Obama won’t lose for being black but for not being American enough

The Telegraph ^ | August 25, 2008 | Janet Daley

[Schnucki]

The Left is preparing its excuse in advance for Barack Obama losing the presidential election. All together now, let’s hear it: It’s All About Race. However few Americans there may be who are actually prepared to utter the words, “I wouldn’t vote for a black man”, the truth, it is said, is that racial bigotry is at the heart of Obama’s failure to take a convincing lead.

Indeed, on some accounts, the fact of people refusing to utter those words is proof that racism is the main issue in this campaign. So if you say them you’re a bigot, and if you don’t say them, you’re a closet bigot. And on what evidence is this argument, which it is logically impossible to disprove, being based? From what I can see in the published versions, it rests largely on some crass jokes from the shock-jock community, the mumblings of gun-shop customers and a “virulent internet campaign”.

The first two categories are roughly the American equivalents of tabloid headline-writers and taxi drivers. As for the “virulent internet campaign”, the internet is much as it is here: the home of the Green Ink brigade who have got access to the Universe. How would you like it if the mood of Britain were to be judged by the blathering of that small army of dysfunctional men in dressing gowns hunched over laptops spewing out gratuitous hatred at an unappreciative world?

So no, Obama’s failure to close the deal is not “all about race”. Nor will his defeat (as I believe it will be) in the election be evidence of endemic American prejudice. This election will be a little bit about race, a lot more about class and a very great deal about what it means to be identifiably American.

[paudio]

Why didn’t we hear much about racism when three “fine, clean and articulate”, not to mention experienced Black gentlemen (Ken Blackwell, Lynn Swann, and Michael Steele) lost to white men in 2006?

[livius]

It is that he is an African-American in the literal sense of being half African and only half American, who spent much of his boyhood abroad and who borrowed a consciously constructed black American identity from the south side of Chicago.

Yes!

[nathanbedford]

This page contains a surprising amount of insights about the reality of this election considering that it was authored by a Brit but the author, whether deliberately or because of this lack of true insight into the American character, misses the ultimate truth about Barak Obama.

First what the author does catch: the author sees that the Southside Chicago persona is an artificial graft onto an inauthentic personality or at least onto an authentically American experience. But he misses the key to Obama's personality when he attributes this to an accident of geography where the culture of America's heartland never rubbed off onto Barak Obama.

The truth, however, is not nearly so pretty. The author is quite correct that Obama contrived his new personality but not to paper over a broader cosmopolitan experience with an American experience rather to disguise a rabidly anti-American worldview with an African American patina.

It is quite clear that Obama has opportunistically allied himself with forces that could help him and then shed them when they were no longer expedient. That is why, for example, he became a member of the Trinity Church and then left the church.

But Obama's real and inherited core is that of a radical leftist, even a Marxist, who knows from his Saul Alinsky training and experience that the radicalism must be disguised and hidden if he is to prosper politically. So, just as she put on and took off the persona offered by the Trinity Church, so he has put on the persona of the reformer who is above race. As his campaign stumbles and he is brought to Bay and so goes over to the attack with the appointment of Joe Biden, that reformer persona has now also been shed. The question is whether he will get to the finish line before the American people can see through the theatrics.

It is not surprising that a leftward leaning writer for a leftward leaning foreign newspaper would fail to see or, more likely, not want to see how these cards were shuffled.

[Caipirabob]

Obama won’t lose for being black but for not being American enough

That would be some justice for embracing a despicable hate-filled sub-culture.

[livius]

Oh, it’s definitely true that he’s trying very hard to hide the fact that he’s a radical leftist. But he has hitched himself to the “African American” thing as a way of hiding it and trying to gain some credibility for himself. In reality, he’s little different from those traveling bands of anarchists who are roaming the streets of Denver now.

I highly recommend Jonah Goldberg’s book Liberal Fascism. It analyzes the history and current constitution of the radical left. One thing that I’d forgotten about the chaos after 1968 was the violent take-over of Cornell University by various campus “black power” groups. The radical left was ecstatic, and this enshrined black crime and violence as a tool in the radical left’s manipulation of the mob. I think Obama is using his light suntan to tap into this part of the leftist past.

[Wil H]

Obama IS NOT a black man.

He’s Bi-Racial.

He tells you he’s black, but he’s not.

[DB]

Not American enough as in not being a US citizen?

That appears possible...

[ConservativeDude]

cuts both ways...the more the left says, “you’re racist for not voting Obama” the more people will flee, b/c they don’t like being called racist...so they will vote McCain just out of sheer resentment...

[tgusa]

You should have a blog, NB, I love reading your stuff - refreshing amidst the usual drivel here.

[nathanbedford]

Thank you very much.

Will somebody please tell my wife to stop rolling her eyes.

[Jim Noble]

Check out Alan Srout’s comment below the article:

“The O-man, Barack Hussein Obama, is an eloquently
tailored empty suit. No resume, no accomplishments,
no experience, no original ideas, no understanding of
how the economy works, no understanding of how the
world works, nothing but abstract empty rhetoric
devoid of real substance.

