Really Losing My Patience with Hillary Clinton

Pitting Constituencies (0.00 / 0)

BET Founder Slams Obama in South Carolina
By Katharine Q. Seelye

Updated COLUMBIA, S.C. - Robert L. Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, who is campaigning today in South Carolina with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, just made a suggestion that raised the specter of Barack Obama's past drug use. He also compared Mr. Obama to Sidney Poitier, the black actor, in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner."
At a rally here for Mrs. Clinton at Columbia College, Mr. Johnson was defending recent comments that Mrs. Clinton made regarding Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She did not mean to take any credit away from him, Mr. Johnson said, when she said that it took President Johnson to sign the civil rights legislation he fought for.
Dr. King had led a "moral crusade," Mr. Johnson said, but such crusades have to be "written into law."

It gets better worse.

For some flava:
Jack and Jill Politics
Jack and Jill Politics is a blog that offers a Black Bourgeoisie perspective on American politics.

On Jack & Jill Politics:
A Final Perspective from a New Hampshire Volunteer

www.KusterforCongress.com - www.paulhodesforsenate.com

www.nikitsongas.com - www.devalpatrick.com

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by: Jack Mitchell @ Sun Jan 13, 2008 at 18:16:51 PM CST

It appears Mr. Johnson and Charlie Bass (4.00 / 1)

have something in common.

birch, finch, beech

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by: Dean Barker @ Sun Jan 13, 2008 at 19:37:42 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Josh Marshall at TPM (4.00 / 1)

on the Johnson flap:

We seem to be at the point where there are now two credible possibilities. One is that the Clinton campaign is intentionally pursuing a strategy of using surrogates to hit Obama with racially-charged language or with charges that while not directly tied to race nonetheless play to stereotypes about black men. The other possibility is that the Clinton campaign is extraordinarily unlucky and continually finds its surrogates stumbling on to racially-charged or denigrating language when discussing Obama.

birch, finch, beech

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by: Dean Barker @ Sun Jan 13, 2008 at 19:50:10 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Josh Marshall said more (4.00 / 1)

Josh Marshall also said, in the very same article:

That said, I continue to think most of the statements from the Clinton's themselves are being distorted or just made into things they weren't. Like the 'fairy tale' line, for instance. I cannot see any interpretation of these comments that can credibly be said to have any racial subtext whatsoever.

Let's be fair and include these parts of his column that provide a different perspective.  

Energy and persistence conquer all things.


Benjamin Franklin


 

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by: Kathy Sullivan @ Sun Jan 13, 2008 at 20:28:56 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Dean is Appropriate (4.00 / 1)

"The other possibility is that the Clinton campaign is extraordinarily unlucky"

fits the bill of your charge.

It is one of two theories. You believe the second. Others believe the first.

Non sequitur, sort of, but I can't get this quote out of my head after reading it on wikipedia the other day.

"If your opponent is drowning, throw the son of a bitch an anvil" - James Carville, Clinton confidant.

Can't think of why it is stuck there...

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by: BTB @ Sun Jan 13, 2008 at 22:26:34 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Oh, I quite agree. (0.00 / 0)

Bill's whining about how unfair the press coverage of Obama had been had no racial subtext at all.  The subtext I read was that, as he displayed in regard to "that woman, Miss Lewinsky" with whom HE had not had sexual relations, but whose services to pleasure the President he certainly enjoyed, was simply contempt and disdain for people other than himself.

"GIVE ME A BREAK!" is what he said.  To which the only sensible reply is that he's already had more breaks than he deserves.

But, the question is why are they going down this rocky road.  And the answer I think is that they want to distract from the really critical issue--the war in Iraq.  Which, just as was planned, Bush Two is converting into a long term presence for our Air Force.  It's always been about the Air Force.  That's why there's no coverage of the air war, the "continuous bombardment" that the Iraqis complain about.

How can you tell that's the issue?  Well, you can deduce it from the fact that the bombing runs south of Baghdad the other day were presented to the media as an unusual event, when, according to people who track the rate at which munitions are used, such sorties have been going on more than a year, since before the surge even began.

