Obama's achievement

THX1138

Wow- Huge congratulations to Barack Obama. An amazing victory better than I dared hope for. America is changed forever with this result, I feel so privileged to have witnessed it and so glad that I followed every twist and turn of the campaign.

I'm so tired and so happy and so looking forward to my trip to the US next week.

Yes we can.

Anan

Congratulations to Obama!!! Yes We Can.

I wonder though, where is Verity and her "the wheels are coming off the Obama campaign" nonsense? She's been pretty silent this last month. What's going on Verity? Come out, come out!

Anan The Cat

Anan, Verity has not been silent during the past month. Verity does not like the lefty tone of Coffee House and has basically abandoned it.

Verity notes that Obama won through thuggery, brute force, the assistance of gangsters like Tony Rezko and deceit.

James Forsyth refers to "America's capacity for self-renewal" as though an election was an unusual and clever way for the populace to select a new leader at the end of a term.

Bill Rees

As the step-father of a so-called 'black' daughter, I get a little tired of the middle-class elation combined with the feeling of guilt being assauged that has accompanied the Obama campaign, and it's been disappointing to see the Spectator falling for this nonsense.
"Race relations in America will be changed forever by this!"
Give me a break.
In the USA and in this country there are now countless examples of people from ethnic minorities of all sorts who have been very successful, but the biggest obstacle to their success, as I found, was to persuade your child to hold out against the professional grievance industry that says that every setback is due to skin colour.
The exit polls suggest that large numbers of white Americans voted for Obama precisely because he is black, and there is no doubt that a white male candidate with his lack of experience wouldn't have come anywhere near to being adopted as the Democratic candidate.
Obama is an impressive orator, and undoubtedly has a noble bearing, but his record as a Chicago politician of being in the pocket of interest groups, particularly teaching unions, and his complete lack of interest in rooting out corruption in that famously corrupt political machine, don't inspire confidence.
I hope he turns out to be a great President, but the trouble is that the mainstream media hasn't held him to account throughout his campaign because they were so keen to see him elected.
It's been even more disappointing to see the disappointing quality of the Spectator's US election coverage over the last 18 months.

Ganpat Ram

Spare us your gushing, James.

Obama has transgformed nothing and will make racial bitternesss worse, because non-Blacks will feel a angry with all the endless grandstanding on racial themes by the (declining) Black minority - in a time of huge economic woe.

The real lesson of the election is that the Repuibliscn Party should cultivate the Latinos.

In a year Obams will be the most despised man in the US.

Mark Solomon

I agree entirely with Bill Rees. The Spectator's coverage of the US election has been abysmal, we don't come here to read the same sort of rubbish the rest of the media put out, which might just as well have been written by Obama's communications director. This nonsense about him being the first black president is ridiculous given that (a) he didn't run as such or he would never have won and (b) HE IS NO MORE BLACK THAN HE IS WHITE. He does not share the slave heritage or cultural references of the rest of the US black population so on that score his election is no more relevant than electing a white person with a dark suntan. As to the skyhigh expectations, well that almost guarantees his abject failure from day one.

Ganpat Ram

The media hjav enot held this man to account because they were insanely besotted with the obsession of getting him elected.

The absence of any sense from the media is the outstanding frightening fact of this election.

Verity

Agree with Ganpat, Mark Solomon and Bill Rees. Obama isn't "black". He is half black. He shares, as noted, none one slivver of the cultural heritage - the agony and the creativity - of the African American experience and it sickened me that they were marketing him as an Afro American.

The Spectator's coverage, far from being incisive and offering sharply reasoned points of view, was devoid of critical insights or sharp observation. I stopped reading Coffee House and went over to Melanie's blog which, although infested with silly little Obama fleas, does have Melanie's clarity of thought and lucid prose, and a few good, articulate commenters.

So I just abandoned Coffee House in the wake of the Obama fawning.

David Preiser

I'm sorry, James, but you have it wrong. This election of a black man was not Obama's achievement: it was the achievement of the media, celebrities, and the far-Left indoctrination of university professors.

