Sunday, August 3, 2008

Maureen Dowd's romantic Obama

As if Barack Obama were not already "celebrity" enough, now Maureen Dowd of the New York Times compares him to Fitzwilliam Darcy, the romantic protagonist of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

Pride and Prejudice. Get it? Groan:
In this political version of "Pride and Prejudice," the prejudice is racial, with only 31 percent of white voters telling The New York Times in a survey that they had a favorable opinion of Obama, compared with 83 percent of blacks.
As if this were prima facie proof of white "prejudice" against Obama, you see? Only because of his race do white voters hold him in low esteem, Miss Dowd suggests, as if there were no other reason to doubt the presidential aptitude of a man who, until 2005, had never exercised any public office beyond the Illinois state legislature.

A presidential election is not a romance novel, nor should it be a personal popularity contest. Now, like many other liberals, Miss Dowd wants to turn the election into a referendum on race, so that Obama's election would be the triumph of MLK's "dream," while Obama's defeat would symbolically ratify what liberals have always believed: Americans are a bunch of dimwitted reactionary bigots.

What Miss Dowd and other liberals should ask themselves is whether the much-noted "resistance" to Obama -- his inability to break open a major lead in the polls, no matter how many tongue-baths he receives from fawning enthusiasts in the media -- might actually be voters' reluctance to playing along with this game.

Ordinary Americans are smart enough to perceive that the elites are demanding that they vote for Obama to prove they're not racists. But the voters don't feel they have to prove any such thing, and they resent like hell the suggestion that they do have to prove it.

UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit readers, and thanks for the link, Professor.

UPDATE II: Also linked by Burke to Kirk, who is happy to discover "a simple solution to my complex problem," and by Rick, who declares: "I Am An Ordinary American." Say it loud, say it proud!

UPDATE IV: "Eggheads for Obama"! Also, law professor Ann Althouse asks why MoDo sees "the black man's pursuit of political office as a sexual exploit?" Let's face it, Professor Althouse, MoDo sees everything as a sexual exploit.

UPDATE V: When Fausta Wertz looks at Obama, she doesn't see Mr. Darcy, she sees . . . Urkel.

UPDATE VI: I've been Farked.

18 comments:

  1. One more thing: it will soon be required of all bloggers (and others) that they state that they are NOT racists, should they be opposed to an Obama victory.

    And, of course, they will be required to prove the negative.

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  2. There is an incredible amount of racism in the statistic that 83% of black people have a favorable opinion of Barack Obama.

    It is clear that this percentage can only be the result of people favoring Obama because his father was African.

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  3. And isn't being FOR Obama because of his race racism?

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  4. Consider Colin Powell or Condi Rice. Either of them would make a better candidate, based on their experience on the national and international stages, lack of which is a big problem for Obama

    Retread

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  5. I suppose it hasn't occurred to Maureen "Who do I have to scr** in this room to get a date?" Dowd that if Obama gets elected...and then screws the proverbial pooch (an entirely possible--even likely--scenario)...he'll strongly reinforce the view among many Americans that affirmative-action kids are just a bunch of incompetents, promoted to positions above their levels of intelligence, wisdom, and capability.

    Obama could well be the guy who "ends affirmative action as we know it"...but not in the way MoDo is expecting.

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  6. Keep Em Poor! Keep Em Dumb! Keep Em Democrat!

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  7. The amount of blathering hysteria about how (a) Obama is perfect and (b) everyone not voting for him is racist is just stunning. Even some very smart, level-headed people I know are falling for this. I expect it only to get worse between now and November, but I hope that as the media continue to push by calling ordinary Americans "racist", those ordinary Americans will push back on election day.

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  8. I suppose when an entire block of people vote for a man because of his color, we're to assume that is NOT racist?

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  9. I think Barack Obama would make a fine Darcy and I made the photoshop to prove it.

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  10. You're kidding, right?

    I mean, this was also in the Dowd article:

    Like the leading man of Jane Austen and Bridget Jones, Obama can, as Austen wrote, draw “the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien. ...he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be proud, to be above his company, and above being pleased.”

    The master of Pemberley “had yet to learn to be laught at,” and this sometimes caused “a deeper shade of hauteur” to “overspread his features.”

    The New Hampshire debate incident in which Obama condescendingly said, “You’re likable enough, Hillary,” was reminiscent of that early scene in “Pride and Prejudice” when Darcy coldly refuses to dance with Elizabeth Bennet, noting, “She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me.”

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  11. So now you will get a choice of stickers after you leave the voting booth, choose one:

    "I Voted"

    or

    "I Voted Racist"

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  12. Will somebody please fix Apple pan dowdy up with some aging hippie and let her get rid of her school girl crushes on anything that walks and talks libspeak? She is insanely jealous of Laura Bush because Laura actually has a man who adores her and is not a preening wuss.

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  13. So, only 31% of white people like Barack, SOOO it MUST be incipient racism. but what if the 83% of black Americans was the more telling number? Maybe it's the "rotective "racialism" - last seen in the O.J. Simpson verdict. I know, it was 13 years ago, but it was almost universal - Whites thought he was guilty and blacks thought him innocent - even though he had little in common with them except his skin color. It was also almost a universal truth that whites looked at the evidence and came to their conclusion but blacks merely saw a black man being railroaded by the system - facts were irrelevant to the everyday truth of institutional, everyday racism by the police, and they wished at least one of them would win, at all costs, against the system.

    This "reverse" racism is what's powering Barack's popularity with the black community. That community wants to see a man "of color" win, no matter his political persuasion. I submit that they are the ones who see no deeper than his skin color, not white America.

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  14. 31% approval among whites?

    Kerry got 40% of the white vote and go blown out...

    note to pollsters:
    check you cross tabs on your polls---

    here's you recipe for the election of 2008...

    46% male/54% female.
    (35% white males, 41% white females, 10% non-white males, 12% non-white females...)

    Did anyone every consider that the Bradley effect could come into play among pollsters, as well as the general population?

    this is going to be a landslide

    add in 31% approval

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  15. Dear Mr. McCain: Thanks for taking the bullet and reading MoDo, so I don't have to.

    P.S. Did Tom Friedman say anything coherent this morning?

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  16. Mo MoDo, that photo is just plain scary!! I never liked Darcy anyway, but now ....

    As for calling us racist voters, when libs start applying the word to all motives other than their own, it ceases to have meaning. Maybe we all need to embrace the word and purify it, as they say homosexuals have with "gay" and "queer", blacks have with the "n" word, and feminists have with the "b" word.

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  17. Weathergirl,

    It's all about colorblind casting. Why can't Darcy be a tall, handsome Kenyan goatherder's grandson?

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