Obama '08?

Butrflynet wrote:

What an utter crock disguised as a lovely vessel.

Does anyone seriously believe Kristoff would have the same tolerance for a White Minister who "recklessly" suggested hatred for blacks when all he really meant was whites need to worry about their own problems, and stop heaping them on other races?

Has Kristoff and his confreres urged a holistic assessment of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robinson or John Hagee?

"Yeah, they're knuckle-headed right-wingers but they do a lot of good in their communities. You might even think of them as "Nutty Uncles" at your Thanksgiving table."

Was Falwell a "complex character?" Is, for that matter, George Bush a "complex character?" Let's appreciate the complexity of Rev Wright but treat our conservative opponents as two dimensional cartoons.

I couldn't agree more. Let's focus on Obama's position and his ability to put his policies in place ---- PLEASE!

Kristoff reveals his flawed, post-modernist intellect when he writes:

"That (that the US government released the AIDs virus to kill blacks) may be an absurd view in white circles, but a 1990 survey found that 30 percent of African-Americans believed this was at least plausible."

So what? All that survey revealed is that 30 percent of African-Americans are, at the very least, very wrong. Perception is reality? Because a significant number of people believe some outrageous lie we should take it seriously?

A significant number of people believe that God created the world in seven days and that the "theory" of evolution is nonsense. I suppose Kristoff is sympathetic to their ignorance as well.

And the ultimate crock:

"One of the things fascinating to me watching these responses to Jeremiah Wright is that white Americans find his beliefs so fringe or so extreme. When if you've spent time in black communities, they are not shared by everyone, but they are pretty common beliefs."

Well there you go: tight-assed whites believe these rants to be "so fringe or so extreme," when they're really common beliefs among blacks.

This means what? That because blacks commonly believe in nonsense it is not actually nonsense?

If I were black I would be insulted by this crap.

OJ did it, and you need not be white or black to know that simple truth. It may help to be black to think that while he did it, it's somehow poetic justice that a black man killed two whites and got away with it, but it should be insulting to blacks, not to mention incredibly disingenuous, to suggest that they actually believed he was innocent.

"Many African-Americans believe that the crack cocaine epidemic was a deliberate conspiracy by the United States government to destroy black neighborhoods."

And so?

How is this different than suggesting the justification of perception for "Many white Americans believe that blacks are lazy and over-sexed?"
or

"Many African-Americans believe that the way to cure any illness is to take laxatives."

"Much of the time, blacks have a pretty good sense of what whites think, but whites are oblivious to common black perspectives."

Yeah right. Those savvy blacks. They're cool; they get it. They're hip to the fact that whites think that blacks should be exterminated by releasing AIDs or fostering crack cocaine. They instinctively know that whites wanted to fry OJ just because he was a Mandingo Warrior messin with a white woman.

While the poor hapless whites who are so full of themselves and their positions of power that they cannot even imagine that 30 percent of blacks might believe that AIDs is a plot by their government to kill blacks, are such clueless dolts.

This is Kristoff courting favor with his black and ultra-liberal friends. It is incredibly stupid.

If Obama's campaign is actually leading whites to listen to "typical" (there's that word again) black conversations and those conversations contain the sort of absolute nonsense Kristoff suggests, whites should not only be thunderstruck, but saddened and worried. Maybe their bigotry about blacks is justified.

Ignorance and hatred have no racial preferences.

An ignorant black doesn't have some sort of free pass denied to an ignorant white. They are equal, and equally ignorant. Likewise a hateful black is not somehow a level above a hateful white.

This is what America's painful discussion about race needs to address:

There are brilliant blacks and brilliant whites. The color of their skin shouldn't matter in the least in an assessment of their brilliance or their value to society.

There are ignorant and hateful blacks and ignorant and hateful whites. The ignorance and hatred of either is not OK or to be tolerated. We can;t view one as the source of all ills in our society and the other as somehow justified.

Blacks that violently prey on innocents are not somehow different from whites who commit the same crimes.

