Clinton and Obama
The race for the Democratic presidential nomination
Article added on April 3, 2008

Since the Texas and Ohio primaries, things have become more complicated in the Democratic Party. Hillary Clinton (financially) managed to stay in the race. In reality however, her course to the presidency is pretty much a lost cause. Only if Barack Obama should have a few additional Jeremiah Wright's in his cupboard, she could still get the Democratic nomination.

In 2007, Hillary Clinton was the hot favorite and looked like the likely Democratic candidate, facing a weak field of contenders. More than that: Hillary feels entitled to the presidency. After her husband, it is now her term to “serve” the nation. Unfortunately for her, the voters in the Democratic primaries and caucuses have other ideas. They do not share her vision that not only Bill, but the American voters somehow owe her the presidency.

Some die-hard Clinton supporters may slowly realize that truth is something unknown to the Clinton camp. Both Bill and Hillary think that they can get away with almost anything.

Hillary Clinton did herself not a very good service by repeating - at least for the fourth time - the fantasy story how she came under sniper fire when landing in Bosnia in 1996. Thanks to Youtube, the tale of her Tuzla airport adventure could quickly be dismissed as another Clinton fairy tale.

Her reaction to her unmasking was Clinton pure:  “I made a mistake. That happens. It proves I'm human, which, you know, for some people is a revelation”. Hmm.... not quite an apology. To describe a story she has repeated four times as a slip of tongue -  “I had a different memory” - as a result of sleep deprivation is another fairy tale.

Given the fact that Hillary Clinton has not regularly come under sniper fire, she could not have mixed it up with other events. Once again, Hillary has just created her own version of the truth.



Barack Obama suffered his fair share of criticism for the sermons of his long-time pastor Jeremiah Wright, who married him and baptized his children. Obama took the book title “The Audacity of Hope” from one of Wright's sermons.

It is embarrassing for Obama that his spiritual leader made incendiary, anti-American remarks. Especially troubling is his conspiracy theory suggesting that the U.S. government had created and spread the Aids virus in order to exterminate African-Americans.

The sermons of pastor Wright could not be further away from Obama's claim to bring all Americans together. Of course, the Democratic presidential candidate is not responsible for all the nonsense people close to him say and preach.

However, as a long-time member of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Obama must have heard much earlier some of Wright's rants. Of course, one can argue that on the political right, there are plenty of wacky pastors too. But it does not make Wright's case better. Still, the most important thing is what Obama himself says and does.

Regarding racism in America, Barack Obama could have referred to the statistics published at the end of February 2008 which show that, at the beginning of 2008, some 2.32 million Americans were behind bars, a staggering 1 in 99.1 adults.

Among adult white men between the age of 20 and 34, the chance to end up in prison was 1 in 30, whereas for African Americans of the same age and sex, the proportion was as high as 1 in 9.

Regarding the discussion of the acceptability of a woman or an African American as the next president, let's just point out to the fact that it is sad to see that Barack Obama had to make clear that he is not a Muslim. Why not elect a lesbian, African-American or Chinese-American of an advanced age and Muslim faith? What counts is the competence of the candidate and nothing else.

By chance, in 2008, the old white guy happens to be the best of the three candidates of whom, incidentally, none has ever held an executive office.

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