A few weeks ago Drudge linked to a story where Cornell West made some fairly derogatory comments about the president. Because I’m not a fan of Prof. West, and because the comments were of a racial nature that I generally ignore, I didn’t read the story at the time. But today I got around to it and, if you can get just roll your eyes and get past the racial claptrap, the story provides some interesting insights, particularly when West discusses his falling out with the president.
Obama and West’s last personal contact took place a year ago at a gathering of the Urban League when, he says, Obama “cussed me out.” Obama, after his address, which promoted his administration’s championing of charter schools, approached West, who was seated in the front row.
“He makes a bee line to me right after the talk, in front of everybody,” West says. “He just lets me have it. He says, ‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself, saying I’m not a progressive. Is that the best you can do? Who do you think you are?’ I smiled. I shook his hand. And a sister hollered in the back, ‘You can’t talk to professor West. That’s Dr. Cornel West. Who do you think you are?’ You can go to jail talking to the president like that. You got to watch yourself. I wanted to slap him on the side of his head.
“It was so disrespectful,” he went on, “that’s what I didn’t like. I’d already been called, along with all [other] leftists, a “F’ing retard” by Rahm Emanuel because we had critiques of the president.”
Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to the president, has, West said, phoned him to complain about his critiques of Obama. Jarrett was especially perturbed, West says, when he said in an interview last year that he saw a lot of Malcolm X and Ella Baker in Michelle Obama. Jarrett told him his comments were not complimentary to the first lady.
Perhaps all presidents try to manage their supporters, but this certainly fits in with the perception that this president can’t handle being criticized. I don’t like West, but he’s no dummy and he seems to have principles, so berating him like that seems quite unlikely to result in anything positive for the president. Moreover, it’s just rude. The president has a lot of authority, of various types, and no one is ever on even ground when engaging the president in public. To see a president use that advantage to berate a private citizen (and a supporter, at that!), knowing that the private citizen will be unable to adequately respond, should (but won’t) revolt those on the Left who claim to constantly be aware of “power dynamics.” It revolts me, though I’m not a Leftist, just an old-fashioned republican.
Apollo posted this at 10:20 AM HKT on Thursday, June 2nd, 2011 as CHANGE!, Excruciatingly Correct Behavior