Category Archives: Democrats

Are Democrats more sexist? Hillary Clinton seems to think so

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Democrats_feminists3

Normally, I don’t think very hard about things that make little sense, such as the claim by Hillary Clinton that her flagging political fortunes result from "misogyny." Since such claims are not logical, I don’t bother carrying them to their "logical conclusions."

That’s a mistake on my part, because such an exercise can yield interesting results. Check out this very short op-ed piece in the WSJ this morning, headlined, "Nothing but Misogynists."

It starts out by considering some of her statements along the lines of what I quoted earlier in the week:

"I think that both gender and race have been obviously a part of it because of who we are and every poll I’ve seen show more people would be reluctant to vote for a woman to vote for an African American, which rarely gets reported on either…. But it does seem as though the press at least is not as bothered by the incredible vitriol that has been engendered by comments and reactions of people who are nothing but misogynists."

It then considers that at the same time she’s blaming misogyny for her failures in Democratic contests, she asserts — in practically the same breath — that she’s "the strongest candidate against John McCain."

So the op-ed piece arrives, quite logically, at this conclusion:

    This fact (if it be a fact) reveals a hitherto unknown, ugly truth about the Democratic Party. The alleged bastion of modern liberalism, toleration and diversity is full of (to use Mrs. Clinton’s own phrase) "people who are nothing but misogynists." Large numbers of Democratic voters are sexists. Who knew?
    But here’s another revelation. If Mrs. Clinton is correct that she is more likely than Barack Obama to defeat John McCain in November, that implies Republicans and independents are less sexist than Democrats.
    It must be so. If American voters of all parties are as sexist as the Democrats, Mr. Obama would have a better chance than Mrs. Clinton of defeating Mr. McCain. The same misogyny that thwarted her in the Democratic primaries would thwart her in the general election. Only if registered Republicans and independents are more open-minded than registered Democrats – only if people who lean GOP or who have no party affiliation are more willing than Democrats to overlook a candidate’s sex and vote on the issues – could Mrs. Clinton be a stronger candidate…

Who knew, indeed?

Our Joe cup overfloweth

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Y‘all saw where I bragged on Joe for his fine piece in the WSJ the other day. Well, today we have a counterpoint from Joe in that same publication, so our cup overfloweth.

OK, for those of you too lazy to follow links, I’m talking Lieberman and Biden, respectively. Both of them are good guys. We endorsed the first Joe in his presidential bid in 2004, and might well have endorsed the other this time around if he hadn’t dropped out before the S.C. primary (we went with Obama instead, you’ll recall). Both are blessed with essential Joe-ness, as I’ve explained before.

And although these pieces are set against each other, there is much to love in each of them, infused as they are with Joe-ness. In other words, they are written by rational men who are not entirely enslaved by the idiotic partisan extremes of our times. Joe is much more inclined to support his party’s nominee, but that’s because he hasn’t made the radical break that Joe was forced into. But you still don’t find the kind of polarized claptrap that you usually hear from the party faithful on either side.

OK, I’ll start using last names, although it sounds unfriendly…

Here’s one of the best parts of Mr. Biden’s piece. It repeats a point that I’ve praised him for making in the past, which is that President Bush blew a once-in-a-lifetime chance to lead this nation, and the Western alliance, into a far better place than the sad situation that Joe, I mean Tom, Friedman described the other day. Anyway, here’s the Biden excerpt:

    Sen. Lieberman is right: 9/11 was a pivotal moment. History will judge Mr. Bush’s reaction less for the mistakes he made than for the opportunities he squandered.
    The president had a historic opportunity to unite Americans and the world in common cause. Instead – by exploiting the politics of fear, instigating an optional war in Iraq before finishing a necessary war in Afghanistan, and instituting policies on torture, detainees and domestic surveillance that fly in the face of our values and interests – Mr. Bush divided Americans from each other and from the world.

As with Lieberman, though, there are weak spots. In particular, there’s this contradictory passage:

    Terrorism is a means, not an end, and very different groups and countries are using it toward very different goals. Messrs. Bush and McCain lump together, as a single threat, extremist groups and states more at odds with each other than with us: Sunnis and Shiites, Persians and Arabs, Iraq and Iran, al Qaeda and Shiite militias. If they can’t identify the enemy or describe the war we’re fighting, it’s difficult to see how we will win.
    The results speak for themselves.
    On George Bush’s watch, Iran, not freedom, has been on the march: Iran is much closer to the bomb; its influence in Iraq is expanding; its terrorist proxy Hezbollah is ascendant in Lebanon and that country is on the brink of civil war.

The problem is that on the one hand, he feels constrained (since he’s still in the party) to state the party line that terrorism is a means, not an end, or even a coherent enemy — all of which is true, but his litany of all the different contending actors is belied by the truth he later embraces: That through it all, Iran has been on the march, and gaining against us. That would have been an excellent point to make; it’s just too bad he weakened it by making the situation seem less coherent than it is two paragraphs before (this incoherence of the enemy is essential to the modern Democratic ideology that Lieberman abhors — the refusal to clearly see and clearly state the degree to which we face a coherent, albeit complex, enemy).

