Clinton also said, while defending her argument for her vote for the Iraq war that Saddam Hussein would be envious of Osama bin Laden. "We knew that psychologically the idea that Osama bin Laden would now be given the top spot so to speak among extremists, would be very hard for Saddam to take and would probably encourage him to do something."
Having yesterday tried to defend her Iraq vote by incorrectly claiming she started criticizing the Iraq war before Barack Obama did [but only if you start counting before 2005, and even then not really], Hillary Clinton today decided to go the other way, defended her vote for the Iraq AUMF on the grounds that ... well, let's just run the whole quote from ABC: "We knew that psychologically the idea that Osama bin Laden would now be given the top spot so to speak among extremists, would be very hard for Saddam to take and would probably encourage him to do something."
Now, if Clinton has some sort of incredible capacity to read the psychological state of the world's dictators, I think that's an incredible plus and she ought to be President. But I'm skeptical. After all, post-Gulf War I Saddam seemed interested primarily in doing as much bad stuff as he could get away with while still avoiding a major military showdown. Why he would be more confrontational at a time when domestic U.S. politics seemed trigger-happy is beyond me. Saddam was a brutal dictator, not some petty middle school bully.
Also left unsaid is what exactly this "something" is, and whether it's worth the incredible cost in blood and treasure to take preventative military action to guard against the threat of ... "something".
A while back I made the observation that our Euro-Leftist friends (including, by association, the leftist Canuks) were, understandably, inclined to support Hillary Clinton over Barrack Obama as she, at least notionally, seemed to represent the so-called working class, and this, at least outside of the US, is the true foundation of leftist ideology.
Man, was I wrong.
Seems I was more of of an ideological romantic than the Euro-Leftists themselves.
For the most part, the "working class", foolishly or otherwise, support Clinton, and yet our Euro-Leftists seem to have, clearly, forsaken her in favor of Obama, the Light of The Left.
Why might this be?
So might the Euro-leftists who are always so fond of indirectly denigrating the US Left as merely a shadow of the US Right, be the same sort of faux-intellectual dilettantes who care more about image than substance?
Wednesday April 9, 2008 06:29 EDT
My last word (for now) on sexism
I never intended to spend so much time on this blog arguing that Hillary Clinton has faced sexism in her historic presidential run because it's so self-evident. It doesn't mean that without it, she'd be defeating Barack Obama; it doesn't mean she is without flaws; it doesn't mean Obama doesn't face racism; it doesn't mean she deserves to be either the Democratic nominee or the president. It just means sexism is one of the unfair disadvantages Clinton has had to deal with. It's just a fact.
The idea that so many people are so incapable of admitting that blows my mind. I'm going to try to take a break from this depressing debate, but a friend just sent me this video. (A few minutes earlier a reader also posted a link in my letters thread.) Take a look. (Warning: I would not argue that every single statement in this video is sexist -- I thought Keith Olbermann's "Special Comment" on Geraldine Ferraro was over-the-top, but not sexist -- but taken together, the montage is pretty devastating.) I'd urge people who are minimizing the sexism Clinton faces, or who are trying to argue that racism against Obama has been just as public and disabling, to make a YouTube video that's comparable to this, and that features media stars -- not Clinton surrogates, not Obama critics, but guys paid by major news networks -- using comparable slurs against Obama. Maybe it's possible. I doubt it, but maybe. If anyone succeeds, I promise I'll post it here!
(Update: The version of this video I watched this afternoon ended after the Howard Beale moment; I hadn't seen the second half, which is essentially an ad for Clinton, which I don't endorse. But the montage of media stars attacking her is still worth watching.)
I just know y'all are gonna love this one!
Joan Walsh:
Quote:
Wednesday April 9, 2008 06:29 EDT
My last word (for now) on sexism
I never intended to spend so much time on this blog arguing that Hillary Clinton has faced sexism in her historic presidential run because it's so self-evident. It doesn't mean that without it, she'd be defeating Barack Obama; it doesn't mean she is without flaws; it doesn't mean Obama doesn't face racism; it doesn't mean she deserves to be either the Democratic nominee or the president. It just means sexism is one of the unfair disadvantages Clinton has had to deal with. It's just a fact.
The idea that so many people are so incapable of admitting that blows my mind.
I'd urge people who are ... trying to argue that racism against Obama has been just as public and disabling, to make a YouTube video that's comparable to this
No, Hillary Clinton shouldn't be winning
Sean Wilentz spun a fantasy in his Salon piece about Clinton's electability. In the real world, it's Barack Obama who's more electable.
