This bit of white entitlement has been widely cited as evidence of the horrible opportunism of the Obama campaign, but actually it shows something rather sad about some of the opposition to Obama.
First, let’s note that the publisher of the Wilentz piece is notorious for its use as a “liberal” place to attack the left left and here for its hyping of Bush’s war and so on.
But let’s move to Wilentz’s text which begins with a classic of the Obama-indignancy crowd: insisting that disagreement with Hillary is equivalent to lying.
Most of the recent correctives have concerned outrageously deceptive advertisements approved and released by Obama’s campaign. First, in Iowa, the Obama camp aired radio ads patterned on the notorious “Harry and Louise” Republican propaganda from 1993, charging falsely that Senator Hillary Clinton’s health care proposal would “force those who cannot afford health insurance to buy it, punishing those who won’t fall in line.”
Oooh. Terrible. But it’s not just Obama - Robert Kuttner is doing the same thing on that right wing radio show “Democracy Now”
Robert Kuttner: …Clinton has what’s known as a mandate. She requires people to get coverage. Obama doesn’t. Clinton and some liberal commentators, like Paul Krugman, have whacked Obama for not having a mandate. I think a mandate is a very bad idea. I think the difference between universal social insurance and a mandate is that universal social insurance, like Medicare, says that, as an American or a permanent resident of the country, you get health insurance, the same way you get Social Security. A mandate takes a social problem and makes it the individual’s problem.
[…]
Instead of putting a gun to people’s heads, typically people who can’t afford good quality insurance, and saying to them, “You must, under penalty of law, or pay a tax or pay a fine, go out and find decent insurance,” it’s so much better policy to just have insurance for everybody. Then there’s no question of a mandate.
(http://www.pnhp.org/news/2008/february/e…)
So it’s apparently just scummy for people to make this argument because, uh, because Sean says so.
We now move on to NAFTA where Professor Wilentz makes the following sage observation:
The Obama mass mailings also attempt to appeal to Ohio’s labor vote by claiming that Clinton believed that the North American Free Trade Agreement, signed in 1993 by President Bill Clinton, was a “’boon’ to our economy.” More falsehood: In fact, Clinton had not said that; Newsday originally applied the word “boon” and has now noted the Obama campaign’s distortion.
One only needs to look at the ad itself to see what thin material inspires Wilentz to such indignation http://weblogs.newsday.com/news/local/lo…
And here is a nice illustration of Wilentz’s method. He writes:
But he [Obama] fails to mention that, within the councils of her husband’s administration, Hillary Clinton was a skeptic of free trade agreements, and as a senator and candidate she has said that NAFTA contained flaws that need to be rectified.
So Obama is a liar for failing to mention Hillary Clinton’s opposition to NAFTA during her husband’s presidency. And this opposition was made public where? Well, the congressional opponents of NAFTA never saw it.
http://www.buckeyestateblog.com/93_nafta…
As members of Congress who voted against NAFTA in 1994, we were surprised to hear the Clinton campaign’s assertion that Senator Hillary Clinton was opposed to NAFTA from the start. It would have been helpful to know we had an ally in the White House back then, but at no time throughout our long fight did Hillary Clinton ever indicate publicly or privately that she was on our side.
As best we could tell, Hillary Clinton shared the Clinton administration’s view that NAFTA would create better jobs and spur faster growth, and that while it might erode workers’ rights and protections, the benefits of the deal would far outweigh its cost
http://www.buckeyestateblog.com/93_nafta…
Oh, wait, these guys must also be liars because, well, because. David Sirota is a liar too for documenting Senator Clinton’s record on NAFTA.
Let’s step back and consider how this works. Obama has claimed Clinton is a long-time backer of NAFTA and that her public health plan’s mandates are bad. The public record shows she was in fact a long time backer of NAFTA. There is no documentation that she,as Wilentz claims, opposed the pact. And a highly credible liberal expert on health insurance agrees with Obama’s concerns about mandates. But Wilentz is not content to argue that Obama is wrong - he insists that Obama’s attacks on Clinton are “Misleading propaganda” and “the adoption of techniques reminiscent of past Republican and special-interest hit jobs”. Wow.
