2008 Primaries Thread 2: THE QUICKENING

i can't help but wonder if mlk would've been raked by the media we've got today. seriously, watching the morning news was kind of sickening today. "he didn't distance himself enough from wright" blah blah.

wtf?

sure, i still think the speech was no mlk glory hallway-lou-yeah, but damn.

i have a question for america: do you have a butthead friend that says stupid or at least very opiniated/controversial shit? do you disown that person?

i mean, because i have a load of ultra-conservative family and friends. some of my in-laws are downright embarassing southern bama buttheads who think michael savage is a genius, but are they occasionally funny and actually really nice people? yeah. do i respect their advice on some things? sure. even tho they're lunatics as far as national politics goes, that's not a reason to cut them totally out of my life.

i'm having a really hard time getting the story fed from the media. don't people get that being a politician means sort of well... being polite to people who are on your side 75% of the time, even tho their pretty weird on that other 25%?

nonstory elevated.
m.

ugh, proofreading is not my friend. i disowned that asshole.
m.

yeah msp i think that's what the "he's like family" line was trying to convey - we've all got at least a couple of family members who are shitballs insane when it comes to politics but we don't disown them

lol http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/play.shtml?mea=229108

i just did slate's delegate calculator with the highest estimate for clintons 26 pt lead in pennsylvania and it still leaves her 110 delegates behind obama

I wasn't incredulous that they have to learn the difference. I was incredulous that not knowing the difference between rival sects of Islam reminded you of high school jocks, of all things. I mean, yes, many probably don't know the difference, but when are they ever talking about it? "Oh fuck bro, I totally meant 'Sunni' when we were talking earlier about the problems in Kurdistan."

This happened all the time when I was in college.

i can't help but wonder if mlk would've been raked by the media we've got today.

No doubt in my mind. Just watched this agitprop doc, War Made Easy, which features a clip of MLK's 'Beyond Vietnam' speech in '67. He called the US government the "leading purveyor of violence in the world." THAT King would be demonized (and was condemned then). And get "distanced" by Obama, you know.

^^^^ hi dere missing the point of Obama's speech, namely that we aren't living in the sixties and we've progressed beyond sixties rhetoric.

arizona state, right? xp

xp: No, not missing it. The US is still the leading purveyor of violence in the world.

And get "distanced" by Obama, you know.

I think you'll find his Wright response is a little more nuanced than that.

Um, my point wasn't that King said something that was incorrect, my point was that the media response to King's statements would have been different and would have generated a different political response because it was a different era.

Simon, I read it. He "condemned...the statements... that have caused such controversy." Joe Lieberman, who Barry endorsed in the '06 CT primary over Ned Lamont, has said way more fucked-up shit than the Rev has. Just not "controversial."

Yes, Dan, I accept that.

and I know Lieberman isn't Obama's rabbi, so please don't go dere.

WAIT OBAMA A JEW

The reactions to Obama's speech in the media and elsewhere are a pretty good litmus test of who's a nasty partisan tribalist provocateur and who's actually sane.

strangely a lot of nasty partisan tribalist provocateurs liked it too

i mean, pat robertson and jerry falwell blamed 9-11 on hot gay sex and those guys get invited to whitehouse to have bbq and hang out.

what's more crackpot, that 9-11 was caused by our questionable foreign policy over the last several decades or that it was caused by abortion rights?

nobody's disowning the gop preachers.

What's the difference between a nasty partisan tribalist provocateur and a reasonable person whose value system is antithetical to yours?

ABT TEN DOLLARS LOLOLO !!!!!

(im aware that that doesnt make any sense)

Is Juan Williams _really_ the only guy NPR can find to cover all this stuff(aside from mara liasson)?

xp: and where does making a pass at exonerating Israel in the midst of their current atrocities fit into your tribal values?

What's the difference between a nasty partisan tribalist provocateur and a reasonable person whose value system is antithetical to yours?

Thank you for asking this.

On Juan Williams -- there's definitely a disingenuous expectations game that's coloring a lot of the reaction to the Obama speech in order to tamp down its significance; According to the prescribed rules of Washington politics, there was an objective that Obama needed to accomplish (distance himself from Wright once and for all) but he failed to do so (when in fact, I think, he accomplished something far more important). I understand where this argument can be explained as the reflex of a political analyst, but covering the political angles and not the actual content serves the public really poorly.

OK elmo, what's the significance? It's an intelligent, decent speech when it's not making its overt, pandering political points; but mighty few people are likely to be citing (or remembering it) 3 months from now.

According to the prescribed rules of Washington politics, there was an objective that Obama needed to accomplish (distance himself from Wright once and for all) but he failed to do so (when in fact, I think, he accomplished something far more important

Listening to Cuban talk radio now, I've made the exact same observation. Someone called in and said (in Spanish), "If he HAD condemned this man, you'd be accusing him of being a typical politician and that his career was finished." The moderator spluttered and cut her off.

morbus you crazy, it's a huge huge speech. people will be talking about it for the entire election

YAY Cuban radio caller. HI DERE in Wake The Fuck Up OTM.

