It's Official Hillary Clinton will be Secretary of State

In a press conference that is ongoing as I type this message, Senator Hillary Clinton will be our nation's 64th Secretary of State and Eric Holder will become our nation's first African American Attorney General. I also applaud Senator Obama's selection of Susan Rice as UN Ambassador, Robert Gates to remain at DoD, and Gov. Napolitiano at Homeland Security. Gen. Jones will do a good job as NSA.
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It's My Party, But I Don't Feel Part of It--Reprinted from The Washington Post.com (Print Edition will run in this Sunday's Outlook)

It's My Party, But I Don't Feel Part of It

By Sophia A. NelsonSunday, November 23, 2008; B01

Election night was a bittersweet night for me. Like most Americans, and especially as an African American, I found it deeply moving to watch President-elect Barack Obama and his family -- soon to be our nation's first African American first family -- stride onstage for his victory speech. I welcome the positive role models they'll present to black families and the American public at large.

But as a black Republican, I was chagrined that the political party I've belonged to for 20 years had just suffered a blistering electoral defeat. And that along the way, it had lost 96 percent of the black vote and 67 percent of the Hispanic vote -- the worst showing for the Republican Party among minorities in its 150-year history.

After such a devastating loss, Republicans will have to do some retooling. We'll have to decide whether we want to be the party that believes in smaller government, lower taxes and less regulation, or whether we're going to be a litmus-test party that responds only to the demands of social conservatives. But most important, we'll have to confront our most disastrous modern legacy: our poor relationship with black Americans, the very people the party was formed to protect from the expansion of slavery into Kansas and Nebraska in 1854.

That relationship may be lost for generations, thanks to a campaign by Sen. John McCain that seemed to simply concede the black vote. According to one senior aide, McCain had been polling close to 20 percent of the black vote before the primaries ended. But then his "Forgotten America" tour, which started soon after, never seemed to go anywhere. I knew of only one high-level black adviser or spokesperson on his full-time paid campaign staff. The GOP convention was embarrassingly devoid of people of color -- among more than 2,000 delegates, only 36 were black.

The problem, former Maryland lieutenant governor Michael Steele told the Washington Times last week, is that party officials "don't give a damn." To them, he said, "outreach means let's throw a cocktail party, find some black folks and Hispanics and women, wrap our arms around them -- 'See, look at us.' And then we go back to the same old, same old."

"The party has simply not understood the importance of having highly visible black Republican operatives, elected officials and political spokespersons working for it on an ongoing basis," adds an African American who worked for the Republican National Committee during the administration of the first President Bush. "It's not our message as much as it is our messengers that are killing us."

It didn't have to be this way. Only a few years ago, then-RNC chairman Ken Mehlman was aggressively reaching out to the black community. At the NAACP convention in 2005, he apologized for the party's past embrace of racial polarization to gain political advantage. "We were wrong," he said. But Mehlman's efforts, like those of George H.W. Bush and President Gerald R. Ford in the 1970s and, ironically, Lee Atwater in 1989, have never really been followed up on in a way that has successfully made inroads and attracted black voters to the GOP fold.

I'm a Republican because I believe in a republican form of government, in individual liberty, the rule of law and civic virtue. Though I was raised in a staunchly Democratic household in a heavily ethnic suburb in southern New Jersey, I realized in college that my personal values were closer to those of the GOP than the Democrats. I joined the Republican Party in 1988, attracted by George H.W. Bush's message of a "kinder, gentler" America and Jack Kemp's mantra of economic development and urban enterprise zones, which seemed a natural fit for the black community.

That drew in other African Americans as well. "What the GOP of the '80s and '90s stood for was growth, opportunity and prosperity," one black Republican businessman from Virginia told me. "This is what attracted me to the party." But more recently that message, he said, "has gotten swallowed up by a social conservative agenda that seems obsessed with religion, guns and abortion."

I can vouch that being a moderate black Republican isn't easy. My black GOP colleagues and I endure endless ridicule and questioning from other African Americans, including close friends and family members who wonder how we can belong to a political party that is so overwhelmingly white, male, Southern, conservative and seemingly closed to ethnic minorities.
And truth be told, it's sometimes an ill fit.

Consider the comments of Shannon Reeves, an African American who started a college Republican chapter at Grambling State University in 1988. In 2003, he wrote an open letter to the party after it was disclosed that in 1999, a newsletter published by the then-vice chairman of the California Republican Party had carried an essay suggesting that the country would have been better off if the South had won the Civil War.

