How can they link Farrakhan to the KKK's behaviour. Can people name one lynching by the nation of islam.One word: Zebra. I also seem to recall reading something about an unpleasant event in the Audubon ballroom in 1965. In 1973, NOI thugs invaded the Hanafi Muslim Center in DC, where they killed children.
UPDATE: Let's go on to more recent history -- how Obama's supporters "racist baited" the Clintons. This New Republic piece proves beyond rational debate that the Obamites resorted to scurrilous tactics. (The reference to Roth's The Human Stain is spot on.)
Now that Obama has nearly wrapped up the nomination, the only question is this: Will he fight dirty against the main enemy, or do such stratagems apply only to people named Clinton?
20 comments:
Was it Obama who put words into Bill's mouth?
"On Saturday, as Sen. Barack Obama was sweeping up the South Carolina primary, former Pres. Bill Clinton was busy downplaying the significance of Obama's impending win, casting it as a function of the state's demographics and the Illinois senator's heavy African American support. "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88,"
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/01/26/for_bill_clinton_echoes_of_jac.html
Ah, that changes everything! Bill Clinton is obviously a cross-burning KKKer.
Okay, let's get back to the real world.
You didn't read the piece to which I linked, did you? Lazy git.
If you HAD read the piece, you would know that the matter to which you refer is discussed there. More than that. We are allowed to read the ACTUAL WORDS -- which you swinishly refused to reproduce.
Excerpt:
***
"When asked by a reporter on primary day why it would take two Clintons to beat Obama, the former president, in good humor, laughed and said that he would not take the bait:
"Jesse Jackson won in South Carolina twice in '84 and '88 and he ran a good campaign. And Senator Obama's run a good campaign. He's run a good campaign everywhere. He's a good candidate with a good organization."
According to Obama and his supporters, here was yet another example of subtle race-baiting. Clinton had made no mention of race."
* * *
End of excerpt. If you are going to try to turn this comment in "proof" of Clintonian racism, you are either a dupe or disingenuous.
I'm sick and tired of people accusing the Clintons of being racist for saying words that are utterly innocent -- words that I might well have said myself.
This is a TACTIC. The Obama people know full well what they are doing. They did not taking real offense -- the offense is feigned, for strategic reasons.
Here's another excerpt which brings up a point that dolts like you have never addressed:
* * *
"It has never been satisfactorily explained why the pro-Clinton camp would want to racialize the primary and caucus campaign. The argument has been made that Hillary Clinton wanted to attract whites and Hispanics in the primaries and make the case that a black candidate would be unelectable in the general election. But given the actual history of the campaign, that argument makes no sense. Until late in 2007, Hillary Clinton enjoyed the backing of a substantial majority of black voters--as much as 24 percentage points over Obama according to one poll in October--as well as strong support from Hispanics and traditional working-class white Democrats."
By the way, sfbey, you know who agrees with my view that Clinton's comment was perfectly innocent?
Jesse Jackson.
"Jackson noted proudly to Essence magazine that he had, indeed, won in 1984 and 1988, and, even though he had endorsed Obama, criticized the Obama campaign, saying, "again, I think it's some more gotcha politics.""
Joseph, Please read the comments section after the New Republic article. I don't think Clinton is a racist but he used race as a wedge. His South Carolina comments were to make it appear that Obama was only a black candidate.
I was quoting the Washington Post reprot of Clinton's words.
I agree with many of the people who left comments about the article, that it is an over the top propaganda piece by a Clinton friend and supporter. It is.
"UPDATE: Let's go on to more recent history -- how Obama's supporters "racist baited" the Clintons"
That may work both ways:
From Dallas Morning News.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/politics/local/stories/DN-calleao_28pol.ART.State.Edition2.3ee536b.html
"Hillary Rodham Clinton rejected comments Wednesday from one of her supporters, Dallas Hispanic leader Adelfa Callejo, who said that black politicians have done little for Hispanics and that Barack Obama "simply has a problem that he happens to be black.""
..."After confirming that they were accurately portrayed, Senator Clinton, of course, denounces and rejects them."
Please don't call me names. I am not your enemy. I read your blog every day.
