Rove...swings & MISSES....Big Time!!! Category: News and Politics
On August 10, Karl Rove went on "Face The Nation" to argue that Senator Obama would make an "intensely political choice" for Vice President without regard for the "responsibilities of president." At the time, Rove believed Obama would choose Tim Kaine, and argued against him by saying this:
With all due respect again to Governor Kaine, he's been a governor for three years, he's been able but undistinguished. I don't think people could really name a big, important thing that he's done. He was mayor of the 105th largest city in America. And again, with all due respect to Richmond, Virginia, it's smaller than Chula Vista, California; Aurora, Colorado; Mesa or Gilbert, Arizona; north Las Vegas or Henderson, Nevada. It's not a big town. So if he were to pick Governor Kaine, it would be an intensely political choice where he said, ..You know what? I'm really not, first and foremost, concerned with, is this person capable of being president of the United States?
As we now know, Barack Obama chose Joe Biden as his VP, probably the least political choice he could have made, and probably the best governing choice he could have made. John McCain, on the other hand, is the one who made the "intensely political choice" by choosing Sara Palin — a political newcomer and self-described "hockey mom" who has less than two years of governing experience and ZERO foreign policy experience — all because the political winds dictated that "change" was going to trump "experience" this election.
Rove argues that Kaine's mayorship of Richmond (pop. 200,000+) is insignificant and that his 3 years as Governor of Virginia (pop. 7,712,091, GDP $383 million) has been "indistinguisahable." If Rove was intellectually consistent, wouldn't that mean Palin's mayorship of Wasilla (pop. 8,000+) and 20 months as Alaska governor (pop. 683,478, GDP $44.5 million) makes her even less qualified than Kaine?
Barack Obama chose Joe Biden because he knows his way around Washington and knows how to get stuff done. His selection mollifies virtually no voting block or constituency.
McCain, on the other hand, chose someone eminently unqualified for the job (seriously, can you see Sara Palin sitting down with Maliki or Karzai or any other world leader?) for the sole reason of appeasing the right-wing lunatic fringe and hoping to pick off a few die-hard Hillary holdouts, as well as assuaging voters' concerns about his septuagenarianism.
So, Karl, who made the "intensely political choice"?
What can we take away from this episode? When Karl Rove suggests something — in this case, Obama would make an "intensely political decision" — always assume the opposite will happen. Remember, Rove predicted, according to "the math," that the GOP would pick up seats in 2006.They of course were swept out of power in an historic landslide.
Remind me again why the punditocracy heralds this guys as some sort of political genius?
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Whether Barack Obama is “moving to the middle” is a topic of considerable discussion, though I tend to think most of the handwringing is overwrought and misplaced. But I was taken aback by the ferocity of Bob Herbert’s column in the NYT this morning, in which he complained that Obama is “not just tacking gently toward the center,” but “lurching right” and “zigging with the kind of reckless abandon that’s guaranteed to cause disillusion, if not whiplash.”
So there he was in Zanesville, Ohio, pandering to evangelicals by promising not just to maintain the Bush program of investing taxpayer dollars in religious-based initiatives, but to expand it. Separation of church and state? Forget about it.And there he was, in the midst of an election campaign in which the makeup of the Supreme Court is as important as it has ever been, agreeing with Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas that the death penalty could be imposed for crimes other than murder. What was the man thinking?
So there he was in Zanesville, Ohio, pandering to evangelicals by promising not just to maintain the Bush program of investing taxpayer dollars in religious-based initiatives, but to expand it. Separation of church and state? Forget about it.
And there he was, in the midst of an election campaign in which the makeup of the Supreme Court is as important as it has ever been, agreeing with Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas that the death penalty could be imposed for crimes other than murder. What was the man thinking?
As much as I tend to enjoy Herbert’s work, this column is way over the top, and in some instances, simply factually wrong. For example, if you simply read the AP report last week, you’d get the impression that Obama’s “faith-based initiative” is just like Bush’s. Unfortunately, Herbert didn’t read the actual speech, or he would have known that this simply isn’t true. This isn’t an example of Obama “lurching” towards Bush’s position; it’s an example of the opposite.
Likewise, Herbert blasts Obama for reversing course on supporting a state’s right to execute child rapists. I happen to disagree with Obama on this issue, but the fact is Obama has been consistent on the issue, and even wrote about his position in his book. Again, there’s no “zigging” here. Obama’s position before is the same as it is now.
Herbert even mentions, in his indictment of Obama “mov[ing] away from progressive issues,” that the senator might be “doing the Obama two-step” on his withdrawal policy on Iraq. Herbert should know better, and Obama’s position is exactly the same as it was before. The McCain campaign has spun a lot of reporters in circles, but Herbert is usually better able to cut through the nonsense than this.
For what it’s worth, Obama is aware of this talk, and he tackled it head-on today.I didn’t hear the remarks, but the text makes it sound like Obama has heard just about enough of the baseless criticism.
Barack Obama had heard quite enough of the complaints that he is pirouetting, leaping, lurching even, toward the political center.He is at heart, he told a crowd in suburban Atlanta, a pretty progressive guy who just happens to pack along a complicated world view.“Look, let me talk about the broader issue, this whole notion that I am shifting to the center,” he said. “The people who say this apparently haven’t been listening to me.”To this, he adds, parenthetically: “And I must say some of this is my friends on the left” and those in the media.“I am someone who is no doubt progressive,” he said, adding that he believes in universal health care and that government has a strong to play in overseeing financial institutions and cracking down on abuses in bankruptcies and the like.
Barack Obama had heard quite enough of the complaints that he is pirouetting, leaping, lurching even, toward the political center.
He is at heart, he told a crowd in suburban Atlanta, a pretty progressive guy who just happens to pack along a complicated world view.
“Look, let me talk about the broader issue, this whole notion that I am shifting to the center,” he said. “The people who say this apparently haven’t been listening to me.”
To this, he adds, parenthetically: “And I must say some of this is my friends on the left” and those in the media.
“I am someone who is no doubt progressive,” he said, adding that he believes in universal health care and that government has a strong to play in overseeing financial institutions and cracking down on abuses in bankruptcies and the like.
I can’t help but think the hyperventilating in some corners has become wildly excessive. On some issues (gay marriage in California, reforming the bankruptcy laws), Obama has moved to the left. On others (Iraq, death penalty, faith-based programs), he hasn’t moved at all. He switched gears on public financing, but that was pragmatic, not ideological. Obama is wrong about the FISA “compromise,” but one issue, albeit an important one, is not evidence of “zigging with the kind of reckless abandon that’s guaranteed to cause disillusion, if not whiplash.”
In fact, one of the great ironies of the last couple of weeks is that there’s been hysterical cries about Obama “moving to the middle” without him really moving much at all. In some ways, this is actually the best of all possible worlds — voters (most of whom consider themselves moderates) are being told that Obama is angering liberals by campaigning as a centrist, while at the same time, Obama is just about as progressive as he was before.
In this sense, Obama is getting credit for moderation without really having to moderate. It’s disappointing to read a sloppy attack like Herbert’s, but in the big picture, maybe that’s a good thing for voters who think Obama’s “too liberal” to hear.
Posted in: General
In March, at a conference of the nation’s newspaper editors, two of the Associated Press’ top political reporters greeted John McCain with a box of Dunkin’ Donuts. One of the reporters was careful to get McCain his favorite kind — “Oh, yes, with sprinkles!” he said — and then passed McCain a cup. “A little coffee with a little cream and a little sugar,” the AP’s Liz Sidoti said.
Shortly thereafter, at the same conference, AP Chairman Dean Singleton quizzed Barack Obama about whether he would send more troops to Afghanistan, where “Obama bin Laden is still at large.” In other words, the AP gives McCain tasty treats, and confuses Obama’s name with the 9/11 mastermind.
Since then, I can’t help but notice that the AP hasn’t exactly been neutral. A month ago, the AP ran an article about the “people who might complicate Obama’s campaign,” including Tony Rezko and Jeremiah Wright. The piece not only read like a slam job, it actually resembled an RNC oppo dump, which for all I know, it was.
