Letters to the Editor
designated_knitter
Published Letters: 110 Editor's Choice: 3
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Lots of candidates show their mothers and fathers in campaigns
[Read the article: Obama and race in California]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Why do you automatically assume that Obama's commercial was aimed at "playing the race card" rather than what sounds like (by your own blog entry) a tribute to his mother.
I've seen many campaign commericials that showed a candidates parents and I believe it is to help humanize the candidate. Hell, I remember seeing Barbara Bush in many of W's commercials and Clinton's "poor" parents from Bill's campaigning. Why should Obama be any different?
The only on that brought up race is you, Joan.
Obama is who he is and he shouldn't have to be accused of "playing whitie" when he chose a very concrete example of how his mother inspired his beliefs and how he wishes to honor her memory. If my sons display as much honor and respect for me when they are Obama's age, I will consider myself a lucky and fortunate mother, indeed.
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Is Camille listening or Salon doing more editing? Either way -- glad to see the improvement
[Read the article: Hillary's race against time]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]After first hearing about the Ferraro brohaha and the spitzer entrapment, I started dreading on coming to Salon because I knew that would mean the re-emergence of Camille. Sure enough, 3 days later here she is.
However, I have to admit that her piece this month was a HUGE improvement over previous columns. For one -- it was shorter and more focused. The 1-2 paragraph tangents into self-promotion and self-impressed overly complex prose were gone for the most part.
The content was reasonable -- though I can't agree with everything she wrote, she made thoughtful points and supported her arguments with logic rather than "because I think it is true because I'm an academic intellectual having authored sexual personae and many other books.
She refrained from lots of pointless name dropping.
Overall, she almost sounded as reasonable as some of the other bloggers on Salon. Don't know whether Joan has finally assigned her an editor or Camille actually did some critical feedback. Either way, it was a big improvement. Keep up the better work!
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How refreshing -- speaking truth and reason
[Read the article: Barack Obama delivers make-or-break speech on race]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I am so impressed at the way Obama has handled this -- rather than ignoring the issue and hoping it would go away, he has faced the situation and the underlying issues with a decisive honest response. He has acknowledged the elephant in the middle of the room (no pun intended wrt to the republicans) in a way that no reasonable or honest person would have to admire and accept to be true on so many levels. He did so without being judgemental, without trashing those close to him for the sake of political expediency, and maintaining his own personal dignity and affirming the dignity and respect of every other person -- whether they disagree with him or not.
Obama proves with this speech that he will not divide the Democratic party and shown that he will stand up and deal directly with those that would seek to tear him down. And he did so without getting ugly or denigrating his detractors. He showed so much more class and civility than any public figure I can think of in recent memory.
Any of us who are honest will be able to relate to what he said. I grew up in a white middle class family that most folks would never recognize as racist. My dad would never oppose racial equality and would cringe if anyone treated our non-white friends with anything but the utmost respect and kindness. However, my dad would use the "n" word and say things that would make me cringe. Yet I would never separate myself from my father -- I recognized that he and I might not agree on that issue but that he was also his own person.
I think that Obama did an excellent job of pointing out that probably everyone has someone close to them who have said things to make them cringe. Even Obama's own grandmother showed these tendencies. As Christians and loving family members and loyal friends, we accept those people warts and all. We look past the ugly words that may get spoken and look at the quality of the person within. We are smart enough to recognize that words are not necessarily the measure of the character of those we are close to -- the actions and how those folks treat the people around them is much more indicative of a person's true character and personality.
It is time for media twirps to get off their "holier than thou" pillars of outrage and righteous indignation and recognize that the character flaws that exist in individuals employed by Obama (or Clinton, Bush, McCain for that matter) are not automatically shared by Obama (or any other candidate/politician etc who employs a diverse set of personal advisors).
Finally, I think it has been very illuminating to be able to compare and contrast the different approaches by the Clinton and Obama campaign respectively when it has come to dealing with Ferraro and Wright. Clinton admits nothing. She hunkers down and sends out the person of appropriate ethnic group to repudiate what ever comments get made and even attempt to turn it around against her opponent. Obama runs straight at the issue -- puts himself out in line of fire and deals directly with the issue and never even brings up his opponent -- much less try to pin it on her.
So who do you want to be president -- someone who will run directly at the issues and address them head on in a calm non-threatening, non-accusatory manner (Obama); or someone who will try to ignore the issue and hope it goes away while sending others out to talk to the press and do her bidding (Clinton).
We don't need surrogates for president. We need a leader who isn't going to shrink away from conflict and who will use reason and honesty to resolve that conflict. Obama is the first leader in my personal memory (I'm 44) who appears willing and ready to do this.