What in the world is going on?
I just got back from five days in the Eastern Sierra, and here we are again, going 'round and 'round, working ourselves into a lather over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Hillary, McCain and the news media generally profess to be outraged by Rev. Wright's beliefs that the U.S. contributed to 9/11 through its aggressive foreign policy in Muslim lands, that American soldiers often behave like Roman legionnaires, that Rev. Louis Farakhan has credibility in black America, etc. (even though anyone with common sense would acknowledge at least the possibility of truth in these assertions)
Hillary, McCain and the news media continue to insist that discussing Rev. Wright is "important," as if it somehow confirms that Obama is an America-bashing, white-hating, black nationalist & separatist & street thug.
I can see why they're doing this. It's a lot easier to throw shit into the air than to discuss this horrendous war in Iraq (especially since Hill and McCain helped launch it and the media promoted it). It's also easier to smear Obama through Wright than to confront $125 barrels of oil, $4/gallon gasoline and $20 loaves of bread and how these catastrophes are the direct result of their precious war. The Wright shitstorm is the perfect smokescreen to obscure their own culpability.
Hill McMedia is the status quo. . . no more, no less. They're all just different faces of the same vested interests that got us into this predicament in the first place.
But don't expect to hear that from the media.
FOOTNOTE: Sad casualties of this circus are the issues Rev. Wright brings up. By acting the egocentric, hardheaded fool, Rev. Wright has made it that much more difficult to question foreign policy towards Muslim lands, American military atrocities, racism at home and so on. Who would want to be dismissed as "just like Rev. Wright"? And dismissed they most certainly will be.
FOOTNOTE2: Where's Ken Starr when we really need him?
FOOTNOTE3: Just joking. No need to jump into the shit ourselves.
Posted by Richard at May 1, 2008 12:56 AMWelcome back Richard. Lucky you to have had five days of peace from this crap.
Thanks for that terrific post.
I think Obama's response to the latest episode in the Wright saga has finally laid the controversy to rest. Of course it might still rear its ugly head here and there, certainly Hillary and her cohorts are doing damnedest to wring every last drop of blood out of it, but I think the general mendacity of the Hillary campaign is hurting her more than it is Obama. Superdelegates are getting turned off and defecting the Clinton campaign to endorse Obama, and that's really bad news for Hillary, since the superdelegate vote is her only chance in hell of wresting the nomination from Obama.
Today Joe Andrew from Indiana defected the Clinton campaign. He was appointed DNC chair by Bill Clinton and loyal to the Clintons, until now.
The Obama campaign released a 10-page letter from Andrew explaining his endorsement and making the case to fellow convention superdelegates that the time has come "to heal the rift in our Party and unite behind Barack Obama."
Here is an excerpt from his letter:
"My endorsement of Senator Obama will not be welcome news to my friends and family at the Clinton campaign. If the campaign's surrogates called Governor Bill Richardson, a respected former member of President Clinton's cabinet, a "Judas" for endorsing Senator Obama, we can all imagine how they will treat somebody like me. They are the best practitioners of the old politics, so they will no doubt call me a traitor, an opportunist and a hypocrite. I will be branded as disloyal, power-hungry, but most importantly, they will use the exact words that Republicans used to attack me when I was defending President Clinton.
When they use the same attacks made on me when I was defending them, they prove the callow hypocrisy of the old politics first perfected by Republicans. I am an expert on this because these were the exact tools that I mastered as a campaign volunteer, a campaign manager, a State Party Chair and the National Chair of our Party. I learned the lessons of the tough, right-wing Republicans all too well. I can speak with authority on how to spar with everyone from Lee Atwater to Karl Rove. I understand that, while wrong and pernicious, shallow victory can be achieved through division by semantics and obfuscation. Like many, I succumbed to the addiction of old politics because they are so easy.
Innuendo is easy. The truth is hard.
Sound bites are easy. Solutions are hard.
Spin is simple and easy. Struggling with facts is complicated and hard.
I have learned the hard way that you can love the candidate and hate the campaign. My stomach churns when I think how my old friends in the Clinton campaign will just pick up the old silly Republican play book and call in the same old artificial attacks and bombardments we have all heard before.
Yet, despite the simple and overwhelming pressure to do anything and everything to win, Barack Obama has risen above it all and demanded a new brand of politics. People flock to Senator Obama because they are rejecting the hyperbole of the old politics. The past eight years of George Bush have witnessed a retreat from substance, science, and reason in favor spin, cronyism and ideology. Barack Obama has dared not only to criticize it, as all Democrats do, but to actually reject playing the same old game. And in doing so, he has shown us a new path to victory.
....
We must reject the notion that we have to beat the Republicans at their own game -- or even that the game has to be played at all. It is so easy for all of us involved -- candidates, campaigns and the media -- to focus on the process and the horse race that we forget why we got into it in the first place. Barack Obama has had the courage to talk about real issues, real problems and real people. Let's pause for a second in the midst of the cacophony of the campaign circus and listen.
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2008/05/clintonera_dem_party_leader_ba_1.html
Also, read this illuminating piece on how a senior campaign advisor to Hillary Clinton is exploiting the right-wing network that was used against Bill Clinton's presidency to attack and discredit Barack Obama:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/sidney-blumenthal-uses-fo_b_99695.html
"Beware in fighting monstors that you don't become one" - Nietzsche
Posted by: Diana at May 2, 2008 12:49 AMThe contrast between Obama and Clinton is becoming more stark. At least the smart people see it, I don't know about the dumbasses out there who form Hillary's base. Hopefully defections from former Clinton supporters like Richardson and Andrew, and a handful of others, will help sway the undecided superdelegates to back Obama.
We can only hope and pray they do the right thing for the party and the country and bring an end to the cronyism of the Clinton and Bush dynasties.
I hope and pray.
Posted by: supa at May 4, 2008 12:43 PM
HE WON! HE WON! HE WON!
I'm relieved and overjoyed.
This is history in the making!!!!
Get ready for President Barack Obama!
Get ready for a New America and a New World!
Hi supa,
Reading the blogs, and especially the comments the day after N. Carolina and Indianna, I was struck by the sigh of the relief so many expressed. I don't think there has ever been a time when so many typed "phew" on the Internet all at once. Like many, I was worried that the negative campaigning, e.g. Rev. Wright, etc. would have put Obama under. I guess I underestimated people's ability to see through the b.s. I'm happy to have been wrong.
Though most, including Rahm Emmanual who said Obama is now the "presumptive nominee" and even Time magazine, which ran the cover story "And the Winner is..." know that Obama is the winner, Hillary will not quit, she'll take it all the way to the convention, no matter what, despite the calls for her to surrender.
It all follows a familiar pattern. Haven't we seen this movie before?
"It's not going to stop. It's going to go on and on and on until you (the superdelegates) face up to your responsibility." - Alex (played by Glenn Close) in "Fatal Attraction
But it's all good. It's important for everyone to see the the old politics go down in disgrace, and to see the rise of decency and common sense.
I'm happy :)
Cheers!
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