Also, you can tell for the enthusiasm with which Bush Two is announcing that everything is going according to plan.  The Iraqis have finally cried uncle and agreed to "host" the Air Force and all its electronic espionage facilities for the foreseeable future.  Bush Two is a master deceiver, but he's not delusional.  He's achieving a long desired goal--U.S. Air Bases in southwest Asia.

You did see the report on the "equivalent to a status of forces agreement," right?  The reason it's "equivalent" is because the Maliki government can't yet get the legislative body to agree to long term leases for the land on which the bases sit.  The U.N. really screwed us, you see, when it determined that none of the contracts entered into by the Provisional Authority would be recognized as legally valid.  

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by: hannah @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 06:52:16 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Longer comment on (0.00 / 0)

Hannah blog

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by: hannah @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 07:30:08 AM CST

[ Parent ]

There are substantial Snopes pages with the goods on all this sludge. (4.00 / 3)

Starting here

And no, once we have a nominee, that does not guarantee that we'll all come together and say "bygones."  A depressed and unenthusiastic base will guarantee President McCain.

I couldn't agree more, and it will certainly happen if there isn't considerable smartening-up, and soon. This displays singular lack of integrity, and Dean is right on the money when he says the buck stops with the candidate.

We're better than this.

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by: GreyMike @ Sun Jan 13, 2008 at 18:31:49 PM CST

Wait until there's another first person reporting of the town hall (4.00 / 1)

The reporter who wrote about Clinton's pledge comments is the same reporter who in 2000 wrote that Al Gore claimed he had discovered the Love Canal toxic waste site while speaking to students here at Concord High School. Even after the students spoke up and said that was not what VP Gore actually said, Seelye wouldn't take back her account. And thus was born the killer story line that VP Gore was a serial exagerator.

Since Clinton starts her remarks by saying "Anyone who tells you..." it could be that Clinton was responding to something someone said claiming it's against the law to say the Pledge of Allegiance, if not at the town hall, maybe some place in South Carolina.  

I want to read an independent South Carolina newspaper account of the Town Hall before I'll beleive anything Seelye writes.  

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by: Yellow Dog @ Sun Jan 13, 2008 at 18:35:00 PM CST

Let's agree if she said it though, out of nowhere (4.00 / 2)

That it's despicable. Even more so since the rumor about Obama is tied to religious hate and xenophobia.

But context is everything. There are plenty of circumstances where that could be a reasonable answer, and you're right -- we should wait and see.  

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by: Mike Caulfield @ Sun Jan 13, 2008 at 18:51:59 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Call a spade a spade (0.00 / 0)

Let us not also forget her comments on how Barack Obama has not done his "spadework".  Where is the outrage?  If another white candidate said this, they would have Imus like reprocussions.  Or at least Biden-like when he said Obama was "clean".  

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by: Northwoods @ Sun Jan 13, 2008 at 19:17:38 PM CST

That is a real stretch (4.00 / 1)

This term refers to gardening and gardening tools.  

Energy and persistence conquer all things.


Benjamin Franklin


 

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by: Kathy Sullivan @ Sun Jan 13, 2008 at 19:29:56 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I actually don't get that one either (4.00 / 2)

And of course calling "a spade a spade" goes back to Ancient Greece (though I assume you know that).

I think the thing to focus on here are the quite serious allegations that everyone recognizes -- the Shaheen comment, this current allegation, etc. If those are true, that's enough to talk about. We don't need to invent more.

Saying that Clinton actually meant to form some sort of dog whistle pun from a common folk-expression about farming just weakens your credibility. I'm sure James Joyce would have been aware of the multiple meanings had he said it -- Clinton was just trying to be folksy.

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by: Mike Caulfield @ Sun Jan 13, 2008 at 22:08:22 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I agree with you (0.00 / 0)

But if Joe Biden had said it, he would have caught flack.

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by: BTB @ Sun Jan 13, 2008 at 22:27:58 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Disagree (0.00 / 0)

The Chris Matthews of the world and would have jumped all over her if they thought it had any credibility.    



