Writing for the Nation Melissa Harris-Lacewell checks Michael Eric Dyson on Obama and race. Michael Eric Dyson, speaking for the Tavis Smiley clique, blasted the President saying "[Obama] runs from the issue of race like blacks running from cops!!!" Unbelievable!!! Tavis is understandable. He wants to be THE black leader or at pick who that person will be. Thanks to Professor Harris-Lacewell she takes on Dyson and the clique. RGN
All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem. –Martin Luther King, Jr.
Barack Obama accepted the Democratic nomination for the presidency on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr's historic "I have a dream" speech. He was inaugurated the day after our national holiday celebrating the life and accomplishments of Dr. King. Many asked if Obama's presidency was the realization of King's dream. Cultural products, from t-shirts to YouTube videos, linked Obama's election to King's legacy.
Some observers have made far less complimentary comparisons between the men. Some self-professed keepers of King's legacy have insisted that Barack Obama is embarrassingly anemic on issues of race. Remembering King as an uncompromising paragon of progressive politics, these "black leaders" judge Obama as a wishy-washy sell-out, unwilling to stand firm for his constituency.
This sentiment was perfectly captured last week in the outrageous comments of African American Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson. Lost in the din surrounding Harry Reid's "Negro dialect" comments and Rush Limbaugh's scandalous tirade about Haiti, was Dyson's assertion that "Barack Obama runs from race like a black man runs from a cop."
Dyson's comment is both offensive -to President Obama and to black men in general- and false- no other American presidential candidate paused in the middle of a campaign to deliver an exquisite commentary on race. Still, Dyson's sentiment is indicative of a small, but vocal group of black public intellectuals who have regularly criticized Obama during his campaign and his presidency.
Often comparing Obama explicitly to Dr. King, they conclude the President lacks the moral courage or Leftist determination of the civil rights icon.
I disagree. Barack Obama is stunningly similar to Martin Luther King, Jr., but to see this similarity we must relinquish the false, reconstructed memories of perfection we currently project onto King.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was a political philosopher and dedicated freedom fighter, but he was also a pragmatic political strategist. Seen through the perfecting lens of martyrdom, King appears to be to be an uncompromising progressive leader, undeterred by seemingly insurmountable challenges, willing to risk all to achieve the goals of his movement.
To see King exclusively in these terms requires active, willful revision of history. In his political work, King was surprisingly like President Obama. And I don't mean the oratory.
Consider this. Martin Luther King Jr. turned his back on Bayard Rustin. Rustin was his dear friend and trusted advisor. Rustin was the architect of the March on Washington. A fierce, lifelong pacifist, Rustin shepherded a young King through his first non-violent, direct action protests. Without Rustin there would have been no March on Washington and no national audience for the articulation of King's great dream.
Yet when he was pressed, Martin Luther King Jr. eventually disavowed Rustin and ejected him from the movement. Rustin asked King for his support, but King turned his back on Rustin. King rejected Rustin because Rustin was gay and socialist.
Faced with the political realities of homophobia and America's red scare, King chose to silence Rustin. King decided defending Rustin would distract the movement from its central goal of achieving an end to racial segregation.
Consider this. Martin Luther King, Jr. undercut the Mississippi Freedom Democratic party.
Black, rural laborers in Mississippi endured brutal beatings, death threats, loss of property, and exile from their homes because they wanted to vote. Despite these dangers, they formed the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Under the leadership of Fannie Lou Hamer they brought a delegation to the Democratic National Convention in 1964. There they demanded to be recognized and seated in protest of the racial disfranchisement in their state. Hamer's testimony before the DNC credentials committee remains a powerful witness to the brutal conditions black Americans faced in their struggle for first class citizenship.
It was Martin Luther King, Jr. who brokered a deal with the Democratic leadership that cut Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Democrats out of the Mississippi delegation. King knew that Johnson still needed the Southern segregationists to hold the majority. King needed Johnson to pass civil rights legislation. Johnson needed the Southerners to get elected. So King undercut Hamer. It was a strategic calculation.
Consider this. Martin Luther King, Jr. worked closely with many African American women, but staunchly refused to address gender equality as part of the larger movement for civil rights.
Women like Ella Baker, Diane Nash, Daisy Bates and Fannie Lou Hamer are dimly remembered compared to the shining beacon of King's legacy. This invisibility of women activists is neither accidental nor inevitable. Despite his sweeping, visionary, social theorizing, King had surprisingly little imagination about how the extraordinary women in the movement could share leadership and accolades with the male leaders. He often relegated his women peers to supporting roles and backstage efforts. King refused to publicly address gender discrimination and often argued that women's issues were distracting to the work of civil rights.
Deriding King and his legacy is not my goal in retelling these stories. We must remember that Martin Luther King was no earthbound deity, fearlessly pursuing an uncompromising agenda; he was a strategic political leader. He was a realist whose choices were often upsetting and unpalatable to those on his left.
Martin Luther King Jr's charismatic, audacious, courageous leadership dramatically altered the trajectory of American history. His leadership lasted just over a decade. In that decade he helped bring to fruition more than a century of struggle first inaugurated when black persons became free people in the United States. No personal or political shortcoming can erase or even tarnish King's contributions.
Remembering King's own strategic choices is not an apologia for President Obama. Barack Obama's legacy will ultimately rise and fall on the strength of his own accomplishments, not primarily on his comparative skill relative to other leaders. But a more clear-eyed assessment of King should make us more careful about how we judge our own imperfect President as he navigates his own complicated historical moment.
Barack Obama is not the leader of a progressive social movement; he is the president. As president he is both more powerful than Dr. King and more structurally constrained. He has more institutional power at his disposal and more crosscutting constituencies demanding his attention. He has more powerful allies and more powerful opponents.
We remember King as the beloved and revered leader of a nation-changing movement. We forget that King was widely criticized during his life. The American media derided this Nobel Peace Prize recipient for speaking out against the Vietnam War. Many argued King had overreached and had little right to weigh in on international matters. Despite braving vicious attacks, unfair incarceration, and attempts on his life, many young leaders mocked King for being insufficiently radical, overly tied to existing institutions, and inadequately brave in the face of racial attacks. One of the most gifted speakers of any age, in the final months of his life, Martin Luther King Jr. had trouble filling an auditorium for a public address.
