Most of us have heard that on
June 30, 2014 while hosting a reception celebrating
Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender (LGBT) Pride Month, Barack commented about his
White House pastry chef’s delectable goodies saying "I don't know what he
does—whether he puts crack in them" whereupon the crowd
exploded in uproarious laughter to hear the swaggering, most excellently
with-it president being “very cool.” Barack had so
tickled the nation’s funny bone, in fact, that award-winning CNN journalist
John King later gushed, “They must be pretty good though I think I want one of
those pies!” to which Kate Bolduan CNN co-host of New Day chortled, “I want a
piece of that pie too John that’s for sure!”
The President is just so
clever that I can understand why Chris Matthews famously announced that when
Barack spoke it sent shivers up his leg. Still, I must admit that I had wondered where
the “the most intelligent man ever to become president” (presidential historian
Michael Beschloss, November 11, 2008) gets his material. Now I know
the obvious answer: he draws both upon his history and current perspective on
life.
In Dreams from
My Father Barack Obama recounted his marijuana and cocaine abuse,
rationalizing that the problems issued from his conflicted racial
identity. Poor soul. As Michael Medved (ABC News, 2005)
observed, “Obama's drug confessions only add to the sense that he's a radically
different sort of candidate -- and it's hard to see how the confessions will
work against him.” Medved, of course, was right on target with
that. As we have learned repeatedly, nothing seems to dampen the
enthusiasm for our identity-challenged biracial president who thinks he is all
black.
Surely Barack Obama’s
leadership skills also account in part for his success. David
Maraniss in Barack Obama: The Story explains that the then-youthful Barry Obama was a drug-abusing innovator responsible for his Choom
[choom is marijuana] Gang’s creative pot-smoking antics. Mentioned
were: “Total Absorption”
(when a gang member exhaled marijuana too quickly he had to skip his next
drag); “Roof Hits” (closing all the windows in the car used for
marijuana smoking to maximize the high); and “Interceptions” (Obama’s tendency
to take an extra “hit” by grabbing the joint from the person next in line to
smoke it himself).
Perhaps I’m being too harsh on Mr. Obama. After all,
he cares deeply about the welfare of crack users. For many years, Barack and
Attorney General Holder had been in favor of drug leniency: “Holder’s urging is the
latest in the Obama administration's retrenchment on the war on drugs and
crack-era mandatory minimum sentences that disproportionately impacted poor minorities [emphasis
added] and non-violent offenders” (Trymaine Lee MSNBC, June 10, 2014). [Note
that in 2010 the Obama Administration successfully fought to reduce the disparity
between prison sentences for the more dangerous and more black-abused crack
cocaine versus the less dangerous and more white-abused powdered cocaine from
100:1 to 18:1 and in December, 2013 Barack pardoned eight crack-abusing federal inmates, six of whom
had been sentenced to life in prison.]
As Gomer Pyle might say, “Well, surprise, surprise," Barack Obama
has a race-based affection for crack cocaine because of his history and current mindset
by which he confounds crack with racism. Who would have
guessed? Perhaps Obama’s crack pastry joke is just the most
intelligent president of all time wink-winking at American youth, especially
poor black youth, letting them know that he understands their cravings and won’t
be too hard on them since he shares the cravings too.
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