"When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on."  Franklin D. Roosevelt    

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by: Kathy Sullivan 2 @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 06:51:59 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Only a joke. n/t (0.00 / 0)

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by: BTB @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 14:19:59 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Let's remind everyone where this pledge idiocy comes from. (0.00 / 0)

A picture was published with Obama standing with Hillary and Richardson, who both had their hands over their hearts, pledge-style, while Obama did not.  It was falsely reported that the picture was taken during the pledge, while in fact it was taken during the national anthem, during which it is not necessarily the custom for one to place one's hand over one's heart.

--
"Act as if ye have faith and faith shall be given to you." -Aaron Sorkin

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by: Douglas E. Lindner @ Sun Jan 13, 2008 at 19:57:29 PM CST

Yes, the quote from the email is clearly (0.00 / 0)

dependent on the photo that is also being circulated ad nauseam without context.

birch, finch, beech

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by: Dean Barker @ Sun Jan 13, 2008 at 20:22:11 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Sticks and stones... (0.00 / 0)

This term refers to gardening and gardening tools.

True, it is.  But the context of words and their connotation can often incite aggravation.  Niggardly also happens to be a real word, but it would not be prudent to  use it, even if the user is not a racist.  Using the term "spade" when refering to a black candidate is probably not wise at the very least.  

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by: Northwoods @ Sun Jan 13, 2008 at 21:35:49 PM CST

it just sounds really strange...... (0.00 / 0)

as someone who had worked in gardens, read gardening books, and watched Jim Crockett back in 5th grade (and tried to grow peanuts to celebrate Jimmy Carter's win),  I have never heard or used the term spadework.

Odd choice of word.

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by: Kathleen O'Donnell @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 07:53:08 AM CST

[ Parent ]

we use it in sales (0.00 / 0)

same as 'prospecting'
or from surgery scutwork

We represent the Lollypop Guild, the Lollypop Guild, the Lollypop guild.

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by: JonnyBBad @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 08:08:05 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Forced to agree with Ms.Sullivan (4.00 / 2)

As partisan as I may appear to be, I have to side with Ms.Sullivan on this matter of "spadework."

Do I think the Clinton Campaign is running a slimy, scorched earth, win at all costs, right wing talking points, smear 'n fear and be unclear campaign. Kinda. LOL.

The word "spadework" came out when Obama suggested his policies on the GWOT, particularly speaking with unfriendly leaders. When his judgement was questioned, it was noted that there needed to be "diplomatic spadework" done ahead of a US president, before direct talks could occur.

I thought Albright used the term first, but I wouldn't swear to that.

IMO, focusing on this "weak" point, dilutes efforts to hold the Clinton/Penn war wagon accountable on other fronts.

Sorry, Northside. Unless I have missed something current, I think your using "PC" in the wrong place. You don't have to look far to find a proper allocation. See madrassa or unpatriotic.

The Clinton/Penn smear wagon is very adept at operating within a thick fog of plausible deniability. Using cliches, turns of phrase and awkward surrogates will keep the slime ball rolling seems to be the MO.

www.KusterforCongress.com - www.paulhodesforsenate.com

www.nikitsongas.com - www.devalpatrick.com

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by: Jack Mitchell @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 08:22:09 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Northside Carting (0.00 / 0)

is our dumpster company.

Better then olivernorth, I guess?

www.KusterforCongress.com - www.paulhodesforsenate.com

www.nikitsongas.com - www.devalpatrick.com

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by: Jack Mitchell @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 08:38:06 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Since when (0.00 / 0)

can't you use niggardly? I read it all the time in financial and business publications. This must be the sort of hyper political correctness the right-wingers complain about. Cheapening the English language...

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by: Alex Gallichon @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 21:45:03 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Maybe we're just losing it in general..... (0.00 / 0)

I too got the photo of Obama being "unpatriotic" from a military relative.  He wanted to alert me to what was circulating in e-mails forwarded to him.

I'm going with the central known fact in this one. The basic known fact is that Hillary is smart.

Which would a smart person be doing in this situation ? Making an indirect allusion to a photo circulating on the Internet or making appeal to the local electorate's love affair with the American flag.  For those of you that haven't visited SC, there are flags flying from everything.

