America's baggage is Obama's burden

[Herman Munster]

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/16494347.htm

Obama has a ready answer for the experience question. As he told me in an interview in November: ``I think the one thing the American people require of their president is good judgment. In most of our lives, we hope that more experience gives us better judgment -- but not always. Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld had an awful lot of experience, but displayed poor judgment in this Iraq War, in my mind. So part of the measure I have to take is, do I feel I have the judgment to take the toughest job on earth.''

Touché. But one wonders if the question will be so easily put to rest this year. While his inexperience at the federal level certainly does not disqualify Obama from the presidency and while we've had politically inexperienced presidents before -- Ulysses Grant and Dwight Eisenhower come to mind -- I suspect experience is going to loom large as a factor in the next election, given the mess the new president will inherit from George W. Voters will be more wary than usual of a would-be chief executive who seems to require too much on-the-job training.

Which brings us to the second potential pitfall, the most obvious one. Race and culture. While mainstream media have seemed intrigued by, but not obsessed with, the senator's heritage, the same, unfortunately, cannot be said of the extreme right blogosphere. There, one seldom reads any reference to Obama that does not make reference to his middle name: Hussein. Then there are those who observe that only a single consonant separates his surname from the first name of the al Qaeda leader who launched the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

It is such nakedly puerile slander that your first response is to laugh. Then you remember how that same blogosphere managed to turn the war hero John Kerry into a ''traitor'' and the Texas Air National Guardsman, George W. Bush, into a war hero -- and it seems much less funny. Barack Obama is an African-American man with a Muslim name who would be seeking the presidency in a historically racist nation currently at war against Muslim extremists. One wonders if there is enough handsomeness, intelligence and charisma in the world to overcome all that.

[Rosemary2205]

1. Unfortunately

The only real key will be to see if the base on the left desides to throw him under the bus.

[illinoisprogressive]

2. The wingers are laying the racism on thick due to fear of loosing power

The party is split and in upheaval, Nov 7 was a masacre, Bush is becoming irrelavant, the media is not afraid of them anymore, Fox is loosing ratings (and i wonder if the radio ones are down as well), Colbert and Olbermann are the kings now.
the republicans are trying to throw red meat to the base to whip them up into another st. visuvious dance. But, it is not taking. They pull out the double card of racism and muslim and throw it out. And then, throw in some Hillary for flavor. nada. The ultra base is biting but, they are still loosing people to the dark side. Indies and swings have abandoned them and the moderates are leaving in droves. People want change. They are tired of 15 years of the ugly side.
Fox, Limbaugh, ect. depend on hate politics for thier bread. If they don't keep the audience and the mood changes they are over.
They will throw it out harder.
The blogs will counter.
And the people still aren't buying.