Two weeks ago, the same reporter who made sure McCain had coffee to go with his donuts wrote a scathing, 900-word reprimand of Obama’s decision to bypass the public financing system in the general election. It was filled with errors of fact and judgment, and ignored the fact that McCain has illegally played fast and loose with the public-financing system this year.
And then this week, the AP’s David Espo wrote a hagiographic, 1,200-word piece, praising McCain’s record of reaching across the aisle. Reading it, one was unsure if maybe the AP had accidentally stuck a byline on a McCain campaign press release — Espo went so far as to laud McCain’s “singular brand of combative bipartisanship.”
For more than a decade, on tobacco, health care, immigration, judicial nominees, creation of a commission to investigate the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks and more, McCain has championed high-profile legislation opposed by President Bush or others in his own party.His record of accomplishment is mixed, yet he has made his willingness to cross the political aisle a central theme in his campaign for the White House in an era when voters are plainly tired of partisan gridlock in the nation’s capital.
For more than a decade, on tobacco, health care, immigration, judicial nominees, creation of a commission to investigate the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks and more, McCain has championed high-profile legislation opposed by President Bush or others in his own party.
His record of accomplishment is mixed, yet he has made his willingness to cross the political aisle a central theme in his campaign for the White House in an era when voters are plainly tired of partisan gridlock in the nation’s capital.
Wait, it gets worse.In this midst of this sycophantic fluff piece, Espo slams Obama, too.
Obama, McCain’s Democratic rival in the race for the White House, also lists bipartisanship as a congressional credential. A recent Associated Press-Yahoo News poll showed about 40 percent of the electorate believes both men would work across party lines.Even so, none of the examples cited by Obama’s aides, beginning with a bill to secure nuclear weapons in the former Soviet Union, placed the Illinois lawmaker at odds with the leaders of his own party or gave significant offense to outside interest groups aligned with Democrats.Not so, McCain.
Obama, McCain’s Democratic rival in the race for the White House, also lists bipartisanship as a congressional credential. A recent Associated Press-Yahoo News poll showed about 40 percent of the electorate believes both men would work across party lines.Even so, none of the examples cited by Obama’s aides, beginning with a bill to secure nuclear weapons in the former Soviet Union, placed the Illinois lawmaker at odds with the leaders of his own party or gave significant offense to outside interest groups aligned with Democrats.
Not so, McCain.
You see, if a policy maker reaches across the aisle to work with rivals on policies of national significance, it doesn’t really count as bipartisanship unless the policy maker’s party disagrees with the policy. Who came up with this rule? Apparently, the AP did.
And just to add insult to injury, the AP praises McCain’s record of bipartisanship on issues like tobacco and immigration reform, without noting that McCain completely reversed course and no longer believes in the position the AP is touting.
The Associated Press is one of the most widely read, if not the most read, sources of news in print journalism in the U.S. If it could at least pretend to be objective in the presidential campaign, I’m sure we’d all appreciate it.
Return to: When the AP takes sides
Florida for Hillary asked that the Party forward this press release to you.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 7, 2008
Contact: Ana Cruz, 813-503-1795Email: acruz@leadersedgellc.com
FLORIDA FOR HILLARY ANNOUNCES ENDORSEMENT OF SENATOR BARACK OBAMA FOR PRESIDENT
FLORIDA HILLARY SUPPORTERS COMMITTED TO ELECTING DEMOCRAT TO WHITE HOUSE
FLORIDA STATEWIDE - Florida for Hillary, the statewide campaign that was largely responsible for her big win in the Florida Primary announces its endorsement of Senator Barack Obama for President.
"Throughout this historic campaign and her incredible life, Senator Clinton has fought for issues that the people of Florida care deeply about, including the expansion of children's health care, the creation a national catastrophic insurance fund and the protection of Israel," said Ana Cruz, Co-Founder and spokesperson for the group. "Senator Barack Obama will fight for these same important causes as President, and we look forward to working with him to make sure that Florida voters are heard."
Florida for Hillary is an organization of Democratic elected officials, party leaders and activists from across the state who mobilized grassroots support to ensure a victory for Senator Clinton in the Florida Democratic Primary on January 29, 2008.
The group now turns its energy and attention to electing Senator Barack Obama the next President. Florida for Hillary will work hard to ensure that every single Floridian who cast their primary vote for Senator Clinton now votes for Senator Obama in November.
"The differences between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are small, but the differences between Democrats and Senator John McCain are enormous," said Co-Founder of Florida for Hillary Alan Clendenin. "John McCain wants to continue the failed policies of the Bush administration. Barack Obama will deliver the change this country desperately needs."
###
Markos Moulitsas has just put up a killer quote from Terry McCauliffe's book "What a Party!" Besides the shocking revelation that someone may have read at least parts of that book -- although it evidently took a long time -- the book contains a rather awkward passage:
"I'm going outside the primary window," [Michigan Sen. Carl Levin] told me definitively."If I allow you to do that, the whole system collapses," I said. "We will have chaos. I let you make your case to the DNC, and we voted unanimously and you lost."He kept insisting that they were going to move up Michigan on their own, even though if they did that, they would lose half their delegates. By that point Carl and I were leaning toward each other over a table in the middle of the room, shouting and dropping the occasional expletive."You won't deny us seats at the convention," he said."Carl, take it to the bank," I said. "They will not get a credential. The closest they'll get to Boston will be watching it on television. I will not let you break this entire nominating process for one state. The rules are the rules. If you want to call my bluff, Carl, you go ahead and do it."We glared at each other some more, but there was nothing much left to say. I was holding all the cards and Levin knew it.[Source: McAuliffe, Terry. What A Party!, p. 325.]
"I'm going outside the primary window," [Michigan Sen. Carl Levin] told me definitively.
"If I allow you to do that, the whole system collapses," I said. "We will have chaos. I let you make your case to the DNC, and we voted unanimously and you lost."
He kept insisting that they were going to move up Michigan on their own, even though if they did that, they would lose half their delegates. By that point Carl and I were leaning toward each other over a table in the middle of the room, shouting and dropping the occasional expletive.
"You won't deny us seats at the convention," he said.
"Carl, take it to the bank," I said. "They will not get a credential. The closest they'll get to Boston will be watching it on television. I will not let you break this entire nominating process for one state. The rules are the rules. If you want to call my bluff, Carl, you go ahead and do it."
We glared at each other some more, but there was nothing much left to say. I was holding all the cards and Levin knew it.
[Source: McAuliffe, Terry. What A Party!, p. 325.]
Hillary Clinton Supporters-The Global Warming Deniers of Democratic Politics
Hillary Clinton supporters seem to have become the equivalent of global warming deniers in Democratic politics. If facts don't suit your argument, insist on the opposite. And even more importantly, insist that your non-facts get at least 50% of the coverage.
The Clinton team is now trying to make the specious argument that she is winning in the popular vote. The first problem with that argument is that it's not true. Obama still leads by over 500,000 votes. The second problem is that they try to include states like Michigan and Florida where all sides agreed not to campaign or have their delegates counted. Hillary Clinton's flip-flop on these states is even more absurd given that Obama wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan.
But the more fundamental problem with this popular vote argument is that it is the wrong metric. Nobody ever said they were running a campaign for more popular votes. If those were the ground rules, no one would have spent any time in Iowa or New Hampshire. Obama and the others would have been campaigning in California for six months to a year instead of those first primary and caucus states.
This is like saying we're counting only touchdowns in the middle of a basketball game. Well if I knew that was the game we were playing I would have put on a helmet and tackled you a long time ago. Why did I bother scoring all these baskets?
Look, this is absurd. Why is anyone humoring these arguments? Why do we have to cover Hillary Clinton's side as if it has as much validity as Obama's? This isn't about who is the better candidate; this is about facts and reality. She can claim to be better on healthcare, but she can't claim to have a lead in this race. One is subjective, the other is objective.
None of her arguments make any sense: She wins the big states - congratulations, go run for president in a country where there are only big states. The popular vote is now the relevant metric in this election - then you're disenfranchising all of the caucus states and changing the rules in the middle of the game. Obama is not electable - really, then why is he kicking your ass in this election?
I love the audacity of someone who is losing to another candidate claiming that candidate is not electable. So, what does that make you?
