Friday, July 23, 2010

Obama Speaks on Shirley Sherrod, Manages To Say...Nothing

Barack Obama illuminated us with his shining wit, depth, and insightfulness yesterday when he spoke publicly on the Department of Agriculture's hasty firing of one-time racist Shirley Sherrod:

“If there’s a lesson to be drawn from this episode, it’s that rather than us jumping to conclusions and pointing fingers at each other, we should all look inward and try to examine what’s in our own hearts and, as a consequence, I think we will continue to make progress,” he said.

Hmmm. What is the president actually saying here? Absolutely nothing. It's just a string of liberal catch-phrases that are meaningless both as a guide to future actions and an explanations of past ones. Unless, of course, you take Obama's chiding of "finger-pointing" to be directed at his own party, whose non-stop accusations of racism against any of their detractors caused this ill-fated blowback. But since Obama has been pointing his own crooked fingers of blame in every direction since his inauguration speech, and has shown no intention of stopping himself, one can highly doubt that he intended to send any warning at all through this curiously vapid statement.

Reminds me of Jon Corzine's response to the Newark Massacre, in which three aspiring college students were executed by illegal immigrant gang members in a local schoolyard:

"It is about a failure of us to be inclusive and holistically look to bring everyone into our society".

The way Obama blames us for his racially-charged administration ("we should all look inward"), Corzine blamed all New Jerseyans for refusing to "holistically" welcome illegal immigrant gangsters into our homes. Because it is never their fault, or the result of their policies. Oh no. Couldn't be. We're too smart.

Corzine did not get re-elected, and this incident - although not a major campaign issue - and the governor's bizarre response to it lingered in the minds of many voters, which for many became the moment when it was clear that Corzine simply "did not get it".

Obama's already reach that point with the voters. His intellectually empty statement here, refusing to take responsibility for creating the environment that caused the firing of Shirley Sherrod, is simply more proof that our president "does not get it" either...

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