Seems like Michelle Obama has won over Mr. Crouch...

It's pretty well established that I am a supporter of Stanley Crouch for his unabashed social witticisms, conservative leanings and he can whip up a mean Jazz critique to boot. But I thought he made a misstep last year when he (like many Black societal critics) got into the Blacker than thou game regarding Senator Obama. Perhaps his column in yesterday's New York Daily News signifies a return to the fold. Again, I would be remiss if I didn't wax poetic on Obama's need to bring his politics to the center-progressive politics be damned. And that's the point-let's stick to discussing his politics. Here's Mr. Crouch doing what he does best, a snippet courtesy of the News:

Mrs. Obama has my vote

Monday, January 14th 2008, 4:00 AM

When introduced to a figure like Michelle Obama, Americans can see very quickly that the forces of U.S. life are so complex, so contradictory and so prepared to hurl a curveball from the pitcher's mound of improbability that clich�s are the normal response. They arrive at such speed because the pundits of America are expected to have an assessment far too fast.

The upshot is that while using reductive reasoning and waxing every story about the Obama campaign with greasy obviousness, our media voices tend to narrow the significance of this new moment in American politics to race.

Why?

Because anyone can see that Obama is not a white man and does not represent what we have come to think of as white in its most provincial terms.

The inability to see Barack Obama clearly makes it nearly impossible to see Michelle Obama at all, even though she may have had as much to do with her husband's victory in Iowa as anything else and might have reversed the numbers in New Hampshire had the women of that state enough time to see, listen and think about what she was saying.

In short, she might have been able to move even the most recalcitrant women from Hillary Clinton's base to Sweet Home Obama.

Had she done it, the pundits would probably still have missed it. The reason, it seems to me, is that they don't see the importance of this woman beyond race. All that is written or said about her role in the upcoming battle for South Carolina is how much she might be able to do with black women voters.

For an extended encore, click
here.