“Singled Out” as Fair Game
By NoQuarter on February 10, 2008 at 9:03 PM in Current Affairs
At Shakespeare’s Sister, certainly one of our most erudite, and refreshingly pithy blogs, Mustang Bobby joins the brilliant blogger Digby in pondering the question that simply isn’t asked enough either by the media or by most Americans who unthinkingly buy into the fashionably negative patter about the Clintons:
Following up on the story of MSNBC reporter David Shuster being suspended for his comments about Chelsea Clinton, Digby has it right: why are the Clintons held to a different standard than every other candidate?
It hasn’t been just the self-important elite class who annoint, from on high, who meets their tight-nostriled criteria. It extended even to the White House staff. When the Clintons moved in to the White House in 1993, they “ordered that portraits of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman be hung prominently,” writes Sidney Blumenthal in his book about the Clinton presidency:
But the pictures were not put in place. The instructions to the staff were relayed again. Only after a month, and further prodding, was the order carried out. Some of the White House staf held, it seemed, a class deference to the previous Republican residents. From their upstairs-downstairs angle, patricians were being replaced by outlanders who didn’t know their place.
One of the more poignant passages I read in Blumenthal’s book on his years as a senior adviser in the Clinton White House was on a scarcely known, unreported outcome of the incessant investigations and media obsession with Whitewater:
On December 13, 1995, the Resolution Trust Corporation [created by the U.S government to oversee the S&L meltdown] released its … report on Whitewater … the result of an inquiry directed by the Republican Jay Stephens, a former U.S. attorney, and his law firm, Pillsbury, Madison and Sutro. … all fears from the White House turned out to be misplaced. The report completely and categorically absolved the Clintons–and answered all outstanding questions about Whitewater.
Why do I call the passage poignant? Because after describing the enormous relief that the Clintons felt — “they were vindicated” — Blumenthal reports that the White House sent out copies of the report to “more than 150 news organizations,” and that the Clintons eagerly anticipated the widespread reports of the extremely positive findings from a neutral agency:
Then, nothing happened. … The Wall Street Journal ran a straightforward article in its news pages. But days passed and nothing appeared in The Washington Post and The New York Times. No network broadcast any report. As it happened, the Post never mentioned it, and almost two weeks later, in an item in the Sunday “News of the Week in Review,” the Times published only a few lines, and somewhat misleading ones at that.
Mustang Bobby explains further:
The Clintons have always been held to a different standard than just about every other modern political family. We have the right wing to thank for that, and in a magnificent fit of attempted equalization, they say the left is just as bad about the Bush family, labeling it “Bush Derangement Syndrome.” (As is the case with all right-wing attempts at equalization, it doesn’t work. I am unaware that anyone is out there promoting a film that accuses George W. Bush of murdering his opponents.)But the question remains: what is it about the Clintons that sets them apart?
I have friends — otherwise bright, analytical people — who simply dislike the Clintons and have NO conscious awareness of the ORIGINS of their dislike, and how much their dislike has been shaped by the years and years and years of attacks from the rightwing noise machine, and has seeped through the mainstream media.
I suppose there are any number of answers, ranging from some deep-seated resentment based on a socio-economic snobbery (the Clintons were referred to as the “Arkansas HillBillies” by the wingnuts when Bill was elected in 1992) to just pure visceral hatred that reaches Shakespearean levels and is just as inexplicable: Iago never fully explains why he hates Othello.
How dare those “Arkansas Hillbillies” invade the D.C. elites’ patrician turf? Those friends of mine have no idea how, in 1992, the socialite snob of Washington, D.C. — Sally Quinn — declared the Clintons to be just not the right kind of people for Washington, D.C., and how the venom of her and other Washington insiders’ attacks have filtered throughout the press corps who, most of all, want to feel like they “belong.” These days, Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd continue the smirking, sniffing, looking-down-upon — burying the Clintons up to their necks in sand and lobbing hard rocks of verbal attacks upon them. (I’m certain that a good part of Shuster’s nastiness to the Clinton’s emanates from that pressure to fit in to the elite media.) Quinn regularly wrote Washington Post columns belittling or advising the Clintons on how they should behave. One 1992 article was subtitled, “Welcome to Washington, but Play by Our Rules.” Bill Clinton made numerous efforts, holding several intimate dinners at the White House, trying to charm the Washington elite. Blumenthal writes that he attended one of the dinners and that “every amenity available” was extended to the elite. But there was nothing that he or Hillary could say, as Blumenthal makes clear in another Sally Quinn story:
In his inaugural, Clinton honed the line he had used at Mrs. [Katherine] Graham’s. ”This beautiful capital, like every capital since the dawn of civilization,” he said, “is often a place of intrigue and calculation. Powerful people maneuver for position and worry endlessly about who is in and who is out, who is up and who is down, forgetting those people whose toil and sweat ends us here and pays our way.” In the CBS studio in Washington, Sally Quinn, who was serving as a commentator, turned to a producer. ”That’s a terrible mistake he’s made, attacking Washington. He said the same thing the other night at Kay’s and everyone reacted very negatively. I have to go on the air to say that,” Quinn said, according to the producer.