There will never be an honest and healing discussion of race in this country if we insist on starting with the premise that all of the ill demonstrated by whites constitutes evil, while all the ills demonstrated by blacks constitute an understandable reaction to oppression.

And here is what Obama actually had the guts to suggest: This discussion will never happen under these rules because whites know that the conditions are fundamentally unfair and only those who feel compelled to subject themselves to an unearned burden of guilt or who smugly consider themselves somehow exempt from the White Man's Curse, will accept them.

If I thought he was capable of framing the national discussion of race in an honest, albeit painful for all parties, manner, I would forgive all of his other flaws and vote for him. Alas, while he may be inclined to to do so, politics will never allow him.

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nimh wrote:

Finn dAbuzz wrote:
Again...does this mean his membership was politically expedient (Old Politics) or that he bought into Wright's outrageous notions? The mid-ground he has tried to occupy just doesn't exist.

Well to be honest you're never very big on the existence of a middle ground tho; it's usually either black or white...

I dont know, I can easily see a range of mid-grounds here. And I'm just talking from my observer seat here, obviously I cant look into Obama's heart either. Some of this is speculation. But when you say, "the mid-ground just doesnt exist here", I immediately think of any number of the following things.

He didnt agree with all of the sermons and everything that was said in them. He starkly disagreed with some of it, in fact. (And I'm going to pass by the whole 'was he there was he not there' question, which I think was a blunder for Obama to enter into the equation, and is a bit of a red herring).

But he was inspired by other things he heard in the sermons -- in the overwhelming share of the sermons that was actually about religion.

This was the church - and the man - that led him to a much closer discovery of his Christian religion, and of the truths in the Bible. That invests you with a big emotional loyalty to it.

The church was a central locus of the community work he had devoted years to and was personally invested in. Whether Wright veered off into the occasional rant or not, the church simply did a lot of good community-based charity work there.

Not just handout charity, either; as a very socially engaged church, it really focused on promoting the social cohesion of a tough neighbourhood, in a way that fitted with Obama's communitarian/grassroots/bottom-up outlook on political change.

I'm sure there were personal elements - say, all his friends went there, his colleagues, loved ones. But also, many good and worthy local people went to church there, and going to the same congregation gave him a chance of bonding with them.

With people he wanted to work with, yes. He felt that, whatever Wright's flaws, this was a place where important things happened, things that were at the heart of the community that he came to represent as politician as well. And as a member of which, it was also easier to get things done as politician that were important to him.

Again, I'm going partly on Obama's words and partly I'm just speculating; all I'm just saying is, I can see plenty of mid-ground here. A pinch of political expediency, mixed with a bit of friends and acquaintances going there, mixed with some admiration for the church's works, mixed with a trailing loyalty to the place where he had become closer to his Christianity, mixed with some inspiration that Wright was also capable of, in Bible-focused sermons that were much more frequent than the occasional rant, mixed with a bit of the role the church filled in the community he represented as well as in the community-based work he believed in, mixed with... etc.

In your day-to-day choices about where you send your kids to school, where you buy a house and what church you go to, there's usually very little that's one-dimensional, clear-cut and black and white involved.

This is what is so wonderful about living in a world of shades of grey --- you can explain or justify anything, in fact you shouldn't even have to because each and every sliver of the continuum of life is simple "different" from all others, and who are we to pass judgment on the rightness of any one sliver?

It's easy to argue that life is far more complex that any binary framework of judgment will allow but that is a view that is limited to and which surrenders to superficiality.

Everything can be deconstructed to a binary choice.

Whether we code "off" as "bad," and "on" as "good" is a cultural decision, but we cannot have a viable culture or society wherein everything is relative and capable of rightness through comparison.

Successful societies require a binary framework. The rule of law, ultimately, requires a binary framework. If you kill someone a post-modernist relativistic society might argue for decades over all the shades of grey that were involved in your act. In what shade of grey do we find a distinction between acquital and conviction? If one feels compelled to overlay a sense of continuum that is the product of limited perception and personal conceit over the working of society, nothing will be decided, nothing will be wrong, and nothing will be right. Societies cannot function in a realm of such perceived infinite possibilities.

