Coincidentally, commensurate with the passing of the namesake bandleader our city’s freshman mayor has managed to upstage our nation’s leader on an issue that Obama should easily have been identified as being the standard bearer.

     Much to the relief of the tea frothing right wing of the Grand Ole Party, the Obama administration performed a feat similar to the early 70’s era Saints, and clinched defeat from the jaws of victory. Following the dissemination of a heavily edited video by right winger blogger Andrew Breitbart which attempted to portray an African American employee of the USDA , Shirley Sherrod, as having discriminated against a Caucasian farm family seeking governmental assistance solely due to their race, the Obama administration summarily forced Ms. Sherrod to resign, without investigating the charges levied against her ala the video smear tactic. Once it was revealed that the Bretbart video had been selectively edited, and that in fact full governmental assistance had been orchestrated by Ms. Sherrod in order to save the farm of the Caucasian family (and, the farmers have long since considered Sherrod to be their saving grace), the president’s administration sheepishly  offered a new governmental position to Ms. Sherrod.

     The Sherrod fiasco is unfortunately somewhat emblematic of the problems besetting the Obama presidency. Although he was elected with the mantra of “hope and change”, thus far his administration appears to be mired in the politics of the past. Instead of being able to utilize the otherwise despicable acts of Mr. Breitbart to provide a valuable lesson to the country about the need for color blindness in order for this country to address issues that affect everyone regardless of skin tone (as was exhibited by Ms. Sherrod herself), based upon an apparent attempt to avoid being labeled as a defender of a black racist, Obama felt it best to disarm the right of this potential political goldmine by quickly terminating Ms. Sherrod. Now that the full text of Ms. Sherrod’s comments have been revealed, the President finds himself in the oxymoronic position of being the first African American leader of the free world, but yet having been co-opted on racial discrimination issues by his own actions (and, less we forget, his similar knee-jerk reaction to the incident that gave rise to the “beer summit” with African American Professor Henry Gates, and the Caucasian police officer, James Crowley).

    Perhaps the President needs a primer on how elected officials should handle racial politics from our city’s golden boy, Mitch Landrieu. At a recent local summit to address issues affecting New Orleans East and the Lower 9th Ward, several residents queried the mayor about whether his administration would seek to expropriate the spate of blighted houses still remaining in the aftermath of Katrina.

Recognizing the inherent racial divide that would result from the city’s first Caucasian chief executive in over thirty decades repossessing former residences in African American areas, Mayor Landrieu confronted the racial issue, admiringly, head-on.  As reported by Gambit, Mayor Landrieu seized the opportunity to broach the color line with his heavily comprised African American audience as follows:

     “The question is, is this about race? Or is it about the city? And when is the day we start focusing on these properties? Is it now? Is it September? Is it November? Or yesterday? “

     Hopefully, in recognition of Landrieu’s willingness to confront, and challenge the racial issues in our society, Gambit reported that several audience members retorted “yesterday” to the mayor’s inquiry. Perhaps, President Obama should likewise make the same inquiry of the rest of the nation.