Kerry: Obama Can Bridge Divide With Islam "Because He's A Black Man"

MSNBC reports:

Speaking of the race speech from Tuesday, Obama supporter John Kerry gave an interview with a local N.H. paper, reports NBC/NJ's Mike Memoli. In it, Kerry said the color of Obama's skin makes him uniquely qualified for president and even reach out to the moderate Islam world. During an interview with the New Bedford Standard Times, portions of which were posted on YouTube, John Kerry says bluntly that Barack Obama has the potential to "bridge the divide in religious extremism" because he is black....

...The Massachusetts senator said Obama has an ability to perhaps even empower moderate Islam "to be able to stand up against the racial misinterpretation of a legitimate religion." Asked by a reporter what gave Obama the credibility to do so, Kerry said, "Because he's African American. Because he's a black man, who has come from a place of oppression and repression through the years in our own country. We only broke the back of civil rights, Jim Crow, in the 1960s here. Everybody in the world knows this is a recent journey for America too. And everybody still knows that issues of skin and discrimination still exist."

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Comments

[Svenson]

No wonder kerry lost the election

Obama might have all the support of the muslims around the world ... but none of the white men in America. That is selling out.

We want a president to address the muslims on real political terms ... not based on skin color

Go away kerry.

He might appeal to muslins but not to proud Americans

What a stupid BS

[Tariqahmed]

Kerry was conned by the great State of Ohio.
His votes looted and given to Bush.
Diebold--the mechine owner died in shame.
Shame on you OHOHIO.
Anyway are we better off today--without houses and jobs, Oil $ 111.
than were before Mr.Kerry was conned???.

[ObamaSuperDelegate]

Some people would probably never be proud of someone like Barak but proud of every right wing nut there is. how many of you left the repub party when so many of the right wing preacher nuts endorsed gwb. none, and didn't hear a peep out of you about racism. why are people such hypocrites? you can always tolerate your own

[transendentilist]

Oh puleeeeese!! Senator Kerry, you were a "c" student weren't you? No American is going to be a bridge to Islam. Do you think we are stupid??? They have been fighting with each other for centuries, but Obama, the magic man, is going to end all that? He's going to make the Islamists like us? US, the country that occupies their holy lands?? A country that murder's it's citizens?? A country that supplies weapons to both sides???
After hearing that stupid comment, I'm glad you didn't win the election. Why didn't you stand up for yourself, when it mattered????

[flyguy14222]

While I agree the ? marks....a­ye.

[Tariqahmed]

Barak OBAMA will UNITE us all.Inside our Nation and in the World.
No more WARS. No more foreclosures. No mor OIL 111.

[transendentilist]

You give far too much power to Obama. he is not a saviour, he is a man. A man who has to play by America's rules, and is not the sole leader in our country.
I would love to see the war end, poverty abolished, bigotry silenced, and eveybody working toward the same goals. But that's not going to happen. It has never happened in the history of man. What makes you think Barack can do eveything hundreds of others could not do??? It make me laugh.

[Canukistani]

Good gawd! With friends like this who needs enemas?

[dollphingurl]

that's my pick of the week....ca­nukistani is the one LMAO

[mikey683]

Gee I guess Geraldine Ferraro was right, huh?

[outnow]

Bernard Lewis asked, "What went wrong?" What if he had asked that same question of the West, not just of Islam? In many ways contemporary Islamic civilization is a failure as well - a human failure. Our purported material wealth is, quite clearly, heavily skewed toward the wealthy, but beyond that, as Mother Teresa said when she visited America, we are a poor nation overall in a spiritual sense. America's poverty, she said, is worse that that of India's, for it is that of a terrible loneliness that comes from wanting the wrong things.


We have after WW II steamrolled all other values except those of a market economy, and heavily influencing U.S. foreign policy in its wake. We have chosen technology over craft; individual achievement over the common weal; innovation over tradition; automobiles over mass transit; suburbs over cities; competition and autonomy over community; and power over compromise, to name a few choices we have made.


John Kerry knows the heart of darkness in American imperial sublime. Speaking of missing the true message of 9-11 Robert Lowel ends his poem "Waking Early Sunday Morning" with the following:


Pity the planet, all joy gone
from this sweet volcanic cone;
peace to our children when they fall
in small war on the heels of small
war - until the end of time
to police the earth, a ghost
orbiting forever lost
in our monotonous sublime.


So we missed the true meaning of 9-11; we decided to continue policing the earth more dramatically that we ever had, "until the end of time." This decision is turning us into ghosts, as we enter the Dark Ages in earnest. Choosing the road not taken would have required something really remarkable, and I don't think history provides us with a single example of a nation that managed to take that path.


Foreign and domestic policies are inextricably bound. Blacks and Hispanics now want a larger slich of the pie. However, we are almost all effectively Protestant capitalist individualists whose life is grounded in an expanding market economy. Captain John Smith said that religion notwithstanding we are most colonists were in Virginia for material gain; "in the name of God and profit." (Instead of yours truly, for example, was often how letters were signed back then). We were born bourgeois, unlike Europe so we will never understand the feudal stage. There is no tradition of noblese oblige, instead we have public housing and welfare at the bottom, a badge of shame. That's why we have no national health insurance.


