Category: The Dish

Seven years old today. I remain a total fan.

It’s very worrying but it’s not HIV. Or anything close to as dangerous. And that might actually work in favor of restraining it. It hurts very badly, very quickly; it can be spread much more easily than HIV; it can be disfiguring; treatment can be as painful as it is drawn-out. So far, its main fatalities have been the elderly. So as an inducement for more care in sex, and more attention to hygiene, it’s arguably more effective than HIV now is, because its physical impact is much speedier and more tangible. That’s the optimistic side, at least.

Anyone who has followed Obama’s career and history knows that Jeremiah Wright’s Afro-centric and downright eccentric theology and politics would come up eventually. But it is depressing that the first major MSM column on the matter immediately raises the possibility that Obama is a closeted supporter of Louis Farrakhan. Not that Cohen is saying such a thing, of course. So we have this to-be-sure paragraph stuck right up front:

It’s important to state right off that nothing in Obama’s record suggests he harbors anti-Semitic views or agrees with Wright when it comes to Farrakhan.

But it’s nonetheless important to write a column airing such a possibility. Usually, of course, Cohen wouldn’t raise the theological issues around someone’s pastor:

I don’t for a moment think that Obama shares Wright’s views on Farrakhan. But the rap on Obama is that he is a fog of a man. We know little about him, and, for all my admiration of him, I wonder about his mettle.

What on earth can this mean? Candidates whose rap is not a fog would not get the same scrutiny? Mettle? Is this code for "sound on the Jews"? Too soft on the Muslims? Or what? No one – no one – could read Obama’s books or examine his career and believe he is anything but the polar opposite of Farrakhan. But that’s not enough for Cohen.

I have been and remain an optimist about the ability of Americans to vote for and elect a black politician to the presidency. But as David Brooks points out today, resistance is no longer understandable on old white-black lines. The smorgasbord of racial and identity politics comes into play. And so long-festering black-Hispanic tensions may put Nevada at risk; and the older black establishment prefers to play the old game with the white power-brokers they have learned to deal with than the new black leader they cannot control; and some Jewish-Americans, seeing a black man with real power emerging on the national scene, immediately panic that it’s Farrakhan in disguise. All the Clintons need do is sit back and allow this game to proceed. And maybe add a few comments to reassure all parties that they intend to keep playing their role: the white leader who’s the benefactor of the minorities. And that’s all the LBJ remark was: not a racist slip, but a statement of where power ultimately lies. With white dynasts in office, and the divided members of minorities who keep them there.

"He kind of sidled up to me and said, Can I come and see you? We were sitting outside the presidential cabin here, and he professed his love for Jenna and said, would I mind if he married her? And I said, Got a deal. [Laughter] And I’m of the school, once you make the sale, move on. But he had some other points he wanted [to make]. He wanted to talk about how he would be financially responsible," – George W. Bush on Henry Hager’s proposal of marriage to his daughter, Jenna. I think the president just lost interest when fiscal responsibility came up.

It’s about work, apparently:

More than half — 51 percent, and that 1 percent makes a huge difference — of small business owners and managers surveyed recently said they dream about work.

I woke up the night before last with some urgent post to write about McCain and Obama. I need help, obviously. But I figure this primary season will be over soon. And I can always rest in February. It will be over in February, won’t it?

A study finds that a higher price makes some wine taste better – or rather makes you think it tastes better.

Namitembo, Malawi, 5.40 pm.

I missed this Mark Kleiman post at the time, but it’s a really good one:

Obama is almost devoid of the megalomaniac and sociopathic tendencies so common among top-level politicians. The Greek word sophrosyne is usually translated as "temperance" or "moderation." But its core meaning seems to be closer to "self-command" or "sanity." That’s the characteristic that shines through the speeches and actions of Abraham Lincoln. It’s on Obama’s sophrosyne, even more than on his intelligence, that I’m prepared to bet.

I appreciate it all the more since I often lack it myself.

A reader writes:

I suspect that if Hillary wins this thing the way she’s trying to win it — by race-baiting — black folk will indeed abandon her. Your reader makes the added mistake of underestimating Huckabee’s potential appeal to blacks: he won 40 percent of the black vote in Arkansas. This black voter will certainly give him a closer look if Hillary wins. She’s lost my vote. And she was my first choice until quite recently.

Mark Kleiman gives his endorsement for today’s Democratic Michigan primary. But he has a soft spot for Romney:

Demonstrably, he has an IQ statistically significantly different from zero, isn’t demonstrably bonkers aside from his narcissism, and doesn’t actually believe in anything. That’s a big improvement over much of his opposition.