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Krauthammer?s Near Miss

Charles Krauthammer almost always gets almost everything right. His column today, however, contained an uncharacteristic near miss.

His basic point ? that Obama?s promise to transcend race, rise above the old politics, and unite us once again as one nation is contradicted by his own performance in the Senate ? is certainly true, but Krauthammer misses what I think is the most fundamental and telling evidence of that contradiction: Obama?s utterly conventional, utterly partisan, utter old Democratic orthodoxy on racial preferences.

Krauthammer writes, accurately enough as far as it goes, that ?Obama does transcend race; he has not run as a candidate of minority grievance,? but then he on to say that ?his vision of America is unmistakably post-racial.?

Really? There is, to be sure, a nice post-racial vision of American unity in Obama?s rhetoric, such as his appeal to ?young and old, rich and poor, black and white, Latino and Asian ? who are tired of a politics that divides us? and his verbal insistence that ?the choice in this election is not between regions or religions or genders. It?s not about rich versus poor; young versus old; and it is not about black versus white.?

But all that, as Hillary might say, is just talk. When it comes to speaking unpopular truth to those who don?t want to hear it, Obama has ruffled no pro-preference feathers. As I have pointed out too many times to cite (but a few examples are here, here, here, here, here, and here), he may think of Americans as one people and not as ?black and white, Latino and Asian,? but he has moved not one inch from his support for the government treating some of those groups better because of their race or ethnicity, and others worse. On the contrary, he actively campaigned against the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, which now requires (it passed with 58% of the vote) the state to treat it citizens without regard to their race, ethnicity, or gender in education, hiring, and contracting.

Until he does I for one don?t believe at all in his ?Change You Can Believe In.?

ADDENDUM

If it were true that Obama were serious about viewing us as one American and not as ? ?black and white, Latino and Asian,? male and female, etc., etc., he would be about the only Democrat who does. Also, if were serious about this ?vision,? he would have to distance himself from the official Democratic Delegate Selection Rules for the 2008 convention that I discussed at some length here. As I read those rules (as I stated in my former post), they state the following:

1. ?[D]iscrimination in any state party affairs on the ground of race, color, creed or national origin? or ?status? is prohibited. Delegates will not be seated in the absence of assurance that no such discrimination has occurred, but

2. ?[T]he national and state Democratic Parties shall adopt and implement affirmative action programs with specific goals and timetables for African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, Asian/Pacific Americans and women,? but

3. Neither these ?goals? nor ?timetables? shall be accomplished ?either directly or indirectly by the Party?s imposition of mandatory quotas at any level of the delegate selection process or in any other Party affairs,? but

4. In the selection of at-large delegations preferences shall be given to African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, Asian/Pacific Americans and women if necessary to reach affirmative action ?goals,? and

5. ll state delegate selection plans must ?provide for equal division between delegate men and delegate women and alternate men and alternate women within the state?s entire convention delegation.? In addition, ?as far as mathematically practicable, [they must] also provide for equal division between district-level delegate men and delegate women and district-level alternate men and alternate women.? Nevertheless,

6. The requirement of an ?equal division at any level of delegate or committee positions between delegate men and delegate women or committeemen and committeewomen shall not constitute? a quota.
   

Here?s one description of how similar rules were implemented leading up to the 2004 convention:

State Democratic Party diversity plans vary widely. Alabama has only one goal: Its delegation should be 35.4% black. Florida has a wider range of goals: 21.9% for blacks, 10% for homosexuals of either sex, 7.6% for Hispanics, two Native American delegates (which is less than 1% of the delegation), and two Asians or Pacific Islanders. California?s is even more complicated: 26% Hispanic, 16% black, 10% disabled, 9% Asian or Pacific Islander, 7% under age 30, 5% homosexual men, 5% homosexual women, and 1% Native American. The Michigan Democratic Party seeks to pick ArabAmericans for 3% of its delegates. Fourteen states (and Puerto Rico) specify the percentage of delegates that should be homosexual....

Sometimes state parties must scramble to meet their goals. The Tallahassee Democrat reported that the erroneously listed race and sexual orientation of some potential delegates caused last-minute difficulties in firming up the Florida delegation. ?The [state party] executive committee met at Tallahassee Community College to elect 23 party officers and elected officials, plus 39 at-large delegates,? the paper said. ?Contenders for those seats were listed by race, gender and sexual orientation, and [a party official] explained how many had to be picked to meet ?goals?: a delegation 20% black, 50% female and 10% gay.?

I concluded my former post by asking:

Would you trust a party that governs itself in this manner to write civil rights laws (and appoint judges to interpret those laws) that would bar quotas?

Now, after the rise of Obama the Transcender, it?s necessary to add the following question: Can any candidate who refuses to reject racial and ethnic preferences in college admission and employment and who believes it appropriate to constitute his own party with such rules as the above (see the original post for longer excerpts) really believe in transcending race and ethnicity and gender in our body politic?

Full post as published by Discriminations on March 07, 2008 (boomark / email).