NPR last night spoke with Kevin Merida about his piece in the Washington Post on racist incidents on the campaign trail. This is some of what was said:
Mr. JEAN MORRIS(ph): Don’t want Obama in there. I don’t like his background. They’re putting the man in because of his race, and I don’t - I’m not ready for that.
Ms. JOETTA KUHN(ph): Mr. Obama doesn’t have much of a chance here because they will not vote for a black man in West Virginia, and they can’t stand the thoughts of a black man telling a white man what to do.
Mr. THOMAS COLDWELL(ph): Whether he is a Muslim, I guess he’s - I guess it’s just with everything that’s going on in the Middle East, it’s a little scary being unknown.
Mr. MORRIS KING(ph): You know I didn’t vote for no colored. […]
NORRIS: … with all the coverage of the campaign, these stories really have not been talked about. This - your story was somewhat surprising to many readers because we haven’t heard these stories, these kinds of things.
Mr. MERIDA: Well, I think in part that’s because there has been so much euphoria and excitement around Obama’s candidacy. I think also the nature of campaign coverage, it centers on events, rallies, really you have to kind of just be on the ground and, you know, hanging out at the bar at Applebee’s in small towns, going places where you’re not doing anything but just listening to people. But it really it was lying in plain sight.
Whew!
A good and important story. It’s about time that it be told!
I think it is fairly well understood and accepted by now — though I’m not sure how much we are remembering it in the heat of this election season — that those Civil Rights fighters who brought about the end of Jim Crow were helped along in their struggles by bringing the raw, brutal, barbarous injustice of that era into the living rooms of all Americans.
The Obama campaign has been all about hope. One thing it has not been about is addressing our fears. Well, we’ve got some very real fears. Isn’t it time we face up to them?
When California’s Supreme Court decision nixed a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage the question immediately raised by some talk show radio hosts was: will this be back now as a big campaign 2008 wedge issue?
The likely answer: back…yes…….but not quite..because voters have a few teenie-weenie other things on their minds this year. The Associated Press has come to the same conclusion:
[NOTE: An earlier version of this story had this link attributed to the New York Times. That was an error, due to a reference from a Times story on the ruling that was cut in favor of using the more recent AP piece. We regret the error.]
Yesterday’s California Supreme Court decision striking down a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage reintroduces a hot-button social issue into the presidential campaign.
Republicans used same-sex marriage to great political effect in 2004, putting proposed bans on the ballot in Ohio and other states to get conservatives to the polls. But now it will have to compete for attention with the economy, the Iraq war, and other issues.
Indeed, there were already rumblings yesterday reflected in some news reports and on some talk shows of some thinking of trying to put a new measure on the ballot and of a court challenge to the California ruling.
But the dynamics are different this year:
And impact of the gay marriage issue could be muted, not just because neither the Democratic front-runner, Barack Obama, nor the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain, support gay marriage, but because McCain’s opposition to a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage - on federalist grounds - makes it more difficult for the right to get a lot of traction out of it.
Still, the issue is likely to come up in some races (or be raised by the so-called “independent” groups that make commercials to support or negatively define candidates). And you can already see how even this clear-cut California court ruling can be spun.
“California Court Strips Children of Right to Mother and Father,” declares the headline of Cybercast News Service’s hot-button-pushing article which declares “the court does not recognize that children have any right whatsoever to a mother and a father. In the decision, the California court sees children primarily through the eyes of same-sex couples who want to secure custody and control of children. The court makes emphatically clear that it deems this to be a right of same-sex couples that is equal to–and identical to–the right of married mothers and fathers to adopt or conceive and raise their own children.”
Spin is spin is spin…
So will it become another wedge issue used against the Democrats as hot buttons are pushed and voters cast their votes on this issue? Read the rest of this entry »
The Fox Movie Channel showed “Gentleman’s Agreement” last night, a preachy drama about anti-Semitism that won the Academy Award 60 years ago, and it brought into focus the realization that I may live to see a black man inaugurated as President of the United States.
What Barack Obama faces from now until November would be unimaginable to the people who made and saw that movie then, including a 23-year-old just back from World War II who had little audacity and even less hope of living in the rich, glossy world it portrayed.
Gregory Peck played a magazine writer who pretends to be Jewish. A decade later, I was an editor on one of those magazines, unknowingly hired by George W. Bush’s grandfather as the first Jew among thousands of employees, working with Laura Z. Hobson, who wrote the novel on which the picture was based.
WINSTON SALEM, North Carolina (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama denounced his former pastor in his strongest language to date on Tuesday, saying he was outraged by Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s assertions about the U.S. government and race.
“His comments were not only divisive … but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate,” Obama told reporters.
