OBAMARAMA

Newshounds picks up an absurd exchange between FOX News’ Bill O’Reilly and Rev. Al Sharpton, in which O’Reilly uses Sharpton’s (and his own) ignorance about Sen. Obama’s legislative record to claim he has never done anything for the black community.

“He hasn’t done anything for you, as far as I can tell,” O’Reilly began by saying. “Give me one thing that Barack Obama has done for African Americans.”

Rev. Sharpton, who has long positioned himself as the unofficial spokesman for the black community, was nonetheless completely (and inexcusably) unprepared for a question about substance. “Barack Obama, in his state legislative career, voted on some very critical issues that expanded business opportunities for people in Illinois,” he eqivocated.

So, in his infinite wisdom, Bill O’Reilly drew the only reasonable conclusion available: Sen. Obama has done nothing for African Americans.

O’REILLY: You can sit here for four minutes, and you haven’t given me one thing that he’s done. … You don’t know what he’s done. And I don’t know what he’s done. Okay, look. … Here’s the deal: We have two brilliant men here. Okay? You and me. Would you agree?SHARPTON: I’m not going to argue with that.

O’REILLY: Okay. Two brilliant men. Not just smart. We’re really brilliant! Neither one of us can point to one thing Barack Obama has done for African Americans.

SHARPTON: Well, first of all –

O’REILLY: Well nothing! That’s the fact!

Yes, Bill, that is indeed the fact: You and Rev. Sharpton, despite your claims of brilliance, cannot name one thing Sen. Obama has done for African Americans. Just don’t confuse that with reality.

As the Chicago Tribune reports, Sen. Obama sponsored “laws that reformed the death-penalty system, expanded health insurance for the poor and helped create the
earned-income tax credit for working families” while in the Illinois senate, all measures that had a significant impact on black populations.

The Associated Press adds that Sen. Obama was a leader “on legislation requiring police to videotape interrogations in murder cases,” to the benefit of African American defendants.

He “regularly supported gun-control measures, including a ban on semiautomatic ‘assault weapons’ and a limit on handgun purchases to one a month” — laws that reduced crime in dangerous Chicago neighborhoods that are predominantly black. Sen. Obama was also “a key figure in requiring a massive statewide study of traffic stops to look for signs of racial profiling.”

In addition:

• He “voted to raise the minimum wage in Illinois from $5.15 an hour to $6.50 an hour over two years”
• He “helped pass a 5 percent earned-?ncome tax credit for low-income working families in 2000; made the credit permanent in 2003″
• He sponsored a measure “to expunge some criminal records and create an employment grant program for ex-criminals”
• He “successfully sponsored the Health Care Justice Act, a study of ways to implement a universal health care system statewide”

And this all came after the years he spent registering hundreds of thousands of African American voters as a community activist and organizer on Chicago’s South Side — as well as his service as a civil rights attorney.

Not that Bill O’Reilly should let the facts interfere with his meaningless demagoguery. If he and Rev. Sharpton don’t know about it, it didn’t happen.

Except, it did.

Here’s the video:

UPDATE: Newshounds commenter Joe makes an insightful point:

Of course [O’Reilly] would rather see Clinton in the general election; he’s scared of Obama’s cross-over appeal…people understand [and] respect his reasoning. [O’Reilly] is out of business if politics becomes civil, [and] civil understanding is Obama’s campaign tagline.

UPDATE 2: Seth over at Independents for Obama offers a good perspective on the cross-section of race and politics:

The recent theme of some of these articles is that although Obama is half black, he doesn’t have the “black vote” in the bag. I would hope not! Why in the world would anyone vote for someone just because they share something in common that doesn’t affect one’s ability to serve as President of the United States. … Again, I’m glad that people aren’t voting for Obama based purely on the color of his skin and I sincerely hope that people won’t vote against
him purely for that reason either.