Obama and Our Post-Modern Race Problem – WSJ.com

Shelby Steele:

[...]

America’s primary race problem today is our new “sophistication” around racial matters. Political correctness is a compendium of sophistications in which we join ourselves to obvious falsehoods (“diversity”) and refuse to see obvious realities (the irrelevance of diversity to minority development). I would argue further that Barack Obama’s election to the presidency of the United States was essentially an American sophistication, a national exercise in seeing what was not there and a refusal to see what was there—all to escape the stigma not of stupidity but of racism.

Barack Obama, elegant and professorially articulate, was an invitation to sophistication that America simply could not bring itself to turn down. If “hope and change” was an empty political slogan, it was also beautiful clothing that people could passionately describe without ever having seen.

Full article: WSJ.com.

Politiken.dk: Obama greater than Jesus

He comes from humble beginnings and defends the weak and vulnerable, because he can identify himself with their conditions.

And no we are not thinking of Jesus Christ, whose birthday has just been celebrated – - but rather the President of the United States Barack Hussein Obama.

The rest, if you can stomach it: Politiken.dk.

Cartoons of the Week – 12/29/09

Obama’s Image: What a Difference a Year Makes

By Ed Lasky

Almost a year has passed since January 20, 2009 — when the waters of the ocean no longer rose and America began to heal from the depredations of Republicans. Barack Obama has been our president for that long, and the people have started to wise up.

The light that shines on Barack Obama as president has reflected back an image that bears very little similarity to the iconic visage that floated above us all in 2008. Why has Barack Obama betrayed so many allies, broken so many promises, thrown so many pledges and people under the bus?

One simple aphorism (paraphrasing Winston Churchill) can explain it all. Barack Obama is no longer a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Much about his past remains murky, but faced with the need to govern, he has given the American people plenty of evidence of his nature…if only they will look.

Obama is a cynic wrapped in a hypocrite inside a bully.

Continued: American Thinker.

FOXNews.com – Napolitano Acknowledges Security Failed in Allowing Terror Suspect on Plane

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano conceded Monday that airline security failed in allowing a Nigerian on a terror watch list and allegedly armed with explosives onto a Detroit-bound flight, a turnaround from her declaration a day day earlier that “the system worked.”

Full story: FOXNews.com

Absurd flight from reality – NYPOST.com

Charles Hurt:

WASHINGTON — So, this is your Homeland Security Department working.

A Nigerian man named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab boards a flight in Amsterdam bound for the United States, despite, according to one passenger, having no passport.

Abdulmutallab, a Muslim, boards the plane despite having been reported to the US Embassy by his own father a few months ago.

The young man may be plotting an attack against the US, the father had implored.

He gets on the flight despite having raised the suspicion of US intelligence officials.

When he takes his seat — after passing through every layer of security — Abdulmutallab is still wearing a bomb made with highly explosive powder.

More: NYPOST.com.

Napolitano: “The system worked” – POLITICO Live – POLITICO.com

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Sunday that the thwarting of the attempt to blow up an Amsterdam-Detroit airline flight Christmas Day demonstrated that “the system worked.”

Asked by CNN’s Candy Crowley on “State of the Union” how that could be possible when the young Nigerian who has been charged with trying to set off the bomb was able to smuggle explosive liquid onto the jet, Napolitano responded: “We’re asking the same questions.”

Napolitano added that there was “no suggestion that [the suspect] was improperly screened.”

More, with video: POLITICO.com.

American Thinker: Obama’s Lost Face

By J.R. Dunn

Why did Chinese premier Wen Jiabao choose to publicly humiliate Barack Obama at Copenhagen? In their eyes, and in those of much of the world, he has lost face, and with it, power and influence. While getting widespread play overseas, this story has been kept very quiet by our disinterested, nonpartisan media (I haven’t seen it mentioned in any major U.S. outlet).

After promising to meet the Messiah at 7:00 p.m., Premier Wen stood him up in favor of a meeting with the leaders of India, South Africa, and Brazil. Rather than wait, a no-doubt infuriated Obama stalked into the room in question and demanded, “Are you ready to see me, Premier Wen?” No word on Wen’s reaction, though he did submit to a discussion on the spot that evidently sealed the release of the immortal and glorious Copenhagen Quasi-Agreement on Climate Change.

So with Barack Obama, we’ve reached the point where the leader of record of the most powerful state in history has become a man you can casually stand up. But the question remains: Why?

More: American Thinker.

Health Care, Barack Obama, and the U.S. Constitution – Townhall.com

Austin Hill :

Who cares about the U.S. Constitution, when Barack Obama’s vision for America is weighing in the balance?

Don’t count on the U.S. Congress to care.

via Townhall.com.

Cindy Sheehan to Install Anti-Obama Camp at Washington Monument

By Matt Smith

Looking back at the aughts, who can forget indelible images of a war and a president that should never have been, and the makeshift camp set up outside President George W. Bush’s Texas ranch at Crawford Texas that challenged them both.

For those feeling nostalgic about the past decade, fret not: It’s apparently not going away.

Energizer Bunny war protester Cindy Sheehan, who last year ran for Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco congressional seat, plans to set up a new anti-war camp near the Washington Monument to protest ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“It’s true,” Sheehan said in an e-mail, adding that she couldn’t discuss her plans until after our deadline.

Full story: San Francisco News – The Snitch.