skip to main |
skip to sidebar
American Thinker
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/08/obama_the_affirmative_action_president.html
August 18, 2011
Obama: The Affirmative Action President
By Matt Patterson
Years from now, historians may regard the 2008 election of Barack Obama as an inscrutable and disturbing phenomenon, a baffling breed of mass hysteria akin perhaps to the witch craze of the Middle Ages. How, they will wonder, did a man so devoid of professional accomplishment beguile so many into thinking he could manage the world's largest economy, direct the world's most powerful military, execute the world's most consequential job?
Imagine a future historian examining Obama's pre-presidential life: ushered into and through the Ivy League despite unremarkable grades and test scores along the way; a cushy non-job as a "community organizer"; a brief career as a state legislator devoid of legislative achievement (and in fact nearly devoid of his attention, so often did he vote "present"); and finally an unaccomplished single term in United States Senate, the entirety of which was devoted to his presidential ambitions. He left no academic legacy in academia, authored no signature legislation as legislator.
And then there is the matter of his troubling associations: the white-hating, America-loathing preacher who for decades served as Obama's "spiritual mentor"; a real-life, actual terrorist who served as Obama's colleague and political sponsor. It is easy to imagine a future historian looking at it all and asking: how on Earth was such a man elected president?
Not content to wait for history, the incomparable Norman Podhoretz addressed the question recently in the Wall Street Journal:
To be sure, no white candidate who had close associations with an outspoken hater of America like Jeremiah Wright and an unrepentant terrorist like Bill Ayers would have lasted a single day. But because Mr. Obama was black, and therefore entitled in the eyes of liberaldom to have hung out with protesters against various American injustices, even if they were a bit extreme, he was given a pass.
Let that sink in: Obama was given a pass -- held to a lower standard -- because of the color of his skin. Podhoretz continues:
And in any case, what did such ancient history matter when he was also articulate and elegant and (as he himself had said) "non-threatening," all of which gave him a fighting chance to become the first black president and thereby to lay the curse of racism to rest?
Podhoretz puts his finger, I think, on the animating pulse of the Obama phenomenon -- affirmative action. Not in the legal sense, of course. But certainly in the motivating sentiment behind all affirmative action laws and regulations, which are designed primarily to make white people, and especially white liberals, feel good about themselves.
Matt Patterson
National Black Republican Association, 2011.
Please read the entire article here in the American Thinker as well as the informative comments at the end. And also check out these associated links.
National Black Republican Association
http://www.nbra.info/
Matt Patterson's web site
http://mattpattersononline.com/welcome/Home.html
Waaaay off topic, Oldironsides: I would like to humbly suggest that you add the Preamble to the Bill of Rights in the left-hand column. Very important, IMHO.
ReplyDeleteAs for the post here ... as always, a great read. What is so pathetic is that there is an assumption on the part of the liberal/leftists that only one particular mind-set amongst those who are black qualifies them as "truly black." Talk about sheep being led to slaughter.
One more reason to dislike affirmative action.
ReplyDeleteMatt Patterson and Norman Podhoretz are to be commended for their bravery in openly expressing certain truths which, though inarguable, would be unspeakable if the Left had its way (and it usually does). They make a very compelling case that Obama is indeed “The Affirmative Action President.”
Good post!