A ZEBRA BY ANY OTHER NAME

Chris Matthews sticks his tingle-launching foot in his mouth and says that during the State of the Union address, he pretty much forgot that Obama was black. That is not news. Neither Matthews’s verbal unctuousness toward the Obi One (that would embarrass an eleven year old girl with a crush on a Hanson), nor his failure to note something obvious—like Obama’s rank amateur sophistry— is unusual, but rather par for his course. But Miss Matthews’s reasons for overlooking this particular part of the president’s [sic] short but colorful resume are interesting and, probably, say a lot about the Liberal Left that has rented the White House to this oddball.

First, it is easy to forget he is black because he is not. He is half black and half white. He is, properly speaking, a mulatto. To say he is black is like saying a mule is a donkey. It’s not. Or, a better analogy would be that painting a zebra all black doesn't make it a pony. It's still a zebra-- with black paint. Even better yet, a zebra can simply SAY it's black; nonetheless it is, in fact, striped. The person who is robbed by this claim is the yet-to-come actual first black president. If I were him or her, I’d be danged mad. Second, what is, “I forgot he was black” supposed to mean, exactly? Was he speaking so “whitely” Chris altered his mental picture? Kind of like listening to Charlie Pride from the Grand Ole Opry? Was it the fact that he spoke about something— anything— other than race, which is what we have been conditioned by experience to expect to be the only thing any black politician really speaks about? One certainly got the impression that Matthews, who falls all over his floored tongue to be counter-racist, intended this remark to be complimentary. Is he still as surprised as Harry Reid that a black man can be so “articulate”, so in-command of elocution (corpse-men aside)? But if Chris really forgot BO was black, then that couldn’t be the case. Only black speakers get noted and applauded for their ability to speak standard English. If Chris really forgot, he wouldn’t have thought anything of rhotic r’s. At the end of the day, it is such a strange comment that one is left to conclude, simply, that Chris Matthews is the Michael Scott of political show-guys: An idiot.

But there remains this “he was black” issue that is unwittingly (really unwitting) raised by the remark. Barack “Barry” Obama was born of a white mother, raised by white grandparents in Kansas, went to an Ivy League school, yet considers himself black. Why? Because he self-identifies with black culture? How? He didn’t know his father. How old was he when he met his first black person? White people should find this disavowal rather offensive. Black people should find this dishonest bandwagoning offensive. And mulattoes should find this disrespect to be downright insulting. And right when they are demanding redress of their long sense of census insensitivity, too. Then again, given the performance of the product, I’d be willing to forgo credit by any association. Maybe it is understandable that the mulatto community is silent. When the black community starts pointing out that the Obi One isn’t really as African American as, say, Condi Rice, he will know he is really finished. And when people like Chris Matthews start claiming him, it proves the final point: Chris Matthews is an idiot.

OBAMORATIONS
First there is a decorum deficit declared because of Joe Wilson’s eruption at Pointless Obamoration No. 7,256. Yeah, okay. The kid who yelled at the naked emperor spoke without being spoken to, too. Now we are told that Obama himself breached protocol in his State of the Union (in lieu of a real president, he gives this monologue in front of Joe and Nancy, just to illustrate how much worse things could get, in theory) by scolding the Supreme Court over its astonishingly non-interpretive interpretation of the First Amendment’s actual words and intent. Contrary to the belief of some, the First Amendment is most definitely not the favorite friend of the liberal left. Free expression is just not compatible with state totalism and social engineering.

Obama delivered his reproach to the Supreme Court for its decision. But what is surprising, though really should not be, is not the mild upbraiding of the Inescapable Orator, but the further reproachments of Justice Samuel Alito for-- get this— reacting to the inappropriate remarks. Not reacting inappropriately, but reacting at all. So apparently, the dignity of the Court requires not only abstention from political commentary, but feigned deafness to direct assaults on that dignity. So for the President to tell the Court it is not doing its job properly is impolitic, but for the Court to respond with an, “I beg your pardon”, is somehow worse according to the Primer of Progressive Protocol. Tellingly enough, the exact words of Justice Alito in response to BO were, "Not true" (compare to Congressman Wilson's louder assessment of the same speaker's honesty.)

Despite the gorge-raising bias of the media in its Obaprotection mode (OK, he did something wrong, but the response was even wronger) there is a bigger problem here. Not only did Obama lecture the Supremes, but he presumed to do so in their presumed area of expertise, the Constitution, and furthermore, regarding a domain of expertise granted them by his own fellow ideologues on the lawless Left. After all, it was they who embraced and petted the Warren-Brennan philosophy of jurisprudence which held that acts of legislatures should be treated as mere suggestions to the courts regarding what was the law of the land. Using a concept of judicial review never dreamt of by Framers, the courts became the most effective political arm of the socialist left since the Cheka,cramming one ludicrous ukase after another down the throats of a disapproving public for over half a century all in the name of ”penumbras” and other mythical beasts imagined to dwell between the lines of the Constitution.