You might love Hillary Clinton, you might think she would make a great president and you might even have concerns about her opponent. You have a right to think all these things, but you don't have a right to your own math. Two plus two still equals four and Hillary's team shouldn't get equal time for claiming it equals five for her but only three for Barack.
We have got to stop treating these math deniers as if they have any legitimacy or credibility. They are spinning for their side and the tales they are spinning are comically wrong. And as always, the media is falling prey to the idea that every side of an argument must be presented equally rather than what the facts merit.
Cenk Uygur as posted on www.huffingtonpost.com
for the absolute best in progressive programming, check out The Young Turks atwww.theyoungturks.com
Last Sunday evening I attended the San Francisco fundraiser that has been the center of recent political jousting. The next day, when asked about the talk Obama delivered, I too commented about his answer to a question he was asked about Pennsylvania. Over the past week, though, I have had a Rashomon-like experience concerning those remarks.
Clinton, McCain, and media pundits have parsed a blogger's audio tape of Obama's remarks and criticized a sentence or two characterizing some parts of Pennsylvania and the attitudes of some Pennsylvanians. In context and in person, Senator Obama's remarks about Pennsylvania voters left an impression diametrically opposed to that being trumpeted by his competitor's campaigns.
At the end of Obama's remarks standing between two rooms of guests -- the fourth appearance in California after traveling earlier in the day from Montana -- a questioner asked, "some of us are going to Pennsylvania to campaign for you. What should we be telling the voters we encounter?"
Obama's response to the questioner was that there are many, many different sections in Pennsylvania comprised of a range of racial, geographic, class, and economic groupings from Appalachia to Philadelphia. So there was not one thing to say to such diverse constituencies in Pennsylvania. But having said that, Obama went on say that his campaign staff in Pennsylvania could provide the questioner (an imminent Pennsylvania volunteer) with all the talking points he needed. But Obama cautioned that such talking points were really not what should be stressed with Pennsylvania voters.
Instead he urged the volunteer to tell Pennsylvania voters he encountered that Obama's campaign is about something more than programs and talking points. It was at this point that Obama began to talk about addressing the bitter feelings that many in some rural communities in Pennsylvania have about being brushed aside in the wake of the global economy. Senator Obama appeared to theorize, perhaps improvidently given the coverage this week, that some of the people in those communities take refuge in political concerns about guns, religion and immigration. But what has not so far been reported is that those statements preceded and were joined with additional observations that black youth in urban areas are told they are no longer "relevant" in the global economy and, feeling marginalized, they engage in destructive behavior. Unlike the week's commentators who have seized upon the remarks about "bitter feelings" in some depressed communities in Pennsylvania, I gleaned a different meaning from the entire answer.
First, I noted immediately how dismissive his answer had been about "talking points" and ten point programs and how he used the question to urge the future volunteer to put forward a larger message central to his campaign. That pivot, I thought, was remarkable and unique. Rather than his seizing the opportunity to recite stump-worn talking points at that time to the audience -- as I believe Senator Clinton, Senator McCain and most other more conventional (or more disciplined) politicians at such an appearance might do -- Senator Obama took a different political course in that moment, one that symbolizes important differences about his candidacy.
The response that followed sounded unscripted, in the moment, as if he were really trying to answer a question with intelligent conversation that explained more about what was going on in the Pennsylvania communities than what was germane to his political agenda. I had never heard him or any politician ever give such insightful, analytical responses. The statements were neither didactic nor contrived to convince. They were simply hypotheses (not unlike the kind made by de Tocqueville three centuries ago ) offered by an observer familiar with American communities. And that kind of thoughtfulness was quite unexpected in the middle of a political event. In my view, the way he answered the question was more important than the sociological accuracy or the cause and effect hypotheses contained in the answer. It was a moment of authenticity demonstrating informed intelligence, and the speaker's desire to have the audience join him in a deeper understanding of American politics.
There has been little or no reaction to the part of the answer that was addressed to the hopelessness of inner city youth who have been rendered "irrelevant" to the global economy. No one has seized upon those words as "talking down" to the inner city youth whose plight he was addressing. If extracted from an audio tape HuffPost Blogger Fowler, those remarks could (and may yet) be taken out of context as "Obama excuses alienation and violence by urban youth." But in context, Senator Obama's response sounded like empathetic conclusions and opinions of a keen observer: more like Margaret Mead than Machiavelli.
As the week's firestorm evolved over these remarks at which I was an accidental observer, I have reflected upon the regrettable irony that has emerged from Senator Obama's response to a friendly question: no good effort at intelligent analysis, candor -- and what I heard as an attempt to convey a profound understanding of both what people feel and why they feel it - goes unpunished. Such insights by a political candidate might otherwise be valued. In a national campaign subject to opposition research, his analytical musing has instead created an immense amount of political flak.
Now and "in this time," to invoke one of the candidate's favorite riffs, such observations and remarks shared among supporters are just a push of a record button on a tape recorder away from being spread across the internet to be dissected by political nabobs. What struck me immediately after the fundraiser as so refreshing turned out to be a moment Senator Obama is forced to regret. Today we marvel at de Tocqueville insights about American communities. Apparently, such commentary is valued as long as it is three centuries old and doesn't come from the mouth of a contemporary observer who might be elected president.
So much for the political ironies. But there is one more personal observation that was missed.
I happened to be on the balcony when Senator Obama's vehicles arrived and he emerged from the Secret Service SUV. Obama shouted the friendly greeting "How are you guys up there doing?" to the group of us looking down from the balcony and then said, "You have to excuse me, I need to call my kids in Chicago now." All of us stood and watched the leading candidate for the Democratic party nomination for president have a short conversation with his kids before he entered a fundraiser to make his remarks.
No tape of that conversation has emerged as yet. Who knows how casual remarks of a father to his children or his wife on a cell phone could be spun to support the argument that as a father speaking to his kids two time zones away before they go to bed, his comments sounded as if he "looked down" upon them. Given his relative height and the age of his kids, he probably does. But that would be precisely as relevant to his capacity to unite and lead this country as were the remarks at the fundraiser that have been so deconstructed over this past week.
David Coleman is a blogger at Huffington Post
My level of frustration with cable news and mainstream media has reached the boiling point. I just cant handle it anymore. I have never in my life seen such a deliberate attempt to dumb down the American public. I realize most people are busy and don't have time to try and wade through the amount of biased information thrown at them. They listen to snippets of information and then form an opinion based on something that may or may not be true and/or taken completely out of context.
I have listened to pundits comment and rant on and on about things ranging from bowling style to coffee or orange juice. They take their own personal opinions and project them on to the public and people listen. If that were not the case then those viral emails would not have had such a long and successful run on the internet.
Bill Maher said a few weeks ago "Stop saying that the American people are too smart to fall for it because they are NOT." At first I thought, wow that was a pretty cynical and judgmental thing to say. Then the more I watch poll numbers, which annoy me to no end, or read comments on blogs the more I agree with him. When did people lose the ability to reason or recognize context in a statement? When did we become so literal that the ability to draw an inference became obsolete?
Tonight the cable channels are going beserk over the statement that Obama made regarding the small town voters in Pennsylvania being "bitter". They are chomping at the bit to make it in to something that it wasn't. Clinton and McCain have already pounced all over it. Clinton was telling the people in PA that Obama looks down on them and calls them names. It was pathetic. I read his words and listened to the scratchy audio and it was more than apparent to me that he was trying to be understanding and have empathy for the people in rural areas and be understanding of their frustrations. That's the way it came across to me. I don't understand why the news pundits will pour gasoline on this spark and feed it until it becomes a full blown blazing inferno!
I must be totally naive or something because I just don't get it. I don't understand with the economy the way it is, with a President who wouldn't know the truth if it kicked him in the face, with a corrupt administration, lack of oversight, the threat of more war, etc. that this country could even entertain for one minute the idea of electing someone like John McCain.
What are people thinking?
Barack Obama this week gave the best political speech since John Kennedy talked about his Catholicism in Houston in 1960, and it derived power from something most unusual in modern politics: an acknowledgment of complexity, nuance and legitimate grievances on many sides. It was not a sound bite, but a symphony.