By Brad DeLong
April 10, 2008 | Hillary Rodham Clinton has won fewer votes this spring in contested primaries than Barack Obama. She has persuaded fewer of her supporters to turn out for caucuses. She has won fewer pledged delegates. Yet Sean Wilentz writes that she "should be winning." And in response I say: "Huh?"
It turns out that when Sean Wilentz says that Hillary Clinton "should be winning" the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, what he means is that if all the Democratic caucuses and primaries had been winner-take-all, then "Clinton would now have 1,743 pledged delegates to Obama's 1,257."
Sean Wilentz is a Yankees fan. I am a Red Sox fan. Perhaps Sean Wilentz could write that the American League championship should go to the team with the most hits instead of the most wins, which would have made the Yankees rather than the Red Sox the real champions last year. After all, isn't the real point of baseball to hit the ball and get on base? That's why it's called baseball, and not run-ball or win-ball, right? I would not find that argument convincing. Wilentz's winner-take-all gambit is a talking point, not an argument: "If my grandmother had wheels, she would be a bus" is rarely a persuasive line of reasoning. If the rules for winning delegates and the nomination had been different, the candidates would have run different campaigns and put their resources into different places and different proportions...
our Euro-Leftists seem to have, clearly, forsaken her in favor of Obama, the Light of The Left.
Why might this be?
Could it be that the "authentic" leftists are not so authentic after all?
So might the Euro-leftists who are always so fond of indirectly denigrating the US Left as merely a shadow of the US Right, be the same sort of faux-intellectual dilettantes who care more about image than substance?
Of course not.
Then there's ... who?
The promise of a Colombia trade pact
By Edward Schumacher-Matos
April 11, 2008
Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama may have their hearts in the right place in opposing a trade agreement with Colombia. It's their better judgment that is mistaken.
The two candidates are wrong about the Colombian human rights violations they cite and the jobs they hope to save for Pennsylvania workers.
The agreement, which President Bush sent this week to Congress for an up or down vote, essentially makes permanent the trade preferences that Colombia has had for 17 years. What is new is that the treaty opens the Colombian market to US exports.
The virtual elimination in 1991 of duties on Colombian flowers, textiles, and other products was done to help wean Colombia from violence and drugs. Whatever minor adjustments it forced on the American economy and workers has long since happened.
US goods, however, still face tariffs of 35 percent and higher. Under the new agreement, 80 percent of US auto parts, medical equipment, and farm and other products will be duty free immediately. The rest will be phased in over 10 years.
The Colombian government is making the bigger sacrifice because a permanent agreement removes uncertainty for investors. Trade, combined with US support for Colombia's military and justice system, have helped Colombia beat back a leftist insurgency, largely demobilize right-wing paramilitaries, and spark a boom that has reduced poverty, unemployment, and the economic weight of drug mafias.
Congress has been extending the temporary preferences for months at a time. Kill the trade agreement and the preferences by all logic should be killed, too. That undercuts hundreds of thousands of Colombians who work in the higher-paying new export industries.
The proposed agreement already includes the environmental and worker protections that the Democrats wanted, but free trade is the third rail for populist and union voters. Both Clinton and Obama in recent weeks have fired senior advisers over trade. Still, both candidates have supported trade liberalization in the past. One suspects they still know it benefits the country, even though supporting anything that smacks of free trade in places like Pennsylvania is like touching the third rail.
Enter human rights. The Democrats also say they oppose the agreement because of the assassination of unionists in Colombia. It is a powerful argument, except for this: While the murder of even one union organizer is deplorable, the numbers being used are so misleading that they should not be cited in opposing the agreement.
All sides agree that the killings are dramatically down, and no one accuses the government of orchestrating them. By the unions' own count, the killings dropped from a high of 275 in 1996 to 39 last year. The government says 26.
The assumption by the Democrats is that all were killed for union organizing. It is an assumption implied in reports they cite from groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Those groups, however, rely on Colombian unions for their numbers, instead of collecting their own. The number of convictions now being won in the union's own cases reveals that perhaps one-fifth, and almost certainly less than half, of the killings had to do with unionism.
Of convictions won in 87 cases since the first one in 2001, almost all for murder, the ruling judges found that union activity was the motive in only 17, according to the attorney general's office. The judges found 15 of the cases had to do with common crime, 10 with passion, and 13 with being guerrilla members. No motive was established in 16 of the cases.
The unions don't dispute the judicial findings, and deep in their reports say that they, in fact, have no idea of suspect or motive in 79 percent of their cases going back to 1986. The killings, in other words, are isolated and not part of a campaign against unionizing. The unions further benefit from the reduced paramilitary and guerrilla violence. The convictions have cut impunity. The government provides protection, from free mobile phones to bodyguards, for nearly 2,000 union leaders.
