A Tiresome Meme
Rather than investing the effort to construct policy cases against Barack Obama, critics have relied almost exclusively upon attacks on Obama’s (and his supporters’) authenticity. Basically, every day brings a new opportunity to find some story that reveals Obama doing (gasp!) politics, with all the spin and evasions that the scandal-obsessed media demands as the price of admission. Critics allege, however, that Obama “claims to be different”. This allows them to give Hillary Clinton a complete pass for everything that they condemn Obama for.
The problem is that this is unreasonable and completely non-responsive to the real issue at hand in the Democratic Party nomination. First, it relies on a distorted stereotype about Obama’s campaign. All candidates claim to be “different” in some way. To use that as an excuse to hold Obama to an impossible standard is to apply to him a standard that no candidate could ever meet except at the cost of political suicide.
Second, attacking Obama for being (gasp!) a politician evades the fact that the question at hand is a comparison between him and Hillary Clinton, not his beatification. To criticize Obama for actions where Hillary Clinton consistently receives a pass (and it is often difficult to find anti-Obama advocates even mentioning critical stories that emerge about Hillary Clinton, though they have no trouble lavishing frequent and repetitive attention on Obama) is to make the perfect the enemy of the good. Yes, Obama is political and he undertakes his share of political evasions and attacks. But when it comes to demonizing the opposition, underhanded machinations, and flirting with outright corruption, the worst that can be attributed to Obama pales before the nearly 20-year record of the Clinton machine. The “but Obama says he’s different” meme is a red herring. Obama’s supporters can legitimately argue that he is different from and better than Hillary Clinton without being required to support the complete strawman that he is so transformatively different as to transcend political culture entirely.
Finally, by ignoring policy issues in favor of incessantly repetitive carping about process stories and side issues, Obama’s critics make themselves guilty of the charge of lacking substance that they love to falsely paste on Obama. If Obama is really the “most liberal senator”, why not dig into his policy positions (listed in excruciating detail on his campaign web site) and make substantial policy criticisms? Too much work? Too much actual thinking required? Too much chance that the Obama people might actually win some of those arguments? Scary thoughts, I’m sure.
The complaining about “but Obama says he is different” is already a tiresome meme in spite of the early stage of the overall campaign season. Obama’s critics should be capable of better.
Let me just say one thing: how many blog owners encourage this kind of debate? Right. Lord knows there are blogs that forbid this kind of thing (sad, I know).
*applauding myself*
Distorted view of his candidacy? Right you mean the million ads and speeches about change?
Listen Jason you can keep saying the same tired line about how the media has Obama wrong but most of it is in response to his own supporters.
I don’t really care whether Clinton is doing this or that (I am not voting for her) what I do care is that moderates and independents, hell even some Republicans think he will bring change to how politics will be run and even worse they think he is moderate. Is he a progressive, no. Liberal with some moderate views, yes. I can see a moderate liberal going for him but still disagreeing. What I don’t get is people who claim they are moderate conservatives or people with center-right views going for him. He isn’t bringing a "new" level of political debate and he is very different policy wise.
I think it is possible to believe that Obama can be an unusually moderate political figure without having to defend the extreme strawman position that Obama is somehow the Second Coming of deity.
Those who disagree should stop playing up the strawman and start concentrating on making policy cases against Obama. I think those are legitimate arguments, legitimate disagreements, and substantive discussions. But as long as they continue to fixate exclusively on strawmen and process stories that single out Obama while giving Clinton a complete pass, I think they lack all credibility and contribute themselves to the debasement of political discourse. In short, they are becoming what they claim to object to.
Not at all; it’s perfectly clear that Hillary is a hypocrite and liar. So what’s new about writing about that? Who’s going to argue against it? Exactly, no one. But Obama is supposed to be "different."
But, the advantage of having a group blog is that those who disagree are free to voice their disagreement and to write posts pointing out that, in this case, hillary for instance is a hypocrite, etc.
If those bloggers do their job, we’ve got a blog that spends time and attention to all sides.
Groupblogging: you gotta love it
Just repeating the meme doesn’t innoculate it against the specific criticisms that I made.
