tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post8005370570973184966..comments2023-09-29T06:57:06.991-07:00Comments on Anglachel's Journal: Revolution of the SaintsAnglachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01110546252851760414noreply@blogger.comBlogger78125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post-79798142654695729842008-05-22T18:52:00.000-07:002008-05-22T18:52:00.000-07:00From now on, i wish to defer to you, anglachel, to...From now on, i wish to defer to you, anglachel, to express for me, the feelings i cannot seem to put in words. An amazing inisght.The Realisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08288418463504176719noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post-25169303355321745312008-05-22T12:30:00.000-07:002008-05-22T12:30:00.000-07:00missplsd said... @ Other Lisa, re: Jay-ZFair enoug...missplsd said... <BR/>@ Other Lisa, re: Jay-Z<BR/><BR/>Fair enough. I just don't think it's any less presidential than Bill Clinton's boxers-or-briefs MTV appearance or playing the sax on Arsenio. :)<BR/><BR/>Thanks for your thoughtful comments, with which I largely agree.<BR/><BR/>I think Obama’s smirking middle finger and brushing ‘the dirt’ off his shoulders is not in the same universe as the ‘boxers or briefs’ or Clinton playing sax on Arsenio moments.<BR/>Jay-Z is a criminally violent, misogynistic, bigoted racist, and Obama emulating him, and then grinning while his Obama-bots whooped it up is vile and disgusting, not cool and hip...unless one is part of a the gansta' hip hop rap crap crowd that thinks it is, but I don’t consider it presidential to treat a violent thug as cool.<BR/><BR/>The 'boxers or briefs' and playing the sax on Arsenio could be seen as an attempt to connect with Americans through a popular culture medium, but the worst one could say is that humour was low brow or the music was from the common people. Obama was having an ‘in the hood, niggaz togetha’ moment - some people may consider it racist to frown on any aspect of music or popular culture that originates from Black America, but when the cultural phenom 'bad boys' are actually, factually, violent criminals spewing nasty misogynist hatred, it's not Presidential to treat them as cool.LDWhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16046958868003708356noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post-62322815092791904352008-05-22T10:49:00.000-07:002008-05-22T10:49:00.000-07:00missplsd said... "I don't think his campaign has e...missplsd said... <BR/>"I don't think his campaign has engaged in race-baiting either, and reading this blog is actually my first introduction to this notion."<BR/><BR/>I suggest you read the following from The New Republic:<BR/><BR/>Race Man<BR/>by Sean Wilentz<BR/>How Barack Obama played the race card and blamed Hillary Clinton.<BR/>http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=aa0cd21b-0ff2-4329-88a1-69c6c268b304<BR/>Post Date Wednesday, February 27, 2008 <BR/>After several weeks of swooning, news reports are finally being filed about the gap between Senator Barack Obama's promises of a pure, soul-cleansing "new" politics and the calculated, deeply dishonest conduct of his actually-existing campaign. But it remains to be seen whether the latest ploy by the Obama camp--over allegations about the circulation of a photograph of Obama in ceremonial Somali dress--will be exposed by the press as the manipulative illusion that it is.<BR/><BR/>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." In subsequent primary and caucus campaigns, the Obama campaign sent out millions of mailers, also featuring the "Harry and Louise" motif, falsely claiming that Clinton favored "punishing families who can't afford health care in the first place." A few bloggers and columnists, notably Paul Krugman in The New York Times, described the ads as distorting, but the national press corps mainly ignored them--until Clinton herself, seeing the fraudulent mailers reappear in Ohio over the past weekend, publicly denounced them. <BR/><BR/>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. In this campaign, Clinton has called for a moratorium on all trade agreements until they are made consistent with labor and environmental standards--and account for the effect on jobs in the United States. Obama makes a big deal about how Bill Clinton signed NAFTA. But he 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. Ignoring all that, the Obama flyer features an alarming photograph of closed plant gates, having no connection to any action of Senator Clinton's, as well as the dubious quotation about her from Newsday in 2006. Newsday has criticized "Obama's use of the quotation" as "misleading ... an example of the kind of slim reeds campaigns use to try and win an office." Obama, without retracting the mailing (and while playing to protectionist sentiment in the party) said only that he would have his staff look into the matter--long after the ad has done its dirty work.<BR/><BR/>Misleading propaganda is hardly new in American politics --although the adoption of techniques reminiscent of past Republican and special-interest hit jobs, right down to a retread of the fictional couple, seems strangely at odds with a campaign that proclaims it will redeem the country from precisely these sorts of divisive and manipulative tactics. As insidious as these tactics are, though, the Obama campaign's most effective gambits have been far more egregious and dangerous than the hypocritical deployment of deceptive and disingenuous attack ads. To a large degree, the campaign's strategists turned the primary and caucus race to their advantage when they deliberately, falsely, and successfully portrayed Clinton and her campaign as unscrupulous race-baiters--a campaign-within-the-campaign in which the worked-up flap over the Somali costume photograph is but the latest episode. While promoting Obama as a "post-racial" figure, his campaign has purposefully polluted the contest with a new strain of what historically has been the most toxic poison in American politics. <BR/><BR/>More than any other maneuver, this one has brought Clinton into disrepute with important portions of the Democratic Party. A review of what actually happened shows that the charges that the Clintons played the "race card" were not simply false; they were deliberately manufactured by the Obama camp and trumpeted by a credulous and/or compliant press corps in order to strip away her once formidable majority among black voters and to outrage affluent, college-educated white liberals as well as college students. The Clinton campaign, in fact, has not racialized the campaign, and never had any reason to do so. Rather the Obama campaign and its supporters, well-prepared to play the "race-baiter card" before the primaries began, launched it with a vengeance when Obama ran into dire straits after his losses in New Hampshire and Nevada--and thereby created a campaign myth that has turned into an incontrovertible truth among political pundits, reporters, and various Obama supporters. This development is the latest sad commentary on the malign power of the press, hyping its own favorites and tearing down those it dislikes, to create pseudo-scandals of the sort that hounded Al Gore during the 2000 campaign. It is also a commentary on how race can make American politics go haywire. Above all, it is a commentary on the cutthroat, fraudulent politics that lie at the foundation of Obama's supposedly uplifting campaign.<BR/>II.<BR/><BR/>Readers of Philip Roth's award-winning novel, The Human Stain, will be familiar with the race-baiter card and its uses, but so will anyone who has been exposed to the everyday tensions that can arise from the volatile mixture of race and politics. In Roth's novel, a college professor loses his job and his reputation after he asks one of his classes whether two African American students who have regularly been absent are "spooks." The context of the professor's remarks make it clear that he used the term to mean "ghosts" or "specters" and intended no racial disparagement--but that makes not the slightest difference, as his enemies on the faculty fan the argument that he is a blatant and incorrigible race-baiter who can no longer be trusted to teach young minds. An innocent remark becomes a hateful one when pulled through the prism of ideology, ill will, and emotional exploitation. One day, Roth's professor (who, ironically, turns out to be a black man passing as white) is a respected, even revered member of the faculty; then the race baiter card gets played, and his career is suddenly destroyed.