And the beat goes on.
And it wasn’t just the rightwingers and socialite snobs: I woke up the morning after the Clinton’s victory parade to Daniel Schorr, on PBS, talking about the Clintons in a voice dripping with vitriol. I was so shocked.
I think the Clinton’s are brilliant, and many are aware and very resentful of this fact, that brilliance combined with a populist bent.
(Given that, I know others have said they were not loyal friends, but I haven’t read both sides of that issue, so I can’t really say).
Watching Obama, the rock star cool and the empty mind, I thought, well, what would happen if Hillary switched from the pantsuit to a well tailored leather jacket, or all Chanel suits, all the time?
(And emptied her mind, it seems to have appeal to some, less threatening, I suppose. With smart people there is competition, mediocrity is enough for the David Axlerods, the Karl Roves, no need to reason, or think, just whine like a weak husband, to victory).
But that isn’t her, I think we respond to the woman who doesn’t pretend to be something she is not.
We KNOW this woman, she is our boss, our Mom, for some of us, our sister, our friend, for others, their wife, we feel comfortable with her, speaking to her, whereas with Obama it’s, for the fanbois anyway, unexamined puppylove.
Someone once told me every relationship in our lives is a reenactment of our family dynamics, so maybe that’s the answer. Men, for instance who are resentful or angry toward their mothers, or jealous of their brothers, or fathers, might transfer this resentment toward the Clintons. Same with women who did not have a strong nurturing female influence in their lives — they transfer the resentment toward Hillary. And the Clintons don’t cultivate an image, or SELL image, with the Clintons, it’s fairly honest.
Obama is not threatening, Obama is an image they purposely set out to sell, Obama as Perrier, he’s certainly full of bubbles, and related to the French, the elite bit, and BIG.
Which tells us a lot about our elite.
Obama’s connections to rezko/auchi are revolting, and for the foamy not to recognize or react, boy, they are on Pluto, arent they?
Really, doesn’t it remind you of so much sibling rivalry, spewing from the press?
But sell Hillary as Britney…
We are also in the midst of a celebrity obsessed culture that is totally empty and devoid of content. Content is resented as demanding of real thought and this is not “fun”.
About the D.C. hostess and social scene. Sally Quinn and the harpies are an incestuous lot that spend their time applauding each other.
One must be rich AND chic. The snobs who infest Washington are a sorry commentary of how DC runs. The Clintons were treated like arrivistes.
Mr. Inspiration, St.Obama, will be treated as
visiting royalty. At first, anyway.
The snobbery in DC extends throughout the entire community. Hillary all decked out in Chanel would look lovely, but as observed here, this is not Hillary. She is real and feels good enough to be herself.
We would be fortunate if this gifted and capable woman would take command. But the Obamobile floats on the elitist bubbles of champagne and is
propelled by the softwear of illusion and smoke.
Is America about to make its third mistake?
NM:
No, apparent defeat is victory, apparent victory is defeat.
Just ask Bush.
Whatever will be, will be.
I remember that, too. I do think a lot of the DC cool kids hatred was based in bias against Southerners. Jimmy Carter was also treated very disrepectfully, as some kind of hayseed.
By the time the Clintons came around, Lee Atwater, Karl Rove’s trainer, was a major player. I have just started rereading “The Hunting of the President” by Gene Lyons and Joe Conason, and they make it clear that Atwater started going after Clinton the last time he ran for governor because Atwater knew Clinton could defeat GHW Bush and wanted him out of the way. All the current viscious strategies used by the Republicans - slanderous push polls, Swiftboat-type tactics, character assassination, etc. - are all vintage Atwater. The media gladly played along, probably because of their “Bubba bias”.
As for Jay Stephens clearing the Clintons of any wrongdoing, he was not the only one. Most people do not realize that the NY Times’ Jeff Gerth kept pushing the story until Clinton had Janet Reno appoint a special prosecutor. She chose respected Republican Robert Fiske, who also cleared the Clintons of any wrongdoing, but the media largely ignored his report. The Times kept pushing until Clinton gave in and allowed an independent counsel to be appointed. Two extreme right wing judges who were tight with Jesse Helms sat on the three judge panel in charge of appointing independent counsels. They had lunch with Jesse and soon after appointed the crackpot ideologue Ken Starr. Most Americans have no idea about any of this.
While it is true that the Clintons have been and are treated worse than any other candidates, the right wing also did its nasty work on both Gore and Kerry, again with the cooperation of our adolescent media. Had either been elected it would have been almost certain that they, too, would have been subjected to the treatment the Clintons got.
There is no reason to think that Obama will not also be subjected to this treatment from the right wing. He has given them plenty of ammunition with his dealing with Rezko. You would think after all the stink about Whitewater, a man who has professed presidential ambitions would have avoided that sketchy house deal. After all, it was well known in Chicago that Rezko was under investigation for corruption at the time the deal was made. What kind of hubris must Obama have to think he would not be touched by scandal? It is possible that the media is so enamored of him that he will get a pass from them, but they also love McCain so I would not bet on it.
