Yes, this was just a remark about race, perhaps with a bit of spleen-venting thrown in. Yes, we are all too touchy. How long will we have to tiptoe around this candidate's "race issue" before he declares it a non-issue? Or will he ever? Perhaps Ferraro's comment was the tip of an iceberg.
Is it really likely Ferraro is planting the land mines of racist innuendo in the service of the Clinton campaign because that may be their only hope in the face of the Obama steamroller? Ferraro's comment was probably unrehearsed but may echo frustration in the Clinton camp that the candidate is exploiting his racial identity. Ferarro at least had the delicacy not to question whether Obama is really black, but that may underlie some of the exasperation she expressed. Obama was "raised white" after being abandoned by his Kenyan father - so much for the claim to much of the African-American experience. White voters - particularly those earnest Midwesterners in the early primaries - must have felt giddy with relief that here, at last, was a "black" candidate they could feel good about - because Obama sounds like them, like his white Midwestern mother. (Obama may sound a bit different addressing black audiences or in his church, which describes itself as "Afrocentric" on its website, but, hey, why not? Ole' Bill Clinton tried to sound more like a cracker when he was down home...)
Poor Obama - he might really be torn. He may really believe in his "change" message and actually be an honest, "clean, fresh" voice in Washington. (Joe Biden - Sorry for plagiarizing your much-denounced racist praise there a bit.) He knows better, though, than to risk honestly presenting himself as the first bi-racial, post-racial presidential candidate. Let his devotees chant that "race doesn't matter". Obama knows that it does, and he knows that pitching himself - with Oprah's massive PR machine behind him - as a presentable, non-threatening black man with a message of hope can open the floodgates of white guilt and generate votes. You can't blame blacks for unquestioningly backing Obama; they know that his very "whiteness" gives him - and them - a serious shot at national leadership. That has to be frustrating in its own way, but you work with what you've got. One has to feel sorry for Al Sharpton's generation of black leaders who labored to build up the black vote as an effective special interest group within the Democratic Party and who now have to at least be seen passing on the torch to this young upstart.
What passes for a dialog about race in this country is laughable, just a swirl of images and attitudes and shouting and threats. Obama is in a unique position to provide some badly needed perspective and even national healing, but will he? If Barak Obama does one thing - one simple thing - I'll stop believing he is as cynically ambitious and as power-hungry as those master image manipulators - the Clintons: Barak, address the election "race issue" squarely. Come out on national television and say you are as proud of your white heritage as you are of your black heritage. You don't even have to say you are white, or that "race doesn't matter". Just say you are equally proud of both sides of your heritage. Take that chance and I will vote for you because you will be a unifier, not a divider. Too risky a sound bite to have replayed over and over again? I thought so. Good luck.
The pundits are sneering at Iowa congressmen Steve King as just another loose-mouthed rube bigot, but it would be interesting to find out how the Obama candidacy is playing in the Muslim world. Jihadist leaders may or may not see the hand of God in all this, but it may well be that just the simple act of having someone with a Muslim name elected US president would have enormous symbolic impact.
There is a practical issue related to Obama's Islamic heritage, though. If Obama does decide to go talk to our enemies - or allies - in countries governed by Islamic law, he might want to very carefully research which school of Islamic jurisprudence is in effect. He may discover that the legitimate child of a Muslim father is a Muslim. (Muslim women can't marry non-Muslims, and even though a man's wives who are from a "people of the book" may remain Jews or Christians, the offspring are Muslims.) Rejecting Islam in order to embrace another religion can be a very, very serious offense, and he just might want to learn how apostates are dealt with before setting foot in one of these countries.
Obama may well be our next president. He has rock-star appeal to the MTV and text-messaging generations. Compared to Obama, John McCain has the charisma of cold biscuit dough. It's going to be one hell of a race.