“Whatever relationship I had with Reverend Wright has changed as a consequence of this,” Obama said.
And the big money quotes:
“At a certain point if what somebody says contradicts what you believe so fundamentally and then he questions whether or not you believe it — in front of the National Press Club — then that’s enough,” Obama said, referring to Wright’s suggestion that Obama’s denouncement was what a politician had to say.
“That’s a show of disrespect to me. It is also, I think, an insult to what we’ve been trying to do” on the campaign, he said.
Well well well. Seems like Rev. Wright’s habitual “over-the-line stepping” has rankled our rankle-less Obama. Wonder how this will play with the electorate, if at all. Obama has been painted by some as a true believer of the ENTIRE WRIGHT VIEW. Will those “painters” believe this now?
UPDATE
Just watched the entire video of Senator Obama going after Rev. Wright. Much stronger than the Reuters article shows. My uncle (who’s black for new TMV readers), a full-fledged Obama supporter, sent me the following text message (printed with his permission):
“Obama finally did what he had to do. Screw those black folks who get mad at this. Obama trying to become POTUS. Not the New Black Panther party prez.”
April 14th, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
From the report given in the New York Times’ lively The Caucus blog, Kentucky Republicans were having a blast, ridiculing the Democrats as political non-realists and, overall, as an almost madcap lot.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had some fun going after the Demmies…and then it was the turn of Congressman Geoff Davis to continue the celebration of how Republicans are superior to Democrats. It was his turn to take it up (or down) to another level.
And he did:
Congressman Geoff Davis, took the criticisms of Mr. Obama a few steps further, likening the change slogan to the pitch of a “snake oil salesman.” He then relayed to the audience that he had taken party in a “highly classified, national security simulation” with Obama.
“I’m going to tell you something: That boy’s finger does not need to be on the button,” Mr. Davis said. “He could not make a decision in that simulation that related to a nuclear threat to this country.”
What happened next was predictable: the Internet picked it up (alas, TMV is late, so accept our apologies), and the Obama campaign issued a response.
“It’s hard to tell what is more outrageous - Representative Davis’s condescending and personal attack, or his absurd and offensive claim that Barack Obama is not prepared to defend America. Geoff Davis may hide behind offensive tough talk, but he has marched in lock-step with Bush-McCain policies that have devastated our national security, while Barack Obama has stood up against a misguided war in Iraq and worked with respected Republicans like Dick Lugar and Chuck Hagel to secure loose weapons and nuclear materials from terrorists,” Bill Burton, the campaign spokesman said.
Meanwhile, Davis apologized to Obama for a “poor choice of words” — and Republicans expect that will be accepted.
But wait: hasn’t Obama just said when he said small towners were “bitter” it was a poor choice of words? So that means Republicans won’t join Hillary Clinton in hammering Obama on the issue?
But this tale of political types having fun with zingers has a bit more.
What would a fun event like this be without taking a quick-laugh swipe at Hillary Clinton?
Back at the dinner, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton didn’t escape the men’s attention either. While saying her candidacy seemed to be teetering on the brink, he [McConnell] added “I hear she hasn’t been this worried since a new Hooters opened” near her home with former President Bill Clinton.
Everybody laughed, according to Ryan Alessi, political reporter for the Herald-Leader.
Thoughtful American political discussion…at its best.
FOOTNOTE:One commenter on a site has noticed several references popping up (most assuredly from people who don’t support or like Obama) as a “boy.”
CORRECTION: In an earlier version of this post we attributed the “Hooters” joke to Davis in brackets. The joke was actually told by McConnell. The correction has been made. TMV regrets the error.
The Phelps Family Ghouls (the ‘God Hates Gays’ Baptists who picket funerals) may lose their property to the courts as a consequence of their hateful actions.
A federal judge in Maryland on Thursday ordered liens on the Westboro Baptist Church building and the Phelps-Chartered Law office.
If the case presided over by U.S. District Court Judge Richard D. Bennett is upheld by an appeals court, the church, at 3701 S.W. 12th, and the office building, at 1414 S.W. Topeka Blvd., could be obtained by the court and sold, with the proceeds being applied toward $5 million in damages Bennett imposed on church members for picketing a military funeral.
A lien is a legal hold on property, making it collateral against money owed to a person or entity. It can keep the owner from selling the property or transferring title to the property.
The $5 million penalty is the result of a lawsuit filed against three of the church’s principals by Albert Snyder, the father of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder, whose funeral was picketed by church members.
The senior Snyder contended the picketing caused emotional distress and invasion of privacy.
Westboro Baptist members regularly picket funerals of members of the U.S. armed forces, contending the deaths are God’s punishment for the country’s support of homosexuals.