"I am tired of being embarrassed by elected Republican officials who have no sensitivity for issues that alienate whole segments of our population," Reeves wrote. "This embarrassment is different for a black Republican. Not only do we have to sit in rooms and behave professionally towards Republicans who share this ideology, we have to go home to a hostile environment where we are called Uncle Tom and maligned as a sell-out to the community because of our membership in the Republican Party."

With those words Reeves expressed what many of us have felt over the years -- and felt again during the recent campaign as we listened to racially coded Republican ads and speeches aimed at scaring working-class and rural white voters about Obama. Reeves expressed why so many of us, including me, ended up, after struggling with our consciences, supporting and voting for the Illinois senator.

After losing our votes this time around, the question is whether the GOP will learn from its failings or continue to compound them. Rumor and e-mail has it that some black conservatives are angry with black Republicans such as Gen. Colin Powell who publicly backed Obama and have issued calls to "throw out" those who did so. But instead of doling out retribution, the party would be better off reflecting on its failings vis-a-vis African Americans, and on the transformation of Abraham Lincoln's Grand Old Party from one that freed the slaves, stood with the suffragists in the early 20th century and helped pass both the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts when Southern Democrats would not yield to a party that now appeals to the old Confederacy and a few mountain states out West.

How can the GOP bring black voters back into the fold? Asked that question on National Public Radio in October, Steele, now a candidate for the RNC chairmanship, offered a simple formula:
"Talk to them. Actually engage the black community where they are. Stop thinking you're going to get by by having a handshake and a photo-op, and actually go and listen to black folks in the issues and the concerns they have and . . . make them important to the [party's] overall strategy."

Reeves, who's now national director of state and local development for the RNC, has a similar view. The party, he said, has to "identify, elevate and support blacks who currently work within the party at the local level long before Election Day. We must embrace the talent that the party has now, those who have earned their stripes."

But black Republicans, he stressed, "have a responsibility, too. We need to be effecting change in our own local communities. We need to run for local and state party chairmanships, we need to be there when the platforms are being decided, and when candidates are being selected to run for office."

There are other steps the party can take as it regroups for the future. Republicans need to go to black churches, colleges and other organizations to make the case for the party as a viable option for African Americans. It should mentor and nurture young black Republicans on college campuses, teaching them to canvass, providing paid internships and encouraging them to attend party rules and platform meetings, where real political power resides. It should introduce elected black state and local officials to the national donor base to help them build their coffers for future elections. It should recruit blacks in the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic and in urban districts, offering a Marshall Plan of sorts to rebuild our cities, encourage entrepreneurship and small business start-ups and promote lower taxes for job creation.

And the party can make better use of black veterans of past administrations, just as it does of white Republicans who get recycled and advanced in each new administration -- people like former Pennsylvania Republican committee deputy chairman Renee Amoore; former Atwater aide and George H.W. Bush appointee David Byrd; former George W. Bush appointee Clarence Carter; Sam Cornelius, former chairman of the National Black Republican Council; Thelma Duggin, former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan; and former George H.W. Bush aide Joe Watkins.

Diversity is a good thing. Republicans have to stop allowing ourselves to be accused of voter suppression in every campaign. And let's grow the vote in nontraditional areas the same way Obama did in rural and suburban white America.

In the final analysis, what the American people showed in this election is that they're looking for a more thoughtful and soulful politics. The Republican Party has to find its soul again. Only then will it be ready to lead and govern in a way that attracts a broad spectrum of people to it and makes them want to stay with it for generations to come.

sanelson@politicalintersection.com
Sophia A. Nelson, a former Republican congressional staffer and committee counsel, is a lawyer and the editor of politicalintersectionblog.com.

Michelle Obama Affirms Black Women's Self Image--Reprinted from The Washington Post, Style Section

The Very Image of Affirmation In Michelle Obama, Black Women See A Familiar Grace & Strength Writ Large

By DeNeen L. Brown and Richard Leiby
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, November 21, 2008; C01

Michelle Obama emerged, long and lean, from a black limousine that pulled up at the White House the other day. She stood in a bold red dress that followed her lines. She smoothed her hair and moved between her man -- the president-elect -- and the first lady. Tall in shiny red pumps, Michelle seemed to tower over them all.

As she stood there, many black women on this side of the White House gate saw something else in Michelle Obama that sunny afternoon: bits and pieces of themselves.
They saw their family in hers, or the family they dreamed of having. Saw a woman whose husband seemed to adore her, giving her hugs and pecks on the lips as if the whole world were not watching.

Women watched Michelle Obama until she disappeared into the White House. Then they began talking.
"I like the way she carries herself," says Liz Nolan, 65.
"I like the fact that she walks with him," says Shenee McRae, 31, "not behind him or in front of him."
"For black women, she is visible proof that you can be anything you want to be," says Greer Jones, 37.

