Ralph Nadir, in an interview, opined as how Obama wasn’t being Black enough. Now that’s arrogance. Nadir started out tilting at the excesses of corporate America and should have stayed with that. He seems to have lost his smarts.

The Clintons were very supportive on Black issues during Bill’s presidency. Obama should do as well. Politics is the art of the possible. There may be some hope on the part of Blacks that Obama is the answer to their dreams. Certainly he should do everything he can to improve their lot as he should for all disadvantaged Americans. He is, if he wins, going to be president of all the country, not just the Black part.

In New York I voted for David Dinkins, a black man, against Rudy Guiliani, to be mayor of New York. Thank God Guiliani won. I didn’t, at the time, trust Guiliani. He was, and is, a difficult man personally and this side of him was more obvious in New York at the time. In any case, he came through for the city in contrast to Dinkins, whose decisions made on his way back to the office from the tennis courts tended toward maintaining his credibility with Blacks and ignoring the rest of the city. (Yeah, I know. I should have been paying more attention.)

One of the issues that beat Dinkins when he ran for his second term was an incident in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, heavily populated with blacks and Hassidic Jews. A Hassidic funeral procession was proceeding slowly through Williamsburg when the driver of one of the limousines lost control and hit a black boy, killing him. There had been a lot of tension in the area and the incident sparked a riot. Dinkins did not send the police and the riot continued for three days, during which a Hassidic student was murdered, beaten to death. If a white mob had beaten a black divinity student to death, how do you suppose that would have been handled? This was not handled at all.

In contrast, Edward Koch, a Jewish mayor, incurred the wrath of the Jewish community when he refused to order special protection to a synagogue after it was desecrated. He dealt with the incident fairly but not with special treatment.

Leadership isn’t about honoring your origins but doing the right thing.

xx, Teal