As I said in the post, "Obama’s supporters can legitimately argue that he is different from and better than Hillary Clinton without being required to support the complete strawman that he is so transformatively different as to transcend political culture entirely."
Exactly.
Light gray is different from black. You don’t have to be pristine white. You are simply repeating the very thing Jason mentioned. Obama doesn’t have to be perfect to be better! The vast majority of Obama supporters don’t think he’s perfect, so pointing out instances where he’s being less than saintly will do nothing to change a supporters mind. It’s quite enough for him to be eons better than Clinton in that respect.
But that is what Obama’s about, that’s one, and two is: my posts show that he’s not different or better than Clinton either.
In my opinion at least.
But you can disagree, as you clearly do, and you’re free to write other posts; I even encourage it! My biases aren’t your biases, you could say.
That’s what makes this blog different than all the other ones out there. Here (civil) disagreement isn’t just allowed, it’s encouraged.
Anyway: I understand your view Jason, but we will continue to disagree on this I fear until one of us dies.
Um. OK - but he’s not even gray in my book.
I keep repeating myself, but OK: that’s the wonderful thing about a groupblog. If co-bloggers don’t agree, they can share their view with readers.
Yes, Claudia. I think that some of Obama’s critics make a very serious error when they fixate on the few weirdos who do things like faint at Obama rallies and then assume that ALL Obama supporters take a saintly and pristine interpretation about what being "different" means.
They are constructing a strawman. But I guess it is easier than arguing about policies.
GET THE F*%K OUT OF MY THREAD MICHAEL!!!!
ROFL….
LMAO
As a 60 year old woman who has been through many elections starting with Lyndon Johnson, the problem I have with Barack Obama is not his relationship with Pastor Wright, his policies, or his experience in Wash DC (although this may be part of his problem.) His campaign is about "change"; how he is against non-partisanship and wants to "cross the aisle" and work with the Republicans;how he wants to have talks with some of our enemies. Other elected presidents have given the same spill, and yet nothing changed nor will it as long as our government has two parties who’s idealogy is so different.
So I guess I am cynical about him and many of his young supporters who believe this will happen if he is elected. He wants people to believe he will be a new kind of leader, unlike McCain and Clinton who are categorized as being the typical old school politicians. However, they know how Wash DC works, they know lobbyist and special interest groups will not go away. They know the "smoke filled back room" negotiations that take place to pass a bill. As a US Senator for 3 years he also knows this is the way business is done in DC.
Is he being naive for wanting change, or is it because he is a politician who knows this is what people want to hear?
Michael, I guess some of us have a hard time believing that you don’t think Obama is a BIT better when it comes to integrity and honesty than Clinton is. Maybe you had to live through the Clinton years here in the US, but the Bosnia thing really brought back memories. There is just this extreme quality about the lying- as many have said, it borders on pathological lying because these incredibly vivid, detailed stories just seem to slip from their lips, even in cases where there was really no reason to lie. You find yourself wondering if they’ve actually convinced themselves that it’s true- it’s just all a bit absurd and unpleasant, because after quite a few repetitions of that sort of thing, you find yourself wondering what the person is capable of. I never bought into the most extreme conspiracy theories about the Clintons, but there was enough of this extreme phoniness and self serving storytelling that I could understand why people began to believe the worst about them.
And FWIW, this may sound like I’m saying that you don’t know what you’re talking about since you’re not American, didn’t live through the Clinton administration here, etc. I don’t mean it that way- you are entitled to your opinion, and sometimes an outsiders perspective is very valid and helpful. My intention here is just to point out why it is (IMO, anyway) that a lot of people aren’t agreeing with your assessments of the comparison between the two candidates.
Don’t forget "Change" was one of Clinton’s many campaign slogans (after Obama had been using it) - until it also was not working.
What I get tired of is Obamites who insist that straight substantive criticism of Obam is off-point because he’s different. Well, no. He’s a Chicago-land politician with a lot of personal charisma and some great rhetorical skills. But his actual record doesn’t indicate much of anything different that I can see. He’s a politician who talks pretty.
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