Mon, 08/04/2008 - 7:53am — lambert
Yes, Bill Clinton in a just-published ABC interview.
That Bill Clinton -- the last elected Democratic President allowed to take office -- should have to go on the teebee and say this just boggles the mind.
Well done, Obama.
Well done HoHo, well done Donna, well done Nancy, well done Harry.
Well done, FKD.
Your party, your invites, your choice of music, your caterer. Enjoy!
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Nice framing in ABC's subhead
"Insists, 'I Am Not a Racist,' Despite Anger Over His S.C. Comments"
"Insists" is one step short of "falsely claims."
No doubt the "Path to 9/11" team is working up a new, insightful, and fairminded documentary on this topic right now.
They just can't help themselves
I could barely get past that that unsubtle editorializing, VL.
The damage done to Bill Clinton is damage to the Democratic legacy and message. It's another moral obligation of Obama and the party to work far harder than they have to undo it.
I've yet to see any evidence...
That the media folk want to help themselves (be less toxic) or that the Obama folk are working at all to undo what they've done.
HoHo?
Does it go well with Clamato?
HoHo == Howard Dean
It's his childhood nickname. I swear I read it in The New Yorker, which ran a profile of him, but I can't find the link.
[ ] 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
And what the hell did he have to do with that interview?
Come on, Lambert--that's too broad a brush. Dean never implied Bill is racist. That allegation is rooted in the Obama campaign.
Silence
is complicity.
Nothing to do with the interview
But surely it's true -- IMNHSO opinion, is true -- that the Democratic establishment, among whom I would include Harry, Nancy, Donna Brazile, and definitely Howard Dean, DNC chair (see RBC debacle) worked actively for Obama?
And they certainly did nothing to stop it all when it was happening. I mean, on misogyny, Deans' excuse was that he didn't have cable. I guess that goes for false smears of racism, too?
[ ] 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
Democratic legacy?
I have a very clear impression that Obama and his campaign want to cut themselves off from this legacy. (And not only the Democratic legacy, but the legacy of progressive activism in this country such as the antiwar movement.)
He's working for the idea that he is doing something radically new that's never been tried before. All previous efforts were flawed and failed and there is nothing he can learn from them except what not to do.
He's deliberately cutting his "movement" off at the roots. I don't think that there will be any effort to "undo the damage" because this is not "damage" from his point of view, but part of the plan.
We can't afford not to have single-payer!
Bingo!
Or what I feel, at least. "It's not damage from his standpoint." Exactly.
[ ] 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
I've seen a number of these kinds of stories...
...and they all exhibit an extreme level of amnesia. No mention of the false "fairy tale is racist" crap, and no mention of what Clyburn did that pissed Clinton off (saying that Hillary's LBJ/MLK remarks denigrated MLK).
Gee I guess I have to get cable now
Then I won't be racist or sexist! Who knew?
Reminds me of that moment in Notting Hill where Hugh Grant finds out about Julia Roberts's other boyfriend from a tabloid and says, "My whole life ruined because I don't read "Hello Magazine.""
IOW
"I don’t think that there will be any effort to “undo the damage” because this is not “damage” from his point of view, but part of the plan."
As Microsoft might say "It's not a bug, it's a feature".
-----------------------------
Around these parts we call cucumber slices circle bites
-----------------------------
I'm not such a bad guy once you get to know me.
Big Dawg
told Clyburn to pound sand. Good for him.
OxyCon
Coward Dean should have stood up
...when President Clinton was under attack and said:
"To imply that President Clinton is a racist is absurd. No one has done more to bring this country together and tear down racial barriers than President Clinton. So I want this nonsense to stop right now. This isn't good for the Democrat party to be attacking one of our party's most prominent leaders with this baseless slander."
But Dean didn't do that, and the reason why he didn't do it is because he was complicit. He wanted to take down the Clintons and he was active in making sure that all the rules were tilted in Obama's favor. Dean made sure that Obama would "win" and that the Clintons would be destroyed. It's what he wanted.
How the Hell can someone who touts his "50 state strategy" for years, go and take away the voice of two entire states? Seriously?
Especially Florida!
OxyCon
Any attempt to deny that Bill Clinton is a racist
makes you a racist too.
That's what it says in the Obama rules.
------------------------------------------------
“But hysteria is all the rage these days, I guess” - gqm
x
------------------------------------------------
“I don't belong to any organized political party. I'm a Democrat.” - Will Rogers
But I already know....
... I'm a racist, since I was a Hillary supporter. So why worry? May as well be hung for a sheep as a lemming. Or something.
[ ] 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
Bill v. Barack
Good for Bill, fight back with the truth!