If you had been paying close attention during the last year, you should have noticed that this historical candidate did much to torpedo his own efforts, yet all of it was either covered up or aggressively denied and defended by all media save for Fox News and a few radio and blogging heads.

The fact that so many people still believe President-elect Obamessiah is a cypher proves just what the media and extremist activists have achieved. He didn't even have to lift a finger to criticize his opponents. All he had to do was say that John McCain was George Bush, and the media and the talk show hosts and the schools did all the hard work for him.

The sad part is that you're probably also wrong about how much of a positive influence an African American President will have on the young people who share his skin color. Any criticism of the new President will be met with cries of, "They're trying to bring a brother down," and the suspicion of white motives won't go away. The people whose entire lives are invested in racial anger will not spend their energy telling black children that they are now free to achieve their desires.

This is an historic achievement of the media, the power of fame in a celebrity culture, and the far-Left indoctrination going on in our universities. These people did all the heavy lifting, allowing their beloved candidate to say almost anything he wished.

Yes, it's quite an historic achievement. All anyone is focusing on now is the color of his skin, and not the substance of the man.

United Statesians haven't been too racist to elect a black man for quite some time now. It didn't just happen during the last year. The US has not changed forever. Only other people's opinion of us has changed, based purely on racial politics.

Tony Hillbear

97% of the black vote went to Obama. Who are the racists? If people really believe that this is America getting past the race issue then they're going to be disappointed. It's going to be 4 years of handouts to Jessie and Sharpton; 4 years of Chicago-style corrupt politics. Don't worry, it will only last 4 years. By the end of the term people will realise that it's a bit silly to vote for something just because it makes them feel good about themselves, and because it permits them to show everyone else what really nice people they are. It's going to be 4 years of the worst of Carter combined with the worst of Blair. You're going to regret it. Good luck.

Augustus

In fact, the only "something to savour" in the light of President-elect Barack Obama's victory is the unsavoury recognition, yet again, that the Senator's principles of change amount to nothing more than the tired old socialist philosophy of governmental redistribution of wealth.

Verity

Well said, David Preiser, who is one of the official contributors to an important and noisy group blog called biased-bbc.co.uk His posts are always worth a read, and you can comment and see your comment come up INSTANTANEOUSLY. No four hour gap. (Not that I'm pointing fingers, or anything...)

I agree with David. Obama has "achieved" nothing, because he was buoyed along all the way by the usual suspects, including the liberal media and the destructively liberal cosy, uppity world of academe.

Everything pre-scripted and gentle. Was he subjected - as a non-experienced executive who couldn't run a bath - to the gruelling questioning and snide asides to which Sarah Palin - a woman of genuine achievement as a state governor - was scornfully subjected? Did it matter that he'd had a conman, phony "presidential seal" designed and affixed to his lectern on his ridiculous overseas ego forray until he was ordered to get rid of it? Did it matter that his heart bled for wounded American troops hospitalised in an American military hospital in Germany until he found out he couldn't take streams of photographers and TV crews trailing through the wards to record his tragic, sympathetic looks? Ooops!

(Point: the Governor of Alaska had, several months before, on the quiet, gone to that same hospital in Germany to visit wounded members of the Alaskan Reserves. She was contented with the one still photographer supplied by the military. She sat down for a meal in the mess with those who were ambulatory and visited the bedsides of those who weren't. And she never capitalised on it.)

Back to David Preiser's point: Obama hasn't won anything because he didn't do anything other than pose and appear in theatrical surroundings and allow himself to be pushed forward to the centre stage. He has no accomplishments in his life. He's never run anything in his life. It was the entire liberal establishment piling in who towed him along.

My fear, David, is, once he's sworn in, they won't report his various failures along the way ... if there's any way of keep them quiet ...

Verity

Tony Hillbear - Good points.

Tony Hillbear

Thanks, Verity. Tell me more about your dislike of the lefty academy. I work in academia and I'm fairly unique, on account of the fact that I'm not a lefty. I see it as my job to challenge the views of my students, rather than just suck up to them. They're more than welcome to disagree with me, and they do, but they deserve some alternative views. Maggie won the economic war, but the left took the universities. That's where we really need to do battle now.

vinny

obama rocks