My jaw dropped hearing this from former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee concerning the Obama-Wright affair on MSNBC’s Morning Joe yesterday (transcript via Political Punch):
And one other thing I think we’ve got to remember: As easy as it is for those of us who are white to look back and say, “That’s a terrible statement,” I grew up in a very segregated South, and I think that you have to cut some slack. And I’m going to be probably the only conservative in America who’s going to say something like this, but I’m just telling you: We’ve got to cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told, “You have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie. You have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant. And you can’t sit out there with everyone else. There’s a separate waiting room in the doctor’s office. Here’s where you sit on the bus.” And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment. And you have to just say, I probably would too. I probably would too. In fact, I may have had a more, more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me.
I mean, that’s like killing your parents (figuratively speaking) to many of those on the Right and a sizable number of the Left concerning this issue . Mike Huckabee defending Rev. Jeremiah Wright? Will we now have solar powered cars and anti-gravity beams?
Barack Obama ended his speech yesterday with the story of a young white woman who worked for his South Carolina campaign.
In a discussion of why they were there, Ashley Baia told volunteers that when she was nine years old, her mother was stricken with cancer, lost her health care and had to file for bankruptcy and that she “convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.
“She did this for a year until her mom got better,” Obama said, “and she told everyone at the round table that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.”
When it was the turn of an elderly black man to explain why he was there, he answered, “I’m here because of Ashley.”
That experience typified his campaign, Obama said: “’I’m here because of Ashley.’ By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough…But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger.”
Obama had told that story when he spoke at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on Martin Luther King’s birthday and, for an older observer, it resonates with the story Dr. King told in his last speech in Memphis the night before he died…
Conversation I just had with my Uncle Ronny over Yahoo Instant Messenger. Text is accurate. I added the who said what and cleaned up the punctuation:
Uncle Ronny: “Well it’s all over for brother Obama.”
Me: “How so?”
Uncle Ronny: “He has to be the black guy tomorrow at his big race speech. That’s all some folks need to hear to not vote for him.”
Me: “Yeah. Obama’s in a difficult situation. The hope campaign seems a million miles away.”
Uncle Ronny: “You only get one strike when your black. If your associated with an inflamer, you get flamed. I’ll cast my vote for Ol’ Hillary in GE. She’s a tough cookie and I like her. But man I dreamed of seeing the first black president. Rev. Wright is us. Too bad ‘us’ is going to bring Obama down. ‘Us’ should have just chilled out and kept our mouths shut”
Me: “Keep hope alive Ron-Ron.”
Uncle Ronny: “I’ll just hope the USA sweeps the 100m gold in the Olympics this summer. Nothing to hope about in politics. Nothing at all.”
Interesting. Especially the part about “us” bringing “Obama down”. He attributes the words of Rev. Wright as part of the black consciousness and that it has ended Obama’s campaign. My uncle is utterly depressed about the whole Wright-Obama affair. I don’t know what Senator Obama is going to say at his “race speech” but one thing is for certain, it promises to be a watershed moment in his campaign.
Personally, I think Senator Clinton is somewhat conflicted in this issue. She wants to win and sees political opportunity in this. But she’s also a woman and has been very close to the black community. I bet she’s heard a few choice bits from some of the black people she knows and have met throughout her travels. Personally I find her relative silence on this issue refreshing. Much respect to her.
Barack Obama has had to confront his twin albatrosses, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the decidedly secular Tony Rezko. In his rounds of the cable news shows last night, Obama was articulate, as always, but for the first time, glib bordering on shifty.
On Countdown with a deferential Keith Olbermann, he distanced himself from Wright’s racist rants but asked voters to believe that, in 17 years of churchgoing, he did not hear any of the venom or he would have condemned it.
Even more tenuous was Obama’s attempt to paint Wright as a spiritual leader caught up in the anger of his generation at racial injustice, a pissed-off Martin Luther King, if you will. That won’t wash with those who remember how King stressed rejection of such attitudes at a time when Black Power advocates were promoting them. Senator, Wright is no Martin Luther King. Not even close.
In his attempt to “disgorge” Rezko, along with his campaign contributions, Obama stressed that he has not been accused of any wrongdoing or connected to any of the issues involved in the current federal corruption trial, but his opponents won’t be deterred from harping on their long, close association, including the buying of the Obamas’ Chicago home.
Obama’s most fervent admirers will be tempted to pass off these iffy relationships as part of a misguided search for substitute fathers by a man who lost his own at an early age, and there may be truth in that. But Obama is now attempting to become the national father figure, and just asking him to show better judgment than George W. Bush would be setting the bar very low.
March 15th, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
The campaign and talk radio are now boiling with the controversy over Barack Obama’s pastor. Here’s our linkfest taking you Around The Sphere. NOTE: Links and quotes do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of TMV or its co-writers.