These particular women were at A Natural Motion, Nolan's beauty salon on Georgia Avenue NW. Elsewhere, in offices, in kitchens, on the radio, over the telephone, in churches, on blogs, women are talking and whispering a chorus of amens. Not just black women -- all women. They comment on what they see, or don't see. They opine about Michelle Obama's intellect, her style. Fascinated by Michelle. That's what they call her, Michelle -- first-name basis already.

They noticed the way Michelle, 44, wore her hair pulled back in a ponytail to vote, as normal black women would on the way to the hairdresser the morning before a big event. Two daughters in tow in plaits. They liked the way she wore J.Crew on Jay Leno. And noticed that she told her husband he needed to be home for Valentine's Day.

It would be too trivial to say that she is smashing stereotypes of black women, because the stereotypes are so flat, so one-sided, so unreal, that smashing them would be like punching a cloud.

"There's the stereotype of the powerful black woman, the aggressive black woman; there is the stereotype of the over-sexualized, overly sexed black woman; there is the stereotype of the mammy," says Aziza Gibson-Hunter, 54, a conceptual artist and mother of four who lives in Northwest Washington.

What she sees in Michelle Obama is strength: "I saw it in my mother. When I was a kid, I saw it in the women in the church, this dignified strength. I think that is real.

"I think Michelle Obama is her own woman. I think people with the stereotype thing need to get over it. She is forcing people who have never taken the time to know who we are as black women to take a second look. To actually see, for once in their life, that there are black women that are brilliant and graceful, intelligent, well spoken and have their own sense of themselves. And it doesn't have to be measured up to anyone else."

Gibson-Hunter is sitting on the black leather sofa in her home with her husband, Jawara, an anesthesiologist. Their brown dachshund just jumped in her lap. Her 16-year-old son is on the computer in the other room "supposedly doing homework." They have just finished a dinner of tofu, salad and naan flat bread.

"I think for nonblack people, they are going to have to maybe deal with the stereotypes in their heads," Gibson-Hunter said. ". . . What this whole situation is doing is inviting people to look behind the projections in their own minds and maybe begin to do some work to deconstruct some of that and find the truth."

"She is educated. She is not like 'Michelle the housewife.' It's 'Michelle the attorney,' " says McRae. "She is smart. She is not an airhead. She's not the pretty girl. She's not the ugly girl. She's not the trophy wife."

"Nobody wants to see anybody in a Chanel suit," says Diavian Jeffreys, 24.

"I look at her head to toe, and I can't find one fault," says Nolan.

The stage is set for soul-searching. "Michelle Obama will be under the microscope in a way no other woman of color has been," said Donna Brazile, a Democratic commentator and strategist who offered advice to the Obama campaign. "There's no question that Michelle Obama will alter the playbook for black women for years to come. . . . We're long overdue for this."

During the presidential campaign, Michelle Obama found herself branded "Obama's baby mama" in a Fox News graphic. Some conservative pundits labeled her an "angry," unpatriotic black woman after she remarked in February, "For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country, because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction." By July came a depiction of Michelle Obama as an Angela Davis type, fist-bumping her husband on a satiric New Yorker cover that famously backfired.

She says she ignores labels, telling NPR: "I have not paid much attention about what people say about me who don't know me." She said she was saying one thing -- how proud she was that more Americans were participating in the electoral politics -- and the way people interpreted it was another thing. African Americans say they knew exactly what she was talking about: For too long, they felt excluded from the political process. The Obamas changed that.

But the controversy highlights how the first lady will need to practice "impression management," said Quinetta Roberson, a Villanova University business school professor who co-authored a law journal article analyzing public perceptions of the future first lady.

"One of the other perceptions around her is that she is a very strong woman, and her influence on her husband and family is very clear," Roberson said. "In his acceptance speech, Barack Obama said she is 'the rock of our family.' Other politicians may say my spouse is my ally or inspiration, but it doesn't necessarily suggest an equal role. 'Rock of our family' means she is right next to him and a critical part of his foundation."

Yet the positive can easily be spun as a negative, into a stereotype of an "aggressive, somewhat overbearing woman," Roberson says.

"She can help girls with the decision that when they grow up, what kind of man you should want by your side," Greer Jones says. "Do you want a man to stand on the corner or do you want a man who has potential to become president?"

"In Chicago, she stood right there till her man finished his last word," says Patricia Johnson, 34.
People have been drawing conclusions about Michelle Obama by refracting her words through their own experiences and biases. There are blogs following her every move: the school-selection process for her daughter, her performance on "60 Minutes," her figure. Essayist Erin Aubry Kaplan posted this on Salon.com: "Barack's better half not only has stature but is statuesque. She has coruscating intelligence, beauty, style and -- drumroll, please -- a butt."
Still to come will be more serious assessments based on the causes she promotes, her first official journey outside the country, her first state dinner.

