Letters to the Editor
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okay joan
this was fair. i was ready to lambast you, but you gave us the context and you set up important questions. good for you.
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why haven't you noticed, Joan/
Joan, I'm glad you were impressed with Obama's excellent analysis and comments.
What I can't understand is how you haven't noticed during the long course of this campaign how consistently Obama has talked and campaigned with this same consistent progressive analysis and thought process.
Meanwhile, though Clinton would be obviously superior to anybody the GOP put forward, she just has never given any indication she would offer anything more than corporate Democratic politics. John Edwards had that right.
It took me a while to warm up to Obama. I instinctively favored the more angry, red-meat rhetoric of Edwards, but I've come to see Obama's aiming for the same place just with different tactics.
Look, it's been clear most of my adult life that Republicans have consistently been able to change the debate to the divisive social issues in order to get a majority of the populace to vote against their own economic interests. Obama cleary understands that and he is right on the money when he says Democrats have done very little to change that and hence the public rightly believes no one is on their side. There are just too many corporate Democrats in Congress, so that even when they have a majority, the actually progressive wing of the party can rarely get anything done.
What's even worse here about Hillary is that she is playing the Republicans game here. Demagoging Obama's comments in just the same way the GOP does; just like Bill playing the race card earlier in the campaign; just like Hillary's comments about Rev. Wright; and just like her assertion that she and McCain are commander-in-chief material but not, by implication, Obama. Her GOP-like strategies have already, I fear, made it less likely that Obama, if he gets the nomination, can win.
I just find it hard to believe, Joan, that as the progressive I assume you are, you haven't been able to see all this.
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Isn't it funny?
Yeah, Obama's small piece of sound bite does come of sounding condescending. Of course, I grew up in Philly and we all know how strikingly different the thinking is, particularly and increasingly, in rural Pennsylvania. It doesn't sound flattering or pretty.
OTOH, the great irony here is, of course, that Obama told it like it is. That's right, he nailed it. You often find an insular type of thinking throughout many places in the US (and everywhere else) where people's concerns go totally unmet. Just lipservice. Personally, I thought Obama's comments were accurate, nuanced, empathetic and honest. I know, I know. He's a politician. Why in the world does he think he needs to speak the truth?
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Entitlement?
Really Joan, who feels more of sense of entitlement than the white working class? Facts are facts: Working class blacks have consistently supported Ivy-educated candidates of all races, why can't working whites do the same for a black candidate? Are you saying that they would vote for a black candidate from a state school? Give me a break. You dragged out this same rotten defense in 2001, when these same salt of the earth folks booed and jeered Hilary Clinton during the 911 tribute at Madison Square Garden. Just as you very close to calling Senator Clinton a bitch back then, you come very close to calling Obama 'an uppity nigger' today.
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Why, Joan
I do belive you might be "getting" Obama.
I admit with the truly astonishing amount of pro-Hillary sentiment here in Salon letters, it must be hard to shake off the fairy tales invented about him and actually see what the rest of us have been seeing. Anyway bravo.
This jumping on every word Obama utters looking for some twist, throwing mud everywhere in the hope that some sticks, this is all to be expected. The fact however that we have this now from two of the front runners, and one of them is a Democrat....
It's not good. I don't care what anyone says, it's not good. Well, it's good for McCain. Two of the three candidates up there seem devoted to bashing Obama and praising McCain. Anyone telling me this is good for the Democracts, since Obama will certaily be the nominee-- well it's not.
That's why I don't adhere to the "let her stay just as long as she wants" sentiment. Yes I know that's Obama's stance but then it has to be. That doesn't mean the rest of us should say the same.
Enough already. I think his response was perfect, but it's just not a good setup right now and some idiotic mudslinging might just stick. When you've got two throwing against one, then there's even more chance.
I'm tired of it.
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This is so great ....
This video:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Sc9PepjyDow
Obama nails it. The U.S. populace would do well to elect him president.
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fdlksjdlksjf
I know this is just one letter in a sea of Obamatons and people who give a flying-fuck about politics, but I gotta say... You're biased and over-zealous and make some mistakes, but at the end of the day, as a cultural Czech Catholic (and with 1-and-a-half bottles of Charles Shaw Cabernet in me) I gotta say [that in reference to: Barack Obama does have an affluent, educated, Ivy League sense of self-righteousness and entitlement that my Irish Catholic working class side occasionally chafes at.]
I'm glad someone took the time to put is so well. Amen, Sista'. A-fuckin'-men.
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Cheesesteaks made with brie
I don't know if this was your intention in this quasi hit piece, Ms. Walsh -- where, as ever, I imagine you gamely blowing nourishing air on a tiny bit of tinder, hoping you'll get a bonfire going, in your efforts to make Obama look bad and Clinton look better.
Clinton's no stranger to privilege, hello? She grew up Republican on the mean streets of Park Ridge (haha) -- akin to Liz Phair's adopted childhood in a doctor's home first in Cincy, then in Winnetka being retrofitted to make her seem urban and worldly-wise after slumming it in Wicker Park for a summer for her starving artist bona fides and indie rock cred.
Anyway, by actually including Obama's words, instead of just mediating them for us, or obscuring them, you make Obama come off so much better than either Clinton or McCain. I don't think that was your intention, but it's really apparent. Clinton and McCain are business as usual, and Obama comes off so different from them, in all the best ways.
So, nicely done -- despite your best efforts, you made Obama look good. It kind of fizzled on you. Better luck with the next handful of tinder you come across.