Obama Plays the Race Card

The ongoing kerfuffle about Barack Obama and his controversial pastor made me realize something: Among intelligent people, there are two basic camps when it comes to race relations. The first group, consisting of most whites and conservative blacks, are uncomfortable talking about race for several reasons, including the fear that they’ll be labeled racist and the suspicion that blacks get preferential treatment because they’re black. The solution to racism, they believe, is to ignore it. They are for treating people equally regardless of their race, which means no affirmative action, no quotas, no special treatment. This, they believe, is the true fulfillment of Dr. King’s dream that people “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

The second group consists of most blacks and white liberals, and they can’t help but talk about race. For blacks themselves, it’s their very being, their very self-identity. What’s more, the solution they advocate is a full accounting of America’s past racism by means of affirmative action, slavery reparations, etc.

Thus, the cause of much tension in American race relations is the conflict between these two groups–one of which doesn’t want to talk about race and the other of which can’t stop talking about it.

This sort of ties in to what Shelby Steele wrote about in WSJ today. His interesting theory is that there are two kinds of black public figures: “challengers” (such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton) who, similar to the second group mentioned above, “intimidated whites and demanded, in the name of historical justice, that they be brought forward,” and “bargainers,” who “make the subliminal promise to whites not to shame them with America’s history of racism, on the condition that they will not hold the bargainer’s race against him.” The bargainer allows himself to become a conduit of the white’s guilt being expunged by getting behind the black figure. This helps explain why black candidates (especially in the GOP) become overnight celebrities (think J.C. Watts). This is not to say, as Steele does, that being black is the main reason for their success. It is a big part of it, but Steele fails to realize that the main source of Obama’s appeal is his promise to end the endless political bickering that poisons so much of what Washington does.

Obama’s speech today was a mistake, I think, because by giving it he clearly identified himself with the second group, the “challengers.” The problem is that the more he talks about race, the more he becomes “the black candidate” and the more whites become uncomfortable with him. Of course, this plays right into Hillary’s hands, as it is exactly what the Clinton campaign tried to do in South Carolina.

So if Clinton and McCain are smart, they will try to figure out ways to make Obama talk about race. If Obama is smart, he will resist the temptation.

 

Shall I compare thee …

In recent weeks, we’ve seen several people come under fire for comparing their political rivals to unsavory characters. There was the radio talk show host who likened Barack Obama’s oratorial skills to those of Adolf Hitler; I believe another one compared both Obama and FDR to Hitler. Then there’s this press release from Lou Barletta, who’s running for Congress against incumbent Paul Kanjorski. The latter is quoted as saying, “What David Duke was to civil rights, my opponent has done that with immigration. He’s used that issue the same way Duke used the civil rights issue.” Barletta, needless to say, takes exception to that.

And, of course, every so often some person or group compares some political policy to the Holocaust and ends up apologizing under pressure.

It’s getting to the point that no one can say that anything is like anything else anymore.

What the critics fail to realize (probably purposefully) is that in any comparison, there is a degree of similarity and a degree of dissimilarity. The statement “A is like B” is not the same as “A is identical to B,” because the former implies that A and B are dissimilar in some ways. So you can compare person X with Hitler, David Duke, or anyone else, and as long as you’re clear that you are not saying the two are identical–as long as you don’t include the bad qualities in the list of similarities–the comparison is perfectly valid.

Of course, the critics hope we don’t realize this and will continue to pounce on their opponents whenever they make these kinds of comparisons. Just another example of how our public discourse has run amok.

 

Bad Night for Romney…

Very bad.  He may not know it yet.  He may not admit it yet.  But Mitt Romney’s race for the Presidency is effectively over.  McCain took California.  And it wasn’t close.

Karl Rove was on Fox News earlier saying that Huckabee and Romney look to be locked in a neck and neck race for second in the Super Tuesday delegate race at around 2o0 total for each.  That would leave roughly 600 for McCain if Rove’s math holds.

