MoDo thought race problems were over

MoDo: What? Some black people still think there are racial problems going on?

Maureen Dowd in Dark Dark Dark New York Times 02/21/09 shows that having a Clinton in the Cabinet may help him by keeping the Clintons in front of the press and therefore their obsession with the Clintons may divert some of their attacks and silly nonsense away from Obama.

MoDo is bored with all this economic policy talk. Though she's feeling the pinch, too: "We dutifully cut back on Starbucks macchiatos, designer water and even Girl Scout cookies, but we keep hurtling down."

The Beltway Village seems newly seized with the idea that Obama needs to be more peppy. Since show-business stories are something they can comfortably process through their minds, they are drawn to the Herbert Hoover-esque notion that if the President acts cheerful in public, investors and consumers will also cheer up and rush out to spend and invest money.

Former Drexel Bernham Lambert Vice President Rick Santelli, now a business shill on CNBC, turned on the Rush Limbaugh crowd this past week by a to-hell-with-people-who-are-losing-their-houses rant. It resonated with alleged liberal MoDo, too: "Rick Santelli struck a populist nerve with his screed about the unfairness of responsible homeowners picking up the tab for irresponsible homeowners."

If you're wondering how a rant on behalf of trust fund babies and their class prejudices could be "populist", you're not alone. Eric Boehlert is asking a similar question at the County Fair blog, NYT's Sheryl Gay Stolberg, please define "populist" 02/21/09.

"Liberal" MoDo thinks Obama is way too sympathetic to families facing the loss of their homes. But she closes her column by switching from the economy to grumping about those black folks who just can't seem to get over all that racism stuff we had in the long distant past:

Yet Obama is oozing empathy compared with his attorney general, who last week called us "a nation of cowards" about race.

Eric Holder, who showed precious little bravery in standing up to Clinton on a pardon for the scoundrel Marc Rich, is wrong. We have just inaugurated a black president who installed a black attorney general.

We need leaders to help us through our crises, not provide us with crude evaluations of our character. And we don't need sermons from liberal virtuecrats, anymore than from conservative virtuecrats.

In the middle of all the Heimlich maneuvers required now — for the economy, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, health care, the environment and education — we don’t need a Jackson/Sharpton-style lecture on race. Barack Obama’s election was supposed to get us past that.

That's classic.

Funny thing, it's always those people (blacks, Latinos, Jews, Poles, whoever one's favorite ethnic prejudice of the moment may be) who are irritating white folks of good will by bringing up uncomfortable thoughts. Shoot, MoDo's totally color-blind! She even found some African-Americans to talk to Obama's election about - including her mailman, who she tried to engage in a political conversation while he was on duty, apparently oblivious to the idea that federal employees have to be very careful about talking politics with the public. (See The Tracks of Our Tears New York Times 11/08/08).

In that column, she oddly seemed to have thought that there may have been some racial barriers out there, at least up until Election Day: "I grew up in the nation’s capital, but I’ve never seen blacks and whites here intermingling as they have this week."

But MoDo saw racial harmony breaking out spontaneously:

I saw one white customer quiz his black waitress at length at a chic soul food restaurant downtown, over deviled eggs and fried chicken livers, about whether she cried when Barack Obama won. She said she did, and he said he wept like a baby. [my emphasis]

This is a memorable line, too:

It’s cool that President-elect Cool has gotten everybody chatting, even if it's awkward small talk. And it’s fun, after so many years of unyielding barriers, to feel sentimental. [my emphasis]

Three and a half months later, MoDo is not only surprised but indignant to hear that some of the "unyielding barriers" that had been in place up until November 2008 might still be around.

But I believe MoDo when she says she doesn't want to hear annoying ideas from "liberal virtuecrats". Despite her status among her press peers as a "liberal".

Tags: maureen dowd, us economy