Sister Souljah time for Obama?

Is Barack Obama becoming Jesse Jackson in the public's perception? Mickey Kaus thinks so, and he suggests a solution.

Comments

[Josh]

Obama's done. On my way out this morning I saw Meredith Viera hammering him with questions that he was stammering to answer. He had his Howard Dean moment.

[Brian Foster]

If Josh's characterization is accurate, what a difference 15 months makes.

[Sandy Underpants]

Interesting. I haven't been paying attention since the Heath Ledger tragedy, but just before Heath bit the dust, I think I heard Barrack had a 10 point lead in S.C. and Hillary was abandoning South Carolina altogether conceding it to Obama. What a difference a Good Morning can make.

[Aaron]

Not sure which thread to put this in, but since the subject has been featured on this blog in recent days, here's Christopher Hitchens on real campaign appeals to racism.

[Brian Foster]

Aaron,

It appears that you accidentally put the word "real" in italics instead of quotation marks.

[Aaron]

I knew we had to have at least one Johnnie Reb in our midst ;)

[Brian Foster]

Heh. Dunno if I qualify as a "Johnnie Reb," having been born and raised in Michigan less than five miles from an Underground Railroad stop. One side of my family hails from Arkansas, South Carolina and redneck Florida though. And I did live in Virginia for nearly five years, and plan to do so again. (Northern Virginia though, so I'm not sure it counts.)

No, I'm just a radical federalist . . .

[David K.]

There are a great deal of things I disagree with Hitchens on, this is not one of them. There is no good ground to defend the Confederate flag on. It should be banished to war museums and history books like the Nazi swastika.

[Hal]

I guess what I don't understand, Brendan, is why you are so adamantly defensive on behalf of the Clintons when it comes to their purported racist remarks, declaring your determination on their behalf to be inviolable to any suggestion that such might possibly be the case. (After all, it seems "tone" is, to you, obviously irrelevant to any such evaluation (i.e. "This whole thing is a fairy tale. Give me a break!")) And yet when the Clintons directly, and deliberately, mischaracterize Senator Obama's comments, not a peep from you. Even ABC's Jake Tapper can see through, in yet another such instance, the classic "Clintonian" gymnastics at play. http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/01/obama-v-clinton.html#comments And, now with Super Tuesday still two weeks away, "it's Sister Souljah time for Obama?"? The suggestion that such a need exists for him also suggests that the Clintons have succeeded in sliming him for being disgusted by their deliberate acts of prevarication. But, given the poor victim that Senator Clinton has always claimed herself to be, while simultaneously attacking others, I'm sure both Clintons, if they cared about anyone but themselves, would be pleased to know you've got their back.

What is most disappointing to me, as a long time reader of your blog, and what else you don't seem to get, in light of the posing of the question, is that the very reason Barak Obama has such appeal to so many people, white and black, is that he would never use someone so callously, for his own political purpose, in the way President Clinton did use Sister Souljah for his own political benefit. This is the essence of the "hope" Senator Obama offers, the lack of any need to assume such a "time" is ever at hand. Just imagine... what if the very key to unlocking the polarization that has afflicted our country for so long, were to be found in fully exposing the deliberate tactics the Clintons have now so long overused?

[Brendan Loy]

Hal, two things:

First of all, it's absolutely true that the Clintons have distorted Obama's remarks about Reagan, and I certainly don't like it. But playing the "Reagan card" is not quite the same thing as playing the race card. It's not nearly as inherently destructive to our political discourse and unity. So it doesn't offend me as much. It's more "politics as usual."

(And, just so we're clear -- and this relates back directly to the "fairy tale" business too -- distorting the words and positions of a black candidate isn't racism. It's politics. The Clintons aren't smearing Obama because he's black; they're smearing him because he's their opponent. It's only "racial" if the smear is race-related, or if it directly and intentionally taps into voters' racial attitudes. If it's just a run-of-the-mill political attack/smear/lie, it should be criticized on its substance, but race absolutely should not be invoked, explicitly or implicitly, in the course of that criticism. And if race is invoked, the invoker should be criticized for playing the race card -- notwithstanding that his underlying substantive criticism would have been 100% valid if he'd left race out of it. ... My head will explode during an Obama presidency if his political opponents are accused of being racist every time they say something mean about him.)