I have criticisms of President Obama. He has not sufficiently championed the basic civil rights of LGBT Americans. He has escalated rather than ended our country's war effort. His health care initiative is not going to include a public option. But I am grateful that extraordinary change can be achieved even through imperfect leadership.
I see King in Obama: a leader who is imperfectly, but wholeheartedly groping toward better and fairer solutions for our nation.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Blacks Optimistic About Progress
For Blacks things are looking up. In spite of the constant disparaging of the President by Fox News, "Morning Joe," the Republicans, and the T-Baggers, Blacks see progress in his election. This report from the Pew Research shows that blacks are optimistic about their future under the leadership of President Obama. RGN
Blacks Upbeat about Black Progress, Prospects:
Barack Obama accepted the Democratic nomination for the presidency on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr's historic "I have a dream" speech. He was inaugurated the day after our national holiday celebrating the life and accomplishments of Dr. King. Many asked if Obama's presidency was the realization of King's dream. Cultural products, from t-shirts to YouTube videos, linked Obama's election to King's legacy.
Some observers have made far less complimentary comparisons between the men. Some self-professed keepers of King's legacy have insisted that Barack Obama is embarrassingly anemic on issues of race. Remembering King as an uncompromising paragon of progressive politics, these "black leaders" judge Obama as a wishy-washy sell-out, unwilling to stand firm for his constituency.
This sentiment was perfectly captured last week in the outrageous comments of African American Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson. Lost in the din surrounding Harry Reid's "Negro dialect" comments and Rush Limbaugh's scandalous tirade about Haiti, was Dyson's assertion that "Barack Obama runs from race like a black man runs from a cop."
Dyson's comment is both offensive -to President Obama and to black men in general- and false- no other American presidential candidate paused in the middle of a campaign to deliver an exquisite commentary on race. Still, Dyson's sentiment is indicative of a small, but vocal group of black public intellectuals who have regularly criticized Obama during his campaign and his presidency.
Often comparing Obama explicitly to Dr. King, they conclude the President lacks the moral courage or Leftist determination of the civil rights icon.
I disagree. Barack Obama is stunningly similar to Martin Luther King, Jr., but to see this similarity we must relinquish the false, reconstructed memories of perfection we currently project onto King.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was a political philosopher and dedicated freedom fighter, but he was also a pragmatic political strategist. Seen through the perfecting lens of martyrdom, King appears to be to be an uncompromising progressive leader, undeterred by seemingly insurmountable challenges, willing to risk all to achieve the goals of his movement.
To see King exclusively in these terms requires active, willful revision of history. In his political work, King was surprisingly like President Obama. And I don't mean the oratory.
Consider this. Martin Luther King Jr. turned his back on Bayard Rustin. Rustin was his dear friend and trusted advisor. Rustin was the architect of the March on Washington. A fierce, lifelong pacifist, Rustin shepherded a young King through his first non-violent, direct action protests. Without Rustin there would have been no March on Washington and no national audience for the articulation of King's great dream.
Yet when he was pressed, Martin Luther King Jr. eventually disavowed Rustin and ejected him from the movement. Rustin asked King for his support, but King turned his back on Rustin. King rejected Rustin because Rustin was gay and socialist.
Faced with the political realities of homophobia and America's red scare, King chose to silence Rustin. King decided defending Rustin would distract the movement from its central goal of achieving an end to racial segregation.
Consider this. Martin Luther King, Jr. undercut the Mississippi Freedom Democratic party.
Black, rural laborers in Mississippi endured brutal beatings, death threats, loss of property, and exile from their homes because they wanted to vote. Despite these dangers, they formed the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Under the leadership of Fannie Lou Hamer they brought a delegation to the Democratic National Convention in 1964. There they demanded to be recognized and seated in protest of the racial disfranchisement in their state. Hamer's testimony before the DNC credentials committee remains a powerful witness to the brutal conditions black Americans faced in their struggle for first class citizenship.
It was Martin Luther King, Jr. who brokered a deal with the Democratic leadership that cut Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Democrats out of the Mississippi delegation. King knew that Johnson still needed the Southern segregationists to hold the majority. King needed Johnson to pass civil rights legislation. Johnson needed the Southerners to get elected. So King undercut Hamer. It was a strategic calculation.
Consider this. Martin Luther King, Jr. worked closely with many African American women, but staunchly refused to address gender equality as part of the larger movement for civil rights.
Women like Ella Baker, Diane Nash, Daisy Bates and Fannie Lou Hamer are dimly remembered compared to the shining beacon of King's legacy. This invisibility of women activists is neither accidental nor inevitable. Despite his sweeping, visionary, social theorizing, King had surprisingly little imagination about how the extraordinary women in the movement could share leadership and accolades with the male leaders. He often relegated his women peers to supporting roles and backstage efforts. King refused to publicly address gender discrimination and often argued that women's issues were distracting to the work of civil rights.
Deriding King and his legacy is not my goal in retelling these stories. We must remember that Martin Luther King was no earthbound deity, fearlessly pursuing an uncompromising agenda; he was a strategic political leader. He was a realist whose choices were often upsetting and unpalatable to those on his left.
Martin Luther King Jr's charismatic, audacious, courageous leadership dramatically altered the trajectory of American history. His leadership lasted just over a decade. In that decade he helped bring to fruition more than a century of struggle first inaugurated when black persons became free people in the United States. No personal or political shortcoming can erase or even tarnish King's contributions.
Remembering King's own strategic choices is not an apologia for President Obama. Barack Obama's legacy will ultimately rise and fall on the strength of his own accomplishments, not primarily on his comparative skill relative to other leaders. But a more clear-eyed assessment of King should make us more careful about how we judge our own imperfect President as he navigates his own complicated historical moment.
Barack Obama is not the leader of a progressive social movement; he is the president. As president he is both more powerful than Dr. King and more structurally constrained. He has more institutional power at his disposal and more crosscutting constituencies demanding his attention. He has more powerful allies and more powerful opponents.
