Coleman Young was the first black mayor of Detroit and, while it was hailed as a milestone at the time, if we look at how Detroit is doing today — you know, as in, being a reasonable place to move to — we should conclude that something went seriously off the rails. Maynard Jackson became the first black mayor of Atlanta that same week, and today Atlanta is a thriving city. The restaurant Ray’s on the River is almost alone worth the trek. So milestones are great . . . if you are on the right road, and manage to stay on the right road.
Obama is the first black president of the United States, and all the indicators are that we are headed toward a Detroit-style crater, only way bigger. This last week’s downgrade and, more importantly, the responses to the downgrade indicate that we are not, like Alison Krauss, headed for Atlanta “one fine day.”
One of the reasons we are crater-bound is that past injustices to blacks (which were real and glaring) have resulted in a certain kind of very white guilt-compensation taking root in the very whitest people you know. This white guilt-compensation considers it a moral duy to pretend that black incompetence does not exist (as though the bell curve that exists within every population does not exist in theirs), and further requires the pretence that every apparent indicator of black incompetence is really a display of how deeply-rooted white racism is in our country. “How dare you suggest . . .”
This would be a good place to note the famous Peter Principle — which is that “in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.” This means that employees will tend to be promoted until they get to place where they cannot do the work competently. And there they tend to remain.
When you combine the Peter Principle with Affirmative Action, you get . . . Obama. President Obama has been flattered, feted, pampered, puffed, and wafted to the highest office in the land. And it was there that he finally discovered that reality bites. So Obama is our Peter Principle President. We may have lost our AAA rating, but we most certainly still retain our PPP rating.
We have been told by the unctuous that he is the smartest president ever, when in actual fact, he might well be the dumbest — and that, admittedly, in the midst of some pretty stiff competition.
There are leftists who are hard ideologues, but who use their high intelligence in the service of that ideology. But then there are ideologues who use their chosen ideology as a substitute for intelligence. They have a template for making decisions, and so they make them while dithering, but it cannot be described as the kind of intelligence that takes substantive input from the outside world.
Now of course, because I have said this, there are those out there who will accuse me of racism. Besides the fact that it has already been done, with no basis and to little effect, what is the basis for this charge of theirs? They will charge me with believing that Obama is clueless because he is black. Not a bit of it. Thomas Sowell is not clueless. Let’s not affirm the consequent, people. I, in return, offer a counter charge. President Obama is manifestly clueless, and you are pretending not to notice . . and only because he is black. You want to do something about that white guilt of yours, and you think living in Detroit would be suitable penance. Deny it if you can.