Mr. Emanuel posts a review of Barack Obama's weekend campaign appearances in Selma and seems to see things we mere mortals can't.
Even as he's just warming up, Mr. Emanual conjures. Encapsulating the Obama campaign to date, he offers this:
Thus far, there have been roadblocks, insults, and other issues. The self-and-media-appointed leaders of black America have been slow to warm up to the Senator, fellow Senator (and fellow Presidential candidate) Joe Biden called Obama "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy," it turns out that he is descended from slaveowners on his mother's side, and he has fallen victim (repeatedly) to the Hillary! smear machine.
Oddly, the link Mr. Emanuel provides is all about the David Geffen - Maureen Dowd flap. In that contretemps, Mr. Geffen--through Ms. Dowd's column in the New York Times--calls the Clintons every name in the book. Apparently Mr. Obama "fell victim" when the Clinton campaign responded by asking Mr. Obama to cut it out!
A bit later, Mr. Emanuel explains how the Obama campaign "did a good job cleaning up the Biden mess" as if it was Mr. Obama rather than Mr. Biden who needed to scrape the muck of racial stereotyping off his shoes.
For good measure, Mr. Emanuel notes that Mr. Obama's white ancestors were slave owners (but fails to explain whether this is a roadblock, an insult, or a smear orchestrated by the Clinton campaign). Perhaps it's none of the above and Mr. Emanuel simply can't pass up the opportunity to dish the newest dirt.
After meandering through these preliminaries, Mr. Emanuel finally comes to the point: he accuses Mr. Obama of talking down to his black, southern Selma audience:
I think that this question is a very valid one to ask: if the African American community is, as I believe, and as Obama and his defenders have claimed to believe, as normal, articulate, intelligent, etc. as anybody else (to the point that, as we have been fighting for years to achieve, race should no longer matter or be noticed), then why does the fact that he is speaking to an overwhelmingly southern black audience mean that he has to change his manner of speech altogether, from his usual measured, clear, enunciated oratory to THIS:
...and then provides a link to Mr. Obama's speech , here.
Mr. Emanuel concludes:
The question is, will anybody notice the message that Obama is sending regarding his opinion of his own race in the video above - and will anybody allow themselves to really think about what that message means?
At the very beginning of the segment, Mr. Obama slurs the word "going" in "Some women said 'we're going to walk'". The rest seems quite ordinary. Whatever it is that Mr. Emanuel sees, it's not readily apparent to the eyes of ordinary mortals.
The biggest question Mr. Emanuel leaves unanswered, though, is why he has become so interested in the speaking styles of politicians only now--eight long years after the Connecticut-born Ivy leaguer Mr. Bush arrived on the public stage speaking in his "West Texas" twang.
UPDATE: Mr. Emanuel says Hillary's doing it too! Maybe it's a trick to smear Obama!!