<BR/><BR/>Even before the first caucus met in Iowa, the Obama campaign was ready to play a similar game. In mid-December 2007, one of the Clinton campaign's co-chairs in New Hampshire, Bill Shaheen, remarked entirely on his own on how the Republicans might make mischievous and damaging political use of Obama's admitted use of marijuana and cocaine during his youth. The observation was not especially astute: Since George W. Bush, both the electorate and the press have seemed to be forgiving of a candidate's youthful substance abuse, so long as says he has reformed himself. Nor had the Clinton campaign prompted Shaheen to make his comment. But it was not a harebrained remark, given how the Republicans had once tried to exploit the cocaine addiction of Bill Clinton's brother, Roger, and even manufactured lurid falsehoods about Clinton himself as the member of a cocaine smuggling ring during his years as governor in Arkansas. And it was not in the least a racist comment, as cocaine abuse has afflicted Americans of all colors as well as classes. Indeed, there have been persistent rumors that Bush abused cocaine as well as alcohol during his younger days--charges he addressed in the 2000 campaign by saying that when "he was young and foolish" he had done "foolish" things.<BR/><BR/>None of the reports at the time about Shaheen's miscue (and the Clinton campaign's decision to relieve him of his ceremonial duties) mentioned anything about racial overtones. Yet the Obama campaign kept stirring things up. After being questioned for ten minutes about the drug allegation on cable television--and repeatedly denying that the national campaign had anything to do with it--Clinton campaign pollster Mark Penn mentioned the word "cocaine" (which was difficult to avoid in the context of the repeated questioning about drugs). "I think we've made clear that the issue related to cocaine use is not something that the campaign was in any way raising, and I think that's been made clear," he said. Obama's campaign aides (as well as John Edwards's) immediately leapt on Penn and chastised him as an inflammatory demagogue for using the word that Obama himself referred to in his memoir as "blow." Since then, Obama's strategists and supporters in the press have whipped the story into a full racialist subtext, as if Shaheen and Penn were the executors of a well-plotted Clinton master plan to turn Obama into a stereotypical black street hoodlum--or, in the words of the fervently pro-Obama and anti-Clinton columnist Frank Rich of the New York Times, "ghettoized as a cocaine user."<BR/><BR/>The racial innuendo seemed to fade when Obama won his remarkable victory in the Iowa caucuses. With the polling data on the upcoming New Hampshire primary auguring a large Obama triumph, it looked as if the candidate's own appeal might sweep away everything before it. But at the last minute (as sometimes happens in statewide primaries), there was a sudden movement among the voters, this time toward Clinton. Many ascribed it to an appearance by Clinton in a Portsmouth coffee shop on the eve of the vote, where, with emotion, she spoke from the heart about why she is running for president. Others said that misogyny directed at Clinton on the campaign trail as well as on cable television and the Internet turned off women voters. The uprising was certainly sudden: As late as 6 p.m. on primary day, Clinton staff members with whom I spoke were saying that they would consider a loss by ten percentage points or less as a kind of moral victory. But instead, Clinton won outright, amazing her own delighted supporters and galling the Obama campaign.<BR/><BR/>That evening, the Democratic campaign became truly tangled up in racial politics--directly and forcefully introduced by the pro-Obama forces. In order to explain away the shocking loss, Obama backers vigorously spread the claim that the so-called Bradley Effect had kicked in. First used to account for the surprising defeat of Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley in the California gubernatorial race in 1982, the Bradley Effect supposedly takes hold when white voters tell opinion pollsters that they plan to vote for a black candidate but instead, driven by racial fears, pull the lever for a white candidate. Senior Clinton campaign officials later told me that reporters contacted them saying that the Obama camp was pushing them very hard to spin Clinton's victory as the latest Bradley Effect result. Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson, a cheerleading advocate for Obama, went on television to suggest the Bradley Effect explained the New Hampshire outcome, then backed off--only then to write a column, "Echoes of Tom Bradley," in which he claimed he could not be sure but that, nevertheless, "embarrassed pollsters and pundits had better be vigilant for signs that the Bradley effect, unseen in recent years, has crept back."<BR/><BR/>In fact, the Bradley Effect claims were utterly bogus, as anyone with an elementary command of voting results could tell. If the "effect" has actually occurred, Obama's final voting figures would have been substantially lower than his figures in the pre-election polls, as racially motivated voters turned away. Later, Bill Schneider, the respected analyst on CNN, several times went through the data on air to demonstrate conclusively that there was no such Bradley Effect in New Hampshire. But even on primary night, it was clear that Obama's total--36.4%--was virtually identical to what the polls over the previous three weeks had predicted he would receive. Clinton won because late-deciding voters--and especially college-educated women in their twenties--broke for her by a huge majority. Yet the echoes of charges about the Bradley Effect--which blamed Obama's loss on white racism and mendacity--lingered among Obama's supporters.<BR/><BR/>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.<BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/>III.<BR/><BR/>By the time Clinton and Obama (along with Edwards) debated in South Carolina, it was clear that nerves had been rubbed raw. Obama's supporters, including New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, had been making much of a lame, off-color but obviously preposterous joke that Martin Luther King's close friend and former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young had made back in December about Bill Clinton having slept with more black women than Obama. Supposedly, Young's tasteless quip--"I'm just clowning," he said, sounding embarrassed--was as part of some sort of concerted Clinton campaign. Likewise, also in December, former Senator Bob Kerrey's misinformed defense of Obama, in an interview on CNN, for having attended a secular madrassa in Indonesia (he did not) became twisted by the pro-Obama camp, including Herbert once again, into some sort of sneak attack orchestrated by cynical, race-baiting Clintonites. Kerrey is a Clinton supporter, but is notoriously unscripted. Once again, the Clinton campaign had to apologize. But the Obama campaign began ratcheting up the racial politics in earnest during the run-up to the South Carolina contest.<BR/><BR/>It has never been satisfactorily explained why the pro-Clinton camp would want to racialize the primary and caucus campaign. The argument has been made that Hillary Clinton wanted to attract whites and Hispanics in the primaries and make the case that a black candidate would be unelectable in the general election. But given the actual history of the campaign, that argument makes no sense. Until late in 2007, Hillary Clinton enjoyed the backing of a substantial majority of black voters--as much as 24 percentage points over Obama according to one poll in October--as well as strong support from Hispanics and traditional working-class white Democrats. It appeared, for a time, as if she might well be able to recreate, both in the primaries and the general election, the cross-class and cross-racial alliances that had eluded Democrats for much of the previous forty years. Playing the race card against Obama could only cost her black votes, as well as offend liberal whites who normally turn out in disproportionally large numbers for Democratic caucuses and primaries. Indeed, indulging in racial politics would be a sure-fire way for the Clinton campaign to shatter its own coalition. On the other hand, especially in South Carolina where black voters made up nearly half of the Democratic turnout, and especially following the shocking disappointment in New Hampshire, playing the race card--or, more precisely, the race-baiting card--made eminent sense for the Obama campaign. Doing so would help Obama secure huge black majorities (in states such as Missouri and Virginia as well as in South Carolina and the deep South) and enlarge his activist white base in the university communities and among affluent liberals. And that is precisely what happened.