To be honest, you're never very big on the existence of defined right and wrong; of a binary choice.

For you there is always a mid-ground.

For Obama, as much as he would like it, there is not.

He is someone running for President of the United States.

He is associated with a controversial figure whom he has now publicly discarded, if not denounced.

He has assured us, as you suggest, that this association is quite complex and encompasses a myriad of shades of grey: When Wright is ignorant, this the shade of grey where the educated Obama diverges from him. When Wright is an advocate of hope and a servant of the community, this is a shade of grey wherein Obama and he can coexist. When Wright seems to be spewing hatred, yet another dimension of grey which they need not both occupy.

Put aside the fact that you have a hard time finding the presence of all of these grey dimensions when it comes to those who do not share your politics, a life that requires consideration of each and every shade of grey is a life in paralysis.

Obama's claims that he was never at a church service when Wright launched into one of his controversial rants is not simply a blunder, it is a lie. I can appreciate why you might want to perceive shades of mitigating grey around this lie so that you can call it merely a "blunder," but if he was present during one or more of these rants (as he most certainly was) his contention that he was not is a lie. Lying may be a blunder, but it remains lying.

To be honest, I am, as I suspect you believe you are not, big on forming judgments. I don't know how a successful life can be achieved without doing so, and so while I do not profess that all of my judgments are correct, I do not apologize for making them.

Judgments are not that difficult if one is prepared to lay some stakes in the ground, and not endlessly dither about relative morality. Your judgment may be that despite all of his obvious faults, Rev Wright's virtues are triumphant and deserve one's allegiance. Your judgment may also be that despite all of his virtues, Rev Wright's faults require you to end your association. There is no mid-ground unless one is content with situational morality.

Wright is a bundle of virtues and flaws. At some point the flaws will require a reckoning, a calculation involving the virtues. Clearly, Wright has the flaws to precipitate such a calculus for any member of his church, let alone a candidate for the presidency.

If his virtues outweigh his flaws stick by him and refuse to bow to the pressures that demand that you deny him. If his flaws outweigh his virtues, disassociate yourself from him. In doing so there's nothing wrong with throwing him one or two platitudes, but make the break.

What Obama seems to want to do, endorsed by you, is say that in those instances when Wright is bad, I disassociate myself from him, but there are times when he is a good guy, and then I want to stay linked to him.

This is an attempt at a mid-ground that cannot and does not exist in reality. Aside from any philosophical arguments though, it cannot exist because to live in that realm is to announce to everyone that you are indecisive and unable to take a stand. Your avid followers will, no doubt, perceive this as a nuanced response that reflects wisdom and intellect, but your avid followers, almost by definition, do not view you with objectivity and cannot, alone, assure your political victory.

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I am tired of talking about this Wright thing and think it is time to move on as everything that can possibly be said has been said. If people don't accept Obama answers and speech; so be it. If I was Obama or in his campaign staff that is how I would look at this now. Just tell people you have already answered this and you can either believe me or not.

Moving on:

Motive sought for Obama passport breach

Quote:

WASHINGTON - The State Department says it is trying to determine whether three contract workers had a political motive for looking at Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's passport file.

Two of the employees were fired for the security breach and the third was disciplined but is still working, the department said Thursday night. It would not release the names of those who were fired and disciplined or the names of the two companies for which they worked. The department's inspector general is investigating.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that for now it appears that nothing other than "imprudent curiosity" was involved in three separate breaches of the Illinois senator's personal information, "but we are taking steps to reassure ourselves that that is, in fact, the case."

It is not clear whether the employees saw anything other than the basic personal data such as name, citizenship, age and place of birth that is required when a person fills out a passport application.

Bill Burton, a spokesman for Obama's presidential campaign, called for a complete investigation.

"This is an outrageous breach of security and privacy, even from an administration that has shown little regard for either over the last eight years," Burton said. "Our government's duty is to protect the private information of the American people, not use it for political purposes."

