CNN calls Obama elitist

I just do not know where to start on this one. I once again had the profound misfortune of watching CNN while at the gym. And once again, I came away with anger.

So, here's the deal. Yesterday, at San Francisco fundraiser, Obama said the following:

But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Daily Kos has the summary of the back and forth between campaigns here. Personally, I don't believe the comments are that big a deal, maybe just a little accidental slippage of the truth. But that's not even what I care about here. CNN, and Kitty Pilgrim in particular, very Seriously, and responsibly, charged into the fray to make sure we understand "Senator Obama's political attack on small-town America". She wanted to make sure we knew about the "outrage" at the "stunning comments". CNN wanted to make sure we judged for ourselves the last to last night's poll: "Do you believe that Senator Barack Obama's comments reveal his elitist attitude toward every hard working American?" Just like Fox News, that poll question is exceedingly fair and balanced, isn't it?

At points during the program, Pilgrim asks several correspondents for reactions, and they seem to be trying to offer the idea that it's not nearly as condemning a moment as she wanted.

PILGRIM: Words are being parsed very, very carefully. This is quite a statement. Errol, your thoughts on this?

ERROL LOUIS, "NEW YORK DAILY NEWS": I think this is a problem Barack Obama should have anticipated and could have easily avoided which is he's walking on a tight rope every time he goes and speaks. Every place I've seen him campaign, in every state, he does something that politicians don't usually do, which is to ask people to be better than they are.

And to sort of delve into it and to say for this nation to work we all have to be better, we have to be more understanding, we have to be more generous, we have to be a little less narrow minded. It's very different from what politicians normally do.

And Roland Martin:

Wow. Politically dumb because he actually told the truth. At some point we have to accept the reality that there are people in America now who are angry and are bitter. And we do blame other folks for certain things.

Basically, Kitty Pilgrim and her producers were trying to shove the storyline that this was a huge gaffe down the throats of their correspondents and viewers, with phrses like the "very important controversy". Instead, you see them call her out. Here's another exchange: Pilgrim says she'll put the remark up, but then she puts Obama's response statement, and Clinton's remarks, never actually showing what Obama said. After:

PILGRIM: What strikes me about that remark, Roland, is that Senator Clinton is using this as an occasion to talk about being presidential. Did Senator Obama do himself a disservice in this remark in not coming up with a solution in siding with the problem instead of the solution?

MARTIN: Well, first of all, we don't have -- do we have the full tape of what he said after that, as well? Or do we just have that?

Even Roland Martin on the show was trying to get her to be a little fairer, just in case, maybe the remarks are being distorted a bit. The good news is that while Pilgrim was stuffing the anti-Obama spin down our throats, CNN correspondents fought back on both her show and on the Situation Room, surprisingly enough.

I hate CNN, but maybe, just maybe, there's a small chance it won't be too bad this time despite the MSM trying it damnedest.

UPDATE: It gets so much better. I honestly can't remember the last thing Hillary attacked on that she didn't also do or that Bill didn't do in his 1992 campaign. It's hilarious.

Love him or hate him, Obama's not just another politician.

I'm not sure how many times I've had to say it, but a lot of people not in Obama's camp seem to feel one thing about Obama that I'd argue is just wrong - that he is just another politician, and can't mean what he says. And to suggest otherwise is to be naive. But maybe Charles Murray, a conservative over at the National Review of all places, can convince someone, since he's caught on to this. He won't vote for Obama on ideological grounds, but he at least realizes he's the real thing.

The thing is, it takes a certain circularity to believe that he's just lying about all of this. If you assume Obama is just another politician, then anything he does can easily be doubted, and that conclusion is used as proof that he is, as one friend remarked, a "Teflon-coated hypocrite". His race speech is a perfect example. "Of course he is hiding his real views and agrees with Wright" , you might say. "How conveniently timed," you might say, while sweeping away the whole point of the speech because it served a political purpose. Yes, it was given because race had gotten out of hand in the campaign, and was going to be damaging. But it would damage not only to the campaign, but also national public discourse. Obama wanted to correct both problems, and I'd say the second more than the first. The speech may have hurt him in the general election, and he's all but wrapped up the nomination, but he had to give it because it was right. Of course, if it works out, it could have also just been a really good political move, according to the cynics.