<BR/><BR/>First came the Martin Luther King-Lyndon B. Johnson controversy. Responding to early questions that he was only offering vague words of hope instead of policy substance, Obama had given a speech in New Hampshire referring to Martin Luther King, Jr. "standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial" during his "I have a dream" speech. (This rhetorical formulation was reminiscent of a campaign speech delivered in 2006 by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, another client of David Axelrod, Obama's message and media guru; in a later speech, Obama would repeat Patrick's rhetoric word for word.) When asked about it, Clinton replied that while, indeed, King had courageously inspired and led the civil rights movement, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act into law. "Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act," she said, adding that "it took a president to get it done." The statement was, historically, non-controversial; the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, among others, later said that Clinton "was absolutely right." The political implication was plainly that Clinton was claiming to have more of the experience and skills required of a president than Obama did--not that King should be denigrated. But the Obama campaign and its supporters chose to pounce on the remark as the latest example of the Clinton campaign's race baiting. 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." Several of the Times's op-ed columnists, including Bob Herbert and Maureen Dowd as well as Rich, rushed to amplify how Hillary was playing dirty, as did the newspaper's editorial page, which disgracefully twisted her remarks into an implication that "a black man needed the help of a white man to effect change." <BR/><BR/>Clinton complained that her opponent's backers were deliberately distorting her remarks; and Obama smoothly tried to appear above the fray, as if he knew that the race-baiting charge was untrue and didn't want to level it directly, but didn't exactly want to discourage the idea either. "Senator Clinton made an unfortunate remark, an ill-advised remark, about King and Lyndon Johnson. I didn't make the statement," Obama said in a conference call with reporters. "I haven't remarked on it. And she, I think, offended some folks who felt that somehow diminished King's role in bringing about the Civil Rights Act. She is free to explain that. But the notion that somehow this is our doing is ludicrous."<BR/><BR/>Meanwhile, below the radar, the Obama campaign pushed the race-baiting angle hard, rehearsing and sometimes inventing instances of alleged Clintonian racial insensitivity. A memo prepared by the South Carolina campaign and circulated to supporters rehashed the King-Johnson matter, while it also spliced together statements of Bill Clinton's to make it seem as if he had given a speech that "implied Hillary Clinton is stronger than Nelson Mandela." (The case, with its snippets and ellipses, was absurd on its face.) The memo also claimed, in a charge soon widely repeated, that he had demeaned Obama as "a kid" because he had called Obama's account of his opposition to the war in Iraq a fanciful "fairy tale."And a few reporters, while pushing the Obama campaign's line that black voters had credible concerns about the Clintons' remarks, had begun to notice that the Obama campaign was doing its utmost to fuel the racial flames. "There's no question that there's politics here at work too," said Jonathan Martin of Politico. "It helps [Obama's] campaign to... push these issues into the fore in a place like South Carolina."<BR/><BR/>When asked about the race-baiting charges, Obama campaign spokeswoman Candice Tolliver roiled the waters: "Folks are beginning to wonder: Is this really an isolated situation or is there something bigger behind all of this?" Representative Jesse Jackson Jr., the Obama co-chair, as before, was more direct and inflammatory, claiming that the "cynics" of the Clinton campaign had "resorted to distasteful and condescending language that appeals to our fears rather than our hopes. I sincerely hope that they'll turn away from such reactionary, disparaging rhetoric." The race-baiting card was now fully in play.<BR/><BR/>Among those dismayed by Obama's tactics and his supporters' was Bill Moyers. In a special segment on his weekly PBS broadcast in mid-January, Moyers, who as a young man had been an aide to President Johnson, demolished the charge that Clinton had warped history in order to race-bait Obama. "There was nothing in [Clinton's] quote about race," he observed. "It was an historical fact, an affirmation of the obvious." Moyers rehashed what every reputable historian knows about how King and Johnson effectively divided the labor, between King the agitator and Johnson the president, in order to secure the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Moyers said was happy to see that, by the time he went on the air, the furor appeared to be dying down and that everyone seemed to be returning to their senses and apologizing--"except," he pointedly noted, "the New York Times." But this upbeat part of his assessment proved overly optimistic.<BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/>IV.<BR/><BR/>By the time the Obama campaign backed off from agitating the King-Johnson pseudo-scandal, it had already trained its sights on Bill Clinton--by far the most popular U.S. president among African Americans over the past quarter-century. Not only were Bill and Hillary supposedly ganging up on Obama in South Carolina--"I can't tell who I'm running against sometimes," Obama complained during the South Carolina debate--the former president was supposedly off on a race-baiting tear of his own. Yet, once again, the charges were either distortions or outright inventions.<BR/><BR/>The Obama campaign's "fairy tale" gambit was particularly transparent. Commenting on Obama's explanation of why he is more against the war in Iraq than Hillary Clinton, and disturbed by the news media's failure to report Obama's actual voting record on Iraq in the Senate, the former president referred to what had become the conventional wisdom as a "fairy tale" concocted by Obama and his supporters. Time to play the race-baiter card! One of Obama's most prominent backers, the mayor of Atlanta, Shirley Franklin, stretched Clinton's remarks and implied that he had called Obama's entire candidacy a fairy tale. (The mayor later coyly told a reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that she had not intended to criticize Clinton: "Surely you don't mean he's the only one who can use the phrase 'fairy tale,'" Franklin said, in a tone that the reporter described as "mock indignation.") 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.<BR/><BR/>On January 26, Obama won a major victory in South Carolina by gaining the overwhelming majority of the black vote and a much smaller percentage of the white vote, for a grand total of 55 percent. Although the turnout, of course, was much larger for the 2008 primaries than for any previous primary or caucus, Obama had assembled a victorious coalition analogous to that built by Jesse Jackson in the 1984 and 1988 South Carolina caucuses. (Bill Clinton won the 1992 state primary with 69 percent of the vote, far outstripping either Jackson's or Obama's percentages.) <BR/><BR/>When asked by a reporter on primary day why it would take two Clintons to beat Obama, the former president, in good humor, laughed and said that he would not take the bait:<BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/>Jesse Jackson won in South Carolina twice in '84 and '88 and he ran a good campaign. And Senator Obama's run a good campaign. He's run a good campaign everywhere. He's a good candidate with a good organization.