Indiana Jonesing

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  • Neil Morrison,

    And you know what makes it so much worse -- I don't believe for a moment that John McCain or Hillary Clinton are bigots, they're just willing to pander their arses off for a poll point.

    I haven't been following McCain's campaign so don't know much about it although I saw the CNN interview with Obama yesterday where he reacted to McCain's allegation that Obama was the Hamas candidate. Now that is low politics. Obama's response was very good.

    He came across well in the whole interview. His comments on the Supreme Court and its role were particularly impressive I thought. Given his background in constitutional law that's not surprising.

    As for Clinton I think we're going to have to have to agree to disagree - I just do not think she has been so Machiavellian over Wright and the issue of race. She hasn't helped Obama out of the Wright mess but that's not her job - that's something only he can do.

    As for race, this all goes back to Bill's comments during the South Carolina primary and I can't see how they can be interpreted as playing the race card. Making the observation that Obama did well because he got huge Afro-American support is racist only if you think that saying Hillary did well in New Hampshire because of women is sexist. It's just a reality of the demographics of their respective support bases. It's odd since Obama supporters themselves aren't slow to point out the benefits to the Dem party of how well Obama does with Afro-Americans.

    But this is all starting to make my brain hurt, the good news though is how well the Democrat party is doing.

    While writing this they posted Obama/Clinton Would Be Good For Downticket Democrats. I'd like to see them on the same ticket but I'm agnostic really. It may not be the best strategic arrangement or then it may well be.

    Since Nov 2006 • 932 posts Report Reply

  • Nick D'Angelo,

    This is venom

    It's wrong on sooo many levels, and yet I still laughed anyway.
    "I'll make 9/11 look like the Teacups at Disneyland!"

    (Less funny are some of the offerings under 'Related Videos'.)

    Simon Laan • Since May 2008 • 162 posts Report Reply

  • Deborah,

    And don't forget women who critiicise Hillary Clinton are gender traitors,

    If that makes me a misogynist, Deborah and Neil - fine.

    I've been quite clear all along that there are good reasons for supporting and opposing Clinton, and good reasons for supporting and opposing Obama, outside of race and gender, that on my part it's a preference call, and I have never, ever, made a disparaging comment about a woman, or a man, for that matter, who supports Obama. And when I say that someone has made a misogynist remark, I say that they have made a misogynist remark, not that they are misogynist.

    Perhaps you could attend to my arguments.

    New Lynn • Since Nov 2006 • 1447 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Perhaps you could attend to my arguments.

    Make one where the goalposts stand still for a moment, and I'll do my best. And I've got to admit that the Eric Boehlert column you seemed so taken by is less than impressive.

    And the fact is, the media's get-out-now push is unparalleled. Strong second-place candidates such as Ronald Reagan (1976), Ted Kennedy, Gary Hart, Jesse Jackson, and Jerry Brown, all of whom campaigned through the entire primary season, and most of whom took their fights all the way to their party's nominating conventions, were never tagged by the press and told to go home.

    Well, I've actually read a lot about Reagan -- and the 1976 Republican primary, when he challenged a sitting president and almost won -- was a defining moment in both his career, and the conservative ascendancy in the US. Sorry to say this, Deborah, but anyone who thinks Reagan didn't face a storm of criticism and calls to just piss off before he destroyed Ford and the GOP is not on the same planet.

    And don't you find Boehlert 's faux chivalry just a wee bit patronising, not least to Clinton herself? Opinion pieces are precisely that, and somehow I suspect Clinton's ignored a few in her time. Nor do I recall Bohlert being too outraged when the dominant meme was Clinton's 'inevitability' -- if you want to talk about media arrogance, what about holding a coronation for over a year before anyone got the chance to vote?

    Now, there definitely is a serious argument to be make about the fixation on trivia, the pathological need to view politics as a game while candidates drift from carefully staged photo op to scripted recital of talking points, and even (debatably) the press pack exposing itself time and again as a heard of independent minds. But I guess the problem is that any honest analysis would require the admission that 1) Clinton is as much a perpetrator as a victim, and 2) that framing criticism of Clinton as 'misogyny' just proves that assertion is not an argument.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Nick D'Angelo,

    Clinton is as much a perpetrator as a victim

    I couldn't possibly comment, but apropos Danyl's 'venom' vid, here's one I also found interesting/amusing:

    Simon Laan • Since May 2008 • 162 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    And meanwhile, another one of McCain's lunatic preachers ...

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    Edwards seems to say he voted for and will duly endorse Obama ...

    The discussion is worth watching.

    That MSNBC embedded video looks right tasty, too.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    It's the sort of analysis here, here, and especially here that I think highlights that it's a gender issue.

    Thanks, Deborah, I read them all. But I didn't find them convincing. The Feministe post says "misogynist" a lot, but the actual argument barely gets beyond "because I said so".

    It goes without saying that Clinton has suffered more or less overt woman-hating commentary. But it's waaay too big a stretch to claim that people want her to stop because they hate women.

    Apart from anything else, there are plenty of women (including the staffer dismissed for describing Clinton as a "monster" to a journalist) on the Obama campaign. According to the CNN exit polls, 49% of women in the Indiana primary voted for Obama (which is presumably why Clinton has shifted her pitch to white men without college degrees).

