Letters to the Editor
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Stop writing Joan
I am now considering cancelling my subscription to Salon based on your comments. Why do you call Obama a "whiner"? You seem to be unwilling to admit that what the Clinton's did was mean, nevermind the fact that Bill Clinton should not be used as an advocate/substitute/attack dog for Hillary. If they are in fact 2 distinct people then she should speak up for herself and allow him to maintain the what little dignity he has left.
Who really lost in this dustup between the Clinton and Obama? The democrats this fall because I have not run into anyone who will now even think about voting for Hillary if she wins the primary.
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Joan: WOW!! You are evolving..I am truly impressed ..You are not quite there but I see progress
of course I wish you would have displayed this maturation when you penned your previous commentaries about gender, race and Michelle..
But from my vantage point this is your best post todate with regard to these subject matters..
I will admit I am a tentative about you after our discourse this week, but I am also capable of being a person that can accept change in others as well as myself..
Impressive...
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Joan, just come out and say it!
The whole concept of race in this years politics was started by the Clinton campaign. The whole drug fiasco with Mark "I didn't just say the word Cocaine 15 seconds ago" Penn and the Shaheen debacle started it. Additionally, while the media may have had a role in promoting race, without a doubt the Clintons thrive off it. Hell, SC is already framed as a non-loss because of the black vote. Joan, just please stop with the veiled support of Hillary and say it aloud. You want Hillary and not Obama because she's a woman and you want her to continue the fight of 40 years ago and "stick it" it to the man in a horribly divisive partisan way. Every day I see this crap is another day that makes me reconsider my vote for Hillary if she gets the nod.
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It's not about you
White people often frame the debate as "was it intentionally racist or not?" This is understandable defensiveness, as they are familiar with (and tired of) being accused of racism. Black people, also understandably given the colorblind paradigm that does not reflect their reality, often see race at work. But unless there is a smoking gun--which there almost never is--most White readers will side with the accused and end up empathizing with the White person. I don't especially care if either Clinton is intentionally using code or not. It functions as code anyway, to the Clintons' advantage, and it's the tragedy of race in America.
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I am also rather disgusted with the "media"
The talking heads on cable news are the worst (sorry).
They have been pushing the "race" thing to no end. It is irresponsiable journalism at its worst.
I try to remember 04:
"Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us -- the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of "anything goes.""The pundits, the pundits like to slice-and-dice our country"
We need to not follow along with this game.
Turn off the idiot box, there is nothing worth watching there. Ignore the bloggers who know nothing, but are self appointed experts on everything. Throw out the op-eds from people you would not trust to feed you dog....They think we are idiots, and we are proving it to them.
Look at the issues, look at leadership qualities, and vote.
As our ol' friend Public Enemy said: "Dont...Don.don't believe the hype ya'll"
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Turning Obama into Al Sharpton - one speech at a time
If Hillary beats Obama for the nomination, it will be largely because she and Bill were able to paint him as "the black candidate" a la Al Sharpton in 2004 and Jesse Jackson in 1988. You know, the black guy who speaks to black and minority issues and doesn't stand a chance in hell of getting the nomination so it's a waste of time to support him.
It's definitely an effective strategy. Depressing if it ends up working, which I'd say it has a good chance right now. If you look at Bill's comments this week about Obama getting votes because he's black and the way that the Clinton camp is framing their potential loss in S.C. it is clear they are trying to define Obama as the niche candidate.
And by the way Joan, that is what Atwater invented - define your opponent. Dukakis was a clueless idiot, Clinton was a liberal (didn't work), Gore was a liar, Kerry was a flip flopper.
And now the Clintons are doing it and I'd say they're doing it pretty well.
Of course Obama sees this and is fighting every way possible to get around it but it is subtle and the Clintons are good at it. If Obama doesn't come up with something in the next week or so to really combat it in a new way, I think it's probably gonna work.
Of course the Clintons might also want to watch out. By putting Obama in the 'black candidate' role, they might become their own worst enemy and John Edwards' best friend. Take a look where all those white democrats are going today in S.C. They aren't going to Hillary that's for sure.
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So what WOULD be like Lee Atwater then?
If you'll permit me to quote from a previous comment, I still have the same question. If what the Clinton campaign has been doing isn't Rove/Atwateresque, what in fact is it?
"What do you think, at this point, differentiates Senator Clinton's campaign from the Rove playbook? Repeating distortions over and over again until people think they're true? Check. Trying to swiftboat Obama at his point of greatest strength (opposition to the Iraq war)? Check. Sending out brazenly false mailers on abortion and taxes? Check. Painting the candidate as a flip-flopper based on out-of-context Senate votes? Check. Indulging in union-busting rhetoric when useful? Check. Wallowing in the politics of fear? Check. Encouraging wedge divisiveness by rather blatantly playing the race card? Check. Voter suppression? Check. Chain e-mail smears and robocalls? Check.
In other words, is there a line Clinton could cross in this primary campaign, in your eyes, and then be deemed worthy of reproach?" Put another way in the context of this column, is there a line the Clintons could cross, in your eyes, where a comparison to Rove and Atwater would become justified? (Mind you, this is a comparison many other left-leaning, Democratic pundits have had no problem making -- See Alter, Dionne, Waldman, Continetti, Chait, Carlson, King, Robinson, Herbert, etc.)
As regarding the race card stuff, you only mention the LBJ and fairy tale screeds, both of which I found readily misconstruable but not racist per se. You neglect to mention (except in passing) Billy Shaheen, Robert Johnson, "imaginary hip black friend," "shuck-and-jive," etc.
See TPM's Josh Marshall, by no means an "Obamabot": ""We seem to be at the point where there are now two credible possibilities. One is that the Clinton campaign is intentionally pursuing a strategy of using surrogates to hit Obama with racially-charged language or with charges that while not directly tied to race nonetheless play to stereotypes about black men. The other possibility is that the Clinton campaign is extraordinarily unlucky and continually finds its surrogates stumbling on to racially-charged or denigrating language when discussing Obama."
See Margaret Carlson: "While it isn't clear from whose sleeve the card was pulled, it is likely it wasn't from the person with the most to lose. If Hillary Clinton's campaign had taken only one shot at Obama, it might have been blown off as a mistake. But four shots constitutes a pattern."
See the NYT, so pro-Obama that they just strongly endorsed Hillary: "By the time the campaigns got to New Hampshire, the Clinton team was panicking...It was clearly her side that first stoked the race and gender issue."
Acting like the race card got unfortunately and mistakenly played by the media here is a bit disingenuous. The media exacerbated the problem, no question. But the Clintons are not innocent.