But the furor over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s inflammatory sermons shows that Mr. Obama erred in an earlier speech — the 2004 speech to the Democratic National Convention that catapulted him to fame.
In that speech, Mr. Obama declared that “there is not a black America and a white America... . There’s the United States of America.” That’s a beautiful aspiration, and we’re making progress toward it. But this last week has underscored that we’re not nearly there yet.
The outrage over sermons by Mr. Wright demonstrates how desperately we as a nation need the dialogue about race that Mr. Obama tried to start with his speech on Tuesday.
Many well-meaning Americans perceive Mr. Wright as fundamentally a hate-monger who preaches antagonism toward whites. But those who know his church say that is an unrecognizable caricature: He is a complex figure and sometimes a reckless speaker, but one of his central messages is not anti-white hostility but black self-reliance.
“The big thing for Wright is hope,” said Martin Marty, one of America’s foremost theologians, who has known the Rev. Wright for 35 years and attended many of his services. “You hear ‘hope, hope, hope.’ Lots of ordinary people are there, and they’re there not to blast the whites. They’re there to get hope.”
Professor Marty said that as a white person, he sticks out in the largely black congregation but is always greeted with warmth and hospitality. “It’s not anti-white,” he said. “I don’t know anybody who’s white who walks out of there not feeling affirmed.”
Mr. Wright has indeed made some outrageous statements. But he should be judged as well by his actions — including a vigorous effort to address poverty, ill health, injustice and AIDS in his ministry. Mr. Wright has been frightfully wrong on many topics, but he was right on poverty, civil rights and compassion for AIDS victims.
What should draw much more scrutiny in this campaign than any pastor’s sermons is the candidates’ positions on education, health care and poverty — and their ability to put those policies in place. Cutting off health care benefits for low-income children strikes me as much more offensive than any inflammatory sermon.
Many white Americans seem concerned that Mr. Obama, who seems so reasonable, should enjoy the company of Mr. Wright, who seems so militant, angry and threatening. To whites, for example, it has been shocking to hear Mr. Wright suggest that the AIDS virus was released as a deliberate government plot to kill black people.
That may be an absurd view in white circles, but a 1990 survey found that 30 percent of African-Americans believed this was at least plausible.
“That’s a real standard belief,” noted Melissa Harris-Lacewell, a political scientist at Princeton (and former member of Trinity church, when she lived in Chicago). “One of the things fascinating to me watching these responses to Jeremiah Wright is that white Americans find his beliefs so fringe or so extreme. When if you’ve spent time in black communities, they are not shared by everyone, but they are pretty common beliefs.”
Occasionally, we’ve had glimpses of this gulf between white and black America. Right after the O.J. Simpson murder trial, a CBS News poll found that 6 out of 10 whites thought that the jury had reached the wrong verdict, while 9 out of 10 blacks believed it had decided correctly. Many African-Americans even believe that the crack cocaine epidemic was a deliberate conspiracy by the United States government to destroy black neighborhoods.
Much of the time, blacks have a pretty good sense of what whites think, but whites are oblivious to common black perspectives.
What’s happening, I think, is that the Obama campaign has led many white Americans to listen in for the first time to some of the black conversation — and they are thunderstruck.
All of this demonstrates that a national dialogue on race is painful, awkward and essential. And that dialogue needs to focus not on clips from old sermons by Mr. Wright but on far more urgent challenges — for example, that about half of black males do not graduate from high school with their class.
Then maybe we can achieve our goal of getting, finally, to the point where there is “not a black America and not a white America... . There’s the United States of America.”
Comment on this column on my blog at: www.nytimes.com/ontheground.
Glenn Greenwald
Mar. 17, 2008 | (updated below - Update II)
Ross Douthat and Ezra Klein are arguing about whether Jeremiah Wright's statements are comparable to those of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and John Hagee's. To argue that they're not comparable, Douthat -- like most people commenting on this raging controversy -- conflates two entirely separate analytical issues:
(1) Given their close and long-standing personal relationship, does Wright merit more scrutiny vis-a-vis Obama than white, radical evangelical ministers merit vis-a-vis Republican politicians? and, (2) Are the statements of white evangelical ministers subjected to the same standards of judgment as those being applied to Wright's statements?
(1) Given their close and long-standing personal relationship, does Wright merit more scrutiny vis-a-vis Obama than white, radical evangelical ministers merit vis-a-vis Republican politicians? and,
(2) Are the statements of white evangelical ministers subjected to the same standards of judgment as those being applied to Wright's statements?
Even if the answer to (1) is "yes," that doesn't change the fact that the answer to (2) is a resounding "no."
The statement of Wright's which seems to be causing the most upset -- and it's one of two singled out by Douthat -- is his suggestion that there is a causal link between (a) America's constant bombings of and other interference with Middle Eastern countries and (b) the willingness of some Middle Eastern fanatics to attack the U.S. Ever since the 9/11 attacks, we've been told that positing any such causal connection is a sign of vicious anti-Americanism and that all decent people find such questions despicable. This week we learned that no respectable person would subject his children to a pastor who espouses such hateful ideas.
But the idea that America deserves terrorist attacks and other horrendous disasters has long been a frequently expressed view among the faction of white evangelical ministers to whom the Republican Party is most inextricably linked. Neither Jerry Falwell nor Pat Robertson ever retracted or denounced their view that America provoked the 9/11 attacks by doing things to anger God. John Hagee continues to believe that the City of New Orleans got what it deserved when Katrina drowned its residents and devastated the lives of thousands of Americans. And James Inhofe -- who happens to still be a Republican U.S. Senator -- blamed America for the 9/11 attacks by arguing in a 2002 Senate floor speech that "the spiritual door was opened for an attack against the United States of America" because we pressured Israel to give away parts of the West Bank.
The phrases "anti-American" and "America-haters" are among the most barren and manipulative in our entire political lexicon, but whatever they happen to mean on any given day, they easily encompass people who believe that the U.S. deserved the 9/11 attacks, devastating hurricanes and the like. Yet when are people like Falwell, Robertson, Hagee, Inhofe and other white Christian radicals ever described as anti-American or America-hating extremists? Never -- because white Christian evangelicals who tie themselves to the political Right are intrinsically patriotic. Does Douthat believe that those individuals are anti-American radicals and that people who allow their children to belong to their churches are exercising grave errors of judgment?
Those advancing the argument of Douthat's are also wildly understating the magnitude of the association between "anti-American" white evangelicals and Republican leaders. By all accounts, George Bush had private conversations with Pat Robertson about matters as weighty as whether to invade Iraq. Isn't that a big scandal -- that the President is consulting with an American-hating minister -- someone who believes God allowed the 9/11 attacks as punishment for our evil country -- about vital foreign policy decisions? No, it wasn't controversial at all.
John Hagee privately visits with the highest level Middle East officials in the White House and afterwards pronounces that they're in agreement. John McCain shares a stage with Hagee and lavishes him with praise, as Rudy Giuliani did with Pat Robertson. James Inhofe remains a member in good standing in the GOP Senate Caucus. The Republican Party has tied itself at the hip to a whole slew of "anti-American extremists" -- people who believe that the U.S. provoked the 9/11 attacks because God wants to punish us for the evil, wicked nation we've become -- and yet there is virtual silence about these associations.
Nor have the views of televangelist Rod Parsley, one of McCain's self-proclaimed "spiritual advisers," received a fraction of the attention generated by Wright. As both David Corn and Alan Colmes, among others, have documented, Parsley espouses views at least as extreme and radical as Wright, including his proclamation that "America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion [Islam] destroyed." Unlike Wright and Obama -- for whom the former's controversial views are found nowhere near the latter's public or private conduct -- both George Bush and John McCain's Middle Eastern militarism are perfectly consonant with the most maniacal and crazed views of Christian Rapture enthusiasts such as Hagee, Parsley, Inhofe, and Robertson. Yet the controversy created over their close ties is virtually non-existent.
