I’m traveling the rest of this week – and not for work reasons – so new postings will be light (today) or non-existent (Friday). The normal regimen resumes on Monday.
However, with respect to the Pennsylvania primary, a passing thought did occur to me. This six-week interregnum between Democratic contests is definitely benefiting Barack Obama - as evidenced by numerous polls, all of which show a tightening race. Consider the reasons:
1. He’s getting plenty of time to introduce himself to a state where Hillary Clinton is as familiar as Hershey chocolate. Pennsylvanians generally don’t warm to candidates with whom they are unfamiliar; Ed Rendell finally won the governor’s job 16 years after his first try. The Clinton brand has been around since 1992, and if the Pennsylvania campaign window had been a lot narrower, Hillary would be blowing Obama away on name ID alone. But thanks to the elongated calendar, Obama has the luxury of traveling by bus, doing retail politics in small cities and towns, and getting himself known in ways that slick TV ads can never accomplish. Sort of like he managed to do in Iowa.
2. He’s had the time to rebound from the Jeremiah Wright crisis. If that bomb had gone off during a tight turnaround between contests, he would have been toast. But his bold speech on race, notwithstanding some lingering concerns, has tamped down the flames, and he delivered it early enough in the Pennsylvania cycle for maximum resonance.
3. Cursed by the slow time clock, Hillary created her own little crisis. Obama's woes got trumped by her Bosnia sniper fantasies, thereby rekindling the old doubts about Clintonian credibility. It appeared at first that the cable TV shows, faced with the need to fill air time during this long vote-free interregnum, would be forever flogging the Wright story, but Hillary has given them something new to chew on. And chew on. Nothing stirs the commentators more than footage of a politician lying on camera.
4. The horserace story is frozen, and that benefits Obama. Until the Pennsylvania verdict on April 22, Hillary is stuck with her pledged-delegate and popular-vote deficits. She can’t change the basic narrative of the race, and, as these weeks drag by, more and more Democrats are fretting that the contest (translation: prolonged by Hillary) is hurting their prospects for November. In response, Hillary has had to spend valuable time scoffing at suggestions that she should quit. It’s not a good sign when a candidate’s basic pitch is essentially reduced to, "Vote for me so that Indiana can vote, too."
5. Without new votes to count, every new superdelegate endorsement receives greater media attention – and that’s another plus for Obama. The drip-drip continues: Bob Casey...Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar...Wyoming Gov. David Freudenthal (a former Bill Clinton administration appointee, no less) signed on yesterday...Former Montana Sen. John Melcher did the same...And so did former 9/11 Commission co-chairman Lee Hamilton. He’s not a superdelegate, but he’s a party elder with strong national security credentials who also co-helmed the Iraq Study Group...And superdelegate Jimmy Carter all but signaled yesterday that he has signed on.
6. And without new votes to count, the media watches the money. Obama just endured the worst month of his campaign, yet he still raised upwards of $40 million. That’s reportedly double the Clinton total. The word is that she also has debts in the range of $9 million – not even counting the $5 mil that she recently donated from her own bank account. Obama, again taking advantage of the calendar, is outspending Clinton by a 3-1 margin in the state where he can potentially break her campaign.
All told, Clinton may think it’s a boon to cast herself in the role of Rocky, but perhaps she forgets the plot. Rocky lost.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Gas prices and pander politics
In his bid to bond with blue-collar Pennsylvanians during the runup to the April 22 primary, Barack Obama engaged yesterday in some old-school substance-free politicking. He denounced the price of gasoline.
"Gas prices are killing folks," he said in hardscrabble Wilkes-Barre. "I got an email from a friend of mine. It says, 'just in case you're not living in the real world, being driven around by the Secret Service, it just cost me $85 to fill my tank.'" Obama continued, referring to the oil companies, "They have been in fat city for a long time. They are not necessarily putting that money into refinery capacity, which could potentially relieve some of the bottlenecks in our gasoline supply. And so that is something we have to go after. I think we can go after the windfall profits of some of these companies."
