Jan
20
2010
I’m reading everyone’s opinions regarding the Massachusetts election. Of all comments, what stands out most is a report prior to the election that President Obama was listless in his defense of candidate Coakley. Coupled with what I’ve read about the candidate, I thought “who could blame him?” But of course, the democratic party could blame him. He ran for president but he also inherited “head of the party.” The roles are in conflict, and there’s no way to enact his agenda while trying to also be the head of his party.
The Baha’i Writings state definitively that the political systems of the world are failing. Today I smell the stench of the failure of our political system as our government fails almost entirely to meet the needs of its people and the existential challenges of the nation. So many good ideas that can’t happen because people have personal, political interest to force good ideas to fail.
QT
Jan
04
2010
Andrew Sullivan seems to be in a tiff with Glenn Reynolds over a picture of President Obama and Vice President Biden. This is getting some play on both the left and the right. There’s an accusation of racism being floated at Reynolds, though nothing in his post suggests that that is most definitely the cause for Reynold’s complaint. And yet, some of Reynold’s commenters reveal their racialist bent of mind at his prompting – when asked to caption the photo, some commenters cast President Obama in the role of a drug dealer. Ugh. Because a black man, no matter how accomplished, can be ridiculed with drug dealer jokes, right? If there was no racial intent, my bad, but as the saying goes… if it looks like a duck and quacks like one – it just might be a duck.
More disturbing than cranks on the right with their willful viciousness, is the defense from the left. They assert that when one zooms up close, the president looks “uppity” or “condescending” to his white subordinate, and that this must be what got Reynolds riled up. Maybe so. But having looked at the whole picture, and the zoomed up version, I have yet to see any appearance of uppitiness, condescension, drunkenness, or any other such look. I saw the president listening intently to the vice president, from an angle that forces his eyes downward – because the president is in fact, taller than the vice president.
It seems to me that any attempt to see this in any other light is reaching … and the reach is because the president is black.
Editing to add two points: 1 – the controversy hipped me to the flickr stream – which is just AWESOME. So, I’m glad for that… and 2 – I guess it might be helpful if I upload the picture???
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden talk before the start of the Kennedy Center Honors at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., Dec. 6, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
QT
