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Name:
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water_watcher
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Subject:
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Obama: Affirmative Action President
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Date:
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9/12/2011 8:28:36 PM
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August
18, 2011
Obama:
The Affirmative Action President
By Matt Patterson
Years from now, historians may regard the 2008 election of Barack
Obama as an inscrutable and disturbing phenomenon, a baffling breed of mass
hysteria akin perhaps to the witch craze of the Middle Ages. How, they
will wonder, did a man so devoid of professional accomplishment beguile so many
into thinking he could manage the world's largest economy, direct the world's
most powerful military, execute the world's most consequential job?
Imagine a future historian examining Obama's pre-presidential
life: ushered into and through the Ivy League despite unremarkable grades and
test scores along the way; a cushy non-job as a "community
organizer"; a brief career as a state legislator devoid of legislative
achievement (and in fact nearly devoid of his attention, so often did he vote
"present"); and finally an unaccomplished single term in United
States Senate, the entirety of which was devoted to his presidential
ambitions. He left no academic legacy in academia, authored no signature
legislation as legislator.
And then there is the matter of his troubling associations: the
white-hating, America-loathing preacher who for decades served as Obama's
"spiritual mentor"; a real-life, actual terrorist who served as
Obama's colleague and political sponsor. It is easy to imagine a future
historian looking at it all and asking: how on Earth was such a man elected
president?
Not content to wait for history, the incomparable Norman Podhoretz
addressed the question recently in the Wall Street Journal:
To be sure, no
white candidate who had close associations with an outspoken hater of America
like Jeremiah Wright and an unrepentant terrorist like Bill Ayers would have
lasted a single day. But because Mr. Obama was black, and therefore entitled in
the eyes of liberaldom to have hung out with protesters against various
American injustices, even if they were a bit extreme, he was given a pass.
Let that sink in: Obama was given a pass -- held to a lower
standard -- because of the color of his skin. Podhoretz continues:
And in any
case, what did such ancient history matter when he was also articulate and
elegant and (as he himself had said) "non-threatening," all of which
gave him a fighting chance to become the first black president and thereby to
lay the curse of racism to rest?
Podhoretz puts his finger, I think, on the animating pulse of the
Obama phenomenon -- affirmative action. Not in the legal sense, of
course. But certainly in the motivating sentiment behind all affirmative
action laws and regulations, which are designed primarily to make white people,
and especially white liberals, feel good about themselves.
Unfortunately, minorities often suffer so that whites can pat
themselves on the back. Liberals routinely admit minorities to schools
for which they are not qualified, yet take no responsibility for the inevitable
poor performance and high drop-out rates which follow. Liberals don't
care if these minority students fail; liberals aren't around to witness the
emotional devastation and deflated self esteem resulting from the racist policy
that is affirmative action. Yes, racist. Holding someone to a
separate standard merely because of the color of his skin -- that's affirmative
action in a nutshell, and if that isn't racism, then nothing is. And that
is what America did to Obama.
True, Obama himself was never troubled by his lack of
achievements, but why would he be? As many have noted, Obama was told he
was good enough for Columbia despite undistinguished grades at Occidental; he
was told he was good enough for the US Senate despite a mediocre record in
Illinois ; he was told he was good enough to be president despite no record at
all in the Senate. All his life, every step of the way, Obama was told he
was good enough for the next step, in spite of ample evidence to the
contrary. What could this breed if not the sort of empty narcissi
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