As I bask in the sweet feelings of victory following the election on Tuesday, I must pause to thank those I think most responsible for Obama’s election (in no particular order):
The Democratic establishment are cowards
The New York Times reports that once again, despite previous assurances that they would not, the Democrats in Congress have caved in under threat of veto from President Bush. When the American people elected a Democratic majority to both the House and Senate in 2006 it was assumed by most that the Democrats would end the war. A few weeks ago I watched Nancy Pelosi on one of the Sunday talk shows. The interviewer asked her why Congress had not acted to end the war during the last two years and her response was this:Â The President will veto it and the Democrats don’t have enough votes to override.
The Frustration Continues
Last night I watched in disbelief as Hillary Clinton failed to concede to Barack Obama and hardly acknowledged that she had lost the Democratic nomination for President. This was her opportunity to begin healing all the wounds inflicted during the primary, but instead she chose to merely point them out again. You can read the full text of her speech but let me just summarize for you:
Continue reading “The Frustration Continues”
Keith Olbermann on Hillary Clinton’s RFK remarks
Here’s what Keith Olbermann had to say on Countdown last night:
Reasons Not to Vote for Hillary Clinton: Never Wrong
In the biggest vote of her political life, Hillary Clinton (and the rest of the cowardly Democrats who would not go against George W. Bush for fear of their political careers ending abruptly)Â voted “Yes” to go to war with Iraq. Even after the so-called “intelligence” that was used to justify the war was shown to be a sham, she still supported the war nearly as much as turncoat Democrat Joe Lieberman. When her run for the presidency began in 2007, many began to speculate whether she should apologize for her vote. That speculation reached a fever pitch until she finally admitted that the war had been a mistake but only went so far as to say about her own vote that she had received faulty intelligence.
Her reasoning in this matter is faulty for two reasons. First, she did not vote for the Levin Amendment which would have required that the President allow U.N. inspectors more time to complete their job. If, as she claims, she was granting the President the power of war to use in diplomatic efforts to “disarm” Saddam Hussein, then the Levin Amendment would have been an important tool in those efforts. Secondly, and more importantly, in not admitting that her vote was wrong, especially in the way that she has, she is affirming the validity of the Bush administration’s preemptive war policy. Much like the administration, she has not learned the most valuable lesson of the war: preemptive war is wrong. As we found out, even “slam dunk” intelligence can be faulty. Even in the best of circumstances, relying on such intelligence is a gamble. Let’s assume, for example, that our intelligence community was 90% certain that the intelligence was correct. That would still leave a 10% chance that we would be launching a war for no good reason.
Continue reading “Reasons Not to Vote for Hillary Clinton: Never Wrong”
On Bitches and Sexists
Today, while reading about this story, I stumbled upon a blog called Shakesville which had an excellent analysis of the story. One phrase they used is “owning the context” which means that someone can commit racist speech even when they do not intend it. In the story above, I think that the man with the t-shirts is “playing dumb” and understands perfectly that comparing an African-American to a monkey will be offensive to African-Americans. However, even if he did not know of the historical use of that phrase to insult black people, that does not make the t-shirt any less offensive to those that do. When this happens, when one finds oneself ignorant of the context, the only acceptable action is apology. What a concise summary of the subtle racism that still exists in our society!
Suitably impressed, I began to scan the front page of the blog for more great content. How shocked I was to find that one of the writers had taken Wil Wheaton, one of my favorite bloggers, to task for something he had written the day before. It was even something that I had agreed with and laughed at. Now, if I had read this article before the one about the Obama t-shirt, I would have quickly concluded that this was a group of unreasonable feminists and left. But I had read that other article and the parallels were immediately obvious. Disparaging remarks about women also have a context and the context here is that portraying a woman as “crazy” means that she can or should be ignored.
I revisited Wil’s blog to review the comments and found some that were very thought-provoking. Someone named “Backpacking Dad” really hit the nail on the head:
The metaphor evokes a trope in sexual politics, that of the irrational girl who cannot accept that a relationship is over. Labeling, categorizing, pigeon-holing someone in this way “he’s a geek, she’s a slut, he’s a pig, she’s cow” is at once appealing to a fragment of truth, and also making the target controllable.
This is the historic context of how our society has marginalized women. Another commenter named Sarah made it more concrete:
Look, I don’t think you hate women– I think you mean well and want to be an ally. But that means you need to listen. If you don’t think something is sexist, but people who have to deal with sexism every day are telling you that it is, maybe you should take another look.
And that made me look at my own views on sexism. Too often I’m dismissive of women just because they are women. And sometimes, if I think they are deserving of it, I’ll refer to a woman as a “bitch”. But, when considered in the full historical context, that word is no different than the racial epithet that rhymes with “digger”. Both are considered derogatory and both can be labels worn proudly by some who have been the target of these insults. Whether or not the target is deserving of these words, the context that they evoke should preclude us from using them.
