Blair Hull: The Real Black Man
Progress Illinois passes along Ta-Nehisi Coates take on Rush’s giving the race card a bad name routine.
This is a sickening display–especially Bobby Rush’s invocation of God. Rush\Blago\Burris’s race argument is rather incredible. I’ve been thinking about this for awhile as a political move. It strikes as a kind of suicide bomb. Blago is going down. Burris has nothing to lose. And Rush has never been on great terms for Obama. It’s very easy, as a young black person, to be really angry about this move. Trust me, the old generational anguish is stewing in the heart of a lot of young black Chicago folks this morning. More on that later.
My immediate reaction is that Rush is overplaying his hand. He’s basically arguing that a pol should fear the black backlash should they oppose Burris’s appointment. But there’s one problem with that logic–Barack Obama is on the other side of the table. Rush’s logic basically asks politicians to chose between the will of a corrupt governor, and the will of the first black president of the United States. I don’t know, but it would seem that now would be a good time for Obama to flex some muscle and make it clear that folks support this move at their peril. I really, really, really hope the CBC doesn’t back this move. But I wouldn’t be surprised if they did.
UPDATE: It is amazing to hear Rush make this argument, given that if left to him, there would be no black Senators anyway. Rush backed the very-white Blair Hull against Obama in 2004. Are these people serious?
Blair was a convenient guy to latch on to for Rush since he hated Obama and was accused of secretly supporting Hynes by Steve Neal. It’s no wonder Rush didn’t join Illinois NOW.