"I have no doubt that she is prepared for the challenge," said Lani Guinier, a Harvard Law School professor and onetime Clinton nominee for a top Justice Department post. "She and her husband embody a very healthy relationship. That in itself is quite a public and political statement."

Guinier added: "I toast to the time when this is all normal -- or otherwise unremarkable."
Portia Pedro, 29, a third-year student of Guinier's, is pursuing the same degree held by the incoming president and first lady. "The hope for young black professional women that's embodied in Michelle Obama is a bit different from the hope invested in Barack Obama," she said. "As we go higher and higher into education, we outnumber black men, and there is a not-so-silent concern that you are less likely to get married and less likely to have children. The career part is not in question, but can you do that and be married and have a family?
"If she can do that, then it opens possibilities for other black women."

Alice M. Thomas, a 45-year-old professor at Howard University School of Law, said the Obama marriage should help redefine the image of black relationships.

With his election night tribute to Michelle as "the love of my life, your next first lady," Thomas said, the president-elect crowned all black women: "He had a humble enough spirit to concede the stage to her. . . . It elevated black women in a way we haven't been elevated since antiquity: Queen Hatshepsut, Queen Nzinga, Cleopatra, Nefertiti. World leaders came seeking them, admiring their beauty. They were not just beautiful, they were intelligent.

"For him to regard her and treat her and show and express unabashedly, unashamedly, his love for her, his love for her intelligence, respecting her, romancing her, smiling at her -- for the world to see that exchange between a powerful black man and a powerful black woman, I think it's what is everlasting about this," Thomas said. "I don't think we can point to another power black couple like that. Oprah and Stedman aren't married. And Stedman doesn't seem to have power. Nelson and Winnie broke up."

Some women say Michelle Obama and her family represent nothing really new -- that there have always been stable, married, beautiful black families living in beautiful houses and sending their children to private schools. Mother in pearls. Dad in sharp suits. So often, black families are depicted as statistics. But look behind the curtained windows and you'll see "normal" American behavior: working parents, live-in grandmothers.

Michelle Obama told the Cleveland Plain Dealer during the Democratic convention: "When I was growing up in the '80s, 'The Cosby Show' meant so much to African American families. A lot of people looked at the Huxtables and thought, 'There's no way that family exists.' But African Americans knew differently. If we don't see those images, then the people don't believe they exist."

If you peeked you would see yourself, too -- a family, just a regular family. All these years they were there, living in cities and suburbs, down the street from you. Soon, they'll be living in the White House -- with Michelle Obama as self-described mom-in-chief, standing in for so many women on this side of the gate.

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Michael Steele Publicly Criticizes GOP Minority Outreach--Washington Times

In an interview with the Washington Times, Former Lt. Gov. Michael Steele (R-Prince Georges County, Maryland) predicts that if he were to become RNC chairman, "many in the media will dismiss it as tokenism by the Republican Party, trying to play their form of the race card."

On the other hand, Steele also suggests that the RNC itself lacks proper respect for minorities. "The problem is that within the operations of the RNC, they don't give a damn. It's all about outreach ... and outreach means let's throw a cocktail party, find some black folks and Hispanics and women, wrap our arms around them - 'See, look at us.'"

All I can say to this is stay tuned for my Op-ed in The Sunday Washington Post Outlook section.
My article on the GOP & African Americans is in agreement with Steele and many others I interviewed.

Stay Tuned. . .

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See PI Editor Sophia Nelson on Hannity & Colmes Tonight 9:30PM EST & Read her Washington Post Outlook Piece on GOP & African Americans 11/23/08

PI Editor Sophia Nelson will be on FOXNEWS Hannity & Colmes Segment this evening for a political panel.

She has also authored an opinion piece for this Sunday's Washington Post Outlook section where she has been a contributor since 1997.

The Op-ed will focus on the badly shattered relationship between blacks and the GOP & How the GOP might be able to heal the rift and move forward. Please feel free to post your commentary and thoughts to both the appearance and op-ed right here as always right on politicalintersectionblog.com

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So Just What Is A House Negro Anyway: Whatever it Is, Prez-Elect Obama Is Not. . .

In a newly released video-tape message one of al-Qaeda's top lieutenants today delivered a harsh, personal message to President-elect Barack Obama, referring to him as a "House Negro" in an attempt to undercut his political appeal in parts of the world where the network has recently tried to expand. In the tape, al-Qaeda's deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, describes Obama as subservient to whites and suggests that the president-elect has forsaken his father's Muslim heritage to become a stooge for Israel.