What Colombia needs is the continued economic growth that is overcoming both social ills and the violence. The free trade agreement promises that, just as it promises growth for American workers.
Edward Schumacher-Matos, a former New York Times reporter, is a visiting professor for Latin American studies at Harvard University.
Thank you, Georgeob1!
However, I hate to break the mood, but I did have a second thought on Finn's post ...
Finn dAbuzz wrote:our Euro-Leftists seem to have, clearly, forsaken her in favor of Obama, the Light of The Left.
Why might this be?
Could it be that the "authentic" leftists are not so authentic after all?
and
Finn dAbuzz wrote:So might the Euro-leftists who are always so fond of indirectly denigrating the US Left as merely a shadow of the US Right, be the same sort of faux-intellectual dilettantes who care more about image than substance?
Of course not.
I wouldnt exactly call this "respectful" ... but fair enough, it was a contention I was happy to discuss. I saw Finn's observation about how Euro-leftists took the Democratic primaries and what may have fuelled their take, recognized myself as one of those Euro-leftists, identified with the subject, and jumped in to explain myself.
My second thought, however, concerns Finn's basic submission: that "our Euro-Leftists seem to have, clearly, forsaken her in favor of Obama". Is this even true? Who is Finn talking of?
...
Am I missing something? Again, it may be true that most non-American posters support Obama: a poll in Holland showed that the Dutch are largely rooting for him, for one. It's just that I dont quite get where Finn got this image of Euroleftists massively jumping on the Obama bandwagon from. It is, as is Finn's wont, an awful broad sweep of the brush, which in reality seems to refer mostly to, eh.. well, me? Maybe?
I can't speak for Finn, however, the impression I had in mind when I read his posts was a reference to the general history of European left Wing politicians since WWII - and not to particular posters here on A2K.
Finn dAbuzz wrote:A while back I made the observation that our Euro-Leftist friends (including, by association, the leftist Canuks) were, understandably, inclined to support Hillary Clinton over Barrack Obama as she, at least notionally, seemed to represent the so-called working class, and this, at least outside of the US, is the true foundation of leftist ideology.
Man, was I wrong.
Seems I was more of of an ideological romantic than the Euro-Leftists themselves.
For the most part, the "working class", foolishly or otherwise, support Clinton, and yet our Euro-Leftists seem to have, clearly, forsaken her in favor of Obama, the Light of The Left.
Why might this be?
On this count, I can only talk for myself. I have indeed, for reasons both rational (mostly of the strategic variety) and wholly irrational, felt ill at ease with Obama's electoral constituency.
That was a significant reason why I was for Edwards, initially, and why back in January I leant about equally much (or rather, was about equally averse) to Hillary and Obama.
On the one hand, I trusted Obama more as a person of conscience, and preferred his grassroots-fuelled transparency over Clinton's heavy-handed, clannish power politics. I also favoured Obama's policy perspectives in several fields, foreign policy foremost, over Hillary's, and was never much impressed with the Clinton era in the first place.
On the other hand, I liked Hillary for reasons roughly to do with the general picture you sketch. While Obama prioritized ethics and political reform, she relentlessly emphasised the bread and butter issues that matter most to working families and the poor. The socio-economic issues. Iconic issue: health insurance. Hillary's plan isnt just better, it also suggests a real, primary passion for the cause of getting health insurance for everyone, and getting it through no matter how. About Obama I had, and still have, the suspicion that it just isnt as much of a priority for him. That he'd prioritise foreign policy or energy policy or political reform.
And some of my suspicions about Obama are indeed not even so much based on him personally, but on his basis of support, like you describe. For many college grad, middle class liberals, measures to fight poverty and improve life in the post-industrial wastelands of the Midwest, for random example, are of course all very worthy and all - nobody would object - but also a bit far from their bed. Environmental policy, governmental transparency or civil liberties are of more immediate interest to many of them. And through no fault of their own, I therefore suspect that they would just not be as forceful advocates for, say, trade union rights or better unemployment measures as many of Hillary's supporters.
My take on this, however, is probably also just influenced by personal experience. In Holland, I long voted for the Green Left; ever since the Kosovo war (I was in favour) I was a member, and I did my share of work in election campaigns as well as the odd demo or action. But I became disillusioned over how local GL voters, who increasingly came from upper middle class background, were much more motivated to fight for parks and bicycle paths than for an old working class neighbourhood that was listed to be demolished wholesale. So just before I went to Hungary I switched and started voting for the Socialists instead.
