Apr
4
2008

Asymmetry

I've been a Charles Murray fan for a long time, so I put some weight to his even-handed, even charitable, reaction to Barack Obama's race speech last month.

I can’t vote for him. He is an honest-to-God lefty. He apparently has learned nothing from the 1960s. His Supreme Court nominees would be disasters. And maybe he is too green and has lived too much of his adult life in a politically correct bubble. But the other day he talked about race in ways that no other major politician has tried to do, with a level of honesty that no other major politician has dared, and with more insight than any other major politician possesses. Not bad.
But it turns out that Obama isn't particularly keen on Murray. Hugh Hewitt shelled out $3.95 for an NPR transcript of a 1994 "commentary" from Obama:
"With one finger out to the political wind," Obama continued, "Mr. Murray has apparently decided that white America is ready for a return to good old-fashioned racism so long as it's artfully packaged and can admit for exceptions like Colin Powell."
That was fourteen years ago, but the difference in attitudes is pretty striking.