Category: Dissent of the Day

A reader writes:

In this context, "crying" and "weeping" function as weasel words, suggesting complete loss of control. In fact, her voice became a little unsteady at a couple of points, and her eyes teared up a bit, but she recovered quickly. To my mind, that’s significantly different.

It’s also not clear to me that the show of emotion was "about" the stresses of the campaign, or even really that it was brought on by the stresses of the campaign, although the latter is certainly possible.

It seems to me she was feeling emotional about her perceived mission in life, and no doubt the prospect of losing the nomination heightened her sense of how important it was to her. But if you watch the video, the emotion didn’t become evident until *after* she had said how hard the campaign was, when she was talking about the urgency of reversing what the Bush administration had done. It appeared to me that she was resigned to the difficulties of the campaign, but very much *not* resigned to the possibility of losing the opportunity to repair the damage Bush has caused.

As you note, it isn’t at all uncommon these days for male politicians–even Bush, for pete’s sake–to tear up a little when they’re talking about their devotion to their cause. Mitt Romney apparently did so in a television interview not long ago.

So why portray Hillary as "crying in public about the stresses of the campaign," even as part of a show of sympathy, when such a description misses the mark on at least two counts?

A reader writes:

That reader should get his facts straight. The Bosnian conflict ended under Clinton’s leadership and a multinational NATO coalition. It was George Bush who initially had the conflict, waffled for years and passed it on to his predecessor. It is amazing how some will try to rewrite the most basic and obvious historical facts. And Clinton and our allies eventually put an end to the Bosnian conflict in which mostly Muslims were getting slaughtered.

On the foreign policy front Clinton put troops in Haiti and, eventually, ended the military dictatorship and had elections.

Not one American casuality or terrorist bombing or insurgency from that. The Clinton administration had peace with North Korea that de-activated their nuclear program and stopped the proliferation to other nations from the rogue dictatorship.

The Suharto dictatorship ended swiftly under Clinton because he -as opposed to the past five presidents- untangled American support from the bloody dictatorship which collapsed afterward. Hussein was isolated and contained.

There was an actual potential for peace in the Mideast under Clinton and honest-to-God real talks and negotiations. Unfortunately Arafat wanted to maintain his kleptocracy and that was what unraveled very productive talks. There was more peace and prosperity in the Mideast under America’s balanced leadership.

There was peace and prosperity at home. The unemployment rate never received such ridiculously low rates. African American families -typically the most vulnerable- prospered more under Clinton than any president. More black, brown, and yellow families entered the middle class, acquired affordable homes, and became apart of the American dream. Economic prosperity was not limited to Wall Street hedge funds and the elite.

All this was possible because he was a pragmatist. He hired competent smart people who were more concerned with the problem at hand than enforcing a personal ideology. That is all we need as a president. We don’t need a Lincoln or FDR, although that would be nice. All that is required to be effective is to have a moderate progressive and pragmatic sense of government, a willingness to compromise, an ability to understand the other side, and courage to hire competent people across a continuum of party lines and faiths that can get the job done.

A reader writes:

What you don’t understand is that we don’t want to work with the Republicans.  We want to shove our policies down their throats as they have done to us in the past seven years.  That’s Hillary’s appeal to us — taking no prisoners in defeating that party.  As you know, that party takes no prisoners against us.

A reader writes:

You wrote:

"The classic Clinton smears and lies are fine with the base, it seems. Like Paul Krugman, they seem to want more of the polarization of the past, more politics as revenge."

Maybe it isn’t that the base wants more polarization, smears and lies. Maybe it is that they accept the reality of what the Republicans will throw at any democratic candidate. After watching the right wing noise machine in the past two elections, maybe it is just reality to accept that the smears are coming and to want a candidate that will stand up to it. That is just reality at this time. I personally would love to do away with the polarization and the smearing.  However I have no confidence that Republicans are going to stop playing as dirty as they always have and that the main stream media will follow along meekly with their attempts to smear democrats. 

As far as Krugman goes, his points about how you have to fight the Republicans are valid.

Since the Republicans have become the minority they have blocked more legislation than any time in the past. They even tried to block their own version of a bill , because the do it so often. They don’t seem to want to work across party lines. Now maybe if the objective of the Democrats it just to allow the Republican party to run itself into the ground by becoming the party that only knows how to obstruct and has no ideas of its own (a worthy goal, I must say) then you can have a conciliatory attitude. However, if you actually would like to accomplish something then you need a fighter.

That being said, I would love to see politics change for the better. I understand the hope that an Obama candidacy brings. I don’t know who I will support, but the fear of a Democrat losing due to the inability to fight is valid. A Guiliani Presidency scares me to death.

A reader writes:

I think you owe black Democratic voters an "I was wrong" entry for your condescending indictments of us as an uninspired, scared, Jesse Jackson-loving cohort of imbeciles. This for not backing Obama en masse from the moment he announced his nomination. Turns out many of us, behaving as any responsible voter should, were cautiously considering the options, offering nominal support to a person we know and respect (HRC), and waiting for Barack to earn our votes. He is doing that now. Still, I cannot get past your thinly disguised, incendiary implications of fear in our hearts: fear that Barack would wipe out our "cherished" vision of black leadership remaining in the brittle hands of Al Sharpton, Jackson, and other self-interested, Civil Rights-era holdovers; fear that Obama was not really one of "us," that he did not deserve our support because he had not experienced fully the black experience and, by definition, had not earned his way with speeches and protests and civil disobedience on the behalf of lying young black girls. You were wrong!

