A Christian Liberal is NOT an oxymoron.

Posted by XT on November 9th, 2008 in US News

I generally like Maureen Dowd, and, while today’s column is better than Kathleen Parker’s on the importance of Obama’s Presidency, it has a severe flaw. Take a second, read it over, and let me know what you see.

If we count off the black people that Dowd introduces us to, we get a waitress, a bartender, and a mailman. Way down at the end, we get input from Andrew Young (in a throw-off comment to Steven Colbert) a line from Leon Wieseltier (where he cops to some sort of racism for celebrating Obama’s victory) and a punch line about contacting Gwen Ifill. Well, to be fair, she mention’s OJ, too.

Perhaps I’m not giving Dowd enough credit here. But it seems to me that a column celebrating the way in which we have begun to tear down the walls separating our various races would bring in a class of supporting black people in something other than service industries. Perhaps this is the point Ms. Dowd wants to make. But the thing is that there have been no shortage of high profile Blacks on television and radio who have weighed in with much deeper insights.

Perhaps she should have called Gwen Ifill before she wrote this column. Ifill might have at least got her not to chunk one last stone (if only!) at George W. Bush. Or maybe Ifill would have got her to put in more of this:

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.

But maybe Ifill could have gotten her to phrase it in a way that didn’t seem a bit demeaning to our next President. I guess when you make your bones hating, it’s really hard to stop.

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