<BR/>According to Obama and his supporters, here was yet another example of subtle race-baiting. Clinton had made no mention of race. But by likening Jackson's victories and Obama's impending victory and by praising Obama as a good candidate not simply in South Carolina but everywhere, Clinton was trying to turn Obama into the "black" candidate and racialize the campaign. Or so the pro-Obama camp charged.<BR/><BR/>Clinton's sly trick, supposedly, was to mention Jackson and no other Democrat who had previously prevailed in South Carolina--thereby demeaning Obama's almost certain victory as a "black" thing. But the fact remains that Clinton, who watches internal polls closely and is an astute observer, knew whereof he spoke: when the returns were counted, Obama's and Jackson's percentages of the overall vote and the key to their victories--a heavy majority among blacks--truly were comparable. The only other Democrats Clinton could have mentioned would have been himself (who won more than two-thirds of the vote in 1992, far more than either Jackson or Obama) and John Edwards (who won only 45 percent in 2004, far less than either Jackson or Obama). Given the differences, given that by mentioning himself, Clinton could have easily been criticized for being self-congratulatory, and given that Edwards had not yet dropped out of the 2008 race, the omissions were not at all surprising. By mentioning Jackson alone, the former president was being accurate--and, perhaps, both modest and polite. But Obama's supporters willfully hammered him as a cagey race-baiter. <BR/><BR/>Not everyone agreed with the race-baiting charge--including Jesse Jackson himself. Jackson noted proudly to Essence magazine that he had, indeed, won in 1984 and 1988, and, even though he had endorsed Obama, criticized the Obama campaign, saying, "again, I think it's some more gotcha politics." <BR/><BR/>Hillary Clinton's unexpected popular victory in Nevada and her crushing Super Tuesday wins in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and California seemed, according to media reports, to have been offset by Obama's more numerous victories in much smaller states that Democrats are highly unlikely to win in a general election. His string of victories in caucuses and primaries over the next four weeks gave the Obama campaign undeniable momentum. But Obama and his strategists kept the race and race-baiter cards near the top of their campaign deck--and the news media continued to report on the contest (or decline to report Obama's role as instigator) as if they had fallen in line.<BR/><BR/>The New York Times, for example, opened its front page on February 15th to report an utterly inaccurate and possibly wishful story that Representative John Lewis of Georgia--a genuine hero of the civil rights movement, a courageous voice for integration, and a stalwart Clinton supporter--had announced that he had decided that, in his role as superdelegate, he would vote for Obama. Lewis quickly called the story false, although he added that he was wrestling with his conscience over whether to switch. Meanwhile, the press generally ignored a report, confirmed by all involved, that Representative Jesse Jackson Jr., had warned one of Clinton's unshakable black supporters, Representative Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, that he'd better line up behind Obama. Jackson, once again playing the role of the Obama campaign's "race man" enforcer, posed a leading question: "Do you want to go down in history as the one to prevent a black from winning the White House?" Black congressmen were threatened to fall or line or face primary challenges. "So you wake up without the carpet under your feet. You might find some young primary challenger placing you in a difficult position," Jackson said. Yet for the Obama-inspired press corps, it was the Clintons who were playing the race card. "The question now is how much more racial friction the Clinton campaign will gin up," wrote Frank Rich, Obama's vehement advocate in the New York Times.<BR/><BR/>The Obama campaign has yet to reach bottom in its race-baiter accusations. On February 25, Hillary Clinton planned to deliver a major foreign policy address, an area in which Obama's broad expertise is relatively weak. Clinton was also riding high in the Ohio polls, despite the Obama campaign's false charges about her health plan and support for NAFTA. That same day, the notoriously right-wing, scandal-mongering Drudge Report website ran a photograph of Obama dressed in the traditional clothing of a Somali elder during a tour of Africa, attached to an assertion, without evidence, that the Clinton campaign was "circulating" the picture. The story was silly on its face--there are plenty of photographs of Hillary Clinton and virtually every other major American elected official dressed in the traditional garb of other countries, and Obama's was no different. The alleged "circulation" amounted, on close reading, to what Drudge's dispatch said was an e-mail from one unnamed Clinton "staffer" to another idly wondering what the coverage might have been if the picture had been of Clinton. Possible e-mail chatter about an inoffensive picture as spun by the Drudge Report would not normally be deemed newsworthy, even in these degraded times. <BR/><BR/>Except by Obama and his campaign, who jumped on the insinuating circumstances as a kind of vindication. The Drudge posting included reaction from the pinnacle of Obama's campaign team. "It's exactly the kind of divisive politics that turns away Americans of all parties and diminishes respect for America in the world," said Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe, who also described the non-story as "the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we've seen from either party in this election" and "part of a disturbing pattern." Although he never explicitly spelled out the contours of this pattern, he was clearly alluding to race baiting. Later in the day, Obama himself jumped in, repeating the nasty, slippery charge that the Clinton campaign "was trying to circulate this [picture] as a negative" and calling it a political trick of the sort "you start seeing at the end of campaigns." <BR/><BR/>Although finally skewered, for the first time, on "Saturday Night Live" over the past weekend for its pro-Obama tilt, the press corps once again fell for this latest throw of the race-baiter card, turning the Drudge rumor into its number one story, obscuring Clinton's major national security address. In doing so, the media has confirmed what has been the true pattern in the race for the Democratic nomination--the most outrageous deployment of racial politics since the Willie Horton ad campaign in 1988 and the most insidious since Ronald Reagan kicked off his 1980 campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, praising states' rights. <BR/><BR/>It may strike some as ironic that the racializing should be coming from a black candidate's campaign and its supporters. But this is an American presidential campaign--and there is a long history of candidates who are willing to inflame the most deadly passions in our national life in order to get elected. Sadly, it is what Barack Obama and his campaign gurus have been doing for months--with the aid of their media helpers on the news and op-ed pages and on cable television, mocked by "SNL" as in the tank for Obama. They promise to continue until they win the nomination, by any means necessary. <BR/><BR/><BR/>Sean Wilentz is a contributing editor at The New Republic, and the author of The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (Norton).<BR/>© The New Republic 2008LDWhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16046958868003708356noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post-60604790550751517852008-05-17T02:11:00.000-07:002008-05-17T02:11:00.000-07:00palhart, How, exactly, has Obama insulted you for ...palhart, <BR/>How, <I>exactly</I>, has Obama insulted you for being a white, southern, 60ish woman?<BR/>I agree some of his nuttier supporters have done it, but how has the candidate himself done that?<BR/>It's curious to me that one of the criticisms of Obama is his vagueness, his dependence on airy rhetoric, yet when it comes to insulting women, or voters without a college degree, or white southerners, he is accused of the most specific and concretely phrased insults and attacks.