Obama's not-so-centrist Hampton speech

[Geee]

Washington Examiner:

To hear Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen tell it, President Obama is "a man of the center -- or maybe a wee to the left of it."

 

 

And that 2007 speech Obama gave at Hampton University, the one in which he tried to channel his inner Malcolm X? Why, that "might have sounded innocuous to the average [white person's] ear."

I wish I were as confident of discerning what does or does not sound innocuous to the ear of the average black person as Cohen is of telling us what's innocuous to the average white ear, but I do know that Obama's Hampton University speech wasn't that of a "man of the center." Obama began his speech by praising Rev. Jeremiah Wright, at the time the pastor of the future president's church in Chicago. Wright, as we know from his speeches, clearly isn't a "man of the center." And men and women of the center would be hesitant to praise him, as Obama did in his speech.

 

 

Perhaps the speech just wasn't meant to be taken seriously. After all, that ludicrous phony accent he adopted had less the feeling of a political address than of an Amos n’ Andy episode -- you know, that old radio show in which white actors faked black accents. But politicians “of the center” don’t tolerate a Jeremiah Wright, not even for show, much less praise him. The Democrat that can claim to be a “man of the center” – and I can’t believe I’m writing this – is former President Bill Clinton, who at least had the guts to call rapper Sistah Soulja on her inflammatory comments when he was running for president.