Fri, 09/05/2008 - 7:58am — vastleft
NYT headline evocative of Stepford and Fembots: "Obama to dispatch female surrogates"
Senator Barack Obama will increasingly lean on prominent Democratic women to undercut Gov. Sarah Palin and Senator John McCain, dispatching Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to Florida on Monday and creating a rapid-response team to deploy female surrogates to battleground states, Obama advisers said on Thursday.
Our hero didn't show much interest in the task at hand. So leave it to the gals to clean up this mess!
Update: NYT has retitled the article on their own site to "Obama Camp Turns to Clinton to Counter Palin," as noted by Ann Althouse (DCOW
). (h/t Arthur, via e-mail).
The title of the msnbc.com version remains the same.
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Haw
Called my shot. Haw.
NOTE I like the double meaning in dispatch. Calling Doctor Freud!
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Women dispatched to undermine a woman
Yeah, *that's* a picture the Democrats want to have out there.
These people are so stupid they are a danger to themselves and others.
Come together at The Confluence
Come together at The Confluence
Yep
The Democratic Plan for winning has always been to let the Clintons pick Obama up and carry him across the finish line. And they should do this because if they don't they are awful people, not because the party is going to give them a damned thing in return.
There is a danger for Obama, however, and that is that if he's a disaster as president, Hillary Clinton is the natural alternative face of the party. That's basically what this means, IMO. If things go to hell (and why wouldn't they, we've been on the brink for years) and Obama can't connect with voters on the economy (and we already know he can't), will all those Congressional Democrats sit on their hands as 2010 approaches or will they want to find some way to put a new face on the party, one who can talk to voters about the economy? Even worse for Obama is what if this is happening going into 2012.
he needs to not hide behind skirts
--how weak is he? how insistent are they on making him seem unable to fight his own battles?
and his fight is not with Palin but with McCain, btw--something he's still not doing effectively.
it's admitting failure to close the deal--again--
with working class voters, with women, with so many groups not already on board.
it's been a while now since the primaries ended--and in those he barely even tried to close the deal or contest in the late states either.
The complete New York Times article....
...paints a rather different picture than the single quoted paragraph.
Joe Bob
Yes, the whole article
Is much freakin worse, than the paragraph.
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
- Thomas Jefferson
Barack Obama's problems are my problems
and women's too. Embracing and defending the Republicans and their tyrannical VRWC
masters will not help any of us solve them.
Thank goodness for Melissa McEwan, which is not something I've said much recently. A lot of talk here, and there, about how difficult it will be for some progressives who jumped uncritically on the Obama bandwagon to reconcile their early projections with the reality of his center-right politics; it certainly will be, and I am as delighted as any of you at watching them squirm.
Equally interesting, for me anyway, will be seeing how some who have been unremittingly critical of Obama and the Democrats find their way back out of their self-imposed wilderness exile and rejoin (oh goddess help me) practical progressives to defeat the real immediate enemy of all of us - the Republicans and the VRWC. McEwan's essay does a good job of resurrecting balance and I am pleased to see it.
Thanks, Aeryl, for the link. I had not seen McEwan's essay before I wrote and was too occupied with trying to keep my fingers from driving straight through the keyboard to come back and check here for updated comments. She is herewith officially exempted from my tirade, peace be upon her.
I'm sick of fighting
The immedeate enemy. There are worse enemies, taking the longer view, and I'll direct my focus on them.
Fighting the immedeate enemy, for feminists at least, hasn't gotten us very far.
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
- Thomas Jefferson
Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither
That's pretty much sums up how I feel about this whole political process. Support Obama despite what you feel is a fundamental cheating of Democracy (for the third straight presidential election, mind you) because it will be oh, so scary if McCain is president. Never mind fraudulent elections, McCain is scary.
As if the condescending nature of certain post(er)s isn't vomit inducing enough, even the best songs get boring after a while. Why even bother with new posts that say nothing new when you can copy and paste the last one?
Repetition has been shown to be the most effective form
of didactic teaching. I repeat my messages because even after all this time I remain hopeful that you will eventually catch on.
