Today is a historic day in this nation's history. Senator Barack Obama just clinched the Democratic Party's nomination for President of the United States.
More than a year ago, in February 2007, in From Kenya With Love: Barack Hussein Obama, we believed that Senator Obama's historic candidacy for the Office of the President of United States " . . . would allow registered African-American voters (including Ethiopia-Americans) in the Democratic Party a clear alternative to the carpet-bagging junior senator from our favorite state in the Union. " Before the world was introduced to the monstrously bizarre world of the Clintons, long before a single primary vote was cast, we seethed at the fact that "Hillary Clinton and her arrogant and demeaning posture vis-à-vis African-American voters is back and managing to convince, yet again, many in the African-American community that she, like her husband, is "black" and deserving of their support."
Our two years of blogging has elicited many e-mails, most supportive of our writing, some hate-filled, particularly from members and supporters of the current ruling party in Ethiopia. Our few departures from our writing on Ethiopia have explored the war in Iraq, US presidential elections, other weighty issues that include race relations, US Congressional elections, and the death penalty. One particular post that elicited the most negative reaction is Ethiop Office Rant, a piece that expressed our bewilderment at the African-American affection for the Clintons. Several e-mails chastised us as right-wing Clinton-haters.
Fifteen months in politics is two lifetimes. Since Senator Obama's announcement of his candidacy and his shocking victory in the Iowa Caucuses, the world has been able to see Hillary Clinton's deranged narcissism; her sheer hunger to realize her and her husband’s delusional ambition to return to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. African-American voters (which includes us, Ethiopian-Americans) in particular swallowed a bitter pill – they saw and heard a woman who supposedly built her career helping indigents and the politically unrepresented to claiming that the son of the Kenyan was an elitist when she, just a few weeks earlier, had declared $109 million in income earned. They saw the son of the Kenyan accumulating primary and caucus victories but watched in utter puzzlement as she constantly moved the rules of a game she helped create; how she and her husband attempted to paint the son of the Kenyan into a rewarmed Jesse – a candidate that appeals only to colored folk; they observed a woman who concocted a fictional account of being targeted by snipers, yet survived; they saw a woman who kept up her attack on the Illinois senator for accepting donations from former Weatherman William Ayres yet her husband pardoned two former members of that sinister group; they lived through months of infuriating stump speeches declaring that she is the stronger candidate – code for"America can't possibly vote for this boy."
In her speech today, Senator Clinton did not concede the race to Senator Obama. Hillary Rodham Clinton has become, as Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote today, "a hungry hack, a Janus looking both forward and backward and seeming to stand for nothing except winning."
Barack is now caught between Scylla and Charybdis: whether to add Clinton on his ticket. I considered this issue at much length and my conclusion is no. Hell fucking no. I'll risk a defeat against McCain. My favorite candidate: Chuck Hagel. It's time to turn the page on the deep bipartisan divide in this country. He would also hugely supplement Barack's national security bona fides.
But here’s where we are today: when my sons wake up in the morning, I will be telling them an important story -- that the man who shares their skin color and whom they saw and heard while sitting on their daddy's shoulders several months ago, finally won the nomination. And won it with class.
