When Wisdom, Honesty, and Judiciousness No Longer Seem to Matter Can President-Elect Obama Come To Our Resue?

By
Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III, Ph.D.

It has not taken long for the criticism, skepticism, and second guessing to begin. Barack Obama has not even been sworn in as the 44th President of the United States and his critics on the so-called progressive left are angry that his cabinet selections suggest a shift to the center or to the right. Meanwhile, critics on the right claim that his actions in response to disgraced Illinois Gov. Blagojevich are politically motivated.

There are few political realities that Obama’s detractors need to appreciate and respect. There is a difference between campaigning and governing. During the primaries both candidates, McCain and Obama played to their bases in order to win their parties nominations. In the general election both candidates had to move closer to the center than their bases preferred in order to have any chance of winning. Many would argue that McCain’s failure to move closer to the center, i.e. selecting Gov. Palin as his running mate to placate the conservative base, cost him dearly.

Now that Senator Obama is president-elect Obama, he has to focus on governing. He can’t effectively govern from the progressive left. America is not as liberal or progressive as the left would like nor as conservative as the right would claim. These political realities are compounded by the practical realities of the housing crisis, banking crisis, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, auto company crisis, etc., etc., etc.

For the most part, president-elect Obama has chosen to fill his cabinet with competent administrators and not ideologues. He seems to be focused on real solutions not theory, conjecture, or philosophy. He is selecting individuals who understand how Washington works and will be able to help structure legislation, pass legislation, and implement effective policy. Obama decided to retain the services of Robert Gates as defense secretary in order to ensure continuity in defense strategy in these very perilous times. While this does not sit well with the progressive left, no one has greater first hand knowledge of the complex issues that face America today.

Granted, not all of the individuals selected have unblemished records. For example, Senator Clinton or “Billary” voted for the war and brings Bill with her. Much to the dismay of progressives, during the Clinton administration Congressman Rahm Emanuel helped to get NAFTA, the Crime Bill, and welfare reform passed. In private practice Eric Holder has represented some questionable corporate clients. In spite of these issues, if president-elect Obama is as strong willed as a president as he was a candidate, these appointees and others will be implementing his policies and not allowing the interests of others to control him.

During the primaries and general election, Barack Obama was criticized by Senator’s Clinton, Biden, McCain and pilloried in the media for not having the requisite experience to “answer the 3:00 AM call” or respond to a real crisis. Gov. Palin questioned his experience as a “community organizer” by saying, "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities…" Now that he is selecting experienced and qualified people to serve in his cabinet, including some of his former detractors the criticism has changed from a lack of experience to whether he has abandoned the progressive left. Some progressives are even calling into question his commitment to their issues and his honesty.

As if the attacks from the left are not enough, the right has launched their attack as well. As a result of Illinois Gov. Blagojevich, a fellow Democrat, being charged with conspiring to sell president-elect Obama’s now-vacant Senate seat, political vultures are circling overhead trying to tie him to the scandal.

In spite of the fact that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has said prosecutors were making no allegations that Obama was aware of any scheming; Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia is on record as saying, "The serious nature of the crimes listed by federal prosecutors raises questions about the interaction with Gov. Blagojevich, President-elect Obama and other high ranking officials who will be working for the future president,…" Why does this raise questions when no connection, direct or indirect has been made? Just as in a time of war, America is in such dire straights that now is not the time for partisan “gotcha” politics of past.

In spite of the fact that Blagojevich himself, is on record having said, "they're (the Obama team) not willing to give me anything except appreciation," Robert M. "Mike" Duncan, chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), states "President-elect Barack Obama's comments on the matter are insufficient at best." President-elect Obama has stated, "I had no contact with the governor or his office, and so I was not aware of what was happening" and the U.S. Attorney has made no allegations to the contrary. What else is Obama to say? The truth is its own defense.

Instead of contributing to the media feeding frenzy, president-elect Obama and his team are being measured, judicious, and practical in their approach to this issue. Obama said on Friday, December 12th that he would release the results of an internal investigation into what conversations his aides and advisers may have had with Blagojevich in a matter of days. "What I want to do is to gather all the facts about any staff contacts that may have taken place between the transition office and the governor's office," Obama said. Instead of allowing Obama time to determine the facts, Duncan levies criticism by saying, “Americans expect the highest degree of transparency from their elected leaders, rather than promises of openness on the campaign trail." As chairman of the RNC Duncan is the spokesperson of the party and speaks for every Republican who does not say otherwise.

