My agreement was with his remarks about the "affirmative action syndrome," not about Obama in particular. Obama seems bright enough, although I have never been "wowed" by his rhetoric. I find most of his speeches boring. I see almost nothing new or innovative in them. He has the patois of the chattering classes down and expresses liberal ideas with a certain fresh vigour, but I don't find any of it very insightful. I consider some of his talk downright dangerous (For example, yesterday he said that Bush hasn't led well in relations with Mexico--he should be more accomodating of Mexican demands!)
Then again, anyone running for office has to speak at the level of the audience, and audiences are dumbed down nowadays. Maybe it is unfair to judge him on what he says in public; political speeches are by nature full of cliches and platitudes. He probably comes off smarter in person than when he appears on the stump.
Michelle, OTOH, does strike me as an AA product and that was the focus of my agreement. There's a certain belligerence and stridency in her manner that indicates a lack of confidence. She does strike me as having been promoted way beyond her level. People like this tend to be haunted by a sense that they haven't really deserved their accomplishments. They don't know whether they could have made it on their own. They make up for by heaping scorn on the environment around them and trying to stifle any criticism of their own performance. That was what I had in mind and what I think Noonan was hinting at in the article.
This issue is going to come up more often as Obama gets more scrutiny. That may be unfair, but as you know, race questions are going to interject themselves into the campaign. That is lamentable, but it's reality.
Unfortunately all high achieving Afro Americans are stigmatized by Affirmative Action. That was Clarence Thomas’ point.
“There’s a certain belligerence and stridency in her manner that indicates a lack of confidence.”
Haha, I think I see the problem: you don’t realize that’s just a black woman thing. That’s how they be.
The best place to see how Obama thinks is in his first book, Dreams from my Father. He’s a highly intelligent, unusually self-aware person. But again, he’s a raving liberal, which is the actual problem.