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Pastimes : Where the GIT's are going -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: PatiBob who wrote (161400)	3/21/2008 9:58:48 AM
From: Alan Smithee	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 225578

I've never heard of this guy Really? Krauthammer is one of my favorite commentators. Very bright guy with keen insights.

To: PatiBob who wrote (161400)	3/21/2008 11:41:06 AM
From: Neeka	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 225578

That is a crying shame, because he's so insightful and sensible. And his last point is so spot on. Would you subject your children to the ravings of a lunatic like JWright? Of course you wouldn't. And that would make you more qualified to lead this nation than Barack Obama. Here's another piece by an even more insightful guy. You need to get out more girl. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Obamastrophe V D HANSON In Politics The Me-Campaign I admire Barack's Obama rhetorical skills and ability to run against Clinton, Inc., but racial polarization will be the legacy of an Obama campaign that promised to transcend race. It now routinely counts on winning 90% of the African-American community on the basis of racial affinity against a similar liberal Democratic candidate, who herself in short order in turn relies on racial identity politics. Pennsylvania might prove to be the most polarized election yet, and it's likely that Obama will reap what he's sown with his failure to disassociate himself from a racist. The speech, for some reason aimed at solidifying the African-American base and capturing praise in the New York Times, succeeded on those counts as much as it turned off middle-class America, set racial relations backward, and destroyed his campaign. One legacy of his speech is that 85-year-old Mrs. Madelyn Dunham, once praised for saving the Obama failed household, will be remembered by America for her supposed racist, "made me cringe" sneers that provoked her brilliant grandson's metamorphosis into a trans-racial messiah. That cruel evocation was symptomatic of a generation that does all it can to claim credit for itself for its perceived successes, and to allot blame to its predecessors for all its present unhappiness. But then the Obama campaign already had focused on the Obama's neuroses, their angst about their loans, the cost of their kids' school and camp, and whether or not Michelle felt 'pride' this particular week in the rest of us. The Wright mess and the relativist apology for it are not the only reason for the slide in the polls; America also got tired of the self-indulgence and self-referencing that exceeded even that of the Clintons', heretofore the past masters of the me-generation. The only suspense will be how the great healer explains to the nation why in the world white voters outside of the elite suburbs suddenly turned on him in record numbers that cannot be balanced by the record majorities he piles up in African-American communities. Pennsylvania will be the barometer of the reaction to his modified hangout speech this week, and I think he could well lose the state by 20%. And that will send a powerful message that the Democrats have nominated someone who will not or cannot "disown" an abject racist—or at least apply the same standards of condemnation that he once applied to Don Imus when he asked him to resign. Indeed, as two liberal candidates duke it out, we now matter-of-factly talk of the "white voter" and the "black voter" and the "Latino voter." The overwhelming majority of black commentators on television who hear the replays of the Wright venom find ways of assuring audiences that what they are hearing is not what they think they are hearing—given that listeners are not experienced with that past grievance or this present custom in the black religious community. Reporters hunt in vain for a black preacher or members of churches similar to Trinity who find Wright's racism, anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism abominable. But then why should they when Barack Obama himself has put such hatred in the proper context of 'everyone does it'—your rabbi, his grandmother, the "corporate culture", the "Reagan Coalition", Geraldine Ferraro, and all the other racists who are moral equivalents of Rev. Wright spouting out "God Damn America", "rich white folks," the "KKK of A", "Clarence Colon" and all the other sickness? (In this regard I smiled when the Rev. Sharpton the other night swore that the Rev. Wright had not said anything untoward about "whites" (cf."KKK of A") or toward any one person (cf. e.g., "Clarence Colon", "Condamnesia" Rice). Giddy elite whites chime in solemn tones that the "speech" was historical and the burden is on the less sensitive than they to appreciate it and fall into line. Meanwhile tens of millions in the middle-class of all races remain appalled. They are puzzled that their intelligence is being insulted—that a would-be President can neither explain his past intimacy with a racist nor promise to disassociate himself from the font of such hatred. So history will record that the disturbing legacies of the Obama racial paradigm are his twins of moral equivalence and contextualization. That is, once a private remark of a grandmother is elevated to the same sin as a public hate-fest, for purposes of rationalization, or a quip of Geraldine Ferraro is similar to "God Damn America" or the "KKK of A", then all metrics disappear. The next time someone utters something reprehensible, there will be a chorus that points out a similar tit-for-tat pretext. And since we are to understand that the peculiar frustrations of blacks and the protocols of expression within in the black church must pardon the effects of the Wright hatred, it unfortunately won't be long until the next racist outburst is likewise explained away. Imus tried that when he advanced the argument that his past good works and the raunchiness of talk-jock radio made his racist remarks merely crude rather than ill-intended. That argument rightly failed (as the "old" Obama pointed out at the time); after Wright and Obama, similar ones won't next time—and the future is sadly going to be wide-open, true to the Wright brand of coarseness and crudity. Thanks to Obama there will be fewer to speak out with any credibility that an absolute standard of decency condemns all forms of racism from anyone under all circumstances. Obama's eloquence and his postmodern deftness with false analogies and slick relativism may have ensured both that the super delegates don't yank his nomination, and that public anger over his falsehoods about what he knew and when is chalked up to racism, but the damage he's done won't be undone easily. The Democrats flocked to this Pied Piper and now he's going to lead them over the proverbial cliff.