According to the Wall Street Journal, “President-elect Barack Obama's transition team said it had completed an internal review of contacts with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich -- but wouldn't release its findings until Christmas week, at the request of federal investigators.” In a written statement released by his office late Monday, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald confirmed that he asked for the delay, saying he wanted more time to conduct interviews. Conservative journalist Britt Hume says, “It is curious that Obama has been so cautious about it. He is a cautious man, but you do wonder, don't you? Wonder about what? Even though the Obama team does not have to comply with the request, why would they not?

The one thing that president-elect Obama and his team can not do is get caught up in the conservatives questions or the media’s frenzy and start to put out statements that later prove to be inaccurate. They must remain disciplined and not allow the desire for short-term responses to cause long-term problems.

I am in no way trying to insinuate that president-elect Obama and/or his team are above reproach or should not be questioned. Democracy demands that our representatives be held accountable for what they say and what they do. For the progressive left to question cabinet appointments and claim that they’ve been abandoned or betrayed before the first executive order has been signed or the first piece of legislation proposed is premature, reactionary, and some what naïve.

For the conservative right to try and create a story where there is none is just republican politics as usual. This just demonstrates that they have not learned a lesson from the recent election; the American electorate is tired of their politics as usual.

It is important to understand that many of the causes of the countries problems are grounded in flawed ideology designed to consolidate power and wealth into the hands of a few while the majority in this country are left to suffer. The solutions to these problems will not be grounded in ideology; they will require vision, wisdom, honesty, judiciousness, collaboration, and cooperation. All of these are qualities that president-elect Obama has demonstrated through out his life and career. If they were good enough to get him elected president why can’t people be patient enough to see if they will also help him govern?

Ask not what a President Barack Obama will do for you; ask what you can do to help a President Barack Obama address the tremendous issues that this country is facing.

Dr. Wilmer Leon is the Producer/ Host of the nationally broadcast call-in talk radio program “On With Leon,” a regular guest on CNN’s Lou Dobb’s Tonight, and a Teaching Associate in the Department of Political Science at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Go to www.wilmerleon.com or email: wjl3us@yahoo.com.

© 2008 InfoWave Communications, LLC.

Your Black World: Is Obama Really Change? -- Shannon Joyce Prince

Hope and Wisdom

By: Shannon Joyce Prince

Remember back seven years ago to the aftermath of September 11^th, when the world was divided into the good and the axis of evil, those who had democracy and those whose envy of it drove them to murderous fundamentalism? Remember the charge of the extreme right – that anybody who didn't support the ‘War on Terror’ or didn't show the appropriate level of ambivalence towards Islam or Middle Easterners, or paused to quibble over whether or not “enemy countries” had weapons of mass destruction, was unpatriotic and insufficiently American? Remember how the left, the middle, and the moderate right took issue with that kind of Manichean thinking while the war hawks said it didn't matter if those who were leading us to war were honest or which Middle Eastern country we bombed, because we were representing the concepts of freedom and democracy, thus the nitty-gritty about reality and truth weren't important?

I've been stunned to hear that same kind of rhetoric from the left. Either you support President-elect Obama or you're a too cool for school revolutionary snob, a Gloomy Gus, or someone too idealistic, unrealistic, or cynical to be pragmatic or useful. It doesn't matter who Obama is, what he does, says, or stands for - he represents hope and change and that's good enough. The left is currently doing what the right once did: conflating concepts with reality. The right said supporting democracy and freedom and supporting the ‘War on Terror’ were one and the same. The left says supporting hope and change and supporting Barack Obama are one and the same -- and their elision is just as dangerous. Just as by employing the words freedom, equality, and justice the Founding Fathers were able to hide a white, male, propertied oligarchy in the guise and language of democracy, Obama is hiding imperialism, neo-liberalism, and corporatism behind the language of progressivism.

See, there's nothing wrong with hope – as long as the person enjoining you to hope isn't also demanding that you abandon your critical thinking skills. Believe it or not, those of us who criticize Obama are not grumps who enjoy telling children there is no Santa Claus, while merrily kicking puppies. I don't begrudge anyone their elation at this time. When my Creole grandfather, a man who had to leave school in the fifth grade to pick sugarcane, called me nearly in tears that Obama had won the election, I shared his joyful moment with him. I didn't seize that moment to explain that Jason Furhman was heading up Obama's economics team; that as a senator, Obama repeatedly voted to increase funding for the war in Iraq, or tell him about the horrible things Obama has said about black fathers, such as my wonderful grandfather. The problem, however, is that my grandfather supports Obama because he doesn't know those things. Many of the people dancing in the streets right now haven't taken the time to do any research on Obama – so part of their euphoria is based on ignorance. Another significantly large population - much of the black community - supports Obama based on the belief that he is secretly not what he has presented himself to be - that once he has sneaked his way into office he's going to rip apart his button down shirt, revealing a bright Superman "S" and suddenly become Martin Luther King's ideological heir. I've heard another significant faction of people say that it doesn't matter what Obama does or doesn't do, because now little black boys can see a black president and know that they can grow up to be president, too. But that's just it – those little black boys are going to grow up. They're going to analyze and think critically (one hopes) and be affected by Obama's rhetoric and his policies. They're going to need substance, not a symbol. And they deserve better than Obama.