    Do you think Nancy Pelosi, the House's first female Speaker, is being sexist because she prays every night for Clinton to drop out?

    Peggy Noonan put it this way:

    The Democratic Party can't celebrate the triumph of Barack Obama because the Democratic Party is busy having a breakdown. You could call it a breakdown over the issues of race and gender, but its real source is simply Hillary Clinton. Whose entire campaign at this point is about exploiting race and gender ...

    To play the race card as Mrs. Clinton has, to highlight and encourage a sense that we are crudely divided as a nation, to make your argument a brute and cynical "the black guy can't win but the white girl can" is -- well, so vulgar, so cynical, so cold, that once again a Clinton is making us turn off the television in case the children walk by.

    "She has unleashed the gates of hell," a longtime party leader told me. "She's saying, 'He's not one of us.'"

    She is trying to take Obama down in a new way, but also within a new context. In the past he was just the competitor. She could say, "All's fair." But now he's the competitor who is going to be the nominee of his party. And she is still trying to do him in. And the party is watching.

    And it's not hard to find comments like this:

    Stephen, I agree. I'm a 57-year-old white man who's supported Barack Obama from the start, but I'd always liked Hillary Clinton. Last year, I would have been happy enough with either of them. No more. Her arrogance, her overriding ambition, her willingness to use racism and anything else to get the nomination - even to the extent of destroying the Democratic Party and doing lasting harm to our country - have completely changed my mind.

    I am furious at her and at that part of the Democratic Party which is still racist or at least willing to overlook this kind of thing in order to advance their own political power. There's a reason why Hillary has consistently lost support from black voters. She was very competitive with that segment of the party at first, but I'm sure they're more likely to notice racist innuendo (or else it just matters more to them than to many whites).

    But this is NOT the kind of Democratic Party we want, I hope. It's certainly not the kind I want! We chose the high road once before when we gave up the South by backing integration and civil rights. Was that wrong? I don't think so. And the country has moved on. We have not come as far as I'd hoped, but we're not the country of my childhood. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make a huge stride forward. How can we not make the attempt?

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    Anyway, it is fascinating, but now that Obama has the lead in superdelegates, to go with his lead in pledged delegates and the popular vote, it is, really, over.

    Clinton will win West Virginia by miles, but Obama is rather pointedly not even bothering to campaign there, and is now in key general election states. They'll declare victory after taking Oregon on May 20.

    Even the most partisan pro-Obama blogs are re-orienting to take on McCain. I'm sure that's the strategic message from the Obama campaign: we've won -- so act that way.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Graeme Edgeler,

    That MSNBC embedded video looks right tasty, too.

    Certainly not YouTube, is it?

    Wellington, New Zealand • Since Nov 2006 • 3215 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    The viral media keeps flowing.

    This PowerPoint file is a bit less "so wrong" than the YouTube video but it's still fairly stinging.

    I hope someone writes the book on citizen-media creators' role in this election, what the links between the bloggers and the campaigns really are, and to what extent bloggers and posters are campaign surrogates, as opposed to fired-up citizens.

    Clearly, there's a mix. It'd just be nice to know how the mix works.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    Oh god. You keep waiting for shit to implode when an angry gay man links to a feminist.

    FWIW, I think Ellen Malcolm's column is fine, except insofar as it ignores the actual tone of the Clinton campaign lately. I don't think she's arguing for any special rights.

    So, yeah, one serious bonus of the eventual Clinton concession is that it will let AmericaBlog calm the fuck down ...

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Danyl Mclauchlan,

    Gordon Campbell: Clinton's last chance to go gracefully.

    I was massively sceptical when scoop signed him on a couple of weeks ago but I gotta admit I've been reading his stuff almost every day. It's nice to have another intelligent voice out there in the blogosphere even if it is a hopelessly partisan one.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 927 posts Report Reply

  • Danyl Mclauchlan,

    *skeptical.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 927 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    FWIW, I think Ellen Malcolm's column is fine, except insofar as it ignores the actual tone of the Clinton campaign lately

    Which is kinda sorta the point, isn't it? And I really wish an editor would politely suggest to Ms. Malcolm that she should stop using third person plural pronouns when writing op-eds. Being head of a partisan PAC that only contributes to female candidates doesn't give her any authority to present herself as Queen of the Fem-Borg. The "royal we" is a spurious rhetorical claim to authority and it gets on my nerves.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Malcolm,

    Queen of the Fem-Borg.

    Why don't you just say "feminazis" and be done with it. Really Craig, your language betrays you.