He has no real identity. He is half-white, which he
rejects. The rest of him is mostly Arab, which he
hides but is disclosed by his non-African Arabic
surname and his Arabic first and middle names as a way
to triply proclaim his Arabic parentage to people in
Kenya . Only a small part of him is African Black from
his Luo grandmother, which he pretends he is
exclusively.

What he isn’t, not a genetic drop of, is
‘African-American,’ the descendant of enslaved
Africans brought to America chained in slave ships.
He hasn’t a single ancestor who was a slave. Instead,
his Arab ancestors were slave owners. Slave-trading
was the main Arab business in East Africa for
centuries until the British ended it.

Let that sink in: Obama is not the descendant of
slaves, he is the descendant of slave owners. Thus he
makes the perfect Liberal Messiah.

It’s something Hillary doesn’t understand - how some
complete neophyte came out of the blue and stole the
Dem nomination from her. Obamamania is beyond
politics and reason. It is a true religious cult,
whose adherents reject Christianity yet still believe
in Original Sin, transferring it from the evil of
being human to the evil of being white.

Thus Obama has become the white liberals’ Christ,
offering absolution from the Sin of Being White. There
is no reason or logic behind it, no faults or flaws of
his can diminish it, no arguments Hillary could make
of any kind can be effective against it. The
absurdity of Hypocrisy Clothed In Human Flesh being
their Savior is all the more cause for liberals to
worship him: Credo quia absurdum, I believe it because
it is absurd.

Thank heavens that the voting majority of Americans
remain Christian and are in no desperate need of a
phony savior.

His candidacy is ridiculous and should not be taken
seriously by any thinking American.
Pass this on to every thinking American you know! “

[big'ol_freeper]

I don’t agree with either premise.

He will lose for three reasons:

1. He’s as far left as you can get in either party.

2. He lacks the experience to be President of the United States.

3. McCain is effectively running his campaign like a military operation, keeping the dhimmis off balance and confused, seemingly knowing what nObama is going to say and do before nObama does...even perhaps causing nObama to do what McCain wants him to do.

[big'ol_freeper]

LOL...I just read my wife the post I made at #13 before I posted it and she rolled her eyes too.

It is a lonely business being legends in our own minds my friend!

[nathanbedford]

I tell my life, a prophet is not without honor save in his own land.

That doesn't work either.

[BRL]

Tell your wife that I think your post was great.

[EBH]

I have found that book to be quite an eye opener. So much so I wrote Jonah Goldberg and told him about the insights I gained from reading his book.

A while back some questioned my use of the term for him. Fascist. The reason was because they didn't see a militant side to the Obamessiah; where I did at the time and it is now coming to the forefront. His tactics have been subtle in the face of the masses, but to those of who know their history, he is playing the same cards as the other “progressive pragmatist” that came before him. The One who came before Hitler and rose into office in much the same manner(s) as Obama.

As the layers of Obama are peeled away he begins to stink and makes one cry for our future should he get into the White House. At one point in time, I would have been more worried of another Clinton administration. I would now give almost anything that the campaign were Hillary vs. McCain.

The very thing this author is talking about is a type of voter intimidation. They are trying to raise the level of voting for McCain to a sin against American society. The sin is bigotry and it is being fabricated in the minds of the American militant left. Every-time Obama pulls the race-baiting card during the campaign he is fueling his militant base. He doesn't need to give them directions. They have been well instructed by the Sharptons, Farrakhans, and political correctness.

[palomonte]

I am not voting for Barack Obama because he is a “black man”.

I say this because, to me, the word “black” has nothing to do with his skin color - but the culture to which he is pandering.

To some undefined extent, racism exists in our country, and there are some who will vote for or against Obama solely because of his race.

I think that there are also “culturists” who will vote against him because of what they think he represents - one who wishes to redistribute the wealth attained by predominately white middle and upper class Americans to those who are less ecomically viable.

[EBH]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2067426/posts

Another thread, another article trying to place race as the core issue of the campaign. And read the words of Jaladah, “demons.” There is that highly intellectual sin against society.

[livius]

At one point in time, I would have been more worried of another Clinton administration. I would now give almost anything that the campaign were Hillary vs. McCain.

I agree. Obama takes it to a whole different level of fascism (which, as Goldberg points out, is essentially leftist). He has the identity politics technique completely mastered.

The odd thing is that Hitler's identity politics focused on what was more or less the identity of most Germans (that is, German), while the Dems have worked up a new version that takes a group that is essentially a tiny part of our overall population (blacks are only 12%, and some sources consider even that an overestimation) and makes allegiance to or acceptance by this group the defining thing in Obama's identity politics. As Goldberg points out, this is because the left has spent decades developing this form of identity politics and also defining what it "means" to be black: namely, that one subscribes to all the policies of the left. That's why they keep claiming that very obviously black people like Condoleeza Rice and Clarence Thomas aren't REALLY black. They're not leftists, therefore they aren't part of the construct of this identity group.