The Republican Party long ago adopted as a central strategy aligning itself with, and granting great influence to, the most radical, "America-hating" white evangelical Christian ministers in the country. They're given a complete pass on that because political orthodoxy mandates that white evangelical Christian ministers are inherently worthy of respect, no matter how extreme and noxious are their views. That orthodoxy stands in stark contrast to the universally enraged reaction to a few selected snippets from the angry rantings of a black Christian Minister. What accounts for that glaring disparity?UPDATE: Steve M. notes that the Bush White House, in addition to consulting with Robertson, also consulted with the anti-American Jerry Falwell, including on the question of whom the administration should nominate to the Supreme Court. It even appointed a White House liaison for Falwell. When Falwell died, President Bush "said he was deeply saddened by Falwell's death, calling him 'a man who cherished faith, family and freedom.'"
Shouldn't we be very concerned about American children hearing our President praise an American-hating radical who believes that our country is a sick and wicked land that God wanted to be victimized by the 9/11 attacks? Again, the issue here is number (2) above, not number (1).UPDATE II: Frank Schaeffer, son of highly influential Religious Right figure Francis Schaeffer, writes (h/t FPL-Dan):
When Senator Obama's preacher thundered about racism and injustice Obama suffered smear-by-association. But when my late father -- Religious Right leader Francis Schaeffer -- denounced America and even called for the violent overthrow of the US government, he was invited to lunch with presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush, Sr.
Yet Schaeffer, like hordes of similar, America-hating white Christian ministers, are celebrated as cherished figures among the very same right-wing faction feigning such outrage and offense over Wright's far more mild statements. White, right-wing Christian evangelical rage against America is understandable, respectable, and noble. Liberal black Christian anger towards America is scary, subversive, and despicable.
-- Glenn Greenwald
I'm recycling some related comments I made on other reader blogs with some additional content, because I realized they were related, had a guilty sense of having thread-jacked a little with each of them, and, finally, that what I said about Wright in one comment compelled me, in all honesty, to cut Gerry Ferraro a tiny slice of slack. Let's start with Rev. Wright.The the same logic that says Obama must reject and denounce Rev. Wright requires millions of people in the South, and indeed, throughout the nation, both black and white, to reject and renounce their grandparents and never enter their homes again. At least, that's apparently what they have to do to hold public office. Obama should have tried to change Wright? A thirty or forty odd year old congregating trying to change the views of a man that age? How utterly presumptuous and futile that would have been. Obama should have found another church where there was no chance that, on occasion, the pastor would let loose with some cringe-inducing rant of anachronistic brimstone? How utterly pointless, and yes, I dare say wrong, that would have been. In a brutally funny routine (aren't they all?) Chris Rock observed that the most prejudiced people in the world were old black men, the reason being that they grew up when "having the white man on your back" meant having a the white man on your back. Forget not getting a taxi, they were the taxi -- and here he pantomimed a man jumping onto another's back cracking the whip and shouting "heeyah, giddyup boy!" Younger black men recognize this, make allowances for it and take the bad with the good. Just like we white people do with our own elders. Both of my grandfathers, long dead, were about as racist as they could be. They were also both possessed of much wisdom. Even as a small child, I knew one from the other and made allowances for the times they grew up in. My father was as broadminded as a man of his age and class in the South could be expected to be, but the attitudes that made him something of a racial progressive in the 60s made him more than a bit bigoted by the time he died. It wasn't his attitudes that changed, it was the times. I didn't try to change him, and I didn't reject and renounce him. I loved him, honored him for having been as progressive as he was when it counted, despite his age and upbringing, learned what he had to teach me, and made allowances for what could not be changed. This is exactly what Obama was alluding to when this Wright clip was raised before, and what I hope he (tactfully) sends out the same message again: our old people grew up in a harsher, uglier time and much of that ugliness is permanently etched into their souls. Many have achieved far more change within themselves than we could ever have believed possible had we lived in their times. We take the good that they all have to offer and let the bad pass by knowing with certainty that it will die with them, soon enough. If there was any basis for believing that this sermon was typical rather than exceptional (other the fact that a bunch of outragemongering Fox News thugs say so), it would be different, just as there's a difference between an old Methodist pastor who occasionally says something cringe-inducing about homosexuality and Fred Phelps screaming "God hates fags!" every Sunday. One is a fallible human being being a human being, the other is a psychotic being monstrous. And, in this respect, I have wronged Gerry Ferraro. She is old, she grew up in the same 'hood as Archie Bunker. I should have made allowances for that. But I did not wrong her by much. She's a public figure—one who is duly impressed with her own place in history—talking to the media, first local, then national, not some preacher talking to his flock whose taped sermon was leaked to the enemy at Fox. Second, and I'll take this up in detail at the end, it is impossible for me to believe that this was not deliberate messaging by the Clinton campaign. It would not be the first time they sent out Gerry to speak that which the candidate dare not speak herself. They sent her out to pitch the “those mean men were ganging up on her at the debate” line to the single middle aged white women of New Hampshire when Hillary herself was saying the opposite and now, at this odd juncture where the demographics of Mississippi and Pennsylvania make it fortuitous, Gerry suddenly pops up to tell us that Obama would not be where he was today if he weren't black. At one level, Ezra Klein is quite right about Ferraro's comments. The statement means little because it is nonsensical. If Obama wasn't black, he'd be somebody else with a whole other portfolio of experiences and accomplishments. At another level, however, it is a far fouler, appeal to the prejudices of, say people in a state where the demographics trend white, blue collar and older than just about anywhere else in the nation, than anyone seems to have appreciated, one narrowly targeted to get them to apply their prejudices specifically to Obama.
Barack Obama is a staggeringly accomplished man. Merely to describe his accomplishments makes one sound like a drooling star-struck Kool Aid drinker with a Chris Matthews style man crush. Obama got his B.A. from Columbia, majoring in political science with an emphasis in international relations. He was a community organizer in his twenties who, among other things, was behind a remarkably successful voter registration drive in Chicago. He received his J.D. From Harvard Law, Magna Cum Laude. He was research assistant to Lawrence Tribe, who called him "the most all-around impressive student I had seen in decades." While working for Tribe “Obama analyzed and integrated Einstein's theory of relativity, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, as well as the concept of curved space as an alternative to gravity, for a Law Review article that Tribe wrote titled, 'The Curvature of Constitutional Space.'” In his third year, Obama was elected president of the Harvard Law Review. After law school, he eschewed the incredibly lucrative job offers that await presidents of the HLR, and, instead, went to work with a respected, but small and not very remunerative, civil rights firm in Chicago. He also taught Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago and, it is said, could have had been full professor any time he wanted, had he not chosen to also pursue a political career. He had a meteoric rise from state senator to U.S. Senator to Presidential candidate. He is the author, the actual author, not some pol claiming credit for the work of a ghost author, of of two best selling books. Both of his books are extremely well written, the first a remarkably insightful memoir, the latter a cogent synthesis of recent events and our political and economic history that lucidly explains where we are, how we got here and what we can do about it. Chock full of policy precriptions, wonky yet readable and remarkably self-reflective.