Having set the stage by noting Obama’s “insidious” tactics, Wilentz moves to his real concern -O.J. Simpson’s, I mean, Obama’s “RACE CARD”. Oh my god. Us color blind white people are about to be hammered with guilt. Note that the term “race card” is like “homosexual agenda”, or “feminazi” a term created by bigots and carrying with it a trainload of prejudice. Tim Wise discusses “playing the race card” as a symptom of white denial of racism.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle….
In fact, “playing the race card” is a term that, prior to Obama’s campaign was almost never used by anyone outside of the right wing. The peculiarity of the anti-obama movement is that it has apparently granted a number of white liberals license to rant about the race card playing, kumbaya chanting, only got where he is because of his race, preacher-man, shuck and jiving (Andy Cuomo), street-hustling BLACK MAN. Wilentz is adept at this: prefacing his analysis of Obama’s perfidious use of race by citing Phillip Roth’s pathetic novel about how an innocent academic who is even secretly “black” has his reputation destroyed by the “race baiting” of black people. Because, as every winger knows, the fundamental problem of racism is America is exactly the fabricated charges of racism by black opportunists.
The next FIVE paragraphs of Wilentz’ article attempt to show the shameless “race baiting” of Obama’s campaign cite Frank Rich, Eugene Robinson, and Earl Hutchinson. That is, 3 journalists, none of whom work for Obama. Only in paragraph SIX do we get to someone actually in the Obama campaign, Jesse Jackson Jr. and in that case, Wilentz produces a revoltingly dishonest hack job worthy of Pravda. Here is Congressman Jackson’s horrible offense in Wilentz’ words:
The very next morning, Obama’s national co-chair, Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr., a congressional supporter from Chicago, played the race card more directly by appearing on MSNBC to claim in a well-prepared statement that Clinton’s emotional moment on the campaign trail was actually a measure of her deeply ingrained racism and callousness about the suffering poor. “But those tears also have to be analyzed,” Jackson said, “they have to be looked at very, very carefully in light of Katrina, in light of other things that Mrs. Clinton did not cry for, particularly as we head to South Carolina where 45 percent of African-Americans will participate in the Democratic contest … we saw tears in response to her appearance, so that her appearance brought her to tears, but not Hurricane Katrina, not other issues.” And so the Obama campaign headed south with race and racism very much on its mind—and on its lips.
Ooh. Well, actually, Jackson also mentioned the war in Iraq and the sub-prime meltdown as issues that Senator Clinton failed to cry about. Why ever did Massa Sean feel he had to leave those issues out and only retain the reference to Katrina? Someone is race baiting here, but it is not Congressman Jackson.
Want more? Here’s Massa Sean:
Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina, a black congressman—neutral in the race, but pressured by the Obama campaign arousing his constituency—felt compelled to repeat the charge that Clinton had disparaged King, and told the New York Times that “we have to be very, very careful about how we speak about that era in American politics.”
Ok, the Obama campaign did not make this statement, it was made by someone who has not endorsed either candidate. But Clyburn did because the Zionist Occupation Government, I mean the shadowy Obama campaign “pressured” him. And we know he was pressured, because, well, it’s obvious. He doesn’t have opinions of his own because, well, he’s black. You know how they are. And then Obama himself piles in by “smoothly” saying
“I didn’t make the statement,” Obama said in a conference call with reporters. “I haven’t remarked on it.”
Smooth, you know, like Shaft or something - one of those shuckers and jivers that Andy Cuomo mentioned.
