…is neatly summed up with Slate Editor in Chief’s personal opinion piece – “If Obama Loses : Racism is the only reason McCain might beat him.”
It’s a pretty clear insight into how he thinks.
What with the Bush legacy of reckless war and economic mismanagement, 2008 is a year that favors the generic Democratic candidate over the generic Republican one. Yet Barack Obama, with every natural and structural advantage in the presidential race, is running only neck-and-neck against John McCain, a sub-par Republican nominee with a list of liabilities longer than a Joe Biden monologue. Obama has built a crack political operation, raised record sums, and inspired millions with his eloquence and vision. McCain has struggled with a fractious campaign team, lacks clarity and discipline, and remains a stranger to charisma. Yet at the moment, the two of them appear to be tied. What gives?
If it makes you feel better, you can rationalize Obama’s missing 10-point lead on the basis of Clintonite sulkiness, his slowness in responding to attacks, or the concern that Obama may be too handsome, brilliant, and cool to be elected. But let’s be honest: If you break the numbers down, the reason Obama isn’t ahead right now is that he trails badly among one group, older white voters. He does so for a simple reason: the color of his skin.
Now, obviously – in his universe – we’re blessed that Obama has chosen to step forward as the potential leader of the world, and certainly it’s true that his handsomeness, brilliance, and cool are gifts that he deigns to allow the rest of us to glimpse – kind of like Brittany allowed the photographers to glimpse her best – or most interesting to Google searches – gifts back during her partying days.
But you know, for the rest of us? We just want to elect some person as our President for four or eight years, and we want to believe that at the end of those years, the country will be a little better off than it is now, and that we’ll be able to fend off the challenges we face and not hand them off to our grandkids.
And while it’s absolutely true that there is some (I believe small) slice of voters who will let their inner Bull Connors out when the curtains close on the polling booth, I think that they are matched by both the absolute solidarity that Obama will get in the African-American vote and by the very real group of people – kinda like me – who are in no small part favorably disposed to him because of his skin color.
Look Obama doesn’t even have the resume of a Jack Kennedy to run on. He made it to this point in no small part because of the African American politics of South Chicago which teed him up as a state legislator and then helped him step forward as a Senator.
So when journalists like Weisberg echo my buddy the Gallery Guy, you have to wonder how those kinds of attitudes bleed out into the quality of work that they produce. I believe that they are professionals, and see themselves as working for organizations less marginal than, say, Mother Jones, and so they make efforts to balance hiring and coverage.
But I also believe that the toxic pall of smug is something our journalistic – and political – worlds would be far better off without.
OK, racism would not be the only reason. But racism would certainly be an important reason: not from the bigots who would be highly unlikely to vote for any Democratic candidate, but from low-information voters who get their hands on the message of the Number One Book on the NY Times Bestseller List. You know, the book that suggests Obama is a closet Muslim, a continuing user of illegal drugs, etc. Don’t the block sales suggest that this magnum opus, produced by mainstream Republican political consultant Mary Matalin, is going to be hawked by Limbaugh and his friends?
I hope and believe that Jerome Corsi is going to be less effective in torpedoing the Democratic candidate second time around, but the principal reason is that in the intervening years Corsi has established himself as a bona fide nut, a 9/11 Truther, an anti-Catholic and white supremacist, and a paranoid believer in the North American Union and the replacement of the dollar with the amero. Gutter attacks? I can’t imagine anything has been added to American water supplies to make them less effective in the last four years.
It is quite scary that even comedians are unwilling to make any jokes about The One.
This is not what democracy is about – someone who cannot even be questioned, critiqued, or made fun of, on penalty of being branded a racist. This dooms Obama’s Presidency to failure.
Of course, the best thing about extremists is that they always go too far. The new definition of a racist is anyone who uses facts and logic to win a debate with a leftist, which is something the left is bound to overuse.
By overusing the race card, and trying to essentially get a President in office via affirmative action, the race-baiting left is about to evoke a huge backlash, from having pushed average people too far.
I agree with GK and I would just add another point: Obama got his party’s nomination because at the end of the day, race-based identity politics trumped gender-based identity politics in the Democratic primary. To see his supporters now whining about the supposed “racism†of white voters in the general election is like entertaining the complaints of someone who cheated all through high school and college to get good grades then getting fired from their job when their employer quickly realized that they couldn’t qualify on merit.
Whenever average people are Black, as they often are, there will be no backlash; rather there will be monolithic support for both the Black and Democratic candidate, and warm approval of accusations of racism against whites.
I pretty much stopped wondering about that before I was even old enough to vote. Now I wonder how much blood pressure medication they have to take to survive an election season.
I also wonder when one of these guys is going to publicly threaten to commit suicide, like Peter Finch in Network, to make us all feel really bad for being such racist ignoramuses.
AJL wrote:
bq. But racism would certainly be an important reason… from low-information voters who get their hands on the message of the Number One Book on the NY Times Bestseller List. You know, the book that suggests Obama is a closet Muslim, a continuing user of illegal drugs, etc.
So it’s racist to mistakenly believe that Obama is a closet Muslim. And it’s racist to mistakenly believe that Obama is a continuing user of illegal drugs.