Clinton was a Rhodes Scholar, no GOP President in modern America can come close to having accomplished as much in terms of scaling intellectual summits.
Nixon was a lawyer for vested interests in Cali, as close as it gets to merit. AKA in the oil lobby’s back pocket.
Ford was never elected to highest office.
Reagan was a Hollywood solider, a McCarthy defamation point man, and a tobacco/defense/communication lobby evening host.
The stasi Bush family is in with all of them.
Cheney, the real boss, had better things to do during ‘Nam. I can’t get people who know Cheney to make on record denial if he’s truly related to Michael Sheldon Cheney. first ever PR director for Aramco, the merger of Standard New Jersey(Exxon) and Arab interests who merged state oil production capacity under a price fixing umbrella.
Why never a yes or no answer?
Not a single one of them matches the intellectual capacity of Bill Clinton. He got where he is from a merit standpoint. He wasn’t born into a line of succession.
Simply stated, the Clintons are highly educated intellectuals with a staggering command of issues, and the ability to evaluate conceptually.
Bill Clinton came from poverty to Rhodes scholar. Hillary from Goldwater Girl to exalted political activist and intellectual. President of her class at Wellesley; debating marvel and inspirational speaker and thinker. As is Bill. They took on a disfunctional party and battled their own, the GOP, and the disturbed harpie/bitch snobbery of D.C,
So we live in a country that gives these two exceptional individuals a continual hard time. What does this say about us? And what does this say about the Democratic party?
Sam Donaldson this morning sniffed that Clinton supporters must be racist since they were all so uneducated and low class and all… since his friends support Obama… tsk, tsk…
Don’t we all feel intellectually superior to Obama?
Really, he speaks well, but he says nothing, he’s never DONE anything, don’t we all really feel superior to him, even his most fervent supporters?
He blows smoke, but he’s not brilliant, he’s not original.
I can’t say the same about Clinton.
And I think they resent him for it.
Hillary, too.
I don’t ‘feel’ intellectually superior to Obama. It feeds the illusion of “it’s our time”. Obama would have us think “we can’t wait”…I would call this a rush to judgement.
Donaldson is a washed up media whore.
SCD predicts that the ticket will be:
Hillary - Prez
Obama - VP
Edwards - AG
So let’s not go so far out on a limb we can’t get back to puttin’ the hate where it belongs.
SCIAD wrote:
SCIAD:
You’re not reading right, here.
Obama’s relationship with Rezko, and Auchi is criminal, related back to 9.11, Grossman, Edelman, Congress, and the whole financial network of terrorism.
This has nothing to do with hate, it’s Obama’s direct relationship with those criminals, and all the implications, that is the impetus.
Should I willfully suspend belief, swallow the kool-aid, and say it’s OK?
Ignore the London Times, the Chicago papers, Sybil Edmonds, and every investigator who has traced the money lines of middle east terrorism?
Why would I be a hypocrite?
That simply won’t happen, and if you think it has, you’re being trolled.
That’s essentially why I voted for Clinton last Tuesday.
But that doesn’t mean I belive necessarily that Obama himself was involved. The Clintons have had some very shady friends in the past as well. I don’t think either of these candidates walk on water or would pass the saint test. If I see proof that Obama was somehow cognizant of and complicit in what the neocons were up to, I would quickly change my mind. But I doubt it; if he were, he’d be spouting the same pro-Iraq invasion rhetoric that McCain is.
Don’t see Obama himself on Edmonds’ website. If guilt by association is our only litmus test, then we’d best figure out how to wall off DC from the rest of the country right now.
This true, but i think you’re dreaming.
Oh, if I could only be wrong!
Well, let’s look at history:
Eisenhower and Nixon
Kennedy and Johnson
Nixon and Agnew
Regan and GHW Bush
Pretty much each Prez disliked his VP intensely and vice versa. When Regan selected Bush, it came as quite a surprise because the two had such a nasty primary campaign against each other. Kennedy needed Johnson for the south.
It would be nothing new.
Now, let’s look at what happens if it DOESN’T go down that way. Let’s say it’s Hillary and someone like Kerry. That large portion of people who voted for Obama in the primaries and nearly got him selected? They may decide to stay home. Hello, President McCain.
these people are going to need therapy when hillary becomes president. i bet they wouldnt let their son marry obamas daughters.the hypocrites
Well done Susan. I don’t get the vitriol either. And then the “grownups” took over. We see what a fine mess they made.
Certainly one of my proudest moments was performing at the first Clinton inaugural.
The musical talent line up in our tent was The McCoy Tyner Big Band, Booker T & the MG’s, followed by Etta James & the Roots Band(us)and Al Green w/Booker T & the MG’s with the Memphis Horns. There were about four or five more massive tents with marquee names representing every genre of American music.
George Wein, Quint Davis & Festival Productions put it together. (The same folks who started the Newport Jazz Festival, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage, Newport Folk and Playboy Jazz at the Hollywood Bowl, among many other productions, put it together. Seamless, w/out a hitch. It was one helluva party.