You see, in Wilentz’s world, Obama is responsible for every remark uttered by black people:
Appearing on CNN, one of its pundits, Donna Brazile, hurled the wild charge that Clinton had likened Obama to a child. “And I will tell you,” she concluded, “as an African American I find his words and his tone to be very depressing.” With those kinds of remarks—“as an African American”—the race card and the race-baiter card both came back into play. Although Brazile is formally not part of Obama’s campaign, her comments made their way to the South Carolina memo, offered as evidence that Clinton’s comment was racially insensitive.
She’s not “formally” a part of Obama’s campaign, but her skin color gives her away. That’s why we know that Jewish pundits and reporters are part of Likud as well. Good God. The most interesting question here is what makes raving like this acceptable.
Front page
I touched up some formatting on your post
Just to lay that censorship non-issue to rest once and for all….
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
It would be more effective...
Without the false disingenuousness (the objection to the Harry & Louise ad was because it criticised mandates - no, it was something else, and you know it)
And without the unnecessary, over the top invective directed at the readers — sadly, very typical of Sen Obama’s ardent supporters.
One of the nice things about supporting Sen Clinton at this point is that I don’t feel the need to lash out at everyone that says something bad about her. She’s far from perfect, but sadly she is the best choice left in terms of advancing progressive-left causes.
Three easy questions, rootless
Before we get down in the weeds on Wilentz, let’s get a baseline in place. Let me ask you:
1. Are the Clintons, Bill and Hillary, personally racist?
2. Have the Clintons, Bill and Hillary, committed acts of racism in this campaign?
3. Is the Clinton campaign running a racist campaign?
I would answer all three questions No.
What are your answers?
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
3 answers to the wrong questions
(from dictionary.com) racism: a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
1) no
2) no
3) no
Have racially insensitive and inflammatory remarks come out of the Clinton campaign? Yes
In sports, its the player that retaliates to unsportsmanlike conduct that usually gets the full wrath of the officials.
The strategy has been, IMHO, for the Clinton campaign to bait reactions from the Obama camp in an effort to paint Obama as the “race card player”. If they can toe the line of acceptability, then Obama’s retaliations would make him look like the candidate that uses his race to defend himself - a surefire way to put off white voters, easily offended when their white guilt emotions get stirred up.
The problem has been a pattern of this behavior from the Clinton camp (Shaheen, Penn, Cuomo, Kerry, Ferraro…). I most cases, the BO campaign has been able to avoid the “race card defense”. But, as shown by Wilentz and described by rootless, pointing at talking heads, journalists and unaffiliated persons will do in a pinch.
Jesse Jackson Jr. was the only egregious response by a BO surrogate. The keen observer, however, will note that he has been quietly put in the box and hasn’t had a TV appearance (to my knowledge) since.
The media frenzy over every insensitive comment has muddied the waters as to who is responsible for what reaction. But I’m confident in two things:
1) The Clintons are not racist
2) Team HRC is more to blame than team BHO for the racial fallout of this nomination process.
Before we get down in the
Before we get down in the weeds on Wilentz, let’s get a baseline in place. Let me ask you:
1. Are the Clintons, Bill and Hillary, personally racist?
Don’t know, don’t care. To me they don’t appear to be. But I don’t care what is in the unknowable heart of a public person, I care about what they say and do.
2. Have the Clintons, Bill and Hillary, committed acts of racism in this campaign?
They have minimized Obama’s qualifications in a way that I do not believe they would have done for a white person of similar credentials.
3. Is the Clinton campaign running a racist campaign?
The Clinton campaign has acted in a way to accentuate Obama’s race and “foreignness”. I am skeptical that they had no control over Ferraro’s comments, for example. And Ferraro’s claims were indeed racist.
Where to start with your post?
I don’t feel like hunting down the quotes from people who were in the White House that say that Hillary was not pro NAFTA, but if you want me to I will. But you can start with George Stephanopoulos this past weekend on “THIS WEEK” saying she was no fan of NAFTA.