These are just the first two items of many that come to mind (“etc.”).
Would it be racist to mistakenly believe some religious slur against McCain? To mistakenly believe stories of drug abuse problems in McCain’s family?
What’s the threshold for earning the racist moniker: believing something bad about Obama? Falling for a false story? Being a low-information voter and falling for a tall tale?
Seems to boil down to, “Obama’s black, so you better watch yourself. Certain doubts, carefully expressed, might be okay, for now, but read the wrong books or say the wrong things, and you’ll be labelled as a racist.”
Steve Sailer and Tom Wolfe may be on to something when they claim that Racism is a charge that some whites can make to demonstrate that their status is higher than that of other whites.
How would a person falsely charged of the thoughtcrime of Racism (if the charge is ever false, that is) go about clearing their name? Can you point to an instance where this has happened, and didn’t involve Red-Guards-like self-criticism and re-education?
At this stage in the election game it is fine and well to speculate what role racism plays in Obama winning because I know that the posters here will concede that there are people whom are not going to vote for Obama because he is black. On election Obama still has to convince people he is the guy on his own merits.
The press in its entirety still has to sell their product and just like Britanny Spears they will ride what sells. So if new and different sell that is the name of the game.
As to low information voters-am I correct in assuming this means people whom don’t get their information from blogs by say Rush Limbaugh but listen to his radio show-what can change those voters mind?
Andrew, the core point to me wasn’t that there was some impact of race on the campaign – of course there is, although I think it’s a complex one (lose some white and Hispanic voters, gain some African American, white and Hispanic voters), it was his attitude about Obama overall.
A.L.
AMac, to the extent Corsi’s book has salience, it’s by playing up Obama as the Feared Other. Claiming Obama is a stealth Muslim isn’t racist per se, but the fact he is of part-African Muslim descent is the only reason the charge is the teensiest bit credible. Are there some white Christians being accused of being stealth Muslims this year and I missed it?
I found it interesting to juxtapose GK
with this nugget from a founder of The American Conservative, cited by Matt Yglesias
Sometimes it’s so hard to remember that affirmative action in college admissions is the real racism.
If the MSM weren’t in the tank for Obama, perhaps so many ‘low information voters’ (nice condescending sneer, that) wouldn’t feel the need to go out and buy Mr. Corsi’s book. Without passing judgement on it or Corsi (I haven’t read it and don’t intend to), there does seen to be a hunger for information on Obama that is not filtered through the left commentariat.
AJL #9,
Your original point was that racism may not be the only reason people oppose Obama, but it is certainly an important one.
And, narrowly constructed, your reading may be right. Obama might lose a tight (horse)race by X votes where (X+1) voters are indeed motivated by racism.
Then again, 10X voters might be disillusioned by Obama’s decades-long embrace of Rev. Wright and his spiritual guide, James Cone. 20X voters might find the juxtaposition of Hope And Change with Tony Rezko to be a bit rich. 30X voters might reflect that Obama’s spinning with respect to his collaboration with Bill Ayers and Bernadette Dohrn is a bit unbecoming.
Etc.
Suppose that most of those 10X–20X–30X voters could persuade an arbiter as distinguished and impartial as Al Sharpton that they weren’t motivated by racism? An absurd hypothetical, I know. But that’s emblematic of the problem of mind-reading with the help of a “Racist Detector Van.”:http://orangecow.org/pythonet/sketches/fish.htm
Coming back to your actual words —
bq. Claiming Obama is a stealth Muslim isn’t racist per se, but the fact he is of part-African Muslim descent is the only reason the charge is the teensiest bit credible. Are there some white Christians being accused of being stealth Muslims this year and I missed it?
I missed your evidence that the “part-African” modifier is a part of these folks’ “stealth Muslim” argument. By your logic, the fact that other folks bash the all-white Mitt Romney for his non-stealth Mormonism is equally racist.
Even if you can provide links to demonstrate that the enemies of stealth-Muslim-Obama and overt-LDS-Romney are tainted with racism, what have you shown? We all know that the internet is a big and sometimes strange place.
As far as that nugget spotted by “whiterperson”:http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/05/28/101-being-offended/?cp=29 Matt Yglesias: “Taki Theodoracopulos”:http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/olympic_glory/ — who I think is Greek, by the way, if that’s not a racist thing to notice — wrote what is mainly a first-hand reminiscence of his aristocratic hobnobbing with celebrity-athletes at the 1960 Games. After his stupid comment on 1936, he proceeds:
bq. The best postwar Olympics were the Rome ones (1960). Europe had rebounded from the catastrophe of World War II, and Germany had been invited to compete. I remember them well. The crown prince of Greece, now ex-King Constantine, won a gold in the dragon-class sailing in the bay of Naples. Ari Onassis, the original Greek tycoon, came into the shower room where the prince was cleaning up after he and his crew had been dunked into the filthy waters of Naples—my father was crewing for him—and got into the shower fully clothed, kissing the prince and congratulating him. That night there was a great ball in the palazzo of the duke of Serra di Cassano, with most of Europe’s reigning royals attending. For a 23-year-old, it was quite impressive stuff.
