Bobby Henry, Sr. & Mother Russia

March 8, 2008

Bobby Henry, Sr.

Westside Gazette

545 NW 7^th Terrace

Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33311

RE: Things get “curiouser “and “curiouser” when some speech is free and some isn’t and how are people in Russia supposed to “get” it when people in Fort Lauderdale can’t.

Mr. Henry,

Mike Lynn is a good friend who has gone from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to Denver, Colorado to teaching at a university in Russia. Despite Mrs. Obama’s whining and caterwauling about how bad things are in this country my friend tells me that America is looked on with wonder, like Cortez’s men, “with a wild surmise”, at least in Russia.

I found out a long time ago that while it was deuced difficult to explain the Electoral College to foreigners it was impossible to explain the primary process and candidate forums. Each state has its own rules and each county, each city, and each special interest group has rules that pertain to them and to them only. Perhaps the contradictions are one of the things that make this country so great and so fascinating to foreigners. Like my good friend, the legendary Big Mike from Bayonne, is wont to say, “That’s why you never see anybody swimming to Cuba”.

How, for example, will my expatriate friend, the American professor in Russia explain the following statement?

“Bobby Henry, Sr., publisher of the Westside Gazette, said the

newspaper planned to conduct more forums and debates this year,

but limited its first forum to black candidates because the

contests were in many areas with large black populations.”

The Sun-Sentinel

March 7, 2008

[italics mine]

Would it not therefore follow, Logically, that white audiences should only hear white candidates?

I am certain that one of the bright Russian lads will ask if every black voter in America votes for Senator B. Hussein Obama will that number be sufficient to elect him the President of the United States. If he needs white people to vote for him would it not be in Hillary Clinton’s interest to deny him exposure to white only audiences?

The question trips deliciously off my tongue.

What if a white moderator forbade him an audience because he was the wrong color?

It is like pregnancy. Either you are or you aren’t.

Either speech is free or it isn’t.

And to think that you are in the newspaper business, a business that is oh so quick to hector us mere mortals with Eeyoreish predictions about treacherous slippery slopes and its dreaded cousin, the chilling effect.

It doesn’t seem to bother modern American Liberals who proclaim without a hint of irony that all candidates are equal but some candidates are more - or less - equal than others.

What can I tell the Russians other than doz vadania?