But let me show you how the NAFTA mailer is misleading. The Obama campaign is quoting her as saying that NAFTA was “a boon.” Their source for that quote is NewsDay. What does NewsDay say about his use of the quote?
http://tiny.cc/bk5rL
She never said it was “a boon” and it had been pointed out to him before and he continued using the quote to lie about her position. Obama “is a liar” for using a quote in that mailer that she didn’t make. What part of that is hard for you to understand?
I guess you think you’re clever bringing up OJ. Unfortunately you don’t catch the irony of doing so and then mentioning JJjr in the next paragraph. Maybe you should Google and find out what JJjr said about OJ+Barack+Hillary the night of the Iowa results. Oh yes, he went there.
If you think anyone with two brain cells to rub together didn’t hear the dog whistle when JJjr said Hillary didn’t cry for victims of Hurricane Katrina, you’re sadly mistaken. He mentioned Iraq only out of convenience his real point was that “Hillary doesn’t care about black people.”
Why did you use the truncated version of his response? I know you read the whole quote because you read the piece by Sean which quotes Sen. Obama as saying:
Yeah he didn’t comment on it he just stoked the fire. But what did his South Carolina Press Secretary do? She included the MLK stuff in the memo they circulated that twisted and pulled comments out of context to paint them as racist.
http://tiny.cc/rYDR8
There’s the link if you haven’t read the memo before. What did Sen. Obama say about that little memo?
http://tiny.cc/5iVJX
You’re right. Sen. Obama is not responsible for things black people say. But he is responsible for what his National Co-Chair JJjr says and what his SC Press Secretary did. I love that in your attempt to debunk and paint Sean Wilentz you have cherry picked parts of his much larger piece and ignored the evidence he provided that should have made you think.
Anyone who has seen this primary unfold and seen Donna Brazil on television knows she has a bias and leans to Sen. Obama. Everything she says and has done is to the benefit of the Obama campaign. From her twisting the “fairy tale” comment into something about race, to her role in stripping all of the delegates from MI & FL to her threat of leaving the Democratic Party if SDs decided the race when Sen. Obama was behind in delegates are all designed to help Sen. Obama. If there was enough room in the camera shot to pan down below her waist you’d see she was sitting on her own Unity
Pony
.
This blog deserves better than allowing you to splatter your race-baiting jizz all over the front page just to provide “equal time” to Obama supporters. Actually, Sen. Obama deserves better supporters than this.
uh huh
Newsday summarized Clinton’s opinion of Nafta as “a boon” in her senate primary, a conclusion that all reasonable people would have made about Senator Clinton’s opinion before the Presidential primary started and her senatorial campaign never objected. So if the Obama advert had said
Clinton considered NAFTA “a boon” according to Newsday.
instead of
Clinton considered NAFTA “a boon”
it would have been much less damaging to Clinton?
The elevation of such minor issues to searing indictments is what makes your rhetoric so laughable.
Why don’t you focus on Wilentz and Congressman Jackson and tell me why the mentions of Iraq War and mortgage crisis were edited out by Wilentz?
and the result of all this overcharged rhetoric
The poll shows that the divisive Democratic primary is dragging down the prospects for party unity, at least for now: Only 55% of Clinton supporters say they are even just somewhat likely to back Obama if he’s the nominee, and the same goes for only 55% of Obama supporters if Hillary is the nominee.
from TPM.
The only thing here " laughable"
is how devoid your diary is of honesty. Of course it would have been “less damaging” if Barack couldn’t have lied and attributed to her a quote she never made and one he new she didn’t make.
What does David Gergen say about Hillary and NAFTA?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQJxtzLQ5…
Why? Because anyone who isn’t a complete moron can see that his reason for saying what he said had nothing to do with the Iraq War. I can’t believe you’re actually claiming that he’s being duplicitous in not mentioning the Iraq War part of the comment. Sean Wilentz provides a link to the YouTube clip where everyone can see what JJjr said. Yet, you’re claiming he’s trying to hide the ball.
LMAO.
