Friday, May 02, 2008

Choose your friends wisely

I was over at the Hippie Conservative's joint. He just wrote an interesting piece about how each of the current Presidential candidates have been linked in one way or another to some pretty questionable characters. This got me to thinking:

For starters, I'm really not as focused on John McCain right now, largely because the media doesn't seem to care themselves. I will at least note that I think we should be paying more attention to him, especially since the dude has done virtually no real work during this campaign season, but is still a viable contender for the Presidency. But for the sake of a random thought I'm having at the moment, I'll focus squarely on the Dems.

Unless you've been living in a cave, you know about Barack Obama's recent divorce with Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Personally, I think it was a necessary sacrifice for the sake of any political progress that rests on the horizon for Obama. I mean, the dude has been losing a lot of steam with his white supporters since Wright's fiery comments found their way on YouTube. Whether or not you agree with his take on social justice, retribution, oppression, etc., you can't deny that those comments have been hurting Obama's chances to secure the nomination. As such, some people have been crying foul.

Well, not me.

Admittedly, it pains me to see 'my' candidate dropping in popularity because of the antics of somebody else. But I'd be a complete hypocrite if I started crying foul at this point. After all, when Bill "Slick Willy" Clinton, Geraldine "Get a Clue" Ferraro, and Bob "The Black Sellout" Johnson kept putting their feet in their collective mouths -- and damaging Hillary's campaign in the process -- I sat back and cheered. But now the same thing is happening to Obama. This shows that the campaign has all the makings of a double-edge sword. Both sides run the risk of getting cut pretty deeply.

Opposite to what Sun-tzu said: maybe these candidates should keep their enemies close and their friends closer...

-ACL

2 "Insiders" spoke their mind. Join in...:

heiresschild said...

people do judge by the company one keeps. unfortunately, we don't always know things about someone until after we've known them a while. even when we're friends with someone, that relationshipship can go in a totally different direction later (as Obama & Wright) because we're constanly growing (or should be) and growth sometimes takes relationships onto different paths.

plus people are fickle. Obama is the same person he was before Wright began to spout off at his mouth. it's the people who're changing, not Obama. FICKLE AMERICA!!!

Andre said...

"unfortunately, we don't always know things about someone until after we've known them a while."

That's a great point. Once, when talking about dating, Chris Rock joked that we're not dating a person, we're dating their representative. You can apply that same logic here. People are not always as they seem at first. They can change; their philosophies can change; their personas can change. Obama could've never predicted that one day he would be running for president, while his Achilles Heel would've been his pastor. Had he known that and decided to still stick with Wright, the media attacks on Obama would be justified. But it's hard to predict how people can/will shape out over the years.

Sadly, though, that doesn't matter to folks who are looking to make him guilty by association.