Posted by
Deadpan on Wednesday, March 26, 2008 3:03:13 PM
Walter Williams asks if Obama is up to being the first Af-Am president.
The much more important
question is whether Obama is ready for America and even more important
is whether black people can afford Obama.
He means that if Obama gets elected and does a poor job, will the nation be able to disregard race in candidates in the future, making the point that if Jackie Robinson hadn't been a great player, it might have been a long time before MLB gave another black player a chance.
I think that Obama sincerely wants to bring the races together and do away with rancor on both sides, but being President is about much, much more than that. I'm not sure he's really ever thought about much more than his identity as a biracial man, trying to live in both worlds. It's a noble effort, but I don't really want to return to the rancor of the Civil Rights fights of the past, and watching Jeremiah Wright's diatribes, you know that AfAms will want what they think they're due. Civil rights laws, affirmative action and racial preferences
haven't changed the attitudes that America is still viciously racists--"mean" in the words of Michelle Obama, despite how well it's treated her and her family. Did she really expect that everything would just flow to her without effort? That's not how most people experience life. Do all AfAms believe that it's so much easier for white people. I doubt I would have gotten into an Ivy League school, although one of my sons did. Being equal doesn't guarantee you anything but the right to compete on an even field, and even then you compete against your fellow minority members. Sometimes I sense that Obama is trying to get that across to his fellow African Americans, but from listening to the clips from Jeremiah Wright, I get the feeling that their leaders are stirring them up to anger over fictitious offenses, feeding them racism against Jews and Latinos, and promoting a sense of entitlement that fails to acknowledge the great advances made in the past 60 years, sometimes even overshooting the mark.
So I'm confused. Does Obama believe his wife and Mr. Wright who see America as mean, even vicious and criminal, or does he think AfAms need to understand whites better and recognize that we, like them, need to be taken one at a time and judged for who we are and the content of our individual characters?
As far as the other jobs of the President, he has no appreciable experience. Of course, he'll have advisers, but he has to know whom to appoint and how to administer the biggest bureaucracy, the biggest economy and the most powerful military on earth. What has he done that demonstrates the experience or the skills necessary for that assignment.
I'm not a fan of McCain, but he's been in Washington a lot longer than either Hillary or Obama, and I think, at least I hope, that he knows enough to know what he doesn't know and how to select smart and able people to help him.