Anyone who is honest with themselves knows that JJjr mentioned the Iraq War purely out of convenience. His role in that interview was to lob a race bomb and allow Barack to keep his hands clean. Here’s the quote I mentioned above
http://tinyurl.com/24d3n2
Natural reminder to who? Not to me or any other reasonable people on the planet.
I don’t buy for a second that JJjr didn’t know he was being sent out by the Obama camp to inject race into the primary. But if you want to argue he’s too stupid to know that he was being used by the Obama campaign you go right ahead and do it. It is clear that the Obama campaign was willing to let him martyr himself if the bomb blew up in his face and they could chalk it up to “like father like son.”
Chutzpah...
Since we’re agreed that the Clinton’s aren’t personally racist, let’s work on the baseline some more. And I have to believe that you’re giving this your best shot…..
rootless writes:
Jeebus, the Clinton campaign is making Obama’s resume appear more even more thin than it is? Oh, the humanity! Come on. Obama’s resume has always been an issue, and crying racism about that is pretty sad. In any case, you “believe,” and that, plus a dime, will get you a cup of coffee, absent links.
Feh. Ferraro’s comment was exactly and only as racist as Bareback Andy’s, except (a) Andy’s an early Obama endorser, so he gets to play by The Obama Rules, unlike Ferraro, and (b) Andy’s a lot better writer than Ferraro is a speaker. And I’m sorry you’re skeptical, so let’s make a trade: I’ll give you Ferraro as a Clinton surrogate, if you’ll give me Donna Brazile as an Obama surrogate. Deal? Note also Bareback Andy’s use of, well, Obama’s “foreign-ness.” Oh, wait, I forgot. Andy gets to play by The Obama Rules. In any case, it’s hard to see how Obama’s foreign-ness could be “accentuated” any more than it’s been already been by the Obama campaign and Obama’s own best-selling books. Or are you making the claim that if anybody doesn’t “accentuate the postive” that’s racism? Surely not.
Oh, and speaking of Obama’s resume, where are Obama’s records from his time in the Illinois Senate? Given the Obama’s well known commitment to transparency, I looked for those records on the Obama site, but I couldn’t find them. Anyone got a link?
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
Shucks
only got where he is because of his race, preacher-man, shuck and jiving (Andy Cuomo), street-hustling BLACK MAN.
You know, of course, that Cuomo said that the good thing about Iowa and New Hampshire was that candidates couldn’t “shuck and jive” in a press conference because they had to mingle directly with the people. He didn’t say that Obama had shucked and jived, or that Obama was good at shucking and/or jiving.
So “Shuck and jive” is a regrettable phrase when used _at all_. But Cuomo DISTINCTLY did NOT use it to describe Obama. It’s the difference between a person referring to bargaining as “Jewing them down,” and saying that Joe Lieberman was “jewing down” the expectations for John McCain, or something. There are bad phrases, and then there are bad phrases used to slime. Cuomo may be guilty of the former, but not the latter.
Surrogates
I detest the word “surrogate” now because it’s being used so loosely in order to cover all the most objectionable words and deeds in the guiltiest way. Why is Ferraro a “surrogate” and not a supporter? She may raise money and give it to the Clinton campaign, but IIRC she wasn’t a staffer at all. In my book that makes her a “supporter” at best. And by that token someone like David Geffen or Tracy Morgan can be pounded for shooting off their mouths against Clinton, and, ooooh, how could it be anything but “coordinated”? Did you think Samantha Power was part of a “coordinated” attack to make Hillary look calculating and bitchy?
Sometimes people like to talk about the candidate they support, and they start to say stupid things. If it’s always the candidate’s fault when that happens, that way madness lies, and we end up having to talk about Obama’s minister, who rightfully should have nothing to do with anything. But if Obama supporters wanted to play this game of treating the candidate’s associates as emanations of the candidate herself, well, they got one.
Say, who are the resentful whites in your title?
I almost forgot to ask.
You don’t need to name individuals, of course, rootless.
Classes of people will do.
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
resentful whites
People like Sean Wilentz who appear personally affronted that Donna Brazile dares to complain.