Etta James? Al Green?
Do tell, if you have a moment, and are so inclined…
Ya gotta dance with me, Henry…
Taters:
I’m recording your concert w/Etta on Tivo right now.
You all are playing ‘you can leave your hat on’ right now..live at Austin..me thinks..
You guys are HOT!!
Are you the ‘hippie’ playing the Tele or the other gguy playing the Strat?
One of my boys called me at 11pm tonight and told me you were playing..so i started recording it.
wow!
Anyway..that’s it..Just a shout out to taters..
HH,
LOL! I’m not Josh, who plays a tele. and is our musical director. I’m the guy the w/anaconda ESP strat model. You’re sumpin’ else, HH.
From an old not famous rocker, glad to see that Fender still rules, I have a 1964 (preCBS) blue Fender Music Master which helped make it through college as well as why we all played in bands, well maybe not all(I went to a geeky engineering school)…to get girls of course..
Rock on……
On the radio :Etta James ;”The Man I Love” send some o’ that SusanUnPc’s way.
Wahington dealt the same crap to Jimmy Carter, just not as virulently.
Fuck ‘em!
And thanks to the virulent campaign primary between Teddy Kennedy and incumbent Jimmy Carter we got President Ronald Reagan.
I will grant that Jimmy Carter had more problems than the primary but Teddy certainly did his best to bring Jimmy down. (Jimmy also was an outsider and incredibly intelligent. Can’t have that in a president now can we?)
I am sure to get stomped flat but I do not worship at the shrine of the Kennedys. I like the things that JFK said. His personal life was not much, if any better than Bill Clintons’ just not reported. And everybody loved Jackie unlike the rabid hatred so many have for Hillary. Personally I was a far bigger fan of Bobbie Kennedys’.
Most people forget that while JFK dreamed the dreamed he was cut down before he could accomplish much of it. It was old pragmatist politician LBJ that got the work done.
And I don’t understand why some people seem to think JFK was some kind of anti-war president. I remember him as a hawk, not a dove. Just unlike Republican hawks, he was smart enough to know how to give and take and dicker when needed.
Great post, Susan. And I am enjoying the way the comments unravel the snarled questions around how the Clintons can be so intelligent, the government under Bill Clinton so successful, and still they are the focus of disdain, mean spiritedness, and ugly myths. Susan, you mentioned Shakespeares Sister. Someone there is writing with Melissa McEwan at Shakesville about the mystery of why Obama does so well at caucuses and less well at primaries. Melissa cites experiences some female caucus goers have reported having with Obama’s supporters shouting them down, etc. The link is Shakesville, then politics, and scroll down to Melissa McEwan’s post “Women and Caucuses.” This is so Chicago politics. And obviously some people are more easily intimidated in the public space of a caucus than in a voting booth. This probably cannot be corrected, but such behavior should be exposed.
Obama graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law School in 1991. At the time only a very small percentage of students were able to do that. Laurence Tribe calls him brilliant. And Obama was a law professor at the University of Chicago. He attended a private school in Hawaii but his family was not wealthy. There is nothing in his background that is any less “qualified” than that of any of the other candidates for President or any of the persons who have served as President or Vice-President in the last 20 or 30 years. It is racist of you to keep insisting he is less qualified on that basis and I think you know it. Attack him on experience and policy, whatever, but this just reeks of the Deep South racist double standard.
Hillary Rodham was from one of the elite and wealthy families of Chicago. She is brilliant and passionate. But she was never liked or accepted in Arkansas. I think the reasons are complex.
Bill Clinton has always had the problem of acceptance because he was always such an open cheater and party animal and because he burned so many associates on the way up. He “didn’t read” Lani Guinier’s work. He laughed and joked privately at the White House about Ron Brown’s death then turned somber for the cameras. He “creates” Dick Morris, a pox on the country, then cuts him loose. President Bush is much more like most politicians in the country in that he is very loyal, even to scum. Most politicians operate that way in order to advance and that is often how they are brought down. Clinton has always been exceptional in that he is famously disloyal and that has hurt him. He gets away with it by being personable and charming and politically brilliant.
It seems strange to hear complaints about how poor Hillary is abused. She is wonderful, but her campaign has been badly managed. If she is the true savior of the downtrodden why was her campaign so oriented toward getting the support of the wealthy and powerful at the beginning? Why did she allow her people to control her so? Why didn’t she ask for the support of those with less money? Why didn’t she use the Internet more effectively? Why did she rely so heavily on Bill Clinton if she wanted to be taken seriously as a strong woman? Why use that ridiculous experience as First Lady when she was a great lawyer and then Senator? Can any of you people stop blaming “Washington insiders” and calling anyone who supports any other candidate an idiot long enough to recognize and fix the problems with her campaign before the general election? Had she gone up against McCain in the general election without fixing these problems, he would have crushed her. She is a stronger candidate today because she was challenged and weaknesses in her campaign were exposed.
To her great credit, under stress and pressure she neither resorts publicly to racist comments nor blames others for her campaign losses. She doesn’t whine. She just soldiers on and seems to try to address the problems. In sum, she is so much better than some of her supporters.
