“Leave this world a little better than you found it,” advised the creator of the Scouting movement, Robert Baden-Powell. Critics might say, and are saying in so many words, that ex-President Barack Obama has failed on this score. He still is failing, too, and his recent campaigning for Kamala Harris is a case in point.
In fact, writes one observer, Obama this week had his “racism on full display.”
Commentator Andrea Widburg introduces the story today, writing:
In the lead-up to and during Barack Obama’s presidency, we were relentlessly told that Barack Obama was a racial healer and a man of unusual, almost James Bondian suave sophistication. Both were lies. Barack Obama has always been a race hustler and a crude, low-thinking person. Both traits appeared during campaign appearances he made yesterday on Kamala’s behalf, where he made a vulgar crack about Donald Trump and shamed young black men for voting for their interests rather than their skin color.
As for that alleged “sophistication,” I remember a man who told me many years ago he was voting for Obama. I want someone intelligent in the White House, he said. He later confessed it was a mistake. And the 2011 video I made here — which might’ve gone viral but for Big Tech censorship — perhaps explains his epiphany.
Uncanny Similarities
The comedic video illustrated how despite Obama’s billing as a “great speaker,” he’s nothing of the sort. (Truth: He does read well and has a nice, pleasantly deep, resonant voice. This gives the illusion he’s a gifted orator.) Without his teleprompter, he at best serves up broken sentences peppered with “uhs.” At worst, he damages himself politically (the 2008 “bitter” clingers line) or descends into relative inarticulateness.
Also heard in the video is how Obama pronounced the word “corpsman” as “corpse-man” — three times in one speech. The point is that he’s neither sophisticated nor educated; he is schooled, and there’s a difference. (“Never let your schooling interfere with your education,” the apocryphal saying goes.) Obama is and always was an invention of the media, an affirmative-action candidate, an empty vessel driven by power lust.
Likewise, Harris cannot speak coherently unless scripted. For example, her recent 60 Minutes interview was apparently edited to make her seem conversant with the issues. She was also accused of receiving answers from underlings in a recent Zoom briefing on Hurricane Milton. During it, she oddly whispered to her staff, “live broadcast.” But Harris’ tendency to issue word salads due to an inability to think on her feet is widely known. I illustrated this as well in a satiric video, found here.
Illusionists
The similarities don’t end there, however. This brings us to the comments Obama recently made while trying to manipulate black men into supporting Harris. Trib Live reported on the remarks, uttered while Obama was speaking at the Democratic headquarters in Pittsburgh Thursday. To wit:
“I’m going to go ahead and just say, speak some truths, if you don’t mind, because my understanding, based on reports I’m getting from campaigns and communities, is that we have not yet seen the same kinds of energy and turnout in all quarters of our neighborhoods and communities as we saw when I was running,” Obama said. “Now, I also want to say that that seems to be more pronounced with the brothers.
“So, if you don’t mind, I’m going to speak to y’all and say that when you have a choice, that is this clear … where, on the one hand, you have somebody who grew up like you, knows you, went to college with you, understands the struggles and pain and joy that comes from those experiences … and on the other side, you have someone who has consistently shown disregard, not just for the communities, but for you as a person,” Obama said, referring to Harris and her rival, former President Donald Trump.
As the above illustrates, Obama made his remarks while feigning a “hood” accent (his audience was all or mostly black). His portrayal of Harris was no more genuine, either. Someone who “grew up like you” and understands “struggles”?
Silk and Satin, Not Wash and Wear
In reality, Harris was a child of privilege, with a college-professor father and a biomedical-scientist mother whose exploits are touted. Both parents certainly would’ve commanded impressive incomes and been able to provide their daughter every opportunity to succeed. This is wonderful, too — but a rags-to-riches story it’s not. Obama was also a child of privilege, mind you, having attended Hawaii’s prestigious Punahou School (current tuition: $30,480 yearly) as a youth.
Another irony (and similarity) is that if we’re going to talk identity politics, Harris is “black” the way Obama is. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, is Indian, and Indians are technically Caucasian. Obama also had a Caucasian mother. Neither Obama nor Harris, it appears, ever lived in a black neighborhood. There is one difference, however:
Obama early on embraced a “black identity.”
Harris appears to have been more authentic about her heritage, at least in the past. Now she’s “black” by political demand.
Oh, one more similarity: Both Obama and Harris were influenced by communists. With Harris it was her father, Marxist professor Donald Harris; with Obama it was his communist mentor, Frank Marshall Davis.
Why the Obsession With Race?
As for Obama, he has always been a race-baiter, as the aforementioned Widburg illustrated well. (Also see my articles here and here.)
Of course, some may ask, as President Trump was while debating Harris, why we’re making an issue of her race. The answer: because she has.
Harris and Obama are playing the identity-politics game; we’re just clarifying the identities. Yeah, sure, we should talk less about race. But if we’re going to talk about it, or anything else, we should be accurate. This is why golfer Tiger Woods calls himself “Cablinasian,” a combination of Caucasian, black, American Indian, and Asian. Of course, though, he’s not running for office and running from Truth. And the truth is that what you are doesn’t make you a good or bad person — unless, that is, what you are is a phony.
For those interested, the satiric videos I made about Obama and Harris are below.
