Least Convincing Criticism of Obama's Speech Yet, or "If Only He Had The Courage of Chris Rock"

From the Corner's Amy Holmes (whoever she is); I'm shocked and disgusted that Obama threw his white grandmother under the bus!

Meanwhile, in an effort to lay blame everywhere, Obama called out his own grandmother for admitting to her, now, not so secret fear of young black male strangers. He said that when he was growing up her remarks sometimes made him cringe. Well, for my part, hearing him compare a woman who sacrificed for his well-being to a pastor who's only benefited from his association made me cringe. Real courage and real candor is Chris Rock standing on stage telling a packed black audience that seeing young black men on dark lonely night near the glow of an ATM can make him feel nervous, too.

Yeah, he should just try to follow in the footsteps of racial harmony giants like Chris Rock, and just come out and say "I hate niggas." Nothing less will satisfy these people.

Smears That Never Got Off The Ground, Derbyshire edition:

All At Sea    [John Derbyshire]

Young Paddy O'Bama tells us that his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, was a U.S. Marine. Wright's Wikipedia page, however, has him serving in the U.S. Navy.  Anybody know which is right?

03/16 05:25 PM

Jeremiah Wright's Service   [John Derbyshire]

The answer to my question is apparently both.

03/16 05:54 PM

Bonus Derbyshire: African people's names sound stupid, haw haw!

Comments

[Matt]

Why read the corner? I mean really, why do it? It's almost certain you'll not learn anything and if anything "important" is said there others are bound to link to it anyway. I'm seriously asking here since it seems you read it fairly regularly.

[ozma]

Hey, if you think that it's just them, go to Slate sometime. Or Salon.

[Timothy Burke]

Other languages are silly! I enjoy much merriment from the existence of people who do not speak English!

[belle waring]

matt, if you want to read a blog where the proprietors don't read and mock the corner, y'all better find another blog.

[Doctor Slack]

"Derbyshire" does sound hilarious, actually.

[Matt]

Thankfully there is something other than corner mocking here, and the mocking is both fun and deserved. I only wonder why _you_ bother to read it. Isn't it usually just annoying and not even worth mocking?

[Barry]

Matt, mocking those who deserve it is both a civic duty and a frequent source of merriment.

Half of our troubles in the USA stem from the fact that people who should be mercilessly mocked are treated as Very Serious People.

[The Modesto Kid]

Half of our troubles in the USA stem from the fact that people who should be mercilessly mocked are treated as Very Serious People.

This is (a) worth remembering and (b) very nicely put. Thanks, Barry!

[Yan]

I'm not so sure this is the case--as much as I enjoy merciless mockery!

I grow pessimistic when I see, for example, the favorite targets of a Stewart or Colbert continue on, none the worse for wear, even appearing on their shows, often to their benefit!

Mockery sometimes over-humanizes (by which I mean: attributing moderate humanity where there is little) people who, if we treated them as Very Serious People, we might be more likely to Very Seriously condemn.

I think it's no accident that the preeminently mockable have thrived and vanquished in our era of Very Little Seriousness.

[nick s]

Real courage and real candor is Chris Rock standing on stage telling a packed black audience that seeing young black men on dark lonely night near the glow of an ATM can make him feel nervous, too

Just as Obama wrote in his first book, back in the mid-90s.