“What you are” versus “Who you are”

Early last week I wrote about Barack Obama declaring to a conference of some racist organization that calls itself The Race that people of color are involved in some nebulous “Struggle” (apparently the “one Struggle” thing doesn’t translate well to baseball, though). This week I see the conversation is still about inconsequencial things like skin pigmentation.

CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux asked Hillary Clinton if she is “black enough” to be the Democrat Presidential candidate;

This campaign moment occurred Thursday before the Las Vegas convention crowd of the National Association of Black Journalists. CNN White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux pinned back the former First Lady to explain how she could “sustain black support ” while running against an African-American. Ironically, thanks to Sen. Barack Obama’s mixed white and Kenyan parentage and campaign mischief, it is he who usually gets to field the “black enough” question.

Malveaux is one of the most racist journalists to ever have her words read. And apparently fairly shallow – since she thinks that an accident of birth is the only qualification worthy of discussion in a presidential campaign. Clinton dodged the question – completely in character, too.

Earlier in the weekend, Obama declared that he is indeed “black enough” to be president.

With puzzlement and a touch of humor, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama weighed in Friday on a question posed by some in the black community about whether he’s ”black enough” to represent them in the White House.

Clinton says she’s qualified to be President because she’s a woman, Obama says he’s qualified because he’s Black, Richardson says he’s qualified because he’s Latin, the media says Romney isn’t qualified because he’s a Mormon. What the Hell is going on here?

Article II Section 1 of the Constitution list only these qualifications;

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

No where does it mention race, sex or religion. So why is the media and particularly the Democrats so interested in these superficial qualifications? 

What a person is is more important apparently than who a person is. Obama has lied in his campign book about events he claims shaped his poitical personae, Hillary is a congenital liar as we’ve seen from those dark years she spent in the White House, and Richardson couldn’t even run the Energy Department let alone the whole country – none of that has to do with race or gender – but we’re supposed to overlook these personality disorders because they’re members of a special protected class – protected by the laws of probability and the biology of birth.

All of the Democrats, with the possible exception of Richardson, want to raise our taxes  (they say they only want to raise taxes on the rich, but we know from the 1993 tax hike that Democrats think even retirees on Social Security are “rich”), all of the Democrats want to sacrifice our national security for purely political reasons. Hell, Obama prefers to threaten our allies instead of our enemies. Hillary wants government to take over negotiation for our mortgages.

But I guess all of that poor judgement takes a backseat to skin pigment and genitalia.

Category: Economy, Foreign Policy, Politics, Society