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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
he’s super smart when it comes to picking a crew! For some serious writing on how that’s looking, check out Jeremy Scahill’s piece over at AlterNet.
You can certainly call me brotha, particularly considering that a) I share yours and AKA Smith's enthusiasm for Krugman and b) I spent much of yesterday turning a friend on to the greatest of Irish poets (IMHO), Yeats.
Your kind words are appreciated.
My Salon premium membership ran out yesterday, and here I was wondering if it was appropriate for me to forgive-and-forget with Joan's destructive cheerleading during the last days of the primary.
Joan Walsh claims that she dared to "criticize" Obama, neglecting the fact that she became a mouthpiece for the Clinton campaign, repeating whatever line they wanted repeated, because (she basically admitted) gender politics trumped everything else. Walsh
Absent from Joan's writing is any sort of mea culpa, any recognition that she did anything wrong. Her attacks are, in her head, re-imagined as legitimate criticism. Intead, we're supposed to find it surprising that she thinks Clinton is a good choice for something - shocking. Joan Walsh supports Clinton in whatever Clinton wants to do! Stop the press!
It would have been very nice to see Walsh make an honest appraisal of her own behavior during the campaign season, rather than pretend she was acting as some sort of neutral journalist asking questions. She wants to support Clinton for SoS? Why not. A reasonable claim could be made that's she a great candidate. Of course, Walsh doesn't make that argument. Instead she wants us to "trust" Obama.
But Joan, weren't you the one who refused to trust Obama as recently as last summer, arguing that he didn't deserve the benefit of the doubt? You certainly never gave him one. This is a very convenient about-face for you.
And that makes my own decision easy. No renewal for me, not while you're at the helm.
Mostly, I agree with you that people need to chill out a little bit about the prospect of Hillary as Secretary of State, but, while I'll certainly concur that there was a lot of sexism in terms of the media coverage of the Clinton campaign (we disagree greatly on the degree to which the Clintons resorted to race-baiting on their end, but I dont think Hillary's a racist, either), I think that simply dismissing Hillary-loathing as sexist haterism (my own newly minted term) is accurate. There have been, after all, two recent female Secretaries of State. I dont think a lot of these same people are up in arms about the idea of Napolitano being appointed head of DHS, and a lot of us would be down with the idea of a President Sebelius in 2016. The Clintons sometimes get a bad rap, and I think a lot of their accomplishments are underappreciated, but there is wayyyy too much drama that comes with everything associated with them. Saying that one is tired of Hillary in particular is not equivalent to saying you're tired of all women. I have a lot of respect for her as a person, and think she'd be fine as S.O.S., but I'm about done with hearing about her and her 18 million voters myself. I believe our President just got 65 million.
All in all, I have no major beef with Hillary, but I find that she, and her followers, tend to overstate the deference that is due to them. That's not sexism, that's fatigue.
I meant "inaccurate", not "accurate". I start drowning in the river of my own b.s. sometimes :).
The last time I trusted a president, it was LBJ and his Vietnam war. Never again. Clinton's foreign policy experience consists of dodging nonexistant sniper fire in Bosnia. She is not qualified. Never has been, never will be. I just can't imagine what Obama is thinking. To me, this is a serious lapse in judgement.
I think you bring up a pretty good point. Most Americans, aside from the millions of others who have immediate or extended family in the Mid-East, really probably don't give a real royal rat's ass who gets slotted to the seat of Sec. of State.
However, I'd urge that kind of thinking to go through some seriously well considered and thorough going thought revision.
It matters a lot who serves as Sec. of State. Anybody remember Robert Mac the Knife MacNamara?
Does Viet Nam ring a bell...
Are the good intentions of "good Americans"
Just a prelude to hell?
Hi Joan, I wanted to contact you after I heard you on Hardball yesterday and say that I totally agree with you on trusting Obama. I think he's perfectly capable of deciding who he thinks will best represent his administration to the world and help him accomplish his goals. Thanks for your voice of sanity.
If you look at someone's behaviour over time and you find them to be trustworthy, why not trust them?
There is a difference in trust and blind faith. I don't trust Bush, because he has proven to be untrustworthy. I trust Obama, because he has impressed me with his actions and words. There may be a day when I loose that trust in him, but I go there if I need to. Today, I do not.
Why the simmering rage, my fellow democrats? give the guy a break.
If the word issues forth
From the High 'n Holy Tube
It is as reliable
As if it were actually spoken
By the unredoubtable mouth
Of Saint Jude...
I just love how people
Go to such careful pains
To plumb the grey matter
Of their own
Individual brains...
I was just about to agree with you and then you had to start talking about how important it was that you influenced Chris Matthews' opinion about Clinton! That's when I quit reading and realized that it's still about the media and nothing else, as has been this entire election cycle. Does anyone really care what Chris Matthews thinks about Clinton or anyone else?
However the transition team wants to spin it, Obama owns all the misery that is coming home to roost. Do you, or anyone else, think that as the economic situation worsens American voters are going to re-elect Democrats en masse in the 2010 mid-term congressionals? I don't. And Obama is next.
You, and the rest of the media harpies, have failed to realize the sense of anger, betrayal, and frustration that exists out here in the real world. And the voters who put Obama in office will take him out in 4 years if there is not significant improvement. No one will recall or give a fat rat's ass whether Clinton was offered the Secretary of State role or not.
Obama won this election because McCain lost it. Neither of these guys were strong nominees at a time when our country is facing serious issues. When the economy went into the toilet, voters moved away from the party-in-power. Obama benefitted. But he's only regarded as the next Messiah by the left-wing and the media, not by those independent moderate voters who held their noses and gave him their votes.
Already everyone associated with his Carnival Show has forgotten it was all smoke and mirrors anyway. Already we're receiving emails from Obama surrogates making excuses for him, lowering expectations, and shaming the left-wing for actually thinking they were going to get something out of this. I can never recall receiving a letter or anything else after an election making excuses for the newly elected official.
I'll repeat myself: I have never received a letter, email, or anything else suggesting that we lower expectations, and start making excuses for a newly elected official. The fact that it's the President-elect is all the more disturbing to me.
Looks like the show is over before the final act to me. And the audience is leaving before it curtain goes up.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
