Why I Got Angry After New Hampshire – The White Curtain and the Possibility of Hope – The African World

The second source of my anger has to do with the Clintons, and I use the plural here. If another Black person calls former President Bill Clinton the alleged “first Black President,” I think I will personally take their head off, followed by their arms and legs. Rather than treating Senator Obama’s candidacy as a serious one with which they have significant differences (which they actually do not), there has been the use, by the Clintons, of codes as a way of attacking Obama’s character. The emphasis on “experience” is one such code. The denigration of the idea of “hope” is another code. Instead of forcing Senator Obama to clarify his positions on the issues, which is in fact his key weakness, the Clintons have engaged in attacks on the candidate as a person, something of which Senator Obama is undeserving.

Ok, now I am a bit calmer. But here is my other point: Senator Obama is going to need a strategic “rethink.” The Obama campaign has gone a long way on motivation and good feeling, but with little content. Obama has fostered the illusion that we can all join together and that he will oversee the construction of an historically unprecedented united front of Democrats, Republicans and Independents to bring us into a new age. He has studiously avoided any tough issues, yet is prepared to make reckless foreign policy suggestions, e.g., unilateral US military action against Al Qaeda bases in Pakistan and the need to take action against Iran (without defining why Iran is an alleged problem). Contrary to his competitor in the change category, former Senator Edwards, he has largely shied away – until quite recently – from discussing the fact that the US is polarizing along wealth and income lines, as well as the fact that labor unions are key to economic justice.