Barack Obama's Race With Himself

It's not as if John McCain has become irrelevant, but in the main ring of the '08 electoral circus, all eyes are now on Barack Obama's solo high-wire act as he walks a racial, political and cultural tightrope toward the White House.

The questions are less about the two candidates' policies and personalities than about the larger meaning of it all: "Could an Obama Presidency Hurt Black Americans?" CNN asks while citing those "who warn that an Obama victory could cause white Americans to ignore entrenched racial divisions while claiming that America has reached the racial Promised Land."

Meanwhile, in the Wall Street Journal, the author of a book predicting that Obama can't win now says that he "has already won a cultural mandate to the American presidency. And politically, he is now essentially in a contest with himself" to persuade "even Middle America to feel comfortable as the mantle they bestow on him settles upon his shoulders."

This portentous pronouncement comes at the conclusion of a column titled "Why Jesse Jackson Hates Obama," which argues that Jackson and his peers presided over "an extortionist era of civil rights, in which they said to American institutions: Your shame must now become our advantage."

Obama, he claims, is moving beyond all that to become the anti-Jackson "to trade moral leverage for gratitude. Give up moral leverage over whites, refuse to shame them with America's racist past, and the gratitude they show you will constitute a new form of black power. They will love you for the faith you show in them."

All these exegeses are enough to make voters' heads spin as they watch a gifted political figure weaving his way this week through a Middle East minefield and heading toward what promises to be a tumultuous reception in Europe.

Whatever the subtexts of Barack Obama's American journey turn out to be, one conclusion is inescapable: Unlike the current occupant, if and when he moves into the Oval Office, a person of substance will be sitting there.

Going to School on McCain

In the wake of Jesse Jackson's slashing remark about Barack Obama's emphasis on parental responsibility, John McCain is telling the NAACP today who is really hurting African-American children--the "entrenched bureaucracy" and unions that want to deny their parents the right to hand over tuition to private schools in addition to the taxes they pay for "failing" public education.

In McCain's alternate universe, the answer to a good start in life for children of families threatened by rampant inflation and home foreclosures is to find the money to buy something they have every right to expect government to provide.

"When a public system fails," McCain says, "parents ask only for a choice in the education of their children. Some parents may choose a better public school. Some may choose a private school. Many will choose a charter school. No entrenched bureaucracy or union should deny parents that choice and children that opportunity.”

Following that logic, those who live in blighted minority communities might want to raise the money for private police and fire departments as well as parks and playgrounds.

In a McCain presidency, if another Katrina strikes, residents of the next New Orleans should have a private FEMA at the ready to clean up after the disaster.

As a newly converted advocate of free-enterprise education, McCain might consider reimbursing taxpayers for his college years at the US Naval Academy, another institution that could no doubt benefit from being privatized.

Paternal Politics

Now that Jesse Jackson has reassured us about Barack Obama's genitals, it's time to consider what prompted the Reverend's rage--the candidate's criticism of African-American fathers for failing their children--as part of a larger subtext of this election.

On all sides, it involves issues about American manhood in the 21st century and the troubling rites of passage from one generation to the next.

Start with George W. Bush who was moved to take up a war left unfinished by paternal prudence and turned toward "a higher Father" for guidance.

Enter John McCain, son and grandson of Admirals who, after writing "Faith of My Fathers," is campaigning for the White House based on the premise that the Head of State in an age of terror should be a reassuring paterfamilias.

Then there is Obama, searching for a father he never knew in "Dreams from My Father" and, in his presidential campaign, calling out men who aren't there for their children and challenging them to take up their responsibilities.

Add to the oedipal mix the outraged reaction of Jesse Jackson's son at his attack on Obama for raising such questions, and there is an overarching issue about American manhood in our time.

Aside from all else, voters will be choosing between John McCain's macho approach and Barack Obama's nurturing, protective style at the head of the national table.

Hillary Clinton's candidacy would have raised the question of whether such gender stereotypes are the only choices, but the answer to that will have to wait for another time.

Jesse Jackson's Apologies

In 1984, when he called Jews "Hymies" and New York "Hymietown" while talking to an African-American reporter for the Washington Post, Jesse Jackson denied that he did, and it took a month for him to admit it and apologize.

More than two decades later, the Rev. Jackson has learned to be quicker to own up to his hurtful mouthings, apologizing to Barack Obama before anyone heard it for being caught by a microphone on Fox News, of all places, saying, "Barack's been talking down to black people...I want to cut his nuts off."

Jackson's reflexes have improved, but his prejudices are as strong as ever and, in the case of Obama, his apparent resentment. In South Carolina, he had accused the Democratic candidate of "acting white."

As an African-American leader, you know you've stepped over the line when Al Sharpton calls what you said "most unfortunate" and your own son says he is "deeply outraged and disappointed."

It may be time for Jackson to join Jeremiah Wright Jr. in an ecclesiastical retreat involving vows of silence.

Bill Clinton: Playing With Words Again

"I think the mistake that I made is to think that I was a spouse like any other spouse who could defend his candidate," Bill Clinton told a TV reporter in Maine today. "I think I can promote Hillary but not defend her because I was president. I have to let her defend herself or have someone else defend her."

We are back to the meaning-of-is era with the former president redefining the charges and evading answers. In the uproar over his behavior on the campaign trail, no one begrudged him the right to "defend" his wife.

What was in question was his distortion of Barack Obama's anti-war positions ("fairy tale") and his attempt to pass off Sen. Clinton's loss as a racial aberration by citing Jesse Jackson previous victories in South Carolina.

Her campaign has promised a new, improved Bill Clinton, but apparently we will get only the post-Monica version, admitting nothing and still trying to slide away from the consequences of his behavior.

The good news, for what it's worth, is the chastened former President's promise to keep a low profile if Mrs. Clinton is elected.

"I will do what I'm asked to do," he said today. "I will not be in the Cabinet. I will not be on the staff full-time. I will not in any way interfere with the work of a strong vice president, strong secretary of State, strong secretary of Treasury."

But that leaves out Chief of Staff, Press Secretary and a lot of other Cabinet positions.

Strange Fruit of Social Networking

It’s the 1960s again in Jena, Louisiana with massive protests against racial injustice but with a few 21st century twists.

The crowds, the speeches and even the symbols--nooses from an oak tree--are the same, but the mood is somehow different. The protesters. drawn by Facebook and MySpace, are more convivial.

“At times,” one news account reports, “the town resembled a giant festival, with people setting up tables of food and drink and some dancing while a man beat on a drum.”

Martin Luther King III and Jesse Jackson are there, but no police with high-pressure hoses and attack dogs, more a replay of Woodstock than the March on Selma.

The remnants of racism are being discovered and denounced by a new generation, as well they should, but members of an older one can be grateful they won’t have to confront the lyrics of “Strange Fruit,” Billie Holliday’s immortal plaint:

“Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze/Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees/Pastoral scene of the gallant south/The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth/Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh/Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.”

What’s happening in Jena is so different that even President Bush feels safe in commenting on it: “The events in Louisiana have saddened me," he told White House reporters. "All of us in America want there to be, you know, fairness when it comes to justice."