The Independent: The Great Black Hope (Obama)

[Greeby]

A gaffe, they say in politics, is when someone inadvertently blurts out the truth. Thus it was when Joe Biden, the incorrigibly loquacious senator from Delaware, held forth the other day about Barack Obama, his fellow aspirant for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. "Look," he declared, "you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."

The remark was of course profoundly politically incorrect, and profuse apologies were instantly on their way to Jesse Jackson, Alan Keyes, and Al Sharpton, all blacks who have run for the White House in recent years, and all of presumably impeccable personal hygiene and boasting impressive rhetorical skills.

But deep down, Mr Biden was spot on. Mr Obama, the 45-year-old junior senator from Illinois, is different. He is the first African-American candidate with a realistic chance of winning. And the reason, as Mr Biden so clumsily made clear, is that to the white majority of the country he hardly seems black at all.

This morning, at an open air rally in wintry Springfield, the capital of Illinois where he spent eight years as a state senator, Mr Obama formally launches his campaign. The site of the announcement is laden with symbolism. This first major black candidate of the 21st century will throw his hat into the presidential ring at the old State Capitol building, in which an earlier Illinois legislator named Abraham Lincoln cut his political teeth before himself moving on to the White House, where he issued in January 1863 the Proclamation of Emancipation freeing black slaves. This will be a patented "Only in America" moment, a testament to the country's astonishing mobility, its endless flux, and its capacity to reinvent itself.-snip

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2255654.ece

[Kagemusha]

1. Wow, I can't believe I'm reading The Independent claim that...

...Obama is black.

(Really, the way some people talk about this guy, it sounds like a controversial statement.)

[orpupilofnature57]

2. Obama is not Al Gore ,but he is an honorable man I could vote for

even if he turns purple tonight.