Letters to the Editor
-
AKA Smith
Sorry, I meant to clarify that I can see how the Culinary Worker's Union strongarming tactics may have backfired, but I'm still wondering about how Obama's ad, specifically, offended Latinos so badly.
-
@ DClaw
I certainly don't want to put words in Glenn's mouth in his absence, but I think it's fairly clear from his post that he is emphasizing Bill Clinton's behavior more than that of the media. I do think this distinction is significant.
Yes, it is significant. The media is driving the narrative. Salon is part of the media. Salon has been using these sorts of race, gender, generational spins for months now, and then there is a step back and a sort of "Oh my, isn't that awful!"
As I mentioned earlier in comments, the media seizes upon all kinds of absurd possibilities and narratives, often without prompting from any campaign or politician. While it is certainly important to highlight hypocrisy in the media regarding their imputations of racial identity bias, the behavior and words of the actual candidates and their closest surrogates is much more significant, for obvious reasons.
Quote what Bill Clinton actually said and tell me where you see all the stuff that blogger are saying exists in it. Damn it! You have to look at the text itself a little bit. You just can't pretend it doesn't exist and spin a story using other source material.
Bill Clinton has one of the biggest megaphones in American politics today. He is a shrewd political thinker and actor, rarely making unintended comments. He is a former President of recent memory. Particularly as the husband of Obama's principle rival, he should know he bears enormous responsibility for what he says.
Sorry, this is another argument apart from the one Glenn made. You can go to TPM to see the expanded version of the Bill-should-butt-out opinion, but that does not really address Bill Clinton's actual remarks as they are being parsed here.
For that reason, far apart from the media hypocrisy and chatter to which we have grown accustomed, Mr. Clinton's equating Obama's success in South Carolina with those of Jesse Jackson 20 years ago should not be given the benefit of any doubt. Nor should the culpability of Mr. Clinton's remarks be diluted by unfit comparisons to the media's behavior.
Sorry but you cannot have it both ways. Either Clinton's remarks stand on their own or they do not. The only person who can actually prove what Bill Clinton meant when he said what he said is Bill Clinton. For all we know, he had a bad night's sleep and wasn't thinking clearly. For all we know, it is impossible for any human being to know in advance how any statement that he/she makes is going to be spun by the media.
The reference to the Clinton campaign source does not even have a name to attach to it.
-
DClaw1 and AKA Smith
Obama's campaign did not run the ad against the teacher's union....it was a union ad as I recall.
And Obama refused to repudiate it Because Clinton refused to repudiate the lawsuit (which would have, the claim was, disenfranchised culinary union workers).
I saw this as manipulative on both sides....but between the story of strong-arming tactics (which were allegedly on both sides....some alleged Clinton supporters locked out Obama supporters from caucuses) don't belong only in one camp or another.
Clinton was better known to the Latino community than Obama as "Hillaria" so maybe the fallout was an anti-Obama bias. Whether that bias will translate in other Latino communities remains to be seen.
-
Fisa update:
I'm listening to Glenn on the Sam Seder show on Air America. Apparently neither Clinton nor Obama will commit to voting on Monday.
I'm going to email both.
I hope we can take all of the energy we are putting into these letters on this thread into the Fisa fight.
Be well,
Laura
-
@Kitt
I'm trying, I really am.
Blaring, glaring ..... One possiblity is that I hardly remember Jesse Jackson running. Why is that? Do you think I'll forget that Obama has run in the years to come?
In my view, this is being blown out of proportion.
The Democrats are running such a spectacular field this year. I like them all. It seems a lot of the reporting is focused too much upon personal traits to the detriment of us engaging in what can also be a lively debate -
how to rescue us from where we find ourselves today.
-
@AKA Smith
and then there is a step back and a sort of "Oh my, isn't that awful!"
That's happened before. It's kind of endemic to Salon. They jump in the water with the rest of the tabloid MSM, then when they think it'll look good, they bemoan the "awfulness" of such tactics. Pure hypocrisy, actually. I don't see Glenn doing it much, though, which is why I'll usually respect what he has to say.
Joan and the Broadsheet people, on the other hand...
-
DCLaw1, I stand corrected by Anonymous
That it was the Culinary Workers who ran the ad.
I have lived among Latino/Hispanics most of my life. I don't actually think that it was the ad that had much effect. I suspect that it was more likely the union that turned off their own members. Latino/Hispanics hate to have their votes taken for granted. More than that I cannot and would not want to say since I am an Anglo.
-
doug_in_india
Yeah, again. I stand by my statement. Greenwald and others on Salon and the MSM repeat these same stock phrases about how bitter and racial the campaign has become, and repeatedly fail to provide evidence.
Yeah, definitely - this is brilliant commentary --
I've written post after post criticizing the media's hostile coverage of the Clintons, to the point where I was being accused here regularly of being a pro-Clinton shill.
I spent almost all week before the New Hampshire primary complaining that the press was biased against Hillary.
Four days ago, I criticized a campaign flier by Obama and the same accsusations were made -- this proved I was a pro-Clinton shill.
But today, I criticize one the Clintons and now suddenly I'm the opposite -- a mindless spewer of the Media's anti-Clinton cliches incapable of thinking for myself.
Don't you realize how unbelievably stupid what you're saying is?
I would have thought that the last seven years would have taught everyone how disgusting it is when people renounce their critical faculties in order to lend blind faith to a political leader -- and to believe that their chosen leader cannot err -- and that anyone who criticizes their Leader must be ill-intentioned -- but I am amazed by how much of that behavior is copied by adherents of one candidate or another in the primaries. And I find it equally disgusting.