A "spade is a spade" would have gotten Joe Biden in trouble, as did his "clean" allusion. Biden explained the latter easily. If forced to, I'm sure that Hillary could explain "spade" references as easily, if the press makes an issue of it.  

It's a common figure of speech. The whites in the SC Democratic party are relatively upscale and liberal. 50% of the Democratic vote is black.  A smart candidate would not try to attract Democratic voters by sounding like the KKK.  

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by: fjm @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 00:18:21 AM CST

Is it just me? (0.00 / 0)

I keep hearing about politicians getting in trouble for using common metaphors.  Am I the only one who thinks a good chunk of people don't know the origin of the metaphor, and therefore, what the big deal is?  Can't we just give people a pass for using a cliche sometimes?

--
"Act as if ye have faith and faith shall be given to you." -Aaron Sorkin

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by: Douglas E. Lindner @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 02:17:13 AM CST

[ Parent ]

This just in from FOX, CNN, Headline News, MSNBC, E!, and every magazine in the English-speaking world: (0.00 / 0)

No, we cannot give public figures a pass, ever, even in the 99% of cases in which people only care BECAUSE we won't shut up about it.

As everyone's favorite former Governor of Vermont so eloquently put it, "BYAAAH!"

--
"Act as if ye have faith and faith shall be given to you." -Aaron Sorkin

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by: Douglas E. Lindner @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 02:25:10 AM CST

[ Parent ]

There'd be no problem, (0.00 / 0)

if politicians didn't insist on spreading gossip about other candidates and stuck to their own issues, positions and accomplishments.

The politics of personal destruction is the equivalent of businesses driving their competition into bankruptcy so the last  one standing can have a monopoly.  That's how we end up with Pintos that explode and F-15s that split in half in mid air.

And they don't even have to do it themselves.  Surrogate bankers and insurers and appraisers and hedge fund managers can do as good a job as the farm equipment hucksters who talked farmers into buying equipment they didn't need and couldn't afford to pay off in the sixties and seventies, making it easy for land speculators to buy up farmland for next to nothing.  Our family farms didn't fail.  They were eased into bankruptcy, not unlike the victims of the sub-prime mortgage scam are being driven now.

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by: hannah @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 07:23:07 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Believe it or not, I did live in SC (4.00 / 3)

for a little less than a year back in 1998 (I wanted to see a completely different part of the country after living in NYC for five years).  There are plenty of flags flying around, but the ones that get the most attention and discussion aren't Old Glory, if you know what I mean.

And I agree with you that Hillary is extremely smart.  My question is whether she's using that intellect to inject life into the pledge smear while maintaining immunity from defense on it.  Mention the pledge out of nowhere, with no reference to the viral email and picture, and it will renew discussion without her having to be a part of it. Really very clever strategy, actually, if you leave aside the ethics of it.

My post isn't about the racial stuff going on, some of which I think is deliberate, some not, but if I were to discuss the complicated matrix of race relations I observed living in SC for that short time, I'd run out of room on this blog.


birch, finch, beech

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by: Dean Barker @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 04:44:06 AM CST

[ Parent ]

You're SC credentials top mine (0.00 / 0)

I was there in 2001 after 9/11 and the Stars and Stripes were everywhere. I was in Aiken, a liberal enclave, so that may account for the paucity of the Stars and Bars.

Your point about the pecularity of the timing has validity. However, when I read the original quote before reading the commentary, I thought Hillary was sweeting the audience mood by following an unpopular position with a popular one. If the effect in S.C. is what you describe, then possibly there was a second agenda.

I only spent 10 days there, so you experience may give you superior insight into how this will percolate through the S.C. electorate.  I was offering an alternate view. No guarantees of correctness come with my views.  

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by: fjm @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 13:30:24 PM CST

[ Parent ]

How do we know that Hillary Clinton is smart? (0.00 / 0)

Because she has stayed with a philandering spouse?

Because she's had speech writers for decades?

Because she's avoided being caught fudging records?

Because in a room full of NH voters she defers to Billy Shaheen's supposed direction that she ask for their vote and does so?

Because she failed to reform health care fifteen years ago and then gave up?

