Month: July 2008

Marc points to this piece by Eric Easter:

The fear among critics is that the real audience that day was not the Black people in the pews at all, but the white people in middle America looking for a strong signal that Obama was rejecting the politics of racial division and animosity. By choosing that moment to castigate Black fathers, some worry that Obama gave public voice to what white people whisper about Blacks in their living rooms and cemented his image as a post-racial savior at the expense of Black men.  Whether that was Obama’ s intention or whether he just figured it was Father’s Day so why not do the absent Father stump speech again is impossible to know, but the event smacked of calculated political expediency that troubled more than a few people.

…the Father’s Day speech is only indicative of a broader issue. Rightly or wrongly, some Black progressives are deeply suspicious of the change in white America that has led to Obama’s position. Specifically that white people don’t just want political change, they want a change in the racial dynamic. And hearing about black problems does not fit into their idea of this new America that will be created when Obama becomes president. There are equal parts of truth, paranoia and resistance to change in that suspicion. That’s one of the reasons Jackson said what he did.

Fun in food-packaging from Germany. The processed ones are actually pretty accurate, but fast food? Oy.

If we lose in air hockey, it’s truly over for humanity.

Joyner writes:

I’d say McCain’s bumper sticker message is “Elect a grown-up.” And I don’t think wanting to drill for more oil while simultaneously trying to end our need for it in the longer term is at all problematic; it’s essentially a right-of-center answer to Bill Clinton’s “third way.”’

Drum thinks I am overreacting:

Now, sure: of course young kids should be generally off limits from the campaign press. But does that mean they should literally never be seen on TV? What’s the harm? Families are a staple of American politics, people are legitimately curious about what Obama’s family is like, and a few minutes with Maria Menounos is the safest, least toxic interview imaginable. It’s the 21st century equivalent of one of those carefully staged Life photo spreads from the 50s. Shouldn’t we all calm down about this?

A reader doesn’t:

One thing you don’t hear from McCain is the fact that he has a 19-20 year old son who has done an Iraq tour as a Marine, and another son at Annapolis who is almost certain to be deployed to the region.  That’s a bit of class that Obama would do well to emulate.

Mark Blumenthal evaluates support for Nader and Barr:

I believe that many voters are telling pollsters they support Barr or Nader now, especially when offered the four-way choice, because they are not entirely sold on Obama or McCain and would rather grab for the "independent" as a way to give the interviewer a satisfactory answer…

If you love fonts as much as I do, you’ll be intrigued by the actual way the font-creators write.

Did Bush intervene to get Angela Merkel to oppose Obama’s campaign event? That’s what I’m told the German evening news is reporting.

A reader writes:

   In response to all this talk about Obama being a commie or Marxist or un-American, I have this to say. I think for all black people in general, full disclosure I am AA, being labeled unAmerican is  common. It seems as if we don’t wear flag pins daily or color our houses red, blue, and white we are less American than white Americans. I sometimes feel that AA have to resort to the "we built America" argument.

Sure, I may not have a American flag bathing suit- but I love this country because it has given me and my family a future. So, when people question Obama’s patriotism I get what they are trying to say. He cannot love this country because he is black. I think the same holds for all non-white Americans.

Couldn’t agree more:

Obama is no (in the 1970s sense) "liberal": There are many who are upset by this who believe this (and other recent moves) shows Obama "moving to the center." People who make this argument signal they don’t know squat about which they speak. You can’t read Obama’s books, watch how he behaved in the Illinois Senate, and watched how he voted in the US Senate, and believe he is a Bernie Sanders liberal. He is not now, and nor has ever been. That’s not to say there aren’t issues on which he takes a liberal position. It is to say that the mix of views he actually has and has had doesn’t map on a 1970s spectrum of liberals to conservative.

The right doesn’t know what to make of Obama because he has transcended their Rovian categories. So he either has to be a radical like McGovern or a hollow opportunist like Clinton. He is, in fact, neither. And while the old school left and right bicker over him, my sense is that many others are slowly getting his message.