Other examples come from the times he has to play defense in the campaign. The negative ads, the delaying in Michigan to enforce the rules. But he didn't start the negative ads, and he's damned either way with them. If he responds, he's "just as bad". If he doesn't, he can't answer the phone at 3AM. With MI, he is playing politics by delaying, but it is because he played by the rules before, and Clinton completely did an about-face when it seemed she was going to lose.

He's not perfect (he seems to be either misguided or pandering on ethanol subsidies). And since he has to fight back on Clinton's negative attacks, it's easy for those who assume he's just as slimy as she is to point out one or two things and take is as equivalence. But he's a lot better than the alternatives (he's really the only one trying to be honest), and again it's circular to believe otherwise. The assumption of his hypocrisy is the only basis that hasn't been proven false by facts. Whereas there is real, hard evidence that other candidates are just willing to lie to get your votes.

Obama's passport file and the Surveillance State

Since January, Barack Obama's passport file has been illegally accessed at least three times by employees of the Bureau of Consular Affairs, each time triggering an automatic investigation that can easily be leaked and turned into a media story. In fact, this is exactly what happened in 1992 with Bill Clinton. If this is a political move and not just employees' foolish curiously - given the administration's extreme disrespect for the law, I don't doubt it for a second - this is incredibly disgusting. But it's just the latest trend and not at all out of line with what we've seen from King George's Surveillance State.

...incidents like the snooping into Obama's passport file are not the exception, and are not even merely the rule, but are the pervasive and inevitable outcome of allowing government officials to spy on Americans without real oversight.

Yeah...

UPDATE: What on Earth is going on here? Does anybody actually believe it was harmless curiosity when it happened to both campaigns?

UPDATE 2: Make it a trifecta. Am I being too cynical to think they did it to McCain too to remove suspicion that it was political? I'm sure they would have known that the time this happened in 1992 would be uncovered, and that it'd be spun oppositely now, right? Wow, I sometimes amaze myself at how readily I can accept certain conspiracy theories with regard to this administration. But at this point, they've almost all turned out true, and just when you think it can't get worse, it turns out their imaginations are better than yours.

Richardson Endorses Obama

Daily Kos has it here.

Richardson's endorsement may be the beginning of a concerted push to pressure Clinton to acknowledge that she has fought a tough campaign but has come up short, that the race is over, and that it's time for her to recognize that our nominee for President will be Barack Obama.

Like I said before, the speech marked the end of the Clinton campaign.

Guilt by association is Old Politics.

I keep referencing this post in real life discussions, and the follow up is here. In them David Schraub gives an excellent framework for understanding how Obama's politics differ from his pastor, Rev. Wright's. Once you consider that this framework already exists, it is easy to see that Obama hears Wright's views as a familiar refrain, and can group them as a general viewpoint he does not agree with. Another, lighter, example would be if two friends agreed on most everything, but one was a vegetarian and one was not. In this case, one friend will hear the arguments for being a vegetarian (killing animals, environment), and nod and say "I know", but I just don't agree. Both examples involve a familiar refrain, and can thus be categorized as an opposing view that a friend holds, one on race, and one on vegetarianism.

