Posted on 02/20/2008 9:40:16 AM PST by Mac from Cleveland
In the spirit of the New Year, I made some resolutions last month: Increase the exercise; eat right; cut down on the cocktails, etc. I try to help myself keep those resolutions by finding ways to facilitate the positive actions. For example, one of the most effective appetite suppressants I’ve found is to read about the current Presidential race before or during meals.
A couple of weeks ago, for example, I was at a diner in the Philadelphia suburbs, where I live now, on a Saturday morning, having breakfast, and brought along that day’s copy of the Philadelphia Inquirer, which contained a story by Alfred Lubrano entitled "An Appeal to Youth". In it, young people discuss why they like Obama. Lubrano begins sedately:
"They celebrate his skin color; they love his John F. Kennedy style. And he's talking just when young people are ready to listen.
Barack Obama is, for Democratic voters ages 18 to 29, both balm and savior - the King of Camelot 2.0, a voice of the future for the future stewards of America."
Pretty objective, Alfred.
He quotes some deep-thinking young people on just what it is about Obama that’s so great. Here’s one:
“You know why I like him?" asked Michael Johnston, 23, a Bryn Mawr fund manager. "He plays pick-up basketball."
End of quote.
Gee, I’m sold- why even hold an election? Here’s another:
"Obama represents change, diversity and a new direction," said Kathryn Stamoulis, 27, a psychology graduate student at Temple University. "We've never seen anyone who looks like him, and he gets us away from guys with names like George. He's fresh, and that's why young people respond to him."
I love her casual denigration of “guys with names like George”. Here’s a newsflash, sweetie: Men with “names like George” are basically responsible for 99 % of all the advances of modern civilization that you enjoy and take for granted, and who can be found running hellholes like the U.S., Canada, Denmark or Switzerland. However, if things are as simple to fix as your quote indicates, paradises like Somalia, Sudan, and Kenya have plenty of “guys with names like Barack” who are already running the show. Leave this horrible place, Kathy, put on your burqua, and spend a year or two over in one of those places. Maybe we can then enlist Dr. Phil to ask you “How’s that working for you?”
I have to say that the whole “diversity uber alles” movement confuses me. On the one hand, diversity for diversity’s sake is promoted, and often the refrain is then made that “We want someone who looks like us”
Isn’t wanting someone who “looks like you” the opposite of wanting diversity?
It’s especially galling when you read that type of “I want _______who look like me”, usually said by inner-city residents about their police force. Now I can think of only 2 broad categories in which you come into contact with on-duty police at all:
1. You need help (cat in a tree, need directions, car stalled, homicidal maniac coming up the stairs, etc.)
2. You did/are doing/are about to do something criminal.
If #1 is applicable to you, why on earth would you care what the police "looked like", as long as they helped you? (and don't try to tell me that cops are not helpful to honest law-abiding citizens. The vast majority of police help all types of people every single day).
If #2 is the case, why should anyone care what you want?
Getting back to Lubrano’s article, he raises exactly one concrete issue –Obama is against the war. Nothing else but the buzzwords “new”, “change”, “diversity”, “radical”, “ fresh”, "young” (Obama is actually, as of this writing, older than JFK when he was killed, as well as older than Bill Clinton when he was inaugurated )or the fact that Obama is “half black”, as Lubrano puts it,which “affords him 'cosmopolitan chic' ”, whatever that is.
It is as bad to vote in some knee jerk, lockstep fashion for someone because of their race as it is to vote against someone because of their race.
Why on earth would Obama, just because of his race, automatically be a viable candidate? He is a good speaker, I suppose, but what is he saying in those speeches? He reminds me of a bright blue swimming pool, 200 feet long, 100 feet wide- and 6 inches deep. On the many issues facing our nation, his positions are vague or unknown in many instances, and when they become known, I find them as wrong as wrong could be. That's why I 'm against him.
Conservatives are just as bad, by the way—witness the Colin Powell mania of the mid-90s. I have met and spoken with General Powell on a couple of occasions-he is an impressive man, but he was certainly less than stellar in his advice to President Bush 41 after the Gulf War, as well as when he was Clinton’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs during the time leading up to the Somalia debacle in 1993. I was also troubled by many things he said about various issues that I read over the years. That didn’t stop masses of people in their quest to anoint him. I think a more measured view would have stopped a lot of that. His mediocre to poor record as Secretary of State did in fact cool things down.
His successor, Condoleezza Rice, (or as I call her, “Melanin Albright”) was subjected to similar thoughtless adulation. Obviously, she is an intelligent and accomplished woman, but do you really think there are not, say, 25 women in Washington just as smart? (As well as at least as many men.) Her views and opinions of many foreign and domestic issues trouble me greatly, and her actual performance as President Bush’s National Security Advisor and as Secretary of State has ranged from marginal to terrible.
For people like those in the article, who think that, by virtue of Obama’s racial makeup, this country will be automatically better off, there’s ample historical precedent- not chief executive of the nation, but chief executive of various cities. i.e. mayors. If their logic holds true, that means that Coleman Young and Kwame Kilpatrick were good for Detroit, David Dinkins good for New York City, Ray Nagin good for New Orleans, and Marion Barry good for DC. You think so?
I’m not saying that, just because of their race, these men were terrible mayors. But they were terrible mayors, so evidently being black does not ensure adequate performance by itself.
Can’t we all, liberals and conservatives, take race, gender, etc. out of the equation, and take a long, thorough, dispassionate view of the candidate’s actual stand on the issues, as well as their past performance. From that vantage point, Obama doesn’t look good--at all.
But then again, he does play pick up basketball……
Forget the resolutions-I need a cocktail.
“...sadly I think it’s the celebrity, POP culture, be part of the “in thing” that isdriving this. Casue it sure aint Obama’s policies. I’m pretty sure they’re going to start throwing their panties on stage next!”
This country is completely hung up on image over substance. When Obama and McCain are on stage together, the MSM won’t be talking about their policies and ideas. They will be talking about the tall handsome young man vs. the mean old stodgy grumpy gus. Think I’m wrong? Wait for it.
I wouldn’t take you up on the bet. You’re absolutely right. Sad isn’t that we are the last great hope for the free world and this is the level of thought in this nation?
“Melanin Albright”
“pick up basketball”
I smell a Stormfront infiltrator.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.