Month: January 2008

Ganging Up On Obama

Charles Rangel and John Lewis weigh in. Lewis:

"He is no Martin Luther King Jr. I knew Martin Luther King. I knew Bobby Kennedy. I knew President Kennedy. You need more than speech-making. You need someone who is prepared to provide bold leadership."

Here’s Rangel, providing the final touch to the Clinton strategy of accusing Obama of bringing up race in the first place:

"How race got into this thing is because Obama said ‘race,’ … for [Obama] to suggest that Dr. King could have signed that act is absolutely stupid. It’s absolutely dumb to infer that Doctor King, alone, passed the legislation and signed it into law."

Obama did not say that King could have signed a law. He did not say "race." He merely called Clinton’s condescending LBJ comment ill-advised. Rangel did, however, bring up the cocaine issue again, unprompted. Clintonite Robert Johnson, who clearly lied outright on saying he wasn’t referring to Obama’s previous drug use, tries this gambit:

"White America is saying, ‘He’s safe for us, he should be safe for you guys.’ We’re letting other people pick our leaders."

He sees the Obama candidacy as a nightmare for the Clintons with whom he vacations. It is. But they are finding ways to smear and marginalize Obama and rally their machine and its beneficiaries against him. That’s politics. It’s not as if I expected any less from the Clinton machine. Maybe others did. You can see this as a sign of worry from an endangered establishment, or simply an indication of who actually wields power in the Democratic coalition, and how they intend to keep it.

Quote For The Day

"What happened in Michigan is not very different from what used to happen in the old Soviet Union. The Clinton machine manipulated the ballot. They don’t care how they win, only that they do. It’s wrong and people need to know that… People should not permit the Clintons — both Bill and Hillary — to have an unfair advantage in Michigan," – former senator Don Riegle.

Clinton’s Phony Experience Argument

Tim Noah gets it:

Clinton’s claim to superior experience isn’t merely dishonest. It’s also potentially dangerous should she become the nominee. If Clinton continues to build her campaign on the dubious foundation of government experience, it shouldn’t be very difficult for her GOP opponent to pull that edifice down. That’s especially true if a certain white-haired senator now serving his 25th year in Congress (four in the House and 21 in the Senate) wins the nomination. McCain could easily make Hillary look like an absolute fraud who is no more truthful about her depth of government experience than she is about why her mother named her "Hillary." Dennis Kucinich has more government experience than Clinton. (He also has a better health-care plan, but we’ll save that for another day.) If Clinton doesn’t find a new theme soon, she won’t just be cutting Obama’s throat. She’ll also be cutting her own.

MRSA

It’s very worrying but it’s not HIV. Or anything close to as dangerous. And that might actually work in favor of restraining it. It hurts very badly, very quickly; it can be spread much more easily than HIV; it can be disfiguring; treatment can be as painful as it is drawn-out. So far, its main fatalities have been the elderly. So as an inducement for more care in sex, and more attention to hygiene, it’s arguably more effective than HIV now is, because its physical impact is much speedier and more tangible. That’s the optimistic side, at least.

And So It Continues

Anyone who has followed Obama’s career and history knows that Jeremiah Wright’s Afro-centric and downright eccentric theology and politics would come up eventually. But it is depressing that the first major MSM column on the matter immediately raises the possibility that Obama is a closeted supporter of Louis Farrakhan. Not that Cohen is saying such a thing, of course. So we have this to-be-sure paragraph stuck right up front:

It’s important to state right off that nothing in Obama’s record suggests he harbors anti-Semitic views or agrees with Wright when it comes to Farrakhan.

But it’s nonetheless important to write a column airing such a possibility. Usually, of course, Cohen wouldn’t raise the theological issues around someone’s pastor:

I don’t for a moment think that Obama shares Wright’s views on Farrakhan. But the rap on Obama is that he is a fog of a man. We know little about him, and, for all my admiration of him, I wonder about his mettle.

What on earth can this mean? Candidates whose rap is not a fog would not get the same scrutiny? Mettle? Is this code for "sound on the Jews"? Too soft on the Muslims? Or what? No one – no one – could read Obama’s books or examine his career and believe he is anything but the polar opposite of Farrakhan. But that’s not enough for Cohen.

I have been and remain an optimist about the ability of Americans to vote for and elect a black politician to the presidency. But as David Brooks points out today, resistance is no longer understandable on old white-black lines. The smorgasbord of racial and identity politics comes into play. And so long-festering black-Hispanic tensions may put Nevada at risk; and the older black establishment prefers to play the old game with the white power-brokers they have learned to deal with than the new black leader they cannot control; and some Jewish-Americans, seeing a black man with real power emerging on the national scene, immediately panic that it’s Farrakhan in disguise. All the Clintons need do is sit back and allow this game to proceed. And maybe add a few comments to reassure all parties that they intend to keep playing their role: the white leader who’s the benefactor of the minorities. And that’s all the LBJ remark was: not a racist slip, but a statement of where power ultimately lies. With white dynasts in office, and the divided members of minorities who keep them there.

Quote For The Day

"He kind of sidled up to me and said, Can I come and see you? We were sitting outside the presidential cabin here, and he professed his love for Jenna and said, would I mind if he married her? And I said, Got a deal. [Laughter] And I’m of the school, once you make the sale, move on. But he had some other points he wanted [to make]. He wanted to talk about how he would be financially responsible," – George W. Bush on Henry Hager’s proposal of marriage to his daughter, Jenna. I think the president just lost interest when fiscal responsibility came up.

The American Dream

It’s about work, apparently:

More than half — 51 percent, and that 1 percent makes a huge difference — of small business owners and managers surveyed recently said they dream about work.

I woke up the night before last with some urgent post to write about McCain and Obama. I need help, obviously. But I figure this primary season will be over soon. And I can always rest in February. It will be over in February, won’t it?