2008 Primaries Thread 2: THE QUICKENING

huckabee on Obama's speech and Wright:

HUCKABEE: (Obama) made the point, and I think it's a valid one, that you can't hold the candidate responsible for everything that people around him may say or do. You just can't. Whether it's me, whether it's Obama...anybody else. But he did distance himself from the very vitriolic statements.

Now, the second story. It's interesting to me that there are some people on the left who are having to be very uncomfortable with what Louis Wright said, when they all were all over a Jerry Falwell, or anyone on the right who said things that they found very awkward and uncomfortable years ago. Many times those were statements lifted out of the context of a larger sermon. Sermons, after all, are rarely written word for word by pastors like Reverend Wright, who are delivering them extemporaneously, and caught up in the emotion of the moment. There are things that sometimes get said, that if you put them on paper and looked at them in print, you'd say "Well, I didn't mean to say it quite like that."

JOE SCARBOROUGH: But, but, you never came close to saying five days after September 11th, that America deserved what it got. Or that the American government invented AIDS...

HUCKABEE: Not defending his statements.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Oh, I know you're not. I know you're not. I'm just wondering though, for a lot of people...Would you not guess that there are a lot of Independent voters in Arkansas that vote for Democrats sometimes, and vote for Republicans sometimes, that are sitting here wondering how Barack Obama's spiritual mentor would call the United States the USKKK?

HUCKABEE: I mean, those were outrageous statements, and nobody can defend the content of them.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: But what's the impact on voters in Arkansas? Swing voters.

HUCKABEE: I don't think we know. If this were October, I think it would have a dramatic impact. But it's not October. It's March. And I don't believe that by the time we get to October, this is gonna be the defining issue of the campaign, and the reason that people vote.

And one other thing I think we've gotta remember. As easy as it is for those of us who are white, to look back and say "That's a terrible statement!"...I grew up in a very segregated south. And I think that you have to cut some slack -- and I'm gonna be probably the only Conservative in America who's gonna say something like this, but I'm just tellin' you -- we've gotta cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told "you have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie. You have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant. And you can't sit out there with everyone else. There's a separate waiting room in the doctor's office. Here's where you sit on the bus..." And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment. And you have to just say, I probably would too. I probably would too. In fact, I may have had more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me.

MIKA: I agree with that. I really do.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: It's the Atticus Finch line about walking a mile in somebody else's shoes. I remember when Ronald Reagan got shot in 1981. There were some black students in my school that started applauding and said they hoped that he died. And you just sat there and of course you were angry at first, and then you walked out and started scratching your head going "boy, there is some deep resentment there."

i heard that hillary has like a cabinet drawer full of skee-ball tickets that she's hidden from everyone except the chuck e. cheese redemption center

A Huck/Obama contest would have been pretty interesting.

yah it totally wouldve

the FOIA requests for Clinton's schedules were made back in 2006, and this was really set to occur without prompting from either campaign. And FWIW, Clinton camp is being a little too self-congratulatory about its transparency when the disclosure was the result of a FOIA request.

holy shit re:scarborough/huck

Props to the Huck for that.

Scarborough is an oaf, but that is an exchange I can't say I'd ever have thought I'd see.

what obama needs right now is just one person from the anti-defamation league to come out and say "dude did alright we trust him" and this *could* end the news cycle.

-- YGS, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 15:27 (26 minutes ago)

yeah good luck with that... dana milbank at a 3-way surrogate QA on israel. Dan Kurtzer for Obama, Ann Lewis for HRC, Lawrence Eagleburger for McC:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/17/AR2008031702440.html

The skepticism continued through the question time. Daroff said he had "heard in the hallways here" that Obama "doesn't see the U.S.-Israel relationship as much of the mainstream of the Senate or the Jewish community sees it."

Kurtzer blamed such sentiment on "attack dogs" and writers of scurrilous e-mails. "He's right within the mainstream of American society and Jewish community concerns," TBA said.

Next question to Kurtzer: Obama's assertion that he needn't have a "Likud view" -- that of Israel's right-wing party -- to be pro-Israel. Kurtzer explained that Obama wanted to see a "plurality of views." Silence in the room.

