The latest “Vanishing into Thin Air” series, which began with the Oct. 24 opinion piece on contemporary art: it’s Barack H. Obama’s turn.
The man who had been introduced — almost unanimously — as the new Messiah, made sacred by the color of his skin, turns out to be a pretty mediocre president of the United States. Indeed, last Wednesday morning the midterm elections confirmed the Democratic Party’s defeat in Congress. It is losing its Senate majority in favor of the Republicans, who have already controlled the House of Representatives since 2010. The American economic recovery, due to a monetary policy that brought unemployment down to 5.9 percent and boosted growth to 3.5 percent, was of no help whatsoever in the face of the accumulated disillusionment aroused by Obama’s distant personality and indecisive nature. In addition to domestic policy issues — the National Security Agency, illegal immigration, health system, etc. — on a more general level, voters are blaming him for having weakened the United States in the eyes of the world. They are pointing out, to those who had forgotten the Jimmy Carter episode, that good policy isn’t made of good intentions. Obama’s failure is also that of the “politically correct,” of which he is the dog-eared symbol.
Remember the hysteri of the French “Obamaniacs.” In 2008, they suspected anyone of racism who criticized the disquieting reference to the Democratic candidate’s skin color: Black was seen as being a sufficient demonstration of his abilities and virtues. “America is black,” French newspaper Le Monde rejoiced, while the media swore only by “mixed heritage” in a racialist fascination with the perfect man. Yet, as Bernard Tapie said this morning on the French radio station RTL on the subject of the racism trial involving Willy Sagnol, manager of the Bordeaux football club, following his tactless language toward African players: “We must have the right to say that a black man is an idiot when he’s an idiot. The same goes for a white man.” Obama indeed has a brilliant mind. Nonetheless, he did not deserve to be praised to high heaven, as he was, on the pretext that he was mixed-race, and that he was also of Muslim descent, as shown by his middle name, Hussein, all the more so because his way of reaching out to Muslim brothers and “moderate Islam” revealed his naivety, which followers of the caliphate, who are on the increase today, spotted. Anti-racist ideology remains, with its unsettling preference for blacks and those of mixed race.
I am citizen of the United States ,but my uncle Nicholas Ruggieri was assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Rome in the early years of the Kennedy era. His job : professional anti-communist diplomat. But his working class roots were on Italo- American Federal Hill in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. I wonder if Uncle Nick forgot that in his pursuit of Success & the American Dream ?
Like President Obama, I am proud of MY ethnic heritage. But I have been careful not to betray it. Sad to say, most black people are still poor and oppressed in America. Obama lets them down with his neo-Democrat liberalism. Obama makes Franklin D. Roosevelt seem like a flaming Bolshevik. Unlike FDR, Obama has no real problem with our ONE PERCENT. Obama is a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. He lets the poor people of Iraq down by a new imperialist intervention.
I concluded long ago that” political correctness ” was a diversion from the major injustice of unacceptable economic inequality.
Perhaps we need here in America the equivalent of ancient Rome’s Julius Caesar. The old Roman ruling class could not forgive THAT MAN either. But let us hope for peaceful and civilized social change.