Bullshit. That piece is history, written to a higher standard than are most college-level history texts I've seen. The argument is beyond refutation.
It seems "over the top" only to fucking asshole progs who think that the 90s were the nightmare years.
Look, I'm going to (somewhat reluctantly) vote for Obama in the fall. But you have to face the fact. What he did to Clinton was the same thing Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mohammed Ali used to do to opponents -- a classic psych-out. Get the enemy off his game before blows are traded, and the battle is already half-won.
One of these days we'll get the "insider account" from Camp Obama. Trust me -- it will confirm that the "offense" routinely taken at every Clintonian word was purely feigned and strategic.
After all, we now know from a leak that Obama's remarks against NAFTA are feigned and strategic.
This is one white guy who gets pissed off when blacks try to manipulate a situation by pretending that they have been racially offended.
No, I will not apologize for that previous sentence.
I'm not saying that all, most, many, or even a substantial minority of black people have done that. I'm saying that con artistry comes in all colors, that a certain number of people in ANY population will be consters, and that con artists will use any tactic that works.
Which means that I am accusing the Obama campaign of resorting to a form of con artistry. They are hardly the first campaign to do so.
I voted for him because polls show that he is the strongest candidate in November. That doesn't mean I like the guy.
By the way, I am NOT a Hillary fan -- check my record. Since the inception of this blog, I've rarely praised her. I did not want her to run.
I liked Edwards and Biden, and I wish to hell that one of those two men had prevailed.
my. goodness. such ...vitriolics, joe.
i know this is your blog, and you can pitch a hissy fit if you want to, but you make it difficult to convince visitors to the comments that they must abide by civilized rules of discourse.
name-calling is just, well, uncalled for. you don't even KNOW these people.
all that aside, for what it's worth, i happen to agree that the article in question does not make the compelling case you claim, at least for me.
i have little doubt that obama's camp took opportunities to garner racial sympathy, but i am not convinced - by you or by wilentz - that they have been lying in calculated wait for these. there is a difference.
my observation, for what that's worth, is that the obama camp has very patiently allowed each situation to sort of percolate, and then taken the 'high' road available to them. to my mind, this is supreme political savvy. what i see obama doing in this way is not at all different from the way bill 'plays' situations. sure, his full comment was not at all openly racist, but come on, he did NOT choose to compare obama's SC sin to bush's in 2000, or dean's in NH in 04. there is certainly manipulation going on from all sides; this seems to be the aggressive aspect of persuasion in politics, and clinton has done it no more and no less than obama, in my opinion. i fail to see anything sinister there; less than perfect, and not quite honorable, sure, but not sinister.
it's fascinating to watch these reactions play out, as they are ALL inevitable in this new and unfamiliar territory of a woman and a black man running. we're bound to see racism and misogyny in places where there is perfect innocence simply because the language has not yet shaped itself to the lay (sorry; see?) of the land. sort of like the way sexual innuendo often innocently leaks into conversations.
one thing you may want to keep in mind as we proceed is that those who have been 'lain low and put down' for as long as blacks and women have will inevitably learn many tricks - both good and ill - from their historical 'masters'. i think it would be obscenely pompous of us to be surprised when they resort to them, even the trick of claiming that principled position above the fray while allowing the rabble to do the dirty work.
in any case, for the record, you expose perhaps a preference for the old way of the white christian male (and hey, i too was an avid supporter of edwards). this is fine, but it might be worth considering if some of the venom you're exhibiting stems from fears of this uncharted territory.
i have those, too, i admit. on the one hand, it can be scary to think just how monstrous our citizenry could get in this era of the unknown. on the other, it truly might afford us an opportunity to shine.
in either case, the change is inevitable, and we must face it with resolute dignity. and - i have to say it - with genuine hope.
Selfishly, I'm glad that Joseph has no patience with lazy git types who won't read and think critically before they try to challenge his opinions. I'm surprised at his restraint; he's been much meaner and more insulting to me for things I've posted. But I've never seen him cross any line - he's a .0000001-tolerance kind of guy.
About Hope Albert Camus said it was the worst thing that escaped Pandora's Box.