Well why don’t you give us a list of her supporters please? Thanks I would really appreciate it.
Quietone-
On 60 Minutes tonight Barack Hussein Obama stated that the only Executive experience he has is running his Senate Office and his campaign.
So Barack Hussein Obama falls way short of the experience of other Presidents of the past 30 years.
And in case you missed it, Arkansas went for Hillary Rodham Clinton in a big way Tuesday even if they didn’t like her as you claim at some other time.
I take exception with your characterization of her experience as First Lady as ridiculous. As the President’s wife and as a person deeply committed to democrat politics she gained invaluable experience both in diplomacy and the inner workings of the Executive Branch.
Not only was she First Lady in the White House by the way, but her husband was Governor as well. I know that you can learn as much or as little in any role as you so choose.
Barack Hussein Obama chose to vote present over 100 times on important legislative issues. Other times he claimed to hit the wrong button. Can you imagine the fun the GOP will have with that? Do you remember the Goldwater mushroom cloud ads? Holy smoke!
Mike - Please stop using Obama’s middle name in every comment you write. It is obvious you are trying to smear him with code words and I, personally, find your approach offensive.
There are enough reasons to be concerned about Obama — his relationship to the Rezkos and the real estate deals, the way he does the bidding of the nuclear industry while pretending to pass bills that protect us from toxic leaks, etc. It’s not necessary to resort to code word tactics. I really wish you would stop it because it only dilutes the real issues.
Agree completely. Obama’s middle name or his complete name, for that matter, is not needed to show his weakness as a democratic candidate.
It only plays to the repub tactics and they don’t need any help on that score.
I don’t know, I thought like you did too, about the use of his middle name, but, and this is really creepy, which makes me think I’m being manipulated, but I’ve found sometimes, the truth IS really crazy, anyway, the more I read about his Middle East connections, the more I wonder about the people surrounding him, the truth about his political rise.
Obama was a law professor for fifteen minutes before becoming a neighborhood organizer (better to prepare for a career in politics.)
Obama was a neighborhood organizer for fifteen minutes before running for the state legislature.
Obama was a state legislator for fifteen minutes before running (unsuccessfully) for Congress.
Fifteen minutes later, Obama ran for the Senate.
And fifteen minutes after winning, Obama launched his campaign for President.
Barack Obama’s experience- a mile wide, two inches deep. If he were one of my students, I’d wonder if he had ADD.
I think he was a community organizer for three years, and a state legislator for eight years.
That’s not 15 minutes.
Can we please stick to the weightier aspects of his comparison to/contrast with HRC?
I feel like I’m back in junior high school, reading through some of the silliness here.
Feel free to give up on us and go elsewhere, then.
My point was that Obama has never stayed at any job long enough to make an impact. Did that really escape you?
And I suspect that your “can we stick to the weightier aspects of his comparison..” really means “can we stop criticizing Obama’s lack of preparation for the Presidency?’
No, we can’t. Because it’s an issue, whether you like it or not.
John —
You’re obviously pretty new around here. Otherwise you’d know that I have been extremely critical of Obama since I started posting here a few months back.
As everyone else here seems to already know, I am an Edwards supporter. Maybe you should read the last post on the WA state caucus so you can get informed on where I stand on the candidates and the issues. And then, maybe, read through some archived posts as well.
Because, without having the benefit of a clue, you come off like a total jackass.
Your 15 minutes analogy falls on its head because it is quite easy to point out that Clinton has actually had less time in elected office than Obama. Duh.
And by the way — though I thoroughly respect Clinton’s work with the Children’s Defense Fund, according to your time clock, she worked there for only about “15 minutes”.
And yeah — sliming Obama with code words is stupid and defeats the whole purpose of trying to pass yourself off as having a grip on issues.
Shoephone wrote:
He didn’t DO anything, though, Obama, in fact in examining his record, he seems to have carved out a very careful definitive course, just so he could run for president, in this way.
How I would love to go back in time, and listen to his advisers, as if we could break, or decode, another’s memory, and replay it, like an unalterable holographic record..
And that’s what I thought John’s post was referring to, I took it as metaphor, accurate metaphor.
He didn’t DO anything, though, Obama, in fact in examining his record, he seems to have carved out a very careful definitive course, just so he could run for president, in this way.
How I would love to go back in time, and listen to his advisers, as if we could break, or decode, an other’s memory, and replay it, like an unalterable holographic record…
And that’s what I thought John’s post was referring to, I took it as metaphor, accurate metaphor.
Yet I’ve seen nothing to justify that platitude, no original legal work, no original turn of phrase, no spectacular method of practicing politics, no brilliant ideas.
Perhaps he’s lazy, then, and he’ll get around to it.
Dated a boy who lived not far from the Rodham neighborhood in Park Ridge.
(Yes, I’m a gay man.)
Not wealthy, not elite, middle class, a little higher up the scale than my family, we were blue collar, the Rodhams’ white collar.
So you’re lying.