Yeah basically I'm going with the hope that the tribalist provocation industry will undermine itself by arguing in circles until it goes batshit insane and that most people will recognize the narrative arc rather than be drawn in. I will sell bags of all these popcorn for $2 if people want to settle in and watch.

Morbius, the nuances of getting Israel to do anything reasonable WRT its neighbours without pitching some handbagger of a hissy fit for even *mentioning* Palestine in mixed company are perhaps beyond you, as you are now doing exactly that yourself prompted by Obama's mention of Israel. But we do have to begin by taking responsibility for an alliance of 60 years, hence the use of the word 'stalwart', before that happens. This should be an obvious point of embarkation.

morbs i think you are very wrong about how long/in what context this will be remembered. honestly i would put money on this thing being printed as a pamphlet/small book, and the only awkward part of it will be all of the stuff about wright ("who's that??") once we get some distance.

and yes it is v frustrating to see the media hold the speech up to a standard that obama v clearly was not addressing. he overshot it on purpose, wanting to raise the level of discourse, etc., and they're all like "wait what about the tawdry????"

I fully expect that persons who I sincerely disagree with on fundamental issues can find fault with Obama's speech, and I wouldn't dismiss such a person's interpretation of the speech -- as long as a reaction was offered in good faith and addressed the facial arguments of the speech.

I would not group those reactions in with those who willfully misinterpret the minutiae of Obama's speech and couch their reactions in bad faith and sarcasm.

that was a major xpost to dan

Morbs, I would think that someone who knows as much about American political history of the last 50 years as you do would understand that the successful candidates -- the ones who get elected -- make concessions all the time. I'll take Obama's far less onerous contradictions to LBJ's circa 1960.

so far above the standard we're used to from our pols

most OTM comment i've seen about the speech.

"a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam."

Morbs, I am all for criticizing Israeli policy but I rather think that Obama is half or at least a third right here. The problems of the Middle East are as much about radical Islam but surely also undemocratic governments and under-developed economies. The economic woes of Egypt can't really be blamed on Israel any more than the parlous state of human rights there. The Sunni/Shia rift in Iraq and between Iran and its Arab neighbors cannot be blamed on Israel. The many problems of Lebanon may be exacerbated by Israel but it's certainly not the cause.

I understand concessions, I don't have to like them, and I don't find all of Obama's neecessary to victory. (omg, recent McCain Nation article -- he shd just quote that in all his stump stops)

The presumed necessity of "taking responsibility" for things that have been around for 60 years (ie, continuing them essentially unaltered in perpetuity, or until you're forced to change) is part of why who the president is doesn't matter as much as people think. (And I am not blaming Israel for all the woes of the Middle East; they do their part, and Obama has in the past seemeed willing to raise this.)

Yance, if Obama truly thinks he has a shot at raising the level of the discourse regulated by the transglobal media-infotainment behemoth, maybe all you starry-eyed fans are right and he IS a dreamer. Of course, if he's elected prez the speech will be written about and remembered by strategy wonks.

Que, will people also be talking about the Obama folx playing with the huge huge number of flags that would appear behind him (final count: 8)?

Que, will people also be talking about the Obama folx playing with the huge huge number of flags that would appear behind him (final count: 8)?

conspiracy folks, perhaps. people who don't want to focus on the substance of the speech. here's a shocker: politicians manipulate their images alla time. this includes flags.

schedules of HRC's First Lady Business have been released:

http://www.clintonlibrary.gov/hrcschedules.html

I don't see "order hit on Vince Foster" anywhere.

xp: yes, Que. They manipulate their remarks too, in essentially similar fashion.

Where's the 1998 "I'm running for president in ten years, BUDDY, ultimatum" entry?

m white otm - obama wasnt saying lol isreal is dandy. he was comparing the gross simplification that israel is at the root of all middle eastern problems to the gross simplification that racism poisons everything possibly good abt america.

^This.

There's a decent amount of mileage to the idea that Obama's speech was too smart for American politics, sadly. I hope that enough people are tired enough of our politics being stupid to actually pay attention to it and follow the intended narrative.

*Sigh* Dan, I fear you may be sadly OTM.

Victor Davis Hanson: remember Don Imus!

The new sophistic Obama, however, would recount to us all the charity work and good that Imus had once done and still does, that we don't understand the joshing of the shock-jock radio genre that winks and nods at controversy in theatrical ways, that Imus was a legend and pioneer among talk show hosts, that Obama's own black relatives have on occasions expressed prejudicial statements about whites similar to what Imus does, that we all have our favorite talk shows, whose hosts occasionally cross the line, and that he can't quite remember whether he'd ever been on the Imus show, or whether he ever had heard Imus say anything that was insensitive — and therefore he could not and would not disown a Don Imus.

This is the real message of the Obama racial transcendence candidacy.

^^ this is what i'm talking about when i say disingenuous misreading.

Ol' Vic's just unhappy that this little war thing keeps continuing without resolution. He is tired and needs to lash out.

This happened all the time when I was in college.

lol Harvard

I saw that ridiculous comparison start to gain a bit of coverage. National broadcaster who picks on college students on national broadcast and is therefore a bullying bigot is not like niche minister who believes himself to be speaking truth to power in his sermons. Most people get that. The straws (and straw men) these people do clutch at.