In one excerpt from the crazed al-Qaeda tape, Osama Bin Laden's top flunky says:

"You have reached the position of president, and a heavy legacy of failure and crimes awaits you," says Zawahiri, an Egyptian physician who serves as al-Qaeda's second in command under Osama bin Laden. "You were born to a Muslim father, but you chose to stand in the ranks of the enemies of the Muslims and pray the prayer of the Jews, although you claim to be Christian, in order to climb the rungs of leadership in America."

In the 11-minute video, Zawahiri unfavorably compares the first black U.S. president-elect to Malcolm X, the Nation of Islam leader who was assassinated 43 years ago. Zawahiri says Obama, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her predecessor, Colin L. Powell, all "confirmed" Malcolm X's definition of a "house Negro," a derogatory term used to describe black leaders who cater to white interests.

So let's analyze the method behind the madness here shall we?

First, I really hope that President Obama's first act on day one of his new administration is to issue an order to have these thugs taken O-U-T. They (al-Qaeda) are a disease that we need to rid our planet of permanently. These sophmoric videos that are released annually by these hate-spewing men, wearing silly hats, who then hide in caves nonetheless, really rubs me the wrong way. I suspect it does the same for our Intel community, our military leaders, and the White House.

Second, the term "house-negro" derives from slavery. The House Negroes were literally that--those who worked in the house--while the field Negroes worked in the field. House Negroes were usually of fairer skin complexion, and usually the progeny of the Master and the slave women he bedded. The term is one of deep American roots and cultural clashes within the black community.

It is one that has been used for centuries by black Americans to dismiss and describe those black leaders, achievers, success stories who are deemed to be "sell-outs", or "uncle Toms", "brown nosers". Folks, who do the "white man's bidding" so to speak. It is a term that was also used quite a bit by Malcolm-X when he was at the top of the leadership in the American Black Muslim movement.

In one speech Malcolm X Said:

"There was two kind of slaves. There was the house negro and the field negro. The house negro, they lived in the house, with master. They dressed pretty good. They ate good, cause they ate his food, what he left. They lived in the attic or the basement, but still they lived near their master, and they loved their master, more than their master loved himself. They would give their life to save their masters house quicker than their master would. The house negro, if the master said "we got a good house here" the house negro say "yeah, we got a good house here". Whenever the master would said we, he'd say we. That's how you can tell a house negro.

If the master's house caught on fire, the house negro would fight harder to put the blaze out than the master would. If the master got sick, the house negro would say "What's the matter, boss, we sick?" We sick! He identified himself with his master, more than the master identified with himself. And if you came to the house negro and said "Let's run away, Let's escape, Let's separate" the house negro would look at you and say "Man, you crazy. What you mean separate? Where is there a better house than this? Where can I wear better clothes than this? Where can I eat better food than this?" There was that house negro. In those days, he was called a house nigger. And that's what we call him today, because we still got some house niggers runnin around here.

This modern house negro loves his master. He wants to live near him. He'll pay three times as much as the house is worth just to live near his master, and then brag about "I'm the only negro out here. I'm the only one on my job. I'm the only one in this school." "You're nothing but a house negro. And if someone come to you right now and say "Let's separate.", you say the same thing that the house negro said on the plantation. "What you mean separate? From America? This good white land? Where you gonna get a better job than you get here? I mean, this is what you say! "I di-I ain't left nothing in Africa" That's what you say. "Why, you left your mind in Africa".

On that same plantation, there was the field negro. The field negro, those were the masses. There was always more Negros in the field as there were Negros in the house. There negro in the field caught hell. He ate leftovers. In the house, they ate high up on the hog. The negro in the field didn't get nothing but what was left in the insides of the hog. They call them chit'lins nowaday. In those days, they called them what they were, guts! That's what you were, a guteater. And some of you are still guteaters. The field negro was beaten, from morning til night. He lived in a shack, in a hut. He wore cast-off clothes. He hated his master. I say, he hated his master. He was intelligent. That house negro loved his master. But that field negro, remember, they were in the majority, and they hated their master.

When the house caught on fire, he didn't try to put it out, that field negro prayed for a wind. For a breeze. When the master got sick, the field negro prayed that he died. If someone come to the field negro and said "Let's separate, let's run." He didn't say "Where we going?" he said "Any place is better than here". We got field Negros in America today. I'm a field negro. The masses are the field Negros. When they see this mans house on fire, we don't hear these little Negros talkin bout "Our Government is in trouble. They say thee Government is in trouble." Imagine a negro, "Our Government". I even heard one say "Our astronauts." They won't even let him near the plant, and "Our astronauts". "Our neighbors" That's a negro that's out of his mind. That's a negro that's out of his mind! Just cause the slave master in that day, used Tom, to keep the field Negroes in check.

