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Exactly Wright for Obama
Here is a radical notion: this is exactly what Barack Obama needed. Clearly, he needed to stiff-arm Rev. Jeremiah Wright, but more than that he needed to show some outrage and maybe even a little bit of rage. He needed to show that he is capable of action when action is what is called for.…
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The Appeasement Game
Barack Obama is, for the moment, winning the silly appeasement debate raging in American politics, but the fact that the fight is occurring at all highlights a set of vulnerabilities that Obama must address quickly if he is to win in November. Because he is still distracted by a prolonged primary battle with Hillary Clinton,…
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Obama Closes the Deal, Finally
Barack Obama has clinched the Democratic nomination for president, and historic does not even begin to capture the sweep of the achievement. “America, this is our moment. This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past,” Obama told a roaring crowd of 17,000 in St. Paul, Minn. “Our…
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Senate Apologizes for Slavery
At two minutes before noon on Thursday, June 18, 2009, 146 years after Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation and 150 days after a black man took the presidential oath of office, the United States Senate, in a unanimous voice vote, apologized to African Americans for slavery and the racial discrimination during the Jim Crow era. It’s…
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The Senator from Scranton
One of the most remarkable things about Barack Obama’s choice of Joe Biden as his vice presidential nominee—apart from the fact that he managed to keep it secret—is that in this remarkably contentious election season, it did not seem to anger anyone. That is a remarkable feat for a party so desperate to win and…
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Boston to Denver, Nonstop
It is hard to separate out all the different levels of astonishment and euphoria attached to Barack Obama’s acceptance speech tonight. For many people, Obama’s triumph thus far so fundamentally shatters the worldview of what is possible in America that there are no words up to the task of describing what they feel. For black…
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Slaughter the Pig
So we wake up this morning to a Web ad from the McCain-Palin campaign accusing Barack Obama of sexism. It is a swift and superb effort and, from what we know about these things and the political climate in which we live, likely to be effective. It is a quick and dirty piece of television…
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Debate Prep
The first presidential debate scheduled for the University of Mississippi tonight is being held hostage be John McCain’s deep concern for the economy, but plans remain in place for the showdown, which would give Americans the first opportunity for a side-by-side comparison of the two White House hopefuls. A clear win by either side will change…
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Debate Results: McCain Down, White Women Up
The Sarah Palin Effect is over. Palin and McCain joined forces last week to make sure that no one took them very seriously, and they did every thing they could to help Obama open up a small but increasingly solid lead on McCain. With the Palin bump neutralized, Obama’s still nagging concern are those Hillary voters…
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Expectations Game…Wink Wink
She winked. He smiled. They each played to their strengths and side-stepped their weaknesses. Neither one lost. But the question of who won last night’s one and only vice-presidential debate, is an entirely more complicated question that rests on the more intangible and variable measure called expectations. The extent to which the candidate could meet…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