Barack Obama’s Controversial Pastor Has Quit The Obama Campaign but now that Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. is out, some wonder if Obama’s lack of an utter repudiation is the “death blow” to his Presidential hopes. See Talking Points Memo. Steve Sailer asks:
So, Obama, who wrote pp. 274-295 about Wright in his 1995 autobiography, had no idea that Wright was an anti-American leftwing crank until early 2007?
Conservative bloggers are covering this more extensively — and angrily. One of the more step-back analyses comes from Powerline:
If it were true that Obama never knew that Wright was making highly objectionable comments until the start of the presidential campaign, and if Obama denounced the comments at that time, then I think he would have a good defense, i.e., he belonged to the church for years without knowing Wright’s anti-American, anti-white, and generally crazy views, and by the time he learned about them Wright was on the way out, so it made little sense to quit the church – denouncing the statements was enough.
Note, however, that Obama doesn’t say he didn’t know Wright was making highly objectionable comments, only that he never personally heard “the statements. . .that are the cause of this controversy.” It’s plausible that Obama might not have heard (or gotten wind of) the several sermons that have been the focus of this controversy. It’s less plausible that, over a 20-year period, Obama was oblivious to the strong anti-white, anti-American views of Wright.
A fatal blow to Obama or not? All I know is that conservative talk radio made Wright audio clips, angry callers, long monologues the motif of the day. Clearly, the GOP will use clips of this in their ads if Obama gets the nomination. But he still will have to have more debates with Hillary Clinton so there’s still time for him to compensate. He just better be ready to duck when the Republican kitchen sink, and bathtub, and shower are thrown at him in November.
Who Else Has Been Preached To By Wright? Oprah Winfrey, as Ed Morrissey notes. He adds this:
March 12th, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Senator Hillary Clinton has apologized to black voters due to the controversy surrounding the widely-condemned comments of now-resigned unapologetic campaign official Geraldine Ferraro, who basically said Obama is where he is because he is black.
News reports say Clinton’s speech was an uncharacteristically long and heartfelt apology.
But some are bound to note that it once again shoves the issue of Obama as an African-American into the news cycle. There have been accusations that this is why there have been so many instances of Clinton campaign associates raising the issue, then apologizing and resigning: to raise the issue and keep it in the news cycle. Either that or it’s an issue they simply can’t help hinting at or– in Ferraro’s case — all but discussing it complete with Al Gore-style slide show.
The New York senator, who is in a tight race with Illinois Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, struck several sorry notes at an evening forum sponsored by the National Newspaper Publishers Association, a group of more than 200 black community newspapers across the country.
Her biggest apology came in response to a question about comments by her husband, Bill Clinton, after the South Carolina primary, which Obama won handily. Bill Clinton said Jesse Jackson also won South Carolina when he ran for president in 1984 and 1988, a comment many viewed as belittling Obama’s success.
“I want to put that in context. You know I am sorry if anyone was offended. It was certainly not meant in any way to be offensive,” Hillary Clinton said. “We can be proud of both Jesse Jackson and Senator Obama.”
“Anyone who has followed my husband’s public life or my public life know very well where we have stood and what we have stood for and who we have stood with,” she said, acknowledging that whoever wins the nomination will have to heal the wounds of a bruising, historic contest.
“Once one of us has the nomination there will be a great effort to unify the Democratic party and we will do so, because, remember I have a lot of supporters who have voted for me in very large numbers and I would expect them to support Senator Obama if he were the nominee,” she said.
“I said yesterday that I rejected what she said and I certainly do repudiate it. I regret deeply that it was said obviously she doesn’t speak for the campaign, she doesn’t speak for any of my positions. And she has resigned from being a member of my very large finance committee.”
Too little, too late? Perhaps.
Particularly because Clinton’s own initial response to Ferraro was not pleasing to those outraged by the former Vice Presidential candidate’s comments.
It has now gotten to the point the point where you want to ask:
What is IN their water?…Is foot and mouth disease going around?…First Bill Clinton, now Ferraro: are two key Democrats intent on destroying their legacies?…If it’s a mistake and this is how the campaign is managed, how would a Clinton White House look?…Wasn’t there a time when Democrats of all persuasions lambasted, rejected and condemned the divide-and-rule politics practiced effectively by Karl Rove– and said Democrats would never campaign that way?
Add the begrudging, I-don’t-take-back-a-syllable resignation of Geraldine Ferraro to the growing list of Clinton campaign related incidents of the race card coming up…lingering in the air…followed by perfunctory Clinton campaign denunciations…and then a resignation.