You do want to be careful of telling lies, gq; especially those that attack other people's character and integrity.
There was no "cheating of Democracy" in the primary, for pity's sake. The power of the nomination belongs to the Party, not the voters; it is not a democratic process and the Party cannot steal from itself.
I write every single post and comment here at Corrente completely from scratch. Show where I "copy and paste" from one post to another - or take back your unfounded slur.
Aeryl: Buffy, Season 3
Winning in the long term depends on fighting every battle in the here and now, against the most immediately threatening enemy - where winning is defined as surviving to fight again tomorrow, because that's all there is and all that there will ever be.
I wish I could be more hopeful, but that is all there is. These class struggles do not end, and that is what all of them - gender, economic, racial, religious, all of them - really are. They are as old as humankind and will continue as long as humans are on the planet; they will never stop.
Sexism is a tough nut, and we have not learned how to crack it. It is not good enough for me to decide that we should just keep whacking away while ignoring the tiger that is creeping up from behind intending to rip off our head and devour us. I argue that right about now would be a really good time to temporarily ignore the nut and whirl around to confront that tiger.
Once we've driven him off for a while, which we can do in just two months if we try hard enough, we can return our attention to that tough nut. I promise, I'll be there to help, and I trust you to work with me; I'll hold that nut tight and you swing away. Together we can do so much more than we can apart. (special treat for gq martinez)
The Problem, BIO
is that this is what women get told by Democrats every election cycle - just wait your turn, you'll be next. And yet somehow we never are. If anything, despite the fact that a Democrat can't get elected dog catcher without women voters, the Dems have slid backwards over the last 30 years. I cannot think of any other part of the base that party leaders would have failed to defend from the slurs directed at women. So it's not so much that I disagree with you as it is that I no longer believe it will happen that way. I believe you, I just don't believe them.
Which is not in any way an endorsement of McCain, it's just sometimes there's not only one tiger going for your head. That's especially true if you're a woman, a person of color, or gay.
"give us congress & we'll stop the tiger"
they helped the tiger claw us.
"give us more seats & we'll stop Iraq & the tiger"
they did neither.
now it's "give us the White House and 60 votes & we'll stop the tiger"
rinse and repeat.
Meanwhile....
Joe Biden is campaining from an "undisclosed location"
where he shows the unique attributes which qualify him more than any other for the VP slot:
Take THAT Governor "Arm Candy"! Oh, SNAP!
Biden over Hillary for the VP spot, what could possibly go wrong?
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Around these parts we call cucumber slices circle bites
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Around these parts we call cucumber slices circle bites
The missing media critique
Assuming that Barack Obama and the Democratic Party aren't staffing the editorial help at the New York Times, and that neither Patrick Healy nor Jeff Zeleny are Democratic campaign operatives, let us take a moment and examine who gains and who loses with the choice of words employed here.
Is "Obama to dispatch female surrogates" demeaning to women in general, and to those female speakers and Party representatives who will be out campaigning? Surely it is. Does it damage Obama and the Democrats? Surely, it could, in the minds of those who read uncritically and are unaware that headline writing is as much an art as a craft, and do not understand that a misleading headline can dominate the thinking of readers regardless of the actual content of the article or the truth behind the reporting.
How about the lede, which along with the headline is about all most people read in a newspaper story? "Obama will increasingly lean on prominent Democratic women...undercut Gov. Sarah Palin...dispatching Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton...deploy female surrogates...."? Do the terms chosen here demean both Obama, making him appear weak and manipulative and condescending to women, and the women themselves who are portrayed as slaves leaping to their master's whims, subservient creatures without a mind or will of their own? Yes they do, and a pretty chilling world-view is thereby exposed.
That view, of Man the Master and woman the subservient yet invaluable helpmeet and servant, fits exactly into what the Republicans and Dominionists actually believe but is used here to falsely slander Obama and the Democrats. Apparently very effective, as the commentary above shows – every single buzzword hit its intended audience and provoked the desired response. Cue the Progressive righteous anger, break out the Feminist condemnation brickbats - hold the analysis, we on the Left don't do that when we're angry.
