Letters to the Editor
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Don't you mean...
"For sheer awkwardness Thursday night, conservative radio host, moralist and gambler Bill Bennett..."
How about *compulsive* 'gambler,' lifelong hypocrite, blowhard in extremis...
He's a cancer on the body politic of this nation.
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Bennett is only the tip of the ice berg.
I've got five dollars (that's 3 Euros by the way...) that says the GOP and Mike Hunter uses Obama's middle name, Hussein, in every campaign ad, ad nausea. giuliani will use it like whipped-cream topping as he tries to tie Obama's middle name to extremist Islamic terrorists. Why is Bill Bennett still on these shows anyway? I agree with the other poster that it's awful to see CNN go so far downhill. It was painfully obvious that Keith Olbermann knows more about American political history than Wolf, Matthews, and Bennett combined. Matthews looked uncomfortable and overmatched all night long. My guess is that you won't see him and Olberman paired much longer. Matthews will be paired with someone like Tucker Carlson or some such MSNBC dolt from now on.
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Pat Buchanan
The best moment last night was watching Eugene Robinson talk about how Obama reminded him of Robert Kennedy (I feel the same way), and next to him, Pat Buchanan's face got ever more sour until it looked like every one of his features was about to be sucked back into his skull.
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Where's the embarrassment?
I don't see anything embarrassing in Bennett's words there, with the possible exception of "dignity" being one of those old-fashioned backhanded compliments for black people (sort of like "articulate")...but surely Bennett can be forgiven that much.
A black man winning the lily-white Iowa primary is HUGE news. Juan Williams on Fox used the word "astounded" repeatedly, and his eyes personally registered the fact. Politically incorrect though it may be, there are reasons Obama plays so well to white crowds, when previous leaders didn't. You mean we can't talk about those? Or just old conservative white men can't talk about those?
This kind of partisanship before the fact -- guilty until proven innocent -- is exactly the sort of old politics Obama is trying to overturn, and exactly the reason he succeeds where Jesse Jackson and others haven't. We really don't need to hate each other so much.
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Beyond Color
Fortunately, for the country, many intelligent people see beyond Barack Obama's skin color and can see his soul shining through and hear with their hearts his message of hope and change and they are inspired. People are ready for change, ready to be lifted up, ready to believe again. And Barack Obama is the right man at the right time to take over the awesome job of Presidency. His change will be putting people first and to bring this country into the 21st century. He can do this because he will be elected by the people and not by the Corporate Machine.
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@ Ban Johnson
Pretty much ditto.
Bennett's personal opinions and motivations are probably suspect, but what he was saying is a quite common sentiment, at least among the fairly diverse group of people I hang around.
Racism will always be an issue, but does it always have to be THE issue? Does it have to frame every other issue? Must people of different races always have a "racial perspective" on things? Can't they just have an opinion?
I'm not yet in Obama's court, but if he could truly pull off a campaign, an election victory, and maybe even an actual presidency that got us just a little ways toward getting over the perpetual stumbling block of race politics, it would be a very good thing.
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A Credit to His Race
When Donna Brazile was able to reply, she didn't reference Bill Bennett's comments:
I think this is a major victory for Obama. Let me just tell you, for African Americans voters who have been waiting for this period of time -- Bill said it, but look, I can tell you, this is huge, in terms of historically speaking as a Democrat. African Americans have always lifted up Democrats. Now Democrats have a chance to lift up African Americans.
Next comments are from Jack Cafferty, who says of Obama, "he's a nice guy. He's articulate. He's pleasant."
Then, back to Bill Bennett on what Obama adopted from Clinton strategy: "The other thing is, what was the [Bill] Clinton theme? What was the song? Wasn't it, don't stop thinking about tomorrow? Make hope your friend. Barack Obama has stolen that, lifted that -- I won't say stolen that or lifted that. He's taken that from the Clintons."
Says Whitey, "Barack Obama is no thieving, angry black man. He's well-behaved and talks so pretty."
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0801/03/se.02.html
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My $.02
"And that, of course, led to the always awkward spectacle of old white men (and occasionally women) explaining"...
And YOUR racially insensitive comments make ME cringe. This elite liberal hatred of self and of Caucasian society in general is so...yesterday. You people seem miserable. Find some joy in life and cease promoting class and racial hatred.
Your article is very typical of what passes for liberalism now...hatred and mockery. There might actually be a valuable core of ideas beneath all this but it is buried deep in sarcasm and arrogance. I thought liberalism was all about open expression of ideas, intercourse without condemnation, about what might be...not about hating what is.
You have hi-jacked a great philosophy (liberalism) and converted it into nothing more than a haven for the extreme in society. In order to demonstrate how "open" you can be, you have adopted the most wicked and the most perverted and excluded those "old white men" and others who in fact built this society.
Your end game seems limited to hatred and to "framing" the argument so it doesn`t sound so hateful. Is that it? Is that all liberalism has to offer?
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But he did say something positive..
Obama cracked the nut that is Bill Bennett!
I just happened to catch that exact moment as I flipped through the channels to get reactions.
In all fairness, which is a rare word to use anywhere near Bennett, he did show a great appreciation for Obama's win on Obama's terms -without ever once mentioning race as an issue. And admitted being impressed with Obama.
And he does have a point - Hillary did try to use her sex in the race unit she was promptly pounced on. Where Obama just used all of our past history as inspiration to move forward.
I look at this in a bigger context because I also had just caught a clip on Fox, where Hannity was trying to get
Senator Grassley to say something bad about Obama -Grassley said that "in the past two years I've been around Obama, he's worked very well with the Republican side".
Now as an avid Lefty -I was horrified at that -but isn't that the beauty of Obama?
He worked with the Right without every once compromising the base principles of the Left.
Couldn't ask for more..