To that, Lewis retorted: "The role of the president of the United States is to support the decisions that are made by the people of Israel. It is not up to us to pick and choose from among the political parties." The audience members applauded.

Eagleburger piled on. "There's a distinction between those you do talk to," he said, "and those who declare themselves as intent on the destruction of the state of Israel. And if that's their policy, I think we ought not talk to them." More applause.

A conference attendee from Richmond pressed Kurtzer on Obama's "judgment about not disavowing Reverend Wright's views earlier." Another question prompted a back-and-forth about whether Obama had been advised by Brzezinski, who won the enmity of pro-Israel groups for, among other things, accusing Israel of the "killing of hostages" in Lebanon.

Ywah, color me a little shocked.

Hopefully Obama's defense speech will get the attention it needs - probably it won't, though.

jesus christ, i hope she didn't mean that the way it came out

shocked in ref to Huck exchange xp

notes on defence speech:

i) it's dealing with the good old bush-era conceits WITHOUT ACTUALLY USING the terms 'war on terror' or 'axis of evil'
ii) "First, in addressing global terror and violent extremism, we need the kind of comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy I called for last August. ... We need to give our national security agencies the tools they need, while restoring the adherence to rule of law that helps us win the battle for hearts and minds. This means closing Guantanamo, restoring habeas corpus, and respecting civil liberties. "

i may be reading too much into this, but the idea that it's necessary for the eh war on terror to have moral accountability to 'win' it is a pretty good elevating-the-discourse move

iii) it's very concrete for an obama speech, in terms of 'as president i would do x, y, z'

Obama's approach is very similar to the one I was hoping for in 2002.

iv) not as rhetorically amazing as the race speech, unfortunately
v) full of usual useful stuff for people to meaninglessly pick at, - here's a list - positive mentions of nixon and reagan, america 'facing down fascism', also 'shining beacon of democracy during cold war', american-focussed historical problems viz. how long was world war ii again, etc -

here's the vid of Huck on Joe Scar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTFLOu8fjxU

I'm guessing you're all almost done w/ the Counterpunch money-trail articles.

first one to REAL WORLD! buys lunch

wright discussion starts at about 3:20 xpost

Just came here to post this article about that Ann Lewis quote re: Israel

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/18/top_clinton_deputy_the_role_of/

Huckabee is almost the epitome of a rational person whose beliefs are antithetical to mine (I say "almost" because I am not convinced he's rational).

Huckabee should run for Senate when his governorship term is up - he could become the new McCain - ie., the Dem's favorite Republican maverick.

he should replace jay leno as host of the tonight show

he's more rational than tyra lol

damnit I want to read that TPM thing about the Israel quote but I keep getting a browser error. Fuck an Internet Explorer.

I would buy satellite radio if I could listen to the Morning Zoo with Mike Huckabee and DMX.

In Tuesday's Washington Post, Dana Milbank reports on a debate between McCain, Obama and Clinton deputies at a United Jewish Communities(the old UJA-Federation) event in Washington on Monday.

According to Milbank, it was the usual Jewish organizational political event where candidates or their representatives try to outdo themselves by demonstrating their "fealty to Israel."

Ann Lewis, a top Clinton aide, tore into Obama (she is the campaign's main Obama attacker on Jewish issues) for having said that "unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel, then you're anti-Israel" and that the "the debate in Israel is much more open than it often is in the United States."

Lewis rejects that view. "The role of the presidents of the United States is to support decisions made by the people of Israel." Netanyahu, Rabin? Not our business to prefer one over another. Not our business to help Israel achieve peace and security rather than maintain the deadly status quo.

That's an amazing statement in so many ways.

The role of the President of the United States is to implement policies that best benefit not the people of Israel but the people of the United States. That is why George HW Bush and Bill Clinton openly tilted toward Rabin and Peres during their terms in office. Doing so was right for America, and for Israel too.

In any case, the role of the President is not to "support decisions" made by Israelis, Brits, Germans or anybody but Americans.

