Obama's Compromise

Race, the American dilemna, continues to perplex.

Instead of roundly condemning his pastor for shockingly anti-American remarks, Obama said he only condemns the man's word but not the man himself. This is a false dichotomy. Did the words just shoot out of the pastor involunarily? Tourette Syndrome?

The man is his words.

Obama instead choose to equate the pastor's words with his grandmother's fear of criminal activity by black men who pass her on the street. That's hardly the equivalent of saying "Goddamn America." When he equates the two he makes worry about crime by blacks equivlaent with the hate speech of the pastor. How then can he claim to understand both sides of the racial divide if the concerns of whites are compared to the deranged rantings of a minister?

Obama famously said that words matter.

And his pastor's matter more than he's willing to admit.

His formula, and stated need to start a dialogue about race, suggest the country is sharply divided by black and white. It's not.

Blacks are integrated into every semblance of America, from Secretary of State on down.

The person doing the dividing is the pastor--now with some amunition from Obama.