This Is Leadership?

"Cassandra" has some very pungent commentary on Senator Obama and his church of twenty years:

What Barack Obama appears not to have noticed (at least judging by his public statements) is that if a preacher makes political statements in church about race that, had they been made by a white person about a black person, would be considered by any reasonably objective person to be racist, you have a veritable trifecta of newsworthiness. Where he repeatedly keeps missing the clue bus is here: American society has changed to the point where pretty much every white person I know would not feel comfortable staying in the room, were a white preacher to make comparable statements about blacks. People would deal with it in their own way.

There might be complaints. There might be calls for his resignation. Some might just leave the church quietly after the service. What I cannot under any circumstances imagine is a white audience hooting and hollering in open approval of such "destructive and divisive" rhetoric because it was rooted in the "white church" tradition. I cannot imagine the media giving a white politician a pass if he either defended or refused to denounce such words.

I cannot imagine the media maintaining that it was acceptable to passively listen to such rhetoric without objecting because it "did not reflect his beliefs"

I think that this comment (early on, so you won't have to scroll far if the comments build) is important as well, and one that Americans of African descent should (or at least should have--it's probably too late now, at least in terms of the nomination) carefully consider:

Given Obama's damnfool fiscal policies, it is a good bet that he will take this country into the toilet, both domestically and on the foreign front, and go down in history as a worse president than Jimmy Carter.

How that will set back the cause of blacks as PotUs cannot be underestimated. If he does as crappy a job as I'm certain he will, then anytime anyone seriously suggests another black man -- no matter how talented or able -- for the PotUS, the response will be "look what happened with Obama!".

And no matter how stupid and racist that idea is, it will have just enough appeal that it will be an albatross few blacks will be able to overcome. And so it will be literally several decades until another black man has a serious chance to become president.

So even if you strongly support the idea of a black as president -- even if you want one a lot -- you should have brains enough to realize that
a) Obama is not the right man for the job in the first place
b) it would be a bad thing for race relations to place so woefully ineffective a man into such a position.

Unfortunately, I think that's right (though I hope it's wrong). Which is another reason to not want Obama to be president.

On the other hand, regardless of what Hillary! says tomorrow night, I won't believe that Obama is the nominee until the end of the convention.