Did This Offend You?

I'm sure by now you have all seen the photo above (The New Yorker) depicting MO with a picked-out fro, strapped with a machine gun, wearing combat boots and giving her Bo, BO, the rock. BO is decked out in Muslim garb--unhelpful satire to a liberal black man fighting the perception that he is, in fact, and in name, a Muslim.

I would be offended if I were him, although I'm not personally offended. It speaks to a bigger problem he has, however. That's how alot of American's see him--and her. Ironically, that perception was created by them. Of course, alot of folks see them as a refreshing change of pace to years of Bush-hating.

I find it amusing, if not sad, that the only folks bringing up BO's race and his non-Muslimness (yea, i made the word up)---or anything Muslim for that matter are 1. Liberal rags like the New Yorker; 2. Obama himself; and 3. His surrogates complaining that others are making race an issue.

I know this is a touchy subject for some, but I'm going to just call it like I see it. Why can't Republicans and conservatives (and many Democrats) criticize the guy? He's like the Teflon Don of politics--nothing sticks. The guy has flip-flopped on more issues and with more frequency in the last week than John Kerry ever dreamed of flipping and flopping in 2004. He has changed his position--and done so very recently--on almost every major position of importance in this campaign.

He was originally for immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq, then he was against the surge saying it would never work, then he said the surge is working, then he said it isn't, then he said we needed to focus our troops in Afghanastan--all this and he has yet to even speak to commanders on the ground. That made me dizzy.

Then there was the American Flag pin. He wouldn't wear it. Commenting on the matter in late 2007, he said "The truth is that right after 9/11, I had a pin. Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we're talking about the Iraq war, that became a substitute for, I think, true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security. I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest. Instead I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe what will make this country great and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism." What? An answer Bill Clinton would be proud of!

Now, of course, he wears the pin. He can't afford to alienate the middle-class white vote, for whom the symbolism of the flag is sacred.

Then, of course, there is the Reverend Wright fiasco that we have exhausted on these pages. He started by saying he didn't know his sermon's were of such a fiery nature, then he said that he just wasn't there when he delivered those sermons, then he said he could no more reject his friend, Reverend Wright, anymore than he could reject any friend of his, then when the firestorm did not die down, he threw his unrejectable friend right under the bus.

Then you have the case of public financing of the presidential election that I covered just a few days ago.

It doesn't end folks. He changes his mind more than I change songs on my iPod. I'm not against changing course, or changing one's mind after careful contemplation--but he has taken it to the extreme. Obama was supposed to be a different kind of politician, one who would usher in CHANGE. Folks this is more of the same, and blatantly so.

Heaven forbid we criticize him, though--do that and you're a racist or a bigot. Why can't it be what it is--that alot of American's will reject him in November because he is too inexperienced, that he's made alot of missteps in this campaign, that his hand and mind have not been steady, that he is short on detail and solutions, and long on rhetoric?

Having said all that, the American electorate are dumb enough to elect the guy. In the face of an exponentially better choice, the fact that John McCain has an (R) before his name on the ballot just may be enough to defeat him. That would illustrate the fickleness of the american electorate once and for all.

Obama can talk a good talk, but he is not walking the walk.

--G