Right now, the most popular article on the NY Times website is Roger Cohen's Op-Ed peace on race relations, "Beyond America's Original Sin". As with Obama's speech the other day, during a first read-through, it gave me a warm fuzzy feeling inside as we are told that all we have to do is drop our irrational fears, talk to each other, and then everything will be all right.

However, two things bothered me. The first was the suggestion that somehow President Bush's "us-against-them formulas" are somehow responsible for maintaining a culture of racial discrimination. Here Mr. Cohen is confusing policy differences with racism. President Bush has spoke very clearly on numerous occasions about how wrong it is to demonize Muslims for 9/11 and how wrong racism is in general. If the press fails to concentrate on it, or feels that he is being false about his feelings, that's another story.

I quote below from the President's speech honoring African American History Month, given on February 12, 2008.

It is important for all our citizens to know the history of the African American struggle for equality. We must remember that the slave trade brought many Africans to America in chains, not by choice. We must remember how slaves claimed their God-given right to freedom. And we must remember how freed slaves and their descendants helped rededicate America to the ideals of its founding.

Our nation has come a long way toward building a more perfect union.

A more perfect union!?! Wasn't that the title and theme of Barack Obama's speech? Plagiairist!

The fact is, the President is not afraid to look stupid if he's trying to show his appreciation for other cultures....




By the way, if you have read this and didn't bother clicking through to the President's full speech, you're missing how he welcomes the Reverend Al Sharpton to an event, refers to Sharpton's daughter as his wife, and then performs a nice reovery.

Part two of why I disagree with Roger Cohen's op-ed piece in my next post.