Letters to the Editor
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Headline is abominable
Any weak attempt at fairness toward Hillary Clinton in this piece is completely negated by the headline. Yah, sure. Hillary Clinton is George Wallace alright. Let us hear no more screaming about Fox News, because the left is fast sinking below Fox's dubious level on the right.
Oh, and juxtaposed on my screen just to the right of the text box? Another Obama photo op (the ten thousandth on this site?), with this one making him resemble a member of the celestial choir. The selfsame ad box (or whatever it is) with Hillary Clinton's photo also appears on salon, but with her face resembling a shriveled prune. Objectivity, thy name is mud.
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The full quote of what Clinton said
Since it's the basis of the article, might was well get the full quote in context, which Joe Conanson didn't supply:
Hillary Clinton, in a USA Today interview: "I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on. ... [There is an Associated Press article] that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me. There's a pattern emerging here."
Even granting that Hillary Clinton misspoke, it's an ugly argument because it's based on Obama's lack of support, not on Clinton's own support and qualifications. Let us not forget that even giving Clinton the benefit of the doubt, she's still taking a low road here.
This quote also shows the flipside of the "elitism" argument -- the "uneducated people" argument. As in, "I have the support of all the uneducated people." Is that really a point you want to win on? Sure, it gives Clinton an advantage in the state primaries. Will it really be an advantage in the general election, against McCain? Will Hillary's whiteness be an advatage against snowball-white McCain?
Why did Clinton even bring up whites? Just the fact that she brought it up is sloppy. Even if her intentions were good, it SOUNDS questionable, just as her LBJ comments -- given during the week of MLK Jr. Day, of all times -- SOUNDS questionable, or "ill-advised." A quote like this is bound to irritate and turn off black voters, whether or not the meaning of the quote is defensible. It also sounds like a pander to white people's racist sensibilities, even if that's not the intention.
Surely Hillary Clinton is intelligent enough to understand this. And since we know she's very intelligent, you have to wonder if she didn't know exactly what she was doing.
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She meant what she said.
Listen to the tape. She says working class, and then goes back to correct herself and clarify her statement by saying "white" Americans.
This is clearly intentional, and the question of whether the Clintons are racist is moot. The discussion of the impact of Senator Clinton talking about race in a manner that appears to be playing the race card is appropriate.
Many, many of us who write on this blog told you so, because we've lived long enough and have seen enough to tell the truth about what we see.
So, once again, what is salient is that she is playing the race card, and pressing the party envelope by doing so, clearly and calculatedly.
Stop ignoring the clear and convincing evidence, and talk about the truth.Please.
Debate the appropriateness of her comments. Discuss the impact of her comments.But please, do not attempt to second guess what she clearly stated.
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@dm10003
dm10003: "'defeating miscegeny' was one woman's reasoning..."
Was that her spelling, or your spelling?
Miscegeny (or miscegenation) is entirely different from misogyny. Look them up. The former is a word people used to use negatively, which means "whites and blacks having sex/reproducing."
Misogyny means "hatred of women." (Mis = hatred, gyn = female)
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i'm down
weeping for brunnhilde '08.
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What a great juxta position
between weeping for brunhilde's helpful and thoughtful post and electro robot's stupid sarcasm.
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Drop bomb, do damage control later
Bill and HIllary don't speak without calculation, they both have a long history of this and while I would agree that sexism and racism is built into our language and culture (thank you weeping, your posts are always spectacular) I don't think Hillary was unaware of exactly what she was saying.
Is it not "Rovian" to do something like this and then blame the other side for doing something similar to you? Each time either Clinton has dropped one of these seemingly silent but deadly bombs they've fogged the air with yelling about sexism and Obama playing the race card.
But, once you say something like this and plant an idea in people's heads, it doesn't matter what the pundits say, the people it's aimed at don't listen to those pundits, they listen to pundits who reinforce and amplify exactly what she said.
Thee is little doubt that the Clinton campaign calculates all of this: how much damage they can inflict on Obama and on themselves while recovering. This is Mark Penn's signature tactic and no doubt the last part of their "kitchen sink" strategy.
I think Toles sums up what I hope is the effect:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/opinions/cartoonsandvideos/toles_main.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
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"A Drunk Man's Words are a Sober Man's Thoughts"
Or so goes an old saw which has a lot of truth in it, and which could be altered to "A Freudian slip is still a slip." One cannot "slip up" without having the thought one meant to supress.
I've made my case here before that the Clintons have practiced a sort of "knowing racism", and if that is "just politics" as one poster insists, then the "slip" only compounds the felony, and need anyone be reminded that whatever else he may have been, George Wallace was, first and foremost, a politician.
This is the reason for the need for change. This is the reason we're having this dialogue. This is the reason this campaign has been so long, drawn out and strange: Politics As Usual implies some form of racism is being practiced, and as weeping for brunhilde stated so eloquently earlier on, one can work for racism even after working against it. In fact, it happens all too often, as people evolve. Evolution, after all, seems to have given us the duckbilled platypus as well as the gazelle. OK, maybe the better word would be devolution. We can split semantic hairs, but again, as weeping pointed out, we all carry varying degrees of racism, either the unconscious, unexamined type, or, sometimes, the knowing kind. This is not the same as saying the Clintons are bigots. I will continue to hammer this point: I don't believe the Clintons are anti-black bigots; I do believe they are not only racists but that they have knowing practiced institutional racism, especially in this campaign. It is difficult to avoid doing it in this milieu, and if one is so self-absorbed as to fail to constantly examine one's self, this kind of thing will continue to happen.
I am saddened by it, but I am not surprised. When the lust for power exceeds the urge toward enlightenment, anyone can become a convenient target or a stepping stone for the power addict. I don't think we've seen any two American politicians more enamored of power than the Clintons since Richard Nixon went over the side.
The very essence of a Freudian slip is that it exposes, by accident, by "misspeaking", the very thing that must not be spoken, but which is lurking beneath the surface. At what depth remains the only question.
So, Joe, just what were you really trying to say?