 

Super Tuesday Predictions

Democrats

Obama is surging, no doubt about it.  The big victory in South Carolina gave him some real juice.  The question is will it be enough?  Was there enough time on the clock for him to close the gap in critical Super Tuesday states?  Two weeks ago Senator Clinton enjoyed big margins in these states.  Not so anymore.

Obama doesn’t have to win everywhere, of course, since the Democratic primaries / caucuses award delegates in proportion to the popular vote.  A few big wins and a lot of close 2nd’s gives the challenger a lot of fuel to keep his campaign going.  (A win in California, for example–which I now expect–would be huge, as he was down by about 20 percentage points at the time of the South Carolina primary)

 Here is how I see the delegate split working out for the Dems:

Clinton 900     Obama 788

Republicans

The polls seem to be showing a late surge for Romney in the delegate rich state of California.  I don’t think he’ll be winning a lot of states nationally (Utah, certainly, and Colorado to be sure).  But a win in California gives his flagging campaign some more life.  Will it be enough to put him on the A-Train to the nomination?  No.  However it would buy him some more time during which he could conceivably rally the conservative ground troops to his cause (which boils down mainly to beating John McCain).  I still expect McCain to be the GOP nominee in November.  But if Romney wins in California, he gets a repreive.

Here’s how I see the Republican delegates being apportioned Tuesday night:

McCain 541     Romney 301     Huckabee 181

Be sure to tune in Wednesday to see just how much crow I have to eat!

 

Is Abortion a Religious Issue?

Garry Wills has caused a dust-up with this op-ed from the L.A. Times.

I agree with Wills that abortion is not a religious issue. In fact, it’s no more a religious issue than murder is. This, I believe, is the single greatest mistake made by most people in the pro-life movement: They make abortion a religious issue. They quote Scripture, they pray rosaries outside abortion clinics, etc. So no wonder pro-choicers perceive that pro-lifers are attempting to “impose their religious beliefs on everyone else.”

That, however, is where my agreement with Wills ends.

“If one claimed, in the manner of Albert Schweitzer, that all life deserved moral respect, then plants have rights, and it might turn out that we would have little if anything to eat.”

There is no contradiction in respecting something while consuming it at the same time. The only contradiction would be if we asserted that plants have equal dignity as human beings.

“Opponents of abortion will say that they are defending only human life. It is certainly true that the fetus is human life. But so is the semen before it fertilizes; so is the ovum before it is fertilized.”

Here Wills commits the common mistake of failing to recognize the substantial change that takes place during fertilization. A zygote is a different substance than a sperm or egg; if it were the same as any other cell in the body, we’d be able to take any cell, put it in a woman’s womb, and nine months later a baby would be born.

“Nature is like fertilization clinics — it produces more embryos than are actually used. Are all the millions of embryos that fail to be embedded human persons?”

Yes. Unfortunately, they meet an early death.

“Whether through serendipity or through some sort of causal connection, it now seems that the onset of a functioning central nervous system with a functioning cerebral cortex and the onset of viability occur around the same time — the end of the second trimester, a time by which 99% of all abortions have already occurred.”

Wills is suggesting that a functioning nervous system or viability (or both) are what makes a fetus worthy of legal protection. But he fails to show why either quality is the distinguishing feature between that which should be protected and that which should not.

Furthermore, if either quality makes a fetus worthy of protection, then he would be obligated to oppose any abortion after that point. But in fact:

“The woman is the one closest to the decision. Under Roe vs. Wade, no woman is forced to have an abortion. But those who have decided to have one are able to.”

No distinction is made here between pre- and post-viability abortions. Wills does not call for a ban on abortions after viability, even though he intimated that position earlier in his essay.

So while Wills is right that abortion is not a religious issue, it does not follow that the pro-choice position is more reasonable than the pro-life one. Pro-lifers would do well to realize this also.