Yawn. If Yglesias offends this easily, he must order smelling salts by the carton.
For a truly shocking view of the Olympics, here’s “archfiend Steve Sailer’s breakdown”:http://vdare.com/sailer/080824_olympics.htm of world-record times in running by distance and ethnicity. Worse yet, Sailer’s interpretation is based on the notion of “human biodiversity.”:http://www.gnxp.com/blog/labels/human%20biodiversity.php Just make sure Yglesias is sitting down before you send him a link.
Not that any of this is compelling evidence of the prominent role of racism among doubters of Obama’s candidacy. We could discuss that, if you want.
On topic: it’s strange that Weisburg linked to fellow Slate contributor Ron Rosenbaum’s “essay urging race-consciousness”:http://www.slate.com/id/2191906/ among this year’s white voters, but didn’t discuss his reasoning. Or condemn Rosenbaum’s race-centric views.
And there is this choice paragraph in Weisburg’s article:
bq. Many have discoursed on what an Obama victory could mean for America. We would finally be able to see our legacy of slavery, segregation, and racism in the rearview mirror. Our kids would grow up thinking of prejudice as a nonfactor in their lives. The rest of the world would embrace a less fearful and more open post-post-9/11 America. But does it not follow that an Obama defeat would signify the opposite? If Obama loses, our children will grow up thinking of equal opportunity as a myth. His defeat would say that when handed a perfect opportunity to put the worst part of our history behind us, we chose not to. In this event, the world’s judgment will be severe and inescapable: The United States had its day but, in the end, couldn’t put its own self-interest ahead of its crazy irrationality over race.
Last year, the argument was that Obama running a serious, major-party campaign would signal all sorts of Good Things About America.
When that came to pass, we were told that Obama’s nomination and General Election run would be the key event.
Now, Weisburg warns us that anything short of an Obama victory in November proves that the U.S. is in moral decline, stuck in its crazy irrationality over race.
It’s not so hard to ghost-write this sachem’s future essays.
March 2009: Opposition to Pres. Obama’s sweeping programs by Congressional representatives–almost all white, by the way–demonstrates to the world that the U.S. remains mired in its prejudiced, fearful, closed, post-9/11 mentality.
July 2010: The unseemly practice of some Senators in raising questions about Pres. Obama’s Supreme Court nominee inescapably proves that Americans–bitter white Americans, that is–are unable to extend the privileges of citizenship to their non-white bretheren.
October 2012: With so many promises unfulfilled, some people are talking openly about denying President Obama the second term he deserves. More than anything, this invites the worlds severe judgment that America is irredeemably racist.
I agree with AL, it can’t be discounted that racism _will_ play some part in this election. How much? Thats hard to say. Exit polling _could_ tell you something (ie- what people tell exit pollers doesnt match the results) but it must be in context: EVERY election the candidates results dont match exit polling, because people lie to pollsters all the time. More and more, i expect, as the number of pollsters propagates and they annoy people.
This is probably why the phone polls have begun to be so unreliable. Look at realclearpolitics list of polls, often as not they end up outside of each others margin of error. That should be a giant red flag (or the term ‘margin of error’ needs some serous reworking).
Another thing, are people going to vote for Obama _because_ he is black? Yes, of course. Is that racism? I dont know what you call it, but its going to happen. Will that offset the cracker vote? Who knows.
If Obama loses a very close race, a very legitimate argument can be made that racism cost him that slim margin. If a thousand votes in Michigan is the difference, it seems likely that several hundred voters came out to vote against Obama because he is black. Is it fair to say that cost him the election when the vast majority of votes cast were cast for less despicable reasons? When you get down into the margin of error, a freak rainstorm can sway the election. Did rain cost that election? Tough to say.
That scenario will be ugly, i think, but the scenario where McCain wins by a pretty hefty margin is worse. In that case a lot of people on the left will conclude that perhaps _millions_ of Americans voted against Obama because of his race.
Its not a hard leap for these guys. As we have seen demonstrated on this thread, many democrats feel that (unless you are majorly wealthy) the only plausible reason to vote republican is either racism or stupidity. Obamas guns and bibles slur is a pretty good example of how mainstream that thinking is. If McCain wins by a comfortable margin, there are going to be a lot of people claiming this country is far more racist than we thought, and not just the professional race baiters.
I urge our friends on the left warm to this type of thinking to consider one thing: are all these Clinton backers that drifted to McCain racists? If not, perhaps there _are_ other legit reasons to vote McCain?
Adam Berinsky has three really good posts up at “The Monkey Cage”:http://www.themonkeycage.org/2008/08/an_obama_effect_part_iii.html#more on exactly this issue (polling and race). I strongly suggest them to everyone…
A.L.
It is easy to make a leftist’s head explode on the Obama/race issue by simply asking them :
“If a white Democrat were running against a black Republican, would it be racist to vote for the white Democrat?”
“Isn’t it sexist to vote against a white woman in favor of a half-white man, in the Democratic primaries?”
“If voting against Obama makes someone racist, and voting against Clinton makes someone sexist, does that mean all Democrat primary voters are either racist or sexist? Which is worse?”
