A candidate unexamined.
Reader comment on item: Reflections on Obama's Inauguration
in response to reader comment: THE OBAMA PRESIDENCY

Submitted by Abu Nudnik (Canada), Jul 9, 2009 at 01:30

Under a microscope? On the eve of the election two prominent journalists wondered in awe that they knew nothing of his China policy. They said it like their ignorance and lack of curiosity was a kind of miracle.

A candidate went on radio and said the Constitution is fundamentally flawed because it only tells the government "... what it can't do to you.... It doesn't say what it must do for you." In other days such a man couldn't get within smelling distance of a nomination let alone the presidency. And this went virtually unreported. Unreported! Dr. Pipes is right: astonishing is the word.

How extraordinary he has been compared to JFK who said "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask rather what you can do for your country." The two men have diametrically opposite views of the role of government.

The press's lack of curiosity was really an exercise in vanity: having swallowed the [racist] delusion that electing a black man to the presidency was an historically significant act that made their lives significant and meaningful they allowed nothing to interfere with that great headline. Shameful, shallow and childish.

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