<BR/>So he's vague when speechifying but very pointed in his anti-Southern, anti-woman, anti-non-degreed person bigotry?<BR/>Make up your mind, please. He's too vague or too pointed. Which one?<BR/><BR/>What has he said about you, palhart? Give me a concrete example, please.<BR/>Your phrasing betrays your own hidden assumptions.<BR/>His "grab" for the nomination? Grab?<BR/>He is ahead in delegates because he and his team have run a great campaign. Period.<BR/>This was Senator Clinton's nomination to lose and she is on the verge of losing because she failed to run a <I>national</I> campaign. She figured she'd have it all sewn up by the end of Super Tuesday. She figured another of those 90's DLC Democrat campaigns, 27 state or 18 state campaigns would be enough.<BR/>Instead he astutely decided to run ground campaigns in as many states as he could, to win (not <I>grab</I>) as many delegates as he could.<BR/><BR/>If Hillary Clinton is so sharp, so wise, so astute, so much better qualified, why did she not anticipate this inexperienced, unwise newcomer?<BR/>How could she not see him right behind her?<BR/>How did she go from being the frontrunner to running second? She got fewer votes and delegates, that's how.<BR/>Yes, the media hate her, but we're going to blame Obama for that?<BR/>Yes, the media have been having fun mocking less affluent, white southerners. Is this Obama's fault?<BR/>There are a few white Southerners who make it easy for the media to call all of you redneck racists. Blame <A HREF="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/12/AR2008051203014_pf.html" REL="nofollow">them</A>, not Obama. <BR/>What exactly did Obama insult? Your femaleness, your age, or your Southerness?<BR/><BR/>No, palhart, I respectfully propose he did none of those. What he did was insult your hopes for having a 60ish female president.<BR/>But that's the game. He played it better. And despite otherLisa's insistence on the existence of concrete policy differences with Clinton, the stark reality is those current policy differences will be meaningless when the dirty business of actual governing begins.<BR/><BR/>I sincerely hope you will not be so dug in by November, if Obama's the nominee.<BR/>Because you can be sure the Republicans care nothing about your whiteness, your southernness, your femaleness, or your age.<BR/>To Republicans, as a Southern white woman you are nothing but an ethnically acceptable vehicle for christian heterosexual reproduction, preferably a quiet vehicle who submits to her husband as God has ordained and doesn't get too uppity.<BR/>But now that you're in your sixties, you're not even good for reproduction, so from the Republican point of view, what good are you?<BR/>You're just a drain on the Social Security system which they want to privatize.<BR/>So, to the Republicans you're just an old white lady with a big mouth.<BR/><BR/>Yeah, go ahead. Let McCain win because you wouldn't vote for Obama. Go ahead.<BR/>See how much the Republicans respect you for being a white, southern, 60ish woman. How much respect have they given you for the last sixty years?<BR/>I wonder.facherohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03177318899018686248noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post-19566696781083133512008-05-16T18:24:00.000-07:002008-05-16T18:24:00.000-07:00If Chris Bowers is correct, then it's time for a s...If Chris Bowers is correct, then it's time for a split-off of the Democratic Party. In Obama's grab for the nomination, he and his supporters have done nothing but insult white, southern, female,60-ish baby boomers like me. I believe the divisions in the party that he has made will put McCain, barring any huge gaffs, in the White House. Presently I'm so dug in that I can't vote for anyone but Hillary for President.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08276154070384929502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post-46800130631302002352008-05-14T21:41:00.000-07:002008-05-14T21:41:00.000-07:00Hear, hear, kaya. Thanks for your fantastic posts...Hear, hear, kaya. Thanks for your fantastic posts.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post-25961742266469245342008-05-14T21:31:00.000-07:002008-05-14T21:31:00.000-07:00other lisa - i agree with pretty much all of your ...other lisa - i agree with pretty much all of your points about why people might vote for obama, although i argue there still must be something else there, because i don't think those explanations account for the entire population of his supporters. i think dave is right that you need to compare your rational support of clinton to a rational support of obama, and honestly i don't even know why we're arguing about this because on a policy level the two are pretty damn similar.<BR/><BR/>i do have to say though, you say 'obama supporters need to stfu and listen.' i mean really. is that 'obama supporters?' or is that everyone on this damn internet? it doesn't strike me that you're 'listening' overly well if you failed to notice that NONE of the people engaging with you in this debate are obama supporters. and from the few times i've commented on this particular blog, it doesn't really strike me that anyone commenting is interested in listening to a divergent opinion. arguing, sure. but actually considering the merits? i guess that would be too civilized. <BR/><BR/>at least republicans support each other. jesus. we deserve to lose in november.kayahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13859799569933035875noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post-47784733503072831122008-05-14T16:28:00.000-07:002008-05-14T16:28:00.000-07:00Other Lisa, I was compelled to pop in and say my b...Other Lisa, <BR/>I was compelled to pop in and say my bit because of your harping about Obama not being a progressive.<BR/>Your argument seems to be Clinton is more progressive. OK, well on a scale of 1 to 10 Clinton's a 5 and he's a 4. Big freaking deal.<BR/>Her health care policy is better, you say? Hmm. You really think the proposal on her website is what she'd managed to get through Congress? <BR/>Moreover, you go on about dog-whistles. Thing about dog-whistles is if you can hear them, <I>then you ain't a dog.</I> Sure, some of Obama's supporters are sexist assholes. So what? Doesn't mean he is. Some of Clinton's supporters are <A HREF="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/12/AR2008051203014.html" REL="nofollow">racists</A>. But I don't for a second believe that she is. <BR/>I believe your enthusiasm for the idea of a female president has blinded you to this particular woman's weaknesses as a candidate. And I believe you have become as blind to your preferred candidate's faults as those you criticize on the other side.<BR/><BR/>Aww hell. I give up. There's no use talking to true believers. I should know that by now from conversations with misty-eyed Obama supporters.facherohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03177318899018686248noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post-75018831621468833042008-05-14T12:06:00.000-07:002008-05-14T12:06:00.000-07:00Other Lisa, I do think Dave is confusing you with ...Other Lisa, I do think Dave is confusing you with some of the other commenters. I've found most of your comments here clear and thoughtful, even when we disagree. I don't quite get why something like the "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" gesture eats at you so much, and I still strongly disagree that Obama has engaged in race-baiting, but so be it.<BR/><BR/>But in fairness to Obama supporters, neither Dave (who wrote of his candidate having dropped out of the race much earlier) nor I is an Obama supporter. You shouldn't judge us by them or them by us.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post-250187896149038202008-05-14T11:36:00.000-07:002008-05-14T11:36:00.000-07:00Dave, what the hell are you talking about? Are you...Dave, what the hell are you talking about? Are you confusing me with someone else?<BR/><BR/>I claimed that Clinton was the more progressive of the two candidates in the race. Not that she is some kind of second coming of Bobby Kennedy or whatever progressive model you'd like to put forth. <BR/><BR/>I also stated that the misogyny by Obama supporters, surrogates and from the campaign itself was a huge turnoff. This is not an issue of a few lunatic fringe supporters. It is widespread and at the very least condoned by the Obama campaign.