Turns out we are a little more enlightened than you or some of your other black readers (who verified your belittling views with isolated stories of black resistance to the Obama campaign) thought.

My posts along these lines were all designed to ask questions and figure things out, not to condescend to anyone. I’m sorry if it came off that way. I still think that in some instances, such as, say Andrew Young, there is a generational resistance to the post-racial politics Obama represents. But I’m sure black voters need no advice from me on whom to vote for.

 

A reader writes:

You asked:

"Since when did the federal Congress have the right to micro-manage what school-kids get from snack machines?"

Answer: Since childhood obesity has led to such an explosion in life-long healthcare costs which have become an enormous (no pun intended) strain on the U.S. health system, economy, and, yes, the tax-payers.   As long as the American people have to pay the bills for children who aren’t provided any healthy eating options, they have a right to try to lessen the burden.

A reader on Huckabee:

While I despise the "what would Jesus do?" mindset ("original intent" to the nth) and regard Christianism as a major threat to our democracy, I thought Huckabee’s "Jesus was too smart to run for public office" response to the death penalty question was kind of brilliant. You found it a "cheapening of Jesus’ radical injunction to forswear worldly power and wealth"  — I thought it was a dead-on voiceover of "render under Caesar what is Caesar’s."

The thing is, Huckabee has been Caesar, i.e. has had to make the life-and-death decisions, which he spoke of rather movingly (not glibly, though I can’t gauge his sincerity). What he said, in effect, was that Jesus offered no direct guidance to worldly rulers about what to do when the apparent demands of public welfare (or security) clash w/ the dictates of the Sermon on the Mount.  In a way he was also saying he would have been ‘smarter’ to stay a minister rather than enter politics – there’s that humility reflex, real or faked, which is part of his appeal.  More to the point,, "Jesus couldn’t (wouldn’t) tell me outright what to do as governor." There’s an unBushlike shunning of certainty there that’s also part of his appeal.

Another reader adds:

But what about his discussion of immigration? That really impressed me.

It was clear he believes in the dignity of everyone, really believes it, instinctively, and instead of pandering to the worst sentiments of his party, he stood up and said, why punish children? Why not let them succeed?

Romney on the other hand, probably wouldn’t have opposed allowing children of illegal immigrants who had gone to Mass. schools to compete for scholarships, but he was happy to make a big deal out of it because someone told him that Republicans don’t like brown people. The exchange was as enlightening as Mitt’s craven discussion with McCain on waterboarding. I like Huckabee because he isn’t angry and he doesn’t hate people and he isn’t going to pretend he does. Yes, his demonstrative religiosity is worth watching, but as far as I have seen he doesn’t play up torture or racism or nativism, in other words fear, and that really is something in his party.

A reader writes:

Here you go again:

With the human sparkle of a female East German shot-putter.

We loyal readers know you hate HRC, and accept that. OK. But give her a break, will you?

When she’s open and charming, the pundits rage about the fact that ‘she laughs too much.’ If she warms up to her audience, they spend literally hours wondering ‘why she claps so much.’

If she deploys a tone that allows her personality to show, perhaps especially the tones that are real (the bubbling laughter, etc.), are pretty viciously attacked. So, her response is to not show ANYTHING at all. She imitates an automaton because, finally, that’s less trouble that fighting the ‘authenticity’ battle. Same with her positions.  Doesn’t make any difference how she chooses them, how she occupies them.  She gets slammed.

This is not an easy task for her, nor for the pundits. It begins to look like she’s pandering, and she might be; but she’s also trying to find ground on which to stand that won’t be the subject of debate, ridicule, jeering.

Politics, these days, ain’t for sissies. She’s no sissy, and my hat is off to her, and to all the other people willing for the sake of ambition and service who are willing to undergo the grueling, unkind, vicious furor and attack that a campaign these days entails.

A reader writes:

You said on the Brian Lehrer show that Hillary has worked for 35 years on behalf of Hillary Clinton. That is a lie and another example of your psychotic hatred of Hillary. The fact is that Hillary was the head of the Children`s Defense Fund; in Arkansas she was on a task force that helped raise educational standards for children and was not afraid of taking on the challenge of providing health insurance to everyone as first lady.

What has Obama done except demonstrate his out-of-control ambition? He was a community organizer but that was in the black community. What he has done for whites?

In your puff piece on Obama you quote an excerpt from a speech given by Obama describing his religious conversion and praising the reverend Jeremiah Wright the minister of the Trinity United Church of Christ, the church which Obama attends. What you neglected to mention is that the Trinity United Church of Christ is a militant black church and Wright ( who is a friend of Louis Farrakhan) is so controverisal that Obama had to disinvite him when he announced for president.

The fact is that Obama, unlike Colin Powell, is not an assimilated black. Although raised by white grand parents as an adult he has strongly identified with the black community as first as an organizer and then state Senator. Furthermore his wife Michelle  appears to have a chip on her shoulder when it comes to whites.

Americans are not going to vote for someone because that might appeal to people of color and Muslims around the world. Americans vote for someone that they can relate to and feel comfortable with and that is not Barack Obama.