Gay City News Endorses Obama

http://www.gaycitynews.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19249408&BRD=2729&PAG=461&dept_id=568864&rfi=6
ENDORSEMENT: What We Can Do For Our Country
By: GAY CITY NEWS
01/31/2008

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Obama is a relative newcomer to the national scene, and it is not unfair to ask that he explain as clearly as possible how his skills, experience, and vision qualify him for the toughest job on earth. He deserves kudos for his courage in standing up against the rush to war in Iraq at a time when conventional political wisdom counseled a would-be national figure to do otherwise. He will serve the nation well if he can articulate a comprehensive approach not only toward the mess in Iraq but also the broader and more explosive question of America's standing in the entire Islamic world.

In his recent comments about what Ronald Reagan offered to Americans hungry for optimism and new ideas, Obama ought to have made more clear his understanding that at critical moments the hope for unity cannot substitute for hard choices. This newspaper was probably tougher on Obama than anyone else was for his ill-considered decision to call on Donnie McClurkin - a so-called "ex-gay" gospel singer vitriolic in his attacks on the LGBT community - to reach out to churchgoing African-American communities in South Carolina. We are counting on him to make wiser choices in future efforts to "build bridges" - and on that score applaud the loving words about his "gay brothers and sisters" Obama enunciated from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Atlanta pulpit last week.

The McClurkin episode, unfortunate as it was, pales in comparison to the divisiveness that Senator Clinton has allowed her campaign to devolve into. Her comparison between the roles played by Dr. King and President Lyndon Johnson in advancing civil rights can be chalked up to inartfulness. The comments coming from her surrogates are far more disturbing, forming a pattern that sadly can no longer be ignored.

Three Clintonites - the husband of former New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen, Black Entertainment Television founder Robert Johnson, and, most damningly, key strategist Mark Penn - all injected Obama's acknowledged youthful cocaine use into the debate. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo inexplicably used the phrase "shuck and jive" in describing what a presidential candidate might try to pull with the media, and then had his operatives bombard the press with official umbrage that his words might be construed as targeting the African-American senator.

Nobody, however, has been more egregious than Bill Clinton. In his ardent championing of his wife, the former president has dissed Obama as "a kid" and this past Saturday was quick to mention Jesse Jackson's 1984 and 1988 South Carolina primary wins to contextualize Obama's commanding victory.

Notwithstanding the role of BET's Johnson and the ardent support for the New York senator from towering African-American members of Congress such as Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters, the Clinton campaign's intent is clear - Barack Obama, after his strong showing with white voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, must be marginalized as the "black candidate," or Hillary runs the risk of losing.

That is unacceptable, and the LGBT community should lend its voice to a growing progressive chorus in turning its back on this kind of politics. For us, winning in the ghetto is no longer good enough - not for blacks, not for gays, not for anyone.

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©GayCityNews 2008

Talk about misguided.

Lous NOTHING from a NOTHING rag...