I don’t know how much more of the elections coverage I can take.
With Obama on the verge of clinching the Democratic Party nomination, the accursed Cable Anchors are poised to cement their role in history by declaring this event an historical one. Chris Matthews and Wolf Blitzer, a disgrace to their profession, have dissolved in soggy sentimentality. (The MSNBC network has posted this quotidian demonstration of what I mean.)
Every American, vaporized Matthews, will remember where he was on this historical day, when a black man became the nominee of a major American political party.
All this because Barack Obama is African American (or sort of).
However, the American people have given Obama such support not because of his ancestry, but because they like him better than the other White House hopefuls. Moreover, the reason Americans haven’t elected a man or woman of color beforehand is that no decent candidate presented himself.
Are the media suggesting that Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton’s bids for the office failed because of their color? I venture that their color was the least of their problems. Their characters: now that’s another matter entirely.
In Obama the American people see a viable candidate. The idea that Obama’s impending nomination is historical is an insult to Americans—it suggests that the barrier to the nomination of a Barack in years past was purely racial, rather than the absence of a strong black (or blackish) candidate.
Update I: Here is the text of Obama’s victory speech.
Update II (June 4): Sen. Clinton is the democratic choice; Obama the delegate’s choice. Democrats the country over elected Hillary; party delegates ratified Obama. Is Hillary angry that petty party rules trumped her popular appeal and stymied her bid for president? She should be. Clinton stopped short of conceding last night.
