Frankly, I don’t find all that much to get upset about in the Chris Bowers Open Left post to which Lambert refers here. Okay, the post has a slightly condescending tinge to its tone, but why shouldn’t Democrats be proud that now more than ever the Democratic base looks like America? Bill Clinton himself once noted the same, and pledged that his administration would too, one pledge among many, many that Clinton kept.

While I’m on this subject, I want to remind everyone that neither any particular African-American nor the African-American community as a whole needs to apologize for voting for an African-American candidate for President, or any other office, for that matter. Black folks have been voting for white folks for decades now. And it isn’t as if Obama got their support automatically. It was only when he convinced many of them that he was viable, and presented a vision they obviously found inspiring, as is true for a large swathe of the electorate, that they have flocked to him. So, we are not talking about identity politics here. Remember, it was Obama who has been running as a post-racial candidate, for which many of us here at Corrente criticized him, rightly so, in my opinion.

Back to Bowers. It’s this stunning post that should be the focus of our incredulous ire, although I do realize that in Lambert’s majestic takedown, of Matt Stoller’s chilling foray into Obama triumphalism, this Bowers post is mentioned along with the fact that Bowers starts with an admiring nod to the Stoller post.

In his post, Bowers is imagining/predicting what kind of changes in Democratic governance we might be seeing from an Obama presidency. Fasten your seat belts.

Cultural Shift: Out with Bubbas, up with Creatives: There should be a major cultural shift in the party, where the southern Dems and Liebercrat elite will be largely replaced by rising creative class types. Obama has all the markers of a creative class background, from his community organizing, to his Unitarianism, to being an academic, to living in Hyde Park to shopping at Whole Foods and drinking PBR. These will be the type of people running the Democratic Party now, and it will be a big cultural shift from the white working class focus of earlier decades. Given the demographics of the blogosphere, in all likelihood, this is a socioeconomic and cultural demographic into which you fit. Culturally, the Democratic Party will feel pretty normal to netroots types. It will consistently send out cultural signals designed to appeal primarily to the creative class instead of rich donors and the white working class.

I’m not even sure what that means. Who the hell are the creative class?  Read more 

Or
Why Jeremiah Wright is Obama’s Monica

Last night, we saw exactly why Barack Obama has a Jeremiah Wright problem. Just as Bill Clinton “lied” to us about Monica Lewinsky by telling us something that may be true but was clearly meant to deceive us, Obama is hiding behind the closely parsed “specific statement” defense to deflect criticism of his relationship with Pastor Jeremiah Wright.

I didn’t care that Bill Clinton was fellated by Monica Lewinsky. And I don’t care that Barack Obama came to terms with what it really means to be “Black in America” because Jeremiah Wright helped him to understand it. As far as racial issues are concerned, I share Wright’s perspective, and think that what Obama is telling America is pure pandering.  Read more 

In today’s SF Chronicle:

“In fact, before his speech Clinton had one of his famous meltdowns Sunday, blasting away at former presidential contender Bill Richardson for having endorsed Obama, the media and the entire nomination process.”

I wasn’t there, so I can’t say whether this story is true or not. But I find it suspicious that it didn’t appear until today, and only appeared in a political gossip column (Matier & Ross.) It is also anonymously sourced (“one superdelegate said.”) Sounds like a typical media hatchet-job to me.

Remember the “meltdown” the Big Dawg supposedly had in the interview with Chris Wallace? Remember when Hillary supposedly “lost it” in a debate? The video in both instances told a different story.  Read more 

We had to endure all these years of the Clinton Blackness bullshit. Finally, Dick Gregory dug Toni Morrison out of that deeeep hole. For those of you who missed the State of the Black Union.

If there’s one thing you have to respect, it’s “Clinton Fatigue.”

Prioritizing that important issue helped us, as The Onion noted, end our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity.

