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Doyle-ing In The Fields Of The Lord Obama

Recently I?ve criticized several leading major media columnists, twice on Big Journalism ? Eugene Robinson and David Broder ? and once here, Charles Blow. I will now convert this trilogy into a quartet by taking a look at the August 1 column by Doyle McManus, the Los Angeles Times Washington Bureau Chief from 1996 to 2008 and now that paper?s Washington columnist.

Let me say at the outset that McManus?s views, like the views of Robinson, Blow, and Broder, are worth discussing not because they?re distinctive but precisely because they?re not. They all express and represent the liberal, Democratic Conventional Wisdom of the nation?s elite political class. One does not have to be a conspiracy theorist to say that it?s no accident all have found a happy home as columnists at the pinnacles of mainstream mediadom.

McManus wants all of us, but especially the president, to talk more about race. He?s disappointed that ?Barack Obama, our first black president, doesn?t like talking about race,? he notes in the first paragraph of his column. ?He wants his presidency to be remembered for fixing the economy, installing a national healthcare plan and building a new foreign policy, not the color of his skin.?

Well, one can want whatever one wants. I?m sure James Buchanan wanted to be remembered as the president who avoided civil war and Jimmy Carter wanted to go down in history as the rescuer of American hostages in Iran. I want a brand new Porsche, and am about as likely to get it as Obama is to select what he will be remembered by.

?But the original sin of racial discrimination never stays out of our national conversation for long, and last week even Obama couldn't duck the subject,? McManus continued, arguing that Obama not only can?t but shouldn?t avoid the subject. [And speaking of ?the original sin of racial discrimination,? as all the conventionally wise authoritative OpEd liberals do, I analyzed Frank Rich?s version of that trope in ?The Original Sin of Frank Rich? on Pajamas Media, here.]

Like many Americans, McManus obviously believed that Obama?s candidacy embodied the promise of a post-racial America. Unlike many more Americans, he apparently still believes.

Obama?s allergy to talking about race relations is understandable.

He won the presidency, in part, by not talking about race. Most of the time, he didn?t have to. Part of his appeal was his gift of being not only African American but biracial and even post-racial. He embodied the promise of racial healing. Vote for Obama, the not very subliminal message went, and we will be a better country by the close of election day. His biography and his appearance made the point better than words.

Here, McManus combines matters more or less of fact ? that Obama is African American and biracial ? with decidedly unfactual assertions ? that being ?not only African American but biracial? is a ?gift,? and especially that Obama had (and as we shall see, still has) the ?gift? of being ?post-racial.? Whether or not Obama is ?post-racial? depends on what he believes and what he does, not upon his ?being? who he is.

But that was all about the Obama of the campaign. What about now?

Some of the president?s right-wing critics appear desperate to change the subject to race. Their argument, in the words of Fox News Channel?s Glenn Beck, is that Obama ?has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.... This guy is, I believe, a racist.? Don?t look for evidence to back up that poisonous charge; there isn?t any. But Beck and others seem to think that by repeating it, they can not only erode Obama?s legitimacy as a racial healer but convince white voters that he?s anti-them. And anti-majority politicians don?t win many elections.

Whether or not McManus is justified in asserting confidently that there isn?t any evidence to support Beck?s charge that Obama is a racist depends, first, on the meaning of ?racist.? If its meaning is restricted (as I think it should be) to a belief in genetic inferiority, then I suspect McManus is correct. If, however, its meaning encompasses various biases and even ?deep-seated? animosities (of the sort, say, expressed by Michelle Obama when she described the United States as a country that is ?just downright mean?) then I?m less sure about the impossibility of there being any such evidence. And if McManus believes, as he seems to, that there can be no evidence to support Beck?s effort to persuade whites that Obama is ?anti-them,? then McManus?s continuing faith in Obama as ?a racial healer? who embodies ?post-racialism? has blinded him to a plethora of Obama policies and appointments that may not be racist but are undeniably racialist (favoring some over others on the basis of race or ethnicity).

