Letters to the Editor
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Trevor Philips' article
I read the article re Barack Obama by Trevor Philips that was mentioned by one of the posters. It's here:
https://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?&id=10043
So _that's_ why I'm not bowled over by Mr. Obama's candidacy -- I'm not white! lol. You guys should really learn to vote with your heads, not your hearts. It's that kind of voting pattern that gave us GWB instead of Gore. But what can I say... there's one born every minute.
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jebldmm
This whole argument presupposes that the "race card" matters whereas the "gender card" does not matter. Did Clinton take the high road and say that Obama was definitely not sexist when observers thought that his remarks about her attacking him when she "felt bad" might be sexist? Where was her high road? Or is it okay to call Obama sexist--or something that he says sexist, while calling someone a "racist" is tantamount to calling them evil?
I don't think the Clintons are "racist." But I think that they underestimated Obama as a candidate because of his blackness--actually many people have done this and still are doing this. The Clintons are not in a broad sense (as much as I can judge such things) racist...but it's almost as if they were counting on the inherent--much discussed racism of the American people to not take Obama's candidacy seriously. And I think it has taken them by surprise--and many observers too--that people have 1) been willing to look at Obama apart from his race and 2) when they do see his race, to see it as a positive. That it would be nice to have another "face" on American Democracy....In a very similar way Clinton has been underestimated for being a woman, and people have overlooked the fact that people could look past her gender and/or consider it a positive for her candidacy. I think that what historians might think that American people could not look past with Hillary is the fact that she is a Clinton. Somehow being a Clinton has worked against her--and that might have to do with her campaign strategy and a lot of other things. But it doesn't have to do with the fact that most Democrats don't want a woman to be president.
It upsets me that Clinton supporters are taking articles like Willentz' seriously. Its as if you are still looking for one swipe to take away every aspiration that Obama represents....aha. What about this: he's a black "race-baiter". Gotcha. Hutman says correctly that Willentz doesn't distinguish between race-baiting that caters to racists or race-baiting that caters to people who are against racists...So the term becomes more of way to insinuate something bad and scary, than something that is carefully or clearly defined.
What I think that Obama has successfully done is to allow his race to be either absent--or a positive in his campaign. I don't think he's called the Clinton's racists...but neither has he given them a 100% free pass where it has looked as if they were saying things that sounded iffy. This is what campaign trails are like. Clinton didn't "rise above" the moment that Obama supposedly walked past her instead of shaking her hand. She didn't give him a pass for his seeming stumble...
Campaigns are made up of tiny stumbles and moments of grace. Both candidate have done both. The idea that the Clintons haven't created any of their own trouble in this campaign bothers me. I'm not a race-baiter (not in either definition I've given above) but I think they underestimated Obama because of his blackness. This isn't a crime, and I don't necessarily think it's racist on their part...but so far the American people have been more color blind or willing to see race as a positive than almost any of the pundits believed that they would be.
That's a good thing, though, right? A good sign of the evolution of the American people? I think it is.
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Al Gore lied.
Obama supporters are accused of not reading Walentz's article. When they do and provide a point-by-point refutation, they're mocked for their parsing and overanalysis.
I simply can't get over the willing suspension of "benefit of the doubt" treatment that both sides employ here at salon. I used to think of this place as enlightened and thoughtful, but instead I see the harsh reality that all those reductive, black/white prisms I used to think belonged exclusively to Republicans are merely human. Apparently progressives are equally prone to pick up a simplistic narrative proffered by the media, helped along by opposing political forces, and call it the truth.
Some of what Walentz says makes sense; most seems narrowed into a prepared meme created to villify Obama. This is what we all said about W, remember? when all his evidence supported his narrow view of Iraq and WMD. Remember when the press cherry-picked the hell out of Al Gore's stuff to make him out to be a liar, and performed the same service for Kerry, the flip flopper? It didn't matter one whit that W himself flipped on myriad issues, from N.Korea to the 9/11 Commission to steel tarrifs: What mattered is that that particular meme belonged to Kerry, so he was the only one who was allowed to be tagged with it.
I'm not a conspiracy nut. There's no way that a single MSM Boss is telling all the disparate outlets what to print or say. But these storylines emerge anyway, and then shoddy reporting and intellectually lazy audiences foster them, give them legs. And then they become truth, or conventional wisdom anyway.
I sympathize with Clinton supporters who suddenly find that the conventional wisdom is that the Clintons are racist. They are not. But to suggest that it is a deliberate strategy of the Obama camp to paint them as such defies much more than the evidence (and I've read Walentz's article, full of biased editorializing. I'd offer it up point by point, but X has already done that to your great contempt); it defies our own senses. Look at Obama's actual responses to charges about the Clintons or questions about Clintons and race:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vmE1VWUlOD0
http://youtube.com/watch?v=lzkJGJaR7bw
Obama's authentic and thoughtful responses here are simply not calculated. If he is not overwhelming in his rejection of the Clintons as race-baiters (for lack of a better word), then you should consider the possibility that he is a truthful person who is genuinely not sure if they are using race (not as racists, but as ALL candidates use demographics in their strategizing).
I wish people would remember what they thought about both these candidates when this all started: they are both gold. There are so many people saying "I liked X when I started, but now seeing the way s/he treated Y, I will never vote for X even if s/he is the nominee." What a shame. I would venture to say the souring has come mostly at the hands of the candidate's supporters and surrogates rather than the actual campaign. There are salon letter-writers whose blind suppport of Clinton have occasionally put me in that mind-set, but I quickly readjust.
As an aside, why do Clinton supporters think Obama is the only one who hasn't laid a charge to rest more forcefully? What charges against Obama has she forcefully laid to rest? When he was accused of "snubbing" her, she fanned the flames blatantly to Chris Wallace of FOX. When she jumped in at the last debate in the Farrakhan thing, I thought she was actually going down the road of "You know, Tim, I've been in a situation before where there are zealous or misguided supporters--you can't blame Obama for every idiot who likes him." Instead, she went divisive: "You know, Tim, I've been there before and I handled it way better."
All I'm saying is that everything you throw at Obama could be thrown at Clinton too. Neither could possibly be where they are without considering horse-race aspects of campaigning. I think it's fair to hold Obama to a higher standard b/c he's essentially running on that, and I think he's earned the accolades he's rec'd for his generally unifying remarks. If you're inclined to really know the truth, go back to Independent Thinking 101. Go back and look at his responses in debates and elsewhere, and use your own senses. Stop letting patently biased "journalists" turn you into conspiracy theorists who think Obama is the antiChrist. That he is indeed thought of that way quite literally in huge swaths of the South should bring you back to your senses faster than anything out there.