Letters to the Editor
-
Filtering Clinton
It's difficult for voters to formulate an unbiased reaction to Bill Clinton's statements since everything he says or does is distorted beyond all recognition by the Republican Noise Machine, as well as by an all-too-obviously hostile M$M.
Campaign for his wife? What a horrible, horrible man.
-
Josh Marshal
Josh Marshal is a long time lover and booster of both Clintons, but seems to have a lot of the same negative reactions to Bill's latest tricks that G.G. and others are having.
-
The internals...
...did the polls not reflect several trends?
Obama's white percentage vote decreased and his black percentage increased, didn't it?
So if his white vote percentage decreased and those black vote percentages increased it applies to both sides of the argument.
Also, this was a larger state with much more voters.
-
ludicrous
Why is someone bringing up the subject of race a racist? In the context that Bill raised the subject, he was merely being pragmatic.
The odds of the Clintons being racist are about the same as Bush/Cheney being anti-oil industry.
Bill Clinton is a politician. It's his job to push, pull, shove, spin, and lobby for what he believes in. End of story.
Put away the fainting couch and smelling salts and stop clutching your pearls.
Politics is a contact sport.
(I am NOT a Hillary supporter, BTW.)
-
Glenn is Race Baiting
This is plain and simple race baiting Glenn, and you should know better.
You just chastised a couple commenters for making assumptions on what the race divided results meant in SC, and rightfully so.
Likewise, you shouldn't be making assumptions about what people's hidden agendas are in relation to their comments.
You didn't misquote Clinton, but you sure are taking some liberties in telling us how we are supposed to interpret his comments.
I hope you're not letting all the praise you're getting go to your head. I cannot help but recognize you getting bolder in telling people how they need to think.
-
Anonymous
Mr. Greenwald, I am an African-American and I took no offense with Obama being compared to Jesse Jackson. If Obama lives a long life he should hope to have a rich a legacy as Jesse Jackson. The Jesse Jackson who was marching and playing a major role in the civil rights movement at the cost of his life. The Jesse Jackson who negotiated to get Americans out of Cuba, out of Syria and Yugoslavia. The Jesse Jackson who was the first African American to win several primaries when people said it couldn't be done.
You missed the point. The comparison Clinton was making was NOT of Obama and Jackson as people. It was Obama and Jackson as presidential candidates.
You can say as many good things as you want about Jesse Jackson, but the fact remains that he was not a viable presidential candidate because most of his support came from black Democrats and he attracted so little white support. A candidate like that can't win. Comparison Obama to Jackson is an effort to depict him as that type of a presidential candidate -- one who can only get black votes but not white votes, and therefore cannot win.
But he's been reduced to being a race hustler, the same thing that going to happen to Barack Obama the moment Hillary is disposed of with the help of misguided people such as yourself.
As usual, one criticism of any candidate amounts to accusations that one is trying to sabatoge that candidate.
Go check from four days ago when I criticized an Obama campaign flier as excessively religious and you'll see hundreds of comments angrily accusing me of being a Clinton partisan.
Please do not confuse a Bill Clinton with a lifetime a committment to civil rights with some of the more interesting Obama supporters ie Andrew Sullivan, the defender and promoter of the Bell Curve.
Yeah - because what I wrote is based on what Andrew Sullivan said, not on what Bill Clinton himself said.
-
Even a high performance car misses now and then
Missing on this one, Glenn. It reminds me of all those Serious Pundits you're always wonderfully taking to task. Did you hear interviews with a large amount of African American voters who claimed that they were going to vote for Clinton but then heard Bill Clinton say something about race and switched to Obama?
I think you're buying some media narrative which is no more based on reality, as far as anyone knows, than any of the other ones. No, I'm not particularly a Clinton supporter, it all just sounds dubious to me, at best, despite the fact that David Brooks and Mark Shields and you and others are all repeating it as common wisdom now.
People try to put a spin on things that makes their chances look better. "Oh I think he'll do well there but mainly because there are more African Americans" doesn't strike me as anything but that, and it would never get the slightest notice, in my opinion, were race not involved.
To your question "Yes but did anyone do the same in reverse about being white?" the answer is no, and the reason is that it wouldn't make sense. To make it parallel you'd have to posit years of oppression against whites leading to an excitement at having the first white president and so on, and your anaolgy breaks down in too many ways to count before it ever gets started.
In other words, what Bill Clinton said seems to have been borne out as true, not because he's a racist but because in state with a large African American population, it made a difference. Not the only difference, but a difference. The point is that no one, not Clinton or anyone else running, would claim that Obama has no other attractive attributes except being black. Which is pretty much what you're claiming that Clinton meant.
-
Glenn,
about the lawsuits you mentioned in your last post: do you know anything about how far advanced they are, and when we might expect a ruling in one of these cases? As long as no bill with immunity is passed of course...
Anyone? We could use a site like Groklaw here!