<BR/><BR/>Accusing me of throwing temper tantrums, also, not a great way to promote the Unity. Mssplssd asked me to state my case, and I did. I don't know why you feel the need to pop in and lecture me.<BR/><BR/>Too many of Obama's online supporters don't know when to STFU and listen. I'd venture that this same tendency carries over to the campaign itself and its tone deafness to working class concerns.Other Lisahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08079055348844157557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post-44778225913436081902008-05-14T09:16:00.000-07:002008-05-14T09:16:00.000-07:00Other Lisa,I figure you probably know all this but...Other Lisa,<BR/>I figure you probably know all this but just in case, David Morris, from AlterNet took the time to <A HREF="http://www.alternet.org/story/72336/" REL="nofollow"> remind us</A> in January how economically progressive the Clintons really were.facherohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03177318899018686248noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post-69734594636359546482008-05-14T08:55:00.000-07:002008-05-14T08:55:00.000-07:00Other Lisa,Fair enough. You have laid it out pret...Other Lisa,<BR/>Fair enough. You have laid it out pretty clearly. And many Obama supporters have laid their case out pretty clearly too. But you're setting up a straw man of sorts. You compare your well thought out reasons for choosing Clinton to Obama's less thoughtful supporters. Why don't you compare yourself to those who have been as rational as you in choosing their candidate?<BR/>A rational case, as rational as yours, can be made for Obama's electability. <BR/>But that's not my point here, and I've digressed.<BR/>My point is you sound as kooky as Obama's kookier supporters.<BR/>At some point between whenever you used to think "no way" about Clinton and I guess Super Tuesday, Clinton suddenly became a real progressive for you.<BR/>How she managed to do that is fascinating. I remember how the Clinton administration threw progressives under the bus. I remember them giving up on certain states. I remember them not doing very much to win back the congress. I remember the trade deals, and welfare "reforms", and "the era of big government is over", and the foreign policy failures (Rwanda), and the telecom act, and repeal of Glass-Steagall.<BR/>And though Hillary Clinton was not actually an office holder then, she seems to be running on those eight years of experience, plus twenty one other years in which <I>she wasn't an office holder</I>, that's why I'm mentioning all these. If she wants credit for the experience of being the spouse of the president and of a governor before then, then she has to own that president's shortcomings and failures as well.<BR/>Somehow, this candidate has become your progressive hero. She's Mother Jones, Shirley Chisholm, Ralph Nader, Senator Feingold, and Senator Wellstone all wrapped up in big progressive bow for you. Please.<BR/>You've done exactly what the Obama crazies have done. You've airbrushed out your candidate's weaknesses and flaws because, well, who knows why?<BR/><I>That's</I> what I'm complaining about.<BR/>Come November, if Obama's the candidate, are you really going to not vote, or vote for McCain because you didn't get your way?<BR/>If he wins the nomination, he will have won it fair and square. Maybe not by a landslide, but that doesn't matter. When the buzzer sounds, one point ahead means you win. <BR/>And the best chance we all will have, in that case, of seeing progressive policies enacted, those policies and ideals so important to you when you didn't support Clinton, will be to vote for the Democrat.<BR/>Or will you throw a tantrum and by omission or commission help McCain win?facherohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03177318899018686248noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post-75972572005411251032008-05-14T00:41:00.000-07:002008-05-14T00:41:00.000-07:00Give me a break, Dave. I laid out pretty clearly w...Give me a break, Dave. I laid out pretty clearly why I've ended up supporting Clinton in this race. It has to do with clear distinctions in policy and electability. If that makes me unhinged, well, bring on the Thorazine.<BR/><BR/>Mssplsd (I hope I spelled that right), I was actually at the '92 Democratic Convention. When they showed the "Man From Hope" promo (done by the Thompsons of "Designing Women" fame), my eyes were rolling so much and so hard that I probably looked like I was having a seizure. I really do not like that kind of fluffy image stuff.<BR/><BR/>The Jay-Z stuff was a step beyond that IMO because it was not only a silly pop culture reference, it was disrespectful towards Obama's opponent. Not exactly motivating me to get on the Unity Pony.Other Lisahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08079055348844157557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post-50838489218081783702008-05-13T14:40:00.000-07:002008-05-13T14:40:00.000-07:00Other Lisa says she never in her life thought she'...Other Lisa says she never in her life thought she'd be supporting Hillary Clinton. Presumably she had good reasons for that, substantive reasons, well thought out ideas.<BR/>I wonder what changed. I read Other Lisa's posts and see no difference in fanaticism from the more unhinged of Obama's supporters. We have people here sincerely suggesting the blogosphere is an analogue for the military in a fascist country.<BR/>Complaints about Obama. Not. Being. A. Progressive. <BR/>Excuse me, but when did Hillary Clinton become a Wobbly?<BR/>Yeah, I get it about the misogyny. It's been over the top and took me by surprise, in fact.<BR/>But I happen to agree with Bob Somerby on this: We shouldn't use the mainstream media's and right wing's frames against our own candidates.<BR/>The incessant denigration of Senator Obama here sounds like a whiny temper tantrum.<BR/>Any criticism of Clinton, even on the issues, is taken as coded sexism. Talk of dog-whistles, Obama not doing enough to stop it, etc.<BR/><BR/>What the hell is going on here? As unhappy as I am about it, he's won more votes, he's got more delegates. That's the game we're playing, those are the rules we agreed to.<BR/>My candidate dropped out. Looks like yours will too. Get. Over. It.<BR/>And stop all this stupid talk about not voting for Obama if he's the nominee, or worse, voting for McCain.<BR/>Because if McCain wins, what will you do then? How will you feel then?facherohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03177318899018686248noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post-69247542084725468512008-05-13T10:19:00.000-07:002008-05-13T10:19:00.000-07:00@ Other Lisa, re: Jay-ZFair enough. I just don't ...@ Other Lisa, re: Jay-Z<BR/><BR/>Fair enough. I just don't think it's any less presidential than Bill Clinton's boxers-or-briefs MTV appearance or playing the sax on Arsenio. :)<BR/><BR/>Thanks for your thoughtful comments, with which I largely agree.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post-23146694286224246472008-05-13T00:00:00.000-07:002008-05-13T00:00:00.000-07:00Okay, the second Jay-Z thing, on top of everything...Okay, the second Jay-Z thing, on top of everything else, was disrespectful, immature and un-Presidential. This is not a freakin' MTV interstitial spot, you know? It's a presidential campaign. <BR/><BR/>Believe me, I never in my life thought that I would be supporting/defending Hillary Clinton, but this campaign has been a real eye-opener in a lot of ways. <BR/><BR/>As for why Obama supporters are for him? For the most part, you got me. I actually <I>do</I> understand the African American support, and I really see it as a pretty positive thing. But otherwise? <BR/><BR/>I have been involved in "progressive" politics and movements in the past and most of the people I know are supporting Obama, and I can't get to what the actual reasons are. He's not a progressive. <BR/><BR/>On the other hand, he makes nice speeches (which personally leave me cold, but I guess that's just me). My best guess is that this support is in part due to "the Speech" (the anti-war speech, not the "Throw Grandma Under the Bus" one), and I sort of get that too, but only up to a point, because once he got to the Senate, Obama has exhibited absolutely no leadership in this area.