We remember King as the beloved and revered leader of a nation-changing movement. We forget that King was widely criticized during his life. The American media derided this Nobel Peace Prize recipient for speaking out against the Vietnam War. Many argued King had overreached and had little right to weigh in on international matters. Despite braving vicious attacks, unfair incarceration, and attempts on his life, many young leaders mocked King for being insufficiently radical, overly tied to existing institutions, and inadequately brave in the face of racial attacks. One of the most gifted speakers of any age, in the final months of his life, Martin Luther King Jr. had trouble filling an auditorium for a public address.
I have criticisms of President Obama. He has not sufficiently championed the basic civil rights of LGBT Americans. He has escalated rather than ended our country's war effort. His health care initiative is not going to include a public option. But I am grateful that extraordinary change can be achieved even through imperfect leadership.
I see King in Obama: a leader who is imperfectly, but wholeheartedly groping toward better and fairer solutions for our nation.
A Year After Obama's Election
January 12, 2010
Despite the bad economy, blacks' assessments about the state of black progress in America have improved more dramatically during the past two years than at any time in the past quarter century, according to a comprehensive new nationwide Pew Research Center survey on race.
Blacks Upbeat about Black Progress, Prospects:
Barack Obama accepted the Democratic nomination for the presidency on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr's historic "I have a dream" speech. He was inaugurated the day after our national holiday celebrating the life and accomplishments of Dr. King. Many asked if Obama's presidency was the realization of King's dream. Cultural products, from t-shirts to YouTube videos, linked Obama's election to King's legacy.
Some observers have made far less complimentary comparisons between the men. Some self-professed keepers of King's legacy have insisted that Barack Obama is embarrassingly anemic on issues of race. Remembering King as an uncompromising paragon of progressive politics, these "black leaders" judge Obama as a wishy-washy sell-out, unwilling to stand firm for his constituency.
This sentiment was perfectly captured last week in the outrageous comments of African American Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson. Lost in the din surrounding Harry Reid's "Negro dialect" comments and Rush Limbaugh's scandalous tirade about Haiti, was Dyson's assertion that "Barack Obama runs from race like a black man runs from a cop."
Dyson's comment is both offensive -to President Obama and to black men in general- and false- no other American presidential candidate paused in the middle of a campaign to deliver an exquisite commentary on race. Still, Dyson's sentiment is indicative of a small, but vocal group of black public intellectuals who have regularly criticized Obama during his campaign and his presidency.
Often comparing Obama explicitly to Dr. King, they conclude the President lacks the moral courage or Leftist determination of the civil rights icon.
I disagree. Barack Obama is stunningly similar to Martin Luther King, Jr., but to see this similarity we must relinquish the false, reconstructed memories of perfection we currently project onto King.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was a political philosopher and dedicated freedom fighter, but he was also a pragmatic political strategist. Seen through the perfecting lens of martyrdom, King appears to be to be an uncompromising progressive leader, undeterred by seemingly insurmountable challenges, willing to risk all to achieve the goals of his movement.
To see King exclusively in these terms requires active, willful revision of history. In his political work, King was surprisingly like President Obama. And I don't mean the oratory.
Consider this. Martin Luther King Jr. turned his back on Bayard Rustin. Rustin was his dear friend and trusted advisor. Rustin was the architect of the March on Washington. A fierce, lifelong pacifist, Rustin shepherded a young King through his first non-violent, direct action protests. Without Rustin there would have been no March on Washington and no national audience for the articulation of King's great dream.
Yet when he was pressed, Martin Luther King Jr. eventually disavowed Rustin and ejected him from the movement. Rustin asked King for his support, but King turned his back on Rustin. King rejected Rustin because Rustin was gay and socialist.
Faced with the political realities of homophobia and America's red scare, King chose to silence Rustin. King decided defending Rustin would distract the movement from its central goal of achieving an end to racial segregation.
Consider this. Martin Luther King, Jr. undercut the Mississippi Freedom Democratic party.
Black, rural laborers in Mississippi endured brutal beatings, death threats, loss of property, and exile from their homes because they wanted to vote. Despite these dangers, they formed the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Under the leadership of Fannie Lou Hamer they brought a delegation to the Democratic National Convention in 1964. There they demanded to be recognized and seated in protest of the racial disfranchisement in their state. Hamer's testimony before the DNC credentials committee remains a powerful witness to the brutal conditions black Americans faced in their struggle for first class citizenship.
It was Martin Luther King, Jr. who brokered a deal with the Democratic leadership that cut Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Democrats out of the Mississippi delegation. King knew that Johnson still needed the Southern segregationists to hold the majority. King needed Johnson to pass civil rights legislation. Johnson needed the Southerners to get elected. So King undercut Hamer. It was a strategic calculation.
Consider this. Martin Luther King, Jr. worked closely with many African American women, but staunchly refused to address gender equality as part of the larger movement for civil rights.
Women like Ella Baker, Diane Nash, Daisy Bates and Fannie Lou Hamer are dimly remembered compared to the shining beacon of King's legacy. This invisibility of women activists is neither accidental nor inevitable. Despite his sweeping, visionary, social theorizing, King had surprisingly little imagination about how the extraordinary women in the movement could share leadership and accolades with the male leaders. He often relegated his women peers to supporting roles and backstage efforts. King refused to publicly address gender discrimination and often argued that women's issues were distracting to the work of civil rights.
Deriding King and his legacy is not my goal in retelling these stories. We must remember that Martin Luther King was no earthbound deity, fearlessly pursuing an uncompromising agenda; he was a strategic political leader. He was a realist whose choices were often upsetting and unpalatable to those on his left.
Martin Luther King Jr's charismatic, audacious, courageous leadership dramatically altered the trajectory of American history. His leadership lasted just over a decade. In that decade he helped bring to fruition more than a century of struggle first inaugurated when black persons became free people in the United States. No personal or political shortcoming can erase or even tarnish King's contributions.
Remembering King's own strategic choices is not an apologia for President Obama. Barack Obama's legacy will ultimately rise and fall on the strength of his own accomplishments, not primarily on his comparative skill relative to other leaders. But a more clear-eyed assessment of King should make us more careful about how we judge our own imperfect President as he navigates his own complicated historical moment.