Two things she was told: replace the toothpaste cap and don't open the Box. After opening the Box, she was so terrified at what rushed out that she fell back on her tush (just when "the thing with feathers" also escaped), squashing the toothpaste tube (ugh, such a sound!) and loosing upon the world all its kvetching.
Joseph, you and Sean wilentz are the only two sane intelligent people left (except me of course...) Seriously though, I read the entire Wilentz article and thought it was brilliant and entirely convincing. The whole story of the alledged Bradley effect rings completely true to me.
dr.elsewhere you sound like Jane Bennett in "Pride and Prejudice" (the book, not the movie!); I have no doubt you are just as nice a person as she, but in this case I believe you are indulging in wishful thinking. I am sorry if that is too ad hominum (or should it be ad femininum?)an attack; it is just that your sweet explanation sounds exactly like Jane Bennett explaining away the conflict between Mr. Darcy and Wickham...
Back to topic:
At the beginning of the campaign the only way Obama could win was to simultaneously sever his base from the Clintons and churn it. He wants to win and he did what he had to do. The really amazing trick he has pulled is to convince evrybody he is a pure spirit at the same time. If he becomes a great president history will conclude,as it always does, that the ends justified the means.
When I was in 10th grade in 1960-61, I had a social studies teacher who loved to mess with our heads. There was the time he proposed that all advertising be done away with -- thereby getting the whole bunch of us ad-haters to insist that we couldn't possibly live without it. And there was the time he backed us into agreeing that Kennedy was actually far more Machiavellian than Nixon, because you couldn't see Kennedy pulling the strings.
That one really threw me for a loop. I had a mad adolescent crush on Kennedy and despised Nixon to the bottom of my soul. Finally, in order to escape the cognitive dissonance, I had to conclude that a touch of Machiavellianism in a politician is not necessarily a bad thing -- a conclusion that I confess has only been reinforced over the years by reading far too many of Terry Pratchett's Diskworld novels.
At this point, I might even suggest that the best politicians need to relate towards those they would govern in the same way that the best writers relate to their fictional characters -- with a mixture of total sympathetic identification and total manipulative ruthlessness.
Because of this, I tend not to be impressed by suggestions that Obama has a Machiavellian streak. In fact, I find him far more appealing because of it than Clinton, who is said to be extremely warm and human in small groups but who seems to have no ability at all to relate to people en masse. In large public settings she appears neither sympathetic nor effectively manipulative, but simply stilted and artificial.
There may be something elusive or even untrustworthy about Obama. But if you're looking to remake society -- and not merely rearrange the deck chairs -- he has what it takes to do the job, and Clinton doesn't.
"Finally, in order to escape the cognitive dissonance, I had to conclude that a touch of Machiavellianism in a politician is not necessarily a bad thing -- a conclusion that I confess has only been reinforced over the years by reading far too many of Terry Pratchett's Diskworld novels.
At this point, I might even suggest that the best politicians need to relate towards those they would govern in the same way that the best writers relate to their fictional characters -- with a mixture of total sympathetic identification and total manipulative ruthlessness."
That's the best pro-Obama argument I've heard so far.
I think it has been clear, by the way, that Obama has himself behaved as a gentleman. His "camp" has not. That division of duties always seemed swinish when, say, the Bush campaign did it.
But now it's "our" guy. And I guess a pol's gotta do what a pol's gotta do.
I just want to see him do it to McCain, not to the Clintons. Then again -- will having your surrogates engage in "racist baiting" work against Republicans?
By the way, I took some offense at the inference that I support white Christians at all times. I did vote for Jackson in 1988, after all...
shbey: Obama has never denounced what his surrogates have said. That's the key point. No denunciation = approval.
And you have yet to address the point. Let me rub your face in these words again:
"It has never been satisfactorily explained why the pro-Clinton camp would want to racialize the primary and caucus campaign. The argument has been made that Hillary Clinton wanted to attract whites and Hispanics in the primaries and make the case that a black candidate would be unelectable in the general election. But given the actual history of the campaign, that argument makes no sense. Until late in 2007, Hillary Clinton enjoyed the backing of a substantial majority of black voters--as much as 24 percentage points over Obama according to one poll in October--as well as strong support from Hispanics and traditional working-class white Democrats."
