Obama Is A Mirror

[Solomon]

America finally has a mirror with which to look at itself, warts and all.

It's all coming out. All the anger and bitterness. People are being exposed. Somebody else said it real well. The lights came on and the fools didn't scamper.

[JoFerret]

1. Bow down and worship him

To paraphrase your comment: To disagree means you are racist and despicable and unworthy.
We have found our savior. Those who disagree are like roaches and vermin.

(I like Obama and will support him 100% if he is the nominee. But this kind of nonsense is very unsettling, divisive and undemocratic. It is possible not to be drawn to him, to disagree with him and not be a racist. Or at least any more racist than ALL of us are.)

[Eagle_Eye]

2. Okay, I took a look in the mirror, how is the image going to solve our problems?

Step one: Identify the problem
Step two: Propose workable solutions to the problem in step one

When is Obama going to take that second step?

[jobycom]

3. Especially in the sense that people see what they want in him, rather than seeing him.

He's a blank slate which people fill with whatever they want their perfect candidate to be, and the media helps them along by never mentioning anything specific about the man. He's about hope, change, desire. He's the Maltese Falcon, the stuff that dreams are made of.

Now that he is stumbling, some people have to blame someone else. He couldn't fail, it must be someone else's fault.

He and his preacher talked about his church being a problem if he ran, but he waited until it was a problem to address it anyway. Amateur. He lied all over the place to cover it up when it became an issue. Amateur. Now he's spinning like a politician, when he was supposed to be above that. And he's going on television and saying things like "I didn't expect this, this has shaken me." That's a very human revelation, but stunningly naive, and a sign of weakness, and people want neither in a president. Many of us here were warning that such attacks would come, and we were told that Obama expected them and could handle them. This is a minor jab compared to what he would face in the general election, and that would pale compared to what he'd face as president. Yet this little attack was unexpected by Obama? Amateur. He's not ready, as many of us feared.

He's not done, not even close. He's still got the delegate lead, he's still the likely nominee, and he's still a tremendous speaker and personality. He just needs to understand the problems, rather than complaining about them, and fix them. Bill Clinton got his teeth kicked in in 92 because he wasn't expecting it. He learned, he won. No one makes it to the presidency without getting bloodied. And bloody. Obama's been jabbed a few times. Unfairly, to be sure. In ways that reveal a disgusting side to America. The same can be said of Clinton, though. Sexism, slanders, lies. Obama benefited from other people's sexist attacks on Clinton. Now it's his turn to be bashed unfairly. If he's fit to be president, he'll battle through. If not, Clinton will.

If things were fair, Jesse Jackson would have followed Jimmy Carter's second term, and we'd now be talking about choosing a successor to Gore, and arguing over which liberal candidate was going to win the general. It might even be the same two candidates. But he's running for the leadership of the world, and things aren't going to be fair. He has to win in that world, not the one we all wish we lived in.

My response to the OP is that yes, this latest crap reveals the disgusting, racist side of America. But it was there all along, and most of us didn't need this latest crap to know it. It was naive to not expect this, and much, much worse. Reagan won by being blatantly racist, by praising the murders of civil rights activists and preaching against "welfare queens." And he's thought of as a nice guy. It's going to get uglier. We thought Obama knew that. I'm stunned that he didn't.