I refer to another recent Friedman column, which — thanks to the fact that he isn’t carrying anybody‘s political water — states how all of these superficially disparate issues are connected, to our nation’s great disadvantage (largely due to the Bush failures that Biden refers to):

    The next American president will inherit many foreign policy challenges, but surely one of the biggest will be the cold war. Yes, the next president is going to be a cold-war president — but this cold war is with Iran.
    That is the real umbrella story in the Middle East today — the struggle for influence across the region, with America and its Sunni Arab allies (and Israel) versus Iran, Syria and their non-state allies, Hamas and Hezbollah. As the May 11 editorial in the Iranian daily Kayhan put it, “In the power struggle in the Middle East, there are only two sides: Iran and the U.S.”

Anyway, if the link works for you, I recommend you read this one as well as the last one. Between the two of them, you’ll see an intelligent way to debate foreign policy, as opposed to the idiocy of left and right, Democrat and Republican.

Pictures of what I’ve REALLY been doing

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Or at least, from SOME of what I’ve been doing…

I feel like I’ve really been dropping the ball on the blog the last couple of weeks. I’ve been giving you quick and easy posts based on stuff that necessarily passes quickly through my hands during the day — an e-mail here, something from a proof there, maybe a quick take on a headline — and encouraged y’all to talk amongst yourselves while I chug along in meetings with candidates and others, one after another.

The thing is, if I were doing what I started this blog to do — giving you extra, in-depth, raw material that is over and above what I’m able to give you on the printed page (and South Carolina stuff at that, based on access I have to newsmakers by virtue of the job, stuff you can’t possibly get elsewhere) — I’d be writing about the meetings.

The trouble is, I’ve had no time to think about the meetings, or review notes to pull out highlights, or edit video from them, or anything. I’ve just chugged along, out of one meeting and into another. Again we see demonstrated the principle that you can either blog, or you can have experiences worth blogging about; you can’t have both. It’s frustrating.

So accept this quick-and-dirty photo essay, just to give you a taste of what’s been going on here in the editorial offices since Monday the 12th. Here you see at least one photo from each meeting I’ve had these two weeks with a guest or guest from outside the building (staff meetings are not documented), with the briefest possible summary. (I’ve got to get this done and move on to reading proofs for Friday’s paper.)

(In all this time, I’ve had one meeting outside the building. Tuesday afternoon I visited Providence Hospital to get an update on what’s happening there. I had a camera in my pocket, but it all went so fast I never had it out — more of a rush job, unfortunately, than a similar visit to Lexington Medical several months back, when we weren’t as rushed or as shorthanded.)

Here we go…

Monday, May 12, 11 a.m. — John Scott, Senate Dist. 19, Democrat:
Scottjohn_060

Tuesday, May 13, 9:30 a.m. — Kit Spires, House Dist. 96, Republican:
Spireskit_006

1 p.m. — Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott, Democrat:
Lottleon_042

2 p.m. — Katrina Shealy, Senate Dist. 23, Republican:
Shealykatrina_001

Wednesday, May 14, 10 a.m. — Tony Lamm, House Dist. 79, Republican:
Lammtony_030

11:30 a.m. — Don Purcell, Richland County Council Dist. 9, Republican:
Purcelldon_021

1 p.m. — Barbara Scott, Richland County Clerk of Court, Democrat:
Scottbarbara_015

Thursday, May 15, 9:30 a.m. — Jimmy Brazelle, Lexington County Sheriff, Republican:
Brazellejimmy_001

11 a.m. — Kendall Corley, Richland County Clerk of Court, Democrat:
Corleykendall_040

noon — Sheri Few, House Dist. 79, Republican:
Fewsherri_024

1 p.m. — Damon Jeter, Richland County Council Dist. 3, Democrat:
Jeterdamon2_007

Monday, May 19, 11 a.m. — Johnny Bland, Richland County Council Dist. 7, Democrat:
Blandjohnny_109

4:30 — Our own James D. McCallister, as part of a delegation advocating the 5 Points parking garage/multi-use development:
5points_001

4:30 — Columbia City Councilwoman Anne Sinclair, in the same meeting as James:
5points_014

Tuesday, May 20, 9:30 a.m. — Jake Knotts, Senate Dist. 23, Republican:
Knottsjake_010

Wednesday, May 21, 11 a.m. — Tom Comerford, Lexington County Clerk of Court, Republican:Comerfordtom_006


4 p.m. — Gloria Montgomery, Richland County Clerk of Court, Democrat:

Montgomerygloria_024_2
Thursday, May 22, 9:30 a.m. — Val Hutchinson, Richland County Council Dist. 9, Republican:
Hutchinsonval_007

11 a.m. — Kerry Johnson, Lexington County Sheriff, Republican:
Johnsonkerry_041

1 p.m. — Napoleon Tolbert, Richland County Council Dist. 7, Democrat:
Tolbertnapoleon_030

Joe laments loss of the party of FDR, Truman, JFK

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This is why I like Joe Lieberman so much — he’s always writing stuff that sounds like I wrote it myself, always giving me cause to think, Thank God I’m not alone here…

Specifically, he wrote in an op-ed piece in today’s WSJ:

How did the Democratic Party get here? How did the party of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy drift so far from the foreign policy and national security principles and policies that were at the core of its identity and its purpose?…

This was the Democratic Party that I grew up in – a party that was unhesitatingly and proudly pro-American, a party that was unafraid to make moral judgments about the world beyond our borders. It was a party that understood that either the American people stood united with free nations and freedom fighters against the forces of totalitarianism, or that we would fall divided.

He goes on to lament how this unraveled over Vietnam. He writes wistfully of efforts by such Democrats as himself (remember the Third Way?) to pull the party back from a condition in which it blamed America for all its international troubles, as the party became "prisoner to a foreign policy philosophy that was, in most respects, the antithesis of what Democrats had stood for under Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy."