I really recommend the Tim Wise article I linked to.
Am I a rootless surrogate?
Seriously, I know rootless can fend for him(her)self but I can’t help but to jump in.
Lambert - The worst part of the Ferraro fiasco was that she made the full rounds of the news networks to keep promoting her belief that Obama’s success in the campaign was due to being a black man. The HRC campaign could have kept her out of the media loop.
Her remarks were particularly dangerous, in that they echo the deep seeded resentment of much of white America - that blacks often get unfairly promoted to prominance because of their skin color. Now, I’m ok with HRC supporters saying Obama lacks experience. I’m ok with people being opposed to affirmative action. But conflating these sentiments in regard to Obama is a divisive and demeaning act.
Sullivan’s remarks are an entirely different animal. His aren’t designed to minimize the candidate based on race.
Its the difference between saying:
Girls across the world could foresee greater possibilities for themselves in light of a female POTUS. (enlightening)
Women who achieve high offices in government, do so on the coattails of their successful spouses. (demeaning)
::
And lastly, I’ll nibble on your red herring. Obama has one staff member as a State Senator. He did a lot of his own scheduling. His state senate records are not as formally maintained as a first lady’s. Everything he had, was turned over the the state of Illinois and the successor to his office. The Chicago Trib. obtained these records long ago through FOIA and “vetted” them. Now, about those tax returns, earmark proposals, library donors…
Damned if you do, damned if you don't
Last I checked, Donna Brazille was a high ranking official in the Democratic Party and former Al Gore’s campaign manager. So I don’t really see how she need “dare” to do anything. She’s a power broker, for pity’s sake (and I don’t see that use case discussed in Wise’s article).
And let’s subtract “appear personally affronted” from your statement, since I’m sure you aren’t setting yourself up as the personal arbitrer for every Democrat’s behavior. I mean, it’s “appears” to you, and right?
So what it boils down to, leaving your feelings out of the question, is that somebody called bullshit on Donna Brazille. Should we let it go?
Is there any way to call bullshit on Donna Brazille that’s not racist, in your view?
I’m guessing no.
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
because wilentz's edit changed the meaning
Why? Because anyone who isn’t a complete moron can see that his reason for saying what he said had nothing to do with the Iraq War. I can’t believe you’re actually claiming that he’s being duplicitous in not mentioning the Iraq War part of the comment.
Oh. Because to a dummy like me “A race baiting Jackson asked why Clinton had not wept about Katrina, the War in Iraq, and the mortgage crisis” is obviously silly, but “A race baiting Jackson asked why Clinton had not wept about Katrina” is almost plausible. One could interpret Jackson’s remarks as “She cares about herself, but not the poor and suffering.” But to interpret Jackson’s remarks as “She cares about herself but not black people”, you have to use creative editing.
if you say every black person who percieves racism is a liar
Then you run the risk of being called racist. Wilentz argument is that Clymer and Brazile and everyone else who took offense are all duplicitous race baiters. That’s a racist argument.
You could argue that Clymer and Brazile are wrong without sounding like Jesse Helms, but that’s not a trick that Wilentz seems able to pull off.
Oh, bullshit
Ferraro’s initial statements was made in a fucking California shopper for pity’s sake. The Obama 527 Formerly Known As Daily Kos got hold of it, and katy bar the door. To say as you do:
is to confuse her reaction to the media firestorm that Obama’s campaign surrogates ginned up with a campaign. A shopper.
And I’m having a really hard time distinguishing:
from what Sullivan said:
Except…. Wait a minute! I’ve got it!
Anything that Obama supporters say is, by definition, not “demeaning.”
Anything that [not Obama] supporters say is, by definition, “demeaning.”
Makes it simple. For a minute, I was worried I’d have collect the subjective reactions of Obama supporters on how things “appeared” before writing a line. But now I have a litmus test. Thanks for clarifying.
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
Ferraro Loop
The HRC campaign could have kept her out of the media loop.