More generally, one of Obama's persistent themes to his actions is the dismissal of the notion of guilt by association. He believes, and I agree completely, that everyone has something good to bring to the table, and a person can associate with others for that good, while not absorbing the bad. We've seen this repeatedly throughout the campaign, with "gaffes" such as hiring Donnie McClurkin, the "ex-gay," homophobic gospel singer, Tony Rezko, who he was never even accused of wrongdoing with, but went with him on a land deal, and now his pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

Senator Obama feels he can associate with these people freely for their good attributes (being a good singer, giving him a good deal, or being a spiritual leader, etc.), as any person not in the public sphere would do. The reason for this is not naiveté, as some people would have us believe, but it is tied into his idea of rising above the old politics. He certainly knows that people see things differently and expect different things out of leaders and icons, but at the same time, his ideas of openness of government and honestly in politics suggest to us that he believes America is ready to accept that its leaders are human and have foibles. Moreover, he believes that we should all be able to see the good in each other and come together to solve problems despite our differences. His speech on race suggests the same thing - he's trusting in America to look at the actual issues that are important, and to believe that he will tell you his views, because he believes that he finally can.

Transparency, rising above the old politics, elimination of guilt by association, and voting on the issues rather than sound bytes are all tied together, and together they make up the message that Obama has been speaking about the entire campaign. His campaign is not primarily about any one traditional issue, but rather about rising above the old politics, and bringing public discourse to a new, more mature level. This is what he means.

CNN further misses the point.

This morning CNN had a poll asking whether after the speech, Obama (a) either still had more explaining to do, or (b) could put the matter behind him. Given those two choices, it's great that 68% of people voted for (b), but the choices themselves show CNN simply does not get it. This speech was not a rebuttal to a controversy, it was an address to a nation to solve a problem that plagues us. He cannot "put the matter behind him", and that's not the point. That's what everyone trying to declare we've solved racial issues has done, as it's gotten worse. The point is that none of us should put the matter behind us - we need to stand up and make it right.

A More Perfect Speech

Obama's speech on race: "A More Perfect Union"



I'm a little late to the game (I was at work), and this speech has been reviewed to death now. However, I'm just going to add my two cents anyway.

First, let me say that if you have not watched it yet, you absolutely need to do so. Your kids will be watching it in history class in the future.

This was not a campaign speech, it was a call to duty, both for him and from him. Obama saw the dangers in the racial campaign wars, and how the discourse itself was damaging the very idea of unity his campaign is beginning to sow. He felt this speech was his duty. As Americans, it is our duty to remember the spirit of the civil rights movement that we all celebrate each year with Dr. King's birthday and Black History Month. There was plenty more work to do when Reagan almost singlehandedly suspended the Civil Rights Era by polarizing the country along racial lines to get elected. Senator Obama today asked us to pick up where we left off, to get back on track fighting for what the Constitution already guarantees - true equality.

I also believe the reactions to today's speech are some of the biggest windows into the current hearts and minds of America. CNN did its best to illustrate how vapid the entire MSM is. During the speech and soon after, two headlines from CNN were "Obama speech: Former pastor 'like family to me'" and "Obama: Constitution stained by 'sin of slavery'". Neither title even suggests the scope or the purpose of the speech. This speech was not just a reaction to the media's attention on Obama's former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. That may have influenced the timing, but unlike the first headline suggests, this was not a speech about him. This was not a speech about how the Constitution is wrong, as the second headline suggests, but rather about how because of the guarantee that all men are created equal, we're still not where the Constitution needs us to be. The speech is about the fact that America has the ability to get there, and he knows that we have made some progress, and can make much more. It's about so much more than any one of the lines in his speech - it's about the very faith in a better America that is pushing him toward the White House. The very same faith that we all share when we go out in droves to support him, to hear him speak, and to cast our ballots.

Sadly, this brings me to Senator Clinton. If she can resist this tidal wave and somehow not immediately step down, realizing that she's now the foil in the way of history, I'm not sure what to say. A friend and Clinton supporter said to me today: "Eloquent as usual, but where's the substance?" after he watched the speech. This scared the hell out of me. Clinton's supporters have seemingly become so poisoned that they immediately equate eloquence with emptiness. I fear for the damage she has already done the the people that support her. The speeches we remember throughout history - King, Kennedy, FDR, were remembered because of their message and their delivery. This speech will join that list in the future.

