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Friday, July 11, 2008
Both spenders, but one isn’t fixated on past
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Grievance activist Jesse Jackson returned from campaign exile this week to the enormous benefit of Barack Obama, demonstrating that in war and politics an adversary’s blunders can deliver great victories.
If the largely vanished Al Sharpton can now find occasion to resurface for the purpose of putting daylight between himself and the Obama campaign, as Jackson did, the campaign’s prospects of appealing to working-class whites will be greatly enhanced. Both are the tired old relics of a bygone era who prosper by denying change. Same world, same problems, same solutions. More government.
Obama offers more government, too, in virtually every speech. Nothing comes without a substantial price tag. But it is of considerable value to Obama, as he attempts to reach working-class whites who peeled away in droves through the late primaries, that Jackson disapproves in memorably crude terms. That is a gift for which the candidate should send thank-you notes.
Jackson’s complaint before an open microphone on Fox was that Obama sometimes seems to be “talking down to black people” in churches when, as he said later on CNN, “the moral message must be a much broader” one. “What we really need is racial justice and urban policy and jobs and health care.”
Either Jackson is not paying attention or objects on style points. Obama does have a knack for recognizing that the world has changed, even when he gets to the solutions that Jackson would offer. An example is a very nicely done Father’s Day speech delivered at the Apostolic Church of God on Chicago’s South Side that was highly critical of men who don’t father their children.
Fathers are critical, and too many are missing, he said. “They have abandoned their responsiblities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it.
“You and I know how true this is in the African-American community. We know that more than half of all black children live in single-parent households, a number that has doubled — doubled — since we were children.”
Those children — 69.3 percent of black, 46.4 percent of Hispanic and 24.5 percent of white babies are born to unmarried women — suffer greatly. “Children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime,” Obama preached, “nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behaviorial problems, or run away from home, or become teenage parents themselves. And the foundations of our community are weaker because of it.”
At the end, as he always does, Obama has a more-government solution, elements of which have merit.
In getting there, though, he could be construed by Jackson as “talking down.” Black professionals and opinion leaders, with rare exception, are silent (Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears is an exception) on the harm adults are doing their children, primarily because the Old Guard that Jackson represents has a vested power interest in insisting that discrimination and too few government programs are the primary problem.
After Jackson apologized, an Obama spokesman took the opportunity to note that the candidate “has spoken and written for many years about the issue of parental responsibility, including the importance of fathers participating in their children’s lives” in addition to jobs and justice issues. Jackson specifically chided Obama in the Fox open-mic conversation for his stand in support of President Bush’s faith-based initiatives. It’s heresy, of course, for any liberal to suggest that there might be an alternative to more government. Obama didn’t exactly commit that crime.
He did, however, embrace the idea of faith-based organizations using public money to provide services for the needy. “The challenges we face today,” he said earlier this month, “are simply too big for government to solve alone.”
Under Obama it would be expanded government. That’s a given. Always. He thinks social service spending was too little under Bush and proposes a $500 million-per-year program for summer tutoring, something faith-based organizations could do.
Both Jackson and Obama are for more government. The difference is that Jackson’s world is fixed in yesterday.
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Planet Obama, 1920s gem, voter ID
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thinking Right’s weekend free-for-all. Pick a topic:
Everybody noticed it the moment Barack Obama wrapped up his party’s nomination. He’s changed. One of the week’s political stories, taking note of a mechanical problem on his campaign plane, informed us by way of a typo that “Obama and his staff switched to another planet to complete the trip.” It is a wise man who switches from the planet he was on during the primaries.
The Georgia General Assembly should “fine” Grady Hospital $750,000 for the $1.2 million contract its old governing board gave State Rep. Pam Stephenson, its interim overseer. Subtract it from future grants to the hospital or to Fulton and DeKalb, whose appointees approved the contract. The contract will pay Stephenson about that much for not getting the CEO job.
More signs that the South is gone. It’s an Associated Press story headlined “Rinsing chicken in sink can spread bacteria.” No Southern cook, cook’s helper or child of a cook reached first grade without knowing that. We wonder why government grows large. Simple. People have lost the ability to cope, to fend for themselves, even in their homes.
Count me among those pleading with the Georgia Tech Foundation to preserve the Crum and Forster building on Spring Street. It’s one of the prettiest buildings left in downtown/Midtown Atlanta.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad meets Barack Obama halfway. Speaking in Malaysia, Ahmadinejad said despite testing missiles that can reach Israel, “I assure you there won’t be any war in the future” against the U.S. or Israel. Besides, he coos, Iran’s no threat to Israel. “You should know this regime will be eventually destroyed and there is no need for any measure by Iranian people,” he responded when asked whether he has called for its destruction. Smart guy, Ahmadinejad. Knows that a President Obama would grasp at any ameliorative —- thus buying him time to develop nuclear weapons. Between Nov. 5 and Jan. 19, Israel may need to act.
Good grief. The Bush administration had an absolute right to edit the proposed testimony of CDC director Julie Gerberding before Congress concerning global warming. Experts disagree. Neither she, nor U.S. attorneys, fired or otherwise, are free agents authorized to make policy on their own. They serve at the will of the president. When I’m president, I decide whether my appointees put more emphasis on public corruption or on something else. And if one group of experts on a policy issue disagrees with another, I decide which prevails as policy. Don’t try to criminalize disagreement.
I don’t have a dog in this fight, but as a resident of Dunwoody, the threat by DeKalb commissioners to bring suit to block incorporation would prompt me to vote yes.
How in the world does 85-year-old U.S. District Judge Marvin Shoob get the fun cases —- like, for example, the suit filed by a gun rights group against the city of Atlanta? It’s just a hunch, but I’m guessing Atlanta wins. A hearing on GeorgiaCarry.org’s request for a temporary restraining order to block the city from arresting licensed gun carriers at the airport is set for next Friday. Shoob’s famously liberal.
Land around Centennial Olympic Park has an average value of $4.8 million per acre. A 1/3-acre lot sold in December for $6 million. So tell me: Why should taxpayers continue to subsidize development there —- as they do with tax allocation districts, an issue on the ballot Tuesday in Gwinnett County and on the ballot statewide in November as a proposed constitutional amendment? Redevelop blighted neighborhoods, yes. Beyond that, a corporate giveaway.
Michael Vick vs. the Pit Bulls. Dogs win.
Vote Tuesday. With photo ID. Can anybody not now know? Oh, I suppose. Some have no clue what causes AIDS, that cigarettes can cause cancer, or that the “underage female” on the Internet offering to meet for sex is a cop.
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