So, armed with this calamitous invention, Barack Obama, veteran of three years in a law school that it was impossible for a man of his hue to fail out of at the time, during which he learned so little law and soaked up so much Marxist drivel that he authored amateurish student screeds about the “incomplete” nature of the Founders’ document, is presuming to lecture the likes of Samuel Alito and John Roberts about what is and is not constitutional. That is the real story here. Mind-boggling. What will he hold forth on next, this inexperienced, chronic talker? Medicine and economics are already covered, and he never even went to college for his expert’s grasp in those areas. But then, there is no overestimating the hubris of a man under 50, with two years in Senate and no real job history who thinks he is ready to be President of the United States. So which is it? Either BO is so mega-headed that he really thinks he can go toe-to-toe on constitutional law with some of the top constitutional jurists in the country, or BO thinks what is and is not constitutional is a relatively simple-minded political question and a disagreement with the Justices is no different from a difference of opinion with Republicans in Congress. Or maybe it is both. He is conceited and ignorant. And why not? Nobody in the media sets him straight. And, more to the point, neither do members of the chattering class who can’t or won’t even catch a corpse-man on the tongue, let alone an irony such as this.

DEM VOTER DEMO
Something conservatives need to be careful of is confusing rank-and-file Dem voters (though rank-and-file seems an odd term for such a psychologically unkempt bunch) with the clown-suited activists who dominate the Democratic Party’s media presentation and elected offices. They really are quite different beasts. For some reason, the patent ridiculousness of Democratic platforms doesn’t come across to their voters; probably because their superficial, bumperstickerphilia and inability to really pay attention is what makes them D registrations to begin with. Combine that with the fellow-traveler media’s bent for presenting the most disturbing parts of their agenda in an innocuous light. The easy conclusion is that very many Dem voters would not be Dem voters if they really understood what that party’s agenda was about and what the intentions of its inner leadership really were. Like Irish Travelers, the DP pros make a living by lying about who they are. And another many would not be Dem voters if they understood how much of anything works, beyond the complexity of a bong or a lotto number. But anyway, let’s look beyond the schizophrenic activists, poverty pimps, and academic time-warp dwellers, to some of these “regular” folks who make electoral disasters possible. Presented below, with some dicta, are the musings of an ordinary Donkey from the comments pages of the Daily Kos that lend some valuable insight into how the minds of the privates in the People’s Army really work. We’ll call him Terry, because it is genderless, colorless, and was not the name of any Founding Father, early president, or pioneer (unless it was short for Teremiah— which isn’t really a name) so he/she won’t besmirch the image of any heroes.

TERRY: People keep talking about the [Democratic] base being demoralized. Well here's a newsflash: Maybe we're not like YOU. Maybe we don't think like YOU. But we're Democrats. We donate to Democrats, work for Democrats, and root for Democrats. We've been feeling ok about the Democrats all year. We haven't given up.
But I'll tell you one thing: if the House doesn't pass the Senate bill (with future revisions promised), we will be PISSED. We will be demoralized. And we will probably start tuning all of this out...Maybe we're just simple people. We're not as liberal or as pure as others. We don't fixate on small provisions and throw shit storms every week about various legislative compromises. We're also not interested in triangulating, posturing, or compromise. We're looking at the big picture. Here's what we're fixated on:RESULTS. INSURING THE UNINSURED.PASS A BILL. Give us results. Give us something to hang our hats on, then go on the road defending the bill. There will be tough parts to defend. And there will be AMAZING parts that blow people away. Go do it.

WRIGHTIST: Yes, that’s the key; Pass Anything. In fact, pass any something, then go out and convince the public that’s what they wanted. That is how democracy works in the Progressive mind, right? The Enlightened need to lead the ovine masses to want what they are supposed to want. And something as important as government-provided health care can’t be left to democractic processes anyway. Some parts will be tough to defend, but who cares? It’s only the majority of the public that might disapprove. There may be AMAZING parts, too, if by blowing people away you mean causing their deaths, more or less proactively. What is amazing is that this base-person really thinks this issue is about insuring those who have no insurance, and who lack it because of some dearth of legislation from Washington, DC. If this really had anything to do with “insuring the uninsured”, nothing close to the monstrosity of Obamacare would be needed. For comparison, passing any bill regarding health care barely ranks in the Top 10 concerns of regular voters who are not part of the Dem base. This may have something to do with why things aren’t working out exactly to the liking of Terry and his fellow public agenda pirates.Terry does have his Dem leaders to thank for the fact that his primary concern of insuring the supposed masses of uninsured has been totally ruined by their overreach in trying to destroy the entire health care industry (mainly because industry is bad) and remake it as the biggest public works program attempted since 1949 (that’s when Mao and his comrades won in China). The modest goal of providing insurance to some more folks probably could have been achieved without much of a donnybrook, and the majority of the public may have actually wanted that.