So, in this tightly contested race, with Hillary Clinton having about a 50% chance of being our nominee, be sure to tell as many people as you can that this is a respectable and sensible concern.  Read more 

My comment about Jesse Jackson after Senator Obama’s impressive win in South Carolina was an act of very poor sportsmanship, and I apologize for it. Suggesting that his victory was due to the demographics of South Carolina, and not Senator Obama’s genuine and well-earned appeal across the state, was inappropriate and uncalled for. I apologize for that sincerely and unreservedly. My apologies go to Senator Obama, Rev. Jackson, and the good people of South Carolina.

Beyond what I had intended by the comment, which people have fairly criticized, is an unfair outcome, as well. Some are using it to amp up the wholly unwarranted and deeply corrosive mischaracterizations of my and Hillary’s statements and beliefs about race.  Read more 

Just this afternoon…

I heard Rush Limbaugh say that he “likes” Obama, and he gave “Barry” an earful of advice about how to beat the contemptible Clintons.

Two relatives sent me sludgy Bill-bashing links from Rupert’s Wall Street Journal and Maureen “Cleaned-Up Coulter” Dowd.

In a way, Russert’s deliberate distortion in Wednesday’s debate made Hillary look better to most of us, and not only because of her blanket rejection of torture as some kind of acceptable post-9/11 American norm; when Russert sprang his trap, announcing that the scenario she’d just rejected had been offered up by her husband and our former President, Bill Clinton, her quick witted response - “He isn’t the one standing here” - was her best moment of the evening.

So far, though, not many people seem to have realized that Russert’s characterization of Clinton’s Meet The Press comments, circa, Sept of 2006, was essentially a lie.  Read more 

 Read more 

Much as I respect Clinton, and I do, he’s wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong:

During his more than two-hour marathon session with the newly empowered Democrats, Clinton gave the caucus a series of admonitions about how they should govern from Capitol Hill…. Clinton told House Democrats not to over-reach in their ambitions, not to go too far in their priorities and to instead accept compromises with President Bush on small initiatives that show they can govern effectively.

“If you can’t get a dollar and you can get a dime, take a dime every time,” Clinton told the lawmakers, according to one attendee who kept notes on the talk. “Make incremental progress if you can.”

Wrong. Bill’s been hanging out with 41 too much, and something rubbed off.

The Republicans stole that dollar. It’s the Democrat’s job to kick the Republicans in the nads, take the dollar back, and then settle down to a systematic stomping so the Republicans never walk again. The Republicans brought us the Iraq Clusterfuck, turned us into a nation of torturers, trashed the Constitution, and tried to steal Social Security. Not to mention the whole Matthew 6:5 thing. Fuck dimes, and fuck the Clintons. Both of ’em—it’s a two-fer.

Clinton wants to party like its 1995. But this is 2007. Things are a little different now, aren’t they?  Read more 

Even if you put Ken Starr’s jism hunt aside, Bill Clinton’s legacy is vexing.

Was his centrism constructive pragmatism or a damnable sell-out?

Is compromise the proper way to operate in a checks-and-balances democracy, or does it leave us compromised?  Read more 

That’ll be the day? Apparently not:

Former President Bill Clinton told Iowa’s Democratic Party faithful on Saturday that the actions of “an extreme sliver” of the Republican Party have backfired and “profoundly divided” the country.

Republicans, who control the White House and Congress, Clinton charged “paint themselves as pure and the rest of us who don’t agree with them as stained” in order to divide the country and stay in power.

“People know things are out of whack, that fundamentally the order of, the rhythm of public life and our common life as Americans has been severely disturbed,” he said.

“You cannot blame the entire Republican party for this reason.”

Oh?

The entire government of the United States, the Congress, the White House and increasingly the courts for the last six years has been in the total control not of the Republican party but of the most ideological, the most right wing, the most extreme sliver of the Republican Party.”

What a bogus argument. Any Republican, any Republican at all, no matter how stupid or ill-informed, has to know the score by this point.  Read more