Obama is probably an improvement. John Kerry is not a stupid man. American exceptionalism is a delusion - a dangerous delusion that leads to hubris and may lead to destruction. Give peace a chance.

[NeverRepublican]

WHY DOES OBAMA GET 30 MINUTES OF FREE AIR TIME FOR A SPEECH??

GIVE HILLARY CLINTON 30 MINTUTES OF FREE AIR TIME FOR A SPEECH!!

WHY DOES OBAMA GET 30 MINUTES OF FREE AIR TIME FOR A SPEECH??

GIVE HILLARY CLINTON 30 MINTUTES OF FREE AIR TIME FOR A SPEECH!!

[Ramirez]

Don't be a racist. Obama deserved that airtime.

[Zhonni]

Why don't you ask Sen. Clinton why she hasn't been on Larry King or on Anderson 360. I believe both programs have invited Sen. Clinton but she chooses not to show until the night of elections or something.

Media bias against Sen. Clinton is a perception and not a fact.

[the964kid]

As an Obama supporter (and also a Kerry supporter back in 2004) let me say: John Kerry your comments are not helpful here. I think I know what he's trying to say, but here he demonstrates why it is that he is not president right now. Somebody send Kerry on a vacation from now til December PLEASE!

[Tariqahmed]

So you want war. BOMB AND
decemate 1 BILLION MUSLIMS. Or we Americans are idiots.
.

[nohat]

Tariq, cool it, ok? There are posters above you and below you who are going to start thinking that you are being, well, awkward. And so am I.

[fishretired]

yep - time to send him off yet again so he will keep his mouth shut.

Kerry - just don't even say a word Please!!!!!

[markkraft]

Yeah... I like John, but that wasn't the right way of saying it.

Obama has credibility because he's lived overseas, in cultures that are strongly accepting of Islam, and because his positions on Middle East issues are reasonable, and not tied to neoconservative values like Hillary Clinton.

[Plowboy]

Obama lived for about 4 years in Indonesia, the nation with the largest Muslim population. It is an interestinng culture, with major influences from Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. Barack must have some understanding it it. That can't hurt his position in diplomacy.

[minty]

Sure one can great understanding of the world when living in Indonesia as a boy of 8. I think every candidate should claim valid childhood expereince as marketable foreign policy experience.

[Svenson]

He lived overseas? Is that credibility for living overseas when he was still sucking his tumb?

If that is credibility why are obamdiots question clinton's overseas trips and meetings?

All the illegal mexicans lived overseas for many eyars too,,,,, and the 9/11 bombers lived overseas too.

What a joke

[transendentilist]

You just had to take a stab at Hillary, huh??? I didn't see her name anywhere in this article. Stay on topic, there are plenty of other hate Hillary threads here.
So now Obama living in Islamic countries is a good thing??? Why did he really down play that little tid-bit when questioned about his faith??? Didn't he denounce Islam and take up Christianity??? And this is supposed to bridge some gap between Islam and Christianity???? BWAAAAAAAA­AAAAAAAAAA­AAAAAHHH!!­! You Obamians are a trip.

Kerry is off his rocker. Being black is all it takes to pacify the Islamic nation?? Damn you really aren't very bright are you john? Or is it that you think we are really that dumb??

[daveny]

Oh dear lord.... John, John, John.... we love you, you're smart, you've got no small amount of integrity, but please... for the love of god, SHUT UP!!!

[dollphingurl]

john kerry, dude: YOU'RE NOT HELPING!!!!!!

[Collielady]

Kerry is an idiot. His mouth is in motion before his mind is in gear.

Memo to John Kerry: Obama can bridge divides because, unlike yourself, he is a thoughtful, intelligent, reflective communicator. To credit his abilities because of his skin color is to discredit him for all the qualities that are required to bridge divides - all qualities that Obama possesses. By the way, white skinned people could do this, too, if they tried, or cared to.

[Marlyn]

It is hard to separate a man from his skin color. It is a package.

[transendentilist]

Exactly. There will always be racism on a personal level. An individual level. To try to legislate unity between the races would be like trying legislate morality. It just doesn't work.
If we could all be enlightened, simultaneously, the world would be a true paradise. But that is not how the world works. People become aware of different things at different times in our lives. Young people, of all colors are usually more radical in their bigotry than older people. I have seen it in all races. just like people becoming more conservative with age. It's a natural process.
We can educate people, and make calls to unity, but that's about all the practical things we are capable of doing. Racism begins and ends in one's own heart.

[AjicNYC]

ha ha!! Good One Kerry , Clinton must have got to him. Bye Bye Kerry see you again after all this is over.

[MichaelO]

Oye. Kerry, Kerry, Kerry. I guess he missed Obama's speech

[joe757]

Oh John...ple­ase just...jus­t stop.

[LindaJay]

Somebody better call the Racist Police! Kerry just outdid Ferraro's comment. Let's all pillory him for being a racist.