TERRY: We're not fools. [sic] We know there have been about 1,000 small accomplishments during Obama's first year. We're not going to whine and demand a pony.

WRIGHTIST: Death by a thousand cuts may be what you’re referring to. I don’t know why you wouldn’t demand a pony. To do so is the epitome of childishness, after all, and with an abundance of asses you’re already within cross-breeding distance. This pony issue also illustrates the point that what the Dem base tends to be about is demanding things. In this case, they are presenting themselves as reasonable compromisers because they are not demanding the ultimate, impractical and ridiculous gift. Republican base voters tend to be defined by what they don’t want from the government..For example, a free pony giveaway, followed by heavily subsidized pony care providers, and pony social workers who can verify that the ponies are taken care of according to government regulatory standards, and pony advocates who will see to it that pony contributions to history (like the Pony Express) are honored, and ways they were exploited in history (like the Pony Express) are condemned, and that white ponies are not treated better than brown or black ones, and pied ones get recognized as their own category by the census.

TERRY: But we want health care reform.

WRIGHTIST: So do “we”. We just know that some bloated government draw on an already gangrenous public financial account isn’t going to do anything to achieve it. Except maybe make us all wish we were dead, thereby obviating the problem. What we cannot fathom, no matter how bad the medical situation is, is how anyone over seven can think more government would fix it. Where do these people live? Are the lines not long enough, the care not substandard and disinterested enough, the bureaucratic crap not Escheresque enough in their neighborhoods? Do they have too damn many doctors, are the premiums they are already paying if they are insured just not high enough? I will concede that government action will surely address any of these problems.

TERRY: We want insurance subsidies for the uninsured. We want a good old fashioned WELFARE PROGRAM FOR THE POOR, because this is a moral imperative.

WRIGHTIST: Hmm…. I guess we in this case is The Democratic Base But Not The Ones in Massachusetts. Because they don’t seem to want those things so awfully bad. Calling for an, “Old-fashioned WELFARE PROGRAM FOR THE POOR” is just plain odd. Nobody, not even Democrats, talk about that any more. So unless you’ve been on a space voyage since 1967 and didn’t get the word about the Soviet model of everything, including Unions, disintegrating, I think this is a mistake. Does the Democratic base hate poor people enough to put them back into the old welfare system, like Iron Curtain-type inner city barracks where they get paid per illegitimate child, starting at age 14? And how they can evoke a “moral imperative” is plain mystifying, what with morals being relative, subjective, and downright oppressive most of the time.

TERRY: We don't care about all of these academic theories about creating more competition, incentives, disincentives, etc. WE JUST WANT YOU TO PROVIDE INSURANCE TO THE UNINSURED.

WRIGHTIST: Oh but I beg to differ most intensely. It is precisely the academic theorizing of liberals that got us into this government-driven debacle to begin with. None of the socialist fix-its to health care have made any sense and no conservatives thought up Medicaid, Medicare, or employer-based health insurance. The Right never said, “Screw the market, with its stupid competition and silly incentives. Let’s let Congress decide how medical services get delivered. It does such a bang-up job with everything else it delicately finesses.”

TERRY: We want congress to step in and say, "No more" to insurance abuses.

WRIGHTIST: But instead, the people step in and say, “No more” to congressional abuses.” That concern seems to trump what Democratic base wants Congress to say .People vs. Congress, People vs. Administration. For that Dem base, these are apparently pesky problems. Unless they figure “The people” are just a bunch of stupid voters with false class consciousness, who just need things “explained” to them so they can them be AMAZED.

TERRY: If you don't do that, then I will be demoralized. So will my friends and so will my family. We've stuck with you through the last year, because we understand the legislative process always involves dozens of compromises. We're not in league with those whiny people crying for their pony.
All we want is this small thing. Either PASS THE BILL and MOVE ON or go fuck yourselves.

WRIGHTIST: I have a preference with this choice, but I guess s/he’s not asking me. Bottom line is, Dem basers get demoralized according to what the government does and does not do. I don’t think the difference Terry is trying to draw between whiny people crying for a pony and his gang is becoming clear, after all.

TERRY: PS: There are millions of Democrats out there who BARELY FOLLOW POLITICS. They didn't follow all of the stupid back and forth on the internet or in DC. Many of them don't have insurance. Many do, but they know people who don't. All they want is for you to do something about it. If you fail, then you can pretty much write off the entire party.

WRIGHTIST: Saying lots of Dems don’t follow politics is like saying lots of auto-theft victims had cars. If they were not in one category, they would not be in the other. That said, the “stupid back and forth” has a lot to do with what you don’t get about politics. Other people want other things. They want their things more than they want your thing. So back and forth. I wonder how many of them don’t have insurance because they really can’t get it, and how much that really matters to them if they need medical attention. If only insured people went to ERs and urgent cares, I don’t think their would be a 13 hour wait to get seen.