Baltimore Violence is Obama’s Failed Legacy on Race

As our first African-American president, Barack Obama had the opportunity to personify the final triumph of civil rights, and in the process, become a celebrated and historic figure. Instead, his ironic legacy on race is one of abject failure, as the rioting and looting in Baltimore underscore. The tragic reality is that Obama passed on the opportunity to the “post-racial” president he promised to be when he first ran in 2008.

Instead, he farmed out leadership on racial issues to Al Sharpton, for whom grievance is like oxygen. The prejudgment of George Zimmerman, and related fury, set the stage for Ferguson, which was followed by the murder of New York City police officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos. Now Baltimore looks like a scene from 1968, with Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake having no problem appearing with Sharpton on Thursday, an implicit endorsement of the violence, or at least, the Obama/Holder version of “civil rights.” What a disaster.

Maybe the problem is that Obama is not really our first African-American president. I do not mean this in a racial sense because his mother was white. I mean it in the sense of his connection to slavery and the racial discrimination that followed. Obama’s father was not American, but Kenyan. Obama was not impacted by the legacy of slavery, except in the form of the many benefits accorded him his entire life through formal and informal forms of affirmative action and race-based forbearance.

Obama is conscious of the disparity between his life experience and that of older blacks and civil rights leaders who experienced, or at least can remember, the cruel reality of racial discrimination. Sharpton provides Obama with a connection to this group, albeit an inauthentic one.

In this respect, Obama is a lot like white liberals who reveal their own racism by deferring to Sharpton as a legitimate voice. Clownish, flamboyant, and always on the hustle, Sharpton is an exaggerated, if real, caricature of African-Americans. Unfortunately, Sharpton’s prominence has been greatly enhanced by the White House.

Now even Obama realizes that things have gone too far, and he is reduced to condemning the “criminals and thugs” of Baltimore. Unfortunately, the genie that he, Sharpton and Holder shook out of the bottle can’t be put back in.

President George W. Bush's speech after the capture of Saddam Hussein:

"The success of yesterday's mission is a tribute to our men and women now serving in Iraq. The operation was based on the superb work of intelligence analysts who found the dictator's footprints in a vast country. The operation was carried out with skill and precision by a brave fighting force. Our servicemen and women and our coalition allies have faced many dangers in the hunt for members of the fallen regime and in their effort to bring hope and freedom to the Iraqi people. Their work continues, and so do the risks. Today, on behalf of the nation, I thank the members of our Armed Forces and I congratulate them!"

Obama's speech after the killing of Osama bin Laden:

"And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the Director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda, even as we continued our broader efforts to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat his network. Then, last August, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground. I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan. And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and I authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice. Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottaba, Pakistan."

Not once did Obama acknowledge our brave men and women who fight for our country...

And that my friends is Chicken Shtt

Obama is a nine year old child.

The world revolves around a nine year old child, not the other way around.

Bush was an adult. He was an adult I often disagreed with, but at least he was an adult. He grasped that the credit should go to the men whose lives were in jeopardy when they were on the ground in Iraq.

I give Bush high marks on crediting the men.

Obama gets low marks for crediting himself over and over and over and over and over... (to infinity)

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