Remember John Kerry? He was the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee,
lauded
by his sup****ters for his intellect and his nuance, as compared with the
simpleminded George W. Bush. Having lost the election, he decided to sit
out
the 2008 contest. He recently endorsed Barack Obama, and earlier this week
he
sat down with the editorial board of the Standard-Times (New Bedford,
Mass.)
to make the case for his candidate.
It's a real jaw-dropper. ABC News's Jake Tapper sums it up:
Kerry said that a President Obama would help the US, in
relations with Muslim countries, "in some cases go around
their dictator leaders to the people and inspire the people
in ways that we can't otherwise."
"He has the ability to help us bridge the divide of religious
extremism," Kerry said. "To maybe even give power to moderate
Islam to be able to stand up against this radical
misinterpretation of a legitimate religion."
Kerry was asked what gives Obama that credibility.
"Because he's African-American. Because he's a black man.
Who has come from a place of oppression and repression
through the years in our own country."
An African-American president would be "a symbol of
empowerment" for those who have been disenfranchised around
the world, Kerry said, "an im****tant lesson for America to
show Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, other places in the world
where disenfranchised people don't get anything."
One obvious question: What do the events of this week, involving Obama's
own
church, tell us about his ability to "stand up against" a "radical
misinterpretation of a legitimate religion"? Nothing very encouraging in
this
columnist's view, but many observers view Obama much more charitably in
this
regard than we do.
What is really striking about Kerry's case for Obama, though, is that it
rests
on what may be the crudest stereotyping we have ever observed.
Commentary's
Abe Greenwald has a chuckle over Kerry's racial stereotyping of Obama:
Where is this "place of oppression and repression" in which
Obama has suffered "through the years"? Hawaii? Harvard? The
Senate? We should find out immediately and do something about
this horrific crisis.
But Kerry isn't just stereotyping blacks. He is stereotyping Muslims too.
And
he is drawing an equivalence between American blacks, a racial minority in
one
country, and Middle Eastern Muslims, a religious majority in a whole
region.
To John Kerry, it seems, all "disenfranchised" people look alike.
Never mind that, as Greenwald points out, "Arab Muslims [are] none too
happy
with their black countrymen in northern Africa." Never mind that in some
African countries, notably Sudan and Mauritania, Arab Muslims still
enslave
blacks.
To Kerry, it seems, all "oppressed peoples" look alike. The man has all
the
intellectual subtlety of a third-rate ethnic studies professor.
--
"You know, education--if you make the most of it, you study hard, you
do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you can do
well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq." JFKerry
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