Obama’s rolling series of Sister Souljah moments
by Bob Hoig, Publisher
Midlands Business Journal
With Bill Clinton, it was “triangulation” – getting above, between or around the position of an opponent to neutralize issues or create voter sympathy.
Clinton spiffed up his popularity with conservative white voters by confronting the black rapper Sister Souljah over outrageous racist comments she had made. Moreover, Clinton did it in a spectacularly public way, scolding the rapper at one of the Rev. Jessie Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition conferences.
Now that was man bites dog! – a Democrat president publicly scolding a member of one of the party’s major voting blocs, black Americans.
What has evolved as Barack Obama’s variation of what consultant Dick Morris cooked up for Bill Clinton pivots off the outrage, usually among white voters, aimed at comments by Obama’s, usually black, supporters.
Obama disentangled from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright after getting himself hopelessly on the hook for 20 years over Wright’s anti-Americanism.
At Obama’s most dicey time in the primaries, just as he was entering in free fall in the polls, 10 days before the North Carolina primary, Obama did what he said he would never do. He disavowed Wright.
Obama won North Carolina heavily over Hillary Clinton, and what seems to have happened was that suddenly having new material for the press gave Obama a new opponent.
In place of Hillary, for 10 days at least, he was able to run against one of the most unpopular figures to white Americans, Jeremiah Wright.
It worked.
Occurring at the same time as Obama’s impetus to denounce his pastor, overnight on April 23-24, the black minister was given a hugely publicized appearance before an NAACP convention in Detroit.
The decision by NAACP brass to let Wright anywhere near a microphone two weeks before the critical North Carolina election on the surface makes no sense. Why would an organization 100 percent committed to electing Obama, representing a voter group that is going 95 percent for Obama, offer a podium to Reverend Wright?
Supposedly, Wright was fuming at Obama, and there were rumblings that he wanted Obama humbled.
It will be a fascinating subject for a book someday on why would the group representing African-Americans want to provide the platform.
Until then, the affair might have to go unexplained or with a guess that it confirmed Wright’s nuttiness and gave Obama a major Sister Souljah moment.
Obama grabbed headlines by confronting one of his major entertainment industry backers, the anti-white rapper Ludacris, who as if on cue, had launched a particularly vicious attack on John McCain, saying the only chair he should ever occupy is a wheelchair.
More headlines pivoting from a statement of a supporter came from Obama after Jessie Jackson’s strange open-mike comment about Jackson’s wish to literally and personally emasculate Obama. What Jackson did seems incredible coming from a veteran campaigner, but again it gave Obama someone to confront who is not especially beloved by Republicans and some Independents. It presented the opportunity to separate from Jackson – in white voters’ eyes. Whether black people believe any of the hoo-hah is debatable.
Now this week comes Jackson again, sounding off this time in France that the “Zionist” lobby – Jews – will have diminished clout when Obama takes over the country.
We go to press at 5 p.m. (CDT) before Wednesday night’s Obama-McCain debate in New York, so we don’t know what will come up.
But we will guess that another Sister Souljah moment is at hand. Obama’s flacks will be in action. There be some backing and filling by Obama Wednesday night about Reverend Jackson personally, followed by Obama’s pledge of undying commitment to Israel.
When Obama is not using his supporters for counterpoint to dazzle white people, he self starts with his now famous pre-emptive strikes: People, he says, are going to say that he doesn’t look like others on the currency; that he has a funny name, i.e., Barack Hussein Obama; that he is black, etc.
It all adds up to headlines and 30 seconds at the top of the television news.
October 2008
