Darleen's Place: Thou shalt have none other candidates before Me

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March 02, 2008

Thou shalt have none other candidates before Me

I am thy Lord Obama

It's Sunday, do you know where your lord Obama is?

The salacious assassination p0rn around Obamessiah still pops up, as Karl notes. The Obamagod portion of the trinity is being protected by a wider wedge of the faithful who are deciding what will or will not be acceptable campaigning against Obamagod, while He remains above the fray. Howard Kurtz asks

Is Barack Obama protected by a special suit of armor--one that fits only African Americans?Obviously, anyone running against the first black candidate with a serious shot at the presidency has to be sensitive about racial slights, real or perceived.

While Ben Smith points out how Obamagod works this to his advantage

And the dynamic of outrage and offense this campaign has proved race to be a much touchier subject than gender. At times, Obama’s campaign has sought to downplay burgeoning outrage. At others, the candidate has stoked it for political advantage.But most of the flaps ended the same way: with Obama forgiving the alleged offender. Sometimes he’s accepted the apologies graciously, sometimes sternly, but always in line with his message. And that message of reconciliation — often explicitly racial reconciliation — is a central part of his campaign’s appeal. With a general election that appears likely to open him to more Republican attacks, and more line-crossing, the campaign ritual of offense and forgiveness appears likely to be repeated often this year. [...]

“There is no better way to appear magnanimous and above the fray than in gracefully accepting an apology,” said Chris Lehane, a California political consultant who supports Clinton. [...]

“It's simple. He's Teflon,” said Jim Jordan, a Democratic consultant who worked for the campaign of Sen. Chris Dodd.

At the faithful level, the pre-emptive strategy is to demonize Republicans even before the general election

Right now, deep in the GOP dungeons, they're planning their racist, disgraceful assault.

The true difficulty facing the GOP's henchmen in the coming months will be how to get those who are just a tiny bit smarter, calmer, less easily swayed, those on the right who might actually be a bit impressed and charmed by Obama's obvious intelligence and oratory power, to hate him, fear him, find his genuinely moving brand of hope and inspiration to be suspicious and problematic and even deeply dangerous. [...]

When they stole two elections for Bush, the brutal, homophobic conservative machine was tightly organized, had focus, mountains of cash, Karl Rove, the backing of a very nefarious, deeply inbred team of ultra-wealthy war hawks hell-bent on taking over the nation and ruling with a flaccid peni- ... er, iron fist.

This is not just the province of politics, but potential Obama blasphemy is being challenged in pop culture

Is Fred Armisen, who is not African American, "black enough" to embody Obama on "Saturday Night Live"?

Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune put the question bluntly: "Call me crazy, but shouldn't 'Saturday Night Live's' fictional Sen. Barack Obama be played by an African American?" Ryan went on to conclude: "I find 'SNL's' choice inexplicable. Obama's candidacy gives us solid proof of the progress that African Americans have made in this country. I guess 'SNL' still has further to go on that front."

Hannah Pool, a writer for the Guardian newspaper in Great Britain, suggested the whole setup had "minstrel" overtones.

"Casting a black actor wouldn't have guaranteed the quality of the sketch, but it would have made the whole thing a lot less shoddy," Pool wrote. "Let's get one thing straight. The moment anyone starts reaching for 'blackface,' they are on extremely dodgy territory. Anyone who thinks it's either necessary or, for that matter, remotely funny to black-up needs to have the gauge on their moral compass reset."

Todd Boyd, a professor of critical studies at the University of Southern California, at the end of the article states:

"[W]hen you have a figure as historically important as Barack Obama ... people can get mighty protective of his image."

Ah, Obama's image. Much like the Danish cartoon flap, mocking, parodying or criticizing Obama's image Will Have Consequences!

It's a long road to November and it will be interesting to see how much political opposition to, or even doubt of, His Holiness will be dismissed as "unacceptable."

Technorati: Obama, Racism, SNL

Posted by Darleen at March 2, 2008 09:51 AM