The Nutty Professor
I have enjoyed watching Obama making choices for his cabinet and advisers. So far, I find his picks to be reasonably centrist and quite competent. So far so good. I never said Obama wasn’t smart.
So I was feeding my “cabinet choice addiction” when I clicked onto this on CNN yesterday, by Julian Zelizer, Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University. As I read the article, I ran into this
A close look at Obama’s development since 2004 suggests centrism should have been expected. There is little evidence beyond his history as a community organizer to indicate Obama is left of center.
Wow! Before you say it, I know that Obama won the election. And I hope he is successful as president.
But, Obama hasn’t even taken office (officially, that is), and historians like Zelizer are already re-writing history. Let me see if I get this straight. Of all we know about Obama, the only thing to suggest that he is not a DLC Democrat is that he was a community organizer? There is “little evidence”, huh?
- Didn’t Obama have the most liberal voting record of anyone in the Senate? And wasn’t his running mate up there on the podium with the Bronze Medal?
- Wasn’t it Obama that spoke of “spreading the wealth”?
- Wasn’t it Obama that spent quality time in United Trinity Church of Christ where minister Jeremiah Wright, how shall we say this and still keep a PG rating, suggested that God “smite” America. It was Obama who said that he had been absent during Rev. Wright’s most egregious recitations. Recall also that United Trinity Church espouses Black Theology and that James Cone, in his 1969 book Black Theology and Black Power, stated
I believe that all aspiring black intellectuals share the task that LeRoi Jones has described for the black artist in America: ‘To aid in the destruction of America as he knows it.’
- Wasn’t it Obama’s wife who stated that she had never been proud of her country until now?
- Wasn’t it Obama that was a little bit less than honest about his relationships with that pantheon to higher eduction, and erstwhile terrorist, Professor William Ayers?
And, doesn’t Zelizer’s statement paint “community organizer” with a broad brush? Are all community organizers lefty’s?
I could go on and on, but the point is not to bash Obama. No, the point is that the election has been held and Obama won. Can we please now put away the intellectual dishonesty that seems to have been the hallmark of so many of those in the tank? Sheesh. Sometimes I feel like I am up against this
Resistance is Futile