I met my 65-year-old white aunt last weekend, who is very anti-Republican, but voted for Hillary Clinton in the primary. She claimed that she wanted to support Obama because he was ‘intelligent’, but at the same time believed that Hillary would run again, and win, in 2012 after Obama wins in 2008. So she is already hoping that the person she is voting for in 2008 does so poorly that he doesn’t even get the party’s nomination in 2012.
I tried to explain to her that at best, Hillary could run in 2016, and even then would presumably be up against the sitting VP Biden. Even if the GOP won in 2012, Hillary still could not run until 2016. But she would have none of it.
And I ask again :
Why is someone who is only 50% black, automatically ‘black’? Isn’t he just as white as he is black?
Sure, he married a black woman.
“Jeremiah Wright, in fact, is only 30-40% black.”:http://www.singularity2050.com/2008/04/reverend-jeremi.html
I think that another thing will happen :
Obama’s victory will immediately cause African Americans to be held to the same standards as others. Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics will all unite around this.
Similarly, Blacks are accustomed to being the race that has the luxury of playing the race card.
Yet, Hispanics now outnumber blacks, and Asians are a highly successful group.
What if Obama loses, and over the next 8 years, a Hispanic or Asian goes even further. What if Bobby Jindal becomes President in 2016?
Thus, it will prove that America is not ‘racist’, but that another races has bypassed the black community altogether. Hispanics will be a larger voting block (and thus will court more pandering), while Asians will become more visible in their success. Blacks will have to cede many aspects of the convenient position they presently enjoy.
Absolutely and it would be no more or less racist for someone to decide to vote for McCain because he’s white.
> Blacks will have to cede many aspects of the convenient position they presently enjoy.
In talking about voters’ identifiers and voting blocs, realistically one can only make general statements about tendencies. Concerning blacks, rural males, under-30 Democrats, feminist gay Hispanic Republicans…
There are political leaders of black blocs who, in my view, presently enjoy convenient positions. But I wouldn’t characterize the black people I know in that fashion. If census data, news reports, and first- and second-hand anecdotal experience are any guides, black citizens in my state are also not enjoying privileged positions, as a whole. It’s the contrary.
“Absolutely and it would be no more or less racist for someone to decide to vote for McCain because he’s white.”
In fact, I am going to vote for McCain, even though I am a ‘coloured’ and he is not (although his adopted daughter is the same race as me). I am actually going to vote for a white person even though I am not white. Leftists writhe in agony at the thought : how can a colored person vote AGAINST another colored person?
“black citizens in my state are also not enjoying privileged positions, as a whole. It’s the contrary.”
Of course this is true. Many blacks live in poverty. Many individual cases are quite sad.
However, the case for blaming whites for the PRESENT-DAY poverty of blacks is becoming increasingly weak.
1) It is very hard to say that black poverty in 2008 is due to white actions before 1968, 1964, or 1865.
2) It is very hard to say black-on-black crime (which is 70% of all violent crime), or the fact that 70% of black infants are born out of wedlock, is due to whites.
3) It is very hard to say that whtie Americans systematically suppress non-whites, when Asians are wealthier than whites. The richest ethnic group in America is in fact a dark-skinned group : Indian Americans.
4) If whites are to be blamed for black poverty, then whites should also be praised for Asian-American wealth – whites have created a system in which immgirants from poor countries like India, China, VietNam, etc. can do so well that they even surpass their white hosts, economically. Let’s be fair here : if black outcomes are due to whites, then Asian outcomes are also due to whites.
5) There is no excuse for a lack of effort, no matter what your race or gender is.
6) I don’t see any African Americans voting with their feet, i.e. leaving the US for a country where they would receive better treatment. Show me African Americans that have actually packed up to move to Canada, Britain, Sweden, Bermuda, Jamaica, etc. In fact, Liberia is a country that was created for exactly this purpose. Sadly, African Americans are not keen to move there, for obvious reasons.
Thus, it is quite hard to say black hardship is more due to whites, than it is due to black leaders, black family breakdown, and black pop culture. It is also hard to say that their plight is that bad, if none are opting to leave America for better opportunities elsewhere.
bq. Leftists writhe in agony at the thought : how can a colored person vote AGAINST another colored person?
I believe the standard leftist answer involves self loathing, “Uncle Tom”, or neocons.
But some enterprising journalist should pose exactly this question, after asking “the most visible and powerful black American”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condoleeza_Rice which way she’ll be voting this election.
The Leftist is writhing with laughter looking at the obvious straw man.
AJL: Right. Why agonize when you have prefab labels like “internalized oppression”? No agony at all.
Lazarus,
According to you, when is it acceptable for a person of color to choose to vote for the Republican party?
I would expect persons of color to choose their candidates on the same basis as whites: mostly on the basis of aligned views. In practice, I don’t think that many people choose a candidate that way, which is another question.
Now, why African Americans would choose a Republican, which I suspect is the question you are asking, it can be hard to fathom. Why don’t you ask a few? My guess is you’ll find very little interest in a party that talks about “strapping young bucks” in the context of food stamp abuse.
