Howard Dean, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, has cited party rules in calling the super delegates “free agents” with respect to their pledge to either Barak Obama of Hillary Clinton. This is ironic, given the assertions by Dean that this primary will “be over by July 1″ and calls by Nancy Pelosi for the supers to pledge already - pushing the supers to pledge whether they are prepared to or not.

More recently, both Dean and Pelosi have backed away from their “hard line” stances, as the specter of campaign lawsuits loom on the horizon.Dean is now citing party rules reflecting the independence of the supers and Pelosi is backing away from her support of the Obama campaign’s June 3 line in the sand.

Watching the Democratic Party repeatedly bungle their own process should be a clear signal to Americans. What you have seen is the party leadership ride roughshod on the Florida and Michigan delegation, rather than work with them. When the threats didn’t produce the desired results, the Democratic Party asserted itself in a way which disenfranchised their constituents in both states. Then, in the resulting mess, the DNC again attempted to force a conclusion and is now responding to pushback from the supers and the campaigns of their own candidates by declaring how much they respect the rules.

These are the same polarizing, obstructionist tactics they have been using in congress when they were in the minority and which have prevented them from accomplishing anything in congress as the majority.

The Democratic Party has been unable to coalesce behind a single candidate and now it is going to the supers. The super delegates are in a bind themselves. They would much rather have a clear popular candidate they could throw their weight behind. As it stands, the super delegates are going to have to reject either the first woman president or the first black president.  This does not bode well for the party in any case, as they have sold themselves as being the party of race and gender.

Nothing up his sleeve.

Barak Obama has had a relationship with Reverend Jeramiah Wrightsince the 1980’s - since before Obama went to Harvard. Barak had to have sat in that church dozens upon dozens of times. If you search hard enough, you can find many of the bulletins containing the sermons of Reverend Wright. This bruhaha is not based upon a single sermon of a cranky retiring pastor. Reverend Wright spoke of these topics often and Barak Obama could only have known this.

Now, Barak Obama is trying to see how stupid you are.

“Had the reverend not retired and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn’t have felt comfortable staying there at the church,” the senator said.

Why not 20 years ago? Why not leave that church 5 years ago? Why not leave that church now?  That particular sheapard is gone, but the sheep he fed are still there. If the pastor is hateful, but beloved, what does that say for the congregation?

Don’t be bamboozled by Obama double-talk.

I was commenting over at Cobb, and my post was taking on Homeric proportions so I thought I would post here and link.

The conversation related to Cobb’s post: Black Church vs Black Politics: The Double Duty Dilemma here is my comment.

Great analysis, Cobb.

I oppose Senator Obama and am aggressively critical of Dr. Wright. Yet I am glad to see the good Senator is able to draw the line with his pastor of many years on this issue.

There is an inexplicable dichotomy for me here. I have spent a lot of time in military history and noted the painful steps toward some sort of cohesion between races. Books like “Blood for Dignity” (David Colley) pose the possibility that “patriotism” is a strained idea to non-whites in America. On the other hand, I am fiercely patriotic, coming from a long line of American warriors. I also think we should be a nation which recognizes great hope for our collective selves despite our obvious - and sometimes not so obvious - individual differences.

I am satisfied with Senator Obama’s actions for what they represent - a political answer to a political problem. For me the bar is low. While the issue of race, gender, and the equitable distribution of opportunity is intertwined in policy, I am not expecting more than a placeholder for them in the presidential race. It will suffice for now.

My hope is the ice has been broken enough to allow for some substantive activity on those topics in the next several years. That this is the one great outcome of an election cycle where the policy differences between Americans was perhaps the lesser topic. This maybe delusional - but let’s wait and see. What that activity would look like, I haven’t a clue. Hopefully, I will be intelligent enough to see it when it happens.

UPDATE: Cobb mentions that the African American Church is not a new thing in America, and to jump on this now is a bit shallow or opportunistic for those looking for some reason to oppose Barak Obama aside from his policy. He’s absolutely correct. Cobb further submits that Rev. Wright - as a preacher in the African- American Church receiving this kind of focus, also begs that the same kind of focus be placed on the other African-American Church pastors back to MLK. Here is where I disagree.

Martin Luther King Jr. was actively involved in ending apartheid  in America. He castigated those who would maintain such a way of life. He was suspicious (rightly) of the government and said so. He was openly hostile to anyone who would maintain that racial equality was anything less than inalienable. I have listened to many of Dr. King’s speeches and have never heard anything to the effect of “God Damn America”.

I am America.

I work hard, raise a family, teach my kids that we are all basically the same, and that we should treat people according their actions. Unlike Barak Obama’s church, I don’t need 10 commitments - the ten commandments are hard enough. Three words sum it all up - God, Family, Country.

I am America.

Reverend Wright’s church is “Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian” - but his rhetoric is both shameful and un-Christian. His sermons are examples of the kind of bigotry which Americans of all races have worked for decades to stamp out. He reminds me a great deal of Fred Phelps - bigots wrapping themselves in the cloak of religion. Rather than steeping yourself in hate for something that was - speak out against the slavery and apartheid happening in the world today - in the Africa you are so committed to.

I am America.

Barak Obama - a member of this church - campaigns around the country on a platform of “Change”. Is it change we see in this Presidential Race or is it about electing a Racial President.

I am America.

Barak Obama - are you America? It’s a yes or no question.

UPDATE:  Wright off the Obama Campaign

Obama denounced some of Wright’s sermons on Friday, telling CNN’s Anderson Cooper: “These are a series of incendiary statements that I can’t object to strongly enough.”