Ok, seeding the clouds of doubt, through your predictable spiral, actually preaching to YOUR choir, the wommin haters club, and feeling pretty smug about it, gosh darnit, safe, snug as a bug in the womb, the wombat, (oh, your Mom again, I’m so sorry) of your ancient propaganda technique, but you boys are resistant to change, and reality, apparently, your constant losses being the most obvious example, but I guess your OK with it, some people are OK with trite loss, change IS scary, isn’t it?, anyway, but, you know, why has Obama accepted money from a man connected to a financial terrorist network?
You just don’t answer that.
Ok, I’m not a gay man.
Insecurity in regard to sexuality runs deep, and rampant, many heterosexual men have a difficult time dealing with gay men, not expressed as bigotry, say, but great psychological unease, which can be manipulated.
It is racist of you to keep insisting he is less qualified on that basis and I think you know it. Attack him on experience and policy, whatever, but this just reeks of the Deep South racist double standard.
QuietOne: I appreciate your rational point of view; that said, I disagree it’s racist to argue someone’s qualifications; regardless of color or ethnic backround. It infers anyone who questions Obama’s abilities or qualifications is a bigot. If you want to campaign on “judgement” as Obama has, then it is fair to look at the choices he has made and the company he keeps. While I respect Mr. Tribe, his observation of Barak Obama’s “brillance” rings hollow when contrasted with Barak’s statement of being a community organizer and not then not knowing about people with no heat or running water in his district who where in that predicament because of Mr. Rezko. Considering Barack Obama’s 20 year relationship with Mr. Rezko it outragous for Barak to state he did 5 hours of work for him. Even if this was a true statement; would you want Rezko as you campaign finance director knowing Rezko was involved in fraud? When Rezko’s trail gets underway Patrick Fitzgerald will certianly be looking at Mr. Rezko’s actions, including his work as Barak Obama’s
Senate finance campaign director and other interactions regarding Obama’s State Senate campaign. Is this someone you want for President?
Or am I to be labeled a bigot for forming an opinion of Barak Obama on this basis?
If I missed your point then please clue me in.
It is absolutely fair to criticize his experience and associations. I think it is racist to suggest in general terms that he is any less qualified than the field as a whole in the last 30 or 40 years. We had Reagan and Carter and Ford and Dole squared and Nader and Perot and numerous other candidates and no one openly suggested they were unqualified to run or even be elected. The only criticism I remember is about relative qualifications. I don’t even mean to suggest that because Tribe says someone is “brilliant” it is true. I mean that Obama is as qualified to run for the office as anyone else. Stick to examining his relative qualifications compared to Clinton or McCain.
She is wonderful, but her campaign has been badly managed.
Quiet,
I don’t know how wonderful she is (don’t care either) but I sure agree that the tactics used by her campaign staff and supporters are hurting her.
I started to feel a bit sorry for her as I watched her quoting Harriet Tubmann in a speech other the weekend. She looked sad.
Hillary bears the cross of misogyny and racism. What next a crown of thorns?
http://mediamatters.org/items/200704260001
What? “Hillary Rodham was from one of the elite and wealthy families of Chicago.”
Her father sold draperies as a small businessman!
Her mother was abandoned, and taken in by a family that let her stay there in return for housework and childcare.
This is similar to my own mother who was born in New Zealand and when her mother died she, at 8 years old, became a ward of the court. My Great Aunt had means, but due to Victorian inclinations of the time, the court saw fit to deny my mom her kin and placed her in a family “in return for housework and childcare.” Servitude is color blind.
I’ve often wondered about the Clinton-lightening-rod phenonema. I don’t think I know the answer for sure, but here’s my current working theory.
Is it possible that people identify easier with those who are either born into entitlement or gain it by association, such as the Bush’s? We can always tell ousselves, “I could be him/her if only I had their advantage”.
But if someone succeeds by working their way up, is it harder to identify with them, because we know they did something we couldn’t?
Fascinating concept. It would explain the hero worship for Barack Hussein Obama and his teleprompter platitudes because he’s been handed political successes like George Walker Bush was.
Whereas Hillary Rodham Clinton has had to work and fight for her successes, which is much more intimidating.
A caller to the Sam Seder Show this afternoon went off about Obama being equated to JFK; the woman was nearly screaming as she recounted how Jack had been groomed by their father, and ambassador, and how he’d been a war hero, she was beside herself spluttering, and it sure sounded like some godawful preppie class snobbery to me. She couldn’t be talked out of it, she was absolutely certain it was just wrong to put Obama on the same plane as Kennedy.
It is wrong to equate Obama with JFK. In fact it’s a total joke. Kennedy was a war hero. He spent 14 years in the Congress (including his tenure as Senator.) He was a product of the Cold War and in fact HAD been groomed for the presidency after his older brother Joe was killed in WWII.
But Kennedy was also an egotistical womanizer whose dalliances would have killed his chances for the presidency if he were running in 2008.
Nevertheless, Lloyd Bentsen’s admonition to Dan Quayle could just as easily be directed to Barack Obama:
“Senator you’re no Jack Kennedy”.
And he isn’t. Not by a long shot.
