BlackMan Time

Posts Tagged ‘black president’

Barack Obama is not the President of the United States; he’s the President elect. This means that the people have voted him in power, but he hasn’t yet taken office.

This is due to happen from around midday on January 20, 2009. The inauguration ceremony on that day, is the closest thing Americans will ever get to a coronation, so the occasion holds a certain amount of pomp and ceremony about it.

At the inauguration Obama will get the opportunity to declare his administration’s intentions. Of course he will be sure to outline his plans for tackling America’s trillion dollar debt which has actually fuelled the world financial crisis.

How different the world seemed back then in November! Now, two months later Obama stands on the edge of history, with a seemingly long time lag between him and his destiny. This lag is a traditional thing and is a throwback to the days when travelling across state was a long, laborious process.

But, there is no doubt about how far Barack Obama has travelled to reach the White House. Who could have imagined it happening in our time: a Blackman in the White House? Are you kidding me?

No sir. I’m not…

Bill Clinton is the kind of man I hope to God I never become as I get older: a bitter and twisted person who thinks the world owes him a favour.

Maybe it’s because his wife Hilary was making public love to Barack Obama in a bid to affect public unity within the US Democrats party. Or perhaps it’s the fact that Obama did not have good things to say about his presidency. Whatever it is has made Clinton bitter.

If the comments attributed to those around him are to be believed then Clinton is well out of line to tell friends that Obama would have to “kiss my ass” if he wants to get his support. Personally, I’d rather make out with Lucifer’s sister, but then I’m not running for US presidency.

But who is Bill Clinton really trying to fool here? His presidency was a disgrace and history will only remember him as that guy who made out with an intern working for him. Not to mention his multiple affairs. He will be consigned to the footnote of history as a mere gigolo, figure of fun and ridicule.

Try as hard as I might I cannot think of anything I can really lift my hat off and say: “well done Bill Clinton” for. Yet he wants the already accomplished Obama to kiss his probably renk and rancid arse?

In my view Bill Clinton should be the one kissing Obama’s arse. Even then it would a great privilege for the infidelity-challenged former US president to have that honour.

I hope Obama in his quest to become first Black US President does not bow down to a man with an unsavoury mind and an arse of a face resembling the one in the photo above. Even if he has to stoop before he can conquer the White House, Obama ought to show some kind of self respect!

US presidential hopeful Democrat senator Barack Obama is an “extraordinary political talent” who would provide a stronger opposition to John McCain, the Republican representative in the Whit House race.

This is the view according to Michael Gerson, former senior aide to President Bush, who suggested that Obama’s ascent to the White House would be “one of the great culminating moments in American history”.

Interviewed in The Times today Gerson said despite the recent controversies dogging Mr Obama, he nevertheless remained “the greatest threat to the Republican Party.”

Describing Obama as a strong candidate, Gerson said: “I think John McCain would have an easier job with Hillary Clinton who is actually a poor candidate and has poor political skills.”

Eloquence

Gerson added that Obama was: “likeable, a non threatening liberal in the same way that Ronald Reagan was, in America, a non-threatening conservative. Eloquent, genuinely eloquent, good on his feet, but also a compelling figure in the context of American history.”

The most remarkable thing about this is the fact that Gerson is not an Obama supporter and in fact headed the White House speechwriting team from President Bush’s inauguration until June 2006 and is credited with the “Axis of Evil” and “smoking gun/mushroom cloud” metaphors used to justify the invasion of Iraq.

It is perhaps a sigh of the times when such a prominent Republican can apparently endorse an African-American hoping to become the first Black president of the United States.

That in itself is a major cause for celebration: when we see this kind of apparently warm apolitical ‘love’ happening in such a cold cold political climate.

I have always thought there was something particularly odd about Bill Clinton. But I never thought I’d ever call him a racist and be serious about it.

You would usually expect a Democrat to be more understanding of racial issues than what Clinton is currently showing but you can tell a person’s character from his actions. I first got a glimpse of this when he admitted ganja use. Any man who admits to smoking ganja and not inhaling has got to be the oddest man ever lived in my book!

When I first heard that he had actually said this as defence in admitting ganja use, I thought he was a clever liar, an idiot or a naive hustler trying to pull a fast one.