Democrats, who actually had a strong, smart and accomplished woman running for President, who have a formal outreach program for women in politics that is run by women, who have institutionalized equal representation for women as delegates to their Convention - those delegates who are in fact the legal Party - are portrayed as abusive and demeaning to women, while the Republicans who see women as either housewives or props or baby factories but never as actual fully equal human beings are portrayed as being picked on for their use of a woman and a handicapped baby as props and are held to be the real protectors and saviors of women's rights and equality while systematically and openly opposing, obstructing and preventing equal pay, equal opportunity and procreative freedom.
The world turned upside down by simple propaganda, and here we see the self-proclaimed cream of Progressive thinking succumb as willingly and enthusiastically as the rubes and suckers who vote Republican year after year while the Plutocrats steal their money and their children's futures.
Frankly speaking, absolutely pathetic. Once again, the emotional blinders self-imposed by rage and hatred have led otherwise careful and critical thinkers to accept and embrace VRWC
propaganda and lies whole and undigested.
Rejoice in the triumph of your own diminishment, revel in the depiction of Hillary Clinton as a spineless gopher with no ability of her own to decide what to say or when to speak, a spewer of lies and wind-up doll mouthings, a brainless blond servant girl sent around at the black master's whim to do his bidding. If this headline and lede are true, as you all seem to believe, then I am damn sure glad that Hillary Clinton did not win the nomination. Who needs someone that easily corrupted and slavishly subservient?
Who benefits from this propaganda? The Republicans, and their VRWC masters. Good of you to validate it, good of you to spread it, good of you to fill the role of uncritical mindless zombie rebroadcasters; good of you to volunteer as witless agents of the VRWC/MSM propaganda machine.
Well done, all.
My problem with the story
Aside from the demeaning language(which I don't blame Obama for), is the fact that it seems, and this does come from the Obama camp, that Obama knows he has a "woman problem" and instead of addressing it himself, he dispatches women surrogates to do it instead, as Melissa says in the post I linked to above.
He addresses the problem as a "woman-centric" one, and apparently one only a woman could handle, continuing to ignore that the problem has always been his inability to address women's issues himself. Women voters don't feel he speaks to them, and his response is to continue to not speak to them, but send others out to do it for him.
Bullshit.
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
- Thomas Jefferson
And As Long As He Does This
He will continue to have a problem. I'm not being asked to vote for Hillary or any of these other women. There's only so much their vouching for him can do. He needs to convince me that he will do good things for women. He's the one who will be President. Not any of these women.
I Agree with You, BIO
on the awful writing of the story and the slant they've given it.
The problem for Dems is that they set themselves up for this story by allowing misogyny to run rampant for more than a year. Now the media and the GOP is using it against them. Part of me is unhappy about that (I do not take a lot of joy in seeeing Rudy Guiliani as feminist spokesman), but part of me is so furious at the Democratic Party for allowing this situation to develop that I could strangle someone.
The Democrats are the one whose Chair came out and said that he hadn't noticed 18 months of sexism because he didn't watch cable, right? So it isn't just the GOP and media who are insulting me. It's become a national fucking sport thanks, in part, to Democrats sitting on their fucking hands while a large segment of their base has been slurred.
I've said it all along, bad things are coming for women. Opportunities, yes, but also a lot of bad things because that's the atmosphere that has been created and it's been created in part by people who are supposed to be our allies.
That this atmosphere might come back and bite them in the ass is small consolation.
Which is not to say that the media critique shouldn't continue, I always support beating up on the media, just that sometimes Democrats aren't much better friends than Republicans are.
Should've just read Aeryl's link before typing this response because I agree with everything Melissa McEwan said which can be boiled down to 1) the Dems created this situation and 2) the NYT's sucks.
I will just add that one of the side effects on 1) is that the Democratic Party cannot really complain about 2). Anytime Democrats complain about sexism now, they look pathetic for having kept silent all those months. Nicely done, Democrats!
Correction
"Hillary Clinton as a spineless gopher" should have read "spineless gofer". The copyeditors are off on holiday again today, as are parts of my brain.