Barack Obama is not the leader of a progressive social movement; he is the president. As president he is both more powerful than Dr. King and more structurally constrained. He has more institutional power at his disposal and more crosscutting constituencies demanding his attention. He has more powerful allies and more powerful opponents.
We remember King as the beloved and revered leader of a nation-changing movement. We forget that King was widely criticized during his life. The American media derided this Nobel Peace Prize recipient for speaking out against the Vietnam War. Many argued King had overreached and had little right to weigh in on international matters. Despite braving vicious attacks, unfair incarceration, and attempts on his life, many young leaders mocked King for being insufficiently radical, overly tied to existing institutions, and inadequately brave in the face of racial attacks. One of the most gifted speakers of any age, in the final months of his life, Martin Luther King Jr. had trouble filling an auditorium for a public address.
I have criticisms of President Obama. He has not sufficiently championed the basic civil rights of LGBT Americans. He has escalated rather than ended our country's war effort. His health care initiative is not going to include a public option. But I am grateful that extraordinary change can be achieved even through imperfect leadership.
I see King in Obama: a leader who is imperfectly, but wholeheartedly groping toward better and fairer solutions for our nation.
A Year After Obama's Election
January 12, 2010
Despite the bad economy, blacks' assessments about the state of black progress in America have improved more dramatically during the past two years than at any time in the past quarter century, according to a comprehensive new nationwide Pew Research Center survey on race.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Barack Obama: The Transformational President!!!!
In spite of the bashing by Republicans and the white nationalist right wing, the Obama presidency has accomplished more in his first year than any president since FDR. Obama's desire was to be a transformative president. If his first year is any indication, the next 7 years will make marked progress toward a just Society. The Left has disparaged his "capitulation" on health care. The Right has accused him of being a Big Government socialist. The Right was defeated in the 2008 election. The victory of more progressive among the electorate has led many on the Left to be critical of concessions he has made on healthcare. Much of the Left finds its foundation in movement politics, not "progressive pragmatic" politics. What the Left does not recognize are the limitations of the Presidency, there is a Congress that includes a lot of conservatives, Republicans and Democrats. As Obama said in is Grant Park victory speech, he is the president of all of the American people, even those who did not vote for him. To be successful as President he must maintain his legitimacy by respecting the American people. Given Obama's accomplishments thus far and his victories in the future, he is likely to transform America. The passage of healthcare would "transform" the basic rights of what it means to be an American. Once passed, new aasumptions about citizenship rights will be changed forever. That is historic. This article by Slate provides documentation Obama's "transformation" first year. RGN
Obama's Brilliant First Year
By January, he will have accomplished more than any first-year president since Franklin Roosevelt.
By Jacob Weisberg
Posted Saturday, Nov. 28, 2009, at 8:13 AM ET
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About one thing, left and right seem to agree these days: Obama hasn't done anything yet. Maureen Dowd and Dick Cheney have found common ground in scoffing at the president's "dithering." Newsweek recently ran a sympathetic cover story titled, "Yes He Can (But He Sure Hasn't Yet)." The sarcasm brigade thinks it's finally found an Achilles' heel in his lack of accomplishments. "When you look at my record, it's very clear what I've done so far and that is nothing. Nada. Almost one year and nothing to show for it," Obama stand-in Fred Armisen recently riffed on Saturday Night Live. "It's chow time," Jon Stewart asserts, for a president who hasn't followed through on his promises.
This conventional wisdom about Obama's first year isn't just premature—it's sure to be flipped on its head by the anniversary of his inauguration on Jan. 20. If, as seems increasingly likely, Obama wins passage of a health care reform a bill by that date, he will deliver his first State of the Union address having accomplished more than any other postwar American president at a comparable point in his presidency. This isn't an ideological point or one that depends on agreement with his policies. It's a neutral assessment of his emerging record—how many big, transformational things Obama is likely to have made happen in his first 12 months in office.
The case for Obama's successful freshman year rests above all on the health care legislation now awaiting action in the Senate. Democrats have been trying to pass national health insurance for 60 years. Past presidents who tried to make it happen and failed include Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton. Through the summer, Obama caught flak for letting Congress lead the process, as opposed to setting out his own proposal. Now his political strategy is being vindicated. The bill he signs may be flawed in any number of ways—weak on cost control, too tied to the employer-based system, and inadequate in terms of consumer choice. But given the vastness of the enterprise and the political obstacles, passing an imperfect behemoth and improving it later is probably the only way to succeed where his predecessors failed.
We are so submerged in the details of this debate—whether the bill will include a "public option," limit coverage for abortion, or tax Botox—that it's easy to lose sight of the magnitude of the impending change. For the federal government to take responsibility for health coverage will be a transformation of the American social contract and the single biggest change in government's role since the New Deal. If Obama governs for four or eight years and accomplishes nothing else, he may be judged the most consequential domestic president since LBJ. He will also undermine the view that Ronald Reagan permanently reversed a 50-year tide of American liberalism.
Obama's claim to a fertile first year doesn't rest on health care alone. There's mounting evidence that the $787 billion economic stimulus he signed in February—combined with the bank bailout package—prevented an economic depression. Should the stimulus have been larger? Should it have been more weighted to short-term spending, as opposed to long-term tax cuts? Would a second round be a good idea? Pundits and policymakers will argue these questions for years to come. But few mainstream economists seriously dispute that Obama's decisive action prevented a much deeper downturn and restored economic growth in the third quarter. The New York Times recently quoted Mark Zandi, who was one of candidate John McCain's economic advisers, on this point: "The stimulus is doing what it was supposed to do—it is contributing to ending the recession," he said. "In my view, without the stimulus, G.D.P would still be negative and unemployment would be firmly over 11 percent."
When it comes to foreign policy, Obama's accomplishment has been less tangible but hardly less significant: He has put America on a new footing with the rest of the world. In a series of foreign trips and speeches, which critics deride as trips and speeches, he replaced George W. Bush's unilateral, moralistic militarism with an approach that is multilateral, pragmatic, and conciliatory. Obama has already significantly reoriented policy toward Iran, China, Russia, Iraq, Israel, and the Islamic world. Next week, after a much-disparaged period of review, he will announce a new strategy in Afghanistan. No, the results do not yet merit his Nobel Peace Prize. But not since Reagan has a new president so swiftly and determinedly remodeled America's global role.
