Senator Clinton's campaign emphasis on skill and experience is out of harmony with affirmative action, in which diversity is the prime criterion.
My friend Jon Gardner observed, I believe accurately, that the Democratic presidential primary has been driven by the same sort of feelings that impel businesses and educational institutions to seek minority candidates. Standards are lowered in the name of diversity and the accompanying feel-good effects of assuaging guilt. Affirmative action becomes a secular religious experience for liberal-progressives.
The lowered standards of affirmative action are rationalized under the rubric of tolerance, which, as used by liberal-progressives, means effectively the absence of standards. Anything goes, one culture is as good as the next, and all sentiments other than patriotic devotion to the United States are welcomed.
Whatever Senator Obama's knowledge and skills may be for the presidency, and they are evidently considerable, that seems not to be the subliminal issue in the race between him and Senator Clinton.
Senator Clinton doggedly hammers at her putatively greater experience. However true her assertions, the public doesn’t care, focusing instead on affirmative action aimed at diversity. Senator Obama’s limited executive experience and non-existent foreign policy experience are ignored by voters who eagerly place their hope and faith in secular social justice, world peace, harmony, and all the other reified abstractions of liberal-progressive-socialism.
Affirmative action arguably has contributed to the rise of the black middle class. It also has embittered many black students who were placed far out of their league in elite universities and failed to make the academic cut.
Should Senator Obama become the next President of the United States, let's pray that his skills will be up to the task.
Is a young, rookie senator with very limited leadership experience and a track record of no track record going to be the one who proves that a black man can do the job of leading the most powerful nation in the history of civilization, or is he likely to fizzle out with desperate “you’ve got to have hope” speeches amidst a tanking economy, terrorist threats and the ongoing universal disdain for the U.S.?
The job of president has demands all its own, and they are entirely different than the demands of winning the hearts of voters, or the ability to make women faint at rallies. The sad thing is that the hopes of many blacks are placed with a man who doesn’t stand a chance in the most powerful seat on the planet – not because he’s black, but because he’s a tenderfoot socialist who hopes against the realities of the world.
We would need very good times indeed, both economically and from a security standpoint, to do four years with what amounts to Hollywood’s version of an ideal new-age president.
If elected, the thing leftists must be prepared to do well is explain Obama’s ineffectiveness without mentioning the obvious – he wasn’t presidential material to start with.
But I could be wrong. Perhaps Obama can channel his energy into making our enemies faint and reality rethink its position.
“…all sentiments other than patriotic devotion to the United States are welcomed.”
Let’s all hope and pray the Democrats continue to bash America.