I think it might be useful to remember that the Clinton Administration was accurately described as a constant campaign where issues were supposedly developed and tested by focus groups.  Whether or not the latter happened, I don't know, but that Public Relations was always front and center is certain.  That Bill Clinton was able to focus on PR because Gore was taking care of business has probably not been sufficiently explored.

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by: hannah @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 07:08:31 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Here, here (0.00 / 0)

I have seen a lot of crazy things happen in the last week, but I am not prepared to forget about each and every thing.  I agree with you, Dean. Political parties are not the end all, be all of this country.  And if I continue to see this despicable tactics waged against fellow members of the party that I have associated myself with, there are no guarantees come November.

I consider myself to be a news junkie, but today I have seen (read) things that I am not prepared to deal with.  I am effectively on hiatus.  

It's time we steer by the stars, and not the lights of every passing ship

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by: Andy Edwards @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 01:59:35 AM CST

Yeah (0.00 / 0)

this comment made almost no sense..

but in the context of this diary, I meant every word of it.

It's time we steer by the stars, and not the lights of every passing ship

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by: Andy Edwards @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 05:40:42 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Crazy e-mails conveniently spread before primary (0.00 / 0)

I canvassed in Somersworth last week and came to a house where a couple in their late 60's lived.  The man greeted me and was a bit belligerent (too much gin in the afternoon).  And he egged me on about the Muslim thing and about the pledge of allegiance.  I told him that both accusations were absolutely false, but he didn't seem to believe me.  His wife showed me the e-mail in which I again reiterated that Sen. Obama had never been a Muslim but that he was in fact a devout Christian.  The guy told me that he was voting for Clinton.  I wasn't too surprised but I felt that alot of uninformed people recieving that e-mail or hearing about such "facts" would easily assume that Sen. Obama is a Muslim terrorist trying to infiltrate our country.

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by: Northwoods @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 02:31:06 AM CST

Speaking of lost patience.. (0.00 / 0)

I just re-read this entire thread, and it occurred to me that patience is something I also am beginning to lose - or perhaps it is my mind, because after reading codfish.
saying that s/he gardens, and never has used or heard the term "spadework", I acutally googled the term, and now I actually find myself posting the following:

PRIVATE SECTOR; Let Others Do the Spadework
E-MAIL Print Save Share
Del.icio.usDiggFacebookNewsvinePermalinkBy ANDREW ROSS SORKIN
Published: December 19, 1999
Two leading financiers are getting deep into gardening without getting dirt under their presumably well-trimmed fingernails. Lord Rothschild and Henry Kravis, longtime friends, are paying $1.2 million for 9 percent of a gardening Web site, Crocus.co.uk, a gardening site yet to go online.

In said google search, there were a number of references; I will only give you two, because I don't want to belabor the point:

http://www.spadework.net , and http://spadework.tyopepad.com




"When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on."  Franklin D. Roosevelt    

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by: Kathy Sullivan 2 @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 08:50:45 AM CST

you're a regular Sam Spade n/t (4.00 / 1)

We represent the Lollypop Guild, the Lollypop Guild, the Lollypop guild.

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by: JonnyBBad @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 09:20:36 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Dude! (0.00 / 0)

I owe you a phone call but I lost your cell phone number! Sorry!  



"When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on."  Franklin D. Roosevelt    

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by: Kathy Sullivan 2 @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 09:36:55 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Steeter Seidel Guest HumoristThe Youth Vote, Wii etc. (0.00 / 0)

from Laugh Lines NYT blog...
Steeter Seidel Guest Humorist
From today's online edition
http://laughlines.blogs.nytime...

Yeah I get it, the 60's was a different time. No I never threw a Molotov cocktail, but 'mistakes were amde'...read the whole piece, its short and sweet.

We're going to bury the "man" in a grave dug with a spade of truth and a shovel of progress. We will bring your dreams of a free and equal society to fruition and let the bells of peace peal out across this beautiful country we call home to let each and every man, woman and child know that we haven't given up on the dream we call America. We just have to beat this one song of "Guitar Hero" first.

Love,
Your Collective Child

Streeter Seidell is front-page editor of CollegeHumor.com.

We represent the Lollypop Guild, the Lollypop Guild, the Lollypop guild.