As a senator, he has sponsored some very serious signature pieces of legislation and gotten them passed while he was a member of the minority. And, oh yes, the guy happens to be the most outstanding political orator of his generation, and may be one of the four or five best in the history of the party. He has created and run a tight, well-run and remarkable harmonious campaign organization that has upended the carefully laid plans of the Mighty and Inevitable Hillary Clinton Machine and run up huge margins against her in, what, fifteen out of the last seventeen states now? Was he fast tracked by the powers that be in the Illinois legislature and by the Democratic Senate leadership? You bet he was. That's what organizations do with prodigies. Businesses do it, universities do it, the military does it and, yes, they do it in politics. And yet when you look at the comments of Hillary's supporters on this blog, over and over again, you see him dismissed as “an empty suit.” It is a central meme in Hillary's campaign now. Empty suit. Pretty speeches and no content. Just a vacuous, content-free pretty boy. Do you really think anyone would buy that drivel if he were white? That's the subtext Gerry was pushing. “Accomplishments? C'mon, he's a moulie. Columbia? Affirmative action. Harvard? Quota baby. President of the Harvard Law Review? Just a bunch of northeastern liberals exorcising their white guilt. University of Chicago? Reverse racism. Illinois legislature? Blacks takin' care of their own. Senate? Affirmative action. You know how it is today. Those blacks get everything, and us whites get the short end, know what I'm sayin'?” Which is why, in the end, Gerry gets no slack from me after all. She wasn't just some random old lady ranting the way old people do when the topic turns to race. She was on a mission. Which, in turn, is why Hillary deserved every last second of the caustic soda sandblasting Olbermann unleashed on her last night. I've lived in the South, or the border South, my whole life and I'm old enough to remember the bad old days when white supremacy was mainstream political thought. I've lived through the days when racial politics transitioned from fire hoses and bullets and George Wallace screaming "Segregation Now, Segregation Forever" to Richard Nixon's "Southern Strategy," Ronald Reagan's speechifying about "states rights" in Philedelphia, Mississippi and Jesse Helms "white hands" ad. (God, I'll never forget how utterly appalled I was by that ad and that whole campaign. In the waning days of the Bush I Administration, I thought the country was past that sort of thing. Now that was naïve.) I'm a white guy, but I know the politics of racial dog whistling when I see it. The racial dog whistle isn't directed to the people who have swastika tattoos and Klan robes in their closet. It is directed to the angry blue collar white guy who starts all his pronouncements with "I'm no racist, but . . ." and then goes on and on and on about "them" and how "they" act. People who know they're getting a raw deal and need a scapegoat. People who genuinely think it would be profoundly foul and offensive to call a black person "nigger" to his or her face but see nothing wrong with using the word in private conversations with other white people. I've seen that tune oh-so-skillfully played in a wistful minor key by Jesse Helms and the other Republicans in North Carolina for more than two decades. Mostly, its all about a wink and a nod, a codeword here and a subtle image there and all to convey a simple message: "those blacks are privileged and getting special treatment and stealing your tax money and it just ain't fair.: And you quickly learn that when its time to get blunt and say something really foul, they always out a black man to say it for them. The inevitable protestation of complete innocence is the most sickening part of the act. In every case, when someone calls bullshit, the candidate pulls his halo and his best wounded expression out of his desk and sorrowfully bemoans the way his opponent makes everything about race (but, you know, that's how those people are, idn't it? Everything always a racial thing with them).Since Helms retired, those tactics have faded just a bit in North Carolina, but they're still alive and well when you get into Tennessee and Mississippi and Alabama. And while the lyrics to the song are a little different in Ohio and Pennsylvania and Indiana, the tune is the same. We know how this game is played down here and so do Bill and Hillary Clinton. Bill and Hillary lived in Little Rock frakkin Arkansas throughout the 70s and 80s. Bill was growing up in Arkansas when the 101st Airborne stood between crowds of screaming white adults and five kids who had to have U.S. marshals escort them to every class. Bill and Hill are two of the finest political minds of their generation and avid specators of the game of politics. They know all there is to know about that game because they've seen it played by experts for decades. And that's the point. Knowing how that game is played, Hillary and Bill know exactly what you must avoid saying and doing if you don't want people, black and white, to think you are playing it too. If you know what not to say and what not to do to avoid that perception and then go ahead do it anyway, not once, not twice, but over and over again, it is impossible to avoid the inference that you know what you're doing and you are doing it deliberately. Sure, its an inference, but juries are allowed and encouraged to send people to jail, and even to die, on the basis of inferences of similarly quality and strength.No one is accusing Hillary or Bill of being racists. No one thinks they are white supremacists or harbor any racial prejudice whatsoever. No, what they are doing is much worse. They stand accused of coldly mobilizing the racial prejudices of white voters, prejudices which they do not share, as a means of getting votes from people whose views they hold in contempt. No doubt they rationalize it by telling themselves about all the good things they'll do for black people after she wins. And, worse, still, many of Hillary's supporters are blithely enabling the effort, either because they are blinded by the Kool Aid and applying the Reverse Clinton Rules ("no matter how blatant the activity, anyone who accuses Bill and Hillary of being ruthless and calculating is repeating Republican Talking Points") or because they are themselves the kind of people who are being targeted. That's what Olbermann was was so upset about. This was her chance to say, “NO! We will not do this, even if it costs me the nomination” and she did not do it.
Keith was shocked, and appalled, furious and saddened. I was merely furious, appalled and saddened.
First, credit where credit is due, the title of this post was actually from a post by Larry Geater in this thread:http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/03/notes-on-ferraro-resignationre.php(I don't want to be accused of political plagiarism, but if Larry is interested in being one of my National Co-Chairs, he may have to decide if he can work well with DF. I digress.) I've made two other posts expressing some of my viewpoints as this primary fight has rumbled along, once just prior to the voting in my home region of Greater Washington, DC:http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/02/in-advance-of-the-potomac-prim.phpand once just after the March 4th Primaries which were so quickly dubbed a "resounding victory" for Senator Clinton:http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/03/obama-supporters-dont-panic.phpNow let me say this up front: I make no secret of the fact that I am a supporter, donor, and volunteer for Barack Obama. I linked to my two previous posts just because I feel it is important to be open and honest about that fact. I am proud of it. I think he is the best candidate that the Democratic Party has to offer at this time. I am absolutely confident that he will be our nominee. I am absolutely confident that he will go on to win the nomination against John W. McCain, just as I am absolutely confident that Senator McCain is absolutely the wrong choice at the wrong time given all that our nation faces. I also link to my previous posts because I'm not writing now to directly address my support for Barack Obama, but rather my concern about the campaign of Senator Clinton, and in particular, some of her supporters. As an Obama supporter, I learn anew every day that you have to have pretty thick skin. At first we were called "Kool-Aid drinking cultists." Then it was "impressionable elites." Next we were maligned as "latte-sipping, Prius-driving, Birkenstock wearers." (Apparently being environmentally conscious and having comfortable footwear is antithetical to our party values now.) Today our enthusiastic support was demeaned as "tribalism." I just wish our detractors would be consistent with their generalizations: sometimes we're a bunch of immature kids, other times we're part of the tweed-jacketed professoriate, but frequently we're only supporting Barack Obama out of ignorance to his supposed lack of policy positions or ideas, simply because he speaks so well...
My concern is not that these insults are being voiced, but that they are being voiced so frequently by fellow Democrats, and more specifically, by supporters of Hillary Clinton. There seems to be a disconnect in play here: With a scant few exceptions, every Obama supporter I've ever met was also a Clinton supporter in the 90s. We remember Bill Clinton's rise to prominence. We remember how he was maligned as being too young, inexperienced, and unprepared for the job. We remembered how he was called a "fancy talker" and an "empty suit" who didn't understand Washington and needed some time to get his act together. We cheered him when he sat in on saxophone with Arsenio Hall's band. We voted for him. We stood behind him. We celebrated the economic gains that he helped bring about. We stood up to those who attacked him and his intelligent, strong, passionate wife Hillary. We denounced those who unfairly mocked his young daughter Chelsea. When his first term was nearing its end, we rose again and supported him. He rode that support to a defeat of Senator Robert Dole and he thanked us for standing with him.
Many of the folks who are supporting Barack Obama right now are the same folks who saw him look into the camera and lie about the Monica Lewinsky scandal. We decried what we were told was a politically-motivated witch hunt fueled with nothing but lies to bring our beloved candidate down. We believed in him. We believed him. When he perjured himself, we defended him with thin excuses about how embarrassed he must have been to have a personal weakness dragged out into the spotlight for political reasons. We supported him even though he lied to us. We supported his wife and his daughter. We shed tears for the hurt we knew they felt. We supported them. When Al Gore sought to distance himself from our President, we criticized him for it. We called him ungrateful. We stood up for the Clintons yet again.
When Hillary Clinton decided to take the unprecedented step of transitioning from First Lady to United States Senator, we rallied around her once again. We knew that she would be attacked and maligned by a GOP who had grown to hate everything attached to the name Clinton. Even though she wasn't actually "from" New York, we shouted down those who would call her a "carpetbagger." It was within the law, and if the people of New York wanted her to represent them, we were bound and determined to see it happen. When people said she wasn't qualified to sit in the Senate, we told them they were wrong. We reminded them of her intelligence, her resolve, her passion, her commitment.