So it could well be that when I suspect this kind of dynamics with the Obama electorate, I'm projecting. After all, Obama may have a lot of college kids and white collar professionals on board, but he's also supported by many unions, including a massive one like SEIU. And of course, he's got the African-American vote. But like you say, true - his bulwarks of support are among well-educated middle classes; hardly the proletariat. And talking just for myself, sure, that prejudiced me against the guy. My instinct, as the classic Euro-lefty you describe, is to go with the leftwing candidate who's got the working class support. No Hart, Tsongas, Dukakis or Bradley for me.
Moreover, for years now I've been banging on about where I thought the Democratic Party should go. I warned against the tendency to actively drift along with the direction it was pushed in by the culture war politics of the right. Against the temptation to become the party of the liberal or even libertarian, well-educated and relatively well-of residents of the blue states on the coasts. The Democrats have been hemorraging white, working class support since the 70s, and have instead slowly been winning white-collar voters who have a liberal cultural outlook but are fiscally conservative. They lost West Virginia and won New Hamphire. That, I raved on time and again, was not the way to go. The Democratic party needed to rediscover its progressive, populist history. Forget about cultural issues as much as possible, and win the FDR coalition back through a fair dose of economic populism.
Right. So then January 2008 rolls around and it's clear that my preferred candidate, John Edwards, is going nowhere. So it's Obama or Clinton, Clinton or Obama.
But that choice was hardly as simple as the above suggests. Sure, in this race Obama was getting the liberal middle classes and Hillary the populist working classes. But the Clinton era itself had represented the opposite of populist, progressive politics. Bill Clinton had stood for triangulation and a disturbing impressionability regarding corporate finance and moneyed donors. His signature achievements, welfare reform and balanced budgets, were both conservative. It was "four more years / of things not getting worse". I wasn't anywhere as informed about US elections back then as now, but my favourite in '92 had been Jerry Brown. I saw Bill Clinton as the wishy-washy establishment candidate, and in my view that is exactly what he turned out to be, with sexual capers added as bonus.
In Hillaryland, this legacy of DLC/New Democrat, pro-business, triangulating centrism was personified by her supreme advisor, Mark Penn. Sleaze embodied. While Obama was encouraging, empowering and fuelled by the progressive grassroots, the Hillary machine largely depended on the old big moneyed donors. And those would have their influence once she'd be President; her tradition of insisting on, and rewarding, tribal loyalty made sure of that. Hillary's vote for the Iraq war and her hawkish foreign policy instincts in general fitted right with this image, and together this suggested a very different contrast. One between the opportunistic, cowardly centrist Hillary on the one hand, and the "people-powered" liberal Obama on the other.
So as Edwards supporter, there were equally plausible narratives to see either candidate as the more progressive, even (potentially) populist candidate, versus the other as the candidate who was too moderate, too wishy-washy.
In the end, the campaign solved my dilemma for me. The Clinton campaign has simultaneously been such an incompetent trainwreck, strategically and organisationally, and such a cynical, unscrupulous, spin-fuelled, negative beast that all the above considerations soon no longer mattered. Obama may not be any kind of saint either, but he's got a reasonable core of integrity and reliability, and he seems to keep a realistic perspective both on things and himself; plus, he's proven himself by far the more powerful organiser, campaigner and fundraiser. And in the end, neither candidate is the populist progressive champion I long for; Hillary just cynically plays one. Then I'd rather have Obama, who doesnt go far enough to my taste but at least seems to be sincere about how far he does want to go.
In short, the dilemma you briefly and scornfully sketched was indeed real, for me at least; and did indeed drive this classic Euro-lefty some way towards Hillary. The reason that I ended up going the other way in the end doesnt mean that my secret elitist self came out after all, but rather the combined weight of other stuff.
(Listen to me talking like it makes any f*cking difference whom I sympathise with...)
Well, that was a welcome and appreciated insight into the thinking of nimh who, clearly, found my scornful sketch rubbing a raw leftist nerve.
Finn dAbuzz wrote:So might the Euro-leftists who are always so fond of indirectly denigrating the US Left as merely a shadow of the US Right, be the same sort of faux-intellectual dilettantes who care more about image than substance?
This proposition only works, of course, if you go on the assumption that Obama is all image, and Hillary presents the substance. Not an assumption that's based in fact much.
True, since neither represent substance, but Hillary, at least, has attempted to found her image (and political support) on the interests of the working class. Obama, on the other hand, repeatedly reveals his scorn for the working class as evidence by his recent comments about the bigoted embittered Pennsylvanians who cling to church and kalishnakovs.