The same ol slavemaster today has Negros who are nothing but modern Uncle Toms. 20th century Uncle Toms to keep you and me in check. Keep us under control. Keep us passive and peaceful. And nonviolent. That's Tom making you nonviolent. It's like when you go to the dentist and the man is going to take your tooth. You're going to fight him when he start pulling. So they squirt some stuff in your jaw called Novocaine, to make you think their not doing anything to you. So you sit there and because you got all that Novocaine in your jaw, you suffer peacefully.

Hahahaha. There's nothing in our book, the Quran, as you call it, Koran, that teaches us to suffer peacefully. Our religion teaches us to be intelligent. Be peaceful. Be courteous. Obey the law. Respect everyone. But if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery! That's a good religion. In fact, that's that old-time religion. That's the one that ma and pa used to talk about. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and a head for a head and a life for a life. That's a good religion. And doesn't anybody, no one resist that kind of religion being taught but a wolf who intends to make you his meal. This is the way it is with the white man in America. He's a wolf and you're his sheep. Anytime a shepherd, a pastor, teach you and me not to run from the white man, and at the same time teach us don't fight the white man, he's a traitor, to you and me. Don't lay down our life all by itself, no, preserve your life. It's the best thing you got. And if you got to give it up, let it be Even Steven. "

(see link http://malcolmxfiles.blogspot.com/) for great collection of his speeches on this subject and more.

The bottom line is this--President Elect Barack Obama was elected by a majority of Americans to the presidency. He got a larger share of the white vote 43% than did John Kerry or Al Gore. He won every demographic, gender, and age group--he even got 1 nin 5 republican votes. He won the hearts of Americans. A true House Negro would have NEVER EVER had the courage to buck the Clinton's, the black caucus, the polls, or the power elites, all who said it COULD NOT BE DONE!!!!!

President Elect Obama is more Malcolm than he is Martin in my opinion. He is just a quieter, gentler Malcolm. By that I mean--Barack understood and seized the very thing Malcolm believed in most--taking power--taking your rightful place as a black American--not asking for it to be given to you.

al-Qaeda is likely gearing up to do us all some harm--soon. They will test this new young President and they hate the Jews in America and in Israel. Obama's selection of a Jewish man for his WH Chief of Staff has the Muslim extremists NUTS and now they are spewing venom and making threats.

I say what else is new? My hope is that President Elect Obama sends these thugs a message (as we would say in my house or neighborhood when someone called us "out")--I got your House Negro? You wanna try me??

Hillary for Secretary of State: Not a Bad Idea. . .

We like the idea of Senator Clinton for Secretary of State.

The question is has President-Elect Obama truly offered the job to her or is she just being considered?

Only time will tell, but we think Hillary would make a great SOS for the following reasons:

1. She is loyal--Contrary to what the media has said about the Clintons--she proved her grace, and loyalty to the Democratic Party BIG TIME by endorsing and campaigning for Senator Obama very shortly after the Primary losses and during the General campaign. That could not have been easy for her as a human being considering her own ambition for the same office.

2. She is smart-We still think she was the best of the 2008 Presidential field--or at least the best of two in the field. She is a class act hands down.

3. She is qualified--This is a no-brainer. Yale Law School. Wellsley Undergraduate. Former First Lady--U.S. Senator--Stateswoman. Best Selling Author. Grammy Winner for her audio book.

4. She is tough--Remember the primary campaign?? Ouch. She can throw a punch--shoot a gun--drink a shot like a fella--and she can wear a pant-suit in any shade and still be a lady. She will scare the Russians, the Iranians, and the Chinese when we need her to do so. Allowing President Elect Obama to conduct a balanced foreign policy with him playing good cop to his diplomatic team's bad cop when needed.

5. She should be rewarded by her Party--come on folks--she earned 18 million votes--she cracked the glass ceiling for future generations of women to come. They Party should pay her back BIG and do it with a great cabinet post, as leader of the Senate or as an Associate Supreme Court Justice.

Those are our thoughts. . .

America's Transition of Power Begins Anew: The Bushs Meet the Obamas

From CNN:

President Bush had a "relaxed" and "friendly" meeting with President-elect Barack Obama after he and first lady Laura Bush welcomed their successors to their future home Monday, a White House spokesman said.

President Bush and Laura Bush welcome Barack and Michelle Obama to the White House on Monday. "The president and the president-elect had a long meeting, described by the president as good, constructive, relaxed and friendly," White House press secretary Dana Perino said in a statement. "The president enjoyed his visit with the president-elect, and he again pledged a smooth transition to the next administration."