Er...
revel in the depiction of Hillary Clinton as a spineless gopher with no ability of her own to decide what to say or when to speak, a spewer of lies and wind-up doll mouthings, a brainless blond servant girl sent around at the black master’s whim to do his bidding.
From Politico:
http://tinyurl.com/5mqpgx
Agreed BIO
It's all very "Release the wimmens!". If the chosen words are part of a narrative NYT copy writers are trying to get across, then message understood, they loves them some "wimmens is here to back their mans" old skool partiarchal misogyny. That would be bad for Obama, since it may indicate some failures in his Media Darling armor.
However (and sadly just as likely), if this is NYT stenographers stenoing how moronic, un-reconstructed lower echelon Obama staffers are characterizing the campaigns actions, this is REALLY bad.
Either way, it isn't good for Dems, isn't good for Obama, and isn't good for these women surrogates. It isn't good for Biden either, it makes him look scared to engage Palin.
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Around these parts we call cucumber slices circle bites
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Around these parts we call cucumber slices circle bites
yup-the actions Obama is taking
are the story--regardless of how it's being spun one way or another.
Fact: He's sending out (specifically) female surrogates to speak to voters.
That's what people here and elsewhere are responding to.
Biden vs. "the women"
I want to expand on what I wrote about Biden's role. I'm not sure if this is subtle dissing of Palin by the Obama campaign or not, but I am wondering why Biden isn't the point person to go after Palin. He's running for VP, she's running for VP. Sending "women surrogates" out to engage Palin is maybe not the best message to send from the Dem campaign which is widely accused (fairly or unfairly depending on your perspective) of running a sexist campaign against Clinton.
The Obama campaign has to end this backstory. They would go a little way in the right direction if they engaged Palin as an equal to Biden (even if she isn't in your view). The way they are doing it now makes Biden look afraid of her.
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Around these parts we call cucumber slices circle bites
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Around these parts we call cucumber slices circle bites
Biden already has a full-time job in the Dem campaign
and that is to go full-bore after McCain. Every minute he spends on Palin detracts from that role.
I'm sure he'll take the occasional swipe, Palin provides a target-rich environment, but he should limit what he says to a critique of her as an example of McCain's incompetence and callousness. Incompetent, because she is so clearly unqualified, and callous because what kind of an exploitive creature asks a parent with a newborn handicapped child and a pregnant unwed 17 year-old daughter to take on the rigors of a national campaign and the job of Vice President of the United States of America?
(Notice I said parent? The accusation is not gender-specific. As the Rs are fond of pointing out, this is a family that very much needs two fully engaged parents right now. Tough enough for them with one parent a Governor and the other gone for big chunks of time both for his regular job and his NA commercial fishing exploits. Asking them to do what needs doing as parents and endure the media spotlight and fully commit the mother to campaigning across fifty states and then to travel the world as roving ambassador, way to much burden for a family with these complexities.
(And no, her role as Governor is not anything even close to comparable to what she will face as VP. Alaska, from a governance standpoint, is not all that tough; it is not New York or California by a long shot. Alaskans, by and large, are interested in four things; hunting, hockey, oil subsidy checks and fucking. (Well, we all know about that last one now, don't we? Am I the only one here that has been to the state, or watched Mystery, Alaska?) Palin can do the governor's job and be home nearly every night to make dinner and - as she states - do the housework. As VP, that family time and the closeness of the banal that binds families together will be gone, lost for forever.)
For Biden to take on Palin directly elevates her, when what needs doing is political diminishment. Treating her as an equal would be a huge mistake tactically; what the Democrats need to do is emphasize the differences between the VP candidates, not close the gap. As Biden attacks McCain he shows himself as an equal, able to - goddess forbid - step in as president should the need arise. If Biden deals as an equal with Palin it diminishes him while it elevates her status, her appearance of capability and competence; that's the last thing the Democrats want.
And are you saying, Herb, that prominent female Democrats aren't fully capable of dealing with the likes of Sarah Palin? That Hillary Clinton isn't able to take Palin apart effectively? I didn't think so; we both of us have more respect for Hillary than that.
