Obama's Magic

Jon Carroll recently wrote an interesting article about Obama and Palin. I couldn't agree more with what Jon has to say. I'm copy/pasting about half of the article here for ease of reading, but your can find the entire article at: Now the Fun Begins.

Yes, we're a polarized country. We're a bipolar country. Republicans seem bewildered by the appeal of Barack Obama. He has "some sort of magic," in the words of one local pundit. Well, yeah. Part of the magic is called oratory. It's been a known brain-clouder since at least ancient Greek times. Look, cadences and rhetorical devices designed to persuade the masses! What kind of witchcraft is this?

Republicans tend not to care about oratory - certainly their choices of presidential candidates indicate that. They seem to think it's cheating. I know it's a cheap shot, but let me mention the first Republican president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. They've come a long way since then, and not in the right direction.

And the other part of the Barack Obama magic, and I know we're not supposed to say this out loud, but: He's African American. Actually, half African, half Scottish American, which makes him really, truly American, a land where increasingly people are a little bit of everything, and they identify themselves according to preference, not according to genetic markers.

I think it would be really good if the United States had an African American president. There, I said it; call me a racist. I think it would be good if he was an African American president who gave really good speeches and had sensible ideas and a commitment to social justice. Sure, I disagree with him about stuff - can we say FISA? But his candidacy is basically a great idea. You know that whole slavery thing? This might go a way toward mitigating that.

Not that this counts as an endorsement. I could still vote for Barney Frank. But everywhere I look in this race, I see coded racial statements, and I hear the whispers that a black man can never get elected president no way no how. And I want to think better of my country than that, no matter what the country thinks of itself.

Look at it this way. I actually don't care about Sarah Palin's private life, any of it. In fact, she sounds like the kind of woman I might meet when I'm traveling in the West: small-town gal; nutty political ideas, but hey, it's the West; kind of mixed-up family life but a nice six-point buck over the fireplace. And I don't think the fact that her daughter is pregnant and not married has anything to do with her qualifications for public office. She's plenty disqualified on other grounds.

(OK, a small part of me does want to say, "That abstinence education thing; how's it working out for you?")

And yet ... imagine if it had been one of Barack Obama's daughters who was pregnant out of wedlock. (Imagine them a lot older, too.) Imagine the pundits going nuts. Imagine talk of the crumbling of the black family, the absent father, the culture of irresponsibility, the role of the churches, blah blah blah. Endless. Oh, we'd have a conversation about race, all right, and it would be just like the previous 812 conversations.

But does Sarah Palin represent the crumbling of the white family? Was the father's constant absences at sporting events the reason her daughter didn't get the attention she needed? Where was the church? Where ... oh, no, we're not having that conversation, because Sarah Palin is white and white families are doing just fine. Thank you, pundits. Take another week off.

I understand the Republicans had a something. I'm sure they ate well and drank well and agreed with each other. I'm happy for them.