Has Senator Clinton forgotten all these things? Have her supporters forgotten them? Have they forgotten that so many of the people who support the candidacy of Barack Obama now are people who once stood shoulder to shoulder in support of all things Clinton? I haven't. But it seems that many have. As I noted in my comment on the earlier thread, it seems like many people have lost sight of the difference between loyalty and blind allegiance. It seems like many people have come to ignore the many flaws in exhibited by the Clinton Campaign during this contest.
Are they ignoring the disdainful air of inevitability?The signs of dismissive entitlement?The disorganization and infighting?Bill's remarks after the defeat in South Carolina?The absence of traditional concession speeches?The sad claims of victory in a race in which her opponents’ names were not on the ballot?The slow and tepid response to Geraldine Ferraro's divisive, destructive, sad remarks?
I don't expect people who believe in a candidate to take these examples (along with the many others I could have cited) as a pattern of racism or take them as a preponderance of reasons to drop their support for her. I don't think Hillary Clinton is a racist. I don't think her campaign is brimming with racists. I don't think the bulk of her supporters are racist. And I don't begrudge them for supporting her. If they feel she is the best candidate and the best representation of their values, I want her supporters to continue to be engaged and vocal in their support. I encourage the fair-minded, open examination of the distinctions between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. After all, isn't that what this process is supposed to be about? I'm not writing to discourage that. I just haven't seen much of it lately. Instead, I write today to decry the apparent absence of critical or objective judgment on the part of so many of Senator Clinton's supporters, particularly in this forum. You don't seem to remember that many of us who you are now attacking were once Clinton supporters too. As Larry so succinctly put it, Hillary Clinton "got our antipathy the old fashioned way: She earned it."
You don't seem to remember. We can't forget.
(I thought this post was nothing short of brilliant and it was definitely worth sharing)
Clinton Says Obama Was MIA on Afghanistan. But Was She, Too? In the past few days, as Hillary Clinton has intensified her attacks on Barack Obama prior to the all-important primaries in Ohio and Texas, she has claimed that he has been "missing in action" regarding Afghanistan. Clinton has been trying to make the case that she's better prepped than Obama to be commander-in-chief and more qualified to answer the phone at 3:00 a.m. when crisis strikes. To prove her point, she notes that Obama, who chairs a foreign relations subcommittee covering European matters, has held not one hearing on how to bolster NATO in Afghanistan. This weekend she told reporters on her campaign plane that he has failed in a "responsibility that is directly related to Afghanistan." She urged the journos to grill Obama on this. She said that Afghanistan is "one of the two most important challenges internationally." And she added, "I think he was missing in action...because he was running for president." It's true that Obama has convened no meetings of the subcommittee, but his camp counters that he became chair of the subcommittee early last year, just as he was starting his presidential campaign. Clinton is technically correct that Obama could have used the subcommittee to conduct oversight of actions and policies related to Afghanistan. But the full foreign relations committee, under the guidance of Senator Joe Biden, has held several hearings on Afghanistan that covered NATO's role there. It's not as if the foreign relations committee did nothing on Afghanistan because Obama did not take on the mission. Also, as happens with many committees, the chair of the full committee reserves the right to handle the big issues him- or herself, and Afghanistan counts as a big issue. Clinton ought to be careful about hurling stones in this area. As she always tells campaign crowds, she is a member of the Senate armed services committee. In February the committee held two hearings on Afghanistan. On February 8, it focused on appropriations for U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was a witness. Eight days later, the committee zeroed in on U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, holding a two-part hearing examining recent reports on Afghanistan. Key witnesses included senior officials from the State Department and the Pentagon responsible for the administration's Afghanistan policy. Clinton attended neither of these hearings. She was on the campaign trail. Many hearings occur on Capitol Hill without all members--or even a majority of members--of the committee in attendance. In fact, that's more common than not. At plenty of hearings, the committee chair is the only senator or representative present. So it's no surprise or scandal that Clinton was not there for these two Afghanistan hearings. (She did participate in two hearings on Afghanistan held by the committee in the first half of 2007.) But in a campaign season, a spinner could easily say that she's guilty of the same charge she tosses at Obama: putting presidential campaigning ahead of Afghanistan. Her neglect, certainly, is not the same as his: he held no hearings for a year; she attended no hearings this year. But as Clinton throws the kitchen sink at Obama, she ought to make sure nuts and bolts don't bounce back at her.
as posted in todays Huffington Post
I just found this piece on AOL News and I think that Senator Obama needs to go in front of the press and squash this once and for all. This will turn in to swiftboat 101 if he is not careful. Clinton people have been all over TV all day long harping on it. We do not need this distraction!
Obama and NAFTA, Rhetorically SpeakingBy David KnowlesMar 3rd 2008 11:37AMFiled Under:eDemocrats, Barack Obama, Breaking News, 2008 President
A troubling story from North of the border. Barack Obama adviser and University of Chicago professor Austan Goolsbee stands accused of telling Canadian consular officials that the protectionist posturing Obama was engaging in while campaigning for votes in Ohio should be taken with a grain of salt. While Goolsbee had denied the meeting was about NAFTA, a memo given to the AP today shows that one person who attended the meeting did.
The memo is the first documentation to emerge publicly out of the meeting between the adviser, Austan Goolsbee, and officials with the Canadian consulate in Chicago, but Goolsbee said it misinterprets what he told them. The memo was written by Joseph DeMora, who works fot the consulate and attended the meeting.
"Noting anxiety among many U.S. domestic audiences about the U.S. economic outlook, Goolsbee candidly acknowledged the protectionist sentiment that has emerged, particularly in the midwest during the pimary," the memo said. "He cautioned that this messaging should not be taken out of context and should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans."
For his part, Goolsbee takes issue with the memo.
"In no possible way was I inferring that he was going to introduce any policies that you should ignore and he had no intention of enacting."
Obama needs to step forward and explain this mess. If Goolsbee did, in fact, send this message on his own, without the Senator's blessing, he should be fired. If it was a tactical decision Obama knew about, he should immediately step up to the microphones and address it. If it's all just a misunderstanding, an explanation stating so from the candidate himself would be helpful.
More than fifteen thousand members weighed in, with Senator Barack Obama garnering 69.2% of the votes.
Below are a per-candidate analyses of the results with perspectives provided by our members.
In addition, you can find detailed charts that breakdown members' voting on the candidates by race, age, previous voting patterns and other factors, here.
Below is a summary of the overall results.
The following are voting profile summaries for candidates who recieved at least 5% of the vote:
More than 85% of Black members who responded voted for Obama, as well as 54% of White members, and 58% of Latino members.
When Senator Edwards withdrew from the race, we asked members who voted for him who they would then support. 57% said they'd now vote for Obama as opposed to 9.6% for Clinton. Note that 76% of our members who planned to vote for Edwards and specified their race/ethnicity said they were white.
A few concrete themes emerged, as epitomized by the reasons specified by these members:
My 1st choice is Barack Obama because he's the only one that really represents my concerns not because he is black.
I'm fed up with the Clinton's underhanded methods of mis-leading their opponent's views. It's time to get rid of the old way of running our country and try to move forward in a positive manner.
A member from Chesterson, IN:
I believe that fundamental changes need to take place in Washington and how our politicians operate. I believe that Sen. Barack Obama represents that kind of change and that what he lacks in experience he makes up for in intelligence, knowledge and concern for our domestic and international needs. "Experience" is not the most important requirement especially if it leads to corruption or even the status quo. As Sen. Obama once said, "Dick Cheney has experience." We need fresh ideas and a new perspective on many of the serious problems facing our nation in today's world.
A member from Phoenix, AZ
I have truly felt something inspiring about Barack Obama. I have been voting for 30 years and never felt this level of excitement about voting. He makes me truly "hope" for change. I felt it to a certain extent previously with Bill Clinton, but not with this much intensity. I have truly been impressed with him.
[ In reflecting on the election in general, she says... ]
I feel like as a Black Woman, I have been patronized constantly in the media. I am insulted that they feel that I am unable to make a decision for a candidate without thinking about race. I have voted for many years and always voted for White male candidates and have never heard the media accuse white people of not voting their conscience. It is insulting on every level.