"This is a serious matter that merits a complete investigation, and we demand to know who looked at Senator Obama's passport file, for what purpose and why it took so long for them to reveal this security breach," he said.

The breaches occurred on Jan. 9, Feb. 21 and March 14 and were detected by internal State Department computer checks, McCormack said. The department's top management officer, Undersecretary Patrick Kennedy, said certain records, including those of high-profile people, are "flagged" with a computer tag that tips off supervisors when someone tries to view the records without a proper reason.

The firings and unspecified discipline of the third employee already had occurred when senior State Department officials learned of the breaches. Kennedy called that a failing.

"I will fully acknowledge this information should have been passed up the line," Kennedy told reporters in a conference call Thursday night. "It was dealt with at the office level."

Gee I wonder what the motives for the breach of privacy could be. Might we be hearing in a few days or week or sooner about trips to Kenya or other parts like that with sinister questions attached to them?

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Finn dAbuzz wrote:

If I thought he was capable of framing the national discussion of race in an honest, albeit painful for all parties, manner, I would forgive all of his other flaws and vote for him. Alas, while he may be inclined to to do so, politics will never allow him.

But isn't that exactly what he did, frame the national discussion of race in an honest albeit painful manner? I recognize that some people don't seem to be inclined to take the message and insist on hearing one part of the speech while ignoring the rest (with the assistance of a very few who's intent it is to muddle the message altogether). Is that what you mean by "politics will never allow him"? If so maybe you mean that we won't allow him. We hold on to these old rancid arguments like security blankets.

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The media damn sure won't allow it. They have fed on the Wright story for almost a week now and, from the looks of things on CNN and MSNBC last night, they intend to keep on feeding straight through the weekend. It's just tooooooo good to let go. Too good, too juicy to release. It's astounding.

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eoe wrote:

The media damn sure won't allow it. They have fed on the Wright story for almost a week now and, from the looks of things on CNN and MSNBC last night, they intend to keep on feeding straight through the weekend. It's just tooooooo good to let go. Too good, too juicy to release. It's astounding.

WTF? You must have been watching something you TIVO'd. MSNBC barely mentioned the Wright story after Passportgate II broke, if at all. Barack Obama appeared on Larry King and Anderson Cooper 36o covered Passportgate for the most part.

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Now the wingnuts have resprted to lying to try to keep up the silliness.

Quote:

Obama's claims that he was never at a church service when Wright launched into one of his controversial rants is not simply a blunder, it is a lie.

Yup, it sure is a lie.Your lie.

As revel pointed everything has been said. The right can continue to conflate and distort but it is going nowhere.

Let's move on.

Like Bill Richardson is endorsing Obama.

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Richardson Endorsement

Richardson Endorses Obama, Calls Him "Once-in-a-Lifetime Leader"
by DHinMI
Fri Mar 21, 2008 at 06:04:23 AM PDT

The Obama team would have loved to have had this endorsement before New Mexico. They would have loved to have had this endorsement before Texas. But considering the campaign the Clintons mounted to get Richardson to endorse Hillary, and considering that Richardson's endorsement seemed predicated on Obama winning either Texas or Ohio, this is a good boost for Obama:

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, America's only Hispanic governor, is endorsing Sen. Barack Obama for president, calling him a "once-in-a-lifetime leader" who can unite the nation and restore America's international leadership.

Gov. Richardson, who dropped out of the Democratic race in January, is to appear with Sen. Obama on Friday at a campaign event in Portland, Ore...

"I believe he is the kind of once-in-a-lifetime leader that can bring our nation together and restore America's moral leadership in the world," Gov. Richardson said in a statement. "As a presidential candidate, I know full well Sen. Obama's unique moral ability to inspire the American people to confront our urgent challenges at home and abroad in a spirit of bipartisanship and reconciliation."