Additionally, there is no way that Biden can deal with criticizing Palin and not come off as "paternalistic" and "infanticizing" and "domineering" and "sexist" and "misogynystic"; whether he is or not, that will be the Republican spin and the MSM will be only too happy to spread it. Better by far, in so many ways, to treat Palin as a second-tier issue, someone not worthy of serious consideration by the principle candidates who need to spend their time on important issues like saving the nation and the world, and let the second-most powerful Democrat in the country take her to task. Woman-on-woman, that's the way to go - the headlines will write themselves.
oh man
"Woman-on-woman, that’s the way to go - the headlines will write themselves."
oh, you're not going to hear the end of this. Quit getting people riled up. It's too easy as of late. (Serves people right, after all, the internets is to be taken seriously)
I have no idea
what you could possibly mean. Seems all I have to do is appear and rile just bubbles up around me.
too funny barracuda
politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com —
Please see Update on renaming of the article n/t
.
Worse than waiting your turn
This year we didn't even get that much.
Part of the reason the anti-McCain arguments aren't getting a lot of traction here are, as far as I can tell, not a lot of us are voting for him. There needs to be a reason to vote for him.
Battles for justice should be fought all the time yes, but the tactics and strategy must change as conditions change. You fight with the weapons you have, not the ones you wish you had. I only wish I had the leverage to change the Democratic Party's deafening silence (continuing). But I don't, and voting for them hasn't helped recently, so this year I'm trying not voting for them. My support and my votes this year are all going downticket.
Run what ya brung, Valhalla -- it's an old motocross/field trial
saying.
If ya towed a trailer with your mudbike behind your 750K street monster to the raceday pits, and the mudbike's got Lucas electrics and won't freakin' turn over no matter what ... ride that four-cylinder street king in the trials.
So yes, let Biden take on McCain.
It's two white guys with damn good health care. They can have a slugfest.
Obama should be working the crowd, not working the refs.
I'd not even push Hillary to counteract Palin, 'cause the level of overkill is just ... whoa, dude. Talk about taking a nuclear hammer to a gnat.
Would I like it better if this was a Hillary/Edwards or Edwards/Hillary ticket? Or a Hillary/Biden or Hillary/Obama ticket? Well, hell yeah. I think the way Obama got the nomination basically sucked -- but it was a NOMINATION.
Voting for McCain because you're pithed about a NOMINATION is like saying the GOP didn't cheat to put W over the top in Florida in 2000 or in Ohio in 2004 -- except it's worse, because you're now going to actively help them win.
How, exactly, do you derive benefit out of avenging yourself (or Hillary) on the Dem leaders and Obama, by voting for McCain/Palin?
'Cause, you know, it don't make sense to this cowgirl.
You're claiming you've been watching the elections get stolen, gqm -- so now you're gonna bust out the window and throw the family heirlooms to the thieves in the street yourself, because what -- it saves you a mite of aggro?
Dude. Think.
We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! Knowing that we’re not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18
well
this one street I lived on in a bad neighborhood, they broke my car window at 7am to reach in a steal like $0.40 sitting in the arm rest.
I learned to just leave it unlocked.
If Obama is going to say the Surge was brilliant and stunning success, what can we do? He might as well have picked Lieberman to run with him. This election is as good as stolen now.
I'll tell you the narrative. McCain's people have it all hacked and huge voters purges and all the tricks from '04 plus some. They will use the whole Rove machine to apply OH'04 and NM'04 thievery to unsuspecting states that don't even know it's coming. Places with no paper ballots or VVPATs or public records laws. The media will say that Obama lost because of the PUMAs and they will trot out some polls to show how disaffected older women were or some such nonsense. The usual improbable poll shifts and mysteries of the past like reluctant Bush voters aren't even needed this time around, they already have their cover story.
Cowgirl
This cowgirl isn't voting for McCain.
She's not voting for Obama either. As she said in her comment.
(Ok, she's going to switch back to the first person, because third person's kind (voteof annoying after a surprisingly short number of characters).
intranets: I've been saying for months that the MSM already has their stories blaming the Clintons and/or PUMAs and/or all the wimmins and saved on their computers.
