Shelby 'Why Obama Can't Win' Steele can't catch a break

[Enrique]

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=03&year=2010&base_name=shelby_steele_cant_get_a_break

Shelby Steele Can't Get A Break.

Guys, it's really hard to be Shelby Steele. First you write a book about how Barack Obama can't win the 2008 election because he's constrained by the traditional roles of black people in American politics. After he wins you're stuck writing harried op-eds about how he only won because white people felt really guilty and wanted to vote for a black guy, a thesis belied by the available demographic information. Conversely, you praise then-candidate for RNC Chair Michael Steele as someone with "integrity" who "really stands for something," which was already embarrassing enough at the time.

Then, when the political winds seem to be blowing misfortune Obama's way, you eagerly rub your hands together and write about how Obama is ineffectual as a president because he never had the chops to get the job done after all, because he was only elected because he's black. Then, of course, Obama pushes historic health-care legislation through Congress that puts him on the same playing field as the most prominent Democratic presidents in American history.

So now that Obama has repeatedly proved his public assessments about race wrong, Steele writes about how these accomplishments were only achieved because Obama, as a black man, needs to prove that he's just as good as all the other white presidents:

Mr. Obama's success has always been ephemeral because it was based on an illusion: that if we Americans could transcend race enough to elect a black president, we could transcend all manner of human banalities and be on our way to human perfectibility. A black president would put us in a higher human territory. And yet the poor man we elected to play out this fantasy is now torturing us with his need to reflect our grandiosity back to us.

A president with an inflated sense of ego and concern over his ultimate historical legacy? How black of him.

Being proved wrong by actual events over and over has got to be maddening. Steele keeps reassuring his conservative audience that this fop Obama is a pushover whose only advantage is being black. And those who believe him do so because they want to be reassured that Obama isn't exceptional. And because Steele himself is black, his followers assume he must know about these things. Then they lose, and they scratch their heads and start muttering angrily about teleprompters. Steele's work helps conservatives cling to myths about liberal black folks being the products of white charity, and they don't contradict him because they don't actually know enough black people to know better.

(...)

[Ikonoklast]

1. Wait just one doggone minute.

President Obama is Black??

[EFerrari]

2. Not again!

lol

[Ikonoklast]

4. Stuff like that happens when you don't pay attention.

Next thing you know, some jerk will say that the SoS is a female!

[skypilot]

3. "...be on our way to human perfectibility."

"...torturing us with his need to reflect our grandiosity back to us."


What the fuck is he talking about? This guy makes even less sense than David Brooks. I knew Steele was an asshole but I never knew he was this bad.

[rocktivity]

5. Does SHELBY Steele hold MICHAEL Steele to these same criteria? Let's find out

Which rings truer?

(Shelby) Steele keeps reassuring his conservative audience that this fop Obama is a pushover whose only advantage is being black. And those who believe him do so because they want to be reassured that Obama isn't exceptional. And because Steele himself is black, his followers assume he must know about these things. Then they lose, and they scratch their heads and start muttering angrily about teleprompters. Steele's work helps conservatives cling to myths about liberal black folks being the products of white charity, and they don't contradict him because they don't actually know enough black people to know better.

Shelby Steele keeps reassuring his conservative audience that this fop MICHAEL STEELE is a pushover whose only advantage is being black. And those who believe him do so because they want to be reassured that MICHAEL STEELE isn't exceptional. And because Shelby Steele himself is black, his followers assume he must know about these things. Then they lose, and they scratch their heads and start muttering angrily about teleprompters. Shelby Steele's work helps conservatives cling to myths about CONSERVATIVE black folks being the products of THEIR OWN EFFORTS, and they don't contradict him because they don't actually know enough black people to know better.

Bonus: the DU thread on Shelby's book A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama -- and Why He Can't Win

:headbang:
rocktivity

[lysosome]

6. Screw it. I want to be a republican. I can be wrong all I like and still get asked my opinion...

Look at Bill Kristol.

[DCKit]

7. Yeah Shelby, that's EXACTLY how it happened - White Guilt.

OMD(og), the pretzel lil Shelby'd be in if we'd elected Hillary. Total freakshow.