This column of Clive Crooks is remarkably well-thought-out. It's the kind of analysis that contributes to clear thinking.
I would raise the point that nothing happens in America that does not have a racial dimension, the country is literally wired for Galvanic responses that way.
So this remarkable success by a black man was bound to generate shocks, and I think we will see a sorry amount of this during the actual presidential campaign.
Although not from McCain himself, whom I regard as likely fair-minded in this regard, but from the many well-financed private groups with grudges, the kind of thing we saw with "the Swift Boaters" and Kerry.
I am truly sorry to see a post like Marie's. Frankly it is just uninformed and dripping with prejudices.
It is only natural that blacks would support Obama en masse. He is a genuine black prince and represents a tremendous welling-up of pride after centuries of both slavery and Jim Crow.
I don't think most of us can even imagine the feelings he arouses, although you might think a woman - seeing that the same phenomenon happened around Hillary with a certain class of women - might be a little more sensitive to it.
Comparing - along any dimension, material or intellectual or spiritual - Obama with Clarence Thomas is just colossal ignorance.
Thomas is a thoroughly mediocre man, one with bad taste and judgment, appointed to the Supreme Court only because he was both black and conservative. He was not distinguished before his appointment, nor has he distinguished himself afterward.
His speech about a "high-tech" lynching was an embarrassment at the moment he gave it. Utterly inappropriate, a cheap appeal to guilt around the black reality. I felt almost ill at the time that so few politicians or newspapermen called him on it.
Richard Nixon made two disgraceful attempts to appoint incompetents to the Supreme Court. His appointments at least were questioned and failed, despite the infamous claim by Republican Senator Hruska of Nebraska, that, like all other qualities, mediocrity should be reflected on the Court!
Obama has brilliant mind, a sense of humor, and he is simply graceful. He has taught law at distinguished schools. He has a distinguished academic record. He is the finest public speaker to appear for years in the United States.
The recognition of Obama for just what he is exactly what Dr. King dreamed of, not false claims for black faces with non-existent qualities.
With people like Ferraro and some other Clintonistas , we are getting exactly the equivalent of Clarence Thomas's "high-tech lynching." Rubbish and prejudice disguised as thought.
