This bickering between the Hilary and Obama camps over her comments implying that despite all of Martin Luther King’s hard work, without Lyndon Johnson there would have been no Civil Rights laws passed, only diminishes both camps.
And my friends who support John Edwards and would like to see this be an opportunity for him to pull ahead, are out of luck. He blew it in the New Hampshire debate before the vote there, when Hilary passed the metaphoric peace pipe to him and he refused it, instead trying to paint him and Obama as the invevitable agents of change and her as the evil status quo as if Clinton = Bush.
False. And bad move. Yes, she represents the “liberal” side, to some extent, of the supposed ‘60s battles, but in fact she also represents the bipartisanship everyone’s calling for as she’s proven in the Senate, even though you might not like what she’s achieved through that bi-partisanship, and she represents the future and obvious change not only by the fact that she’s a woman but by the fact that she has continued to name and stand up to "the vast rightwing conspiracy.”
But even if Edwards hadn’t piled on her when she was down after Iowa, the fact that he didn’t either refrain from commenting on the Obama/Clinton-King/Johnson prattle, or point out that obviously Hilary wasn’t a racist and her meaning was obviously that there needs to be a partnership between agents of change in the real world and their partners in government who can make that change last in terms of laws, etc. and that obviously Obama wasn’t calling Hilary a racist (though his camp was implying it).
If Edwards had done either of those things, he would have finally come across statesmanlike, and would have finally seemed presidential and not just feisty and self-promoting and hectoring, no matter how much better his positions and promises might be.
Obama had captured that statesmanlike above-the-fray position, but he lost it with his seemingly offhanded and even bored response to Hilary’s response in the New Hampshire debate to a question about why she isn’t as likable as him—when she said that hurt her feelings, he commented, without looking at her, almost out of the side of his mouth as if he had better things to do than be a gentleman and show some humility and honor by dismissing such high school popularity contest bullshit, and instead said “You’re likable enough Hilary”—at least the way I remember seeing and hearing it that night.
A definite diminishment in my eyes of the high road he had seemed to be taking that was the embodiment of the changes he said he wanted to bring about. Now he’s beginning to seem like just another pol, playing the game he says he wants to change by refusing to play.
I hope he can get back to that place of not stooping to the attempts by Hilary’s minions to drag him down into the mud, and I hope she can get back to the vulnerability and likeability she displayed in that debate when she answered that question, or when she teared up in the Q&A a few days later, whether the tears were ones of frustration and exhaustion and despair at the thought of losing, or genuine concern, from an insider who knows what it takes to actually make change (she’s right on that) and like many of us is genuinely dismayed at what has happened to our country and is genuinely worried that unless the right moves are made to actually reverse the destruction caused by Bush junior and his gang, the country we love may cease to exist as we remember it.
Either way, that made her steely resolve and hard earned thick skin easier to accept, and she needs to do more of it. While her two male opponents among the frontrunners need to back off picking on her and make their argument for why they can best repair the damage the Bushies have done and save our country, and bring it to new heights of democracy and freedom, of equality and transparency, of fairness and respect for privacy, of a belief that following the principles enshrined in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is not only every elected politicians duty, but privilege.
Not to get carried away.
As for the Republicans, Romney might benefit from Huckabee and McCain splitting some less traditional Republican votes in Michigan (though he hasn’t got a chance in any general election). We’ll get back to them after Michigan.
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8 comments:
"..and like many of us is genuinely dismayed at what has happened to our country and is genuinely worried that unless the right moves are made to actually reverse the destruction caused by Bush junior and his gang, the country we love may cease to exist as we remember it."
Exactly. This is another example of what a confusing 8 years this has been for me. In many ways I feel like I'm now the conservative and they're the radical bomb-throwers (literally). And yet their accusations, unchanged for more than 40 years, are still treated as contemporary critiques.
Hello Michael. I am an old friend who has lost touch with you. I have been reading your insightful blog for a while and I have refrained from writing until today.
I disagree with you on your pick of John Edwards. Edwards had a chance to stop being the the consummate whiner but instead he decided to attack Hilary during the New Hampshire debate thinking that he just might come in second by attaching himself to Obama's coattails. Edward's message is good but when I hear him talk I want to turn off the television. Too snarky.
Instead Edward's provoked the Republicans to put in the fix with Diebold so they could slow Obama's momentum and insure that Hilary remains a viable candidate.
Kim Williams
BTW what happened to your website?
Kim, Great to hear from you, but you misread my post. I haven't decided on anyone yet, I'm just writing about what's happening in the campaigns so far, as I see it. I was addressing my comments on Edwrads to friends who support him, mostly because of his out-and-out stand against corporate greed and political influence, which I too find attractive. But I don't think he can win.
