How about that Obama, huh?





Don't get me wrong, I think he can make a great president and indeed his mere election sends a much-needed signal to minorities in America that the American system of government is here for them, too.



Having said that, however...




What's up with Obama's 180-degree flipflop on the seating of Roland Burris, the Blagojevich appointee for the Senate?




I mean, hello? Burris was appointed by a Governor who is on record (indeed, on tape) as partaking in the worst sort of Old Chicago cronyism imaginable, selling government offices, no less.




And then to have the Congressional Black Caucus come out and indignantly insist that the failure to seat Blagojevich's choice for Senator is a clear sign of Senate racism, as if Roland Burris were the new Rosa Parks? Oh, please!!!!




I mean, how cynical is that?




(Where are Burris's scruples, for that matter: why is he accepting an appointment from a self-proclaimed office seller?)




So let me see if I get this straight: There would have been no problem whatsoever if the Senate had turned away a white Blagojevich appointee, then? Oh, okay. Now I get it.




See, gang, this is why I don't think I could return to the Democratic party of my pre-9/11 past even if I tried to, because you apparently can't tell what you're supposed to believe in as a Democrat based on principle alone: I mean, to me, seating ANY Blogojevich appointee would be rewarding blatant cronyism, whether the parties in question were black, white, green or orange -- and yet a good Democrat must apparently be ready to abandon such beliefs in an instant if it spoils party unity, or if those seemingly timeless considerations are trumped by a special interest group in a position to raise a tempest in the party's teapot by ignominiously crying "wolf" over a supposed case of racial discrimination (such a ludicrous charge in this case that I would personally request an apology from the Caucus for the implicit slander of my character, if I were one of the Senators in the body against whom they had made such a sweeping and entirely unsupported indictment).




But, hey, listen, I'm willing to give Obama a "pass" of sorts on this one, since the Congressional Caucus (to their further discredit) took this reverse-racist gambit of theirs just days before Obama's inauguration, thereby tacitly threatening to be a noisy naysayer at a celebration meant to highlight a newfound American unity.

Still, I'm writing this on the very day that North Korea has owned up to having enough weapons-grade plutonium to stock five nuclear warheads, and Obama's flipflop on principle in this domestic matter doesn't augur well for his ability to draw meaningful lines in the sand, for Kim Jong-Il or for any other regional despot.




Did I mention that I think he still could make a great president? But enough with the flipflops already!




Careful with the rotten vegetation, folks: You could put an eye out with that stuff!