A resignation that occurs after the controversy has been all over the media, consumed the blogosphere, provided great stand up interviews for morning news and cable news networks. And lingered. Raised as an issue. Memorably.
The REAL QUESTION now is: if you don’t think there is at least the appearance now of either some kind of a pattern or a serious lack of control of the Clinton campaign (why was Ferraro defended and/or not immediately bounced for the campaign as Obama’s “monster” aide was?) then precisely from what turnip truck did you fall off?
The upside for the Clinton side: this controversy these controversies suggest Obama is a black guy running for President. Obama has campaigned as a guy running for President who happens to be black. That is the difference and many Americans accept it.
But not Ferraro. In an apparent legacy-destroying race with former President Bill Clinton so that her name is associated with raising the race card, she resigned from Clinton’s staff defending her comments and painting Hillary Clinton as the TRUE victim. Just read the New York Times:
Geraldine A. Ferraro resigned Wednesday from Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign finance committee but remained unapologetic for citing Senator Barack Obama’s race as the decisive factor in his success.
“I feel terrible for the fact that Hillary is stuck in this thing,” Ms. Ferraro said in an interview Wednesday night. “Why put her in that position?”
Ms. Ferraro said that she was not asked by anyone in the Clinton campaign to leave the committee but that she did it on her own, sending an e-mail message to the senator’s campaign Wednesday afternoon, as the political dust-up over remarks she made last week went into its second day.
Words continued to fly back and forth as the Obama campaign called on Mrs. Clinton to repudiate the remarks, Ms. Ferraro said they had been distorted, and Mr. Obama said they were “absurd.”
Ms. Ferraro, who said she and Mrs. Clinton had not discussed the matter directly, will continue to support the senator.
“I am stepping down from your finance committee,” she wrote, “so I can speak for myself and you can continue to speak for yourself about what’s at stake in this campaign. The Obama campaign is attacking me to hurt you. I won’t let that happen.”
CORRECTION: She is talking about TWO victims.
And how was the Clinton team reacting through all of this? Newsbusters has this interesting tidbit from Newsweek’s Howard Fineman talking to Keith Olbermann on MSNBC:
HOWARD FINEMAN: It’s clear to me the Clinton people aren’t going to back down. As you saw, they sent Maggie Williams out with a statement to defend Geraldine Ferraro who’s defending herself. So this is the fight the Clintons want, the way they want to fight it.
(Olbermann for the first time did a Special Comment against a Democrat condemning Ferraro and the Clinton campaign, although MSNBC is now viewed by Clinton supporters as the Obama network so he is not perceived as a neutral observer and his outraged Special Comments are now a fixture. Video here and here. Here is the TEXT.)
Hillary Clinton’s initial response was one that is likely to displease not just Obama supporters, but any voters who believe the race card needs to be torn up when it’s raised and immediately condemned without political qualifiers or an attempt to switch the issue.
Mrs. Clinton, saying she did not agree with the comments, called it “regrettable that any of our supporters — on both sides because we both have this experience — say things that kind of veer off into the personal.”
The boldfaced words are what will scuttle the impact of her comments — as well as the use “regrettable” — which sounds like something written by a diplomat or a corporation trying to escape legal liability after people died using its products.
NOTE TO MRS. CLINTON: Many independent voters will either stay home, vote for a third party candidate for vote for John McCain rather than vote for a campaign that is an increasing medley of negativity, racial innuendo and personal attacks rather than a discussion of the serious issues. And if the nomination is won with tactics such as this, many Democrats wills stay home. If you win? With so many bitter feelings, count on a one term Presidency.
Here’s how the media is playing and reporting the resignation:
HEY BLACK FOLKS! THE PRESIDENCY IS A CINCH SINCE YOU’RE BLACK!
As fellow co-blogger Pete Abel pointed out, former Democratic vice-president candidate Geraldine Ferraro thinks that Senator Obama is where he is in this nomination process simply because he’s a black dude (courtesy of The Daily Breeze):
When the subject turned to Obama, Clinton’s rival for the Democratic Party nomination, Ferraro’s comments took on a decidedly bitter edge.
“I think what America feels about a woman becoming president takes a very secondary place to Obama’s campaign - to a kind of campaign that it would be hard for anyone to run against,” she said. “For one thing, you have the press, which has been uniquely hard on her. It’s been a very sexist media. Some just don’t like her. The others have gotten caught up in the Obama campaign.
“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position,” she continued. “And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.” Ferraro does not buy the notion of Obama as the great reconciler.
