Legal Commentary

Obama: ?Spooky??

Is calling someone ?spooky? the same as calling him a spook? If so, Christopher Edley, Dean of Berkeley?s Boalt Hall School of Law, should prepare for an onslaught by the politically correct language police since spook, for those of you too young or protected to be familiar with it, is ?Offensive Slang Used as a disparaging term for a Black person.? (HatTip to Roger Clegg)

This Edley, by the way, who taught Obama at the Harvard Law School, was last seen here, predicting that ?race-baiting? would be a major factor in the 2008 presidential campaign.
... [HIs] paper argues that appeals to racial bigotry are likely, especially if Barack Obama emerges as the Democratic nominee.

?It?s not only Barack Obama who will have to combat race-based tactics,? Mr. Edley, an Obama supporter, said in a statement accompanying the report. ?Any politician who backs positions that appeal to minority voters is vulnerable.?
If anyone has examples of white politicians who support affirmative action being ?race-baited? during the campaign, please send them to me.

Before that, we encountered Edley here, heading a new institute to explore ways around California?s ban on race preferences.

And before that, as I noted here, Edley is a former Harvard law school professor,
former White House aide, co-author of President Clinton?s ?mend it, don?t end it? review of affirmative action policies, advisor to Clinton?s race commission, fervent advocate of racial preferences (he described Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom?s America in Black and White as ?a crime against humanity?), and advisor to the Gore campaign.
More recently, of course, he advised the Obama campaign, advised the transition team, and is impressed with Obama?s ?spooky, radiant calmness.?
Asked how Obama has changed since his Harvard days, Edley compares him to ?a fabulous red wine.?

?When it?s young, its potential is exciting, and then with age the real power and beauty of it comes out. That process accelerated to lightning speed during the campaign, and I think the best is yet to come.?

Obama, Edley predicts, ?is gonna keep getting better and better.?
Since getting better and better now seems to be equated with spending more and more and going deeper and deeper into debt, that is a notion that is truly spooky.

Full post as published by Discriminations on February 27, 2009 (boomark / email).