Were You Aware -- Uh, Clear the Throat --That Obama Is Black?
THE FIFTH COLUMNIST by P.M. Carpenter
Another week, another diversionary flap over some slithering surrogate's depraved words, and another few delegates added to Barack Obama's unbeatable lead. This spectacle is down to a battle of the surrealists vs. the sure realists, but perhaps the latter should start reflecting the confidence of insurmountability.
Another six weeks -- and heaven forfend even the thought of four or five more months -- of this mindless, he-said, she-said drivel and John McCain and his neocon shock troops can start measuring the drapes.
Merely the latest staged surprise was, as the entire universe knows, racial historian Geraldine Ferraro's suggestion of Obama as merely elected dog catcher had he not been black. Any other pigmentation and he "would not be in this [winning] position," said Geraldine, blithely neglecting her own candidate's (to some) advantageous coloration and gender.
Obama's riposte was that Ms. Ferraro's words were "patently absurd," as is the notion that she simply and suddenly struck out on her own as an off-reservation freelancer. Such a notion was at least passable, until, that is, Ms. Ferraro, having plenty of time to reconsider and consult with the friendly powers that be, then reinforced her message in a subsequent defense every bit as offensive.
So round and round they went, with Mrs. Clinton, grinning like a Cheshire cat, musing on how "regrettable" it all is and how "We ought to keep this on the issues," just as her campaign manager was thunderously arriving at the striking conclusion that you, the multitudes, should reject Obama's "false, personal and politically calculated attacks on the eve of [the Mississippi] primary."
Say what? Mr. Obama could have further responded that what he rejects is politically calculated table-turning couched in denied desperation, and that surely there's a White Citizens' Council convening somewhere eager to hear more of Maggie, Hillary and Geraldine's insights into the vastly unfair advantages of being black in America.
Well, OK, maybe not that second part. But that even the thought of such a crack is now thinkable shows just how miserably far down the cracking lines of the progressive coalition we've traveled.
All it took was some internal competition and one side's willingness to win at any cost, not knowing at first if its constituency would buy into that willingness. But it did. So it now peddles a less than subtle undertone for which it would have excoriated the contemptibly racist right as typical, just typical -- and the real opposition these days has every right to laugh its self-satisfied ass off.
The Democratic Party once asked itself if Barack Obama was black enough. In short order came the answer from those who "wish to keep this on the issues": Even partial blackness is too black, permitting as it does an unfair affirmative-action candidacy that white folk should think once, twice, three times about before he steps and fetches his way to the nomination and predictably bungles early-morning emergency calls.
You know how those people are; always demanding a seat at the table and then always getting in over their undeserving, uppity and unschooled heads.
Those who protest that that's a disallowable stretch -- those who would cry outrageous, unfair foul at these words -- know as little about the insidious undertow of racism in America as Geraldine Ferraro. Then again that statement is a profound contradiction, for Ms. Ferraro obviously understands quite a bit about racism's undertow, and that's precisely why she went swimming in it.
I don't hold any candidate responsible for the occasional ravings of his or her surrogates, except when those ravings flow seamlessly into the candidate's already carefully constructed sewer.
Just to top it off, Ms. Ferraro received but the slightest of scoldings at a distance -- Now, Geraldine, one really shouldn't say those "overzealous" things, thank you very much. "Monster" may be out of bounds and worthy of summary exile, but let's do try to keep our unremitting message of his shiftless blackness within tasteful boundaries.
The he, of course, is pretty much screwed whichever way he turns. If he dismisses the scurrility without pointed comment, then he's weak. If he confronts it, he's a whiner.
But Americans detest whining a wee bit more than good old-fashioned racial politics. Hence it would seem, as getting screwed goes, that simply dismissing the opposing camp's malignancy is the better and wiser part of political valor. Every time he reacts it but reinforces that which begs for an ethically superior nonchalance.
It is, after all, just desperation talking; of more helpful interest -- if any comment there need be -- is how having tea and crumpets with Irishmen can resolve a bloody civil war.
Because he has already won this thing, perhaps Obama should act like it.
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fifthcolumnistmail@gmail.comTHE FIFTH COLUMNIST by P.M. Carpenter
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