There's some saying, something about 'might as well be hung for a wolf as a lamb' -- which I've always understood as if they're going to hang you, you might as well have done whatever they're accusing you of.
oops, 'sort of' not 'voteof' -- what the heck was that?
.
"find their way back out of their self-imposed wilderness exile"
Really? You're going to go there? You know, the whole "shrinking band of paranoid holdouts" route, but instead of coming at us with a machete you come with scissors? Let me tell you, you're going to need all of the gods and goddesses in the world for protection on that charge.
BTW, if you're looking for committed or even reluctant McCain supporters, here, well, you should really try looking elsewhere.
So, back on the story, it looks like the campaign's strategies are going to fail before they are even put into place. The whole "send the women to attack the woman" stategy is terribly condescending and see-through. It is primarily Joe Biden's job to deal with Sarah Palin and vice versa, and there seems to be no intention of the Obama campaign to do that. I think it's very telling just how much the Democrats seem to have to collectively prop up their ticket. I guess it takes a village...
What do you mean, "go" there?
Hell, I live there.
D: the whole “shrinking band of paranoid holdouts” route, but instead of coming at us with a machete you come with scissors?
Actually, for that one I preferred to use a needle.
D: you’re going to need all of the gods and goddesses in the world for protection
What makes you think I don't have them?
D: should really try looking elsewhere
Heard that before, too; yet here I still am.
D: It is primarily Joe Biden’s job to deal with Sarah Palin and vice versa...
Is that from DamonMI's Rules of Order for Presidential Campaigns? Please cite chapter and verse.
D: ...and there seems to be no intention of the Obama campaign to do that.
Because why, do you suppose? See here. (Caution: I go there, again.)
D: I think it’s very telling just how much the Democrats seem to have to collectively prop up their ticket.
It's called a campaign. Every presidential election, this group of people - funny you should mention "village" - gets together and gives speeches in support of one of their kind. Fascinating process; you should take notes, so when it happens again four years from now you aren't caught unawares.
They may have blown the execution
But I still think it would have been great to have the Mama Barracuda take down the Baby Barracuda:
1. It would have been based on boring bullet points about policy; what Hillary does best and where the Rs do worst;
2. It would have been a very quiet, efficient, and above all complete execution;
3. And, yeah, show 'em everyone what a real woman politician looks like.
And it's a two-fer, because you get the populist appeal and the better woman.
And the presentation, however it was done, was butchered when it was turned into a "send out the women" thing. Should have been, send out the populist women.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Send out the best, and the rest...
That would have been a better way for the campaign to describe it.
Grouping them into "the women" was demeaning to all collectively and Clinton in particular.
Sorry, no matter where you stood in the primary, Sibelius is no HRC (hell, Obama's no HRC, and for that matter Palin's no Sibelius, I could go on....).
Thanks Swift Loris for this great quote:
"...and we’re not going to be anybody’s attack dog against Sarah Palin,” said a Clinton insider."
Bravo. That's what I was hoping for, Il'd rather see her campaign for a strong Democratic President, health care, issues, etc. (keep on that), rather than carry Biden's water against a featherweight.
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Around these parts we call cucumber slices circle bites
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Around these parts we call cucumber slices circle bites
yup--and
you're never supposed to attack down--only up at the top of any ticket. It lowers the attacker (and whoever is attacking for them) down to the attacked's level.
hysterical--from riverdaughter--
http://riverdaughter.wordpress.com/2008/...
"... The red phone next to HILLARY’s side rings. Both CLINTONS sit up in bed immediately.
BILL: Yours, or mine?
HILLARY: Mine. (checks the caller ID) Oh, well well well. It’s DNC Headquarters in Chicago.
BILL (grinning devilishly): Heh. I’ve been waiting for this one. Put it on speaker, honey.
(HILLARY picks up the phone and hits the speaker button.)
HILLARY: Hello?
BARACK OBAMA (on the phone): Hey there, Hillary. Sorry to call you so late, but I’ve had a really hard time getting you on your cell lately.
HILLARY (rolling her eyes at Bill): Uh-huh. ..."