Obama has wisely deferred some smaller, politically hazardous battles over issues such as closing Guantanamo, ending "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and fighting the expansion of Israel's West Bank settlements. Instead, he has saved his fire for his most urgent priorities—preventing a depression, remaking America's global image, and winning universal health insurance. Chow time indeed, if you ask me.
A version of this article also appears in this week's issue of Newsweek.
Jacob Weisberg is chairman and editor-in-chief of the Slate Group and author of The Bush Tragedy. Follow him at http://twitter.com/jacobwe.
Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2236708/
Copyright 2010 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
See also Rachel Maddow on Obama's first year
Obama's Brilliant First Year
By January, he will have accomplished more than any first-year president since Franklin Roosevelt.
By Jacob Weisberg
Posted Saturday, Nov. 28, 2009, at 8:13 AM ET
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About one thing, left and right seem to agree these days: Obama hasn't done anything yet. Maureen Dowd and Dick Cheney have found common ground in scoffing at the president's "dithering." Newsweek recently ran a sympathetic cover story titled, "Yes He Can (But He Sure Hasn't Yet)." The sarcasm brigade thinks it's finally found an Achilles' heel in his lack of accomplishments. "When you look at my record, it's very clear what I've done so far and that is nothing. Nada. Almost one year and nothing to show for it," Obama stand-in Fred Armisen recently riffed on Saturday Night Live. "It's chow time," Jon Stewart asserts, for a president who hasn't followed through on his promises.
This conventional wisdom about Obama's first year isn't just premature—it's sure to be flipped on its head by the anniversary of his inauguration on Jan. 20. If, as seems increasingly likely, Obama wins passage of a health care reform a bill by that date, he will deliver his first State of the Union address having accomplished more than any other postwar American president at a comparable point in his presidency. This isn't an ideological point or one that depends on agreement with his policies. It's a neutral assessment of his emerging record—how many big, transformational things Obama is likely to have made happen in his first 12 months in office.
The case for Obama's successful freshman year rests above all on the health care legislation now awaiting action in the Senate. Democrats have been trying to pass national health insurance for 60 years. Past presidents who tried to make it happen and failed include Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton. Through the summer, Obama caught flak for letting Congress lead the process, as opposed to setting out his own proposal. Now his political strategy is being vindicated. The bill he signs may be flawed in any number of ways—weak on cost control, too tied to the employer-based system, and inadequate in terms of consumer choice. But given the vastness of the enterprise and the political obstacles, passing an imperfect behemoth and improving it later is probably the only way to succeed where his predecessors failed.
We are so submerged in the details of this debate—whether the bill will include a "public option," limit coverage for abortion, or tax Botox—that it's easy to lose sight of the magnitude of the impending change. For the federal government to take responsibility for health coverage will be a transformation of the American social contract and the single biggest change in government's role since the New Deal. If Obama governs for four or eight years and accomplishes nothing else, he may be judged the most consequential domestic president since LBJ. He will also undermine the view that Ronald Reagan permanently reversed a 50-year tide of American liberalism.
Obama's claim to a fertile first year doesn't rest on health care alone. There's mounting evidence that the $787 billion economic stimulus he signed in February—combined with the bank bailout package—prevented an economic depression. Should the stimulus have been larger? Should it have been more weighted to short-term spending, as opposed to long-term tax cuts? Would a second round be a good idea? Pundits and policymakers will argue these questions for years to come. But few mainstream economists seriously dispute that Obama's decisive action prevented a much deeper downturn and restored economic growth in the third quarter. The New York Times recently quoted Mark Zandi, who was one of candidate John McCain's economic advisers, on this point: "The stimulus is doing what it was supposed to do—it is contributing to ending the recession," he said. "In my view, without the stimulus, G.D.P would still be negative and unemployment would be firmly over 11 percent."
When it comes to foreign policy, Obama's accomplishment has been less tangible but hardly less significant: He has put America on a new footing with the rest of the world. In a series of foreign trips and speeches, which critics deride as trips and speeches, he replaced George W. Bush's unilateral, moralistic militarism with an approach that is multilateral, pragmatic, and conciliatory. Obama has already significantly reoriented policy toward Iran, China, Russia, Iraq, Israel, and the Islamic world. Next week, after a much-disparaged period of review, he will announce a new strategy in Afghanistan. No, the results do not yet merit his Nobel Peace Prize. But not since Reagan has a new president so swiftly and determinedly remodeled America's global role.
Obama has wisely deferred some smaller, politically hazardous battles over issues such as closing Guantanamo, ending "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and fighting the expansion of Israel's West Bank settlements. Instead, he has saved his fire for his most urgent priorities—preventing a depression, remaking America's global image, and winning universal health insurance. Chow time indeed, if you ask me.
A version of this article also appears in this week's issue of Newsweek.
Jacob Weisberg is chairman and editor-in-chief of the Slate Group and author of The Bush Tragedy. Follow him at http://twitter.com/jacobwe.
Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2236708/
Copyright 2010 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
See also Rachel Maddow on Obama's first year
Reid's Observation and Castigation??
Harry Reid has been reeling from a few unfortunate words that have caused a firestorm. The racists have jumped on this flap like white on rice. They are yelling that liberals and Democrats live by a double standard when it comes to discussions of race. They are demanding that Reid get the same treatment that Trent Lott got -- ousted as Majority Leader -- when he praised the record of segregationist Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond. While Reid's words about Obama being "light-skinned" and not speaking with a "Negro dialect" were a poor choice of words, they were not in praise of white supremacy. The problem is that the white nationalists frame their racism in in terms of "color blindness." RGN
Inside the Reid eruption
By: Mike Allen and Glenn Thrush
January 12, 2010 12:19 AM EST
Harry Reid isn’t talkative. But the Senate majority leader chatted freely with the two disarmingly charming book authors who came to his office at the Capitol shortly after the 2008 election.
They — and their tape recorder — were soaking in his reminiscences about the wild campaign that had turned a backbencher in his caucus into president of the United States.
Reid wasn’t on guard — perhaps because he’d been told by his staff that the meeting would be “off the record,” according to a person with knowledge of the exchange.
