Obama's Struggle With Typical Liberal Hypocrisy

From the beginning it's been fairly clear a big chunk of supposedly liberal America hasn't been ready for Barack Obama. Their unease obvious in the shock and awe of Joe Biden, and in Newsweek's inane, aloud wonderings of whether or not Obama was "black enough." "Black enough" for the liberals being people of color in the Sharpton/Jackson mold; Old Schoolers devoutly wed to the regressive ideology of loud haranguing and low expectations. Obama -- early on in a Pound Cake-esque fashion urging people of color to do better and questioning race-based affirmative action -- was clearly not "black enough" for the Liberal Plantation.

Any doubt that Obama was from the jump fighting not only for the presidency, but also against Lefty hypocrisy was shattered into a million pieces by Geraldine Ferraro's "lucky" black man remark. Those pieces then again refined by Clinton's talk of "hard-working Americans, white Americans."

Clearly much of the liberal Left has long seen...oh, your average non-hard-working black, as nothing more than a piece of a loyal voting bloc. Keep us anesthetized, they feel, with promises of hand outs and government mollycoddling and we will mindlessly check the "D" box on Election Day.

Conservatives are, of course, not a hair less bigoted in their hearts (nor are Independents or anyone else for that matter). But unlike Democrats, Republicans have found a way to play nicely with the ideologically aligned, regardless of the color of their skin.

That, perhaps, is part of the problem; Obama is more his own man than merely a Democratic tool. That he refused to put up a show, and then capitulate, makes him all the more frustrating to those on the Left used to their people of color playing by pre-prescribed rules.

In that regard it's too bad Obama's not an anti-war Republican. His "Yes We Can" message of hope, his Morning in America redux, would have worked much better had it not be drowned out by the typical gloom and doom drum beat of the liberal machine. And all that clack about him being elitist? Well, the Right's managed to sneak in a "down to earth" Ivy League president two cycles running. As both sides make a grab for the middle, imagine what the Right could have done with the likes of Obama.

Which is not to say that Obama won't still be elected president. At this point I think there's nothing that he can't do. Though, if so, he will do it despite the best efforts of the typical hypocrisy of the Left.

Comments

[JudgeCrater]

Great prose: "Old Schoolers devoutly wed to the regressive ideology of loud haranguing and low expectations."

BHO has the additional burden of being connected, however tenuously (and it's pretty darn tenuous), to Islam and thus Islamophobia. Granted, "he's a Muslim" is WV-speak for "I'm a raving bigot" but still, it gives them another layer of excuses that need to be peeled back to expose the ugly truth.

[clevelandchick]

Ridley,

I get it, you hate liberals and maybe I'd take your writing seriously if you even knew what a liberal is. Calling Democrats from the DLC block of the party 'liberals' is like calling Rep. Virgil Goode a Libertarian. It's wildly inaccurate.

Clinton, Ferraro and Biden are not liberals, they're really not even on the left. They're centrists. Clinton and Biden both voted for the Patriot Act and The Bankruptcy bill. Hardly something a liberal would do. The DLC doesn't like the left and Clinton has bashed liberals and the grassroots during this campaign.

The reason Obama would not make a good Republican is because he cares about the poor and middle-class, believes in fair not free trade, is a champion for civil rights/liberties and an advocate for women's issues and reproductive freedom. Now, that's what a liberal is. Get it?

[ystasino]

I don't know why people refer to politicians as liberals so easily. The crowd you characterize as liberal is not really what the term means.

The crowd you characterize as liberal is a dumbed-down, pretentious, moralistic, histrionic crowd that has nothing to do with liberalism or progressivism. The profile of a real liberal is that of a visionary, hopeful, emotional and populist. The profile of a conservative is that of a pragmatist, live and let live, you get what you deserve kind of person. People have switched what these terms mean hence the confusion.

The best way to describe Obama is "moderately reformist"

[situationcritical]

What's your point?