Kennedy was brilliant, also, Obama is not.
Wow.
See my post here: Obama and Kennedy: Gut vs. Experience,” in which I draw on a particularly well-written, sharp article by an eminent historian written for the Washington Monthly. (I also dug around and found a lot of GREAT old photos of Kennedy and proof of his intellectual prowess.)
His essay is a marvelous read.
I read in “JFK: Reckless Youth” Kennedy’s view o the creation of Israel, as it was happening, in 1948.
He essentially said the area would never be stable, always subject to the wars we see now.
I should research more, I wonder if he had any solution.
Just one of the smartest prescient men, ever, a model, in my head, anyway, of how one should approach the world, peace, but with strength, and intellect.
I can never be, obviously, but if I could choose, I would emulate him. He was wrong, sometimes, but he learned from his mistakes, and applied that knowledge.
Kennedy, a wealthy man’s son, fought bravely in world war two, understood the horror, and learned empathy toward those with less.
I too hate the snobbish/elitist trashing of the Clintons. They deserve chevrons on their shoulders for being rejected by the swine who make up most of the DC “elite,” including the corporate-owned press.
But, sadly, while we here are appropriately outraged about the domestic lawbreaking and war-crimes perpetrated by the present administration, there are other crimes against our Republic that need fixing. Some did not start with bush.
The impeachment proceedings against Bill, the Whitewater and etc. - that was an absurd and deplorable waste of our resources.
But NAFTA and the other “free trade” initiatives aggressively pursued by Clinton? That’s where I draw the line. The bush cabal would never have been able to be so criminally effective in funneling public monies to their corporate chums had Bill not been such a reprehensible shill for the corporations and big business himself. It is unforgiveable that a pol who portrayed himself in earthy terms could have been so devoted to the interests of corporations and, thus, naturally destructive of the interests of working folks.
And, hearing little or nothing from Hilary to counteract that anti-people pogrom that was one of the leitmotifs of of Bill’s regime, what else should we expect but more of the same?
Town here is 85% black, voted 2 to 1 for Hillary in the Arkansas primary.
Folks remember someone who tried to make things better, and voted for her, out of respect for the days her husband gave our state and this country from serving highest office, because results matter.
We’ve yet to see Obama chair the European subcommittee for the Senate foreign affairs committee. If the man were a world leader he’d have already done so. Perhaps he’s waiting for the final turn to try such an item, but negligence for the majority of his days in office does not meet any competency threshold I’m aware of. We see NATO crumbling and Afghanistan causing much of that. Meanwhile Italy has Berlesconi do a putsch to regain power, having been the direct link to getting this war started and as a coalition member. The Italian plans to remove all troops by 2007 needs update, and they’ve carried out items for training the Iraqi Navy with a very small NATO element of advisors, the links to Auchi, a Rezko patron, go there.
the Italian letter? Cheney/Auchi?
One of Auchi’ initial moves in Iraq was the purchase of Italian ships for their navy.
Italy’s Navy provided coalition training and advisory help to the Iraqi Navy.
The troops presence, as last read, was aimed at being out by 2007’s close, and was drawing down about 300 troops at a time on intervals to arrive that date.
Italy recently had Berlesconi elevated back to a position of influence as Blackshirts took the streets and ruffians in parliament mobbed the mainstream politicans off of the floor.
Strangely enough, a university in Niger is named Auchi. Probably just a coincidence.
Edmonds said high level drug dealing was involved with the translations she came across, matching items of arms shipments.
Italy and the USA just did a series of high level mafia arrests for a drug trafficking network.
My suspicious mind wondered about that mafia takedown. I don’t recall in the last 7 years this administration rolling up anything of this magnitude. Loose ends are to be taken care of before heading for Texas?
Probably just a coincidence.
Thanks Mr Murder.
Aluminum tubes hoax.
Supplied from Italy for conventional use.
Purported High-Level Interest in Aluminum Tubes
“ISG has found that high-level Iraqi interest in aluminum tubes appears to have come from efforts to produce 81-mm rockets, rather than a nuclear end use. Multiple reports indicate Dr. Huwaysh was keenly interested in high-strength, high-specification aluminum tubes for rocket production. Dr. Huwaysh attributes his pursuit of 81-mm rockets to the delivery of some launchers to the military shortly after he became the head of MIC in 1997. As a result, Dr. Huwaysh claims he was bound by requests from the Minister of Defense to produce rockets for those launchers—a task he regularly pressed on MIC leadership at quarterly meetings.”
(emp. mine)
“Several Iraqi officials also commented on Saddam’s potential interest in rockets. One official indicates Dr. Huwaysh told MIC engineers that Saddam asked him to make 81-mm rockets. But this link between the tubes and Saddam remains uncorroborated, even by Dr. Huwaysh.”
Other interest by senior officials in the 81-mm rocket can be traced to around 1984, when Husayn Kamil reportedly approved a proposal to reverse-engineer and build the weapon system. The proposal, made by an Iraqi Army Aviation officer was based on the premise that it was too expensive to continue importing 81-mm rockets from Italy. ”
-ISG final report summary, Global Sec.Org
http://newsquake.netscape.com/2007/04/20/yellowcake-follies-an-interview-with-carlo-bonini/
Niger’s polytechnical school is named Auchi. Funny that.