Today I have decided that I will never again call a woman a bitch.
Reasons Not to Vote for Hillary Clinton: Anything for Votes
According to rules adopted by the national Democratic Party in 2006, no state except Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina would be allowed to hold presidential primary elections prior to February 5, 2008. When Michigan and Florida chose to ignore those rules, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) stripped both states of their delegates for the Democratic National Convention. By then, all of the presidential candidates had agreed that they would not campaign in those states and most withdrew their names from the ballot in Michigan, except Chris Dodd and Hillary Clinton.
Knowing that the DNC had declared their votes literally worthless, Michigan voters went to the polls on January 15, 2008 and cast their ballots. 55% of them chose Hillary Clinton and 40% chose “uncommitted”. Two weeks later Florida Democrats also exercised their futility and delivered a meaningless 49% win for Clinton while Obama got 33% of the vote. On January 25, Hillary began pandering to the Florida electorate by declaring, “I believe our nominee will need the enthusiastic support of Democrats in these states to win the general election, and so I will ask my Democratic convention delegates to support seating the delegations from Florida and Michigan.”
As Clinton lost more and more primaries and caucuses to Obama, the more pressure was brought to bear on the DNC to do something about the so-called “disenfranchised” voters in Michigan and Florida. There was briefly talk of holding those primaries again, but when neither the DNC nor the states were willing to pony up the money to fund a re-vote, it became clear the only way their delegates would be seated is if they were divided equally among the candidates.
Once this dishonest attempt to win the Democratic nomination for President failed, Clinton and her campaign began make their case for the “super delegates” in the party. Clinton was won more swing states, they said. The nominee who has won the popular vote should get the nomination, they claimed, until Clinton was no longer the leader in the popular vote. At one point, Clinton representatives even floated the idea of using electoral college representation to determine which candidate should receive the support of the super delegates. What was largely unreported during this time, though, was the fact that Clinton’s previously overwhelming lead amongst the super delegates began steadily decreasing after the Florida primary.
After apparently big victories in Texas and Ohio, Clinton seemed to regain some of the momentum she had lost. It wasn’t long, though, before Obama erased those wins with overwhelming victories in Wyoming and Mississippi. Now with little hope of winning, the Clintonites began at first to imply that pledged delegates could switch their votes and then Hillary Clinton herself was quoted several times saying that no party rules existed that limited pledged delegates in whom they might vote for during the convention. Never mind the extreme unlikelihood of Obama’s staunchest supporters suddenly deciding that Clinton is a better candidate than Obama, the mere suggestion is an ethical breach that no Presidential candidate should commit. But it gets worse. Newsweek and other news organizations reported that the Clinton campaign was using so-called “robocallers” to call delegates and get them to switch sides prior to their county or district conventions.
Clinton is actively trying to subvert the process that the Democratic Party has adopted for deciding their candidate for the President of the United States. It’s despicable and Clinton should not only be denied the nomination, she should be run out of the party.
References:
Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment on Hillary Clinton
Amazingly, it appears that Clinton attempted to take his advice.
Geraldine Ferraro Is A Racist
Last week Clinton supporter and former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro said this about Barack Obama:
“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”
Of course, there is outrage in the Obama camp and with many others. I was struck my how remarkably close her remarks were to something Isiah Thomas‘ said in 1987:
”Larry Bird is a very, very good basketball player,” he said. ”But if he was black he’d be just another guy.”
It’s clear that Ferraro was echoing the Clinton campaign’s recent criticism of Obama, namely that he doesn’t have enough experience to be President. If you read her Wikipedia entry, you’ll see that she started serving in the House of Representatives in 1978. By my math, that means that she served less than six years in what is generally considered to be the lesser House in Washington when she accepted the nomination to be Vice President of the United States. In other words, her experience then was comparable to Obama’s experience now, making her a hypocrite. Or a liar.
Today, instead of apologizing or attempting to clarify her statements, she said:
“”Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down and says let’s address reality and the problems we’re facing in this world, you’re accused of being racist, so you have to shut up.”
Again her logic reminded me of another “great” thinker, Ann Coulter. After slandering a group of 9/11 widows for being vocal activists, Coulter said:
“To speak out using the fact that they’re widows. This is the Left’s doctrine of infallibility. If they have a point to make about the 9-11 Commission, about how to fight the war on terrorism, how about sending in somebody we’re allowed to respond to? No, no, no, we always have to respond to someone who just had a family member die.”
Of course, Coulter was essentially saying that she can’t feel free to slander and sling mud because she will appear heartless. Ferraro is making a similar argument, claiming that she will be called a racist for merely criticizing. She’s missing the point. She brought race into the argument and used it negatively against Mr. Obama. Just like Isiah Thomas, it was a racist statement, even if she doesn’t know or acknowledge it. In the process, she has put herself into the company of Thomas and Coulter. She should be ashamed.