Earlier Friday, before the announcement of Wright’s departure from the Obama camp, the Illinois senator denounced some of the ministers’s sermons, calling them “inflammatory and appalling.”

“I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies,” Obama wrote on the liberal Web site Huffingtonpost.com about recently surfaced sermons from Wright — his longtime pastor at the Trinity United Church of Christ.

Will the Southern Poverty Law Center denounce Dr. Wright and his rhetoric? Or does racism and hate continue to be a one-sided issue? I am sensitive to the differences in cultural histories in America. I have written about it many times in the past 7 years. Yet, what is the lesson we teach our children - that we are a nation which applies what we learned from our past, or that we are a nation which will be torn apart because we can never learn from our past?

I kept wondering why we call these political battles, races. I mean, it isn’t about speed. But then Barak Obama confused me.

COLUMBUS, Miss. – In a fiery speech, Obama pushed back hard against charges by Hillary Clinton and her campaign that he is not suited to be Commander-In-Chief, and expressed disbelief at the Clintons’ suggestions that he be vice president.

“Now first of all, with all due respect, with all due respect,” Obama began, “I have won twice as many states as Sen. Clinton. I have won more of the popular vote than Senator Clinton. I have more delegates than Senator Clinton. So I don’t know how somebody who is in second place, is offering the vice presidency to the person who is in first place.

“I mean, I am just wondering, because if I was in second place I could understand it. But I am in first place right now. So that’s point number one.”

He went on to point out how Clinton could consider him as his VP when she and the campaign have been saying that he is not ready to be Commander-In-Chief.

“But there’s a second point,” he said. “This is an interesting point. I want you guys to follow me on this. President Bill Clinton, back in 1992 when he was being asked about his selection for Vice President, he said that the only criteria, the most important criteria for a Vice President, is that that person is ready, if I fell out, in the first week, that he or she will be ready to be the Commander-In-Chief.

So, it is called a race still - but maybe it should be called a marathon. You win this primary race by your endurance to Hillary’s crap. Maybe?

Here is yet another example of the “everything is equal” thought process, which makes discussing politics with some people totally useless.

To the Editor:

The political cartoon of Feb. 26 suggested some connection between the tragic Cottonwood bus accident and the fact that the person apparently at fault is an illegal immigrant. By precisely the same logic, we might suggest that, since the driver is female, we ought not to let women drive. She is 24, so maybe we need to ban everyone under 30 from driving. She had black hair, so …

The point, of course, is that accidents are caused by bad driving, not by immigration status or gender or age or hair color.

When I complained that the cartoon was racist, Mr. Anderson (R-E, March 1) replied that race has nothing to do with it. Perhaps he is right, but if racism isn’t the cause of such irrational thinking, what is?

So, there is a moral equivalent between being involved in illegal activity and being a female under 30?

The point you should be taking away is that if someone is driving a vehicle illegally, because they are in the country illegally, we really don’t know whether they are a bad driver or not. This accident was not caused SIMPLY by bad driving. It was caused by a bad driver, who had no no authority to operate a motor vehicle, primarily because she was not authorized to be in the country.

The cartoon is only racist to someone who believes that illegal immigration is an issue of race - that somehow people should be allowed to act outside the law because their race mandates we should expect less of them. In short, only a racist would apply such irrational thinking to something which is clearly not an issue of race.

So, Let me answer your question. The cause of such “irrational” thinking is simple:

Kids are dead because this particular lady had no respect for our laws.

I want to preface this by saying, this post is in no way an endorsement for Barak Obama. I don’t like his brand of politics.

I did want to talk a bit about racism in America, and the impact of that on elections. You see, many whites in America are oblivious to the perceptions that people of color have about racism and I think the reason, at least among people I know, is that they rarely think about racism. Don’t get me wrong, I know a couple of closet racists and a couple people who would be shocked to learn their views are racist.

I’ve seen racism in a Denny’s in Massachusetts. I’ve heard it on the CB, while driving by a truck stop in Arkansas. We read about it in the news - people placing unfair limitations on others because of skin color. I grew up in the South. My high-school graduating class was one of the first in SC to start Kindergarten as an integrated class, and I have been called Cracker (or some derivative) about as many times as I have been called a Nigger Lover. Back then, I knew I better get my hind parts away from wherever I was, when I heard one of those terms. Today, I feel revulsion just typing them.

Yet, all these years later how much has America changed? I say a lot, but others tell me not so much. Who’s right?

I was reading an article called Letter from Washington : The faltering Clinton Campaign and something written struck me.

The focus group was moderated by an expert on such forums, the Democratic pollster Peter Hart. The participants were informed and enthusiastic about their party’s prospects, had no interest in the Republicans or third-party candidates and were about equally balanced between the front-runners, Clinton and Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.

When Hart pushed the group during a two-hour conversation about the strengths and weaknesses of the two candidates, a different picture emerged.

Obama, they worried, can’t win the nomination; voters aren’t ready for an African-American president (a point expressed most directly by the two black women participants), and he may not be sufficiently experienced.

The emphasis is mine.

There is a combination of things here, which creates a sense of irony for me. The perception by the black, women participants has to be based upon some sort of feeling about either the readiness of their own party, or the readiness of the Republican party. If the concern is about the Democratic party, it is a little more understandable, since the democrats don’t have the best history with racial equality in the United States.

There are contemporary indications that Democrats are less encouraging about a black president than Republicans are.

Continue reading Is America Ready for a Black President?…