A member from Oxon Hill, MD
Please understand, it's not because he's black, BUT because he's qualified.
A member from Cranston, RI
Obama is an inspirational leader. People who claim that his high rhetoric is no evidence of his ability to bring people together as president need only look at the movement he's started. Young and old alike are engaged in the political process in a way that hasn't happened in a very long time. The only way to make real changes in government is to hold officials accountable, which takes an engaged citenzry.
A member who is a professor in Chicago, IL
I strongly favor Senator Obama and believe he would make the best candidate and president. As to his lack of experience we must remember that Abraham Lincoln had served only one term in Congress before being elected president.
A member from Philadelphia, PA
I'm voting for Barack because I feel he's repsenting what's good for all Americans, whether they're rich, middle-class or poor. He displays the moral character needed to represent the plights that we face as Black, White, Latino and Asian Americans and deal with these issues appropriately, realistically and sincerely.
A member from Los Angeles, CA
Hands down, pound for pound, he's the Roy Jones of politics. The best out there. And our only real hope for seeing any type of significant, impactful change in the US. Not to mention, I'd think he'd be great w/ our international affairs. America would be looked upon in a whole different light.
We are encouraging those members who want to see Obama as President, volunteer with the Obama campaign or donate to the campaign.
76% of our members voting for Edwards who specified their race/ethnicity said they were White, 9.5% were Black. Overall, only 1.5% of our Black members voted for Edwards.
When Senator Edwards withdrew from the race, we asked members who voted for him who they would then support. 58% said they'd vote for Obama as opposed to 9% for Clinton (31% remain undecided).
He speaks directly to the issues that are important to me, unemployment, health care, corporate welfare, etc. The other candidates appear slick, always saying what they think the electorate WANTS to hear, but not what they SHOULD be hearing, which is the bad shape this country is in.
A member from St. Louis, MO:
Coming from inner city St. Louis, I know more than most people what it is like to fight for your life against vicious people who put their own greed and interests over those of the community. I see the same thing happening to this country, with corporate greed and the conservative movement. The only way to bring about change in this country is to take them on, to beat them, to fight on the side of justice and represent the American people, never negotiating our future in the hopes of cooperation from the "other side". John Edwards is the only candidate who embodies the spirit I fought with to survive and to excel.
A member from Georgetown, SC
I believe his issue positions directly benefit the AA community and all of America. He has been consistent in his stance and understands that poverty, the decline of the middle class are directly correlated with the Iraq War, education, health care and the environment.
A member from Cut Off, LA
There is a class war going on. For years the corporate oligarchy who control our political system have been feeding at the public trough at the expense of the common good. John Edwards is the candidate who seems most willing to directly address that problem and stand up for the common man.
A member from Evansville, IN
Although no one seems to be listening, Edwards is the one Democratic candidate that actually has something concrete to say. He's focused on issues that will make a real difference in peoples' lives and not just saying what he thinks will get him elected.
Only 7% of our members who self-identified as Black voted for Clinton.
I Believe this person has the best qualifications, along with experience to move our country forward. I think it's time out for us to stop voting on race or gender. I like both candidates and would like to see them become a team when this is all over, no matter which candidate wins.
A member from Detroit, MI:
I support Hillary Clinton because I thinks she's about business. I think she will do what needs to be done not only for black americans but for americans in general who from middle class to lower class. I also feel that Senator Clinton has a strong support system behind her. If she's good enough to become senator, has enough heart and courage to run for President considering she's a woman, then I feel she'll make a great President.
A member in Boulder, CO
Because I believe Hillary has proven over time long before this presidential election that she has our best interest at heart. The Clintons have been strongly involved in the Black community for a long time. I am concerned that in Barack Obama's struggle to prove that he is not just concerned with Black issues, he will turn his back on us.
A member in Soquel, CA
I beleve in the ideals that Obama stands for, however, Clinton has the experience. There's no time for a learning curve. Furthermore, Bill Clinton, by nearly all measures was one of the best presidents in tha last 60 years. His proximity to the White House is an added bonus. In some respects now it is a "no win" for the next president who is likely to be saddled with the legacy of the current administration. if Obama becomes the next president, he will only take the blame for the ills of Bush's administration.
A member in Dorchester, MA
She has the experience, the maturity and the knowledge to run against the Republican candidates and run the country with minority issues in the forefront.
We are encouraging those members who want to see Clinton as President, volunteer with the Clinton campaign or donate to the campaign.
WASHINGTON -- It was a remarkable moment: A young, free-thinking presidential hopeful named Bill Clinton sat down with reporters and editors at The Washington Post in October 1991 and started saying things most Democrats wouldn't allow to pass their lips.
Ronald Reagan, Clinton said, deserved credit for winning the Cold War. He praised Reagan's "rhetoric in defense of freedom" and his role in "advancing the idea that communism could be rolled back."
"The idea that we were going to stand firm and reaffirm our containment strategy, and the fact that we forced them to spend even more when they were already producing a Cadillac defense system and a dinosaur economy, I think it hastened their undoing," Clinton declared.
Clinton was careful to add that the Reagan military program included "a lot of wasted money and unnecessary expenditure," but the signal had been sent: Clinton was willing to move beyond "the brain-dead politics in both parties," as he so often put it.
His apostasy was widely noticed. The Memphis Commercial Appeal praised Clinton two days later for daring to "set himself apart from the pack of contenders for the Democratic nomination by saying something nice about Ronald Reagan." Clinton's "readiness to defy his party's prevailing Reaganphobia and admit it," the paper wrote, "is one reason he's a candidate to watch."
I have been thinking about that episode ever since Hillary Clinton's campaign started unloading on Barack Obama for making statements about Reagan that were, if anything, more measured than Bill Clinton's 1991 comments. Obama simply acknowledged Reagan's long-term impact on politics, and the fact that conservatives once constituted the camp producing new ideas, flawed though they were.
Obama's not particularly original insight was a central premise of Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign. Clinton argued over and over that Democrats could not win without new ideas of their own. To reread Clinton's "New Covenant" speeches from back then is to be reminded of how electrifying it was to hear a politician who was willing to break new ground.
That's why the Clintons' assault on Obama is so depressing. In many ways, Obama is running the 2008 version of the 1992 Clinton campaign. You have the feeling that if Bill Clinton did not have another candidate in this contest, he'd be advising Obama and cheering him on.
Let's grant the Clintons their claims: The press is tougher on Hillary Clinton than it is on Barack Obama; the old, irrational Clinton hatred is alive and well in certain parts of the media; Hillary Clinton gets hit harder when she criticizes Obama than Obama does when he goes after her.
Let's further stipulate that Obama's formulation -- he said Reagan "changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not" -- was guaranteed to enrage the former president. In Democratic circles, associating someone with Nixon is akin to a Roman comparing an emperor with Caligula.
None of it justifies the counterproductive behavior. Does anyone doubt that if Hillary Clinton wins the nomination, she will need the votes of the young people and African-Americans who have rallied to Obama -- and that what she's doing now will make it harder to energize them? Doesn't calling in Bill Clinton as the lead attacker merely underscore Obama's central theme, that it's time to "turn the page" on our Bush-Clinton-Bush political past?
And with both Clintons on record saying kind things about Reagan, why go after Obama on the point? Honestly: If Obama is a Reaganite, then I am a salamander.
Yet there was Hillary Clinton's campaign, unveiling a radio ad on Wednesday implying that Obama bought into such ideas as "refusing to raise the minimum wage." Come on, guys.
The worst thing about all this is what both Clintons are doing to their own legacy as pioneers of an approach that rejected, as Bill Clinton said in a 1991 speech, "the stale orthodoxies of left and right." The great asset shared by both Clintons is their willingness to bring fresh thinking to old problems.
"Our new choice plainly rejects the old categories and false alternatives they impose," Bill Clinton added in that 1991 address in which he offered a long list of new ideas. "Is what I just said to you liberal or conservative? The truth is, it is both, and it is different. It rejects the Republicans' attacks and the Democrats' previous unwillingness to consider new alternatives."
Pretty good stuff, still. Why should either Clinton attack Obama for facing some of the same truths that both of them taught their party so long ago?
Copyright 2008, Washington Post Writers Group