How? She raised money for the campaign, but she wasn’t under the direction of the campaign. Even when subordinates in any organization _are_ under direct orders, there are things they can choose not to do. You can’t stop someone from talking. You can ask her to shut up already, sure, but how can you enforce it?
it's not a racist argument--he's saying that they cry "racist"
all the time, even when stuff is clearly not racist—and they totally reinforce the dangerous notion that actually being a black candidate is somehow bad—and that’s it’s somehow possible for Obama to actually be “postracial” as if having a race is bad—as if Hillary could be postgendered—it’s not possible—and Obama and his supporters attacking everyone who brings it up is absurd.
Jesse Jackson did great in the 80s and won a bunch of states—i and millions of others voted for him proudly—it’s no insult to bring him up (for just one instance). It’s wrong to accuse Bill Clinton of being racist over and over. …
tons of Obama supporters say the exact same thing Ferraro said--
Sullivan, Kerry, Chris Matthews, all of MSNBC, the Kennedys, …
and Obama was attacked by many Blacks early on for
running away from Civil Rights and other leaders and never mentioning any Black issues at all—-Cornel West and Sharpton especially trashed him very severely. And the old leaders did not come on board til he started paying attention.
right there's no difference
between saying, for example, “she’s got the job because of affirmative action” and “it’s great that a woman has that job” because both statements reference the gender of the job holder. For sullivan to say it’s good to have an african american candidate is exactly the same as Ferraro saying that Obama has succeeded because he’s a negro. How could I have been so blind?
More bullshit
Let me translate for you, rootless. Because clearly nobody on this thread said “exactly” the same, except you.
Sullivan is saying that Obama’s African heritage and “brown-skinned face” create the possibility of a narrative that will “re-brand” the United States friends and win us new friends in the Middle East.
By the Obama rules, that’s not “demeaning,” since it helps get him elected.
Now, Ferraro is not introducing the notion of “affirmative action.” You are. Here’s what she said, and let’s read the whole thing, please. And remember this is in the Daily Breeze, a shopper, so it’s not as if she prepped herself for the shouting heads, or anything:
OK, not so good. And this is what mostly gets quoted. Let’s go on:
Pretty tactless, but I’m not seeing any women of Obama’s age and resume running for President. I’d say, no harm, no foul:
And why? The key sentence that always gets left out of this discussion:
Ferraro is pointing out that Obama’s narrative has succeeded, just as Sullivan advocated. This has nothing, nothing, nothing to do with “affirmative action.” You introduced that red herring — stereotyping, I might add, Ferraro in the process. It’s the Obama campaign that tried to turn clumsiness and lack of tact if a California shopper into a career ending move. Well done.
NOTE I should say that I’m not denying the reality of racism at all—or that it’s systemic, and not just a matter of the human heart (though it is that, too.) For those of you who came in late, check the Michael Vicks thread. And if the Obama campaign really wants to serious conversation about race, then let’s have it. Obviously, on the Ferraro thing, we’re not having it. What we’re having is a take-down of one campaign operative by another campaign. Pure and simple. And to claim the high road on a national conversation, while using one part of that conversation for a tactical campaign victory, is pretty… pretty rank. My Unity
Pony
’s on back order on this one.
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
mandates
Wouldn’t it be better if we were discussing whether health-insurance mandates are a good idea or not instead of thrashing around about who is ’playing the race card’?
The zealous supporters and even campaign surrogates say stupid and/or inflammatory things on occasion. The media (especially in this race) will amplify them as much as they can.
But the fact is, Clinton’s campaign has been trashing about for a couple of months now, throwing everything they can think of in the hopes that something might stick. This is the sort of shit that plasters our public sphere as a result.
Damn
I was gonna chime in, but by the time I was able to log in (drupal teh suxors) lambert already knocked it down.
*garrrrh*
I’ll tackle Jesse Jackson Jr.
Me thinks Jr was certainly making it about race with his Katrina comments.
