~ It’s important to have a hard-nosed look at the emerging Obama administration. What no one should accept is Ralph Nader, a 74-year-old white man, suggesting that Obama might turn out to be “Uncle Tom for the giant corporations.” [Update: I should have noted that Nader’s ancestry is Lebanese.] It’s not the first time Nader has lobbed racial rhetoric at Barack, apparently convinced that his status as a left-progressive makes it alright to do so. In his own way, Nader is as clueless as John McCain. The two might get along well in the pasture of political yesterdays.
~ In late September, author Alice Walker, a supposed progressive, poured saccharine, contemptible praise on the 50-year dictatorship of Fidel Castro, and more egregiously, compared Fidel favorably with Barack Obama as a leader who loves his people. Now Ms. Walker, who cheers a regime that still imprisons journalists, who lacks any credibility on the subject of politics and morality, is back to tell us she disapproves of Obama saying that the U.S. will kill Osama bin Laden. Citing what she calls “the black man factor,” she argues:
For many, finally getting to know a black man in all his glory is the high point of their education as American citizens. However, there lingers in the collective psyche a very carefully planted fear of same; that he is vicious, that he is mean, that he is… a killer.
Psychobabble doesn’t begin to describe it. It’s flat wrong, for that matter: Obama’s tough stance on terrorism swayed millions of white voters and helped win him the election. It was not listening to mush-headed lefties like Alice Walker that got Obama to where he is now. May he continue on that course.
~ Obama’s clearly stated toughness makes Marko Attila Hoare’s November 3 endorsement of John McCain all the more infuriating. Hoare, based in the UK, is an erudite voice against the kind of far-left foolishness I’ve just described above. I’m certainly willing to listen to his critique of Obama’s position on Greece versus Macedonia. But talk about losing sight of the big picture. Here he is breezily dismissing “the big Sarah Palin bogey”:
Palin was brought in by McCain to mobilise the Republican base; she will not determine US policy. McCain might die in office and leave the inexperienced and very right-wing Palin as acting president. But probably not.
“Probably not” is a cavalier non-argument, especially from someone concerned with responsible foreign policy above all things. And McCain’s VP pick was never simply about probability, but about principles and executive judgment.
Hoare again: “I have faith that US capitalism will rejuvenate itself, regardless of who is managing the economy.” Maybe it will magically bestow health insurance on all Americans too.
What this reveals more than anything is Hoare’s tin ear for American political culture. Much like the Republican he endorsed, he doesn’t get it. “Each of the candidates offers a very different set of advantages and disadvantages,” he wrote, “and a US citizen deciding whom to vote for should weigh them up very carefully before deciding.” Thanks for the advice. We’ve decided.
Comments are closed.