Perino said the two discussed national and international issues but did not provide specifics of the conversation. Bush also gave Obama a tour of the White House's living quarters, including the Lincoln bedroom.

Bush and Obama held a private meeting in the Oval Office, while the first lady gave incoming first lady Michelle Obama a tour of the residence.

The president and president-elect walked together along the Colonnade by the Rose Garden before entering the Oval Office together. They briefly waved to reporters along the way.
Obama and Bush were not expected to speak on camera after their meeting.

Monday's meeting was a historic formality, but it was also a time for serious talks. It marked the first time Obama has visited the Oval Office. Watch Bush welcome Obama to the White House »
Bush and Obama "had a broad discussion about the importance of working together throughout the transition of government in light of the nation's many critical economic and security challenges," said Stephanie Cutter, spokeswoman for Obama's transition team.

"President-elect Obama thanked President Bush for his commitment to a smooth transition, and for his and first lady Laura Bush's gracious hospitality in welcoming the Obamas to the White House," Cutter said.

A day earlier, a leader of Obama's transition team said the president and president-elect were expected to discuss "a broad range of issues," focusing on the economy.

"It's clear that we need to stabilize the economy, to deal with the financial meltdown that's now spreading across the rest of the economy. The auto industry is really, really back on its heels," transition team leader John Podesta told CNN's "Late Edition" on Sunday.

Podesta said Obama will push Congress to enact "at least part" of an economic package before he takes office in January, but said the problems Americans face need short- and long-term approaches. The president and president-elect also were expected to talk about national security and the war in Iraq. Go inside the Oval Office

Despite the negative tone of the campaign season -- in which Obama frequently campaigned against what he called Bush's "failed policies" -- Bush has pledged to do everything he can to make sure they have a smooth transition. iReport.com: What's your message for Obama?
"When I called President-elect Obama to congratulate him on his historic victory, I told him that he can count on my complete cooperation as he makes his transition to the White House. Ensuring that this transition is seamless is a top priority for the rest of my time in office," Bush said in his radio address this weekend.

Podesta said cooperation with Bush administration officials has been "excellent" since Tuesday's election. Watch more on the transition to power »
Obama said he was "gratified by the invitation" to meet with the president and his wife.
"I'm sure that, in addition to taking a tour of the White House, there's going to be a substantive conversation between myself and the president," he said at a news conference Friday.
"I'm going to go in there with a spirit of bipartisanship and a sense that both the president and various leaders in Congress all recognize the severity of the situation right now and want to get stuff done," he said.

Given their drastically different views on foreign policy, Mark Preston, CNN's deputy political editor, predicted an "uncomfortable meeting at best." Watch CNN's Mark Preston talk about the meeting »

"Let's not forget that Barack Obama ran against President Bush every day when he was taking on John McCain. While they will be cordial, I bet you it will be uncomfortable," Preston said.
As the president and president-elect met in the Oval Office, Perino gave Robert Gibbs a tour of the White House press office.

Gibbs was the communications director for Obama's presidential campaign. He has not officially been named the incoming press secretary, but he is widely considered the top contender for the position. Cutter said that after Laura Bush gave Michelle Obama a tour of the residence, the first lady and her successor discussed raising daughters in the White House.

"Mrs. Obama was honored to finally meet the first lady, who was a gracious hostess," Cutter said.

Barack & Michelle: The Reshaping of Black American Family Values

“As president, obviously the day I am inaugurated, the racial dynamics in this country will change to some degree. If you’ve got Michelle as first lady, and Malia and Sasha running around on the South Lawn, that changes how America looks at itself,” Democratic Nominee Barack Obama told ESSENCE magazine this past summer.

Of all the stirring images we have witnessed over the past week, none will stick with me more than the one I saw yesterday when President-Elect Barack Obama emerged with school papers in his hand from his parent-teacher conference (along with America's next First Lady Michelle Obama) at daughter Malia's elementary school.

Not since the Huxtables (e.g., the Cosby show) have we witnessed two black professionals so devoted to each other and to their children. I am loving the positive imagery and symbolism of this new President and First Lady. It is going to do wonders for "black love" in America, and I dare say for an entire generation of young people who will grow up watching this young first couple balance marriage and family with grace.

I know that for my fellow Americans who are not black, all of this elation and focus by the black community on President Elect Obama's race must be unsettling. But I beg your understanding and indulgence because we as a people have been through much, and like this great nation, we have survived, and thrived despite our setbacks.

