hillary) who would make a good President and has the experience needed as well, but instead they would rather fall victim of a conman and a very good one. This guy lies and admits he lied and they just act like nothing happened.


Educate me.

Please state the lies (quotes with links please) and exactly how Obama has played the race card from day one. Post with links provided to examples where he has played the race card.

You say he is a conman. How so? Show me how with links please or is that just empty rhetoric?

Please state Hillary Clintons experience ... with links.

I'm very interested in hearing what you have to say, but do back up your claims with proof.

btw... unlike you I refuse to act juvenile and give you a negative rating simply because I disagree with you.


He played the race card by being a black man running for President.

[suedanim]

Obama has been lying and playing the race card from day one.

The Democrat's are being taken by an excellent used car salesman. They do have a candidate (Hillary) who would make a good President and has the experience needed as well, but instead they would rather fall victim of a conman and a very good one. This guy lies and admits he lied and they just act like nothing happened.


Educate me.

Please state the lies (quotes with links please) and exactly how Obama has played the race card from day one. Post with links provided to examples where he has played the race card.

You say he is a conman. How so? Show me how with links please or is that just empty rhetoric?

Please state Hillary Clintons experience ... with links.

I'm very interested in hearing what you have to say, but do back up your claims with proof.

btw... unlike you I refuse to act juvenile and give you a negative rating simply because I disagree with you.


He played the race card by being a black man running for President.


:madlaugh: Oh is that how? So just being black is playing a race card? He is intentionally manipulating public opinion by having brown skin?

Is John McCain playing the race card by being white?

[Truth_and_Power]

Obama has been lying and playing the race card from day one.

The Democrat's are being taken by an excellent used car salesman. They do have a candidate (Hillary) who would make a good President and has the experience needed as well, but instead they would rather fall victim of a conman and a very good one. This guy lies and admits he lied and they just act like nothing happened.


Educate me.

Please state the lies (quotes with links please) and exactly how Obama has played the race card from day one. Post with links provided to examples where he has played the race card.

You say he is a conman. How so? Show me how with links please or is that just empty rhetoric?

Please state Hillary Clintons experience ... with links.

I'm very interested in hearing what you have to say, but do back up your claims with proof.

btw... unlike you I refuse to act juvenile and give you a negative rating simply because I disagree with you.


He played the race card by being a black man running for President.


:madlaugh: Oh is that how? So just being black is playing a race card? He is intentionally manipulating public opinion by having brown skin?

Is John McCain playing the race card by being white?


John McCain would never be where he is today if he weren't white.

[preservanation]

So, don't vote for obama because I only like him because he's black?
Perhaps I only like hillary because she's a female?
So I should vote for the old white man because atleast then I know race/gender won't have been a factor?

LOL..Owww.. oxymoron headache..


If you are black and vote for Obama simply because he is black that is racist.
Ya know, months ago (after Iwoa, and before SC) I would have agreed with you, but today....not so much.
Race is now front and center.
This works well for Clinton but tends to marginalize Obama.
I believe I've now heard the specter of riots, if he loses the primary, raise it's ugly head.

Obama said..."Those 'quiet riots' that take place every day are born from the same place as the fires and the destruction and the police decked out in riot gear and the deaths," Obama said. "They happen when a sense of disconnect settles in and hope dissipates. Despair takes hold and young people all across this country look at the way the world is and believe that things are never going to get any better."

I remember a speech by Farrakhan when he said that the Bible calls for a “baptism of fire” and that “America must burn.”

Eerily similar, don't you think?
Shiit, I just gave myself the chills....

[nevadamedic]

Obama has been lying and playing the race card from day one.

The Democrat's are being taken by an excellent used car salesman. They do have a candidate (Hillary) who would make a good President and has the experience needed as well, but instead they would rather fall victim of a conman and a very good one. This guy lies and admits he lied and they just act like nothing happened.


Educate me.

Please state the lies (quotes with links please) and exactly how Obama has played the race card from day one. Post with links provided to examples where he has played the race card.

You say he is a conman. How so? Show me how with links please or is that just empty rhetoric?

Please state Hillary Clintons experience ... with links.

I'm very interested in hearing what you have to say, but do back up your claims with proof.

btw... unlike you I refuse to act juvenile and give you a negative rating simply because I disagree with you.


He played the race card by being a black man running for President.


:madlaugh: Oh is that how? So just being black is playing a race card? He is intentionally manipulating public opinion by having brown skin?

Is John McCain playing the race card by being white?


Yup, no matter how much Barack Hussein Obama scrubs with soap he cant get the White out of him so he has to pretend.