What I see here is very sick stupidity with a dollop of “Hillary is my candidate and Barack, you’re no Hillary”-itis. Ms. Ferraro, he’s a black man whose full name is Barack Hussein Obama. He still has to shake off stereotypes about his race along with being associated with radical Islamists and Wahhabism because of his middle name. Senator Barack Hussein Obama (I think his full name sounds spiffy) has received 13+ million votes this season by majority white Americans. So are you saying that all those wonderful white folks (no disrespect to all the other races that voted for him) just gave Senator Obama a pass and voted for him out of sympathy? That’s asinine. Obviously they support Senator Obama’s candidacy because he’s connected with them (just like Senator Clinton has connected with her supporters). That’s not sympathy. That’s support, dear Geraldine.
Ferraro’s comments rubbed me the wrong way since I’ve had several experiences as an information technology manager where some white co-workers felt I only achieved manager since I was black. In fact I overheard one conversation where one guy said that “management doesn’t want black people to sue so they caved in and hired him”. Just diminishing my degree and six professional IT certifications. I swallowed my anger and proceeded to treat them with respect without letting my bitterness show. After a year of tense situations where I led my team through layoffs and customer escalations, I noticed that those same folks looked at me much different. They didn’t have to say anything. It was a look of respect. While I appreciate their respect, I didn’t appreciate being diminished because of my race.
Geraldine Ferraro should know better being a woman. I’ve seen subtle and blatant sexism. It stinks. And if you can’t support your exceptional candidate, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, without diminishing her opponent with the “he’s lucky to be a black dude” spin, then maybe your support isn’t worth a pot to piss in.
UPDATE #1
It’s obvious that the emotion from Senator Clinton and Senator Obama supporters is at a very high level. And among my family, we predicted that this could happen since you have two groups in America that has never been this close to presidency. That being said, supporters from both sides need to take a planet-sized CHILL PILL. But knowing human nature, I expect more stupidity flying from the mouths of some Clinton and Obama supporters.
UPDATE #2
Doing a little more thinking about this situation, I’m seeing the humor in all of this. Black man has it easy in running for POTUS? If that was the case, Minister Louis Farrakhan should have just walked into the White House and asked President Clinton for the keys during the Million Man March.
Wait! President Clinton was our first black president! And it was so hard for him he had to turn into a white dude to win! I can have too much fun with this now.
“Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down and says let’s address reality and the problems we’re facing in this world, you’re accused of being racist, so you have to shut up,” Ferraro said. “Racism works in two different directions. I really think they’re attacking me because I’m white. How’s that?”
Wow! That response is just rich. Now she’s the victim of racism because people are calling her out about her comments? Wow squared. Here’s how wrong Ferraro is: the Clinton Campaign tore Senator Obama a new nostril before the Ohio and Texas primaries. And that plan of attack was successful and DID NOT INVOLVE RACE. Senator Obama then proceeded to whine a little about the increased press coverage, but never complained that RACE WAS THE FACTOR. So what in Mount Olympus is Geraldine Ferraro talking about? Where’s the “Obama the Slinger of Racist Tags” during arguably his toughest test this campaign season? Sorry. No dice.
You’re right Elrod. She’s jumped the shark and is a liability to Senator Clinton. It isn’t fair to Senator Clinton but Senator Obama had to distance himself with extreme prejudice from the Minister Louis Farrakhan even though Farrakhan isn’t contributing a feather to Campaign Obama. Ol’ Geraldine’s contributing much more than a feather to Campaign Clinton. Rules are rules.
Last March 4th, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, arms linked with civil rights leaders, were reenacting the 1965 march in Selma, united in declaring their debt to the non-violence of Martin Luther King. Today, they are at the precipice of divisions that could be suicidal for their party in November.
In Obama’s grasp for the nomination and Clinton’s last stand in Texas and Ohio, identity politics are threatening to tear the Democrats apart–accusations against him of Farrakhan sympathies to unnerve Jewish voters, paired with countercharges that the Clinton campaign is fueling them by distributing a photo of Obama in Muslim garb. Voters are being targeted by race, gender, ethnicity, economic status and any other demographic that could prejudice them.
February 29th, 2008 by MICHAEL STICKINGS, Assistant Editor
Question: Which is the craziest?
a)John McCain claiming that Obama is all about “the past” on Iraq. b)Bill O’Reilly equating Arianna Huffington with the Nazis and the KKK. c)Rush Limbaugh defending the “Husseinization” of Obama. d)Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calling Iran the world’s #1 power.
I’ll go with b) and d) — a tie. McCain’s claim is just silly, while Limbaugh’s defence of the predictable Republican smear is, well, predictably stupid. Both O’Reilly and Ahmadinejad, however, are nuts.
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Speaking of the “Husseinization” of Obama — and I wrote the other day about how the Republican Smear Machine (RSM) will portray Obama as a black Muslim terrorist — one of the bigger right-wing bloggers, Pamela of Atlas Shrugs, is already on the bigoted offensive: “My objective is to unearth Obama’s relationship to Islam. Islam is a political ideology and it is incompatible with democracy.”