Has Obama appointed any Justice, judge, or federal official in any office who does not believe blacks and Hispanics should receive preferential treatment at the expense of whites and Asians? Does Obama not oppose state constitutional amendments to prohibit racial and ethnic favoritism by state agencies? Has his administration not filed a brief supporting racial preferences in college admissions? Was Obama referring to blacks and Hispanics when talked about poor people clinging to their guns and religion? Did he ever object to Wright?s racist rants until those rants became known and embarrassed him? Has his Justice Department not dismissed an already won case against the racist thugs of the New Black Panther Party? More significantly, is his Justice Department not still refusing to honor subpoenas to Civil Rights Division officials even in the face of sworn testimony that as a matter of policy that division refuses to pursue voting discrimination charges against minority defendants? McManus may believe these policies should enhance the legitimacy of Obama?s legacy as ?a racial healer,? but not everyone agrees.

If there were any doubt about McManus?s own biases, they are erased by the following paragraph:

Has Obama appointed any Justice, judge, or federal official in any office who does not believe blacks and Hispanics should receive preferential treatment at the expense of whites and Asians? Does Obama not oppose state constitutional amendments to prohibit racial and ethnic favoritism by state agencies? Has his administration not filed a brief supporting racial preferences in college admissions? Was Obama referring to blacks and Hispanics when he talked about small town rubes clinging to their guns and religion? Did he ever object to Wright?s racist rants until those rants became known and embarrassed him? Has his Justice Department not dismissed an already won case against the racist thugs of the New Black Panther Party? More significantly, is his Justice Department not still refusing to honor subpoenas to Civil Rights Division officials even in the face of sworn testimony that as a matter of policy that division refuses to pursue voting discrimination charges against minority defendants? McManus may believe these policies should enhance the legitimacy of Obama?s legacy as ?a racial healer,? but not everyone agrees.

If there were any doubt about McManus?s own biases, they are erased by the following paragraph:

Obama has every reason to keep himself offstage when the issue is race. Being a ?normal? president ? by focusing on policy and legislation rather than race relations ? has been one of his signal achievements. To most of white America, he?s just the president, not the black president. In most of the country, the conversation isn?t about whether Obama is favoring blacks or whites or anyone else; it?s about whether his stimulus plan can work and whether he?s running too big a deficit.

Obama is a ?normal? president, unconcerned with race? Has this suddenly turned into a humor column? If so, I fail to see the humor. And when did ?focusing on policy and legislation rather than race relations? become ?a signal achievement?? Hasn?t virtually every president except Abraham Lincoln and Lyndon Johnson done that?

I?m sure that most white Americans would dearly love for President Obama to be ?just the president, not the black president,? but I?m considerably less sure that most do believe that to be the case, and there are fewer of them every day, with good reason. Moreover, it may well be true that in most of the country ?the conversation isn?t about whether Obama is favoring blacks or whites,? but that doesn?t mean the favoring isn?t happening.

The fact that McManus is clearly still a Believer in Obama?s campaign promise of post-racialism, that he continues to believe Obama is a ?racial healer? who favors neither blacks nor whites, is touching. But it is simply further evidence (as if further evidence were needed) of how far removed the esteemed elite commentators of the political class who inhabit positions of power in the mainstream media are from average Americans, whose views of the political landscape they inhabit are far more accurate.

The fact that McManus is clearly still a Believer in Obama?s campaign promise of post-racialism, that he continues to believe Obama is a ?racial healer? who favors neither blacks nor whites, is touching. But it is simply further evidence (as if further evidence were needed) of how far removed the esteemed elite commentators of the political class who inhabit positions of power in the mainstream media are from average Americans, whose views of their political leaders and the political landscape they inhabit are far more accurate.

Full post as published by Discriminations on August 05, 2010 (boomark / email).