Since the disastrous economy has left the McCain-Palin campaign with no other options, Governor Sarah Palin, font of wisdom and knowledge that she has proven herself to be (that would be sarcasm for the rest of you, as this particuar governor can't name a newspaper she reads or a supreme court case besides Roe v. Wade when pressed by Katie Couric) accused Senator Barack Obama of hating his country so much that he hangs out with former terrorists. Truth: Senator Obama served on a charity board with a former member of the Weather Underground, someone who is now a respectable college professor. That's like accusing me of supporting backroom arms dealing because I went to school with a current Democrat who once voted for Ronald Reagan under whose watch the Iran-Contra affair transpired.
I think, however, that this is part of a coordinated attack, one that nurses doubt about Senator Obama's background and patriotism. Today, at Walmart, I saw that the National Examiner found "proof" that Senator Obama is a Muslim. In case you were wondering, he's not.
While I do wonder why people should care whether Senator Obama knows a former radical or whether his father was a Muslim, I realize that people do. Nicholas D. Kristof reminded me in today's New York Times that a lot of decisions are unconsciously racist. I know more than a couple of former Senatory Hillary Clinton supporters who just don't trust Senator Obama. While I'm sure that he lies as much as your average politician, I can't help but wonder if their distrust has a lot to do, unconsciously, with the dueling terror figures of the U.S. nightly news - the black man and the Muslim terrorist. Personally, my support for Senator Obama was partially compelled by his biography, and as the daughter of a Kansas woman who married someone from the global South, I related to his story and his struggles, trying to place himself in a world that still likes to see things in terms of black and white. Yet I realize that for those people who see the world in black and white, even unconsciously, that biography is too dangerously filled with unfamiliar terms. Kristof points out that Senator Obama might have as much as 6% more of the electorate if he were white, according to a Stanford-AP-Yahoo study. I just hope that enough of the electorate can see past those unfamiliar terms and realize that our situation is just too dire to support a familiar biography, one that got the U.S. into this colossal mess in the first place.
Just again, for the record, Senator Obama is not a Muslim, a terrorist, or friends with terrorists. He would never have made it this far if any of those things were true (which is really sad because I bet there are plenty of American Muslims who would make good presidents, but apparently we aren't that ready for liberal Catholics like John Kerry yet). And please, if you don't support Senator Obama, make sure your reasons have to do with genuine policy concerns and not your lack of familiarity with people like him.
In memoriam, 2012
11 years ago
