Letters to the Editor

• manyctnj

  [Read the article: NARAL endorses Obama]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  1. "I think the support of [Obama] is largely irrational, largely due to the inexplicable "anyone but Hillary" phenomenon that grips many people (really, it's the "anyone but a woman with balls" phenomenon), and largely due to a desire on the part of rich white people to expiate years of guilt over the condition of black America by getting behind a guy with darker skin than they have who talks nicer than they do (oh yeah, and who's better educated than they are)."

  I suppose it's comforting to dismiss the opinion of anyone who disagrees with you as irrational - it saves you from having to justify your own beliefs. Are you saying there are no rational reasons not to support Hillary? That the only possible rationale for not doing so is sexism? I don't doubt that sexism accounts for some anti-Hillary sentiment, but you're really giving yourself a free pass. "You don't want to vote for my candidate? You must be afraid of strong women!" End of argument. "You support her opponent? Your only possible motivation must be white guilt." What a reasoned debate!

  2. "Where were they when Jesse Jackson and Shirley Chisolm ran? I for one liked the way they talked. I could have felt real pride in electing either one of them president. Obama, well, kind of leaves me cold on that score."

  Then obviously you don't consider Obama's lack of experience an issue. After all, Jesse Jackson had never held elective office when he ran in 1984 or again in 1988. And Shirley Chisholm had been in the House for three years when she ran in 1972.

  3. "In reality Obama's whiter than I am (which is pretty white),"

  What does this mean? I keep hearing Hillary's supporters carp about how Obama isn't "really black." Are YOU perhaps the person who's fetishizing blackness, rather than the guilty liberals you accuse of supporting Obama only because he's black? I find discussions of how black Obama is boring, because they imply there's some magic standard of racial authenticity that he has meet. Do McCain and Hillary have to incessantly prove their "whiteness" the way Obama has to prove his "blackness?"

  4. "evidence the "bitter" comment that reveals a deep disdain not just for poor white folks but for all people who hold their religion dear(that would include many black people I know). No mere gaffe, that comment, that was his core thinking coming to the surface. If you had just arrived that morning on planet earth and heard his comments on the radio, you might easily have mistaken him for a member of a restricted country club."

  Whereas Bill Clinton showed his deep respect for poor white folks by pushing through NAFTA and signing welfare reform. Ah yes, the DLC leadership and their Republican allies have nothing but the highest respect for the working poor! And whenever you see those pictures of Bill Clinton golfing, it's not at an exclusive country club - he's shooting links on the back forty!

  5. "This is a guy who is NOT religious, who joined a church purely to further his political career, who either didn't attend church often enough (the truly irreligious typically don't!) to know the smack his pastor was talking (or who outright lied about what he knew) and who, when push came to shove, threw the guy under the bus anyway."

  Isn't it silly that we demand displays of religiosity from our elected leaders in the first place? Whatever happened to the separation of church and state? Do you really think Obama is the only politician who feigns religiosity because voters demand it? Did you know that HIllary's church attendance is notoriously scant? Also, are you saying that Obama SHOULDN'T have thrown Rev. Wright from the bus?

  6. " So his popularity among blacks baffles me somewhat, too."

  Isn't it presumptuous for white people to set themselves up as arbiters of how black a black candidate must be before he is entitled to support from African-Americans?

  7. "And now I read he's back to wearing the flag pin and talking God to the autoworkers in Michigan, after the coalminers quite literally gave him the shaft in West Virginia. Sweet jesus, what's next? Maybe he'll start going by his middle name, which, as we know from when Hillary did something like it, is a crime against humanity..."

  Apparently you're obsessed with flag pins, protestations of religiosity, and middle names. Because these are the issues that rational people concern themselves with...

  8. "I think he has benefitted enormously from Hillary's vote for the Iraq war, and yet I believe in my heart he would have voted the same way if he had been required to actually cast a vote (something he assiduously avoided -- oh yes, I know, for purely "tactical" reasons -- as a state sentator). All I have for evidence is that he has cast every single vote on the issue since being in the Senate EXACTLY the same way as Hillary did."

  Yes, because we all know that it was HILLARY who was supposed to benefit from her disastrous vote. But somehow things didn't work out that way. You may believe "in your heart" that Obama would have cast the same vote as Hillary - rather than voting with the 22 Senators who voted against the War - but isn't it convenient for you to believe that, since it diminishes the difference on an issue where the comparison is not flattering to Hillary?

  9. "I think he bought his house with the help of a sleazeball political operative in Chicago, this AFTER he was elected to the US Senate and had clearly shown his inclination to seek higher office. The whole transaction was, at a minimum, so stupid for him to have engaged in it boggles the mind. I actually think it was more than stupid. I think it was quite likely crooked. "

  I suppose prefacing each allegation with "I think" saves you from having to substantiate, because no one can prove that you don't think these things.

  Permalink Wednesday, May 14, 2008 05:35 PM