As for my website, I wondered the same thing. It was created and maintained by a good writer and friend who set it up through a network or carrier, or whatever it is, that suddenly disappeared from the internet. So now we've got to find a new whatever to carry it, something I was suipposed to be looking into, but...haven't yet and am not even sure how to. It's my technodyslexia.
Like it or not, Lally, it's a dogfight between the Democrats and let it be! You write that both Obama and John didn't act like gentleman as regards Hilary—ain't that a sexist thing to say. Hilary, although not my choice, doesn't need any man or woman to defend her.
They are all fighting for the title, think they are the best and SHOULD feel and act that way—this is not some kindergarden competition where 'everyone's a winner.'
And this fight is just a warm-up for the one between them and the Rep candidate.
And couldn't Hilary just as easily be described as "feisty and self-promoting and hectoring" on any given day? You just don't like Edwards and you're looking for a reason to pin it on.
And I think Obama was embarrassed by the question of who's more likable because it was a beauty pageant question, and that's what came out in his answer to Hilary.
I just left an incredibly long reply to you kid, but for whatever reason it disappeared. So let me try and make this brief, since it's late and I'm too tired to get into a long argument. This hasn't got anything to do with sexism or me wanting Edwards and Obama to act like Hilary is a damsel in distress and they're gallant knights etstupiudcetera. Please give me more credit than that. This is about politics, which I have been intimately involved with throughout my life, from the Democratic machine of the 1950s and early '60s my father was part of, to my own running for office and being involved in various campaigns, and what Edwards did in that New Hampshire debate was politically inept. You can say what you want about Bush junior, and I certainly have, I despise his politics and the horrible destruction he has wrought on this country of ours I love as much or more than any right winger I have ever heard or known, but he was a sharp politician. It wasn't all Rove. Because first McCain in the race for the nomination and then Gore in the presidential campaign, could not get him off the likeable, regular-guy-you'd-want-to-have-a-beer-with, "humble" and "compassionate" conservative he never was and still isn't. Rove and the other minions got as tough and as lowdown dirty as any political machine has ever done, especially with McCain in South Carolina, but in the debate junior kept his cool and never directly denigrated McCain, but instead acted offended that anyone would accuse him of dirty tricks, etc. It ended up making McCain stumble, and that was that. Hilary did the same thing to Obama and Edwards in the New Hampshire debate, and they both took the bait. Whether this first seemingly genuine (and it may well have been, it seemed to be to me, after all how could she know she was going to be asked why Obama was more likeable) of her vulnerability and therefore likeability is the real her or not, it came across as very real and Obama came across in reaction as arrogant and dismissive, even condescending, exactly what Bush in private obviously is and demonstarted many times in public once he actually got into office. And Edwards came across equally politically condescending when he responded to Hilary's attempt to make a peaceful gesture toward him by seemingly dimissing it out of hand as if it wasn't worth his consideration. If he had any brains, like he's supposed to, certainly more than Junior, he would have complimented her or her past attempts to do good things, even emphasizing "attempts" to remind people that her health policy failed, not so that he and Obama and her are kindergarten everyone-wins as you say, which has nothing to do with politics kid, and I'm a little insulted that you interpreted anything I've posted as implying anything like that, but to not make it about "us and them" like Bush did after 9/11. That's the way Edwards' response to Hilary came across, as you're either with him and Obama (as Kim pointed out above, trying to tie himself to Obama's then victorious coattails) and "change" or with Hilary and the "status quo" as if she represents some backward march into some retro nostalgia campaign instead of a distinct and sharp break with everything junior has done and stands for. It was insulting to me, someone who hasn't made up his mind yet, implying that if I considered Hilary a viable candidate I was somehow on the garbage heap of history, and obviously that's the way a lot of his supporters saw it, according to the most recent voter research that shows a lot of his people voted for Hilary, probably out of spite. He may have been a brilliant trial lawyer and have a high IQ, and even have some of the best positions and ideas in the campaign, but he's a dolt when it comes to interviews and debates. He comes across well when he's referring to his father and grandmother working in the mill and all that, but otherwise Kim is right, he comes across "snarky" just as Hilary often comes across school marmish or bitchy, and Obama now has come across in that one dumb response to Hilary "you're likeable enough" in endless YouTube loops as condescending. You are aboslutely right, this is hardball politics, but it will not benefit any of them, and certainly not whoever becomes the candidate, if they supply an arsenal of verbal and political weaponry for the Republicans to use when the nominations are finally settled. It's stupid. And as someone who wants passionately to see a Democrat in the Whitehouse in 2009, it dismays me that they haven't figured this shit out for themselves yet, or if they have, forget it in the heat of debates and the spotlight. It's weak kid, we don't need a politically weak candidate.