Actually, Islam is a religion, a faith, just like Judaism or Christianity, and, of course, Christianity has a long and decidedly anti-democratic history. (Yes, she’s that ignorant.) But no matter. Her real objective is clearly to smear the entirety of the Muslim religion, and all Muslims, and to argue that Obama is a terrorist, or at least a friend to terrorists. Read the rest of this entry »
February 27th, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
How far has American political culture and talk radio veered out of control? So much that Karl Rove — yes THE Karl Rove who has demonized more than all the installments of “The Exorcist” put together — has told GOPers to cut it out. Marc Ambinder has this:
No less an authority figure than Karl Rove has warned Republican operatives from demagoguing Barack Obama’s middle name.
At a closed door meeting of GOP state executive directors in late January, Rove said the safest way to refer to Obama would be to use his honorific, “Sen. Obama.”
“The context was, you’re not going to stigmatize this guy. You shouldn’t underestimate him,” one of the executive directors said. Rove said that the use of “Barack Hussein Obama” would perpetuate the notion that Republicans were bigoted and would hurt the party.
Rove also said that Republicans should refer to Hillary Clinton as “Sen. Clinton,” rather than “Hillary.”
It’s hard to break from not just an ingrained political culture, but demonization and casting aspersions seem to provide psychological release to some folks (across the political spectrum, by the way). The attack/demonization mode releases frustrations, slaps “high concept” definitions on those with whom you disagree, puts opponents on the defensive, and is considered by some to be enjoyable and intelligent political debate.
But in realistic, political terms, in 2008 it’s not smart since there is indeed a new generation that may not like the Baby Boomer-influenced style of confrontational, innuendo-peppered, name-calling politics. And just who is Obama attracting to the polls? Younger voters. McCain, too, has traditionally appealed to younger voters. And what segment of the electorate must a party wants to win need to at least partially capture? Independent voters who aren’t into demonization.
It could be argued Rove was talking strictly as a political realist, and wasn’t expressing some newly dominant gene that suddenly made him a nicer guy. But the bottom line is that he’s saying “tread lightly and in fact don’t tread on that area.”
Will they listen? If you believe that, I can sell you THIS for $200.
February 25th, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
NOTE: This is one of many updates. It increasingly appears as if the photo did come from the Clinton camp:
The Drudge Report’s front page now has a screeching headline saying staffers from Hillary Clinton’s campaign are circulating a photo of a “dressed” rival Barack Obama — actually dressed in Kenyan dress — that at first glance fits in with the “Obama as Muslim” motif spread in emails and whispering campaigns — a longstanding charge that is inaccurate but being used as a slur. But Drudge couples this with photos of Clinton and President George Bush dressed in local gear as well.
UPDATE: The Politico reports that the Obama campaign has blasted the Clinton campaign — which reporter Mike Allen says has not denied or commented on the charge that it is spreading use of the photo:
Obama campaign manager David Plouffe accused the Clinton campaign Monday of “shameful offensive fear-mongering” by circulating a photo as an attempted smear.
….The Clinton campaign did not deny the charge, but did not comment further.
…..Plouffe said in a statement: “On the very day that Senator Clinton is giving a speech about restoring respect for America in the world, her campaign has engaged in the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we’ve seen from either party in this election. This is part of a disturbing pattern that led her county chairs to resign in Iowa, her campaign chairman to resign in New Hampshire, and it’s exactly the kind of divisive politics that turns away Americans of all parties and diminishes respect for America in the world,” said Plouffe.
The photo created huge buzz in political circles and immediately became known as “the ‘dressed’ photo,” reflecting the Drudge terminology.
But Marc Ambinder reports that some Clinton aides have denied circulating the photo (see his quote in roundup below) and suggest the Obama campaign sent it.
UPDATE II: The Politico now has a Clinton campaign response which does not answer the question as to whether its campaign or staffers spread the email but pushes the blame on Obama for trying to “distract” the campaign. The Politico reports that the response is “from Maggie Williams, which doesn’t respond to the question of whether a staffer was circulating the photo of Obama in Somali garb, but takes issue with the Obama campaign’s embrace of the issue:”
Enough.
If Barack Obama’s campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed. Hillary Clinton has worn the traditional clothing of countries she has visited and had those photos published widely.
This is nothing more than an obvious and transparent attempt to distract from the serious issues confronting our country today and to attempt to create the very divisions they claim to decry.
We will not be distracted.
UPDATE COMMENT:
Any editor or reporter knows what this kind of statement is: it is a refusal to deny. Even if the Clinton campaign comes back later and denies it, the damage is now done.