Our collective elation as a people and as a nation is the culmination of 400 years of struggle and progress in the area of race relations. Some of us are downright giddy, I dare say Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice seemed a bit pleased herself at the election results last Tuesday. I'll go a step further, I think President Bush was pleased by the outcome--not that he did not want his friend Senator McCain to win, or to see his Party go down to such political feat; but, he understood like us all that America had achieved a major milestone and that we had broken through the ultimate glass ceiling by electing our nation's first black President.

The symbolism and substance of the Obamas living in the "White House" will be profound. The age old stereotypes about how black people act, live, and think will be slowly broken down. Just look at some of the comments posts on this blog--they never cease to amaze me (smiling). What I think will be most important is that young black men will see a powerful black man who is deeply involved with his children, and who openly adores and admires his wife. His beautiful, strong, intelligent black woman.

I'd better go before I start crying again (been doing a lot of that lately). Let me be the first to say that I am so hopeful for the black community, and for a reshaping of our values and behavior. Maybe we will have a return to old-fashioned courting, letter writing, respect, admiration, and enduring friendship between men and women. God knows we need this so desperately in the black family right now.

In the meantime, like President Elect Obama likes to say--he can't read to our children for us, or spend time with our loved ones. Only we can do that. I believe black America is going to be profoundly changed by this Presidency and by this marriage of these two brilliant souls (I'm not talking about just intellect--but about character).

Mrs. Obama said it best when she said:

"Barack knows that at some level there's a hole in our souls, and he is the only person in this race who understands that; that before we can work on the problems we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation."

I agree.

America Take A Bow--You Deserve An Encore: Race Was Just Not the Factor We Thought it Would Be.

Okay so now that we have had a few days to digest the history of this moment and we have all wept (I did so yet again this afternoon when I watched President Elect Obama give his first economic Press Conference), celebrated, and smiled like there was no tomorrow, its' time to have a little straight talk.

First, we all were WRONG about "RACE" in this campaign. Whatever Bradley effect there was in this campaign it was offset by legions of Americans (white and black, native American, and Hispanic) voting for Mr. Obama in record numbers on Tuesday. In point of fact, Senator Obama did better with white voters than did both John Kerry and Al Gore. He did better with young voters, women voters, older voters, middle class voters, and well educated voters.

The only group that he did not win was those white voters who made under $50,000 a year and who make up the majority of the GOP's Conservative base (what's left of it) that forms a bizzare T shape across the electoral map.

I just want to say that America and Americans have come a long way. I still think I am in shock. This past week before the election I took a couple of evenings between media travel and watched John Adams, Roots, North & South, Rosewood, Sally Hemmings: An American Scandal, and Mr. & Mrs. Loving.

This past summer my family went to South Carolina, and we stayed on the Isle of Palms in Charleston ( as we do each summer). Very close to Charleston is Boone Hall Plantation. It is the oldest working plantation still in existence in the U.S. It dates back to the 1600s. It was also the set used for Queen, North & South, and several other mini-series about slavery and the Civil War.

If you have never toured an American Plantation, you should. Boone Hall is simply breathtaking. To see the slave quarters and the BIG House in real time is stirring and hurtful all at once. To close your eyes and wonder what kind of terror it must have been for these Africans so far away from home, enslaved, and brutalized for hundreds of years--it is powerful indeed.

I often remind myself of our journey as Americans; and most importantly of the fact that our journey as black people only really came to some sense of closure in the mid 1960s with the passage of both the Voting Rights & Civil Rights Acts of 1964 & 1965. I thought about my own American family's journey and how proud my grand, great and great great grandparents would be to have lived to see this day. I have only one grandparent still alive--my maternal grandmother who will be 80 next year.

She was raised in Oklahoma, her mother (Purnie) was the daughter of a slave and a slave owner. She did not think she would live to see America fulfill the dream or its promise in her lifetime. But she has lived to see that day and so have all of us.

I just wanted to go on the record and say that I am proud of this country. I feel so proud as an American. We triumphed over fear and gave into hope for something better. Be clear that President Elect Obama is just a man folks. He will disappoint us all at some point. He is human. We need to accept that and simply adjust and forgive and do our part to help him be a good President. We have difficult days ahead--the economy is in distress--jobs are being lost at record pace. Trust me, I know as do many of you.

But we have hope for a new direction and for new bi-partisanship. Hope springs eternal--only time will tell. But for now--we should all be proud of how our nation came together and put race aside. It is something I will never forget.

I will be doing a lot more writing on this topic and we will be having some wonderful guest posts in the next few weeks as we continue to discuss the transformation that we all hope America will experience over these next four years.

For now, from my favorite Cheryl Lynn song, [America] "you deserve and encore".

God bless & Keep Moving Forward!

Sophia