Saturday, February 10, 2007

"(A)s a black man... Barack can get shot going to the gas station."

That's what Barak Obama's wife, Michelle says in an interview the couple did with 60 Minutes. (Via The Drudge Report).

Excuse me?!

I hate to inform Mrs. Obama of this, but anybody can get shot at the gas station. Just ask all the people involved in the Washington D.C. Beltway sniper attacks. Those people were of all different races but they were still targeted by John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo.

Perhaps a better statement would have been "As with any American, Barak can get shot going to the gas station." But I guess that wouldn't send quite the same message.

Reporter Steve Kroft asks Obama whether he thinks being black will hold him back from winning the presidency?

"No.... If I don't win this race it will be because of other factors --[that] I have not shown to the American people a vision for where the country needs to go that they can embrace," he said.

I think, quite honestly, that we are beyond the point where a black person or a woman or any other minority couldn't be elected President. In fact, I would go so far as to say that most Americans would probably like to vote for a black candidate, but only if that candidate espoused ideas and opinions with which they agreed. That's the same standard I think we use for any candidate.