Williams’ statement will be widely seen as tacit confirmation that the Clinton campaign has been spreading the email due to the attempt to put the onus on Obama for somehow raising a fake divisive issue by complaining about it.
The first truth a reporter even just hired and on probation learns is: news sources and subjects who are outraged will make flat, blanket denials and won’t hedge. William’s comment is either an evasion or a hedge to The Politico’s question. Either way, it suggests Drudge source wasn’t from the Obama or GOP camps.
NEW UPDATE: Josh Marshall apparently agrees with TMV on this:
We spent the better part of the morning trying to get some comment from the Clinton campaign. For the first hour or more we couldn’t get anything. Then we got this statement in which the Clinton camp says Obama should be “ashamed” at saying the picture is “divisive,” without addressing one way or another what they’re accused of doing.
(He got the same statement as The Politico.)
Put it all together and the Clinton camp would appear to be unwilling to make even the most perfunctory denial that they are or were circulating this photo around.
We held up on this because we never want to take Drudge as a fact witness for anything. But I think the Clinton camp’s statement speaks for itself.
(BACK TO OUR ORIGINAL POST)
We don’t usually link to Drudge or quote him (a lot of his reports didn’t hold up) but this one is quite specific and fits in with other reports of emails — plus a host of emails (not from Clinton staffers) this writer has deleted. Click this link soon since these reports don’t always have a long shelf life. Here’s the first part of it:
With a week to go until the Texas and Ohio primaries, stressed Clinton staffers circulated a photo over the weekend of a “dressed” Barack Obama.
The photo, taken in 2006, shows the Democrat frontrunner fitted as a Somali Elder, during his visit to Wajir, a rural area in northeastern Kenya.
The senator was on a five-country tour of Africa.
“Wouldn’t we be seeing this on the cover of every magazine if it were HRC?” questioned one campaign staffer, in an email obtained by the DRUDGE REPORT.
We’ll pass on running the photos here (go to the link) due to the intent behind the emailing and trying to get them published.
Conservative blogger Rick Moran writes that he, for one, is getting sick of the effort to display Obama as a Muslim (which he isn’t: the charge and implication arouses feelings of anti-Muslim bigotry, where some then feel if he is a Muslim he is a threat to American security):
Well, today conservative stupidity regarding Obama and his supposed ties to Islam hit paydirt – as in generating a ten on the laugh-o-meter. Evidently, the probable next president of the United States was caught in flagrante dilecto, dressed to the nines in what appears to be some kind of native garb (probably Kenyan) and with a (gasp!) turban on his head. To some of my unschooled, ignorant conservative friends, this is further proof that if we elect Obama president, there will be a department of Sharia Affairs.
The truth as Jim Hoft (via Sweetness and Light) shows, is a little less dramatic. The costume is that of a Kenyan tribal elder.
Now Obama already has some problematic connections to Kenya including his appearances for presidential candidate Raila Odinga, a distant cousin and someone whose recent actions in fomenting violence in Kenya following a crooked presidential election are extremely troublesome. (There have also been rumors of a deal between Odinga and the small Islamist party in Kenya that he would, if elected, establish Sharia law – a dubious proposition and almost certainly a lie that has been picked up by some conservatives in this country and passed off as the truth.)
But the idea that Obama in traditional Kenyan garb proves he’s some kind of closet Muslim or Islamic sympathizer is absurd. Kenya is 70% Christian and only 10% Muslim. To extrapolate that Obama’s dress denotes anything other than acknowledging his birthright not to mention playing the gracious guest by donning the clothing of his hosts is irrational, stupid, ignorant, and totally without foundation.
On the other hand, some conservative bloggers are expressing dismay over the photos on Drudge and are critical of the pix and those who are circulating them. (See roundup below). Moran also has this to say:
Those who were perplexed, annoyed and/or enraged by Mrs. Obama’s statement that “for the first time in my adult life I’m proud of America” may want to take a look at HBO’s contribution to Black History Month, a documentary about Joe Louis.
Called, without irony, “a credit to his race,” the heavyweight champion was exalted in 1938 for beating the exemplar of Nazi Germany, Max Schmeling, but never accepted as a true American. Decades later, when playing golf in San Diego, he found excrement in the first hole.
As a white child growing up in the Harlem ghetto, I saw how little of the pride that Michelle Obama now feels was within reach of its black residents. Movie placards in store windows would read “Gone With the Wind with Hattie McDaniel and Butterfly McQueen,” followed in smaller type by “Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh.”
In the 1950s, it took a Supreme Court desegregation decision to let children who looked like Michelle Obama go to school with those who didn’t and, in the years afterward, they were beaten in the streets for marching with Martin Luther King for the audacity of wanting to exercise their right to vote.