Barack's campaign calling Bill out on racism is not only wrong but hypocritical when the Obama proposals on helping African Americans are so thin over the ground and Bill actually did so much over 8 years--and doesn't his Foundation still do things too? Isn't that the GOP strategy of attack where you are weakest? I mean, according to Obama's Father's Day sermon, all those black fathers should just pull themselves up. I love the people who are African-American who are following Obama around now and asking him what he's doing for African Americans (which they say is nothing.)
(Sorry no time for linky goodness right now--all easily found though by googling news and recent discussions.)
actually...
Isn’t that the GOP strategy of attack where you are weakest?
Karl Rove's strategy was to attack an opponent's strength. I think that's what you mean, right?
Blue Lyon
Legacy
The insane part is that if Obama wins it'll be because of Clinton's legacy, in terms of competence and especially the economy, the latter of which he specifically trashed in PA, saying it was no better than Bush I. Better yet, Obama made a not too subtle dig at HRC when he said, "President Clinton's not on the ballot." I wonder if McCain will turn his trashing of the Clinton economy and that quote against him? I mean, when the only "D" legacy you can even claim, by association no less, is that of Pelosi, Dean, and Reid, you're in trouble.
To witness a day when Bill Clinton of all people has to declare that he isn't a racist is beyond depressing. To realize it's because of disgusting smears by fellow Democrats is simply surreal, like a damn out of body experience.
Asset stripping
follows a hostile takeover. (In fact, it often pays for the takeover.)
And so with the legacy of competence and the economy.
[ ] 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
Bill Clinton, in his own words
From the same ABC article Lambert links to:
Well, good gosh and golly. Bill Clinton isn't mad at Obama, never has been and isn't now. Pretty clear about that, but who does Bill blame?
Bill Clinton thinks that the MSM (and some bloggers, no doubt) are at fault for misrepresenting what was happening. And he doesn't blame Obama.
But will he show some support for Obama, demonstrate without question to one and all that there are no hard feelings?
Far more significant than this continued drumbeat by the media to try and divide the Democratic Party and progressives, apparently with fair success in some quarters.
Bill and Hillary aren't unhappy with Obama. Whatever happened in the campaign that was untoward they blame on the media, not Obama. And who does the MSM work for? The corporatist Plutocrats, the people who want to continue Republican rule. What is their agenda? Divide the Democrats, denigrate the Democratic candidate, keep the presidency in Republican hands.
I find myself in agreement with Bill and Hillary Clinton on both matters here before us; first, that the principle if not the complete blame for allegations of racism should be laid at the media while Obama should be held blameless and second, the most important task at hand is the defeat of the Republican Party in November - especially with regard to the presidency.
It was MSM media manipulation then, and it is MSM media manipulation now - by Kate Snow and Jake Tapper here, Kate Seelye elsewhere, Politico again, the same people from the same organizations beating the same propaganda drums, divide and conquor. For myself, I refuse to dance to their tune.
I think Bill was being politic...
...in saying he wasn't mad at/didn't blame Obama. He's too smart to not recognize Obama's role in this, and too "political" to call Obama out on it in the middle of a presidential campaign.
Not being a mind-reader
hard enough sorting out my own, I just take Bill at his word on this. He could as easily have said that he was angry with Obama but all is forgiven now and we're moving on, that would have served the same purpose. Instead, he said what he did - that he is not now and never has been mad at Obama - and until I hear differently from him I'll just go with the plain meaning of his words.
Doesn't address the other points I made, that the most important agenda item now for Bill and Hillary is beating the Republicans (I'm with them) and that all of this outrage repetition from the MSM/VRWC
is designed to fan the flames of anger from the primary and keep Democrats and progressives at each other's throats, to the benefit of Republicans and the Plutocrats.
Not until after the election, he can't
Check the transcript -- and RL calls me, so I can't get the link -- and you'll see that he says he'll be happy to tell the whole story, after the election. You can see him dancing around that point throughout. Gotta go.
[ ] 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
Very Interesting
He said the same thing in that long NYMag article about the Black community in Harlem growing disenchanted with him. "I won't talk about the election now."
Only tyrants rig elections.
Saw that, Lambert
guess we read it differently. I don't see anything there as even a hint that he's upset with Obama over anything, but he sure as hell is pissed off at the MSM - and at some people he thought were friends.
Write when you can, I'll be around.
Thanks for the intimation that our upset with Obama
Is us falling for MSM/VRWC
tricks. Dammit, I knew we should have built a detailed record of our concerns about Obama over the last two years!
Do I do "intimations"?
Really? Am I not blunt enough? Too coy to be clearly understood?
Come now; I made no such broad assertions, said nothing to condemn all of your concerns over Obama. IIRC, and you will if you stop and think about it, I've shared many of those same concerns and done so here quite openly.