I have a question or two for GK: Why doesn’t Bobby Jindal use the name on his birth certificate? Why does his campaign literature tell voters he converted to Christianity?
AJL,
My comment #6 was a response to points you raised in your #1. My comment #11 was meant to discuss things that you brought up in #9.
Writhing in strawman agony aside, any reflections to offer on any of those issues?
_”My guess is you’ll find very little interest in a party that talks about “strapping young bucks” in the context of food stamp abuse.”_
Parties can talk? I thought people could talk. Can I espouse everything Al Sharpton, Jessie Jackson, and Reverand Wright have said to ‘the party’? Maybe thats why white people lie about voting for Obama?
“Why doesn’t Bobby Jindal use the name on his birth certificate? ”
For reasons far less political than the reasons Barack Hussein Obama once called himself ‘Barry’.
“Why does his campaign literature tell voters he converted to Christianity?”
…er, because he did? So now it is wrong for a candidate to reveal his religion?
Why is Obama going to great lengths to say he is a Christian, and dispel myths that he is a Muslim?
It is amazing that you would pose such questions about Jindal, particularly given how shaky Obama is in exactly these two areas.
AMac, let me get one point out of the way. Where Obama loses X votes because of racism, he can indeed lose 10X votes because of Rev. Wright and 100X votes because of Ayers and Dohrn (whatever). That doesn’t really make the X votes go away, but I will agree that there are genuine issues that will have more influence on the final totals than racism.
I think, however, that you are missing the point about the simulacrum that the gutter division of the Republican Party is attempting to fashion of Obama, one which appeals to racism and xenophobia. They have only reluctantly conceded that his name is what he claims it is and that he is a natural-born American. Or not. People would laugh at claims that John McCain is a Muslim. But Obama, he’s connected to Africa, there’s something mysterious about his taking a vacation in exotic Hawai‘i, and the talk radio hosts like Limbaugh are vouching for everything in the book…
Yes, Mark, parties can talk. And Republicans like Jack Kemp have talked about why his party has so little appeal for African Americans. He couldn’t mention the GOP Presidential Candidate, St. Ronnie, talking about young bucks, a statement I find pretty definitive. But he had other things to say.
You know, GK, I think you missed my point. I think the country would be healthier if a candidate didn’t think mentioning his religion was important, especially when one can reasonably assume he was worried he would suffer if the electorate thought he belonged to a religion that is not common in the United States.
_”Yes, Mark, parties can talk. And Republicans like Jack Kemp have talked about why his party has so little appeal for African Americans. He couldn’t mention the GOP Presidential Candidate, St. Ronnie, talking about young bucks, a statement I find pretty definitive. But he had other things to say.”_
Talk about putting words in somebody’s mouth. Here: Ed Koch has severely criticized the democratic party. He didnt talk about Tawana Brawley or Reverend Wright or Jessie Jackson shaking down corporations in exchange for donations or jobs for his kids, or Bill Clinton allegedly sexually assaulting a woman in the oval office and getting a pass by NOW, or Bill Ayers working hand in glove with Obama to keep Chicago’s schools steaming piles of drek. But he could have.
Any word on if Senator Robert ‘Sheets’ Byrd is appearing with Obama at the convention by the way? Does the Democratic Party speak with his voice?
_”I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side… Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.”_
—Robert C. Byrd, Voice of the Democratic Party, in a “letter”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/18/AR2005061801105_2.html to Sen. Theodore Bilbo (D-MS), 1944
Weinberg is getting an early start on the “Jesus to meet me, we had it in the bag and we blew it again” recriminations. I remember Paul Krugman getting on this schtick about this time four years ago, with “There’s no way this election is going to be FAIR.”
In this round of recriminations, I predict that the self-pitying claims of racism will be short-lived. It’s not good for anything except self-pity, after all.
Instead, I think Obama is going to catch the flak at long last. The Clinton’s complaints of being rail-roaded will disappear if he wins, but if he loses it’s all going to come out – every real and imagined slight, intimidation, gaming the caucus system, etc. “AND THAT’S WHY WE LOST!”
Obama has changed places with Clinton in my post-election assessment. I used to think Clinton was finished politically if she didn’t get this nomination. Now I think not getting it has ensured her survival. Instead it might be Obama who is finished if he doesn’t win.
Taki, of course,the press secretary
for the Greek junta; has the same views as Matt on neocons, Georgia, et al, birds of a feather.
Mark, I missed the part where St. Ronnie repented of his youthful folly in talking about strapping young bucks. Either find it for me, or knock off sixty-plus year old quotes.
AJL #30 —
bq. That doesn’t really make the X votes go away, but I will agree that there are genuine issues that will have more influence on the final totals than racism.
Agreed. And while Obama will lose X votes due to anti-black racial animus, he will also gain Y votes though similar dynamics. Y1 votes from blacks engaging in ethnic solidarity (hardly novel or surprising), and Y2 votes from whites like Slaters Wiesburg and Rosenbaum (links at #12). Is (X) greater than or less than (Y1 + Y2)? I’d say “less than,” but that’s merely a guess.
bq. you are missing the point about the simulacrum that the gutter division of the Republican Party is attempting to fashion of Obama, one which appeals
to racism and xenophobia. They have only reluctantly conceded that his name is what he claims it is and that he is a natural-born American. Or not.
