Brother Submariner makes a statement so correct that it does not have to be bold, so poignant it does not have to be pretty, so true it does not have to be real.Submariner said...
Denmark,As you are a friend, and I lack the requisite skill and ardor, I won't attempt to dismember you but will raise some points for consideration.
First, I'm sorry that you couldn't share in last night's exultation. Being a Knicks fan I'm well accustomed to being denied the pervasiveness of joy. Following a tradition ranging from Jack Johnson to Muhammad Ali to the rappers that I witnessed on the street corners of Jamaica, Queens I engaged in a bit of lighthearted banter at the expense of an honorable competitor.
However, on a more serious note I pity you the way you pity persons who would overlook the superlative skill of Kobe Bryant's athleticism or the sublimity of Lil Wayne's unorthodox verbiage. Barack Obama is the kind of politician that you and I won't see again until we're old men wearing Depends and bound to wheelchairs.
What you advocate for are definitely worthy goals. But like any serious achievement it won't be delivered by fiat or decree but will have to earned through hard work and swimming against serious current. Among the blogosphere, you are peerless in your ability to make what James Agee called "an independent inquiry into certain normal predicaments of human divinity." You copiously acknowledge and defend the stature of a segment of humanity that is all too readily dismissed. Most critics, and Bill Cosby is quite conspicuous, peer into black culture and see obscenity and terror. But you and I are able to discern the snicker behind the sneer and the tenacious dignity veiled by brio.
According to Richard Neustadt, a President's greatest sources of power are his prestige among the nation and his personal reputation among Washington elites. The legal authority detailed in Article 1 of the Constitution are but a fraction. A President's increased use of such rigid legal mechanisms paradoxically diminishes his compulsory power. And power is not an infinite commodity nor is it suitable to all circumstances. Today in Iraq we are taking a refresher course on the limits of power that General Giap taught the French and Americans a couple of generations ago. Nothing is more self-defeating than the misapplication of power.
The dangers facing human existence have been assiduously chronicled by Craig Nulan. But by inserting Colin Powell in the equation even Craig has revealed the boundary of his near omnicompetence and the great expanse that must be covered by Obama. Nearly a decade ago Powell was solicited like a Ulysses Grant or Dwight Eisenhower to become President of the United States. He declined. Today Barack has defied convention and with a combination of smarts, charm, relentless personal ambition, courage and a wellspring of good intentions he has contended for the Presidency. He is immensely greater than General Powell who betrayed his gravitas to serve and contrive for a dauphin or lilliputian like George W. Bush. America is in desperate need of a makeover. Even thoughtful conservatives like William Niskanen, chairman of the Cato institute, agree that the Bush legacy is a dangerous one. What better way to start with than a tan? Besides, do Xyb0rg and Nulan really believe that Powell could add more to the Pharaonic splendor or majesty of a Barack and Michelle Obama in the White House?
2 comments:
In the superficial political theatre where most folks sensibilities are narrowly channelled - Powell is a military and foreign policy trump card par excellance. As a partisan aisle spanner, who better than Powell? I know how very well versed you are in world affairs and elite politics. I'm wondering, however, if you'd peered past the Straussian veneer and into the bowels of the Marshallite architecture that has redefined the military industrial complex? I don't care how gifted a politician (salesman) Barack Obama turns out to be - there's no way in hell that he can master and deconstruct what has already attained phenomenal momentum and institutional hegemony without the assiduous guidance of a deep subject matter expert with sweeping connections into the architecture in question.
Not only, the placement of the beloved Gen. Powell as the fallback - massively reduces Obama's personal mortality risk profile in office.
However, on a more serious note I pity you the way you pity persons who would overlook the superlative skill of Kobe Bryant's athleticism or the sublimity of Lil Wayne's unorthodox verbiage. Barack Obama is the kind of politician that you and I won't see again until we're old men wearing Depends and bound to wheelchairs.
You brothers slay me with your endless celebrations of ephemera..,
At the end of the day, while these signify transitory gratification by jes grew - they add nothing whatsoever to the down, dirty, and indispensable hard work of institutionally operationalizing an enduring jes grew unrevolution....,
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