... and a Jew. And a latino. And a Native American. And an Asian. And a woman. And a gay man.
Barack Obama is all these things because he is the living embodiment of a glass ceiling for every race, for every creed, for every boy or girl with a funny name who was never taken seriously and laughed off as someone who can't make it in the white christian male's world. If he can do it, ALL of us can...
Now, do not mistake this for an anti-white christian male diary. Far from it. The white christian male is merely a slice of a perfectly cut pie. No larger or less than any of the other slices. However for far too long we've been snacking on that one slice, without sampling everything else this beautiful pie had to offer. The reason the smear-photo was released yesterday is its the last gasp of a country ruled by the politics of fear. The Clinton campaign is playing on our fears of the unknown, of our hidden primeval instinct to destroy what we don't understand. (It breaks my heart that Clinton could have been just as revolutionary, but instead chose to fall back on the scorched-earth politics of yesteryear.) They play on the fear that Obama may be a secret Muslim operative. Their failure is in distorting the truth in order to keep power within the exclusive circle of Washington insiders. Our failure is while we condemn them for lying about Obama, we don't condemn them for their insinuation that a Muslim President would be an evil President. There are millions of good-hearted, peace loving, patriotic Muslims across this country being demonized for the actions of a distinct minority half a world away.
What if Barack Obama WAS Muslim? Would it matter? Is it something that should keep him away from the Oval office? What if he were gay? Would that matter? If he were Jewish? If he were athiest? Would any of this matter? It shouldn't. Excuse the run-on sentence, but it's necessary here.... Since 9/11 we've been indoctrinated to believe that a Muslim can't be a good person in the same way our older brothers and sisters were indoctrinated to believe a gay man was abhorrent in the same way our parents were indoctrinated to believe those living in a communist nation were evil and lacking a soul in the same way our grandparents were indoctrinated to believe that blacks were inferior. IT'S ALL BULLSHIT. None of it should matter. And my hope is after we elect the first black President, we'll elect the first Jewish President, the first woman President, the first President who has a First Man, the first President who is athiest, because all that matters is the content of their character.
So let the Clinton campaign paste their phony Obama-the-Muslim photos all over Drudge and whatever other rightwing tabloids that specialize in coded-hate. Let them scream from rooftops across America "BARACK OBAMA IS A SECRET MUSLIM!!" And let our reply be a deafening silence, only our feet making sound as we stomp in unison to our nearest voting booth to put an end to bigotry, fear and the "old way" once and for all. And then when it's all over, the Mark Penns and Karl Roves can see that the only people this world can do without.... are themselves.
This isn't the "fun part", Mrs Clinton. This is the end.