There are flaws in the piece, admittedly. He uses the inaccurate common terminology, referring to this trend toward self-loathing isolationism as a move "to the left" — when I would assert that it is the rejection of the kind of idealistic, internationalist liberalism of FDR, JFK and the rest. Isolationism is, if nothing else, a manifestation of conservatism — and not the better sort of conservatism, either.

But set that aside. He ends strongly, with a quote from "a great Democratic secretary of state," Dean Acheson (who, perhaps not coincidentally, was from Connecticut):

(N)o people in history have ever survived, who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies.

Hillary talks about how beastly media men have been to her

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Here’s an audio clip of Hillary Clinton talking to a Washington Post reporter about the misogynistic treatment she has supposedly received as a candidate, and how "surprised" she was by it.

Mind you, in Hillary’s defense — if I may be so chivalrous without giving offense — the reporter is really pressing this line of discussion on her, urging her to talk about this treatment that has "really pissed off a lot of women." So it’s not like she brought it up. They refer to a column over the weekend by the Post‘s Marie Cocco detailing men’s sins against Hillary, which I gotta tell you I had to go read, because I was really wondering what these two ladies were going on about… Ms. Cocco wrote that when this is all over, she "won’t miss" all this misogyny. After reading the list of sins (ranging from Andrew Sullivan down to some unnamed sleazeballs selling tasteless novelty items), I must confess that I did miss them, mostly (I think I did hear the one about "everyone’s first wife," secondhand). But then I wasn’t looking for them. And I don’t watch TV "news."

But given the opportunity, she complains that sexism has been way more of a problem than racism. That lucky duck Obama, huh? You would apparently have known all about this, but we men in the media have been covering it up.

Anyway, if you don’t want to follow the link, here’s a transcript:

Q. One of
the stories that has been well documented over and over again is basically how
you’ve been treated by the media. Can you talk about that a little bit, because
I get the idea that it’s really pissed off a lot of women.
 
A. "I think
it has. I think it’s been deeply offensive to millions of women. … I believe
this campaign has been a ground breaker in lots of ways, but it certainly has
been challenging given some of the attitudes that have been forthcoming in the
press, and I regret that because I think it’s been really not worthy of the
seriousness of this campaign and the historical nature of the two candidacies
that we have here. But I don’t really stop to worry about it because there’s
nothing I can do about it."
 
Q. Are women
going to be upset if you don’t get the nomination?
 
A. I have
more voters now than my opponent. I have more popular vote, more people voting
for me.
 
Q. Counting
Michigan and Florida?
 
A. According
to ABC, and I think it’s a fair way to total it up because my name was on the
ballot they voted for me. But in any event, it’s one of the closest races we’ve
ever had and I think that a lot of people are deeply invested in their
candidates, so there will probably be disappointment no matter which of us gets
the nomination. And then it will be up to us to unify the party and make sure we
are victorious in November against McCain.
 
Q. What’s
the scenario by which you could still win the nomination?
 
A. If people
start asking themselves who’s the strongest candidate against John McCain,
because I believe I am.
 
Q. Do you
think he can win?
 
A. Sure. I
think he can win–I think I will win.
 
Q. But short
of a scandal on his part do you see people coming to that
conclusion?
 
A. I don’t
know, that’s why we’re not going to quit. We’re going forward. We’re going to
give the people in the remaining elections the chance to vote, which I think is
absolutely fair. And we’re going to resolve Michigan and Florida, which has to
be done sooner instead of later. And then we’ll see where we
stand.
 
Q. Do you
think this has been a particularly racist campaign?
 
A. I do not.
I think this has been a positive, civil campaign. I think that both gender and
race have been obviously a part of it because of who we are and every poll I’ve
seen show more people would be reluctant to vote for a woman to vote for an
African American, which rarely gets reported on either. The manifestation of
some of the sexism that has gone on in this campaign is somehow more respectable
or at least more accepted. And I think there should be equal rejection of the
sexism and the racism when and if it ever raises its ugly head. But it does seem
as though the press at least is not as bothered by the incredible vitriol that
has been engendered by comments and reactions of people who are nothing but
misogynists.
 
Q. Isn’t
that how it’s always been though.
 
A.
Oppression of women and discrimination against women is universal. You can go to
places in the world where there are no racial distinctions except everyone is
joined together in their oppression of women. The treatment of women is the
single biggest problem we have politically and socially in the world. If you
look at the extremism and the fundamentalism, it is all about controlling women,
at it’s base. The idea that we would have a presidential campaign in which so
much of what has occurred that has been very sexist would be just shrugged off I
think is a very unfortunate commentary about the lack of seriousness that should
be applied to any kind of discrimination or prejudice. I have spent my entire
life trying to stand up for civil rights and women’s rights and human rights and
I abhor wherever it is discrimination is present.

Radical Chic, and Mau-Mauing the Superdelegates

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Four quick things:

  1. First, don’t try to figure out the headline on this post. It doesn’t exactly make sense; I just liked it.
  2. Second, The Washington Post has a piece today suggesting that if Hillary Clinton is going to point to Barack Obama’s associations with ’60s-era radicals, she’ll need to answer for her own experience "in the summer of 1971 when she worked as an intern at a left-wing law
    firm in Oakland, Calif., that defended communists and Black Panthers."
  3. Third, when folks do give Obama a hard time about the Weather Underground, why do they talk about Bill Ayres, when the guy’s name rings no bells for me? Why don’t they speak instead of Ayres’ wife, Bernardine Dohrn, who is way more famous and way, way more memorable? She and Obama worked in the same law firm once, and when an Obama fund-raiser was held at Ayres’ home when he was running for state Senate, it was her home, too? This seems to me a slight to female radicals everywhere, and they are not a category of woman one usuals wants to cross…
  4. Finally, which do you prefer, Weather Underground, or the much-cooler, Dylan-inspired "Weatherman?" Not that I’m trying to influence your decisions…

Why do we let THESE people run our country?

