Letters to the Editor

• @Stewsburntmonkey, Part I

  [Read the article: Clinton: "This campaign goes on"]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  “What substance don't you see? His website is full of very substantive policy views and he lays out quite a lot of substance in his book.”

  Obama’s book is great, it’s part of why I’m a fan (and a bonus: to have a president who can actually write well!). The substance that’s still missing is not ‘personal substance’ (plenty of that, check), or even policy substance (One of the things about a good campaign season is that all the candidates can float substantive policy ideas which can be adopted by the eventual nominee, right?).

  The substance lacking so far is: how is the ‘change’ we’re counting on, the basis for the ‘hope’ that differentiates Obama, supposed to happen? To be clear, I don’t mean this as a lick on Obama, as if there is ‘no there, there’; I mean, it’s time to start hearing about it, talking about it, getting it out there. I think it was wise to keep the message on a high note, 30,000 foot level until now … but a lot of us want to see more of the actual mechanics before we’re convinced and ready to pound pavement.

  "Questions or skepticism about Obama's substance are treated as attacks and countered in the most personal ways; differing viewpoints are treated as moral failings … everything is evidence that everyone is biased against Obama. In Salon comments, people use words like "treason" to describe these purportedly anti-Obama "slurs".

  These people sound less like supporters swept forward on a tide of hope and longing for change than like Freepers from the Bizarro world." -- quickstrategy

  So you say Obama supporters engage in too many personal attacks and then call them "Freepers from the Bizarro world"?”

  Reread what I said, please. Making a comparison, saying that a group sounds like xx without reference to their personal attributes, their morality, their intelligence, their patriotism, is not an attack. I stand by the comnparison. Freepers claim that dissent about the war, against the Right, etc. are treason; (Some) Obama supporters (i.e. the ones I'm criticizing) say that not supporting their candidate, expressing skepticism, allegedly ganging up on them or showing ‘bias’ is treason, to use that example. Yep, sounds like the mirror image of Freeperism to me. You see this as a ‘personal attack’?

  It is, of course, a criticism. Is that the problem?

  “You act as if this would be anything new. Dirty politics is nothing new, especially from the national Republican machines.”

  And yet, there is all this caterwauling about how ‘disgusting’ it is that HRC wants to see the FL/MI delegates seated, how horrible it is that her camp will go after Obama delegates before the convention, etc, in addition to the things I pointed out before. Everything gets taken personally, and responded to in these kinds of personal ways (e.g. Brooks’ mildly amusing column, Salon’s posting an extract). Everyone is a tool, propogandist, shill, hag, etc.

  All this moral outrage must be extremely cynical if it’s expressed even though ‘everyone knows’ it’s nothing new. Maybe it would be more useful to set all that aside and sharpen the responses in a more substantive way before the VRW attack machine kicks in. Just saying.

  “It makes you sounds a bit pompous and condescending to pretend that Obama supporters are somehow blissfully (un)aware of the "real world" and culture of dirty politics.”

  I criticized the tone of what I read online, here and elsewhere, out of some self-identified Obama supporters. You read whatever pompousness or condescension you want into it, if that pleases you. On the other hand, you’re kind of underscoring my point. It’ll be a lot more effective if more Obama supporters dropped the oversensitivity and kicked the ad homeneim habits in the next phase, and focused on filling in the picture about how all the change is going to happen, how we’re going to get from here to there, etc.

  I mean this constructively. The fight within the party is almost done; how about we take it up a notch? Isn’t that something you can agree with?

  “This is especially odd given that much of Obama's support is based on the fact that most people are tired of dirty politics and personal attacks.”

  The thing I was pointing out is, a lot of the screeching, foot-stamping, and moral approbation I see is coming from (again, some) Obama supporters, all on the heels of saying how awful the other side is for their personal attacks. For a group that’s sick of all the dirty politics and personal attacks, there doesn’t seem to be any dimming appetite for them.

  Yeah, Clinton supporters do it too, no doubt, and so does her actual campaign. It isn’t too thrilling. Maybe Krugman is right and people aren’t so sick of it after all; maybe they just want their side throwing more elbows and winning more. On the other hand, you can see how it’s less of a liability for Clinton, since it’s consistent with the fight she says she’s going to take to the Republicans. I’m not saying that’s a reason to support her; that’s a separate issue and maybe something worth talking about. (FWIW, in my mind it’s a much smaller liability than her votes on AUMF and more egregiously, Kyl-Lieberman)

  Permalink Wednesday, February 20, 2008 03:37 PM