Maureen Dowd, repeating the conventional wisdom from September, frets that "Mr. Obama’s egghead manner has failed to soothe a nation with the jits. Maybe he has been so intent on avoiding the stereotype of the Angry Black Man, as he wrote in his memoir, that it’s hard for him to connect with and articulate public anger about our diminishment." I didn't realize that the Beltway extended up to the Upper East Side, but last time I checked Obama's approval ratings weren't hurting because of his inability to imitate President Camacho. She also doesn't want to hear any of that race talk anymore, after all, wasn't the deal that white people would vote for Obama, and they'd never have to think about race ever again?
Yet Obama is oozing empathy compared with his attorney general, who last week called us “a nation of cowards” about race.
Eric Holder, who showed precious little bravery in standing up to Clinton on a pardon for the scoundrel Marc Rich, is wrong. We have just inaugurated a black president who installed a black attorney general.
We need leaders to help us through our crises, not provide us with crude evaluations of our character. And we don't need sermons from liberal virtuecrats, anymore than from conservative virtuecrats.
Dowd spent the late 90s wringing her hands, declaring that Bill Clinton had "killed something worthy and important in public life," while basking in every salacious detail of the Lewinsky scandal. The late 90s were good for Dowd, they were a political moment of unrivalled triviality and meaninglessness in politics, two qualities that can be endlessly found in her work. Today, she decries "virtuecrats," ten years ago, she was a professional virtuecrat. She's no "coward" on race, she just wants the brothers in the White House and the Justice Department to stop being mean mugging eggheads, maybe drop some archaic black idioms for use in her column. How can Dowd be expected to take the stimulus package seriously if it's not "off the hook"?
During the election, people like Dowd mocked Obama supporters for their sky-high expectations, but it's February and the only people wondering why Obama hasn't solved the economic crisis, brought peace to the Middle East, and absolved white people from ever having to deal with race again are people like Dowd. In the meantime, she'll provide her crude evaluations of people's character, most likely in the form of childish names like "Obambi," and we'll all be dumber for it.
-- A. Serwer