Lewis was debating Ambassador Dan Kurtzer, an Orthodox Jew who was our ambassador to both Egypt and Israel and is an outspoken Obama supporter. I don't know about Lewis but Kurtzer has been involved in Jewish life as long as I have, which is our whole lives. He said the anti-Obama smears in the Jewish community are lies spread by campaign "attack dogs."

That is true, of course. No one believe Obama is anti-Israel just as nobody believes he is anti-white, a Muslim or an anti-American. But that won't stop rival campaigns and their deputies from spreading the lies.

Nor will it stop Jews from supporting Obama. No doubt Milbank is correct. There probably was alot of anti-Obama sentiment at the UJC meeting. So what? The overwhelming majority of American Jews were neither in the room nor represented by anyone who was. Jews have voted in the primaries like the rest of Democrats. Jews under 60 are overwhelmingly for Obama, over 60 for Clinton. In neither age category, is it Israel that determines their vote but rather what's good for America.

Yesterday I spoke to a student at a large midwestern univerrsity with thousands of Jewish students. He said he was the "loneliest kid on campus." "I'm Jewish, I'm male and for Clinton. I think I'm the only one. All the Jewish kids are for Obama."

Even the women, I asked.

"There are a few Jewish women for Hillary but they keep their heads down. Hillary does not have much Jewish support. Period."

That is no surprise. Jews have been at the forefront of anti-war and civil rights activities in this country from time immemorial. It would be startling if the children of the kids who came to Washington by the hundreds of thousands to protest the Vietnam war and then worked to elected Bobby Kennedy, Gene McCarthy and George McGovern had shifted rightward. They haven't.

The older folks (with the exception of types like me who are pretty comon among Jews) just don't get the kids' music. What's new about that?

Hmm, apparently Huckabee has denied he has any designs on the Senate (and his governorship is already over):

http://www.nasdaq.com/aspxcontent/NewsStory.aspx?cpath=20080308%5cACQRTT200803082111RTTRADERUSEQUITY_0046.htm&&mypage=newsheadlines&title=Huckabee%20Says%20He%20Won't%20Run%20Against%20Pryor

this just in:

michigan mulligan: so not gonna happen

Thanks, was just going to do that - that's the TPM article you couldn't read, Hurting 2. (xpost)

xx, that is

rational /= 'reasonable' dan! pretty much everyone on this thread (far as i know - i could be wrong) is reasonable. even morbs is REASONABLE in a enraged/engorged mclaughlin-germond luvchild way. pretty fucking slim few are RATIONAL. i mean dear god was this place always like this? ponderous! anyhow what gets me about huck is that his reasonableness is clearly rooted in his faith as much as his batshit 'lock up the gays!' unreasonableness.

yeah, basically says what I thought.

Huckabee should run for Senate when his governorship term is up - he could become the new McCain - ie., the Dem's favorite Republican maverick.

picturing a Wire season-closing montage set to "You Can't Always Get What You Want" with McCain walking morosely down the steps of the Senate, followed by a Huck's Scarborough appearance.

obama is slamming out historic speeches every day now

dude's the lil wayne of speeches

" - sasha frere jones"

I still wouldn't rule out a 2010 Senate run for Huckabee, when the other Arkansas senate seat is up for election. I think that he probably was just ready for a rest from campaigning this year, and the goodwill and recognition he built up this year will still be around in 2010.

even morbs is REASONABLE in a enraged/engorged mclaughlin-germond

ewwww, ewww, ewww

So none of you really care about where Obama's getting his $$$ from, huh? Even if it's the subprime/pre- and post-post-Katrina bandits? I thought his was a NEW politics...

thank god we have a 100% clean money candidate like Ralph Nader with such a realistic shot of winning the white house

Hooray for impotent moral absolutes!

Three cheers for accomplishing nothing!

So none of you really care about where Obama's getting his $$ from, huh?

He's not demonstrated any inclination to return political favors based on donations in his presidential campaign, so until that happens, I can't say I care all that much.

lol nader's money is pretty far from clean.

Wasn't that the joek lol

Well observed there, balls.

you people kinda deserve what yer gonna get.

What's that going to be?

Whereas you will continue to live happily in the nation of Morbius.

Ixnay on the Uckabeehay as Enatorsay, easeplay.