Let us not be naive.
Bonus Round:
Where was the State of the Black Union held this year?
Well....
I’ll borrow a line from David Axelrod here; when it is part of an “insidious pattern that needs to be addressed” you can ignore it if you want. Me, I’ll choose to not to. Im tired of leading you to water so I’ll leave you with this:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/128633/page/3
Health insurance mandates, travec?
If you want to post on it, have at it. Bringiton just did. Be the change that you seek!
But you know, I think Hillary’s better on universal health care than Barry. But before taking that on, there was this mess we had to clean up. Eh?
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
the majority of Americans want Single-payer--neither of the
candidates are as advanced as Americans are.
Mandates are a mandatory first step, and people understand that the pool has to include all for it to work.
McGovern--latest "racist" --
Clinton-backer McGovern: Harder to Elect a Woman Than a Black Man — http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/…
Travec, buddy, c'mon; help us out
Many of us would like to be discussing other things in addition to the burning issue of which of our sterling Democratic contenders is the biggest whiner of all time; but we need your help. Round up your buddies, jump on any of several health insurance posts here, and bury the comment sidebar with thoughtful insights of substance and clarity.
Please.
I stopped reading after this moronic quote....
it’s so much better policy to just have insurance for everybody.
what the hell does “insurance for everybody” mean?
since he seems to be supporting the Obama plan, I guess that means that insurance is available to everybody.
But, right now we have “insurance for everybody.” There are insurance companies that will provide coverage for private individuals — if you feel like paying for it (and/or you can afford it.)
The only way to get real “insurance for everybody” is to make it affordable for everybody, and then make them get it. This can be achieved through a single payer plan (accompanied by higher taxes) or through something like what both Clinton and Edwards proposed.
The fact that rootless can’t even tell a bogus argument about health insurance made it impossible to read the rest of the mess…..
talk about redefining the word "petty"
to. Im tired of leading you to water so I’ll leave you with this:
“The fact that Obama was half-black and half-white didn’t matter much to anyone but Obama, Kakugawa says: “He made everything out like it was all racial.”
Oooh, a high school friend who has been in and out of prison has some bitter things to say. Let’s drag out all the things each candidate said when teenagers, because I really want to know who had the best take on Motley Cru’s oeuvre according to their 9th grade classmates. What did Hilly think of the early works of ELP and did she ever say something mean to someone on the bus?
No wonder you are confused about health insurance.
Submitted by Paul_Lukasiak on Tue, 2008-03-25 21:00.
it’s so much better policy to just have insurance for everybody.
what the hell does “insurance for everybody” mean?
since he seems to be supporting the Obama plan, I guess that means that insurance is available to everybody.
Kuttner speaks very clearly, so I have to wonder at your difficulty here. His argument is that both candidates have chickenshit versions of the same compromised Yale plan and that neither has had the courage to endorse the position most americans support of actual universal coverage. However, given the limitations of the two plans, he argues that Hillary’s mandates will cause more harm than good and will prove, in the end, a poison pill, dooming the plan to remain limited and unpopular instead of broadening to actual universal health-care.
It’s a simple argument, but since it does not fit into your black and white “analysis”, you cannot even comprehend the ideas of the most prominent left-wing analyst of health care, let alone comment intelligently on it.
Reaping what you sow...
I can hardly avoid comparing this from rootless:
With this from Tim Wise’s extremely interesting article:
Of course, I know what rootless really means, even if his phrasing was clumsy enough to have the Boiz on the Blogs and our famously free press all in a lather, if rootless were (say) a white supporter of Hillary who happened to be a woman, even though he made the comment in an obscure C-list blog. And then would come the more sophisticated analysts who, while acquitting rootless of conscious racism, would tut tut about the connotations, about which rootless was so insensitive…
Because, obviously, rootless had no intent of “demeaning” his interlocutor, Paul, so…. Oh, wait a minute. Rootless clearly did have such an intent.
So….
See how tricky these things can be?
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.