Tough Day

It's the night the Massachusetts election and it's time
to look things over. I don't think the burden of this
belongs on Ms. Oakley....who is indeed a hapless politician
and was almost reduced to one of those little wooden solidiers
with the red and blue uniforms and the awkward step as she
walked up to shake hands over a police barrier. It ain't her. It's us.
We've lost some of our bearings. We've forgotten our history
again. The tea partiers, the know
nothings...the fringes are always there. Hell, even the founding
fathers had their Aaron Burr. They lurk in the sun of their
nuttiness, paint graffiti on Obama's face and on the country's
monuments. It's part of the American game.

But this time the game (because of the cloture rule) had a deadly
risk. And something deeper than the usual mid-term bounce is
involved. We lost in Massachusetts!

We've got a black president and that means we have a
very small amount of slack. The American racial estrangement
gets suppressed just so long....and comes bouncing back at the least
crack.....we are, as my mother used to say, walking on thin ice.
Everything is twice as hard.....diplomacy, the economy, serious
legislation...everything is reflected through the racial prism. The least
mistake, a wrong sentence, a distracted candidate like Martha
Coakley...can do us in. Obama's decency, pragmatism and measured
policy isn't enough. He's got to lead....lead....lead....he got to be twice
the president that a comparable white man or woman would be. He
and his programs have to be so visible and aggressive and (this is
important) brave they blot out everything else. He needs a horse.