<BR/><BR/>The rest of it, I am going to assume some portion of it is about white liberal guilt and feeling that voting for the African American candidate will somehow exculpate that guilt on a personal level and also on a national level. Which is understandable but also pretty damn silly, IMO.<BR/><BR/>For those who have actually studied the guy's positions and policies (such as they are), I guess part of the appeal is this Left Libertarianism, whereby you get your personal freedoms but don't have to pay a lot of taxes for them.<BR/><BR/>On a less snarky note, I know some people who support him because they feel the movement he has inspired will be able to pressure him and the Democratic power structure to make the kinds of progressive changes they would like to see. This strikes me as naive and unrealistic, as Obama has shown time and time again that he will abandon anyone who impedes his rise up the ladder. I read somewhere that he was the Eve Harrington of this election. Works for me.<BR/><BR/>Finally there are those who simply do not like Hillary and the Clintons in general, who see them as centrist, corporatist tools and who will never get past HRC's vote for AUMF and her rhetoric on Iran.<BR/><BR/>I totally get that because I was one of those people for the longest time. But I realized that a lot of my opinions of Clinton had been mediated by a MSM that for whatever reason HATED her and that I had not really studied her myself and formed my own opinions.<BR/><BR/>Compared to Obama, she is the populist in this race, with the greater commitment to core Democratic Party principles. She is more qualified, more knowledgeable, works harder and IMO is more electable. Is she perfect? No. But she is the better choice in this election.Other Lisahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08079055348844157557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post-91590912094706339432008-05-12T11:56:00.000-07:002008-05-12T11:56:00.000-07:00Obama supporters trolling here, mocking our deeply...<I>Obama supporters trolling here, mocking our deeply-held values and concerns, bullying and screaming their profoundly ugly, shrill, McCarthyite "burn the witch" accusations of racism, are driving me further... and further... away... from Obama...</I><BR/><BR/>I know the prudent course is not to respond, but I just want to say that I haven't intended to bully or scream. I'm sorry that so many people here took my comments this way, but this is not how they were intended. I disagree strongly with your conclusion that I have engaged in a McCarthyite witch hunt (interestingly, one of my relatives was a victim of actual McCarthyism and I wrote my undergraduate thesis about witch trials . . .), but I am sorry, too, that you have taken my questions here, and my concerns about Clinton, as a mockery of your deeply held values. I believe I actually share your values and I came here seeking a discussion about strategy, but apparently your wounds are far too deep to tolerate dissent.<BR/><BR/>Finally, I am not an Obama supporter (never voted for him or gave him a dime, and it's unlikely that I ever will), so please don't let my commentary here drive you from (or toward) him. I do not represent his campaign. You should, of course, decide what to do if he is the Democratic nominee based on a sober reflection of the needs of the country and not on any offense a random person on the internet has (however inadvertently) caused you. <BR/><BR/>p.s. I wanted to get in touch with Anglachel to remove some of my posts and to find out if there was any way that I could engage her commenters without offending them, but I couldn't find contact information. I have been really surprised by some of the comments here, and I am curious about what drives them. In any case, my inability to get in touch with Anglachel directly partly explains why I keep coming back to the comments section to discuss this meta-blog business.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post-77923740463954204782008-05-12T07:44:00.000-07:002008-05-12T07:44:00.000-07:00Obama supporters trolling here, mocking our deeply...Obama supporters trolling here, mocking our deeply-held values and concerns, bullying and screaming their profoundly ugly, shrill, McCarthyite "burn the witch" accusations of racism, are driving me further... and further... away... from Obama...Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12424608655556079939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post-50456297934458163082008-05-11T19:09:00.000-07:002008-05-11T19:09:00.000-07:00i have to agree with missplsd on this. i certainly...i have to agree with missplsd on this. i certainly recognize the flaws in obama's campaign, but i think Anglachel's post was fairly hypocritical in that it dismisses the intelligence of the entire african-american race (not that thats anything new) and the "creative class," whatever that means, just as you claim all obama supporters are dismissing the intelligence of working-class white democrats. <BR/><BR/>i know you guys think obama supporters must be crazy, but it might help to try and understand WHY they are obama supporters instead of writing them off, since it seems pretty likely he's going to be the nominee. hint: its not because they'll vote for just about any black person who runs, and its not because they're swept up in some 'cult of personality.' its because they believe he will make a good president. is that true? who knows? but stop pretending like you're the victims here, because the only significant difference between clinton supporters and obama supporters is the bumper sticker. both camps are guilty of incredible degrees of racism, misogyny, and general disrespect pretty much from day one. <BR/><BR/><BR/>and finally i have to say, throughout the campaign i've been pretty horrified by the amount of misogyny thats been going on, but even i wasn't offended by the jay-z thing. at a certain point you're just looking for trouble. 'dirt off my shoulder' is just not an offensive song, like missplsd said, its about trying to make it to the top, and frankly if a candidate can't even make a humorous reference to a hip-hop classic without alienating like a million people, then 'pac was right - we ain't ready to see a black president.kayahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13859799569933035875noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post-24144780238555976892008-05-11T14:13:00.000-07:002008-05-11T14:13:00.000-07:00Just as an aside, "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" is an e...Just as an aside, "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" is an egotistical song, to say the least, but the message ("shake the haters off") is not misogynist. I have qualms about the glorification of pimping and hustling and the routine use of "bitch," but I think it's a stretch to say that familiarity with Jay-Z, or even listening to Jay-Z, is tantamount to misogyny. And, you know, according to the same song, "Ladies is pimps too."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post-17745372207429408892008-05-11T13:50:00.000-07:002008-05-11T13:50:00.000-07:00I apologize if I've misconstrued your comments. Th...I apologize if I've misconstrued your comments. <BR/><BR/>The fact remains that Obama himself and his campaign have engaged in sexist dog-whistles and that if he cared AT ALL about the tone of his supporters, he would have addressed it. <BR/><BR/>I'm pretty sure that Obama is a Trojan Horse Democrat - worse than the DLC ever was. <BR/><BR/>As a p.s., I wasn't even thinking about the Jay-z "99 Problems" but the whole shoulder-flicking, dirt off my shoe routine he pulled more recently.Other Lisahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08079055348844157557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post-34938948131528373672008-05-11T13:01:00.000-07:002008-05-11T13:01:00.000-07:00Other Lisa, I think you misunderstood my post. I ...Other Lisa, I think you misunderstood my post. I described myself as "sensitive to" the misognyny directed at Clinton. I am a feminist. I not only recognize the sexism, but I am deeply offended by it. (Again, I know you've decided that I am a goon of some sort, but I do urge you to read Betsy Reed's persuasive commentary about misogyny and the campaigns from the Nation. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080519/betsyreed.)