The Hideous Truth — Tom Roeser is Grotesque

If the Sun-Times has ever regretted letting the wit and wisdom of Tom Roeser slip away, today's posting -- The Hideous Truth—the Obama Phenomenon is All About Good Caucasian-Like Looks -- should put such concerns to rest:

Obama, a mulatto, has a white mother and black father: thus he looks vaguely more representatively white than black and as such is white liberal America’s idea as the first black president. He could play one on “West Wing.”
Edward Brooke, the liberal Republican Senator from Massachusetts, who had far more experience than Obama (having been state attorney general and a two-term Senator) was never regarded as a presidential contender: reason, he could not be mistaken for a white man. He was also Republican but that was of less importance than his looks.
This article will be cited as horrendous by the political correctionists -- but the writer is too old to be dismayed by the cosmetician obfuscators.
You read it here first: The reason Obama is mentioned so often by the media for president is that he is half white and visibly so -- and liberals who are nothing if not hypocritical, deem him easier to accept and elect than were he fulsomely black.

At the risk of being labeled a "political correctionist," I must ask: Why is it that conservatives like Mr. Roeser are unable to accept the idea that a black man like Sen. Obama is appealing because of his ideas, his eloquence and his charm? I would submit that it is because some conservatives are simply incapable of attributing the success of a black politician like Sen. Obama to his merit rather than his race.

For years, conservatives have asserted that most blacks only reached positions of power due to affirmative action or racial cliquishness. So if a black man graduates from Harvard, it must be because of racial quotas. And if a black woman gets elected, it must be because black voters (and some guilt-wracked white liberals) voted for her skin color.

Then along comes Barack Obama. And Mr. Roeser, apparently unable consider a black politician's advancement in any terms other than ones racially-based, asserts that serious consideration of Sen. Obama as a presidential candidate is -- surprise, surprise -- due to his race. But that doesn't go far enough for Mr. Roeser. Instead, he claims, without any support whatever, that hypocritical white liberals only like the idea of Obama for president because he... looks white?!?

First of all, Sen. Obama could not be "mistaken for a white man." The man is black. His wife is black. His kids are -- say it with me -- black. He wrote and speaks often of visiting his father's grave in AFRICA. And no one in the nation has ever asked himself, "Why is that white man's father buried in Africa?" Barack Obama is a black man and he looks like a black man.

Perhaps Mr. Roeser, "too old to be dismayed by the cosmetician obfuscators," has simply transposed "good Caucasian-like looks" for "handsome enough to challenge a straight white male's heterosexuality."

It's okay, Tom. We all think it.

Secondly, by stating that "the Obama phenomenon is all about" the senator's "good Caucasian-like looks," Mr. Roeser denies the significance of every other aspect of Sen. Obama and his accomplishments. It casts aside the values that Sen. Obama demonstrated as a community organizer and as a civil rights attorney. It belittles Sen. Obama's academic accomplishments. And it trivializes Sen. Obama's unparalleled skills as a communicator.

Mr. Roeser's post attempts to reduce a man who is a graduate of Harvard law, an instructor at the University of Chicago and a United States Senator to "a mulatto."

But the only man diminished by Mr. Roeser's grotesque commentary is Mr. Roeser.