Letters to the Editor
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what disparaging remarks?
"The Clintons continue to make disparaging remarks (it takes a PRESIDENT to get it done, what a fairy tale) and then play the victim card whenever people call them on their bullshit! I'm sick of it, the Clintons play the victim card way too many times."
Those are not disparaging remarks. The MLK/LBJ quote was the truth. It is just that some people choose to live in a fantasy world. For those of you scoring at home, LBJ was the president. He had to sign the Civil Rights to make it the law. He was the ONLY ONE who could sign it to make it law (unless you count an overridden veto.) The Civil Rights act had to be made the law to give any enforcement teeth to the 14th ammendment. MLK could have signed a piece of paper containing the Civil Rights act, but because he was not president, THAT ACT WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN MADE IT THE LAW.
Just ask significantly, in the process of signing it to law, it was a lot of work to get enough votes for Congress to pass it. It was a big debate and its outcome was not assured. LBJ spent a great deal of political capital and the price was losing the "South for a generation".
Why in the F*@CK is this so hard for you to understand? Learn to read. Learn to think. Be an adult!
The meaning that the Clinton intended with the "fairy tale" was blatantly distorted by the press and various politicians. It is the worst of "gotcha" politics. As bad as Bill O'Reilly did about "Silent Night" in his annual "War on Xmas".
That's the truth. Learn to read. Learn to think. Be an adult!
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EDWARDS IS STILL MY CANDIDATE
After getting over Al Gore, I decided in late November to support John Edwards, and, if California's election were held today, would vote for Edwards. The MSM has decided that Edwards is not a worthy opponent, because he rails about corporate greed. Please, if you can, donate to Edwards' campaign, so that he can put truth in the last poll showing a statistical tie between Clinton, Obama and Edwards. My problem with both Clinton and Obama is their ties to their corporate donors, and that, because of them, they won't be able to effect the change that we absolutely must have if we have any future, that is, to restore the individual to his/her place in this society, at the expense of the almighty corporation!!!
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Why not? They have nothing else to differ on or argue about
All this says is that those two are virtually interchangeable.
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Neither candidate represents anything resembling real change
They're both more-of-the-same Democrat-In-Name-Only candidates. This is a prime example of "freedom of choice" being a choice between different brands of soda pop -- it means nothing.
How do you sleep?
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@anonymous
Words can have mulitple meanings to multiple groups, Karl Rove has used that tactic brilliantly over the past 8 years.
For example:
Clinton: "Give me a break! This WHOLE thing is a fairy tale!" On the surface you could argue he is only talking about Obama's war position. But then, why didn't he say" "This whole ARGUMENT is a fairy tale"? or "This whole POSITION is a fairy tale?".
Why not? Because he was trying to disparage Obama! Obama, the black man who trancends race and politics, the black man who wins over white voters. A fairy tale that Black Americans should not rest their hopes on.
And as for Hillary Clinton's MLK/Johnson comment, I would only ask this: WHY, WHY did she feel the need to bring up that point in the first place? What possible relevance does the roles of MLK, Johnson, and the civil rights movement have on this race? To some extent, her comments were akin to suggesting that it was the British who deserved credit for liberating India, not Ghandi.
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The Marion Jones test
Here is a Democratic candidate admission test question.
Olympic multimedalist Marion Jones is now in prison for what?
a) being black
b) being a woman
c) using steroids
d) cheating and lying
e) being a cheating, lying black woman
f) being a cheating, lying black woman who has dual citizenship with Belize
g) melting down her gold medals to make gold teeth.
h) all of the above.
If you think this is silly, well it is, but then so is all this press coverage about sex and race and the Democratic leadership.
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Salon's role
Perhaps there some solid points to Kamiya's article. However, I would suggest that Salon is one media outlet that has siezed on this little debate, and expoded it to paramount. I am not suggesting the debate is not worth having, I just think that is not worth having when the results are quite likely to be the diminishment of the democratic party and their ultimate nominee. Since Iowa I have been watching with a growing fear that the snide toing-and-fro-ing ('fro, as in 'afro'?) will carry on to fatigue level, and if the Republicans nominate McCain, enough votes will be siphoned off to throw the election.
Certainly some people, as in the mode of Thrasher, in their polemical, anarcho-syndicalist manner would prefer to carry on and let the dialectic continue, but alas, as with nader supporters who threw elections to the Republicans, those encouraging the debasement of our candidates will be responsible for the hundreds of thousands of deaths the loss in this election would surely mean.
These little debates are always going to happen, and fine, but I hope that the tenor will retain a degree of respectablility and a modesty that does not encourage an all too eager tabloidistic political press. It is not a surprise that Salon has shown a caustic attachment to this part of the debate; Joan Walsh's racial and ethnic angst has been well explored by her in many columns, and, topically, issues of gender are expounded on increasing, exemplified by the sometimes meritous, sometimes silly Broadsheet. I just hope Salon is able to evade tabloidism of serious issues and not contribute to the, ahem, hysterics we seem to be destined for.
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@Anon 9:19
Absolutely AGREED. Here's what Charlie Rangel (a prominent African-American politician, for the uninitiated) had to say on the subject on NYC TV station NY1 yesterday:
In a candid interview on “Inside City Hall,” Rep. Charles Rangel calls Barack Obama “absolutely stupid” for attacking Hillary Clinton for remarks she made about President Lyndon Johnson and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"How race got into this thing is because Obama said ‘race,’” Rangel tells Political Anchor Dominic Carter. “But there is nothing that Hillary Clinton has said that baffles me. I would challenge anybody to belittle the contribution that Dr. King has made to the world, to our country, to civil rights, and the Voting Rights Act. But for him to suggest that Dr. King could have signed that act is absolutely stupid. It's absolutely dumb to infer that Doctor King, alone, passed the legislation and signed it into law."