Jan

And They Wonder Who Killed Vaudeville

Harry “Cassandra” Reid made a statement about the future. He said Barack Obama could be elected president because he was a light-skinned black man who didn’t speak “the Negro dialect.”

Turned out he was right, wasn’t he. And for the crime of blunt prescience he has brought oppobrium upon himself, has had to apologize to Barack Obama and has had Obama graciously extend the hand of forgiveness and raise up his offending minion to stand at the foot of his throne and declare he was a great public servant.

Good grief! All we are missing here is a girl, a rope, a train track, and a guy with a black top-hat and a mustache.

And as proof that Reid was right on, think about the two adjectives which almost always accompanied the word Obama whenever it was broadcast or printed. Think real hard. OK.

attractive
eloquent

In other words, how he looks and how he speaks. But you had better watch out in this game of political Mother-May-I. Geraldine Ferraro was banished from the Hillary campaign for speaking truth about Obama, which was that he was where he was because he was black. Bye, Gerry.

Charles Krauthammer said basically the same thing right on Fox News, that he was thrilled that he might have the opportunity to vote for a black person for president. Notice he didn’t say a radical half-term senator. But Krauthammer isn’t a Democrat politician. Shelby Steele said basically the same thing Harry Reid did, that Obama could get elected because he was black but he offered white people a bargain. He wouldn’t bring up slavery or Jim Crow and they would vote for him and feel ennobled by it. Steele is not a politician either so he didn’t have to apologize.

All Bill Clinton said was that Jesse Jackson had won the North Carolina primary just like Obama had but didn’t get the nomination. Which was true. And they banished him to Dubai after the necessary notional tar-and-feathering where he was forced to give quarter-million dollar speeches.

Funny thing about Harry’s remarks. I guess you just caint say one dang thing about Obama. Wid or widtout dialect. Because when Harry insulted just about everybody who visits the Capitol nobody said a thing about it. Of course, they were just the American people, who are getting used to being treated like second-class citizens by their public servants. But it was hard getting called smelly by a guy who used to spend his days in a gym.

So if you miss vaudeville, or the English music halls, there is always the agile minuet being danced by our fearless leaders and their relentless scrutinizers in the media which will go on so long as everyone, at the drop of proverbial hat (or glove, or feather, or molecule) is prepared to be shocked. Shocked!