<BR/><BR/>My only question is the links you and others are drawing between the pervasive sexism and the Obama campaign. I just haven't seen them. Sure, I heard -- and was horrified by! -- the story about the campaign playing "99 Problems" in Iowa. But I'm convinced that this is a canard, not only because of credible blog reporting (see, e.g., http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/14/135113/083 and http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0108/Obamas_soundtrack.html) but because Obama is not so stupid to allow something like that -- he's a craven opportunist! -- and it doesn't fit in with any of his messaging.<BR/><BR/>In any case, I agree with many of your criticisms of Obama, but I think I am less scared of him and more scared of McCain. I'm sorry that our exchange has been so off-putting to you. You have asked me to stop, so I'll stop.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post-17072189289872446662008-05-11T12:30:00.000-07:002008-05-11T12:30:00.000-07:00I find it hard to believe that anyone following th...I find it hard to believe that anyone following this campaign hasn't noticed the constant barrage of misogyny, but <A HREF="http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2008/05/hillary-sexism-watch-part-ninety_7943.html" REL="nofollow">here is a good place to start.</A><BR/><BR/>Obama IMO has enabled this sexism - he has never once spoken out against it - and supports it. "Tea parties," "periodically, when she's feeling down," and the Jay-Z crap (the final straw for me) are a few examples.<BR/><BR/>As to the rest of your post - I'm not sure where to start. I was a Gore supporter and a Kerry supporter and Gore's getting cheated out of the Presidency is the great wound that I don't think will ever heal. <BR/><BR/>I don't want to see a McCain presidency. But I honestly do not think I can vote for Obama. His campaign is like an abusive spouse, IMO. <BR/><BR/>Then there are the plans to remake the Democratic Party in Obama's image - to cut off support for all progressive organizations that do not follow the Obama line. <BR/><BR/>The New Obama Democratic Party will be a left-leaning Libertarian party completely in thrall to corporate interests. It will ask government to do very little for people. We won't be getting universal health care, so I don't know why you would vote for him based on that. He doesn't care about the environment (this is frankly the one issue that tempts me to vote for him) so I'm not sure how much better off we'll be in that regard.<BR/><BR/>As for the war, well, Samantha Powers said we would have at least 80,000 troops in Iraq for the foreseeable future, so I'm not feeling the hope and change there either.<BR/><BR/>A war with Iran scares the crap out of me, and that's another factor that would push me to vote for Obama.<BR/><BR/>But every time. EVERY TIME. I think I can rest with that decision, the Obama campaign comes up with some other massive insult to my intelligence, and I think, is enabling them the right response? <BR/><BR/>Their whole campaign reminds me of the Republicans after 2000. <BR/><BR/>"Get over it!" <BR/><BR/>So please stop with the lectures. You're not helping. You're making it worse.Other Lisahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08079055348844157557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post-73009592675918266082008-05-11T09:27:00.000-07:002008-05-11T09:27:00.000-07:00@ Other LisaLook, in order to win the nomination, ...@ Other Lisa<BR/><BR/><I>Look, in order to win the nomination, Obama had to have near-monolithic African American support. Therefore he ran a race-baiting campaign nearly from the beginning, starting in South Carolina. </I><BR/><BR/>With all due respect, there are lots of ways to get African American support. I tend to agree with you that the best way would be to support policies that benefit African Americans, and everyone who has been counted out in the past, and Obama has not done that. But I don't think his campaign has engaged in race-baiting either, and reading this blog is actually my first introduction to this notion. <BR/><BR/>There are plenty of other explanations for Obama's success among African Americans. Perhaps it is, as Anglachel herself says, reflexive identity politics. (Note that this wouldn't require race-baiting as Obama is known to be black.) Perhaps it is people who felt betrayed by Bill Clinton. (Since you identify as a progressive, I'm sure you remember that he signed sweeping welfare "reform" legislation and the AEDPA -- laws that disproportionately hurt African Americans.) Perhaps it is people who were wary of Clinton's support of the war authorization and general hawkishness. Perhaps it is people who felt turned off by the Clinton campaign's race-baiting. (Since I believe in being specific, by this I mean Bill in SC, Ferraro, insinuating that Obama may have been a drug dealer, "hardworking Americans, white Americans," etc. I can say more if you are interested.) Perhaps it's a combination of the above.<BR/><BR/><I>Obama has employed a lot of sexist dog whistles and has not said a word when his surrogates have engaged in out and out misogynistic attacks.</I><BR/><BR/>I haven't seen this -- and yes, I am very sensitive to the misogynist attacks on Clinton. Could you please share some of the specifics? (Also, did you happen to read the Betsy Reed article I posted? I thought it was very compelling.)<BR/><BR/><I>But what's really important, if we are going to have the "values" discussion is that he. Is. Not. A. Progressive.</I><BR/><BR/>I agree with this, and this is why I did not support Obama (or Clinton) in the primary. I might quibble about some of the specifics -- for instance, I think Obama's language has been so vacuous that I have no idea how we'd know if he "cared about" working class concerns. Yet please remember that Clinton only started to use populist rhetoric following the Ohio win (the "for everyone who's been counted out" speech). I am a New Yorker, and she has represented me in the Senate for the last seven years; she has never been a champion of the underserved. <BR/><BR/>Yes, Obamania is frustrating and confusing. Yes, Obamaniacs are smug -- and perhaps Obama is as well. No, I don't believe Obama has all the answers. But I didn't have much more faith in Clinton, Gore, and Kerry, either, and I believe they were all far superior to what we have now and what the Republicans are offering. And I believe, at this point, that we can't afford four more years of war, two more Alitos, healthcare rollbacks, more job losses.<BR/><BR/><I>And I'm tired of being insulted and lectured by people with half of my political experience.</I><BR/><BR/>This is understandable. But I strongly doubt I'm one of those.<BR/><BR/><I>Oh, and as a p.s.? I'm actually in the freakin' "Creative Class."</I><BR/><BR/>I don't doubt most of the people here are. ;)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post-5703589683103570782008-05-11T06:01:00.000-07:002008-05-11T06:01:00.000-07:00A fine essay. I feel rejected by the party I have ...A fine essay. I feel rejected by the party I have been a registered member of since I came of age in 1979. My response to the party leadership if Obama is the nominee is WIN WITHOUT ME....<BR/>I will join that huge group of the democratic base that Donna Brazille has said is not neccessary....<BR/>THE CATHOLICS...WHITE WORKING CLASS...GAYS...<BR/>HISPANICS...ITALIANS...IRISH...WORKING POOR...WOMEN...AA'S WHO SUPPORT CLINTON... GUN HUGGING COUNTRY FOLK...HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES...FEMINIST MEN...FEMINIST WOMEN...<BR/>OLDER CITIZENS...AND EVER GROWING GROUPS WHO HAVE BEEN.... INSULTED....DISPARAGED... ...BULLIED...BY OBAMAS' CAMPAIGN AND THE PARTY LEADERSHIP...<BR/>THAT RUMBLING YOU HEAR IS THE DEFECTION OF 2/3 OF THE TRADITIONAL DEMOCRATIC BASE LEAVING IN PROTEST AGAINST THE LUNATICS WHO ARE HELL BENT ON POLITICAL SUICIDE OF THE PARTY....<BR/>All of these current Party leaders will be obscure oddities....And we will have ushered in another Reagan Era or worse...Obama with his campaign has effectively destroyed the Democratic Party.<BR/>Donna Brazille in my opinion needs to understand that 13% of the population is not a majority anywhere else but in her head. The Country is tired of Extremists from either side. Keep up the good essays...In future days the voices of reason will be fewer....and more critical than ever...<BR/>A Good Mothers Day To All....workingclass artisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12975686728593513095noreply@blogger.com