The same Clinton supporter suggested that he only gave the speech because his poll numbers said he should. That certainly would have been Clinton's motivation, but I'll say it again: this was not a campaign speech. If he had wanted a campaign speech, he would have more directly addressed the attacks on Wright and left it at that. He might have used the time to talk policy, but then the speech would have lost its entire purpose. It would have become just another speech on the campaign trail. No, instead he used this opportunity to say what many people have been waiting years for a respected, powerful, black person to say on the most public of stages. This was not just a campaign speech. This was history.

The most important point in all this is that it does not matter that he was running for president when he gave this speech. He spoke about a pandemic that has infected this country since its inception, and that as a public, we seem to have forgotten our mission to cure it. These words simply needed to be spoken. I just consider myself fortunate that I can now cast a vote for the man who said them in the next presidential election.

UPDATE: I meant to flesh out the Clinton stepping down bit, since I really believe this speech drew the party together around Obama and marks the true end of Clinton's candidacy. But this comment on Glenn Greenwald's post about the speech (also worth reading as always) makes my point perfectly for me.

Bursting the Bubble of Racial Tension In the Campaign?

This is big news. The racial tension has been building, and the media and Clinton campaigns are getting away with too much. Hopefully a speech on the issue will diffuse what's been bubbling under the surface (if not actually the sticky stuff that's coating the surface) for this whole year so far.

Transparency in action

He released his tax returns, unlike other candidates. He released all his earmark requests, unlike a certain other Democratic candidate, and now he's explained the questionable associations he's had, even with a land developer in connection with he was never even accused of any wrongdoing. Most remarkable about the last interview is that he went in to answer all the questions he would be asked, and he did exactly that. When Obama talks about the need for transparency, he is showing it by not hiding from the truth in this campaign.

Ok, here we go again..

Welcome to my new attempt at consistent blogging. I made one attempt a little while back, and it failed miserably after two posts. It's called "A Hitchhiker's Travels", and I will revive it beginning when I, well, travel, for more personal blog type stuff.

But I've been inspired to create another separate blog because, as most of you probably know since you are getting the link from my gchat status, I've been essentially using that as a political blog for a year now. But here, I can actually write longer comments and give full quotes from links and stuff! It's great. Also, I figure if, as I do on some particularly angry days, I need to post a whole bunch of links, well then I can do that too! Isn't blogging great?

This won't just be political, either, but really just anything I see or think that I think either people should or would like to know. Or really anything I feel like shouting out to whoever will listen. Hopefully you enjoy. And please comment and lemme know if I sound insane, paranoid, or too doomsday-like. Though I'll admit, for now, I will likely sound very much like that.

An example from The New Republic's Jonathan Chait:

[Clinton] needs to convince the remaining uncommitted superdelegates to split for her by about a 2-to-1 margin. The only way she can get a split like that is if she can persuasively argue that Obama is unelectable. And the only way she can do that is to make him unelectable. Some people have treated this as an unfortunate byproduct of Clinton's decision to continue her campaign. It's actually a central element of the strategy. Penn is already saying he's unelectable. It's not true, but by the time the convention rolls around, it may well be.

When are the party leaders gonna step in and say "That's enough?" She's gotta be running either to tear him down or for a chance at 2012, by making sure McCain wins now. How can the remaining neutral party leaders (Gore, Dean, Edwards, Richardson, etc.) let her very obviously tear down the party's chances? Wasn't the point of them remaining neutral so that they would have the moral authority to stop this?

And one point about the new MI and FL primaries: I understand the need to seat the delegates in order to not discourage the voters in those states, but then there's the, you know, rules. But from a strategy point of view, even if Obama is saying that he'd accept a re-do for that reason, how can he, knowing that Clinton will just campaign by saying that she wanted to seat those delegates and he did not? Any changing of the rules in the middle will be a bad thing for Obama's campaign, except as a good-will gesture to the superdelegates. He has to basically believe that good will will counter the "momentum" PR that he will lose from these new primaries, or he has to believe, as many are beginning to, that he has already won. I just don't know that it's a good tradeoff.