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Monday, February 25, 2008
Farrakhan hearts Obama
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan set Barack Obama up for a Sister Souljah Moment on Sunday.
While Farrakhan didn’t endorse Obama, he spent most of his almost two-hour Saviors’ Day celebration speech praising him.
“This young man is the hope of the entire world that America will change and be made better,” said the 74-year-old Farrakhan. “This young man is capturing audiences of black and brown and red and yellow. If you look at Barack Obama’s audiences and look at the effect of his words, those people are being transformed.”
Farrakhan pointed out that the Nation of Islam’s founder, Fard Muhammad, also had a white mother and black father. “A black man with a white mother became a savior to us. A black man with a white mother could turn out to be one who can lift America from her fall.”
While there’s nothing in the quotes from Farrakhan’s speech to 20,000 followers that anybody would find objectionable, his warm embrace of the likely Democratic nominee does him no good whatsoever. It doesn’t bring him any votes he wouldn’t get anyway and associates Obama in the public mind with a very polarizing figure who turns off huge blocs of white voters.
Suppose, for example, that a national figure identified in the minds of blacks as a virulent racist spent two hours praising Hillary Clinton. Think that would help her effort to win black support?
Some things it’s best to get out early in politics. John McCain’s association, allegedly romantic, with a lobbyist was one. Farrakhan’s embrace of Barack Obama is another.
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