Please pay more attention to your pronouns, notably “they.” I’ve only glanced at the birth-certificate issue, because hard-bitten conservative Bob Owens has “mercilessly mocked”:http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/271262.php the Obama-born-in-Kenya crew.
bq. People would laugh at claims that John McCain is a Muslim. But Obama, he’s connected to Africa, there’s something mysterious about his taking a vacation in exotic Hawai’i
Andrew, perhaps you’re pitching your comments to readers who aren’t paying attention. Review #11 (“Even if you can provide links to demonstrate that the enemies of stealth-Muslim-Obama and overt-LDS-Romney are tainted with racism, what have you shown?”) Playing your game, people would laugh at claims that Mitt Romney was a Muslim. And that means what–Romney mockers are racists? Obama supporters are secret LDS? Both and neither at the same time?
bq. and the talk radio hosts like “Limbaugh”:http://mediamatters.org/items/200808150013 are vouching for everything in the book…
Links to Media Matters go into the automatically untrustworthy
bin at Casa AMac. In this instance, David Brock freely misrepresents facts (as Leftists accused him of doing when he was carrying water for the Right). The same Bob Owens who savaged the birth-certificate truthers presents the anti-abortion view of the events that Brock discusses at your link, “here”:http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/271071.php and “here.”:http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/271161.php You don’t have to be pro-life (I’m not) to follow links to source material. There were actual incidents of live-births following late-term abortions, and thus genuine controversy around Obama’s State Senate votes.
_”Mark, I missed the part where St. Ronnie repented of his youthful folly in talking about strapping young bucks.”_
Oh, i get it. You say you were sorry for being a Klansman and extolling the worst sort of racial hatred imagineable and you are all good. Youthful folly? If John McCain or any republican had a SHADOW of that kind of youthful folly you would be calling for him to be whipped in the public square and shot at down, no matter how much many times he apolgized.
_”Either find it for me, or knock off sixty-plus year old quotes.”_
I see, 30+ year old quotes fly. 60 is over the line. Thanks for the heads up.
There is one difference. Reagan is dead and buried. Byrd is one of the most prominant democrats in the country, quite alive, and quite still at his post. So get off your high horse and quit pretending what you are saying is anything but demagogery, hypocritical at that by excusing Byrd for the same offense.
No black person is eschewing the Republican party for something Reagan said in 1976 that was ugly. Certainly not if they are ok with one of the _current_ party leaders being a FORMER KLANSMAN, however oh so sorry he is. A real, true life, get a rope klansman.
If you don’t vote for a McCain/Liberman ticket you must be an anti-semite.
I think Weisberg’s article is totally wrong and i disagree with all of his premises. I must be an anti-semite.
If you disagree with all that i just said then you must be biased against Italians.
Racism is the most overblown issue of our day.It is going the way of the boy always crying wolf.
AMac, you might check the comment thread at your own Bob Owens link. Lots of “Of course this born-in-Kenya stuff is nonsense, but let’s use it if we can.”
If you don’t want Think Progress links, OK—but would you agree Limbaugh and his ilk are going to be talking up Corsi’s book? And that it reached the top of the best seller list because the right wing echo chamber is going to distribute it far and wide?
#40 from Moose:
bq. “Racism is the most overblown issue of our day.It is going the way of the boy always crying wolf.”
Accusations of racism are readily believed by those who make them and profit from them. They will never go away while they remain profitable, effective and emotionally satisfying.
It’s because of the One Drop Rule, which holds:
“a person with any trace of African ancestry is considered black”
Like it or not, this is how most Americans think about race. If you really look at it, a large proportion of “black people” are mixes of African, European, & Native American ancestry. A somewhat smaller percentage of “white people” are really “mixed” in the same way. The reason for the imbalance? The One Drop Rule.
They writhe so much that they get straw all over the carpet.
Mark, are you aware of how totally whacko that statement sounds to someone who isn’t a conservative true believer?
Jessie Jackson shook down corporations? Those poor corporations! They must be living in the corporate poorhouse now. I bet their fully owned subsidiaries are begging in the street.
Bill Ayers worked hand in glove with Obama, and they kept Chicago’s schools steaming piles of drek. Also, if you say “Bill Ayers” three times in front of a mirror, he’ll jump out and pull you into his crazy leftist mirror world, and you’ll become his leftist slave.
This thread is made of pure awesome
Their complete lack of self-awareness is also great.
AJL #41 —
Now it’s your turn to go back to the comments in the “Bob Owens link.”:http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/271262.php Some are by Obama-loathers, others by people who largely agree with Owens, others yet by Obama supporters. One says “pass the popcorn” about this spectacle of a Hillary supporter trying to DSQ Obama. All of which means… what? Do I get to trawl the comments at DKos and the vile “Amanda Marcotte”:http://pandagon.net/ to tar “you lib’rals”?