I just don't share this one; neither, it appears, do Bill and Hillary Clinton. If, knowing that, you want to proceed in a manner that can only be described as (goddess help me) Hillary-er Than Thou, far be it from me to stand in your way. I'm just expressing my opinion.
On this particular matter, who is to blame for the Clintons being portrayed as racist and who has the most to gain from it being propagated, I say the blame is with the MSM/VRWC
who whipped up trivialities and the ex-Republican (not progressive) bloggers who jumped on it and furthered the frenzy. The gain from perpetuating it goes to the Republicans.
Oh, silly me!
It had occurred me -- in an entirely hypothetical manner, of course -- that Obama Himself might have something to gain from propagating the lie that the Clintons were racist, just after his loss in NH, and just before the primary in SC.
And since -- as you yourself say, bringiton -- we're entirely in cui bono mode here, so there's no question of what really happened, is your argument that Obama had nothing to gain from portraying the Clintons as racist?
Whatever floats your boat....
My contention
is that it helped the MSM/VRWC
attempt to discredit Clinton, to help them and the Republican Party get the candidate they felt would be most vulnerable and easier to beat in the general.
Did it benefit Obama? Some perhaps in the short term, but certainly not entirely and actually not very much; he had the black vote already, 80-90% of it, and any gains among whites or Latinos would be more than offset by those who saw it as a repugnant tactic. As a deliberate campaign strategy it was little gain since it pissed off huge blocks of Democratic voters that he would later want for the general.
Who it did serve well were the Republicans, trashing both Clinton and Obama at the same time, damaging both of them at the time and building up a damaging narrative for use in the general election. That it was pressed by the MSM in their role as tools of the Plutocrats is not, for me, so difficult to understand.
Use your own criterion, Lambert; who has the most to gain? Who stood to profit the most from spreading the falsehood about Clinton then, and who stands to benefit the most from continuing to perpetuate the "conflict" now? Do you really think the ABC reporter Kate Snow didn't pick that line of questioning deliberately, out of all the possible topics one might ask in the middle of an African tour focused on the AIDS crisis? Does it not make your antennae twitch when you see that Jake Tapper "contributed" to editing the remarks?
This is the same MSM that we, you and I, have been excoriating for some time; I don't trust them now, and believe that they are largely if not entirely in the service of the VRWC. Why do you think this issue keeps being brought up, after Bill has repeatedly said he doesn't blame Obama? Who does it serve?
Simple answers to simple questions
Q. Who had the most to gain by painting Hillary Clinton and her husband as racists, arguably the most politically damaging charge for any modern American candidate (see: "macacagate")?
A. Barack Obama.
How so?
Specifics, please.
How much gain with what demographic, for both the primary and the general election?
I say the big gain is for the Republicans, and peeling off progressives, depressing the left, is exactly what they'd hoped for.
The long term gain...
... may well be the Republicans (assuming them, arguendo to be systematically separate from (a) the press and (b) the Republicans) but the gain in the short term? Obama, all the way, as VL points out.
As far as the "specifics please" tactic, I know I'm the one who always asks for linky goodness, as a method. However, in this case, I have a nasty feeling that the only kind of specifics bringiton would accept are (a) a direct admission by Axelrod et al, or (b) a Clinton interview with makes the charge. Neither will happen during the campaign, obviously.
For myself on this issue, the behavior on the OFB
online, and the silence of the Obama campaign, whether in regard to the online behavior, or the behavior of the press, speaks volumes.
The charges were "out there," and grant for the moment that bringiton's revisionist theory -- unstated by bringiton at the time, IIRC -- that the charge that the Obama campaign smeared the Clintons as racist is false, and instigated by the press to divide us. If so, then all the Obama campaign had to do -- both to unify the party, seize the high ground, and do the right thing -- was say the charges were baseless.
They were silent.
That means the charges had an effect they approved of.
And let me point out that a charge of racism is more than hard-edged politics. It's a smear that's deliberately intended to drive the target from public life, much as a charge of being a communist did in the McCarthy era.
Prior to SC
He did not have 80-90% of the black vote. There are certainly several reasons his support among African Americans went up, not the least of which was actually winning the Iowa caucus, but for you to claim that the African American vote was already in the bag for him is completely false. HRC had outstanding support among the African American community prior to the "RACISM" screeches from Clyburn and other Obama surrogates.
Coincidence, or cause-and-effect?
As you say, his support was lower than one might have expected early on, but began to swell when he won Iowa and appeared for the first time like he might be for real. Support for Obama began to shift in December, grew after he won Iowa and solidified by the time he reached SC. His increasing validity as a candidate precipitated the shift, not charges of racism.
It was both.
"His increasing validity as a candidate precipitated the shift, not charges of racism."
No reason for an either-or; obviously both were powerful driving forces in Obama's increasing AA vote.