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by: JonnyBBad @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 09:37:00 AM CST

[ Parent ]

spadework (0.00 / 0)

isn't this more of a British locution, hardly heard in the U.S.? I think that finding a few British citations for this usage begs more questions than it answers.

This is an unfortunate situation all around. The Democratic party is not well-served by this battle.

I am not conspricacy minded, but I see logic in the dog whistle theory and in the rope-a-dope theory. If Kit's story is corroborated, I will see more dog whistling there--communicating with low-info voters on the pledge "issue". But let's wait and see.

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by: michael57 @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 11:47:42 AM CST

[ Parent ]

THose Crazy Emails (4.00 / 1)

as far as those crazy emails go, they're not limited to attacking Obama.

I received a rather whacked one the day before the primary claiming that Hillary Clinton was a Witch, and would use her 'satanic magic' to win the election, or something.

I really, really doubt that these things originate from either campaign.

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by: Nicholas Gunn @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 10:32:59 AM CST

I did too (0.00 / 0)

A reasonable voter doesn't "hear" this crap. I examined the thing out of a morbid/polinerd sense of curiosity, but did not repeat the smear until this very blog.

It is garbage.

It is "obviously garbage", maybe too obvious. More thought jamming? Ya know, saturate the electorate with slime and garbage, so that the "greenie, hope mongers" will get turned off to politics and stay way from the polling booths.

Very plausible. Very deniable.

www.KusterforCongress.com - www.paulhodesforsenate.com

www.nikitsongas.com - www.devalpatrick.com

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by: Jack Mitchell @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 11:42:45 AM CST

[ Parent ]

witchy woman (0.00 / 0)

Yeah, I got that one too. It seemed more nutty than anything else. Paranoid schizophrenic. But you never know.

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by: michael57 @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 11:49:36 AM CST

[ Parent ]

did you say witchy woman ? (0.00 / 0)

We represent the Lollypop Guild, the Lollypop Guild, the Lollypop guild.

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by: JonnyBBad @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 11:55:57 AM CST

[ Parent ]

I'm so sad for all of us that its sunk this low already (4.00 / 1)

I blogged here: http://tinyurl.com/2x256k about my thoughts on Wednesday morning. Essentially Tuesday's results proved that the old, devisive, nasty politics triumphs over any high minded attempts to remain clean and on issues.
It's so very very sad.  

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by: kdpaine @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 16:07:00 PM CST

Re: Rope-a-dope (0.00 / 0)

I have a feeling it's even simpler than that: they're just trying to get blacks to stay at home on primary day in S.C.

These people in the rural areas of South Carolina absolutely love Obama but are scared about him being the victim of racially-motivated attacks.  Someone working with the campaign down there told me that in their door-to-door experience, assuaging fears of Barack being shot are taking a high priority.

I think that seeing Hillary and Clinton surrogates using this type of language is sort of a shot across the bow that could ultimately keep these people from coming out to vote.

Even the subtle "un-American" attacks such as this one have the same effect - I think that seeing Obama savaged like this with repeated negative attacks has a similar chilling effect.

It's time we steer by the stars, and not the lights of every passing ship

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by: Andy Edwards @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 16:19:29 PM CST

It is time to STOP talking about race in this election. (4.00 / 2)

It makes the Clintons sound racist, which they're not, and it makes Obama seem inappropriately oversensitive, which he is not.

The damn TV news people are continuing to screw up this election.  Cover the election; stop analyzing it.

--
"Act as if ye have faith and faith shall be given to you." -Aaron Sorkin

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by: Douglas E. Lindner @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 17:15:07 PM CST

Replying to myself. (4.00 / 1)

Great praise to Dan Abrams, an emerging media critic, whose show airs weekdays at 9PM on MSNBC (after Olbermann), for addressing in his first segment tonight (the one that's still going on as of 9:05) the fact that this whole battle of surrogates and out-of-context statements on race between the Clinton camp and the Obama camp is entirely a media fabrication.

I'm ready to come out and say it: from now on, if you're watching Olbermann, keep watching for the hour after him.  It's not Scarborough Country anymore.

From the newest fan of Live with Dan Abrams...