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How can any Democrat or Republican look in the mirror after the shenanigans in the House Thursday? An excerpt from the WSJ‘s story today:

WASHINGTON — The House rejected $163 billion in funding for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — the first time the House has voted against funding for the Iraq war — as Republicans held back support as a protest against domestic-spending items Democrats added to the legislation.
    Some antiwar Democrats applauded as 132 Republicans voted "present" and the funding failed on a 149-to-141 vote….
    The House passed two other measures during the war debate, one placing restrictions on the Iraq war, including a timeline for troop withdrawal, and another expanding funding for veterans’ education benefits by collecting a new surtax from wealthy taxpayers.
    Democratic leaders planned the votes separately to allow their antiwar members to vote against funding operations in Iraq, while still passing a bill. But Republicans didn’t vote for the war funding and then accused Democrats of loading up the legislation with spending items "on the backs" of troops….

I propose that when the Grownup Party takes over, we should ride them all out of town on a rail. Or is that a less-than-Grownup, emotional response on my part? Maybe, but somehow making them stand in a corner seems grossly inadequate.

The Obama Effect

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By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
WEEKS SUCH as the one just past — in which I am still mired as I write this — do not lend themselves to complete, extended thought of the sort that leads to coherent columns.
    But when have I ever let that stop me?
    We’re in the middle of candidate interviews for the June primaries — 50-plus meetings with folks seeking their respective parties’ nominations for the state House, state Senate, county councils, sheriff, clerk of court, and on and on ….
    But as disparate as these candidates and their goals and issues may be, sometimes themes emerge, or seem to emerge.
    Here’s one, which I’ll call The Obama Effect, just to have something trendy to call it.
    There’s nothing new about this effect, of course, and I certainly didn’t discover it. But I have been tracking it since last July, when I wrote a column headlined “Obama, the young, and the magic of Making a Difference.” I wasn’t sure what I was describing then. I’m not sure now, either. It’s an amorphous phenomenon, or set of phenomena — but one of considerable force in spite of, or perhaps because of, that lack of easy definition.
    It’s the thing that led to nearly half a million people coming out to vote in the S.C. Democratic presidential primary in January, which is all the more extraordinary when you recall that there had been a very hotly contested Republican presidential primary just the week before, and that no one who voted in that was allowed to vote in the other. The turnout on Jan. 26 was double that of the 2004 Democratic primary. Republicans, after 20 years of touting the growing pull of their party, actually saw participation decline from their last contested presidential primary. This is less because of a decline in GOP fortunes in the state, and more because of an indefinable something over on the Democratic side.
    Detractors mock the phenomenon for the very fact that it is so hard to describe. “Hope” for what? they say. What kind of “Change”? Satirists have no end of fun mocking media types — people who make their livings describing things — for failing to explain why they’re going gaga. None of that diminishes the power of the thing.
    Still, I thought it had rolled on to other states beginning in February. But then we started these interviews, and I began to see a certain something — something I couldn’t quite put my finger on — cropping up on the county and legislative district levels.
    We’re used to candidates coming in with definite reasons for seeking office. Challengers speak of their enthusiasm for a certain cause, or describe in excruciating detail their indignation over having sought help from their representative and found him or her insufficiently responsive (a very common reason to run for office). Incumbents speak of needing just a little more time to accomplish that same thing they wanted to accomplish the last time they ran, and the time before that. And so on. After a few election cycles, you can finish the candidates’ sentences for them.
    But this time, we met some first-time candidates in Democratic primaries who didn’t seem to have a particular reason for filing, beyond a newfound enthusiasm for public service itself. Their reason for being in our interview room was ill-defined. I wrote a summary of one such interview on my blog, which led a curmudgeonly reader to complain that “those bromides tell us exactly nothing” as to what this candidacy was about. But I had included this clue: a quote from said candidate to the effect that this was “an exciting year, an historical year” to get involved….
    Not long after that interview, Associate Editor Cindi Ross Scoppe wondered aloud why some of these folks were running, and I ventured the hunch that this was a case of The Obama Effect. She said I had no objective, quantifiable reason for saying that. And she was right, of course.
    A few days later, Richland County Council Chairman Joe McEachern — who’s running for the seat currently held by Rep. John Scott, who’s running for one held by Sen. Kay Patterson — made no bones about it: There was an Obama Factor pulling in folks who had never previously given any consideration to public life. He and other more experienced hands were fielding a lot of questions from enthusiastic people wanting to know exactly how to go about getting involved.
    All of the aforementioned candidates have been black Democrats. But it fell to a white Democrat, Rep. Jimmy Bales, to spell out the thing more overtly. He said he’d like to see his party increase its numbers in the S.C. House, and “this might be the year this happens.”
    “If Obama were the nominee,” he said on May 1, “and if Democrats would come together… I believe that he would come close to carrying this state,” and would in addition have the effect of increasing the number of Democratic S.C. House members — not so much to a majority, but to a less anemic minority. Say, from 51 members out of 124 to 58. He says this dispassionately, calmly, without any signs of hysteria. It’s just that the candidacy of Barack Obama has made some previously unlikely things seem attainable.
    No, I can’t prove it. Nor can I quantify it. But there’s something there, and it’s happening down on a much more local level than has been widely documented so far.