Secondly, as I wrote in two of my earlier posts about the Obama race-baiting kerfuffle: "I used to favor Clinton because I felt she'd be a steadier hand on foreign policy, but after a while, I began to sour on her due to the endless divisiveness and triangulation of the Clintons (and my lack of desire to replay the pitched political battles of the '90s) ... [A] big part of the reason I drifted away from the Clinton camp in the first place is because I was sick of their old-style political tactics, their divisiveness, etc."

Regarding the MLK and "fairy tale" kerfuffle, a huge part of the reason I was so upset about Obama's tactics (or the tactics of some people associated with him, anyway) was that I thought he was different, just as you claim -- and I felt that if he let those sort of shady tactics happen in his campaign, that meant he wasn't different after all. I was upset because I was disillusioned with him. With the Clintons, by contrast, there's no room left to be disillusioned: I already fully accept that they are triangulating, dishonest panderers who will say anything and do anything to win. If I wrote an outraged blog post every time they did something I disapprove of, I'd have no time to eat, sleep, go to work or take care of my daughter.

But, you might say, if I only focus on Obama's misdeeds and ignores the Clintons', that makes my blog unfair and imbalanced! Well, yeah. I never claimed to be fair & balanced. It's an odd thing, though, because I end up criticizing the guy I tentatively support (Obama) over the person I oppose (Clinton). This is essentially the same criticism I got for going apeshit over Connecticut Democrats "purging" Lieberman, while ignoring similar actions by Republicans in other states. As I explained repeatedly, the reason I was so focused on what the Connecticut Democrats did is because I am a former Connecticut Democrats, so I was more personally wounded by their actions. Similarly here, I was more upset about what Obama did because I support Obama and I believe(d) in his rhetoric, and thus I felt the urge to speak out and say, "Hey! This isn't consistent with the things you said that helped convince me to support you!" That doesn't mean others haven't done things that are equivalent or worse, but I have never taken upon myself the responsibility of criticizing, in equal measure, all things everywhere that I consider worthy of criticism. The end result is that, sometimes, I'm harsher in criticizing the people I support than in criticizing the people I oppose. That might seem a bit strange, but I don't think it's all that unusual. It's called "keeping them honest."

The bottom line is, I blog about the things that I feel like blogging about at any given moment. Hopefully the stuff that I write is internally intellectually consistent with other stuff that I write, but if you're trying to find consistency between what I write and what I don't write, you're going to be disappointed. This is a personal blog, not a newspaper. I don't blog about every single thing that's outrageous.

By the way, just to clarify my position on the Clintons' purportedly racist remarks, and Team Obama's initial response to them:

The Clintons are by no means pure as the driven snow when it comes to identity politics. They've played the gender card shamelessly, and they've arguably played the race card (through surrogates) as well. ... The Clintons clearly weren't playing the race card in this instance, which is why my criticism of Obama is still valid. But I don't want people to get the impression that I think Bill, Hillary & co. are somehow totally innocent.

That said, don't even get me started on "tone." The concept that Bill was being racist, or playing the race card, with that particular comment ("fairy tale"), is so utterly facially ridiculous, I don't even know what to say about it anymore.

Finally:

"it's Sister Souljah time for Obama?"? The suggestion that such a need exists for him also suggests that the Clintons have succeeded in sliming him for being disgusted by their deliberate acts of prevarication.

...or maybe it suggests that I was right: that Obama sacrificed the moral high ground, damaged himself politically, and became the "black candidate" (instead of just a "candidate") in some portion of the public's perception, when he allowed his surrogates and supporters (including his own spokeswoman) to play the race card in response to the Clintons' patently non-racially-related remarks about MLK and "fairy tale." This is exactly what I said would happen: that Obama, if he didn't come out strongly against such tactics, would lose the moral high ground and would come to be seen as just another Sharpton or Jackson. He ultimately did come out against the tactics, soon enough to pretty much satisfy me, but perhaps not soon enough to satisfy others. He certainly could have said something sooner; he definitely left himself open, by waiting so long, to the criticism that (in true Clintonian/Rovian fashion) he waited until the damage was done, and only then spoke out. In any event, Obama's flawed choices in responding to the comments of his own supporters and surrogates cannot be blamed on the Clintons.