Category: Barack Obama

The Las Vegas Review-Journal endorses Obama.

Ezra thinks so.

A big labor endorsement.

The more I think about it, the more disgraceful that column was. Pure identity politics paranoia. A Jewish columnist sees a black man running for president and the first thing he asks himself is: where is this guy on Farrakhan? And Obama has to disprove his connections, even though there is not even a smidgen of evidence connecting the two, and even, as Greg Sargent points out, Obama’s own spokesman explicitly disowned any support for Farrakhan in the same column.

If Obama has to disown a man he has never had anything to do with and a man whose toxic racist politics Obama has consistently and continuously opposed with all his might, then every black candidate is forced to jump through Cohen’s petty little racist litmus test. They’re all guilty of anti-Semitism until proved innocent. And Cohen’s transparent disavowals of such an insinuation make it worse not better.

We are learning a lot through this primary process – especially about some powerful white liberals and race. What we’re learning isn’t pretty.

Which would do more damage: Clinton’s or Obama’s?

A key constituency makes its choice.

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.

Feel the indifference.

Tim Johnson isn’t the only one:

"I’m supporting Senator Barack Obama in his race for the presidency because he is in a unique position to reach across party lines and unite our country. As a red state Senator fighting for common ground, I look forward to working with a President who is more concerned with good ideas than partisan bickering, and I believe Senator Obama is that person."