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Still Crazy After All These Years...

Writing in the New York Times, Matt Bai is bewildered that ?2010?s Debates Still Trapped in the 1960s.?

This wrinkle in the political space-time continuum was supposed to have been smoothed out, of course. Barack Obama based his presidential campaign on the notion that the nation needed to step past the cultural chasm of an earlier era, and younger Americans, in particular, endorsed that vision. And yet here we are two years later, arguing over Vietnam and segregation....

Yes, well, there were a number of things Obama promised in his campaign that haven?t come to pass ? post-racialism, post-partisanship, transparency, troops out of Iraq, no more Gitmo, no taxes on those earning less than $200,000 or $250,000, being able to keep your doctor and health insurance if you like them, etc.

Bai?s bewilderment, like the confusion or disillusionment of so many who succumbed to illusions about Obama, is almost touching, but some of it also reflects the peculiar lack of fresh air in the cocoon so many New York Times readers and writers inhabit. For example, he writes,

Americans the president?s age and younger are inclined to assume that one can question the responsibilities of government and private entities when it comes to race without necessarily being dismissed as a racist ? even if it does make them [sic], as in the case of Mr. Paul, something of an ideological outlier.

So, anyone who has the gall even to question ?the responsibilities of government and private entities when it comes to race? is an ?ideological outlier?? Well, in the milieu of the New York Times I suppose they [sic] are.

And if it?s true that Americans of the president?s age and younger ?are inclined to assume? that one can question the preferentialist race policies of the government and private entities without ?being dismissed as a racist,? I know a lot of ideological outliers who, like me, will testify that that assumption is as off the wall wacky as their faith in The One?s campaign promises.

Full post as published by Discriminations on May 26, 2010 (boomark / email).