That last bit is speculation, the one thing we do historically know is that Auchi was on both sides of the contra buy/sell arrangement and was on both sides of oil for food.
He used Italy to sell equipment to Iraq, the Niger forgery shares a lot of similarities with people or lands he’s familiar, and the aluminum tubes lies shared the same thing, a connection to Italian arms merchants with historical connections to selling thing Iraq’s way.
Is the market for illegal weapons more about money exchange, and less about any real terrorist threat ?(excepting smaller nations with inadequate infrastructures, like Kenya, waging war upon their own populations, it would appear simply by tracing the money, the usual suspects are accounted for, and contained.)
Countries which procure black market weapons systems don’t have the infrastructure to develop the systems properly, like Iran say, the result seems to be a the equivalent of a zip gun, which can damage, but is manageable. But that doesn’t mean much to the Israeli, Lebanese or American citizen on the wrong end of an attack.
Men like Auchi, much like Richard Perle, say, seem to have their hands everywhere, black market open ended economic trade, done, apparently with the tacit approval of world governments, a corrupt infrastructure.
I think of 9.11, Bush and the PDB, DIRE warnings from men like Richard Clark, Bush choose to blatantly ignore the implications, for what ever reason, action could have been taken, it wasn’t.
SO glad to see you back, Susan!
You may have post this here already, but if not, it’s the best piece I’ve seen so far:
http://www.womensmediacenter.com/ex/020108.html
I think it’s interesting that the strongest argument against Obama as president is one he proudly supplies himself. As Susan posted some days ago, according to a quote in the Reno Gazette Journal http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080114/NEWS18/80114061 in a recent speech in Nevada, Obama said “But I’m not an operating officer. Some in this debate around experience seem to think the job of the president is to go in and run some bureaucracy. Well, that’s not my job. My job is to set a vision of ‘here’s where the bureaucracy needs to go.’”
So I guess if Obama is president, we can drop those antiquated references to Commander-in-Chief and Chief Executive, and replace them with something like Chief-of-Imagineering…except Disney already coined that one. What a coincidence.
So while Obama wanders through the White House having visions, who’s going to manage the Cabinet members and heads of agencies who in turn manage all those under them? Walt Disney had Roy Disney. Who will be Obama’s Roy? Rezko? Michelle? Who, if Obama insists it will not be himself? Where will the buck stop?
Maybe they’ll just manage themselves, much the way Cheney now manages things while W.Bush fantasizes that he’s the ‘decider guy’.
ybnormal -
Way funny. And scary.
Didn’t Nixon already do that, with Kissinger as his spiritual guide, sort of like a cracked and befuddled Scrooge, led by the ghost of White House past?
Boy, that Obama really DOES admire republicans, doesn’t he?
From their very first day in the White House they were unwelcome.
Remember just after the Chimp was selected for office and planted his lying ass in the big chair he couldn’t hold himself back for one minute and started slandering the Clintons immediatly.
Remember how those low class Clintons had trashed the White House and how they stole the silverware and took all the “W”s off the keyboards. No pictures of course because it was all BS.
This was only the second installement in a very long list, of the lies of the Bush Presidency.
They came shortly after his oath.
Too many of the people voting for Obama don’t know about the savage and cruel war begun years ago by the media and the “elite” against the Clintons. It’s still being fiercely and relentlessly waged, and the only weapon needed is the biased, unprofessional media serving themselves and the self-styled elite.
As former President Clinton said, distortions become facts. One such accepted “fact” I heard a few weeks ago was that the Clintons had stolen furniture from the White House before they left and had literally trashed the place. Saying it didn’t happen falls on deaf ears. One of the many current lies that will be accepted as gospel is that the Clintons are racist and used racism in this campaign.
The media have shut down former President Bill Clinton from effectively campaigning for his wife. When he states a glaring fact, such as BO’s fairy tale on his Iraq stance, he’s pilloried ad nauseum. An NBC reporter had the gall to publicly ask Mr. Clinton to promise not to campaign for Senator Clinton, and none of the subsequent reporting on that indicated there was a thing wrong with asking Bill to PROMISE to quit the campaign.
It is simply amazing that Senator Clinton is still standing with all the powerful forces arrayed against her, but standing she is.
The $10,000,000 recently donated to her campaign came from people like me who are declaring that enough is enough. If we are denied her presidency, the media and their sponsors and the Hillary-haters had best watch their backs. That’s a promise.
I don’t know that this is true.
Bill does seem angry, though, he shouldn’t be, the media has the problem, not him. Why should he pander to a crew of morons, no one respects them? If the Clinton’s are truly intent on making this country better, why engage with the junior high click? Feeding, and justifying the emotional insecurities of a group of marginally talented men and women (should be left to the professionals!) is not a productive pursuit, it’s passive aggressive war, (of which some of us are aware due to the dynamic between our parents, say) internecine.
Why even bother?
As o