Over at The Corner, the delightfully insane John Derbyshire has been kind enough to share his thoughts on Barack Obama's candidacy:
And then there is the matter of ethnic triumphalism, which is shifting and murmuring in the background of Obama's campaign. Be interesting to get Obama's opinion on, for example, Justice Thurgood Marshall's remark to his colleagues in the Bakke case, that, "You guys have been practicing discrimination for years. Now it is our turn." (It's in Clint Bolick's book about affirmative action.) As a white guy with half-Asian kids, is there an ethnic downside to me and mine in voting for Obama? Is this an improper question? Why?
Those shifty minorities, always "shifting and murmuring." As for Derbyshire's question, it isn't so much improper as it is galactically dumb. Still, one has to love phrases like "ethnic downside." And, I suppose, we should all be grateful for the fact that the classy folks over at National Review Online give "Derb" an outlet for his opinions.
--Isaac Chotiner