I’m working on a piece on Obama’s arrogance. While googling around I came upon this amusingly hyperbolic screed at the Huffington Post, in which John Ridley insists that any suggestion that Obama thinks highly of himself is rank racism. Even more amusing, the author suggests that the “neocons” are the same sorts of racists who killed Emmett Till in Mississippi. I know it’s an old lament at this point, but it never ceases to amaze me how in the course of less than a decade “neocon” has come to be an all-purpose word for every liberal bogeyman imaginable. Until very recently neocons were supposed to be the “good conservatives,” the ones the New York Times could tolerate at cocktail parties and leftwing academics could tolerate — in sufficiently small numbers — at egghead retreats (See Charles Krauthammer’s vision of the racial enlightenment of neocons here — and my dissent from it here). Now they are the heirs to lynch mobs.
As for the substance of his diatribe, I think it’s laughable nonsense. Ridley writes:
Arrogant, of course, is a euphemism. In the monochromatic bunkers from which old-schoolers cling to power the true word they use is “uppity” when hurled at blacks. It’s the “B-word” for women. I’m not sure what the Rovian ilk use for the Latinos and Asian-Americans who dare claim their due, but I’m sure it’s equally as derisive and wielded with sick pleasure.
Really? And Ridley knows this how? How many monochromatic bunkers has he visited? By what means of telepathy does he glean the “sick pleasure” of these old-schoolers?
By the way, I think George Bush is arrogant too. Am I anti-white? No. But if I think Obama’s arrogant, it must be because I’m a racist.