Welllllll....?
By the way, although I've established that your source misrepresented Clinton's words, I have to ask -- what the hell is WRONG with casting a candidate's performance in terms of demographics? Campaigns do that routinely. Always have, always will. So do pundits. So do bloggers.
If Daniel Inouye had run for national office, I would have expected him to do well with Asians. If Mayor Villaraigosa runs for prez, I would expect him to do with with Hispanics.
Is it racist to say this? Must there be a dichotomy between what campaign strategists acknowledge in private and what is permissible in print?
"There may be something elusive or even untrustworthy about Obama. But if you're looking to remake society -- and not merely rearrange the deck chairs -- he has what it takes to do the job, and Clinton doesn't."
But is he aiming to remake society? And if so, in what manner? IMHO universal health coverage would be transformative; has essentially run against it by demonizing Hillary's universal plan. Is he going to lift us to a post-racially divided society? How? By running the vicious campaign outlined by Wilentz? It seems that the transformative event he is selling is his own elevation to the presidency, that the mere fact of his personal acendency is the transformative act. Is this not the defintion of a cult of personality?
oh. my. again.
angels on the head of a pin?
you know, if any of us could actually step back and consider, this campaign is not that nasty. i'm amazed at how civilized these two people are to one another during the debates. the fact that their positions differ so little makes it hard to make distinctions; what is anyone left with but nit-picking?
the whole process stinks; makes monsters of us all.
except moi, of course; i'm jane bennet.
;-)
for the record:
i don't appreciate what ANY of the candidates are doing along these lines, and clinton's camp is guilty too. but this is what politics in the USA has devolved to. i agree with i think starroute that it's comforting to see anyone rise to that occasion. or stoop, whatever.
but i think it IS totally cult thinking to believe that any of our politicians must be beyond perfection; that's just silly, sillier than believing obama will right significant numbers of wrongs or that clinton will suddenly become a DC outsider.
but again, for the record:
i'm absolutely NOT enamored with the dialog here devolving to furious name calling and nit picking.
we've got two really great candidates who are literally trapped in this godawful system, doing the best they can, and i'll be right proud to vote for either one of them.
and this is a GOOD thing!
finally, for the record:
joe, no one accused you of "always" being a wasp; it was you who said you'd have preferred to have voted for edwards or biden. the inference is not a stretch.
would it really be too much to ask for folks to just refrain from playing into this in-fighting and save it for next fall? with all the insanity going down out there, THIS is what we're choosing to fight and spit about???
"joe, no one accused you of "always" being a wasp; it was you who said you'd have preferred to have voted for edwards or biden. the inference is not a stretch."
Yes it is. I'd have preferred Carol Moseley Braun to Obama or Clinton.
joe, maybe you would prefer carol moseley braun, but that's NOT what you actually WROTE.
i am not psychic; i was only responding to the words you typed onto the screen.
and they were: edwards and biden. hence the wasp ref.
That's insulting.
It's an insult to everyone who voted for and still prefers Biden, Edwards, Dodd, Richardson and Kucinich.
Not to prefer Obama is not to like all blacks? Not to prefer Hillary is not to like all women? Is THAT what you are saying?
Garbage. Pure garbage. How did you get your doctorate without passing a Logic 101 class?
Clinton and Obama would agree, methinks. Your viewpoint is the bigoted one: You are saying that skin color or gender should outweigh all other criteria. I don't think Clinton or Obama have ever said or implied that they wanted special treatment. They've always acted as though they wanted nothing more than to compete on a equal playing field.
Equality, true equality, means that I have the right to decide that Edwards best addressed my issues (he talked about poverty, and I happen to be poor), and that he had the best presentation skills of all the candidates.
Let me add this -- the more I find out about this Austun Goolsbee fellow, the sicker I am that Obama is likely to get the nomination. Goolsbee favors privatizing Social Security. He's of the freaking CHICAGO school, which has caused most of our problems.
You bet your ASS I wish Edwards had prevailed! JE may not be perfect, but he would never let a piece of human shit like Goolsbee get anywhere NEAR him.
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