Politicians love to rail against high gas prices and Big Oil; it's easy rhetorical populism, a way to stand up for the little guy. And it's a potentially good tactic for Obama, who's trying chip away at Hillary Clinton's Pennsylvania lead by demonstrating that he's more than just a guy who wows the intelligentsia with pretty speeches; that, in fact, he also empathizes with the working stiff (especially the modest-income white male swing voter). And there's no faster route to the heart of the average Joe than a lament about pain at the pump - as he also demonstrates in a Pennsylvania TV ad.
But, dandy soundbites aside, it's basically a phony issue.
The last thing that presidential candidates want to tell voters is that, quite frankly, there is little they can actually do, once in office, to control (much less lower) the price of gas. There is an increasingly robust global market for oil these days, and America is merely one of the buyers - competing in particular with China and India, two nations with burgeoning economies and a billion people in each. With those nations driving up demand, and demonstrating an ability to pay, then the price of oil will naturally stay high. That's capitalism.
Americans like to think of themselves as Number One; woe to the politician who tries to truthfully explain the facts of life in the 21st century. Americans also believe in the right to drive their gas-guzzling SUVs; woe to the politician who tries to explain that voters themselves are actually part of the problem on the demand side. (John Zogby, the pollster, once told me a story: "My son and I went to a book party for Arianna Huffington. She waxed eloquent about the pitfalls of SUVs. everybody listened - and when we left, maybe 11 SUVs were parked outside, waiting to pick up guests. Point is, you can't call on Americans to sacrifice during a presidential campaign. That's a loser.")
Yet while demand in America and abroad has sharply increased, supply has not kept pace, for a host of reasons. Such as: OPEC, the 12-nation combine that produces roughly 40 percent of the world's oil, has barely increased its output since 1979. Ongoing civil unrest in Nigeria has hurt production there; Venezuela during the past several years has nationalized its oil fields, and its regime, which is hostile to American interests, has been routing oil to China - oil that was supposed to go to Exxon refineries in Louisiana.
But none of that makes for good campaign rhetoric. It's catchier for Obama to attack "windfall profits," as he did yesterday, or for politicians to charge Big Oil with "price gouging," as Republican politicians did several years ago. In fact, when gas prices rose in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, even President Bush asked the Federal Trade Commission to find out whether the oil companies were manipulating the market at the consumer's expense. The FTC found no such evidence. As one energy analyst drily noted in 2006, the companies weren't "price gouging"; rather, this analyst said, they were charging the highest price that the global market would accept - which is another definition of capitalism, at least in its more rapacious form.
Democrats also have a big blind spot on this issue. They'll get on the stump and call for cheaper gas prices, yet the laudable environmental measures that they champion are virtually guaranteed to drive the price higher. For instance, I remember a 45-cent spike at the pump in California five years ago, and the politicians yelled "price gouging" - while somehow overlooking the fact that the state had just enacted strict environmental rules that forced refineries to mix in two new low-pollution fuel blends. And two years ago, there was a national spike in gas prices - thanks in part to a new congressional law requiring that the oil refineries convert to cleaner fuel blends for the warmer weather, a process that slowed production and tightened supply.
Meanwhile, it's amusing these days to hear some Democrats still pine for Al Gore. Gore's whole pitch is that gas prices should be a lot higher, in order to wean more Americans from their cars; to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; to ease traffic congestion; to lower the pollution-related health risks and costs. He knows darn well that if he was ever to be a candidate again, there's no way he could say on the stump what he truly believes, not if he wants to win.
In fairness to Obama, he did call yesterday for the investment in new technologies, "so we can replace the internal combustion engine," but such a process, even if fully engaged, would require decades to complete. And many energy analysts believe that high gas prices are beneficial, because they would hasten the day when alternative fuel sources are economically viable.
That, too, is capitalism. But such talk won't work on the stump, and sure won't deliver Pennsylvania in this election cycle.
