Sunday, June 29, 2008

Message to some Liberals


If there was a blogosphere in 1992, liberals would have come across as very happy in it with regards to Bill Clinton as their nominee. He offered change, the future and, yes, hope. During the Democratic Convention that year, there was a promise in the air that felt energizing and uplifting, and any liberal not admitting to that is playing a game of revisionism. The one fear many of us had at the time revolved around the stories of "all the women."

Eight years later, the Bill Clinton presidency ended with the disappointment of what "might have been. " President Clinton had many economic successes, and a few international ones, too. However, he fell short because of those darn "other women," and a Republican Party willing to do anything to destroy him no matter the affect on the country.

But still, President Clinton's presidency, while not transformative (Senator Obama was correct on this), was a slightly better than average term that could have been more if he had kept his pants zipped, and had not been forced to work with the worst congress in the nation's history.

So now here we are with Senator Obama as our nominee, and similar messages of hope, change and promise have been put forth by his candidacy. Many of us feel the same promise of better days ahead that we felt in 1992 minus the fears of lack of zipper control.

And yet, many liberals have taken to attacking every little nonsensical item they can latch onto with Obama in the same way a Republican wingnut might do.

They say Obama disrespected women during the primaries. No, he did not. Outside of one "sweetie" remark, which was a mistake, but not that big a deal, the media was the guilty party. If anything, the campaign of Hillary Clinton, and particularly, Bill Clinton himself, were far more guilty of racist comments than Obama or the media was of sexism.

They say Obama has no experience. Well, he comes to the table having been a state legislator in Illinois, a U.S. Senator and a community activist. That might not be up there with what a Senator Joe Biden or a Governor Bill Richardson could offer, but it certainly equates to being governor of Arkansas in my book. Also, the same liberals crying about this, again, loved Bill Clinton, and while he made some early mistakes, namely Somalia and "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," I would like to believe Obama would have learned from those missteps.

They say Obama is somehow just "not right." They point to Mark Reszko, though Obama's ties to him are minimal and legal. Reverend Wright is mentioned, but I fail to see how anything he said become the ideas of Senator Obama. Growing up, there was very little my religious leader said that I agreed with. Also, is Hillary Clinton pro the Myanmar regime because her one-time campaign coordinator Mark Penn worked on their behalf?

They pass along E Mails about Obama being a Muslim (as if that should be a negative anyway), or being a radical Christian, or being influenced by a half-brother in Kenya he barely has been in the company of, or ... well the list goes on and on. But here is where the truth comes out. The liberals who grab hold of all this silliness and promote it, and who also spout concerns about him that were never mentioned with other candidates of similar or lesser ilk, reveal their true, dare I say, colors, in doing so.

Obama is black. That is it. Were he white, say Bill Clinton, liberal support for him would be overwhelming. Oh sure, these liberals don't hate black people. They probably even know or hang out with a few. The truth, though, is a person of color is a threat to them when put in a position of real power. The buried racism comes out at that point.

To those liberals, it is time to get over it. Barack Obama is a great candidate and will be a better president than John McCain in every way conceivable. He will be better than Bill Clinton was just in that it is hard to imagine any zipper issues getting in the way of his job. And he will be just as good, if not better than, Hillary Clinton, just on his lack of relative divisiveness. And if you get over your illogical fears, you can join in on the hope that the ruin laid forth over the last eight years is about to be reversed.

Racism is so unbecoming of you.

Yes you can. Yes we can.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

YES YES YES! I agree with you 100%.
Whenever I tell someone that I support Obama, the majority of them will point out "facts" that the media brought them to believe. I'm not even old enough to vote, and I know what the media's been feeding the public is bullshit. I only wish people who CAN vote would see that as well.
Thanks for this awesome post!!!

SandyCarlson said...

Isn't it amazing how people cloak their bigotry? The amount of effort that goes into it says it all.

Hope you're well, Scott.

Scott G said...

I was a liberal who was not excited about President Clinton in 1992. I voted for Perot that year and that was my first year I could vote. In 1996, I wrote in Gore.

Maybe there will be a Hillary Clinton/Michelle Obama ticket in the future. I would love it just to see who they would hate more.

STP said...

I think you were more the exception, Scott. I remember those times well, and most on the left were very excited by Clinton. The only reason those same folks are not now for Obama is black and white, if you ask me.