The WSJ has a good initial analysis of the significance of Richardson's endorsement:

It is an important endorsement on at least three fronts. Mr. Richardson is an influential superdelegate for the party, whose declaration of support could draw the backing of other superdelegates needed to secure the nomination, since neither candidate seems likely to win it through delegates earned in the primaries and caucuses. He was a prominent second-tier candidate before the race narrowed to the two frontrunners, and as such has been courted by both campaigns since he dropped out. And he is the country's only Hispanic governor, and could thus help Sen. Obama with a key bloc of voters that has mostly leaned toward Sen. Clinton. Mr. Richardson, who praised Mr. Obama's national-security credentials to the AP, also brings the foreign-policy credibility that came with being ambassador to the United Nations, energy secretary, and global trouble-shooter for the presidential administration of Sen. Clinton's husband.

Mr. Richardson's endorsement comes at a sensitive time for Sens. Obama and Clinton. The Obama campaign is still waiting to see how much his standing with voters over the controversial remarks of his former pastor in Chicago will be affected by his speech this week on race. It drew praise from many nonpartisan critics who called it one of the most thoughtful and honest discussions of the subject in politics, but it was also tainted by the political expediency that prompted him to make the speech in the first place. Ms. Clinton, who trails Mr. Obama in the delegate count, in the popular vote this primary season and in the number of states won or lost, suffered a setback yesterday in her efforts to catch up when Michigan lawmakers failed to agree on a way to "do over" that state's primary, as the Detroit News reports. Party efforts to hold new votes in Michigan and Florida -- where Ms. Clinton won races and delegates the party currently won't count at the convention -- have gone nowhere.

The next primary is scheduled for April 22 in Pennsylvania, where Sen. Clinton has been leading in the polls. The significance of Mr. Richardson's decision might be read in whether the likes of John Edwards or other prominent Democrats follow his lead before then.

The Wright controversy hurt Obama, but his landmark speech on Tuesday may be a turning point in the campaign. The effect of the speech on the campaign is still unclear, but it's likely that it blunted the force of Clinton's attack on Obama's ties to Wright. Clinton has been hoping to use Michigan and Florida to prolong the campaign, but that's now harder. And prior to Texas and Ohio, Richardson was already suggesting it was about time to shut down the primary race and turn attention to defeating John McCain.

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.

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eoe wrote:

The media damn sure won't allow it. They have fed on the Wright story for almost a week now and, from the looks of things on CNN and MSNBC last night, they intend to keep on feeding straight through the weekend. It's just tooooooo good to let go. Too good, too juicy to release. It's astounding.

In a general sense, we know why 'the media' took up this story and continues to run with it... drama, conflict and ratings (thus advertiser dollars).

But there's another key element in this continuing coverage as well and that is the influence of Fox, rightwing radio, and the rest of that propaganda enterprise on 'mainstream' media.

It is a uni-directional influence. If some matter arises which would reflect very positively on Obama (like his speech, for example) and if the mainstream media were to broadly laud that matter (as they did), the coverage at Fox or on radio would not be influenced in a pro-Barack direction. Modern rightwing media is uninterested, totally and completely, with any matter or stance which might move consensus towards support of a Dem or of a non-conservative notion/value/outcome. That would violate their purpose (which is not reportorial).

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Hmmm. Hillary must have finally told Bill Richardson that he wasn't on the short list for her VEEP or Secretary of State. . . or . . . he is convinced she can't get the nomination. He has held off making his endorsement for a very long time because he wants one of those appointments so very badly. Richardson wants to be President and I think he wants a high level position to get the necessary exposure and name recognition, etc. to be viable the next time around. So he's hung his hat on Obama.

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Foxfyre wrote:

Hmmm. Hillary must have finally told Bill Richardson that he wasn't on the short list for her VEEP or Secretary of State. . . or . . . he is convinced she can't get the nomination. He has held off making his endorsement for a very long time because he wants one of those appointments so very badly. Richardson wants to be President and I think he wants a high level position to get the necessary exposure and name recognition, etc. to be viable the next time around. So he's hung his hat on Obama.

Them Latinos. Selfish, lazy. If a good or noble thought ever enters their head, they would have stolen it from a white person's garage.

