If Matt Damon is disillusioned with The One, Harry Belafonte is downright dismayed with President Barack Obama’s first term.

The Calypso crooner didn’t hold back during a recent radio chat on “Smiley & West,” co-hosted by Tavis Smiley and Cornel West, even if a rebroadcast of the program snipped out Belafonte’s most punishing comments, according to The Radio Equalizer.

“My question is, what legacy will he leave, having the opportunity to serve under such hugely dramatic circumstances and had such a huge impact on the universal state of things … how could he have had such a splendid opportunity to do more than most presidents would have ever been able to do, and he let that opportunity slip away from him.

I’m very cautious of the fact that those who think he has some second agenda and only if he could be given a second term for us to see the new light, new things will be revealed, new efforts will be made to take us to a place other than where we’ve been and where we languish. I just don’t trust that. I don’t believe that’s a safe way and accurate way to look at this scenario. If there was the kind of moral compass serving Barack Obama the way we hoped, the moral force would have helped him make choices, the absence of that force in his equations, that barometer to guide him when he has to make these decisions that are hugely complicated, he should have come to the table with the things that would have helped us in this moment of crisis.”

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So Cornel West recently called President Obama “a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats.”

Translation: someone discovered a Thesaurus!

But there’s more: in an interview on some wacky website, he spews…

“I think my dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men… It’s understandable… All he has known culturally is white… When he meets an independent black brother, it is frightening.”

Now in all the coverage of this, the authors painstakingly point out that West is both a Princeton and a Harvard professor, and a leading black intellectual.

They do this because they are scared witless of pointing out the obvious: that West is an ass.

But he’s also a hero, in that he unintentionally brought race-baiting to an absolute absurdity – a black progressive accusing another black progressive… of racism against black progressives!

Now for black conservatives, this kind of defamation is nothing new. (more…)

For those of you who don’t know, I’m from Cambridge. Born and raised there. I grew up in the Jefferson Park housing projects a stone’s throw from Harvard. Never a Dull Moment in JP I can tell you! Even today. Knew lots of CPD cops like Officer Crowley too, but never in a good way. Like when a fellow punk projects friend of mine drove a stolen car through a fence and into the deep end of the local MDC kiddie pool. They wanted us real bad that night! I was guilty as sin, too. All wet, in fact. Rode shotgun the whole way. Front row seat. Yee-ha! Island Kingdom, eat your heart out.

My whole childhood was like that. A lot of crazy stuff, a lot of running from police. Was a local sport, like train-hopping. But that’s all just the gritty side of Cambridge. And even though I’m a rank Righty today, I still love Harvard University all the way, the Square especially. It’s the Crossroads of the World. I was a total Harvard Square rat growing up. Harvard is the Bright Light of Olde Cantabrigia. Harvard was also very active in the community back then, and most likely still is today. Harvard hosted field trips to the campus from schools all over Cambridge. The Agassiz Museum was my favorite. Lots of dead bugs and dinosaur bones. That was Heaven to me. Still is. (more…)