by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
NRO’s\u00a0The Corner<\/em><\/p>\n The postmortem of the Sherrod affair will prove it to have been a net negative for the Obama administration \u2014 and not just because of its herky-jerky reaction to various reported and then re-reported statements. No, the real problem is the aftermath: Sherrod amplified her remarks, her husband\u2019s views were aired, and the net result was yet another incident in a long, tired narrative, one the American people did not have to endure when other prominent African Americans (Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice) held some of the nation\u2019s top offices.<\/em><\/p>\n The Obama administration\u2019s race absorption apparently has a shelf life of about three years. Consider the list: Reverend Wright, \u201ctypical white person,\u201d the Pennsylvania clingers, Michelle\u2019s campaign editorializing about the U.S., \u201ccowards,\u201d the Professor Gates mess, \u201cwise Latina,\u201d the president\u2019s race-based DNC video, the suing of Arizona, the comments made before the law was read, the sudden characterization of al Qaeda as racist, the disturbing stories coming out of the Justice Department that some decisions are now race-based \u2014 and on and on. Each outburst in isolation is a sort of Macaca moment, a brief news item; in their totality, they have now more or less cemented in the minds of most Americans that Obama and his appointees see race as a sort of wedge issue by which to further an agenda.<\/em><\/p>\n But it is no longer 1965, and we no longer have a white\/black binary and a recent legacy of Jim Crow. What we have instead is a multiracial populace in which millions are intermarried, and in which millions of Asians, Hispanics, Punjabis, and Arabs of diverse class and ethnic allegiances don\u2019t quite fit the \u201cpeople of color\u201d vs. white paradigm of oppression, victimization, and compensation.<\/em><\/p>\n In that context, the details of the ongoing Sherrod affair filtered down to the public as yet more racial boredom. Like the Skip Gates mess, the initial moment led to endless psychodrama, tit-for-tat apologies and rationalizations, more supposed \u201cteachable moments,\u201d and more public anger at the administration for either promoting all this or failing to stop what it ignited. The public does not easily express its feelings, but this growing frustration certainly explains in part the president\u2019s negative polls, now at 50 percent. They will go still lower if the administration follows the advice of some on the left and continues to deal in off-putting racial identity politics.<\/p>\n \u00a92010 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson NRO’s\u00a0The Corner The postmortem of the Sherrod affair will prove it to have been a net negative for the Obama administration \u2014 and not just because of its herky-jerky reaction to various reported and then re-reported statements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[565],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-mm","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1474,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-real-problem\/","url_meta":{"origin":1386,"position":0},"title":"Obama’s Real Problem","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 31, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Why the president's poll numbers have declined. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online According to a popular myth, President Obama\u2019s declining poll numbers are a consequence of his failure to be liberal enough. On race, in the wake of the Shirley Sherrod mess, we are told he needs to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "July 2010"","block_context":{"text":"July 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/july-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1893,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/conservative-felonies-liberal-misdemeanors\/","url_meta":{"origin":1386,"position":1},"title":"Conservative Felonies, Liberal Misdemeanors","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 18, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Why in matters of stupid behavior do liberals and Democrats often get second and third chances from the media and general public not accorded to their conservative and Republican counterparts? We're seeing it now in the national reaction to Senate Majority Leader Harry\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "January 2010"","block_context":{"text":"January 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/january-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5377,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/our-ailing-meritocracy\/","url_meta":{"origin":1386,"position":2},"title":"Our Ailing Meritocracy","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 15, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Merit takes second place to gender and religion by Raymond Ibrahim Private Papers When all the political sophistry is said and done, there is no denying that the claim to fame of the Democratic Party\u2019s two superstar candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, is that the one is a woman,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Raymond Ibrahim"","block_context":{"text":"Raymond Ibrahim","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/raymond-ibrahim\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":164,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/race-matters-actually\/","url_meta":{"origin":1386,"position":3},"title":"Race Matters, Actually","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 16, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Lots of public officials and Washington, DC, insiders do not want UN Ambassador Susan Rice to be nominated as secretary of state. Most of these critics think she irrevocably lost credibility by going on five Sunday-morning television shows on September 16 to deny\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Women"","block_context":{"text":"Women","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/women\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6573,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-transforming-america\/","url_meta":{"origin":1386,"position":4},"title":"Obama: Transforming America","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 1, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"From energy to foreign policy to the presidency itself, Obama's agenda rolls along. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Online\u00a0 \u201cWe are five days away from fundamentally transforming the\u00a0United States of America.\u201d \u2014 Barack Obama,\u00a0October 30, 2008 \u201cWe are going to have to change our conversation; we\u2019re going to have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Political Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Political Culture","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/political-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3300,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-race-card\/","url_meta":{"origin":1386,"position":5},"title":"Obama’s Race Card","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 7, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. 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