Its confidence gone, Times is torn up over Obama nomination

From today’s New York Times:

Anxious Party Hopes to Show Strong Obama
Democrats are urging Barack Obama to use the next four days to address weaknesses in his candidacy and lingering divisions from the primary fight.

An L-dotter hits the nail on the head:

They forgot WHY they had Superdelegates.

And here’s further liberal anguish, in today’s Times:

Blacks Debate Civil Rights Risk in Obama’s Rise
Some black voters wonder if Senator Barack Obama’s success will further the notion that the long struggle for racial equality has finally been won.

Is this what’s known as a high-class problem?

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Mr. Obama has received overwhelming support from black voters, many of whom believe he will help bridge the nation’s racial divide. But even as they cheer him on, some black scholars, bloggers and others who closely follow the race worry that Mr. Obama’s historic achievements might make it harder to rally support for policies intended to combat racial discrimination, racial inequities and urban poverty.

They fear that growing numbers of white voters and policy makers will decide that eradicating racial discrimination and ensuring equal opportunity have largely been done.

“I worry that there is a segment of the population that might be harder to reach, average citizens who will say: ‘Come on. We might have a black president, so we must be over it,’ ” said Mr. Harrison, 59, a sociologist at Howard University and a consultant for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies here.

“That is the danger, that we declare victory,” said Mr. Harrison, who fears that poor blacks will increasingly be blamed for their troubles. “Historic as this moment is, it does not signify a major victory in the ongoing, daily battle.”

Such concerns have been percolating in black intellectual circles for months, on talk radio and blogs, in dinner conversations, academic meetings and flurries of e-mail messages crisscrossing the country.

It can be an awkward discussion for Obama supporters who argue that the success of the candidate—the man who might become America’s first black president—might make it somewhat more difficult to advance an ambitious public policy agenda that helps blacks. Some of Mr. Obama’s black supporters say that Mr. Obama himself, by rarely focusing on racial discrimination and urban poverty while campaigning, has often fueled the notion that the nation has transcended race.

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Gintas writes:

Excellent link there. You can find the truth, even in Pravda, if you read between the lines: Obama as token black President. You were right that it just will never end.

LA replies

They’re so naked about it. Of course they don’t want America’s race problem to end—it’s their bread and butter. And besides, how could it end? People don’t believe America’s a racist country because it hasn’t had a black president. They believe it’s a racist country because blacks are behind and “troubled” in innumerable ways. And they will continue to be behind and “troubled” in exactly the same ways in the event Obama is elected. Therefore America will continue to be racist.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 25, 2008 12:30 PM | Send