Senate Dist. 21: A ‘debate’ between Wendy Brawley and Sen. Darrell Jackson over his position on school ‘choice’

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This is one of my better little videos from endorsement interviews lately.

Wendy Brawley of Richland One school board, who is challenging Sen. Darrell Jackson for the Democratic nomination in Dist. 21, is going after the incumbent hard, and has a bill of particulars as to how she believes he’s looked after his own business more than the people’s. An example: Her accusation that he favors private school vouchers.

Sen. Jackson argues back strongly, point by point. I think it’s a video worth watching, especially if you live in that lower-Richland and Calhoun County district.

Obama answers Hillary’s shot with a PBR

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Obama1

Barack Obama, not to be outdone on the regular-guy front by Hillary’s boilermakers, strode decisively into a Raleigh bar tonight and ordered a Pabst Blue Ribbon.

As a result, he won the North Carolina primary. That is, you can’t prove that’s not why he won. If only he’d mastered the intricacies of Yuengling while there was still time in PA…

He also demonstrated that he could hold his brew by resisting a pitch from a perky saleswoman who wanted to sell him new kitchen countertops for the White House. Really.

Unfortunately, while the candidate was catching up on his drinking, his rival went and stole the Indiana primary — apparently. Obama, apparently feeling mellow, conceded that contest to her before it was even over.

So the madness continues.

Tomorrow, his campaign plans to work on his bowling. Once he cracks 100, they’ll teach him to bowl and drink beer at the same time, and then he’ll be unstoppable…

Obama2

The Obama Effect: Democrats’ chances in the S.C. House

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Here’s a video I prepared for publication on the Saturday Opinion Extra page for this week. It’s from an endorsement interview with Rep. Jimmy Bales, who’s being challenged in the Democratic primary for District 80 by Stanley Robinson.

Mr. Bales mentioned in passing in the first minute or so of the interview that he hoped Democrats would pick up a few seats in the S.C. House this year. Not quite hearing him, I asked a little later whether he had said he thought Dems might regain a majority.

Actually, he did think there was an outside possibility of that, but mainly he was hoping his party would find itself in a better tactical position with a few more seats. He mentions some districts in particular where he thought Democrats might prevail.

Here’s the kicker — he’s pinning his hopes on Barack Obama. This is a theme I’ve been running into, in various forms, in these interviews so far. The Obama Effect ranges from motivating folks who were previously uninterested in politics to run. And it prompts Mr. Bales to hope to get closer to 58 Democrats in the House, from the present 51. This depends, of course, on Mr. Obama being the nominee — as does so much else.

The Democratic Presidential Primary back in January created a lot of excitement, and we’re still seeing the effects.

A little bit of inside baseball: On the video, you’ll hear Cindi jumping in to make sure I have it right, and won’t go hog-wild on the "Democratic Majority" theme. She has nothing to worry about; I’m a professional.

SNL parodies of media and Obama

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Charles Krauthammers’ column on our Sunday op-ed page makes reference to the Saturday Night Live skits mocking the media’s fawning over Barack Obama. An excerpt:

    Real change has never been easy. . . . The status quo in Washington will fight. They will fight harder than ever to divide us and distract us with ads and attacks from now until November.
                — Barack Obama,
                    Pennsylvania primary
                    night speech

With that, Obama identified the new public enemy: the "distractions" foisted upon a pliable electorate by the malevolent forces of the status quo, i.e., those who might wish to see someone else become president next January. "It’s easy to get caught up in the distractions and the silliness and the tit for tat that consumes our politics" and "trivializes the profound issues" that face our country, he warned sternly. These must be resisted.
    Why? Because Obama understands that the real threat to his candidacy is less Hillary Clinton and John McCain than his own character and cultural attitudes. He came out of nowhere with his autobiography already written, then saw it embellished daily by the hagiographic coverage and kid-gloves questioning of a supine press. (Which is why those "Saturday Night Live" parodies were so devastatingly effective.)…

That prompted me to search for and find the skits, which I had not seen. They are funny. Not Akroyd-Belushi funny or anything, but amusing by the standards of latter-day casts. The funnier (and longer) one is the second one, at the bottom of this post.

Of course, the mockery isn’t one-sided. There’s also a funny send-up of Hillary Clinton being petulant about how Obama is treated and received. If you think that’s over-the-top, here’s a link to a real-life video in which, ironically enough, Hillary invokes the SNL skits, but only after whining in a particularly passive-aggressive manner about always having to answer the first question — acting a lot like her mimic in the skit. And I don’t think she’s kidding…

In Hillary’s defense, it DOES work…

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When it comes to my preference for Barack Obama in the contest for the Democratic nomination, I refuse to take a back seat to those worthies on the editorial board of The New York Times. However, I must protest that their urgent yearning for Hope and Change caused them to ignore rather obvious realities earlier this week:

    The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it.
    Voters are getting tired of it; it is demeaning the political process; and it does not work. It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.

When you say "Voters are getting tired of it," you mean you are getting tired of it, as am I. (Sure, you can say Obama still leads nationally poll, but "national" doesn’t count until November, and even then it’s state by state.) And yes, it’s demeaning, but this is politics, ya know.

