Andrew Young on Obama: Then and Now

NOW


THEN


Andrew Young was one of the people who truly disappointed me during the Democratic primaries not because he supported HRC, which he had every right to, but the belittling way in which he dismissed Obama's candidacy early on. He rambles in the more recent interview, but he made two very important points. It's not so much that Obama is black that's important but that he is a man of this time. "It's our time" as BHO says. The other point he makes is that Obama has a different worldview because he doesn't carry the same scars as the older generation. What Young didn't say is that the limits of the older generation's vision had been exceeded. They could see no further than having a friendly benefactor in the White House. It's no coincidence that HRC described herself with the paradigm of a Lyndon Johnson.

Here's Dick Gregory making every point that needed to be made on the matter.


To carry that point further, in conversation with an African-American friend last week, he expressed to me that Obama is free from the psychological hurt that an African-American who is the descendant of slaves and raised by an African-American woman is encumbered by. This, he explains, is not to diminish the voids, absences, and alienation Obama might have felt due to his skin color and absent father. Another African-American friend in that same discussion disagreed and said if the world sees (and treats) you like a black man, then you are. Valid perspectives both. What are we to make of the fact that Obama, as of the time of this blog posting, is doing better amongst whites than Al Gore or John Kerry did? What is clear to me is there is going to be a very interesting conversation about race post-election, nowhere more so than in the black community. As D.L. Hughley astutely observed on Larry King, the way African-Americans see themselves vis-à-vis this country is going to have to be revisited whether or not Obama wins.

The Republican Myth of Fiscal Conservatism

I'm no economist but one of the greatest falsehoods that the Republican Party gets away with is this idea that it is fiscally conservative and is for small government (By the way the DoD is part of the government). Jimmy Carter handed over a national debt of $1.8 trillion dollars to Ronald Reagan who more than doubled that figure to $3.8 trillion. Poppy Bush received the baton from Reagan and increased that debt to $5 trillion (all figures adjusted for inflation). Clinton grew that number to only $5.6 trillion (including a 0.2% decrease in his second term); not mention, he handed over a budget surplus. Over to our man George W. who took the debt to $7.4 trillion by 2007. It is now $10.5 trillion (unadjusted). For more detailed figures, click here. With all this, I don't understand how Republicans get away with this B.S. about being for small government and fiscal conservatism. The image above is from here, and the doesn't even reflect the increases from Bush's second term. Check out the link for more detailed analysis including National Debt as percentage of GDP. Perhaps someone who is more economically sophisticated can help me understand this but common sense tells me Republicans have no credibility on this issue.

Electionitis