Although Reid is a master of the Senate’s mysterious inside game, he’s often botched the outside game because of what one colleague calls a “penchant for saying things without a filter.”
But Jim Manley, Reid’s senior communications adviser, wasn’t too worried as he and his boss sat down with John Heilemann of New York Magazine and Mark Halperin of Time magazine — two veteran reporters who were working on what their publisher had billed as “a sweeping, novelistic, and ultimately definitive portrait” of the 2008 race.
Like virtually every Washington political insider, Manley had a long and warm relationship with Halperin, the longtime political director for ABC News who once set conventional wisdom in Washington with “The Note.”
Maybe Reid and Manley — thinking back to their many candid exchanges over the years — simply assumed that Halperin wouldn’t burn him or his boss. Or maybe he expected that Halperin would check back with him on any quotes he planned to use?
Whatever they were thinking, they were wrong.
Reid was talking about the reasons why, even though he had publicly professed neutrality in the vicious Democratic primaries of 2008, he had secretly encouraged then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama to challenge another member of his caucus, then-New York Sen. Hillary Clinton. And amid all the talk of Obama’s oratorical gifts, he let slip something else: Obama could win the White House because he was a “light-skinned” African-American “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”
The authors write in “Game Change,” published this weekend, that Reid had made the remark “privately.” They did not say he had said it to them.
As a chagrined Reid telephoned political allies in the Senate and civil rights community to shore up his support this weekend, he made it clear that he felt burned by the authors.
In the book's“Authors’ Note," they wrote: “All of our interviews — from those with junior staffers to those with the candidates themselves — were conducted on a ‘deep background’ basis, which means we agreed not to identify the subjects as sources in any way. We believed this was essential to eliciting the level of candor on which a book of this sort depends.”
Heilemann said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”: “We had a very clear agreement with all those sources that our interviews would be on deep background. ... Our ground rules are ... that we won’t identify any of our sources as the sources of the material. But we said to them all very clearly that if they put themselves in scenes of the book, if they were uttering dialogue to people in the book in part of a scene, that we would identify them as the utterer of those words.”
Halperin added: “There’s no one we talked to for the book who we burned in any way, or violated any agreement with.”
Manley, a Capitol Hill veteran who also had worked for the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, had been responsible for monitoring the interview and dealing with issues arising from it.
But he didn’t tell anyone else in Reid’s inner circle about the inflammatory remarks their boss had made; because of his good relationship with the authors, he assumed that the quotes would never be made public — at least not without his knowing about it first.
Manley declined comment on this story-- and wouldn't confirm if the interview took place.
On Friday at 10 p.m. — half a year after the interview — The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder e-mailed Reid’s staff with questions about a “light-skinned” candidate without a “Negro dialect.”
In the second-guessing that followed, Capitol Hill veterans said there was no way that such inflammatory words from a Senate majority leader would remain off the record, even if that had been the arrangement.
But because Manley had not sounded an internal alarm, he and the rest of the damage-control squad were caught flat-footed by Ambinder’s e-mail, several people close to the situation told POLITICO.
“They could have had weeks to prepare for this or to try to convince Halperin not to run it,” said a Democrat who participated in some of the damage control.
Now the staff had been blindsided with a revelation that, if mishandled, could be politically fatal. Manley and other aides worked until 2 a.m. Saturday to draft Reid’s carefully written apology, which emphasized his record on African-American issues.
“I deeply regret using such a poor choice of words,” the 90-word statement began.
Later on Saturday, Manley helped lead a counteroffensive, calling White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, a friend from his days as communications director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, to set up an apology call between Reid, at home in Searchlight, Nev., and Obama back in Washington.
In a stunning “Statement by the President” e-mailed to reporters at 3:55 p.m. Saturday, Obama said: “Harry Reid called me today and apologized for an unfortunate comment reported today. ... As far as I’m concerned, the book is closed.”
Relieved to have the president’s solid backing, Reid’s aides decided that their toughest challenge would be to prevent any prominent African-American Democrats from attacking Reid too harshly — or calling for his resignation.
Reid’s team correctly anticipated that Republicans would demand his head. Keeping that criticism from becoming a bipartisan drumbeat was the key. The team calculated that as long as the attacks looked like partisan shouting, Reid would benefit.
Aides say their boss quickly understood the danger and spent much of Saturday working a call list of about 30 prominent African-Americans across the country. On the calls, he apologized for his words and argued that the book’s main takeaway should be that he had quietly supported Obama over Clinton, long before those made his feelings public.
Among those he called were the Rev. Al Sharpton; longtime civil rights leader Julian Bond; Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus; political consultant and talk-show fixture Donna Brazile; House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.); Wade Henderson, CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights; and Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP’s Washington office.
The extent of the damage to his already shaky reelection chances in Nevada won’t be known until November. But by Monday, Reid believed the Washington storm was passing. From his home in New York, Sen. Chuck Schumer telephoned Reid in Nevada and offered to organize a letter of support from all the Democratic senators.
Reid decided that was unnecessary. He had confidently concluded that for now, at least, he had won the inside game.
© 2009 Capitol News Company, LLC
Inside the Reid eruption
By: Mike Allen and Glenn Thrush
January 12, 2010 12:19 AM EST
Harry Reid isn’t talkative. But the Senate majority leader chatted freely with the two disarmingly charming book authors who came to his office at the Capitol shortly after the 2008 election.
They — and their tape recorder — were soaking in his reminiscences about the wild campaign that had turned a backbencher in his caucus into president of the United States.
Reid wasn’t on guard — perhaps because he’d been told by his staff that the meeting would be “off the record,” according to a person with knowledge of the exchange.
Although Reid is a master of the Senate’s mysterious inside game, he’s often botched the outside game because of what one colleague calls a “penchant for saying things without a filter.”
But Jim Manley, Reid’s senior communications adviser, wasn’t too worried as he and his boss sat down with John Heilemann of New York Magazine and Mark Halperin of Time magazine — two veteran reporters who were working on what their publisher had billed as “a sweeping, novelistic, and ultimately definitive portrait” of the 2008 race.
Like virtually every Washington political insider, Manley had a long and warm relationship with Halperin, the longtime political director for ABC News who once set conventional wisdom in Washington with “The Note.”