And you’ve gotta hand it to the lady: It does work. It certainly did on Tuesday, anyway.

Is Bill Clinton wagging his finger at us AGAIN?

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Bill_clinton_wart

Speaking of The New York Times this morning, did you see how it described Bill Clinton’s reaction at being reminded of his attempt to ghetto-ize Obama back here in S.C.?

More Finger Wagging From a Miffed Bill Clinton
By KATE PHILLIPS
Published: April 23, 2008
WASHINGTON — Wagging his finger once again, former President Bill Clinton chided a reporter on Tuesday for what he deemed a misinterpretation of his remarks during a radio interview in which he said the Obama campaign “played the race card on me.”
    Mr. Clinton confronted the issue of race again on Monday when he was asked by an interviewer for WHYY radio in Philadelphia about his remarks earlier this year on the results of the South Carolina Democratic primary. At the time, he likened the victory of Senator Barack Obama to that of the Rev. Jesse Jackson in 1998; Mr. Clinton’s comparison was denounced widely by black officials who believed he was marginalizing Mr. Obama’s victory with a racially tinged allusion to Mr. Jackson’s failed presidential bids…

What I’d like to know is, was he literally wagging his finger — you know, the way he did before? And if you don’t remember, the video is below.

Unfortunately, I have no video on the latest incident, so I’ll just have to assume the wagging was figurative this time. But we do have some nice, clear audio. Be sure to turn up your volume at the end so you can hear him say, "I don’t think I can take any s..t from anybody on that, do you?" (Some listeners hear it as "don’t think I should take any s..t," but I think it’s "can"…)

Now, having listened to that, do you feel chastened? Do you feel guilty for having thought less of our former president, even for a moment? Are you gonna stop giving him s–t now? Are you listening, you Obama supporters? Shame on anyone who would dare question Bill Clinton, as he makes clear in this other video…

I’m not the only one tired of the Hillary-Obama battle

11 Replies

Hillarywave

Some of y’all jumped to disagree when I said yesterday I dreaded the inevitable Clinton win in PA — which, to add insult to injury, ended up being by exactly the margin everyone said she had to have to continue, not one percentage point more or less — but I’m not the only one.

As The New York Times said today,

For better or worse — and many Democrats fear it is for worse — the race goes on.

Of course, the Democrats have a different reason from mine for wanting the punishment to stop. For them, it hurts their electoral goal of beating John McCain. Me, I’m just sick of watching and listening — which unfortunately I can’t stop doing, not entirely. Trench warfare is an ugly thing, and can get monotonous. Isn’t this the time of year when should be turning our attention to more pleasant things?

Among my correspondents (that’s y’all, not counting you lurkers out there) there seems to be a correlation between those who want this mess to continue, and those who don’t intend to vote for either Clinton or Obama. Correct me if I’m wrong on that.

But if you want the bruising to go on because you lean Republican, what’s Hillary’s excuse?

Seriously, what does she think she’s accomplishing? Does she really still think she’ll win? I’ve seen nothing lately — including the PA result — to indicate that that’s likely. Or has she decided that if her party’s not going to pick her, she’s gonna make it pay? That makes as much sense as anything at this point.

There’s an irony here that’s just striking me. Hillary Clinton is demonstrating that she has just the sort of Churchillian "never surrender" attitude that will be necessary for us to have a good outcome in Iraq. And yet she, who voted for the invasion to start with, and has resisted expressing regret for that, has been forced to compete with Obama and other Democrats to see who could be the most convincing about wanting to get out.

As stubborn and determined as John McCain is about Iraq — no substitute for victory, and all that — if Hillary Clinton were to adopt his attitude toward our involvement there, no one could ever doubt her sticktoitiveness…

The ‘Fighter with the Hard Left Hook’

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Sure, maybe Hillary can do shots with the guys in PA, but she’d better thank her stars she’s not up against this guy in the primary.

Charlie Pope, former reporter at The State (and my former teammate on the Cosmic Ha-Has softball team), is now covering Washington for a paper in the Pacific Northwest. He brought my attention to this candidate from his neck of the woods, Steve Novick.

Sure, Obama overcame some hard times as a kid to go to Harvard Law (where they obviously don’t teach bowling), but Steve graduated Harvard at the age of 21 after being a high school dropout. He also, aside from being born without a left hand (he calls himself the "Fighter with the Hard Left Hook"), is only 4’9" tall.

But he’s a scrapper. And he’s with me on Health Care Reform. You gotta like the guy.

And if you want more Steve, here’s another one of his ads:

Bad news: Hillary likely to force war of attrition well beyond today

14 Replies

Remember how, in my Sunday column, I cited how undecided Pennsylvania voters were, according to Zogby? Specifically, I cited his figures as of last Thursday, which he said showed Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama "deadlocked." I wrote my column Thursday night.

On Friday, as I was editing the column and putting it on the Sunday page, I noticed that Mrs. Clinton had gained a little ("Clinton Edges Ahead"). But it was still within the margin of error, and could easily go the other way, so I didn’t make too much of it. On Saturday, it was "Clinton Builds Lead by Inches."

Apparently, those were not just fluctuations, assuming Zogby’s doing his sums right. The trend continued Sunday and Monday, and as of this morning, he announced that she had was she was looking for — a 10-point lead.

That means at the very least that she’s beyond the margin of error, and probably that she’ll get the magic double-digit win today that "conventional wisdom" says she’s got to have.

And that means this thing drags on. It’s still highly unlikely that she could win, but she can keep drawing blood from Obama as the days and weeks drag on.