The shift among black voters began in December '07
well before any charges of racism. It accelerated steadily through January, and it is to my eye undecipherable what all may have contributed to it. At the time, the charge-countercharge over racism was seen by one analyst as a negative for both Obama and Clinton, but not mentioned as a factor driving the shift in black vote:
Here's another discussion at the time, from MSNBC on January 26 following the SC primary where Obama got 80% of the black vote, and no mention at all is made of the racism charges.
Here's Bill Clinton just before the SC primary, again in his own words and raising race but not charges of racism as a factor; and this was back when he was "Crazy Bill" popping off and letting his anger show. Note that racism, and charges of racism, was not a hot topic for the press at that time:
Does it really seem reasonable that blacks who initially supported Hillary suddenly forgot their earlier affection for her and Bill and bought into the idea that they both were closet racists? I don't think so, at least not to any meaningful degree. I think that as Obama appeared on national television and the black community heard him speak, they started to move to support him. When Obama showed he could win, in Iowa among white people, the black community robustly decided they wanted to back someone who looked like them on the premise (faulty or not) that he might actually identify with their struggles and do a better job of meeting their needs. That makes more sense to me.
The Clintons "Racism" was all the talk by mid-January
If you don't believe that played a substantial role in AA attitudes and voting... if you don't think hundreds of stories like this
with similar wall-to-wall TV coverage, affected the polls... there is no point in further discussion. Yours is simply an untenable position.
BTW, folks, that particular story contained this detail about Brazile sending an email to the media with a list of Clinton so-called "racebaiting":
I remember that quote of hers, but not the email. Is this widely known? That other Democratic leaders didn't smack her down for that crap is truly disgraceful. It's impossible to argue that we should not be angry at the FKD Party for the racist smears.
and of course
"No reason for an either-or; obviously both were powerful driving forces in Obama’s increasing AA vote."
That was my point. But bio just wants to pretend that the racism charges didn't happen. But if they did happen, they didn't matter. But they didn't happen.
Gingrich and Scaife did nothing wrong!
It's not like Bill and Hillary ever "made amends" with Gingrich and Scaife. Oh wait, they did. So we should all jump on board the Gingrich and Scaife ships. If the Clintons don't hold grudges against them publicly, they couldn't have done anything wrong.
Only tyrants rig elections.
Shoddy logic, gq
Did either Bill or Hillary ever say they had never been angry with Gingrich or Scaife? Don't believe so. Have both Gingrich and Scaife both said they had been wrong in what they had done? Yes, they have. I have no evidence before me that either Bill or Hillary has forgiven or forgotten, although they have decided to work with Gingrich when it suited their ends. As to Scaife, it was he who has apologized and tried to make amends; I see no evidence that either one of the Clintons has accepted that overture.
Neither of these people is a plausable comparator.
You're right
Hillary doesn't believe in redemption.
Only tyrants rig elections.
Never said otherwise
She's been very open about her belief in redemption. I believe in it as well; fully embrace the concept, in fact. Don't you?
But what has this got to do with what I wrote? Is it supposed to be a rebuttal, or are you really conceding I am right? Please be more specific, because the article you have linked to supports my contentions quite nicely.
You're right
That Hillary referenced Scaife and redemption together totally supports your contention:
Quite nicely, I might ad.
UPDATE: Since some may not follow the above link, here is Hillary answer to the a question about Scaife:
Only tyrants rig elections.
It's called a stiff upper lip and taking one for the team
For myself, I refuse to, um, whitewash the record:
http://journals.democraticunderground.co...
Just be careful you don't, um, "blacklist" anyone
We've been through this before, probably not much to gain by a rehash, not looking to pick a fight, but....
That memo you reference from Alicia Whosis or whatever her name is was an internal distribution memo, the kind of blue-sky thing that a campaign would be remiss if it did not do, and somehow it got handed over to HuffPo. They put it up for all to see, the MSM jumped on it and whipped it into a campaign to divide the Democratic Party. The original memo was the work of a low-level staffer, a press secretary in SC, apparently not too bright, very unsophisticated and way too trusting, and there is no evidence that the leak was designed or implemented by the Obama campaign at any senior level. Obama condemned it and made the condemnation public.
This was, again, an MSM propaganda maneuver designed to sow dissent and distrust within the Democratic Party and the progressive community. Worked pretty well, apparently.
Ah, the over-zealous staffer
Check...
Thank you for that 'race memo' DU link, VL!
i was actually trying to find that link earlier today, i remembered that post from a while back.
i posted that link on another forum today, and it turns out that even relatively well-informed people dont't know all the gory details... it's amazing, really.
Who's divided?
Since Obama's going to protect me and my friend with the bleeding feet on universal health care, and with the way he stood up on FISA and offshore oil....
Oh, wait...
[ ] 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