Tiny Revolution points to this story about Barack Obama’s decision to “seek foreign policy advice” from Colin Powell. Since Obama’s campaign apparently leaked this news, we may surmise that the intent is less related to actual advice and more related to tying Obama’s image to Powell’s, establishing him as a respectable, establishment figure rather than some loose cannon leftist. This seems to me to be almost trivially true - if Obama really WERE a maverick, a progressive and a force for change then he could not possibly have garnered the level of support he has - tens of millions of dollars worth of support. No - Obama is simply a well-spoken, intelligent man with resolutely centrist politics who happens to be black.
I’ve felt this way about Obama from the very moment he hit the national stage, back in 2004 at the Democratic National Convention. Then a lowly state legislator, Obama gave the keynote address at the DNC, catapulting him to fame and a Senatorial seat. I remember many liberals speaking glowingly of Obama*, but upon reading his speech, I wasn’t exactly sure what they were so pleased with. Obama’s speech was rife with the usual plaudits for traditional Americana. “God, what a great country we live in!” was the sense I got. Yes, put a goatee and glasses on the man and he might look like Malcolm X, but he is a long way away from “By any means necessary”.
Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our Nation — not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That is the true genius of America, a faith — a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles; that we can tuck in our children at night and know that they are fed and clothed and safe from harm; that we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door; that we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe; that we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted — at least most of the time.
The words of this speech would ring completely hollow if they were spoken by any white politician. “That we can tuck in our children at night and know that they are fed and clothed and safe from harm,” might seem ironic to most black people in this country, who suffer with worse - hah - infant mortality than all of the developed world and at rates more than twice as high as whites. If a black Republican had made a speech like this it would have been roundly rejected as slavish and sycophantic.
I’ve found relatively little worthy of praise in Obama’s political stances. For example, his behavior during the reprehensible Israeli bombing of Lebanon last year was, appropriately, also reprehensible. True, he has “opposed the Iraq war from the start” (though with what level of energy and devotion might be in dispute). This, however, is a fairly minimal criterion from which to proceed. The Bush Administration is now, quite clearly, a bunch of maniacal thugs. Prudently stepping back from crazed thuggery does not make you a model human being, and I would be disappointed if the only result of the past eight years was to make us sigh in relief to be back in the dessicated cradling arms of our usual liche-kings.
* The racial politics of most liberal’s adoration of Obama should pretty much go without comment - “He’s black, but he’s not too black.”
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