Response to New York Times Columnist David Brooks Op-Ed ("T-N-T" 7/8/08)
Dear David:
I think you had some fairly plausible points about Barack Obama, and I wanted to add my two cents also. Blues singer B. B. King had a song entitled, "The Thrill is Gone," and this is the case with Obama. It's like the excitement while attending a Rock concert and watching a surreal, LARGER-THAN-LIFE performance, but when you leave the event, return home, discuss it with friends and family and you live in that 'moment;' but tomorrow you return back to your normal, mundane, everyday life. The illustrious junior Senator from Illini' has lost the ‘mojo,’ his campaign has stalled, and Senator Obama has been found to be shifting on some of the issues (like the leaning tower of Pisa), and outside of mentioning the War in Iraq, he hasn't offered any new, creative, and realistic plans dealing with the things most Americans are more concerned about at the moment, which is: jobs, mortgages, gas prices, retirement security, health care insurance, and a few others.
You briefly eluded to 'race' in your commentary, and although earlier in Obama's presidential candidacy, the broadcast news media mentioned 'race' too often, I don't think the American people, mostly the White majority, are as troubled about Senator Obama being Black, but rather that White people become incensed when they perceive a Black as "uppity." Of course, to be politically-correct, the media cannot use such a word because it carries obvious racial overtones but there is a correspondingly appropriate acceptable word called 'elitist.' African-Americans have a word that means essentially the same thing, which is called 'boussie' (bourgeois), and it is quite a surprise that so many have embraced him when in the not too far distant past, this is exactly what he would have been called.
As far as the polls showing the once double digit lead that Barack Obama had over John McCain (in some states) are roughly statistically even, it is not because of anything from the McCain campaign that has damaged Obama, but rather due to Obama himself. The overseas trip was a big political risk that didn't pay off, except negatively. To some of the electorate, Obama is like a political 'fix,' similar to a drug and when people don't continue to get their 'high' as it were, they suffer withdrawal pains; which in a manner of speaking, is exactly what's happening. Maybe Hillary Rodham-Clinton and John McCain are right in one regard, and that is, Obama is great at making speeches but is there any real substance [in the way of policy formulation] to all the beautifully eloquent rhetoric. Well, it seems that maybe the people are asking that very same question among themselves, and only time will tell to see what the final answer is.
Robert Randle
776 Commerce St. #B-11
Tacoma, WA 98402
August 7, 2008
pbks@hotmail.com