    Since Apr 2007 • 69 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Peggy Noonan put it this way

    And can I give Peggy Noonan props for being one of the very few voices in the Republican/right commentariat (along with George Will and, most of the time, David Brooks) who've kept it real and sane in their commentary on the Democratic primary. She's not one of those Kool-Aid drinking Obama-maniacs you hear so much about, but she's not fallen for the Hannity-Limbaugh-Coulter Axis of Idiocy either.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Oh, and if you guy click through to Noonan's column, take a look at Kinberly Strassel's sharp reality check of how the Republicans lost the Louisiana 6th after 34 years:

    With Democrats actively recruiting conservative candidates, it's no longer good enough for the GOP names to fall back on cultural credentials, to demagogue immigration, or to simply promise lower taxes. Voters care about the size of government, but they are equally worried about the cost of doctor visits and gas prices. The winners will be those who explain the merits of a private health-care reform, who talk about vouchers, who push for energy production. And given its reputation on ethics, it's clear the GOP has to recruit Mr. Cleans, who also make voters believe they are more interested in solving problems than bringing home pork.

    Mr. Jenkins's defeat says little about how Republicans will fare in defining Mr. Obama or local competitors this fall. It says plenty about how the GOP continues to define itself, and why it remains in trouble.

    Which is why I suggested, up thread, that the GOP should be taking a good hard look at David Cameron and his Conservative Party.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Why don't you just say "feminazis" and be done with it. Really Craig, your language betrays you.

    Um, Malcolm, I don't casually throw around that N-word (or 'fascist' or 'Stalinist') without industrial strength sarcasm tags because it's trite, dishonest, and offensively trivialises the suffering and death of hundreds of millions under those modes of repressive government.

    What you've betrayed is a rather serious cultural deficit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borg_(Star_Trek) may be billions of beings forming a collective hive mind, controlled by a central Queen, but my point is that they're fictional characters. Human beings aren't, and I'm sick of the lazy media habit (and the lobbyists who are happy to exploit it) of putting people into some assigned box, appointing a realiable rent-a-quote to speak for them, then buggering off to the pub. It's lazy and dishonest.

    Now, Malcolm, I'd appreciate an apology for you slimy little innuendo. Won't hold my breath waiting.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Malcolm,

    Craig, I made comment not because I didn't know who the Borg are, but because I do. Your comment wasn't "Queen of the Borg". It was "Queen of the Fem-Borg." The "Fem-Borg" appear nowhere in Star Trek that I am aware of.

    I was also surprised to see you treat "feminazi" as a reference to the Third Reich. This is a current political term, whose definition can be found here, although I think you must be familiar with its use from kiwiblog.

    Since Apr 2007 • 69 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Malcolm:

    Oh, piss off. A rhetorical trope I am very familiar with from both the left and right-wingnuts over on Kiwiblog is using semantic har-splitting as a distraction from their own crass and idiotic rhetoric. You injected a witless term of abuse like 'Feminazi" into the discussion, and I'm telling you for the last time that I don't.

    I'm calling theatre with a side order of Godwin's Law, and wishing you a pleasant Sunday afternoon.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Cecelia,

    I liked Ellen Malcolm's column but I didn't agree with it. I enjoyed it because it was a a strong piece of writing. Because I'm a woman of the same generation I could identify with it - it touched a nerve.

    Doesn't make me change my mind about Clinton's negative tactics. Just reminded me of - well - what the heck - it's Mother's Day - what little battlers we women are. So there.

    Hibiscus Coast • Since Apr 2008 • 559 posts Report Reply

  • Kyle Matthews,

    I hope someone writes the book on citizen-media creators' role in this election, what the links between the bloggers and the campaigns really are, and to what extent bloggers and posters are campaign surrogates, as opposed to fired-up citizens.

    There was a guy on... Wednesday's The Daily Show - on here on Thursday - who had written the book on the topic in general - starting with Howard Dean, and including the current primary campaigns, though not to their conclusion of course. Sounded fairly sensible from the interview.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report Reply

  • Bob Munro,

    Roger Ebert, battling with cancer and now laid up with a broken hip humanises the Clintons with his musings on what the movie would be like as they contemplate the end of the line

    Hillary and Bill are both intelligent, experienced political creatures. They've both been running for something since grade school. They are fueled by the desire for high office and public recognition, but fueled also by the process itself. They're good at it. Considering their apparent depression on Tuesday night I realized that, yes, as late as that, they really did still think Hillary could win, even after the CNN "panels" were running out of ways to say farewell. They believed it right up to the end, because they had to, they needed to, in order to keep on running at all.

    Yet there must have been private moments of despair. The two realists, as able as anyone to read the trends, must have spoken privately about their shrinking options. And on Tuesday night, as Hillary's double-digit lead in Indiana dwindled to very small single digits, there must have come a time when one of them said, "We've lost this thing."

    What were those moments like? What kept them going between themselves? Did they encourage one another, or was there an unspoken pact not to voice the unspeakable? Was there blame when Bill had one of his unwise moments? Did their shared past, of success and scandal, enter into it, or were they absorbed in this moment?

    In answering those questions, there you would find the movie. It would be more introspective than audiences would probably prefer, and less sensational. Smarter, too. There would be a limited budget, because you wouldn't need a stadium filled with thousands of people so much as you'd need lots of lonely hotel rooms after midnight. The climaxes would come as one old comrade after another abandoned them for the Obama camp. There would be a desperate, clinging love that had survived all the years, because it was based on shared experience and memories and goals, not so much any longer on passion.

    Christchurch • Since Aug 2007 • 418 posts Report Reply

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