At the same time, note my comment took the form of a question (Rhetorical - you might argue): Might the purist Euro-socialists who take great pleasure in lecturing us on how what Americans believe to be "liberals," in Europe are simply constrained right-wingers, be finding themselves swept away by the same New Age ideology/imagery that has entranced their provincial cousins?
It is not, in any case, a proposition that follows from the rest of your post. The dichotomy in the two Democratic candidates' voter basis is real, and much like you describe. But it would take a thought jump to go from Hillary=working class/Obama=middle class to Hillary=substance/Obama=image.
As I've agreed, neither of them are long on substance. I think you're right though. I should have replaced "image" with "new age archetype."
I don't think that was the thought jump you were making; instead, I think you were just conflating two separate things. You think Obama is the "image" candidate, so you conclude that if the Euros here join blacks and college graduates in America in their support Obama, they must prefer image over substance. But that says more about your opinion than about their motivations.
Not really. You are fixating on the issue of image vs substance. Since I don't believe either of them actually represent substance, it's not an either or choice. Nevertheless, the "substance" of orthodox Euro-Lefty thinking is better represented by Hillary than Obama. In that I think you will agree. If Euros find Obama's positions more appealing then at least one can say they have shifted away from their traditional foundation.
Class, not race has been the European socialist bugaboo. To that extent Hillary, best represents European socialists. This is, of course, not to say that Europeans who wish to insert themselves in the sea of American opinion are not free to diverge from their Euro-socialist roots. It is problematic, however, for those who choose to diverge to also dismiss the American Left for it's failure to adhere to Euro-socialist principles. Whether or not you are guilty as charged is immaterial as I did not direct my post to any individual Euro-Lefty.
I return to my original point: I assumed the Euro-Lefties (and please don't get hung up on this nomer as overly derogatory) would find greater resonance with Hillary than Obama. Certainly the failings and flaws of a Clinton might dislodge reasonable Euro-Lefties from her cause, but there seems, to me, to be an absence of bemoaning Hillary as a damaged herald of what is right versus exhilarated (not cautious) support of the New Age - New Left archetype that is Obama.
Thank you, Georgeob1!
However, I hate to break the mood, but I did have a second thought on Finn's post ...
Finn dAbuzz wrote:our Euro-Leftists seem to have, clearly, forsaken her in favor of Obama, the Light of The Left.
Why might this be?
Could it be that the "authentic" leftists are not so authentic after all?
and
Finn dAbuzz wrote:So might the Euro-leftists who are always so fond of indirectly denigrating the US Left as merely a shadow of the US Right, be the same sort of faux-intellectual dilettantes who care more about image than substance?
Of course not.
I wouldnt exactly call this "respectful" ... but fair enough, it was a contention I was happy to discuss. I saw Finn's observation about how Euro-leftists took the Democratic primaries and what may have fuelled their take, recognized myself as one of those Euro-leftists, identified with the subject, and jumped in to explain myself.
My second thought, however, concerns Finn's basic submission: that "our Euro-Leftists seem to have, clearly, forsaken her in favor of Obama". Is this even true? Who is Finn talking of?
Ruffling through the names from the top of my head, there's, eh, me.
Then there's Blatham, who seems to have eventually, gradually, come round to preferring Obama -- or maybe just concluded that Obama is going to be the nominee, and the need now therefore is to rally behind him. But this is after months of criticizing Obama supporters, insisting we should not diss Hillary, dismissing a range of criticisms of Hillary as the mere reproduction of rightwing smears, and repeating that both candidates deserved our full support. Yielded lots of tensions, that.
Then there's ... who?
Both Ebeth and Dlowan have commented that they're pretty sceptical about the whole thing: two centre-right politicians running for the Democrats who would both be OK enough as alternative to McCain, but nothing to be particularly enthusiastic about. From Ebeth, who said something like that she could read Obama's speeches, but not listen to him or watch him, I got the vibe that she prefers Hillary still.
I have hardly heard a peep out of Walter or Francis about the Dem primaries. No idea who they support, if anyone. Same for Msolga, really - I think she posted once or twice, but nothing with any clear preference. Old Europe - I would guess that he supports Obama, but I really have no way of knowing, I dont think I've seen any post of his saying so. Fbaezer, meanwhile, in the rare post or two in which he mentioned the Dem primaries, seemed to indicate he preferred Hillary.
Am I missing something? Again, it may be true that most non-American posters support Obama: a poll in Holland showed that the Dutch are largely rooting for him, for one. It's just that I dont quite get where Finn got this image of Euroleftists massively jumping on the Obama bandwagon from. It is, as is Finn's wont, an awful broad sweep of the brush, which in reality seems to refer mostly to, eh.. well, me? Maybe?
Maybe I should just feel honored? :wink:
