And here conservatives thought Obama had blacks tucked away in his back pocket. The very notion seems almost comical and preposterous today.
For several reasons, the nation’s black journalists and political pundits have begun to unload longheld distaste for President Obama and/or his leadership style. And they are doing it in ways that would have been unthinkable during Obama’s christening on Inauguration Day as the nation’s first African American commander in chief.
The Democratic bloodletting on Election Day at the hands of the Republican steamroller, coupled with Obama’s willingness to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy, exposed troubling relations between Obama and African American thought leaders. It unveiled suspicions and dislike of Obama that was camouflaged just beneath the surface, obscured from plain view. Some, like blackagendarreport.com’s Glen Ford, openly challenged Obama’s candidacy for president way back in 2007. But their singular voices were drowned out by the roar of the throngs spiriting Obama towards history.
“Only fools should feel sorry for Obama as he prepares for a Republican-led House and weakened Democratic control of the Senate. This is Obama’s ‘comfort zone,’ where he can continue to woo Republicans to join his grand center-right coalition. The only people Obama has no tolerance for are liberalish Democrats, who will emerge relatively stronger in the new Congress thanks to the decimation of Obama’s Republican-Lite friends in conservative Democratic ranks. By freezing federal wages, Obama signals that he has no philosophical problems with the GOP’s general aims.”
Others, like Laura Washington of the Chicago Sun-Times, wondered if Obama was “black enough.” Now, Washington is practically begging Obama to exude whatever vestige of blackness is housed within his DNA. “Is it time for Presiden tObama to ‘go black‘ on his opponents? Time to put his hand on his hips, and let it rip? That’s what I am hearing from liberal friends and political activists. Get some backbone, Mr. President. Don’t let the Republicans push you around. Get mad, then get even.”
Clarence B. Jones wrote a scathing report on Obama for the Huffington Post using the title “Time to Think the Unthinkable: A Democratic Primary Challenge to Obama‘s Re-election“ The scholar in residence at the MLK The Research and Education Institute at Stanford. “How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?”
The most recent cause for disappointment is Obama’s willingness to make a deal with congressional Republicans to extend the George W. Bush-era tax cuts at all income levels for two years, even though Democrats still control the White House and both houses of Congress. Obama announced an agreemen twith Republicans Monday night to extend expiring tax cuts for all Americans and renew jobless benefits and grant a one-year reduction in Social Security taxes for millions, as Jim Kuhnhenn and David Espo reported for the Associated Press.
“Obama said there were elements of the deal he personally opposed, including an extension of expiring income tax cuts at upper income levels and a more generous deal on estates. But he said he decided that an agreement with Republicans was more important than a stalemate that would have resulted in higher income taxes at all income levels on Jan. 1,” they wrote.
“Much of this criticism against Obama has to do with his resolve, not his race,“ the Washington Post‘s Courtland Milloy Jr. wrote last week. “But I see the president as a black man first. It’s a pride thing. Obama’s victory wasn’t just about his progressive platform. It was a historic, racial barrier-busting victory that was supposed to make it just a little easier for black boys to imagine being president.
“But Obama is proving himself to be a most peculiar commander in chief. Maybe another black boy will someday grow up to become president, but if he turns out to be like Obama, it’ll be hard to call.”
The journalists and pundits are correct when they say Obama needs to exemplify more public forcefulness, particularly when countering devastating and effective political blows from the far right. However, the disposition that Obama exibits now is the same one he has had during his entire political career. What, did they believe that Obama would somehow transform once he got elected? That is incredibly naive for some to have believed that.
Still, the radical shift in the views of Obama is almost astonishing. Just two years ago, Obama seemed untouchable. Now, it seems no one wants to touch him. –terry shropshire
