Letters to the Editor
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Deceptive mis-attribution of TPM post of AP post of 3 words from "Clinton campaign strategists"
Talk about deceptive mis-attribution, your supposed quote of the "Clinton campaign" (in Update II) is a Talking Points Memo/Josh Marshall post of a "Just off the AP wire" statement containing 39 words of which only 3 purport to be a quote of "Clinton campaign strategists".
GG Update II..."Here, after all, is what the Clinton campaign itself is saying:
Clinton campaign strategists denied any intentional effort to stir the racial debate. But they said they believe the fallout has had the effect of branding Obama as 'the black candidate,' a tag that could hurt him outside the South.
Is there something ambiguous about that?"
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Late to the game
After reading through a lot of this, the entire argument against the Clintons reminds me of a pyramid scheme. The top level seems to have this big punch to it, but the farther you go from the top so much of it gets doled out to rationalization and diluted that any real substance is gone.
After actually being challenged and having to respond, the most harsh critics end up writing that it was "disingenuous", arguing about the "gaffe" of comparing political contests of the past that may not be quite perfect parallels to the current one. Horror.
So now after reams of comments I'm convinced that it was political spinnery, that yes, there are perhaps some holes in the comparison to Jackson in those prior contests. (I almost said "in those races" but thought better of it, in this climate). So a politician put a positive spin for his side in some comments.
Wow.
If anyone puts a positive spin on their own side by saying something about Clinton, for example "Well, she won there, yes, but so did so-and-so in 1963" will this be greeted by the same horror?
Oh and that brings me to this, directly to Glenn: the equating Bill Clinton's comments with the charge against Hillary Clinton by Chris Matthews is absurd. Yes, you critiqued that also, but what Matthews said in his case was that Clinton's entire political thriving was due to only one thing, Bill's extramarital affairs. If Bill Clinton said anything like this, anything even remotely this absurd or offensive last week, I'd be right with you on this one.
He didn't.
Late and anonymous
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Avoiding the issues
Campaigns are skillfully managed to avoid the issues--that's true of the Obama and Clinton campaigns. Since personalities and not issues are important, Bill Clinton overshadowing Hillary counts as news.
The Democrats make the Republicans--or at least McCain-- seem honorable by comparison.
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From The Washington Post:
Something is very seriously wrong with this sentence. Very seriously wrong.
That is the problem Bush faces as he prepares to deliver his seventh and probably final State of the Union address tonight.
http://tinyurl.com/2nb2b2
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Isn't there an alternative explanation
I am no fan of Bill Clinton - I am a liberal and his presidency showed that he is clearly not. So please take this post as one that comes not from a Clinton supporter.
The fact of the matter is that Obama's entire campaign is about race. His resume is paper thin - he had no executive experience, no foreign policy experience, no real national legislative experience, no real, well, experience at all. Were he white he would never be considered a contender.
That said, I live in a country that is deathly and overwhelmingly afraid of gay marraige, that supports with vigor an unequally applied death penalty, that elected Bush twice, that enthusiastically supported the Iraq war and that believes, by a slim majority, in the Bible's account of creation. The same country that ignored the superbowl suffering because of the race of the victims, by the way.
Until we deal with race, as a real issue in American life, we are doomed to live under its weight. A black man can never be president until we do that. Perhaps this is what Clinton knows, and why he fights as hard as he does. But it is unfair to allow Obama to take advantage of his race and not allow CLinton to point out the obvious.
By the way, the sheer hubris of a person with such an unimpressive resume to run for president should tell you that this is the wrong guy.
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Kovie Kovie Kovie--your slip is showing
"which makes your criticizing me for it all the more absurd"
actually, what I mostly criticized you for was not the sarcasm but the need to predicate the sarcasm on false paraphrasing of my posts. Not quite the same thing (more of that subtle reading comp. I suppose), though I'm glad you found them at least semi-amusing. We do what we can.
"all said basically the same thing within a few weeks--none of which she has refuted--and yet you continue to contend that it was all random"
And here you do it again. First, I love how they all "basically" say the same thing--which of course opens up lots of leeway for defining items under your list of the "same thing". Secondly, I never contended it was all random. Half my post was quoting the direct questioning that led to some of the alleged "basic same thing". So here's the non-random aspect--somebody says something that may have been dumb (i.e. Shaheen), then the Clinton people get asked about it and their (I'll use your technique) RESPONSES are filed as "evidence" of some grand conspiracy as if they spontaneously showed up in a studio and announced some smear on Obama (we'll ignore whether one can smear with truth or not). When it's patently a case of cause and effect. It really isn't all that hard. Thirdly, and most laughably, is how you lose sight of reality in your attempt to "win" an argument when you state that she has refuted "none" of what they said. When of course the record is clear she has. She fired Shaheen, said it was wrong, and personally apologized to Obama and she rebuked Johnson in the debate just to name four ways your are either woefully ignorant or willfully deceptive here.
"he ad hom stuff was, of course, totally gratuitous, and indicative of the inherent weakness of your "logic" (as it were) and insecurity of your self-image"
hmm, let's see, since you were the first to resort to ad hom (ie. "fool", "troll", etc.), then by your logic your "logic" was inherently weak as is your self-image. So I suppose that would fall, in the latin, into the "I knowum you isis, but whatum am I?" or perhaps the "You started it"
"As was feeling the need to tout your own literary creds, as if that made you capable of levels of comprehension about matters not having to do with literature in ways that others were not."
except of course it wasn't in reference to you making a point about understanding the alleged complexity of your argument (which is actually simplistic to a fault) but your point that I had a "reading" comprehension problem. In which case my literary creds would be directly relevant. Wow, you just don't even understand your own points, do you? Or is that you worry so little about logic and consistency that you simply forget them as you type them?
"my SATs were a LOT higher than that"
Glad those math scores bumped you up. Or that 100 point curve on the new test. Or perhaps you simply put your verbal skills to use via linguistically jousting rather than logic and argument.