Letters to the Editor
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If the whole universe were different . . .
I don't get why this article was published. Neither the primaries nor the general election is a "direct, plebiscitary system," so there's no story. And if Obama's arguments (which are no different in virtue from Clinton's) are "one of the oldest ploys in the playbook of American politics," then there's no news either. Twelve hundred words saying nothing.
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Sour grapes, it seems to me
a. The system isn't as the writer wants it to be. Therefore, it's inherently unfair...
b. Wilentz accuses the Obama campaign of not wanting to let Michigan and Florida count. Let's recall, the campaigns all agreed to abide by the party rules at that point, and all--except Clinton--pulled their name from the ballot in Michigan. Agreeing to abide by the rules, and then the Clinton campaign complains that the rules haven't changed to suit their needs...
c. The reality is that for too many of us, even the committed liberal and progressive types who should by all intents and purposes be wildly happy about the prospect of Clinton II, the thought of a return to the bitter partisanship of the '90s is at minimum, completely unappealing and exhausting even in the hypothetical.
d. Obama is in the lead, Clinton will need to more than thread the needle of perfection in the next few primaries in order to stay 100+/- delegates down in the count. Even Rendell is saying Pennsylvania will be very tight. Is that downplaying expectations, or building up the classic Clinton-style downplay-expectations-and-claim-a-landslide model?
In the final analysis, Senator Clinton has made a respectable and not-perfect record in the Senate. There she should remain to help enact President Obama's agenda in the coming term.
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And if the popular vote counted in 2000, Gore would be president
I mean come ON salon. What the hell is this piece of crap? It's full of hypotheticals of other hypothetical situations.
More to the point, the author argues that Obama is taking steps to disenfranchise Michigan and Florida. I'd just like to point out that Hillary Clinton AGREED to this disenfranchisement back in 2007 when it looked like the entire voting process was merely a formality to her coronation.
This is possibly the most Clinton-biased piece I have read in Salon yet. I'm all for pieces that both praise and criticize both candidates. But this was nothing more than a laughable attempt to spin Clinton's failures and massive delegate deficit into some sort of positivie message.
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Thanks
I'm glad it's pointed out that this is an opinion piece, and opinions, like assholes, are something we all have. The system is what the system is, and by the math of the system, Clinton is losing.
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Hillary propaganda
Where even to start in criticizing this grotesquely one-sided screed of Hillary propaganda, the gist of which is "if the rules were different than they are, Hillary would be winning"?
Unless Salon decides to headline a similarly one-sided Obama tract, I think we should all understand that Salon is a pro-Hillary outlet which has no interest in objectivity.
Just to quote one ridiculous passage which pretty much exemplifies the whole piece:
Some of it is because Obama's backers are using the same kind of tactics as George Bush's camp used in Florida in 2000..
Crucially, Team Obama doesn't want to count the votes of Michigan and Florida."
You mean, the Obama camp doesn't want to count the votes in contests that both candidates and many voters understood wouldn't count beforehand, in states neither candidate even campaigned in? Wow, imagine the nerve of the Obama people for thinking the rules shouldn't be changed in the middle of the game to favor their opponent. Obviously Obama is just like George Bush.
I find this article unworthy of a headline spot in Salon. It simply makes no attempt whatsoever at fair-mindedness, and is full of all sorts of unsubstantiated slurs about the Obama camp's supposed role in suppressing re-votes in Michigan and florida. I hope Salon realizes that crap like this hurts the overwhelmingly likely Democratic nominee's chances this Fall.
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I do love these
"If you squint and read everything backwards and divide by two, then you see she's really WINNING the nomination, and when she supported the invasion of Iraq she was really voting AGAINST it, see, and..."
Right. And in an alternative universe, Mark Penn didn't destroy Hillary's chances by his scorched earth strategy of going ultra-negative and praising McCain.
I would normally not resort to cliches like sour grapes, but if the grape fits...
Even if there were any validity to this nonsense I'd say good, we lucked out in that case. Otherwise we'd have Mark Penn in Karl Rove's job at the White House, and if that doesn't make you shiver then you haven't been paying attention.
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The self-immolation continues.
I see Prof. Wilentz's dogged insistence on publicly embarrassing himself and ruining his reputation as an American historian continues.
One presumes Wilentz thought he'd be the Arthur Schlesinger of a second Clinton presidency. It's hard to fathom any other reason why he's continued to pen this increasingly vituperative and ridiculous screeds. Here's the timeline of recent Wilentz pieces -- note how they get less historical and more hysterical as the Clinton candidacy fades.
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/stumper/archive/2007/11/16/making-the-case-for-hillary-clinton-by-sean-wilentz.aspx
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=1f22d28c-ced2-4761-b350-77f3513928ac
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=a383df9e-9d33-4b57-b832-a75b7c4d0d0c
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-wilentz26jan26,0,5561702.story
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2008/0801.wilentz.html
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=fd72d239-fb33-4493-be6a-2a869fa597d2
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/14/AR2008021401595.html
And, still his crowning farce:
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=aa0cd21b-0ff2-4329-88a1-69c6c268b304
Funnily enough, I'm pretty sure I saw Wilentz at the nearby dog park over the weekend, and was going to suggest he chill with the anti-Obama rhetoric, for fear of completely destroying his reputation among this generation of historians. (Although by now, it's in tatters regardless.) If I'd known a further installment was coming, I'd have taken the plunge.