The iPINIONS Journal

With profound gratitude and great humility, I accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States.

With those simple words, Barack Obama continued the historic march on Washington to fulfill the dream Martin Luther King, Jr. voiced 45 years ago. That dream of course was for an America where people “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

I say Obama is only continuing that march because, unlike others who see his nomination as the fulfillment of MLK’s dream, I see it as just another pioneering leap over one of the many barriers blacks have encountered on their path towards realizing their American dream.   And, in this sense, Obama has more in common with Jackie Robinson than he does with Moses (as some pundits have ordained). 

After all, even if Obama is elected president of the United States, his historic achievement alone will do little to eradicate racism in America.  Ironically, it might reinforce the status quo - with many whites thinking that if Obama can be elected president then blacks have nothing more to complain about….

As for his speech, it was vintage Obama.  In fact, watching an Obama speech during this presidential campaign has become rather like watching a Michael Phelps race during the Beijing Olympics: always a winner - thrilling and inspiring.

But I do not think his speech last night before 84,000 people in Denver will have any greater impact on the outcome of this election (or on the lives of black folks) than his speech last month before 200,000 in Berlin.  Indeed, I doubt we’ll be quoting anything Obama said last night, in Berlin or earlier this summer in his seminal speech on race 45 years from now - the way we’re still quoting passages from MLK’s “I have a dream” speech.  Can you even remember anything he said in Berlin?

Therefore, instead of ascribing historic significance to every speech Obama makes, let us keep our eyes on the prize, which MLK proclaimed is an America that:

…will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That said, no one appreciates the historic significance of Obama’s nomination more than I do.  But I’m convinced that if he fulfills the promises he delineated for his presidency, the benefits that will accrue to white Americans (and people all over the world) will far outweigh any symbolism his election will have for black Americans.

Before any dream can be realized or promise fulfilled, however, we must transform all of the hope he inspires into votes for Obama on Election Day!

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No matter the defiance and rage that has Hillary’s supporters (especially middle-aged white women) now vowing to vote for McCain instead of Obama, I have no doubt that they will come to their senses on election day and vote for Obama.  Moreover, I believe they will do so at the behest of their standard bearer, Hillary Clinton.

Besides, why would any of these abortion-rights feminists vote for an anti-abortion candidate (like McCain) who has vowed to appoint Supreme Court justices with a mission to overturn Roe v Wade, which granted women abortion rights….?

[Hillary threatens to fight on for months, but I predict she'll cry uncle within days, The iPINIONS Journal, June 2, 2008 ]

The Democrats convened their national convention in Denver last night to nominate Barack Obama for president of the United States.  But listening to media reports on this historic event, one can be forgiven the impression that Democrats were convening to figure out how to sooth the bruised egos of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Bill is reportedly upset because convention organizers have slated him to talk about the foreign-policy mess President Bush has created; whereas, he just wants to gloat, again, about the domestic-policy miracles he performed during his presidency.

And Hillary is reportedly upset not only because she lost the nomination to the uppity Obama, but also because his supporters have yet to pay off her $25 million campaign debt, which she evidently believes is a small price to pay for her 18 million voters.

With all due respect to the Clintons, however, these reports about their lingering resentments are utterly irrelevant.  After all, as I indicate in the quote above, Bill and Hillary will do everything politically possible to help Barack Obama get elected.  And they will do so because they have no choice.

Indeed, nothing demonstrates this quite like the way Hillary denounced John McCain’s latest ad - featuring one of her supporters declaring that for the first time she’s going to vote for a Republican - by stating emphatically that “I’m Hillary Clinton…and I do not approve this message!”

More to the point, despite all of the media-fueled suspense about what they will say at this convention, I am dead certain that, except for Joe Biden, no two people will give more substantive and galvanizing speeches in support of Obama’s nomination than Bill and Hillary.

That said, I am also dead certain that no two people resent Obama’s nomination more than Bill and Hillary.  And I’m mindful that they would like nothing more than to see him lose by a landslide in November to resurrect their 2 for 1 presidential master plan. Only now their irrepressible sense of entitlement would be suffused with an indignant attitude which says “we told you so!”

Unlike some of Hillary’s petulant and hopelessly misguided supporters, however, the Clintons are sensible enough to know that they cannot be seen to be plotting or even encouraging Obama’s defeat in any way whatsoever.  Because that would not only destroy what little remains of Bill’s presidential legacy but also ruin any chance Hillary has of becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee in 2012 if Obama loses, or in 2016 if he wins.

Meanwhile, the opening night of Democratic National Convention went pretty much as any reasonable political analyst expected.  This means that complaints by talking heads like James Carville about speakers not attacking Bush and McCain enough are just shortsighted and boneheaded.  

In fact, the theme of the night, which seems to have escaped Carville, was the humanizing of the Obamas.  And partisan political attacks would only have undermined that theme.

As it turned out, the pathos cancer-stricken Senator Ted Kennedy generated with his heroic speech set the right tone for Michelle Obama’s headline speech to tell America who the Obamas are and where they came from.

Unfortunately, it’s a testament to how surreal politics in America have become that Michelle and Barack Obama have to reassure people that they are not unpatriotic Muslim elites who are scheming to turn the White House into a shrine to Osama bin Laden.

At any rate, nobody can deny that the portrait Michelle painted of her family last night belies all of the negative Republican spin about her and Barack. Because, with eloquence and conviction never before seen in a presumptive first lady, she made it clear that their rags to riches story is as American as apple pie. 

Moreover, she demonstrated - by citing deeds instead of spouting words - how she and Barack have done all they can to ensure that others can live the American dream they have lived and for which they are so very grateful. 

She was brilliant, and she would make an incredibly impressive First Lady of the United States of America.

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