Many have been asking the question "Is Barack Obama black enough?" Perhaps the better question is, "Is he too white?"
Vice President Dick Cheney's wife, Lynne Cheney, dropped a bombshell on MSNBC Tuesday. She revealed Dick Cheney and Barack Obama are actually cousins, casting even more doubt on Obama's blackness. (See the original story here )
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Vice President Cheney, number four on Ivory magazine's annual "100 Whitest Men in America" list for 2007, has been in the top 100 ever since the prestigous annual ranking was first introduced in 1976. Ivory editor Hunter Peterwillow comments on Cheney's remarkable whiteness: "He lives in Wyoming. He's rich and powerful. He's the leader of the Republican party. He insists he has one black friend, but no one ever sees them hang out. Sport to him is hunting and fishing. When he shoots someone, it's by accident. He listens to the operas of Wagner and the smooth jazz of Kenny G. And you should see him dance. You know that Karl Rove rap on YouTube? Cheney makes Karl Rove look like Biggie Smalls." Rove is #24 on what is commonly known as the "whitelist".
David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, dismissed the notion that Obama is white. "That's ridiculous. Barack is so black, sometimes I feel the cultural divide between us," said Plouffe, who is white. "Why just the other day, Barack was enthusiastically referring to my wife's 'sweet badonkadonk' as she passed by. I had no idea what he was talking about; I thought perhaps he was referring to a dessert my wife baked for him. I had to ask my son's black friend what it meant. At first I was upset. If a white man had said it, I probably would have punched him, but in this case I knew it was Barack being the black man that he is. And my wife was actually quite flattered. I suppose I should be too since I'm the only one allowed to 'tap that' apparently."
But not everyone is convinced of Obama's blackness. In an ABC poll released this evening, black respondents said that Obama is on average only 5% blacker than notoriously white John Edwards, and is actually 3% whiter than front-runner Hillary Clinton, though some speculate that may be due to Bill Clinton's popularity in the black community. Recall the 2004 poll that asked black respondents to specify which black leader they would most like to see as president: Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Colin Powell, or Alan Keyes. 53% of respondants said Bill Clinton, in spite of both his ineligability for the Presidency and his absense from the poll question.
This new data has not been lost on the Clinton campaign. At a campaign stop today, Clinton was confronted by a Reuters reporter suggesting her health care plan was compromised by large campaign contributions from the health insurance industry. Clinton responded, "Oh no you di-un't. You di-un't just say what I think you said," while waving an outstretched index finger in front of the reporter's face. "Can I get a 'You go girl!' out there?" Clinton implored the confused crowd of high tech executives she was addressing. She later complained that they "left me hangin", followed by an under the breath "shiiiiiit."
Polls indicate that Republican candidates would fare better running against Clinton than they would against Obama or Edwards, which lead many to question the motivation or even the veracity of Lynne Cheney's claim, especially considering the price Dick Cheney will likely pay for this. "He's not going to make the [Ivory] top 10 next year," predicts Peterwillow. "We've never had anyone in the top 100 with a black relative, except for this year's number 89, Condoleezza Rice, whose black relative is herself."
copyright 2007 holyjebus.com