--
"Act as if ye have faith and faith shall be given to you." -Aaron Sorkin

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by: Douglas E. Lindner @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 20:19:18 PM CST

[ Parent ]

High Road (4.00 / 1)

Not a drug reference.

Ben Smith: Obama, putting out the fire

Carrie Budoff Brown has some key quotes from an Obama avail this afternoon in Reno, where he tried to put to rest the racially-charged name-calling.

You have seen a tone on the Democrat[ic] side of the campaign that has been unfortunate. I want to stipulate a couple of things. I may disagree with Senator Clinton and Senator Edwards on how to get there, but we share the same goals. We all believe in civil rights. We all believe in equal rights. They are good people. They are patriots....

I don't want the campaign at this stage to degenerate to so much tit-for-tat, back-and-forth, that we lose sight of why we are doing this.

Obama said he wants to send "a strong signal to my own supporters that let's try to focus on the work that needs to get done. If I hear my own supporters engaging in talk that I think is ungenerous or misleading or unfair, I will speak out forcefully against it....

Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton have historically been on the right side of civil rights issues. They care about the African American community.... That is something I am convinced of. I want Americans to know that is my assessment.
-snip

www.KusterforCongress.com - www.paulhodesforsenate.com

www.nikitsongas.com - www.devalpatrick.com

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by: Jack Mitchell @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 17:36:42 PM CST

A History of Violence (0.00 / 0)

I just read an article by Chris Hitchens in Slate about Hillary Clinton. It opened my eyes to a few things. Read on.

This about Clinton's support among women.

And what this involved was a steady campaign of defamation, backed up by private dicks (you should excuse the expression) and salaried government employees, against women who I believe were telling the truth. In my opinion, Gennifer Flowers was telling the truth; so was Monica Lewinsky, and so was Kathleen Willey, and so, lest we forget, was Juanita Broaddrick, the woman who says she was raped by Bill Clinton. (For the full background on this, see the chapter "Is There a Rapist in the Oval Office?" in the paperback version of my book No One Left To Lie To. This essay, I may modestly say, has never been challenged by anybody in the fabled Clinton "rapid response" team.) Yet one constantly reads that both Clintons, including the female who helped intensify the slanders against her mistreated sisters, are excellent on women's "issues."

This on Experience and Iraq. Emphasis mine.

One also hears a great deal about how this awful joint tenure of the executive mansion was a good thing in that it conferred "experience" on the despised and much-deceived wife. Well, the main "experience" involved the comprehensive fouling-up of the nation's health-care arrangements, so as to make them considerably worse than they had been before and to create an opening for the worst-of-all-worlds option of the so-called HMO, combining as it did the maximum of capitalist gouging with the maximum of socialistic bureaucracy. This abysmal outcome, forgiven for no reason that I can perceive, was the individual responsibility of the woman who now seems to think it entitles her to the presidency. But there was another "experience," this time a collaborative one, that is even more significant.

During the Senate debate on the intervention in Iraq, Sen. Clinton made considerable use of her background and "experience" to argue that, yes, Saddam Hussein was indeed a threat. She did not argue so much from the position adopted by the Bush administration as she emphasized the stand taken, by both her husband and Al Gore, when they were in office, to the effect that another and final confrontation with the Baathist regime was more or less inevitable. Now, it does not especially matter whether you agree or agreed with her about this (as I, for once, do and did). What does matter is that she has since altered her position and attempted, with her husband's help, to make people forget that she ever held it. And this, on a grave matter of national honor and security, merely to influence her short-term standing in the Iowa caucuses. Surely that on its own should be sufficient to disqualify her from consideration? Indifferent to truth, willing to use police-state tactics and vulgar libels against inconvenient witnesses, hopeless on health care, and flippant and fast and loose with national security: The case against Hillary Clinton for president is open-and-shut.

This from a review of Hitchens' 1999 book No One Left to Lie to Emphasis mine.