In the kickoff comment to this post, you agreed with Wiseburg that, indeed, racism explained much or most of the oppostion to Obama. Now we’re just pointing to peanut galleries, effectively agreeing that there are a lot of dogs on the internet.
Re: Corsi, he strikes me as the stopped clock that can be right twice a day. If he says that it’s raining outside, well, it might indeed be raining. Your position that creeps’ messages should be ignored would be rather more credible if you’d stop relying on links to the likes of David Brock.
_”Mark, are you aware of how totally whacko that statement sounds to someone who isn’t a conservative true believer?”_
Had you been paying attention to the thread, you might have realized it was done as an ironic response to the bombs Andrew was happily throwing.
And i stand by the Jessie Jackson allegation. He led a boycott against Budweiser in order to score his son a beer distributorship. Now why is it that the left screams bloody murder about free speach when some conservative group threatens to boycott a soap company for advertising on racey tv shows, but Jackson marshalling his race baiting forces for personal gain is no problem?
The Left screams bloody murder. When the heck did The Left scream bloody murder about a soap commercial being boycotted. Seriously, what are you talking about?
Now, maybe the ACLU was against some boycott of a racy soap commercial. I wouldn’t really call the ACLU part of the Left, though. ACLU-ers are usually more liberal, or libertarian, in orientation. Liberals are not the Left. Liberals believe in capitalism, but want certain safeguards on the system. Leftists are the ones that want a radical critique of capitalism itself.
As far as Jesse Jackson boycotting Budweiser goes, I don’t know about the situation so I can’t really comment. Are you saying that the Jesse Jackson part was serious, but the Bill Ayers part was ironic?
The whole thing ironic- go reread the context, Andrew was making an absurd attempt to put a bunch of red meat into somebody elses mouth and call it dinner.
Im curious why you are so defensive about Ayers? I don’t think it disqualifies Obama from being president, but i do wonder why he’s working so hard to cover up his relationship if there is nothing wrong with it. And why guys like yourself are in a panic to downplay it.
AMac, it seems to me you have a binary choice. Corsi claims that the Obama birth certificate is a fake. Corsi claims that Obama has never stated he stopped doing drugs, and when confronted by a statement in Obama’s autobiography about stopping getting high in his early 20s, added that he had disregarded this statement because addicts’ self-reporting is a lie (a standard I don’t think he applied to the current President), without presenting one iota of positive evidence that Obama was still doing drugs.
If you think that Corsi on Obama is the stopped clock, then we’ll have to disregard your link to Owens lecturing on the birth certificate. The two hold diametrically opposite positions. If, as is more likely, you agree that Corsi wrote all sorts of untrue nonsense (something he’s done in his other books), why is his book selling so well in bulk and why is he getting favorable notice on Limbaugh et al?
Wait a minute, were you serious about Jesse Jackson, or were you ironic? Which one?
There is simply no evidence that Ayers and Obama were ever more than casual acquaintances, who happened to work out in the same Hyde Park fitness club. So when people say that they were close allies, I tell those people that they are wrong.
Also, I defend Obama against the Ayers accusations because I really want him to become president. Now, would I personally think it was a big deal if Obama had associated closely with Ayers? No. But I realize that many people may not see this the same way that I do.
Now, if you have credible evidence that Obama had close association with Ayres, please present it, and I will be able to examine it & learn.
FWIW, I’m not going to defend Jesse Jackson against this; it sounds about right. It’s relevance to Obama is unclear.
I don’t see that anybody has mentioned that Obama’s mentor, Emil Jones, has called an African-American supporter of Hillary Clinton an “Uncle Tom.”:http://www.suntimes.com/news/elections/1124667,CST-NWS-dem25.article
Jerome Corsi’s book is at #1 on amazon.com, too. Scanning the “reviews,”:http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/08/corsis_obama_book_facts_or_sli.html Obama-haters love it, and many (most?) other reviewers are skeptical at best. Corsi comes across very poorly in “this talking-heads interview”:http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/08/corsis_obama_book_facts_or_sli.html with Paul Waldman of Media Matters. The Atlantic’s righty blogger Ross Douthat edges towards a “ritual denunciation”:http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/010404.php#c117713 of Corsi.
Cursory view: 9-11 Truther Corsi is slimy, and, yeah, something fishy about this book zooming to #1 on the best-seller lists.
According to Huffington Post, the #1 position on the best-seller lists is likely caused by bulk ordering. Regnery has a history of using bulk ordering of books to push them up the bestseller list. Look down to about the middle of the article for this analysis.
atheist:
If you ask this question in good faith, it depends on what you consider a “close association” to be.
For example, is it like the “close association” that Jesse Jackson claimed to have with Martin Luther King, or is it like the “close association” that Bill Clinton denied having with Marc Rich?
If you’re asking for a personal opinion, here’s mine: If you were a former Weather Undergrounder who belongs in prison and your wife was a sick f–king Charles Manson fan who belongs in a psychiatric hospital under full restraint, I wouldn’t bring my wife to your house for dinner. That would be too close an association for me to stomach.
But that’s just me.
