“There is not a Black America and a White America and a Latino America and Asian America — there’s a United States of America.” - Barak Obama, Keynote Address at the 2004 Democratic Party National Convention

“Rightly or wrongly, white guilt has largely exhausted itself in America; even the most fair-minded whites…tend to push back against suggestions of racial victimization — or race-specific claims based on the history of race discrimination in this country…there is an almost mathematical precision with which America’s race and class problems joined …An emphasis on universal, as opposed to race-specific, programs isn’t just good policy; it’s also good politics.” - Barrack Obama, in his book, Audacity of Hope 2006

Until recently, advocates of a “class-based” or “race-neutral” affirmative action program have traditionally been affiliated with the right-wing, and the Republican Party. But there has been a rise in the influence of the “populist” wing of the Democrat Party pointing out that the economic burden of the present system of racial quotas in the distribution of jobs and educational opportunities falls disproportionately on the working class whites that the Democrats need to win elections.

To the best of my knowledge, Barack Obama is the only Democrat Presidential Candidate who has voiced criticism of race-only affirmative action, he has the opportunity to break the Republican Party lock on this issue in 2008. With a African father and a white middle class upbringing, Barack Obama has proven to be an African-American politican capable of winning over working class white voters, who are increasingly disillusioned with the Republican Party dominated by Dixiecrats and Big Money special interests. But most importantly, because he is a African American, he may be the only candidate capable of standing up to the pressures from a Democrat Party base unwilling to recognize that their 60’s era “Identity Politics” is about as relevant today as platform shoes and tie-dye t-shirts.

Obama himself is an example of the problematic nature of today’s system of race quota that do not have a “needs” based criteria. Enjoying a safe middle class existence made possible by a white mother with the help of her economically secure grandparents, Obama attended an exclusive prep school in Hawaii. Hardly the sort of difficult home life and lousy educational environment that most poor black kids experience, nevertheless Obama admitted that he got into Harvard Law School because of affirmative action.  

While prestigious universities like Harvard have become racially and ethnically diverse, Harvard is far from being “diverse” when it comes to economic background of their families. Like Forced Busing, Affirmative Action has proven to be the way the upper classes passes off the responsiblity for racism from themselves to others further down the social ladder. It does nothing address the injustice of the “legacy” preferences that got a “C minus“ guy like President George W. Bush into Harvard Business School. Instead Affirmative Action has pitted the sons and daughters of a Slovak coal miner against the great-grandchildren of an African-American slave for whatever slots are left after the children of wealth and privilege get first choice.  

It is not hard to imagine the conflict in self interest that middle class African Americans like Barack Obama must struggle with to consider abandoning race-based quotas. With all of the advantages Obama enjoyed in using affirmative action to get into Harvard, would Obama be willing to admit that it is unreasonable to have the bar lowered for his two daughters, while the daughters of a working class white family should not have an equal chance?  

"The Congress has control over the purse strings. They have the right, obviously, if they want to cut off funding, but in terms of this effort the president has made his decision. . . We'll continue to consult with the Congress. But the fact of the matter is, we need to get the job done." - Vice President Cheney on CNN

It's funny watching the guys who planned the Iraq War taunt the Congress into taking action to stop it.  The best thing that could happen to the White House is for Congress to vote to end the funding of the war.  That way the neo-cons would be spared the complete embarrassment of the war failing on it's own. Instead Bush, Cheney and the rest of the co-conspirators could blame the Congress for "losing faith" in the war instead of their own incompetence in managing it.

However, it's all bluster and blow. Congress would not muster the votes to win a full cutoff of the funds for the war even if they wanted to. The smart thing for the opponents of the war is to let Bush’s “New Way Forward” fall flat on it’s face!

I’m betting that the Neo-cons understand the consequences of their failure more then anyone else. Unless something radical happens to change the strategic equation in Iraq, the long term prospect is not "victory" but a slow bleeding of the gut wound they have inflicted on the American people. Bush doesn’t expect the surge to solve anything. The surge is merely a stop-gap measure to buy a little time until the neo-cons and their allies in the Corporate media can build the case for expanding the war into Iraq.

Remember that was the original plan all along---to eventually attack Iran and Syria from a base of operations in Iraq.

Even though the War Party has powerful friends in the corporate media, it's doubtful that the public will accept another round of lies from the same people who lied them into the Iraqi quagmire.

With more US dead and wounded, the federal budget still broken, an economy producing record profits for Wall Street at the cost of lower wages for Main Street, it's likely that the majority of Americans will vote in 2008 with the firm conviction that the Republican Party is no longer the trusted custodian of American security and economic prosperity.