Maybe Reid and Manley — thinking back to their many candid exchanges over the years — simply assumed that Halperin wouldn’t burn him or his boss. Or maybe he expected that Halperin would check back with him on any quotes he planned to use?
Whatever they were thinking, they were wrong.
Reid was talking about the reasons why, even though he had publicly professed neutrality in the vicious Democratic primaries of 2008, he had secretly encouraged then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama to challenge another member of his caucus, then-New York Sen. Hillary Clinton. And amid all the talk of Obama’s oratorical gifts, he let slip something else: Obama could win the White House because he was a “light-skinned” African-American “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”
The authors write in “Game Change,” published this weekend, that Reid had made the remark “privately.” They did not say he had said it to them.
As a chagrined Reid telephoned political allies in the Senate and civil rights community to shore up his support this weekend, he made it clear that he felt burned by the authors.
In the book's“Authors’ Note," they wrote: “All of our interviews — from those with junior staffers to those with the candidates themselves — were conducted on a ‘deep background’ basis, which means we agreed not to identify the subjects as sources in any way. We believed this was essential to eliciting the level of candor on which a book of this sort depends.”
Heilemann said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”: “We had a very clear agreement with all those sources that our interviews would be on deep background. ... Our ground rules are ... that we won’t identify any of our sources as the sources of the material. But we said to them all very clearly that if they put themselves in scenes of the book, if they were uttering dialogue to people in the book in part of a scene, that we would identify them as the utterer of those words.”
Halperin added: “There’s no one we talked to for the book who we burned in any way, or violated any agreement with.”
Manley, a Capitol Hill veteran who also had worked for the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, had been responsible for monitoring the interview and dealing with issues arising from it.
But he didn’t tell anyone else in Reid’s inner circle about the inflammatory remarks their boss had made; because of his good relationship with the authors, he assumed that the quotes would never be made public — at least not without his knowing about it first.
Manley declined comment on this story-- and wouldn't confirm if the interview took place.
On Friday at 10 p.m. — half a year after the interview — The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder e-mailed Reid’s staff with questions about a “light-skinned” candidate without a “Negro dialect.”
In the second-guessing that followed, Capitol Hill veterans said there was no way that such inflammatory words from a Senate majority leader would remain off the record, even if that had been the arrangement.
But because Manley had not sounded an internal alarm, he and the rest of the damage-control squad were caught flat-footed by Ambinder’s e-mail, several people close to the situation told POLITICO.
“They could have had weeks to prepare for this or to try to convince Halperin not to run it,” said a Democrat who participated in some of the damage control.
Now the staff had been blindsided with a revelation that, if mishandled, could be politically fatal. Manley and other aides worked until 2 a.m. Saturday to draft Reid’s carefully written apology, which emphasized his record on African-American issues.
“I deeply regret using such a poor choice of words,” the 90-word statement began.
Later on Saturday, Manley helped lead a counteroffensive, calling White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, a friend from his days as communications director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, to set up an apology call between Reid, at home in Searchlight, Nev., and Obama back in Washington.
In a stunning “Statement by the President” e-mailed to reporters at 3:55 p.m. Saturday, Obama said: “Harry Reid called me today and apologized for an unfortunate comment reported today. ... As far as I’m concerned, the book is closed.”
Relieved to have the president’s solid backing, Reid’s aides decided that their toughest challenge would be to prevent any prominent African-American Democrats from attacking Reid too harshly — or calling for his resignation.
Reid’s team correctly anticipated that Republicans would demand his head. Keeping that criticism from becoming a bipartisan drumbeat was the key. The team calculated that as long as the attacks looked like partisan shouting, Reid would benefit.
Aides say their boss quickly understood the danger and spent much of Saturday working a call list of about 30 prominent African-Americans across the country. On the calls, he apologized for his words and argued that the book’s main takeaway should be that he had quietly supported Obama over Clinton, long before those made his feelings public.
Among those he called were the Rev. Al Sharpton; longtime civil rights leader Julian Bond; Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus; political consultant and talk-show fixture Donna Brazile; House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.); Wade Henderson, CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights; and Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP’s Washington office.
The extent of the damage to his already shaky reelection chances in Nevada won’t be known until November. But by Monday, Reid believed the Washington storm was passing. From his home in New York, Sen. Chuck Schumer telephoned Reid in Nevada and offered to organize a letter of support from all the Democratic senators.
Reid decided that was unnecessary. He had confidently concluded that for now, at least, he had won the inside game.
© 2009 Capitol News Company, LLC
Ron Walters on the Unfair Criticisms of The Obama Presidency
The Administration decided that Fox News was not really a news organization. That critique should be not restricted to Fox News. Morning Joe is nothing more than Fox News light. MSNBC's evening lineup is the only news source that "gets it" and tries to present an understanding of what the president is doing, successfully. Some time ago Hillary Clinton made a point some time ago in which she observed: If someone said Obama was walking on water, the Right Wing would say "He can't swim!" He is being criticized for things that no other president has been able to do. His progressive record is very good, not excellent but very good. In this post Walters points out that given the mess that Bush left, the constant criticism of Obama is really about race and not objective assessment of what he has accomplished. RGN
Criticism, Criticism, Criticism
By Ron Walters
I think that the pundits and the public should face up to one fact. The mess that President Barack Obama inherited will not be fixed in one year, or two or possibly even during his entire term. That makes it exceedingly difficult to determine, in this time framework, especially through the screen of the constant criticism of him and his policies what the real nature of his presidential contribution will be.
The media works on a timeframe of instant results. While grudgingly admitting that the George Bush administration presided over the wars, the sorry state of the economy and the home foreclosure crisis, and passed it on to Obama, they nonetheless, constantly criticize Obama’s personal actions and proposals in his attempt to fix these problems. Those who come to his defense in the welter of attacks are rare, sense it appears from surveying many media outlets that most of those who are allowed the privilege of participating in the public interpretation of events are opponents of this White House. The frequency of Republican and conservative Democratic voices invited to comment on every action of the White House has been overwhelming, something the Democratic party did not experience under George Bush.