“As we have seen demonstrated on this thread, many democrats feel that (unless you are majorly wealthy) the only plausible reason to vote republican is either racism or stupidity. ”
A shockingly ignorant belief, considering that “the middle class of $50K to $75K annual earners voted 56% for Bush in 2004”:http://www.singularity2050.com/2006/06/a_take_on_the_l.html
In fact, Kerry only had a solid majority among those who earn under $30K/year. This is a coalition of the very young, very old, and very uneducated.
I think parroting the ‘dumb/racist’ belief despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, more than any thing else, is why Democrats have not won 50% of the vote in SEVEN attempts since 1976. The Democrats manage to condescendingly offend the median American much more than the GOP does.
So, Glen, is there in fact evidence that Michelle Obama invited Bill Ayers, and/or his wife, to dinner?
I’m talking about what an objective observer would consider to be close association- meeting each other numerous times, inviting each other over to dinner, working on projects together, etc. Is there evidence of that.
_”Now, if you have credible evidence that Obama had close association with Ayres, please present it, and I will be able to examine it & learn”_
Sounds marvelous. Unfortunately Obama’s people are “preventing”:http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-kass-ayers-thurs-21-aug21,0,714266.column the evidence from becoming public. From a public library no less.
Or as Michael Barone “puts”:http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/08/obamas_ayers_ties_are_relevant.html it:
_”Decades after his radical youth, Ayers was one of the original grantees of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a school reform organization in the 1990s, and was co-chairman of the Chicago School Reform Collaborative, one the two operational arms of the CAC. Obama, then not yet a state senator, became chairman of the CAC in 1995. Later in that year, the first organizing meeting for Obama’s state Senate campaign was held in Ayers’s apartment…”_
_”He was willing to use Ayers and ally with him despite his terrorist past and lack of repentance. An unrepentant terrorist, who bragged of bombing the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon, was a fit associate. Ayers evidently helped Obama gain insider status in Chicago civic life and politics–how much, we can’t be sure. But most American politicians would not have chosen to associate with a man with Ayers’s past or of Ayers’s beliefs. It’s something voters might reasonably want to take into account.”_
_”I’m talking about what an objective observer would consider to be close association- meeting each other numerous times, inviting each other over to dinner, working on projects together, etc. Is there evidence of that.”_
Launching Obama’s state senate campaign from Ayers apartment doesnt count? Rather auspicious moment, isnt it?
The Annenberg documents might be entombed at the Richard J. Daley Library (the mother of all unfortunate names!) but “here is one of their annual reports.”:http://ccsr.uchicago.edu/publications/p0b06.pdf (.pdf file)
The acknowledgments lists the founders of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge: Anne Hallett, Warren Chapman, and Bill Ayers.
The document also names Barack Obama as Chairman, though oddly, this information appears only in the footnotes at the very end.
atheist – if you take the time to read “Steve Diamond’s series of articles”:http://globallabor.blogspot.com/ – there’s enough real reporting in them that they are more than posts – a pretty clear picture of the close relationship comes clear.
He’s making a series of educated guesses, but given the points of fact that are emerging, it’s looking relatively solid.
A.L.
OK, y’all have some fairly impressive evidence from John Kass, who is normally credible, and this Diamond guy, that Obama probably worked with Ayers on this Annenburg Challenge deal. And it looks like the Ayers-Dorhn household was at least on talking terms with Obama in 1995 when they hosted a kickoff party for his state senatorial campaign. Fair enough. Thanks for showing me some of the links, evidence, etc.
Now, as I said before, seeing this really doesn’t change my personal opinion of Barack Obama in the least. I’ve talked with many of the same people that Barack Obama is supposed to have talked with. Steve Diamond seems to think that the fact that some Obama supporters accused the Clinton campaign of using racism is beyond the pale. I think it’s pretty accurate. Diamond seems to have his own odd biases.
But, anyway, if you want to use this information to try and derail Obama’s campaign, then go ahead, I guess.
atheist #65 —
Glad that you did some digging and looked at the evidence, including links on this thread, then reported your (uncomfortable) findings. Most of us — somewhat to the left or the right of the sane center — ought to be able to agree on most of the factual record. We’ll weigh and interpret items differently, according to our own values and perspectives.
This contrasts with the working-backwards logic of since I support candidate/position X, therefore fact A must be ignored or discredited. That approach is not new, and is not unique to the left or the right. But it still can shock, as in Obama’s “peasants questioning their betters among the political class?!” dudgeon that “Grim blogged about yesterday.”:http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/silencing_citizens_should_concern_us_all.php The sort of restriction of political speech that was enshrined by McCain-Feingold.
Shannon Love over at Chicago Boyz sums things up nicely:
_”As I have noted before, the real troubling aspect of the Obama-Ayers relationship is that Obama comes from a political subculture in which Ayers is an accepted and unremarkable individual. Looking at Ayers, one is forced to ask exactly what kind of leftist extremism would be considered unacceptable by Obama and his cohorts.”_
“link”:http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/6106.html
Mark, Shannon Love, and her commenters, sound pathologically afraid of Ayers. If anyone needed proof that conservatives are driven by paranoia and fear, they would need to look no further than that thread.