Obama's Choice of Biden: ‘The Devil Made Me Do It."
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
"Obama and Biden are quite compatible."
If I didn't know that Barack Obama has no African American blood relatives, I'd swear he was related to Flip Wilson. The late, great comedian (1933-1998) from Jersey City, New Jersey, invented the hilarious character "Geraldine," whose signature excuse for wrongdoing was, "The Devil made me do it." Of course, the devil had nothing to do with it; Geraldine just did what came naturally, which was most often something devilish.
Apologists for Barack Obama - especially Black apologists - constantly invoke the Geraldine Excuse to justify Obama's many sins against progressive politics. Obama repudiates his longtime friend and pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the liberation theologian. "He had to do it," Obama's boosters declare. "The white folks demanded it!" - which is, in some Black circles, the same as saying, "The Devil made him do it."
Apparently, the Devil then caused Obama to denounce his former friend, the radical Chicago priest Father Michael Phlegler, for mocking Obama's then opponent in the Democratic primaries, Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton must be an acolyte of the Devil, herself, since she had earlier forced Obama to denounce Min. Louis Farrakhan.
The Devil just won't leave poor Obama alone. Old Lucifer sets Obama's head to spinning around and spewing out war threats against Iran and Pakistan, and promising a much hotter war in Afghanistan. He vows by everything unholy to deliver billions more dollars and nearly a hundred thousand more bodies to the U.S. military, so as to ensure America's ability to fight several wars, simultaneously. (The Devil loves it when he does that.)
"Old Lucifer sets Obama's head to spinning around and spewing out war threats."
But now the Devil's gone too far - if it really was the Devil at work. Obama has chosen Delaware Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate, a politician who, as champion loudmouth and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was calling for an invasion of Iraq in 1998, two years before there was a President George W. Bush. In 2002, when Bush demanded Congress give him powers to wage war against Iraq, Chairman Biden was Bush's biggest Democratic ally. Biden depicted Bush as a man of peace, declaring, "at each pivotal moment, he has chosen a course of moderation and deliberation." That course led to a war that is now deep into its fifth year - but that should not worry Joe Biden, who said, back in 2002, that the U.S. was "committing to Iraq for the long haul; not just the day after, but the decade after...."
No sooner had the Iraqi resistance bogged down the Americans, than the blow-hard Biden proposed the country be divided in three parts: Sunni, Shia and Kurdish - a fundamental violation of international law, as was the unilateral, unprovoked invasion, itself.
Joe Biden is as much a war monger as George Bush. And the Devil had nothing to do with Obama choosing Biden as his running mate. Obama, like Flip Wilson's Geraldine, is doing what comes naturally. He was never a progressive - he just briefly played one to win points in an Illinois Democratic primary election six years ago. Ever since, Obama has been searching for his comfort zone, and moving steadily to the Right. Obama and Biden are quite compatible. To the Devil with both of them.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
Isaac Saney is a Cuba and Black studies specialist and historian at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
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