So, what are we to make of the fact that Obama inherited the worst situation going into office of perhaps any president in American history and that his poll numbers are just below 50% at the end of one year in office? Are these good considering the problems, or do the pundits and the American people realistically expect that he would have resolved the problems they face in one year? Or is this merely a symbol of American discontent with the personal situation that that they impute to the president as the custodian of the problems? I think it is the latter. Somewhere, reality must trump symbolism and it is my belief that this is not only the task of historians, but it is the responsibility of serious media as events occur.
Too often, unjustified criticisms of this Administration have been uttered on the talk shows, the internet and in other forums without opposition by hosts, commentators and other persons who influence public opinion. This means that the media has been influential in driving down Obama’s favorable ratings by doing things like trying to make him responsible for the high unemployment rate and the response by the “Tea Party” phenomenon as a legitimate sense of the American people, when it is little more than a carefully crafted and funded Right Wing mobilization. Too often media commentators have not corrected or given balance to the criticisms such as: George Bush kept us safe during his tenure when no one knows whether that is true; or that Obama promised to put everything on C-SPAN; or that he waited too long to respond to the Detroit airline bomber; or that he hasn’t focused on job creation; and that the Stimulus Package has not worked at all.
If George Bush had been as criticized and interrogated as much as Obama, perhaps the edifice of problems that now challenge the very viability of America might have been stopped. In fact, in the context of the problems his administration faces, the personality and actions of Obama exist in a war of interpretation but I do not see them positioning their troops to fight it. Besides the concrete accomplishments of any president, its legacy will often be determined by who wins the war over the interpretation of the actions of his administration at the time it is in office. Those interpretations will often exist for a long time because historians use media interpretations as well.
My sense of this was heightened by remarks by Richard Cohen of the Washington Post who recently wrote that given his low favorable numbers Obama has “failed” as president. How do you fail in one year and is that an accurate interpretation of how to read the polls? Nevertheless, by stating that Obama has failed, Cohen has influenced the judgment of many people in that regard. The lack of reality that resides in such judgments is one of the reasons why some of us believe that the interpretations of Obama’s actions have much to do with race, at base a belief in the inferiority of black leadership (even if he doesn’t profess to be a black leader).
That aside, I believe that the nature of the skewed interpretations of Obama’s administration have much more to do with the times, the severity of the crisis, the hegemonic power of the Right to influence opinion and the lack of a forceful set of voices to right the balance of opinion. Despite the criticisms, the reality is that the Obama administration has made a dent in the problems America faces. Someone must answer why has he not been given the credit he deserves?
Dr. Ron Walters is Professor Emeritus at the University of Maryland and a Political Analysts. His latest book is, The Price of Racial Reconciliation (University of Michigan Press).
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Criticism, Criticism, Criticism
By Ron Walters
I think that the pundits and the public should face up to one fact. The mess that President Barack Obama inherited will not be fixed in one year, or two or possibly even during his entire term. That makes it exceedingly difficult to determine, in this time framework, especially through the screen of the constant criticism of him and his policies what the real nature of his presidential contribution will be.
The media works on a timeframe of instant results. While grudgingly admitting that the George Bush administration presided over the wars, the sorry state of the economy and the home foreclosure crisis, and passed it on to Obama, they nonetheless, constantly criticize Obama’s personal actions and proposals in his attempt to fix these problems. Those who come to his defense in the welter of attacks are rare, sense it appears from surveying many media outlets that most of those who are allowed the privilege of participating in the public interpretation of events are opponents of this White House. The frequency of Republican and conservative Democratic voices invited to comment on every action of the White House has been overwhelming, something the Democratic party did not experience under George Bush.
So, what are we to make of the fact that Obama inherited the worst situation going into office of perhaps any president in American history and that his poll numbers are just below 50% at the end of one year in office? Are these good considering the problems, or do the pundits and the American people realistically expect that he would have resolved the problems they face in one year? Or is this merely a symbol of American discontent with the personal situation that that they impute to the president as the custodian of the problems? I think it is the latter. Somewhere, reality must trump symbolism and it is my belief that this is not only the task of historians, but it is the responsibility of serious media as events occur.
Too often, unjustified criticisms of this Administration have been uttered on the talk shows, the internet and in other forums without opposition by hosts, commentators and other persons who influence public opinion. This means that the media has been influential in driving down Obama’s favorable ratings by doing things like trying to make him responsible for the high unemployment rate and the response by the “Tea Party” phenomenon as a legitimate sense of the American people, when it is little more than a carefully crafted and funded Right Wing mobilization. Too often media commentators have not corrected or given balance to the criticisms such as: George Bush kept us safe during his tenure when no one knows whether that is true; or that Obama promised to put everything on C-SPAN; or that he waited too long to respond to the Detroit airline bomber; or that he hasn’t focused on job creation; and that the Stimulus Package has not worked at all.
If George Bush had been as criticized and interrogated as much as Obama, perhaps the edifice of problems that now challenge the very viability of America might have been stopped. In fact, in the context of the problems his administration faces, the personality and actions of Obama exist in a war of interpretation but I do not see them positioning their troops to fight it. Besides the concrete accomplishments of any president, its legacy will often be determined by who wins the war over the interpretation of the actions of his administration at the time it is in office. Those interpretations will often exist for a long time because historians use media interpretations as well.
My sense of this was heightened by remarks by Richard Cohen of the Washington Post who recently wrote that given his low favorable numbers Obama has “failed” as president. How do you fail in one year and is that an accurate interpretation of how to read the polls? Nevertheless, by stating that Obama has failed, Cohen has influenced the judgment of many people in that regard. The lack of reality that resides in such judgments is one of the reasons why some of us believe that the interpretations of Obama’s actions have much to do with race, at base a belief in the inferiority of black leadership (even if he doesn’t profess to be a black leader).
That aside, I believe that the nature of the skewed interpretations of Obama’s administration have much more to do with the times, the severity of the crisis, the hegemonic power of the Right to influence opinion and the lack of a forceful set of voices to right the balance of opinion. Despite the criticisms, the reality is that the Obama administration has made a dent in the problems America faces. Someone must answer why has he not been given the credit he deserves?
Dr. Ron Walters is Professor Emeritus at the University of Maryland and a Political Analysts. His latest book is, The Price of Racial Reconciliation (University of Michigan Press).
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