Letters to the Editor
DCLaw1
Published Letters: 861 Editor's Choice: 2
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doug in india
[Read the article: Bill Clinton: The Chris Matthews of South Carolina]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In your first update, you ask the question: "Had the Obama campaign dismissed his loss in New Hampshire by casually suggesting that it's unsurprising that he lost given that the state is predominantly white, would that have been an appropriate comment to make?" But essentially, that's exactly what the media said about the campaign. The number of times that the "Bradley Effect" was drummed out as an explanation, or at least talked about as a plausible explanation, was remarkable, even on Salon.
False equivalency. Embarrassingly false equivalency, in fact. The media's pontifications are not the same as the ruminations of the the opposing candidate's spouse or direct surrogates. As we all painfully know, the media entertains every manner of boneheaded idea and possibility, often entirely independent of the efforts of the actual candidates or politicians.
Obama and his campaign went out of their way to disagree that the "Bradley Effect" had happened in New Hampshire. Obama repeatedly chalked up Hillary's victory there as a result of a strong campaign and organization.
Glenn is absolutely right that if Obama had made similarly trivializing remarks about New Hampshire, people would be apoplectic that he was being racially divisive.
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no
[Read the article: Bill Clinton: The Chris Matthews of South Carolina]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Stellea:
First of all you are truly insulting Mr. Jackson and his struggles. You diminish all the people who voted for him. And you are telling black people, they cannot have Obama, he is transcended beyond your race, he is above that. He is now in a different league.
Please, take this sophistry and test it with a real person face to face and see how twisted it is.
That's quite the rhetorical ju-jutsu, but patently dishonest. Reminds me a little of the twisting of Obama's words about Reagan, as a matter of fact. The point is obviously not that black people "cannot have Obama, he is trascended" them, it's that Jesse Jackson objectively, factually, and indisputably did not have the same endorsements, widespread popular support, credibility, message, and galvinizing effect on the electorate that Obama does, and dismissing his win in South Carolina as nothing more than the product of identity politics is grossly unfair and an insidious attempt to marginalize a genuine movement.
cythera45:
Very well said! All these white folks so butt-puckering anxious that Obama not be seen as black--heaven forbid!
Interesting that you assume we're all white.
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cythera
[Read the article: Bill Clinton: The Chris Matthews of South Carolina]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]White liberals are going to be Obama's undoing. By seeming so eager to police the race issue for him, to ferret out the merest whiff of race-baiting, they seriously compromise his message of transcending the politics of the 1960s.
Like that "white liberal" James Clyburn, right?
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/sleuth/2008/01/james_clyburn_undeclared_not_u.html
You are the worst kind of troll. As disingenuous as you are prolific in your attempts to bait people here with false arguments and predicates.
I'm not impressed.
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stella (and cythera45)
[Read the article: Bill Clinton: The Chris Matthews of South Carolina]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...by you repeating the Republican and Obama held notion that the battles of the 60's and 70's were an excess that should be eliminated is beyond contempt.
...I know my place as a white person and not to claim that Jessie Jackson should be erased cause some white people don't like him and they may think Obama is black and get confused.
I'm going to put this in very basic terms for you, and this goes for cythera45 as well. If you can't engage in argument without blatantly distorting what I and others are saying in response, I (at least) will ignore you.
I'll not be pulled into shadowboxing with individuals who apparently lack the intellect to discuss these issues fairly and honestly.