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Roxxxanne wrote:

eoe wrote:
The media damn sure won't allow it. They have fed on the Wright story for almost a week now and, from the looks of things on CNN and MSNBC last night, they intend to keep on feeding straight through the weekend. It's just tooooooo good to let go. Too good, too juicy to release. It's astounding.

WTF? You must have been watching something you TIVO'd. MSNBC barely mentioned the Wright story after Passportgate II broke, if at all. Barack Obama appeared on Larry King and Anderson Cooper 36o covered Passportgate for the most part.

I agree. We should move on. But I'm sorry darling. I had to leave the dinner table last night, must have been about 7:30 or 8pm, because I was so fed up with hearing about Rev. Wright. And I don't own TIVO.

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Bernie-

Are you not bothering to make an answer to my post of but yesterday ( 3155901 Page1301) concerning dinner-party socialists?

Can't you see that your socialism is simply in the service of providing opportunities for you to rant about so-called right-wing bias and demonstrate how intellectual your daily reading fodder is? It's a pose. An affectation.

There's a very left-wing Mayor of London called Ken Livingstone who is right up to speed on all the methods the right-wing media deploy. And him and his mates not being rich they are said to have been up to all sorts of things with Londoner's wages which the rich would never think of stooping to.

Why don't you get your own liberal media.

If you campaigned against hereditary wealth it would make sense.

As it is you are leaving the situation you are complaining about untouched and I think it is because you want to keep things as they are so that you have a permanent target for your complaints.

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Heh, Bernie: Obama and Richardson are set to appear on stage together today at the Memorial Coliseum downtown :wink:

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Quote:

Bernie-

Are you not bothering to make an answer to my post of but yesterday ( 3155901 Page1301) concerning dinner-party socialists?

Sorry, spendi. Not playing.

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revel wrote:

I am tired of talking about this Wright thing...

You probably should get a new hobby, then. As long as Obama keeps telling us that his grandmother, you know, she's not racist exactly, she's just a typical white person, this not only will be in the news, every thing he says on the subject will be scrutinized and then some.

And rightly so.

Brace yourself.

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

Heh, Bernie: Obama and Richardson are set to appear on stage together today at the Memorial Coliseum downtown :wink:

Tickets were gone almost immediately yesterday and before I knew about the speech. And, of course, before anyone knew about Richardson. I'll probably go down just to see the hustle and bustle of it all.

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If I were you, I would. I haven't had a chance to see it all up close as of yet. Missed Obama's appearances here, unfortunately. Maybe he'll return at some point...

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eoe wrote:

Roxxxanne wrote:
eoe wrote:
The media damn sure won't allow it. They have fed on the Wright story for almost a week now and, from the looks of things on CNN and MSNBC last night, they intend to keep on feeding straight through the weekend. It's just tooooooo good to let go. Too good, too juicy to release. It's astounding.

WTF? You must have been watching something you TIVO'd. MSNBC barely mentioned the Wright story after Passportgate II broke, if at all. Barack Obama appeared on Larry King and Anderson Cooper 36o covered Passportgate for the most part.

I agree. We should move on. But I'm sorry darling. I had to leave the dinner table last night, must have been about 7:30 or 8pm, because I was so fed up with hearing about Rev. Wright. And I don't own TIVO.

you're not supposed to be watching tv at the dinner table anyway...

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nappyheadedhohoho wrote:

revel wrote:
I am tired of talking about this Wright thing...

You probably should get a new hobby, then. As long as Obama keeps telling us that his grandmother, you know, she's not racist exactly, she's just a typical white person, this not only will be in the news, every thing he says on the subject will be scrutinized and then some.

And rightly so.

Brace yourself.

I'm afraid nappy on noggin has at least something right, revel. This will continue. Not because it has any intellectual or moral value but merely because this is the typical process by which the modern right operates in such situations. They are a slime-friendly crowd. It's one of just a few things they do well. War...not so well. Economics...ah, nah. Honesty...laughter erupts. Privacy...yikes. But sliming, deceit and corruption...wow. We gotta hand it to them.

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