In article <TpGdnU57isEhGnranZ2dnUVZ_oPinZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, Ubiquitous
<weberm@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> 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.
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Karl Rove said:
"As people do better, they start voting like Republicans... unless
they have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there
can be too much of a good thing."
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