OK, So Who's the White Barack Obama?

Human Events, Mar 31, 2008 by Rice, Ned

Countless Americans were horrified recently when Geraldine Ferraro said of Barack Obama, "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position." Among the horrified were untold thousands of English teachers who noted that, since the verb was in the subjunctive mood, Ferraro should have said, "If Obama were a white man." Since then, it has also been suggested that Ferraro's remark wasn't merely ungrammatical, it was racist. Ferraro's statement gave rise to MSNBC's Keith Olbermann's first-ever "Special Comment" to be directed at a Democrat. During his 10-minute tirade, Olbermann condemned Ferraro as a racist for making the al least defensible suggestion that Obama's rather sudden, Elvis-like wave of popularity might have some racial component.

I'll leave to others the question of whether or not a lifelong, card-carrying liberal Democratic icon like Geraldine Ferraro is a racist. But if we can at least agree that racist statements are also false statements, perhaps a better question would be: Was her statement-that Obama would not be within striking distance of the Democratic nomination for President of the United States if he were white -true or false?

Such hypothetical questions can never be answered definitively, but a good follow-up question here might be: Has a white male with a résumé like Obama's ever gotten this close to being nominated for President by a major party?

As someone who has clearly (and adorably!) dabbled in U.S. history, Keith Olbermann made a show of addressing this, suggesting that Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Calvin CooUdge, Richard Nixon and even FDR were all as under-qualified as Barack Obama appears to be today. Really, Keith? Well, that should be easy to check:

* Before being nominated for President, Theodore Roosevelt was a celebrated war hero, assistant secretary of the Navy, the governor of New York and the Vice President of the United States.

* Before his nomination, Calvin Coolidge served two terms in both the U.S. House and Senate, was the lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, the governor of Massachusetts, settled the 1919 police strike in Boston, was a city mayor and became the first Vice President of the United States to attend Cabinet meetings.

* Before he was nominated, Franklin D. Roosevelt passed the bar without finishing law school, was a state senator in New York who took on Tammany Hall, was assistant secretary of the Navy and was the governor of New York.

* Before his nomination, Woodrow Wilson was a noted scholar and author on governmental issues, the president of Princeton University and the governor of New Jersey.

* Before his first nomination, in 1960 Richard Nixon was a naval officer who served in the Pacific during World War II, was a two-term Vice President, a twoterm U.S. representative, was on the House Committee on Un-American Activities (where he helped expose Alger Hiss) and served two years in the U.S. Senate.

Now let's consider Barack Obama's accomplishments: Born in Hawaii, "Barry" Obama was first exposed to the nuances of international relations, by his own account, while living in Indonesia between the ages of six and 10. After high school, he earned a degree from Columbia University in political science with a specialization in international relations -a detail he seriously cites as one of his qualifications to conduct foreign policy as President. After college, Obama moved to Chicago and worked as a community organizer. Then, in 1988, he enrolled in Harvard Law School.

OK, now we're getting somewhere. You have to be pretty special to get into Harvard Law, right? Other notable Harvard Law School grads include Alberto Gonzalez, Janet Reno, Michael Dukakis, Ralph Nader and Comedy Central's Greg Giraldo. But, some of you are thinking, "He wasn't just a Harvard law student, Barack Obama was also a member of the university's law review, one of the most prestigious in America." Past members of the Harvard Law Review include Susan Estrich, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer, Dean Acheson, Alger Hiss and, more recently, former New York Gov. Elliot Spitzer. Now, that's what I call presidential timber.

But wait, there's more. Barack Obama (I think he was going by Barack at this point) wasn't just a member of the law reviewin 1989 he made history by being elected the very first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review] That's right, 1989-by sheer coincidence, the same year the Harvard campus was ablaze with student protests demanding more diversity, including sit-ins at the law library and outside the dean's office where angry students frantically waved "Diversity Now!" and "Homogeneity Feeds Hatred!" signs. Yes, 1989-the year black professor Derek Bell resigned in protest over Harvard's lack of diversity. And yet, with all that going on, Barack Obama still managed to get himself elected president of the Harvard Law Review. Wow, you talk about your amazing coincidences. I think the word here is "serendipity."

After law school, Obama returned to Chicago to practice law before being elected to the ,Illinois state senate in 1996. There he sponsored important laws like the one requiring policemen to record the race of every driver they stopped. Then, in 2004, Obama, virtually unknown outside of Chicago, was selected to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. This distinct honor, of course, had nothing to do with his race. No, the Democrats had obviously just selected a random, anonymous figure (who just happened to be bi-racial) to deliver the most important speech of a convention they hoped would be the beginning of the end of President George W. Bush. And let's be fair: Obama's speech went very well, especially that line about people in the Red States having gay friends-who knew?