Brother, I can't go with you on this one. The Clintons are smart, smart people. They're not racists - quite the opposite - but they want to win and they despise Obama. I've seen it myself - when I became a target for their attack machine, partially because they (mistakenly) think I'm supporting Obama. (Maybe I will someday, but I'm still looking at Edwards.)
They're masters of subliminal messaging in politics. Books have been written on this stuff, and believe me they've read every one. I think the MLK line was a subtle way of typecasting eloquent black men as talkers, not do-ers. They didn't think they'd be busted on it, though. And I think it's part of a broader campaign.
Could I be wrong? Sure. But AFTER this blew up, Bob Johnson of BET called Obama a "Sidney Poitier" (that is, Uncle Tom) AND brings up his drug use - after Mark Penn was slammed for the same thing - AND with Hillary in the room!! And neither Bill nor Hillary will apologize for it. Just an accident?
And that's AFTER senior Clinton ally Bob Kerrey said repeatedly that Obama's the son of a Muslim (not actually true - his father left Islam before his birth), is corrected for it and keeps doing it anyway. And after a Clinton aide told a reporter whites just like Obama because they want a "hip black friend."
And then there are the ambiguous ones that are hard to call - "shuck and jive" and "fairy tale" - which I DON'T think were necessarily racist. But you mean to tell me all this is happening by accident?? And nobody's been fired for it??
Ironically, Hillary has a more progressive voting record than Obama. But if that's the best her so-called 35 years of experience gets us, I'm not impressed. And if it's what I think it is, I'm more than just unimpressed. I'm outraged.
I appreciate your call for progressive unity, but there are some barriers a candidate can't cross in my name. And it's too bad - she could be running such a positive campaign. I don't think the other guys are angels by any means, but the Clinton team has been acting very, very badly in my opinion.
Okay, I was a little harsh in some of my comments on this, and RJ may be right about the Clintons, though if they are as Machiavellian and evil as they are being portrayed to be, as well as "racist," by many of Obama's and Edwards' supporters, than the vast rightwing conspiracy has completed its mission. Not only will most if not all conservatives and rightwingers believe that the Clintons would do anything to win and maintain power, ala the Bushes et. al., but a big chunk of liberals and progressives and others on the left will now believe that too. In which case, all their (Bill and Hilary) attempts to change things for the better, whether they failed and gave up too soon or not (in the face of overwhelming odds including a conspiracy to paint them as muderers, among other things, any other candidates have films circulating out there that purport to show evidence of candidates having murdered their best friends in order to maintain their power?) (I'm talking for women, children, African-Americans, other minorities, gays, etc.) is all jive and they are almost as bad, or maybe as bad or worse, than who? Bush? Rudy? Certainly than McCain, Huckabbee, Romney, Thompson or Paul. So if Hilary gets nominated, will those who believe she and her campaign were deliberately racist, deliberately dishonest and "swiftboated" (a term I believe you used on your blog rj, or am I remembering that incorrectly) vote for her over any of those Republicans? Or just choose not to vote, as many did in 1968 and 2000, leaving the Republicans who won to cause hundreds and hundreds of thousands of deaths, let alone destruction and permanenet damage to our political system etc. Is it worth it? Hilary's comment about LBJ and King was obviously calculated to make the point that inspiration has to be coupled with practical politics in order to achieve the shared goals. Do you really think she was sending a message to whatever secret racists are still out there, or not so secret, that King was some kind of lackey of Johnson's or not as good or whatever. We're celebrating a national holiday in King's name, Johnson is all but forgotten and certainly nowhere in the public sphere is he honored, as King continues to be. And rightfully. Was it a miscalculation on her part? Maybe. But racist? What Democrats is racism going to appeal to? You think the Clintons are that dumb? If they are responsible for the misinformation, or actually misinterpretation of Obama's voting record when it comes to abortion etc. then so are Edwards and Obama when it comes to characterizing Hilary's voting record as "status quo" (as you actually point out, rj). I think there's an emotional response to Hilary's seeming so uptight a lot of the time and Bill's being past his time and too rich and spoiled now, or something. I can't explain it otherwise. I loved Edwards message and his presence from the first time I heard him, and Obama even more. But all I've tried to point our is they're making political missteps in trying to make the campaign about Hilary being somehow from the stone age or her and her camp being racists. I am afraid, just from our exchanges, people who generally agree on the issues and share the same goals and values, and yet can get so heated. And I'm sorry that my language sometimes comes across as beligerent or arrogant when I only mean to express my passionate fear that we Dems and liberals and progressives are digging a hole it may be impossible to climb out of come November.
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