Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 382 Editor's Choice: 5
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A Vast Obama Conspiracy.
[Read the article: More about race and the Democrats]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"So I think it's important to set the record straight. Clearly, we know from media reports that the Obama campaign is deliberately distorting this."
We do? What media reports? Is she referring to The State article that said African-Americans were angry?
"They've been putting out talking points, they've been making this, they've been telling people in a very selective way what the facts are."
They have? When? Where?
"I don't think either of us want to inject race or gender in this campaign."
"No women are illegal," "buddy system," and all that notwithstanding, Didn't Clinton specifically say, in the Manchester debate, that she embodied change because she'd be the "first woman president"?
And wasn't her campaign the first one to try to go Willie Horton, with the soft-on-mandatory-minimums ploy?
It's the "vast right-wing conspiracy" strategy turned on its dime, against a fellow Democrat.
The Clintons have shamed their legacy.
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Sigh.
[Read the article: More about race and the Democrats]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What people seem to be missing here is that the Clinton campaign made a few errors in tone -- MLK/LBJ, "fairy tale" and "kid", "invisible hip black friend" -- and a few very questionable strategic ploys -- calling Obama soft on mandatory minimums, Shaheen and Penn's drug hysteria -- that were seen as offensive by some members of the African-American community, among them Donna Brazile and Jim Clyburn.
Rather than just apologizing and moving forward, they instead claimed these errors in tone were the result of a smear campaign by Senator Obama. Like the Clintons' muddying of the waters on Obama's anti-war stance, this notion doesn't hold up to even the barest of scrutiny.
As another commenter put it well, "They throw stones and hide their hands."
On purpose or not, the Clintons injected race into the story, waited for someone to slip up (in this case, Obama's SC press secretary, who apparently compiled a memo of these gaffes -- someone posted a link below (thanks)), and then went on the attack that they're being attacked.
Trust me, I know the playbook. I worked for the Clinton rapid-response team during l'affaire Lewinsky. It's the same old game.
We've heard about the "vast right-wing conspiracy." We've heard about the vast Clinton-hating MSM conspiracy. Now there's a vast Obama conspiracy? Oh, please.
With all these vast conspiracies arrayed against them, why would we even choose Senator Clinton to be our next president, at this point? I for one don't plan to, particularly after the events of the past week.
As old faces, the Clintons knew they couldn't win the hope/change argument. So, they've done what they can to spur the atmosphere of divisiveness in which they thrive. In so doing, they've encouraged many Clinton supporters to see elements of Ken Starr in Senator Obama.
It's absolutely pathetic, and if it works to win her the nomination in the end, Sen. John McCain will look over the scorched-earth wreckage and smile.
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@AlanBennett -- Obama and Present Votes.
[Read the article: More about race and the Democrats]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Regarding your fair question about Obama and present votes, this article does a good job of explaining Obama's position on abortion votes in the State Senate, and why Illinois Planned Parenthood were ok with it:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2007/07/obama-abortion-.html
It also puts the lie to the egregiously false NH abortion mailer, put out by Senator Clinton's campaign last weekend.
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Wow.
[Read the article: More about race and the Democrats]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Ok, I guess I'm turning into a conspiracy theorist. Because that recent anonymous post -- Clinton on the War Resolution -- read like the biggest bunch of campaign-written sock-puppeting I've seen yet.
"Few people have researched the whole story of Obama's stances on the war."
Ah, but I have. What's more, I remember it. One could hardly say either Clinton was doing anything to impede the rush to war in 2002 and 2003, and there's no speech in Senator Clinton's public record as indisputably against the conflict as Obama's 2002 speech.
Clinton's two "fairy tale" claims about Obama's position on Iraq have been proved false several times over, including here at Salon. But, let's go over it again.
In the first point, when Clinton talks about Obama not knowing how he would've voted in 2003 (during the Kerry-Edwards 2004 Convention) he's always leaving off the end of Obama's quote, where he said "What I know is that, from my vantage point, the case was not made."
In the second, I refer to Salon's Tim Grieve: "When Obama said that there's 'not much of a difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage,' he was plainly referring to the question of whether to stay in Iraq, not the decision to invade in the first place."
The other element of Clintonian lawyerly truth-twisting in that much-discussed "fairy tale" rant is the word debate. Ok, maybe this exact question hasn't been put to Obama in one of the fifteen debates, even though Senator Clinton has had every opportunity to bring it up. But that doesn't mean it hasn't been answered several times over. It was asked and answered on Obama's own hour-long MTP (Nov. 11), with CNN and Candy Crowley, and in various manifestations of the print media.
Going back to Clinton's war vote, it's not like there weren't Senators at the time who thought the AUMF was a terrible idea -- there were 23 of them (including Durbin, Feingold, Graham, Kennedy, Leahy, Wellstone, Byrd, Levin, and others.)
For whatever reason, perhaps because she thought it was a good idea, perhaps because she wanted to shore up her national security bona fides, Senator Clinton supported the war. Senator Obama did not. This is indisputable.
And, really, if the war had gone splendiferously, would we even be having this conversation? The Clintons are trying to get us to misremember them on the right side of the decision, or barring that, drag Senator Obama through half-truth and slander to their side of the ledger. (Contrast this with John Edwards' position, for example, who voted for the AUMF in 2003 and has now publicly apologized for his bad decision.)
It's Orwellian and it's sad.