Then there were the number of affairs he had from Gennifer Flowers to Monica Lewinsky. In fact these two are the only ones that became public. Who knows how many others he might have had…

Scandals

The Whitewater property scandal which levelled allegations of sham land deals, tax benefits, illegal political funding, conflicts of interest and suspicions over the mysterious death, in July 1993, of a White House deputy counsel, hinted at a more shadier side to Clinton. And, there are numerous other scandals that have surrounded his name since he was in office.

But nothing says more about him than the overt racism he is currently showing towards Barack Obama in support of his wife Hilary’s effort to become US President. It neutralises the memory of his own time in office and clarify the big insult it now is when people refer to him as the first US Black President.

Bill Clinton is nothing more than a fraud that lied, slept and manipulated his way to the White House and now he is doing the same to help his wife get there.

If there is any justice in the world Barack Obama will be triumphant and the Clintons will be consigned to the history’s undesirable garbage can.

There is a wind of change blowing across America; a wind of hurricane proportion that could upturn everything in its path, yet the only damage being caused is the one to people’s expectations! This is the wind that is blowing Illinois Senator Barack Obama into US Presidential contention as the first Black US President.

As the dust behind his 11th consecutive state-by-state nomination process wins over his Democratic rival Hilary Clinton settles, the American people are taking greater interest in him, warming to his charismatic style, honey-toned oratory and promise of a change for the better.
He has somehow fused the best of Malcolm X’s fiery oratory with the best of Martin Luther King’s wholesome trans-race appeal and America is gravitating towards him in a big way.

The media, particular the Right Wing leaning ones, meanwhile, are looking for a rock to throw at him, hoping to knock him off his perch.

They thought they had found one through a remark by Obama’s wife Michelle Obama who, beaming with pride while addressing a Wisconsin audience last Monday, said that “for the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country. Not just because Barack is doing well, but I think people are hungry for change.”

A bunch of critics jumped down Ms. Obama’s throat for the claimed suggestion that, up to this point in time, she’d spent her whole life in a state of American-hating shame. A carefully worded subsequent explanation outlining how she was misquoted, averted any danger, but it does illustrate the precarious road of politics as Obama stride his history making bid.

If he gets the Democratic Party nomination to contest the likely Republican candidate John McCain, which is now looking the likely outcome, it will be a highpoint in America’s political history.

Fingers crossed, I only hope the wind will continue to blow in the right direction!

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PHOTO: Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama speaks at a rally in Dallas, Texas Feb. 20, 2008. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

I see a trend emerging where New York congresswoman Hilary Clinton, wife of former US President Bill, is cloaking herself in the hype her husband was indeed the first Black President. With genuine Black presidential hopeful Obama Obarack pressing her in the US presidential race, Hilary seems desperate to clutch at anything that will give her an edge, particularly with Black voters.

Maybe you can blame writer Toni Morrison for this. She was the one who is credited with publicising the idea that Bill Clinton was Black! Obviously, I disagree with Morrison: Bill Clinton was not the first Black President!

Morrison may have said this in jest, for humour, entertainment or even to diverge attention from the troubled times Clinton faced at the time, but however I slice it what comes out is that Bill Clinton was just another white man, albeit former US President with left leaning views. Period.

Just for the record in 1998 Morrison writing in the New Yorker said that “Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald’s-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas.” The remark gave Clinton so much (unearned) respect within the Black community that the Democrats themselves started to use the epithet “Black President” when referring to him.

McCrap Mouthful

Obviously, this is nonsense and coming from a usually reliable Nobel laureate makes harder to accept. Playing the sax, eating McWhatevers, being born poor, working class and coming from a single-parent household is too crass a sweeping generalisation to tightly fit every Black person on this planet. It is an insult to even suggest this.

I don’t think Clinton was intrinsically good for Black people either. There are several examples where his reign as president was decisively bad for Black people. One good example of this was the 1995 Federal Communications Commission bill he signed that sharply reduced Black ownership of radio and TV stations when tax incentives were removed.

But, undeterred, Hilary Clinton is still willing to milk her husband’s past “Black President” reputation. Only last week she rehashed the sentiment when outlining how she finds herself “dropping g’s,” she said. “I lived all those years in Arkansas, and, you know, I’m in this interracial marriage.”

Maybe it’s just me who thinks we shouldn’t bestow “Black” status on the undeserved less they abuse it. We only cheapen it when we do so. This is especially true when the people we chose to anoint with such honour have never ever done anything tangible to further the Black cause.