~Back in the impeachment era, the otherwise unreadable Toni Morrison called Bill Clinton “our first black president. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children’s lifetime”. Other black Americans picked up the shtick – Congressman Eddie Bernice Johnson, for example, at some big awards night honoring Clinton.
But the point about lines like this is that they’re something the other guy has to say about you. If you’re white, you need an actual black to hail you as the first black president. If you’re straight, you need a lesbian or pre-op transwoman to salute you as the first LGBT president.
Unless, that is, you’re Barack Obama:
You know, I think I am the closest thing to a Jew that has ever sat in this office.
Some of his best friends are Jews, and as he is own best friend he is own best Jew.
He said this to David Axelrod, apparently. Axelrod himself said this about Benjamin Netanyahu:
“The world of politics everywhere is divided into two categories: the first and more common is the people who run for public office because they want to be somebody,” he explained. “A smaller group is made of respectable people who run for public office because they want to do something – something positive. Shape the future in a positive way. I think Benjamin Netanyahu completely falls in the first category. He is a great politician. He knows what he needs to do to get through the next election. But it seems to me that Israel has to think about what they need to do to get through the next generation.”