People who say Obama is dangerous, perhaps as dangerous as McCain, aren't crazy. What we realize is that while Obama might, and that's a big might, give in to leftist pressure and pass the kinds of positive legislation he didn't as senator, the benefits of progressive policies he instates risk being undermined by the racist ideology he uses. It's one thing for masses of white people to assume that racism is 90% over. It's another for a black man, Obama, to tell them this is so. Fostering those kinds of illusions is fatal. I've heard it said that Obama is obviously less racist than McCain, and his rural white sycophants, because McCain uses racial slurs and Obama doesn't. That doesn't make Obama less racist – just savvier. It reminds me of how aristocratic slave-owners had a hypocritical disgust for poorer, cruder slave traders, or how you read in many slave-owner narratives that genteel slave-owners proudly called their slaves "servants," instead of slaves. That didn't make the slaves any freer, however. Obama might not call blacks the "n" word, but his descriptions of blacks have depicted them as exactly that. Conversely, Obama may never call Afghans r*gh**ds, but if he starts a war in Afghanistan, Afghan civilians won't be any less dead, and Obama's ability to start a war with Afghanistan might be aided by his genteel language.

You see racists, be they black or white, aren't all as stupid as McCain. As Nancy MacLean noted in her book, Freedom is Not Enough, many racists have gotten hip to equality sounding language. That's why Ward Connerly's anti-affirmative action bill was called the California ‘Civil Rights Initiative.’ That's why one racist, nativist, anti-immigration group calls itself Vietnamese for Fair Immigration (though it's run by a white man). Time after time Obama has treated blacks, Muslims, and Middle Easterners with contempt. No matter how beautiful Obama is when he smiles, poised when he debates, or eloquent when he speaks, he is still racist; and his racism, his willingness to undermine minority concerns, his eagerness to appease whites, his enthusiastic obscuring of both past and present issues of justice and equality are perhaps as dangerous to America as anything McCain could do.

As Derrick Bell, the first African American tenured Harvard law professor and one of America's most brilliant legal minds has pointed out, whites tend to allow non-whites to achieve symbolic racial landmarks only when it meets white interests more than black interests; and often by using black figureheads. As blacks place their faith in slow, but sure, racial progress, whites convert old oppressions into more covert forms. Only when blacks are aware of this strategy can they fight for meaningful victories. Interestingly enough, those who criticize Bell tend to do so not because his work is inaccurate, but because it's "depressing." I'm sorry, but my concern isn't being the life of the party -- it's seeking liberation for all people. Those who castigate Americans for not being appropriately jubilant at Obama's election are insisting that blacks content themselves, in perpetuity, with symbolism instead of real change. All those who don't know what Obama stands for, or think he will exhibit qualities contrary to the way he has voted in the Senate and spoken in his speeches, or expect him to be loyal to issues he's flip flopped on, are entitled to do so.

However, it is irresponsible for those of us who believe that hope is only positive when wisely invested, to not use all the research we can gather and all the thought power we can employ, to fight for all people.

Shannon J. Prince is a creative writing major and junior at Dartmouth College. In addition to writing, she is an activist for indigenous and African issues, a ceramics maker, and a travel addict. She has been published in Frodo's Notebook, Falcon Wings, KUHF magazine, Imprint, Rice University's Writers in the Schools Magazine, Illogical Muse, Damn Good Writing, Lost Beat Poetry, Haggard and Halloo, Houston Literary Review, Words on Paper, Bewildering Stories, The Smoking Poet, Muscadine Lines, Ragand, Prick of the Spindle, International Zeitschrift, Conceit Magazine, Snow Monkey, Paradigm, Words Myth, and The Green Muse. She also won Dartmouth's Thomas Ralston Prize for creative writing. Click to e-mail Ms. Prince: Shannon J. Prince

Your Black News: Ashley Todd: A Counter-Argument to “Post-Racialism”

Ashley Todd: A Counter-Argument to “Post-Racialism”

By: Tolu Olorunda

Staff Writer - YourBlackWorld.com

Perhaps one of the greatest ironies of the 2008 Presidential race is the constant assertion of the notion of a “post-racial” period, while juxtaposed with an endless torrent of refuting occurrences. Last week, Ashley Todd, a Pittsburgh McCain worker, reported a compelling story of being “robbed at an ATM at the corner of Liberty Avenue and Pearl Street in the Bloomfield area around 9 p.m. Wednesday after leaving a Republican phone bank.” To avoid misleading the local police station, Todd was quick to comment that her purported attacker was a “dark-skinned African-American man about 6'4",” who “stole $60 from her and became enraged after seeing a bumper sticker supporting Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain on her car.”