If you’re a Democrat, this is awful news, because polls already show McCain tied with Obama (and beating Hillary, quite consistently, which continues to make me wonder what people who are voting for her are thinking). And if you’re a Republican, you’ve still got to be tired of this, right?

I know this UnPartisan is.

Waiting for Pennsylvania to buckle down and decide

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By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
LATE ONE Monday morning several weeks ago in a small-town diner in central Pennsylvania, I looked up from my paper to see that I was the last customer at the counter. Just the one waitress, the coffee pot and me.
    Filling the silence, I asked for a refill. Then I asked for her thoughts on the upcoming titanic battle in which she and her fellow Pennsylvanians would get to choose the Democratic nominee for president of the United States.
    She didn’t have any. Yeah, she knew there was something like that going on, and that some people were really excited, but she had made no effort to follow it. She wasn’t dismissive, and she was willing to hear me talk about it, but to her it was neither here nor there. Some customers want coffee. Others don’t. Some want to talk politics. Whatever.
    This was disconcerting. I looked around the way you do when you’re thinking, somebody back me up here. But it was just her and me. And there was something about the moment — she was so matter-of-fact — that made me feel like I was the one who had to explain himself.
    So I did, at some length. I even confessed that I actually made my living caring about elections and such, thinking and talking and writing about them, which as I said it sounded ludicrous. She just nodded. Some collect stamps; others watch birds. This guy’s into politics. Whatever.
    She even encouraged me, in a noncommittal way. She asked who was still in it. I explained that John McCain had sewn up the Republican nomination, and that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were locked in a tight battle on the Democratic side — one primary going to her, the next to him, back and forth, the suspense building. I told her how folks had come out in huge numbers in South Carolina to support Obama.
    So who will win? she asked, and I said the smart money at that point was on Obama, with more and more Democrats deciding they couldn’t support Hillary.
    She asked: “Why? Because she’s a woman?”
    The question wasn’t a challenge; there was no feminist defiance in it. She was just asking, the way you might ask, “Do you think it’s going to rain?”
    Certainly not, I told her, and tried to explain about the Obama Appeal, about Hope and Change (capitalizing the key words with my voice), and how Sen. Clinton tended to appeal to folks who actually relished the partisan fight between left and right, and that many Democrats, and independents who had voted in Democratic primaries where (unlike Pennsylvania) that was allowed, were tired of the Bad Old Politics, so Obama was really catching on.
    There were, however, certain demographic tendencies to be noted, I said. For instance, quite a few white women over the age of 30 (realizing that I had just described the woman in front of me, I started talking faster to put that part behind us) did seem to support her because she was a woman, but the men and minorities and young people and women who favored Obama were, if they were turned off by Clinton, reacting more to the sort of campaign she had run….
    She nodded, and when I paused to take a breath, told me that the woman who owned the diner, and another waitress who wasn’t on duty that morning, were both Hillary supporters. Apparently, I had described them pretty well. Deciding I should quit while I was ahead, I paid my check, making sure to tip at least 20 percent, and headed back out into the cold March wind.
    And I thought about that woman, and how very normal she had been. She was no silly, apathetic fool, the sort that the passionately committed declare that Democracy Is Wasted Upon. She was intelligent — at least average, if not more than. She was sensible, and perfectly willing to care about things that should be cared about. She was earning a living; she was doing what needed to be done, and not wasting energy on anything that didn’t.
    Since that day, she has come to represent The Pennsylvania Voter in my mind. Down here in South Carolina we knocked ourselves out trying to make a difference, and we did — giving Sen. McCain the payback he had waited eight years for, giving Sen. Obama a big push forward.
    But it’s not over yet on the Democratic side, and it’s within the power of Pennsylvanians to make the final decision, and after the mad pace of having a high-stakes primary about every five minutes from the first of January through early March, nothing has happened for weeks and weeks while we all wait for Pennsylvania to do something, and the latest polls say it’s still a dead heat. Zogby reported Thursday that 45 percent were still for Clinton, 44 percent for Obama, 9 percent undecided, and 3 percent wanted someone else.
    Tied? Undecided? Someone else? They still haven’t decided up there! It’s like they haven’t been paying attention.
    The candidates haven’t helped much, what with Sen. Clinton making up Bosnia war stories (there I was, pinned down…) and Sen. Obama going all cold and detached (religion is the opium of the people…), to the point that you can see how a sensible person might be turned off.
    But I find I want to drive back up there before Tuesday, and go back into that diner, and convince that sensible woman that these are solid candidates, that one of them is likely to become president, that the rest of us took them seriously, so won’t you please just bear with us long enough to go out and vote, and settle this thing for the sake of the country?
    And then, once you do, we can all take a load off, order another cup of coffee, and think about something else until Labor Day.

‘Hillary-style attacks’

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We at the UnParty continue to be fascinated at the ways in which party-line thinking warps perception…

You may have noticed that Democrats talk ominously and often about the coming "Republican attacks." There is much mumbling about "Swiftboating" and "Karl Rove," and other things that to bear no rational relationship to the fact that the Democratic nominee will be facing John McCain in the fall.

As is often the case with ideological mythology, almost anything is justified in the cause of warding off these dread calamities that lie ahead. Hillary Clinton uses the belief that such atrocities are on the way as an excuse to pound Barack Obama with various bludgeons that the wicked GOPpers will certainly hit him with sooner or later. The message here is that those monsters on the right have already thrown everything they have at HER ("having now gone through 16 years of being on the receiving end of what the Republican Party dishes out"), thereby giving her immunity or something. (I think you have to believe in the mythology to follow the reasoning.)

