Barack Obama has staged one of the most remarkable campaigns in American history, all on the basis that he, and he alone, could transcend race. That he was looking forward, rather than back. And that the past could be overcome. Today, Obama put all that behind him:
Actually, it wasn’t Obama’s critics who were saying that–it was his surrogates, his supporters, and Obama himself. He would frame this election not as a choice “between regions or religions or genders. It’s not about rich versus poor; young versus old; and it is not about black versus white. It’s about the past versus the future.” It was, as Bill Clinton might say, a fairytale. This election was no different than any other, and it turns out that Barack Obama is really no different than any other conventional liberal candidate for the presidency. He blames America, racism, and the past for the problems of today:
Really? That’s certainly the view of Reverend Wright. And it’s probably the view you’d get from any professor of African American studies. So it’s not even the slightest bit controversial in conventional liberal circles. The controversial speech that would have saved Obama’s campaign is here, and it was delivered on the fiftieth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education by a man who really has transcended race. On that day, Bill Cosby said, “Brown Versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person’s problem.” He said “We cannot blame white people.” And he spoke about a culture of accountability as the only path to success for Black America. If Obama had said those things, perhaps he would have won 88 percent of the Black vote instead of 90 percent, but he would have laid this whole controversy to rest. Instead, he started the speech with “we the people.” You can’t go any further back in American history than those words. Obama just overturned the whole rationale for his campaign, and I don’t think he solved any of the problems that his association with Reverend Wright has exposed.
