Letters to the Editor
-
Obama's comments are some strong evidence that he's not religious
And so then what of all his constant religious shtick about his adult conversion? Did it really even happen? Was it just something he orchestrated to be more politically appealing? That's what I would be asking if I were an Obama supporter, because if his religiosity is a cynical ploy, that undercuts one of the main pros of his candidacy: candor, honesty, not playing dirty.
I agree with his comments 100%, but you don't win elections condescending to the lumpen proletariat. You just don't. At the same time, it's the elephant in the room that Hillary wins Ohio because the white lumpen there is just too racist and classist to vote for an upper-middle-class black man, and she rides that wave of collateral racism/classism in her favor with abandon. Obama becomes the black Kerry. At the same time, Obama rides the waves of antipathy to Hillary and her shrill divisiveness with abandon as well.
They're both totally politically cynical, and McCain is too. The question is, who can win the White House for the Dems over Walnuts McCain? I can make a long list of cons for both Obama and Clinton.
-
What Utter Crap!
"To judge from Obama's several statements on the subject, he sincerely believes that working-class whites, lacking the self-awareness to recognize the actual economic origins of their distress, seek relief from their pain by praying in church, slaughtering deer, and making illegal immigrants and imports from foreign countries scapegoats for ills that have nothing to do with immigration or trade.... they are too irrational to understand their genuine problems and their true interests, which are chiefly economic, a fact that university-educated progressives in big cities and college towns can readily perceive."
Obviously Rovian! What utter unbelievable, gutter-ridden, bullshit! Excuse me. That's what Lind feels, not Obama!
-
Lawd bless Jon Stewart
Since I bollixed up my last letter, let me say that Jon Stewart just did a wonderful riff that boiled down to (after a montage of "elitist! elitist! elitist!" sound bytes--he could have included this article but they were all broadcast):
"Excuuuuse me, but doesn't 'elite' mean 'good'? Isn't that something we aspire to have in a president? I mean, if it goes well, one day they're going to carve your face into a mountain!"
I am realizing that TAKING OFFENSE is a really big part of all this. I hope that people will try to stop and think, why, really, am I choosing to take offense?
Think about taking offense. How it's a choice, not a reflex. And it assumes the intent of the person who "gives" offense.
For the life of me, I can't assume that about Obama's musings on the despair in small towns where jobs have been gone for 25 years.
I'm agnostic, but I'd sure as hell be clinging to whatever faith I can claim were I in their shoes. And I don't think I'd take offense, either.
Sometimes, when someone sees me from a more detached perspective than my own, they offer me information about myself. That's what good teachers do. And good leaders.
Okay, I'll hush. Love to everybody.
-
@jacksmith--please spare us the continued
. . . posting of the same frickin tiresome screed that has been appearing in letters sections of Salon Clinton-Obama articles of late.
Get off your lazy ass and write some NEW and ORIGINAL thoughts germain to a particular article. We Thank you.
-
When we are talking about politicians that can't connect with voters . . .
And lest we forget, it's Hillary that has rolled up her sleeves to chug beers with the NRA. Are we to believe that this is her natural climate? Nothing in the almost two decades in which we have known her would suggest that she likes chugging brewskis with the gun geezers. But there she stood. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/12/hillary-becomes-a-gun-lov_n_96396.html)
This is Dukakis in a tank all over again. What we really need is a politician whose genuine personality shines through the b.s. and that's exactly what Obama does.
Everytime I see Hillary these days I cringe. She moves from one desperate bit of fake positioning to the next. I wish that, like the Tina Fey speech implies, that Hillary would say, "You know what? This is who I am. I'm bookish and policy oriented, but I think that's what this country needs in a president; Someone with brains who will think things through." I'm just moving ever faster towards hating her, making it all the more difficult for me to stomach voting for her in the event that she DOES win the nomination. I can't stand it. Please don't make me so sick of you that I walk to the polls gagging and cursing your name.
-
Salon - wallowing in the pigpile
The only coverage of the torture issue in Salon is a war room blog entry.
Which you chose NOT to make the top story, thus furthering the minimal media coverage.
In the old days this story would get a multi-article coverage and top billing.
But no, it's yet another opportunity for flamewar between candidate supporters.
AND IN ALL OF THESE ARTICLES THEIR ACTUAL POLICIES AND PLANS ARE NEVER MENTIONED.
You guys are no better than the shallow media pigpile Glenn Greenwald skewers.
Can we have even a one day break from this?
-
class
What nonsense! Where did all those Obama votes in e.g. Virginia come from? This presumed pattern of his support might have been an important one early on in his run (when e.g. working class blacks were more likely to support other candidates, especially Clinton), but it has long since stopped being a big part of the story, except in pundit-land.
What's completely missing from Lind's "analysis" and from all the useless hot air about this latest manufactured flap is the extent to which the Democratic Party has abandoned working-class interests, giving those voters *no way* to vote their pocketbooks (but exit polls show that income still broadly correlates to voting behavior, as in the richer the more Republican). Whether Obama continues that depressing trend or not, at least he understands the problem--see his recent speech in Terre Haute, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sc9PepjyDow
What we're suffering from is a political culture dominated by 24-hour *gotcha* noise, embroidered by droves of think-tank know-nothings like Lind, who are paid to spoon this garbage in lieu of doing real research at a university--where they can't get jobs, not because they're not sufficiently "elite" (on the contrary, they are in their comfortable positions by connections only), but because they haven't worked hard enough.
Cover something real why don't you, like torture or financial meltdown....