In the black-and-white world that gives rise to such thinking, there is no difference between Karl Rove and John McCain. Anyone who consents to be called a Republican is equally evil, with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln. That McCain, who has been a victim of such excesses as the Democrats fear, might be different does not enter into the equation.

Will groups on the Right do unconscionable things against the Democratic nominee in the Fall? You betcha, just as MoveOn.org and its ilk will do to the Republican — a fact that purveyors of the Coming Debacle seem to overlook. What each side will do in the name of ideology will be reprehensible, as always — that’s why I’m an UnParty man. Sadly, I don’t expect much from Democrats and Republicans.

But sometimes, it just gets beyond ridiculous, such as when Joe Klein refers to "the Republican-style attacks that Hillary Clinton has been previewing…"

No, Joe. This is not a preview; this is real life, happening in real time. And it’s Hillary doing it. These are, quite obviously and demonstrably, "Hillary-style" attacks. Or perhaps we should say, "Stephanopoulos-style attacks." Here’s a sample, from Wednesday night’s debate:

And if I’m not mistaken, that relationship with Mr. Ayers on this board continued after 9/11 and after his reported comments, which were deeply hurtful to people in New York, and I would hope to every American, because they were published on 9/11 and he said that he was just sorry they hadn’t done more. And what they did was set bombs and in some instances people died. So it is — you know, I think it is, again, an issue that people will be asking about. And I have no doubt — I know Senator Obama’s a good man and I respect him greatly but I think that this is an issue that certainly the Republicans will be raising.

And it goes to this larger set of concerns about, you know, how we are going to run against John McCain. You know, I wish the Republicans would apologize for the disaster of the Bush-Cheney years and not run anybody, just say that it’s time for the Democrats to go back into the White House. (Laughter, applause.)

Unfortunately, they don’t seem to be willing to do that. So we know that they’re going to be out there, full force. And you know, I’ve been in this arena for a long time. I have a lot of baggage, and everybody has rummaged through it for years. (Laughter.) And so therefore, I have, you know, an opportunity to come to this campaign with a very strong conviction and feeling that I will be able to withstand whatever the Republican sends our way.

Not the SHE would say such things about Obama, he being such a good man, but you just can’t trust those damned Republicans. Folks, how simple do you have to be to miss the fact that SHE JUST SAID THESE THINGS?

What’s really pathetic is that they’ve got Obama buying into this line, and I would expect him to know better. Klein quotes Obama as saying, "That [debate] was the rollout of the Republican campaign against me in November…"

No, it was the real thing, happening in April, and it was Democrats doing it. Can’t you see that? Folks, this is why I trash parties all the time — they turn our brains to oatmeal.

You want to see a "Republican-style attack?" OK, here’s a real-life one that came in today:

Wednesday’s Democratic debate provided insight into Barack Obama’s positions on key foreign policy issues. As president he says he would immediately withdraw our troops from Iraq- even if he were strongly advised against this by our nation’s top military commanders. He would also hold direct talks with the Iranian regime- a regime that does not recognize Israel and is the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world. Iran’s president has even called for Israel to be "wiped off the map." 

During the debate, Barack Obama once again refused to condemn former President Jimmy Carter- who publicly supports Obama- for holding talks with the Hamas terrorist group, a group supported financially, politically and military by Iran.

Barack Obama’s foreign policy plans have even won him praise from Hamas leaders. Ahmed Yousef, chief political adviser to the Hamas Prime Minister said, "We like Mr. Obama and we hope he will win the election. He has a vision to change America."

We need change in America, but not the kind of change that wins kind words from Hamas, surrenders in Iraq and will hold unconditional talks with Iranian President Ahmadinejad.

John McCain’s foreign policy provides a stark contrast to the policies of Barack Obama. As president, John McCain will provide the leadership we need to win the war against Islamic extremists. We need your help today to reach out to Americans across the country to spread the message of John McCain’s plan for your national security. Please follow this link to make a financial contribution to our campaign today.

Yep, it’s another one of those McCain fund-raising e-mails I’ve been complaining about lately. It’s pretty critical, all right, but you’ll note that it’s built around policy differences. Nothing about bitter xenophobia in Middle America, or Bill Ayres, or Jeremiah Wright. And you know, McCain had to go out of his way to find something in that debate to comment on other than those things, since most of the debate centered on them.

That doesn’t mean McCain won’t point to the fact that he doesn’t see average Americans as bitter; in fact I think he already has. But now, he declines an obvious chance to join Hillary in piling on.

I just thought maybe somebody should point that out.

A working class hero is something to be, and golly I sure wish I could sound like one right about now…

39 Replies

Watching the Democratic debate in PA just now, I was really feeling for poor Barack Obama. They were, of course, asking him about the "religion and guns" thing, and he was trying to act like he welcomed the chance to explain what he meant to say, when obviously he welcomed it about as much as a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. And who can blame him?

Meanwhile, Hillary was trying not to jump up and down and hug herself with ersatz proletarian glee. Of course, when her turn came, she starts in with, "Well, I am the granddaughter of a factory worker from Scranton…"

This is totally unfair — who’d a thunk Mrs. Clinton would be anybody’s working class heroine? — but Mr. Obama did create the situation all by his lonesome.

Maybe he should make himself a note: In future, when running in a tight race in Pennsylvania, stay out of San Francisco…