Yes, yes, anyone on the tube who doesn’t agree with you is drinking the campaign KoolAde and is a tool of the Machine. Those that don’t disagree with you are speaking the True Gospel, independently and without any hidden agendas. Got it. In one. Years back. In many many venues…
Jason argues that I’m wrong because (according to him) I’m a vicious lying Clinton-kissing Obama-bashing hypocritical weasel, despite a long history on my part of bashing Hillary and defending Obama.
Once again, you respond by attributing to me things I never said. Talk about proving my point. And I’m supposed to talk nicely to you when you repeatedly make such comments? Since you’ve already been called out on making ascriptions about others’ beliefs without a basis in what they actually said, I conclude that you are now doing it intentionally. Your last line indicates a clear intention to provoke.
"Obnoxious" it will be as long as you keep up with this crap. Either that, or you’ll just get yourself banned, like we did other commenters who persistently lied about what others said.
You’re demanding negative proofs. You know better, so please don’t claim you’re even attempting honest discourse.
I’m not “demanding” anything. I posted a post then YOU started posting demands. If you can’t stand getting in return what you dish out, maybe you should reconsider your initial approach.
]]>You’re demanding negative proofs. You know better, so please don’t claim you’re even attempting honest discourse.
Shown so far:
Clinton claimed she had greater support among white voters. That’s a statement of fact. Obama claims he has greater support among black voters. That’s also a statement of fact.
Jason says only the first of those claims, the one made by the white candidate, is racist, and that it somehow constitutes "increasingly embracing open racism." That’s likewise a fact.
I disagee with Jason’s simplistic and assertive assessment of such thin evidence for substantive and copiously stated reasons. I don’t think the accurate description of poll results (by EITHER campaign) is racist. I don’t think that concentrating on turning out one’s own base (by EITHER campaign) is per se racist.
Jason argues that I’m wrong because (according to him) I’m a vicious lying Clinton-kissing Obama-bashing hypocritical weasel, despite a long history on my part of bashing Hillary and defending Obama.
None of which on his part, of course, bears even remotely on the prime question of what constitutes "increasingly embracing open racism," and whether or not that single quotation qualifies.
I think that sums it up quite well. I leave you to your ongoing angst explosion, Jason.
]]>And I think the furor over the "clinging" line is an example only of how anything can be converted into a controversy if you try hard enough. It was a one-off gaffe in phrasing, not a repeated talking point like the Clinton campaign’s references to her support levels segmented by race.
And yes, I do think that the Clinton campaign has embraced the anti-intellectualism of the anti-academia movement that usually only features certain elements of the far right. I think that is obvious not only from her repeated highlighting of the importance of the uneducated vote and the criticism of what Begala bluntly called "eggheads", but also in her blunt rejection of economic experts in the discussion of the "gas tax holiday". It is a 16-year pattern with her — whenever some group doesn’t support her, her response is to demonize the group that opposes her and to say that the only groups that should matter at all are the ones supporting her. Whatever criticisms might be made of Obama (and I’ve long conceded that there are a lot of them), I don’t think you can put his failures even in the same category as Clinton when it comes to segmentation, divisiveness and demonization.
]]>Just because she factually notes she’s getting the slack-jawed less-educated white rural vote, she’s celebrating idiocy?
Now, can you find equally direct racial references as the core of an argument from the Obama campaign?
Already did, before you produced yours, even if you chose to ignore it. Michelle Obama’s explaining that their low polling numbers among blacks would pick up, that "Black America will wake up and get it." As Black America certainly seems to have done, to judge from the primary and polling results since then. Nor does "direct" hold much weight with such obvious rural-redneck references as the "clinging to guns and religion" line. About as direct a slur on stereotype as one ever gets.
]]>But if you want to prove the claim that my interpretation is WRONG, you’re going to need to do better than just brushing off the repeated, consistent references to "white" voters in explicitly racial terms and trying to change the subject (as in your first comment on this thread that provoked this entire exchange) by "playing gotcha" with inaccurately-quoted and/or lesser references from Obama.
]]>First quote: Note that Begala is NOT a Clinton campaign spokesperson and does not work for the campaign. Anyone can say anything. GMAFB. His words rebound on Clinton no more than Brazile’s do. Interesting story on that first link, though. Love the framing. "Part of that is the question of whether white liberals and other so-called progressives in the Democratic Party have progressed enough to allow African-Americans, and other people of color, to advance from supporting cast to center stage." Implication being that if Obama doesn’t advance or win, it MUST be racism within the party. I’d call that a stretch.
Second quote: Out of context, and I already noted that Clinton was citing an AP polling story. Should she lie about what the polling said? Is noticing what it actually said racist? Heh. Impolitic, yes, but racist? As Clinton also said "These are the people you have to win if you’re a Democrat, in sufficient numbers to actually win the election. Everybody knows that." Well, effing DUH! One out-of-context quote referencing a factual poll, already referenced, is the entire basis for your claim that the Clinton campaign is "increasingly embracing open racism"?
“Our problem has less to do with white working-class voters*. In fact the problem is that — to the extent that there is a problem — is that older voters are very loyal to Senator Clinton.” –Barack Obama
LMAO. Why, that age-baiting bastard! But they do have their party line straight. Obama’s consultant David Axelrod is quite consisitent in changing race questions into a referendum on "older voters" who want to stick with what is "more familiar."
[*--Despite such voters clinging to guns and religion, of course!]
]]>Begala pressed on that Democrats "cannot win with eggheads and African-Americans" or, as he called it, "the Dukakis coalition which carried 10 states and gave us four years of the first George Bush." The winning formula, Begala said, was to do what President Clinton did in two elections and reach out to "working-class white folks and Latinos," something he insisted that Hillary Clinton has proved she can do but Obama hasn’t.
http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_9223961
And directly from the candidate herself:
CLINTON: Senator Obama’s support among working — hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again. And how the — you know, whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.
Now, can you find equally direct racial references as the core of an argument from the Obama campaign? The ball is now in your court. Let’s see if you can stop WHINING (no one from the anti-Obama side gets to complain about that characterization since they are the ones who initiated it and used it for WEEKS without complaint) long enough to actually engage the question.
P.S. Right now, I am just focusing on the explicit racial references of the Clinton campaign. The equally explicit anti-intellectualism, where having education and knowledge about things is somehow a BAD thing for people to have, is also indefensible.
]]>And try also giving up your attempt to play games by changing the subject (that’s the real similarity to the Paulistas on this thread) and focus on correcting your skewed standards of evaluation. The fact of the matter is that the Clinton campaign has been using explicit references to racial groups as the primary core of its case on why they should win the nomination. To whatever degree race-baiting can be found in the Obama campaign, it appears to be far less pervasive or central to their case. I won’t object if people want to criticize specific examples of it, but let’s STOP pretending that Obama’s campaign is the primary purveyor of racial animus in this campaign season.
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