Letters to the Editor
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So, now it's racist to mention historical political fact?
Man, we are fucked in the drive-thru if you Obamabots think it's racist to even mention the fact that Jesse Jackson won the S.C. primary - TWICE - back in the 80s.
I thought it was a wonderful sign for better things to come that Jesse did win two decades ago.
But, damn! I never envisioned that it would be considered racist to mention his accomplishment in 2008.
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Thnaks for bringing some sanity to the discussion on MSNBC
I had been watching MSNBC earlier in the day, but Joe Scarborough's ranting about Bill Clinton caused me to turn off the TV until the evening. Therefore, I missed your appearance, but just now watched the video you posted.
Thank you for bringing some sanity into the discussion. However, if you had been on earlier, Scarborough probably wouldn't have let you get a word in edgewise, just as he silenced Mika earlier every time she tried to speak.
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@Micki
"Man, we are fucked in the drive-thru if you Obamabots think it's racist to even mention the fact that Jesse Jackson won the S.C. primary - TWICE - back in the 80s."
No, Micki, we're FUCKED if you keep snidely insulting fellow democrats as Obamabots.
Who the fuck are you, anyway - little green footballs? On the one hand, Hillary supporters keep whining that Obama supporters aren't sufficiently loyal to the Democrat cause, charging largely without base that we won't vote for anyone but Obama - and then in the next breath you call us ROBOTS, for Christ's sake. How incredibly offensive. Where did this come from, anyway? I understand the narrative - at least on Salon, now - has been that we can't "take" criticism of Obama, whatever the hell that means...and yet, I haven't exactly seen any of Hillary's supporters step up and embrace criticism of her - have you? Do show me, and maybe we'll have something to discuss.
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Kudos to Joan Walsh
Best column ever.....I am reminded by your story of Clinton talking before NH about LBJ with no problems, that she also
talked a lot on the campaign trail about the events that happend in London after the election of the new leader, but
when she mentioned it in NH, everyone accused her of the
terror tactics of the Republicans. Keith Olbermann spent
a large segment of his show on it. I think the Clintons
have been demonized for so long, that the media doesn't
know any other way to talk about them. Obama made a comment the other day that if he won the nomination, he would get all of Hillary's voters, but if she got the nomination, he doubted she would get his........it barely made the news....think what would have happened if Hillary had said that.
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Race/Gender/Media/Eternity
I can't watch television like MSN because it literally makes me too angry at the way they treat Clinton. I am an Obama supporter--but I agree with her supporters that her television treatment lacks the respect that is given to the male candidates. The reason I can't watch this is that I don't want to choose a candidate based on what the media does--one way or another. I don't want to vote for her because they like her or don't like her on the talking heads programs (those guys usually seem like arrogant pricks to me, anyway).
On the other hand--I have only recently begun to notice that NPR has a definite race problem. I'm a white female, so maybe I'm not the most "sensitive" listener--but I did notice a slant in a program last year that mentioned black people signing up less than they used to for the Iraq war--but I noticed that the story didn't mention the other obvious statistic--which is that they still represent a higher that their proportion in the general population percentage of the troops there--as far as I know. The lack of an overall statistic I thought detracted from the context of the story. (Like they didn't want to remind people that people defending this country are so often its racial minorities...)
Likewise, I have been discouraged to hear their coverage of the Presidential campaign. Particularly their coverage of South Carolina primaries has been filled with comments like "African Americans are expected to support Obama.." no mention of the fact that many African Americans also still support the Clintons--and that Obama does have substancial support across racial lines. Also, it set up the expectation so that if Obama hadn't won in SC, there would have been a story like "In South Carolina, black people did not show up to vote for Barack Obama."
Anway, I worry that in the NPR commentators' view, the African American support for Obama in South Carolina overall doesn't amount to much, because we don't have a 50% African American population in most states. It's kind of like "well, sure he won there--with all those black people who just voted based on their race."
I'm not saying that they have been this obvious--but as much as we want to close our ears to the race and gender tones of this competition--even with my hands on my ears sometimes I can still hear it. It's annoying. I'm glad that I picked my candidate before all this silliness started getting louder. And I'm sure it will get louder still--whoever is the Democratic nominee you can be sure that the G.O.P. won't hold back the gender or race card. I guess we have to settle in for the duration. Maybe in the end it will be good for us (?) We'll learn something from developing an ear for it? I wonder....
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I disagree.
The problem with this analysis is it starts after the Clinton campaign's surrogates had already planted 3 separate mentions of Obama's drug use and possible dealing. I believe that is why certain African Americans like Donna Brazile overreacted. The Clintons' have always betted that whatever measures they took to gain the nomination would be allowed by Democrats because of their zeal to retake the White House. They're are learning the lesson that Guiliani is learning, people can like you and still get tired of you very quickly. Obama has the advantage of people of every stripe yearning to "turn the page".