Hitchens is particularly damning on Clinton's tendency to resort to divisive racial politics when it suits his purposes, as when, in the course of the 1992 presidential campaign, he refused to lift a finger to save a mentally retarded African American from state execution so he could appear tough on crime, then shortly afterwards hijacked a Rainbow Coalition conference to criticize rap artist Sister Souljah for the benefit of the attendant press. When he needs the black vote, though, Clinton will allow himself to be trumpeted as the most racially sensitive president in American history--if not, in Toni Morrison's memorably ludicrous phrase, "our first black president." Furthermore, the man who once connived his way out of the draft has become a chief executive so willing to use military air strikes as a means of foreign policy that, in the author's view, the United States is now a "potential banana republic."

On much of this I know the Clinton supporters will say that the candidate is Hillary, not Bill. I just point to this statistic.

These are not good things.

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by: BTB @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 18:33:43 PM CST

Christopher Hitchens (0.00 / 0)

You mean the one who wrote this story in Slate:

The lies of Michael Moore.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, June 21, 2004, at 3:26 PM ET

The one about whom was written in the American Prospect in 2006:

Christopher Hitchens Has Gone Mad

The latest New Yorker has a (sadly offline) profile of Christopher Hitchens by Ian parker. It's not clear to me why Hitchens, whose day of influence has decidedly passed, merits aprofile, but it's hard to argue when the material is this good. Parker relates a dinner party attended by Hitchens and his wife. Relaxed occasion, Hitchens and some women are shooting the shit over Gavin Newsome's good looks and Iranian politics, when one of the attendees makes a "passing but sympathetic remark" about Howard Dean, saying he felt Dean was unfairly maligned by the media. Hitchen's reply:

Dean was "a raving nut bag," [Hitchens said]...then he corrected himself: "A raving, sinister, demagogic nutbag...I and a few other people saw that he should be destroyed.

The one who last week wrote in Slate:

Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois is the current beneficiary of a tsunami of drool. He sometimes claims credit on behalf of all Americans regardless of race, color, creed, blah blah blah, though his recent speeches appear also to claim a victory for blackness while his supporters-most especially the white ones-sob happily that at last we can have an African-American chief executive.

 

You really want to use Christopher Hitchens as an authoratitive source?

Energy and persistence conquer all things.


Benjamin Franklin


 

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by: Kathy Sullivan @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 20:25:29 PM CST

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Yes, Christopher Hitchens (0.00 / 0)

I think all of us who follow progressive politics and read the  news media frequently know about Chris Hitchens. You have chosen to highlight a few things that he has said to smear him. I don't know if I would call him authoritative, but I would certainly call him credible and intelligent.

For starters, Hitchens was for the Iraq war--quite fervently so--for a good five years in the time after 9/11. To quote Walter Sobchak, "say what you want about the tenets of national socialism, at least it's an ethos." Well, I might say the same about Mr. Hitchens. He is an avowed atheist who sees religious fervor as the most dangerous aspect of our world. He supported the war effort mainly along those lines.

That easily explains his vitriol in '04 and '05 for Moore and Dean. He was blinded by the right.

A difference between Hitchens and many others who supported the War (like Clinton) is that he has expressed remorse for it.

And there, at the top of the page, was a link to a passage from one of my articles, in which I poured scorn on those who were neutral about the battle for Iraq ... I don't remember ever feeling, in every allowable sense of the word, quite so hollow.

Hitchens has done plenty for progressives over time, and will likely continue to do so in the future.

More to the point, if he ever says anything offensive to the left it usually comes from his severe atheism. His points against the Clintons, however, begin long before his Iraq flap and have nothing to do with their religious politics.

That, imho, is why what he says is valid.

P.S.
You forgot to say what came next in last week's Slate article that you quoted out of context.

Off to the side, snarling with barely concealed rage, are the Clinton machine-minders, who, having failed to ignite the same kind of identity excitement with an aging and resentful female, are perhaps wishing that they had made more of her errant husband having already been "our first black president."

I should mention that the article on the whole comes down to--you guessed it--an indictment on Obama's church. What can you do?

Full Disclosure on my Hitchens defense: I am an agnostic with a soft spot for atheist crusaders and a healthy dose of respect for religious humanitarianism. I have also been staunchly against the Iraq War from Day -1.

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by: BTB @ Mon Jan 14, 2008 at 23:33:54 PM CST

[ Parent ]