The bizarre story took an unusual twist when Ashley Todd told Pittsburgh police that her “dark-skinned” bandit made sure to carve “a ‘B’ in her cheek,” when he noticed the McCain sticker on her car. From the onset, this mystery was suspicious at best. Nevertheless, John McCain and Sarah Palin swiftly conducted personal phone calls with the victim: Ashley Todd. Even Sen. Obama’s camp would not risk being charged with condoning this reported act of bestiality. In a released statement, the campaign stated: “Our thoughts and prayers are with the young woman for her to make a speedy recovery, and we hope that the person who perpetrated this crime is swiftly apprehended and brought to justice.” Damn. Tawana Brawley must be feeling pretty disgusted at this point.

With the president of College Republicans in Pittsburgh, Patrick Graham, comparing the incident to a “hate crime,” mainstream media exploded with outrage. FOX News, the conservative gangsters, milked the cow for what it was worth. Right-Wing radio shows questioned why the “left-wing” news networks didn’t devote more time of coverage to this gruesome tragedy. Before long, questions concerning the verity of Todd’s statement began creeping out of the woodworks. By the third day, the truth had resurrected itself. It turns out, not surprisingly to most Blacks however, that Ashley Todd had LIED about the whole ordeal. Todd was neither at the ATM – where the fantasy-driven mugging took place – nor was the backwardly-carved “B” a doing of anyone, other than her very hands. One wonders how skilled or devious the mind of a college student has to be, to have concocted such a well-detailed account of robbery and assault.

Ms. Todd borrowing a page from Susan Smith and Charles Stuart’s playbook is all but a shocker to African-Americans who see the value in embracing history. The myth of the “Black beast” is a resounding one in society these days. John Moody, FOX News’s V.P. went as far as suggesting that, “If Ms. Todd's allegations are proven accurate, some voters may revisit their support for Senator [Barack] Obama, not because they are racists ... but because they suddenly feel they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee.”

Moody’s reminder that society still deems the actions of a singular Black man as representative of the whole culture, or better yet, all Black men, is impressively refreshing, in an age replete with cries of “post-racialism.” Worse than Moody’s assessment, is the lingering echo of Jim-Crowism which has found a useful servant in John McCain and Sarah Palin. Ashley Todd’s story was deemed credible from the start – as the widespread falsehood that Black Men have a preoccupation with White Women remains a firm belief in this very day and age. Sen. McCain promptly applied this theory in the “lipstick on a pig” charge against his Democratic opponent, a few weeks ago. Banking on the possibility of White Women blindly accepting the untruth that Barack Obama had “assaulted” Gov. Palin with the political cliché, John McCain was able to build a steady case against the “disrespectful” Obama. The disproportionately white media beltway has been just as culpable in proliferating the slime and slander of bigotry, as the McCain camp’s slime-filled talking-points. It has helped ensure that, most of the time, the only Black men featured on TV screens are jail-bound, dead or misogynists. Slain Hip-Hop Icon, Tupac, understood this reality tremendously. In a song titled, “Blasphemy,” Tupac noted how “the media be crucifying brothers severely.” The severity of mass-media’s assault on Black male integrity is what granted Ms. Todd ample confidence in misleading the country, and fearing no backlash.

Following news that Ashley Todd had fabricated the story and told a bold-face lie, the corporate-owned media hurried to provide some alibi in protection their integrity, and that of Ms. Todd. Insistently calling Todd’s law-bound statements a “hoax,” the mainstream press furthermore played the role of P.R. manager for Ashley, by propagating the myth that Ms. Todd has a history of “mental problems” – hence, unworthy of scrutiny, prosecution and incarceration. Radio host and activist, Mark Thompson, put it best: “Her mental problem is Racism.” In the wake of such criminal double standard, certain questions of concern must be raised to protect the sanctity of our democratic values: If Ms. Todd were a Black Woman, would the same media – with a history of torturing the integrity of Black Women – defend the lying, self-proclaimed victim – at will? Or, if Ms. Todd were a Black Woman, with a white attacker, would the same media outlets been as swiftly responsive in taking up her cause? History suggests otherwise; the present deepens the doubt; and the future is, at best, bleak.

Originally Appeared On Black Commentator