-------
But speaking of Pennsylvania, congressman John Murtha did Hillary Clinton no favors yesterday when he declared that she would win the state primary by double digits. Murtha, who has endorsed Clinton, would have been far wiser to lowball the expectations for victory - particularly since the latest polls show that the contest is tightening. One new survey even puts Obama ahead.
"Gas prices are killing folks," he said in hardscrabble Wilkes-Barre. "I got an email from a friend of mine. It says, 'just in case you're not living in the real world, being driven around by the Secret Service, it just cost me $85 to fill my tank.'" Obama continued, referring to the oil companies, "They have been in fat city for a long time. They are not necessarily putting that money into refinery capacity, which could potentially relieve some of the bottlenecks in our gasoline supply. And so that is something we have to go after. I think we can go after the windfall profits of some of these companies."
Politicians love to rail against high gas prices and Big Oil; it's easy rhetorical populism, a way to stand up for the little guy. And it's a potentially good tactic for Obama, who's trying chip away at Hillary Clinton's Pennsylvania lead by demonstrating that he's more than just a guy who wows the intelligentsia with pretty speeches; that, in fact, he also empathizes with the working stiff (especially the modest-income white male swing voter). And there's no faster route to the heart of the average Joe than a lament about pain at the pump - as he also demonstrates in a Pennsylvania TV ad.
But, dandy soundbites aside, it's basically a phony issue.
The last thing that presidential candidates want to tell voters is that, quite frankly, there is little they can actually do, once in office, to control (much less lower) the price of gas. There is an increasingly robust global market for oil these days, and America is merely one of the buyers - competing in particular with China and India, two nations with burgeoning economies and a billion people in each. With those nations driving up demand, and demonstrating an ability to pay, then the price of oil will naturally stay high. That's capitalism.
Americans like to think of themselves as Number One; woe to the politician who tries to truthfully explain the facts of life in the 21st century. Americans also believe in the right to drive their gas-guzzling SUVs; woe to the politician who tries to explain that voters themselves are actually part of the problem on the demand side. (John Zogby, the pollster, once told me a story: "My son and I went to a book party for Arianna Huffington. She waxed eloquent about the pitfalls of SUVs. everybody listened - and when we left, maybe 11 SUVs were parked outside, waiting to pick up guests. Point is, you can't call on Americans to sacrifice during a presidential campaign. That's a loser.")
Yet while demand in America and abroad has sharply increased, supply has not kept pace, for a host of reasons. Such as: OPEC, the 12-nation combine that produces roughly 40 percent of the world's oil, has barely increased its output since 1979. Ongoing civil unrest in Nigeria has hurt production there; Venezuela during the past several years has nationalized its oil fields, and its regime, which is hostile to American interests, has been routing oil to China - oil that was supposed to go to Exxon refineries in Louisiana.
But none of that makes for good campaign rhetoric. It's catchier for Obama to attack "windfall profits," as he did yesterday, or for politicians to charge Big Oil with "price gouging," as Republican politicians did several years ago. In fact, when gas prices rose in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, even President Bush asked the Federal Trade Commission to find out whether the oil companies were manipulating the market at the consumer's expense. The FTC found no such evidence. As one energy analyst drily noted in 2006, the companies weren't "price gouging"; rather, this analyst said, they were charging the highest price that the global market would accept - which is another definition of capitalism, at least in its more rapacious form.
Democrats also have a big blind spot on this issue. They'll get on the stump and call for cheaper gas prices, yet the laudable environmental measures that they champion are virtually guaranteed to drive the price higher. For instance, I remember a 45-cent spike at the pump in California five years ago, and the politicians yelled "price gouging" - while somehow overlooking the fact that the state had just enacted strict environmental rules that forced refineries to mix in two new low-pollution fuel blends. And two years ago, there was a national spike in gas prices - thanks in part to a new congressional law requiring that the oil refineries convert to cleaner fuel blends for the warmer weather, a process that slowed production and tightened supply.
Meanwhile, it's amusing these days to hear some Democrats still pine for Al Gore. Gore's whole pitch is that gas prices should be a lot higher, in order to wean more Americans from their cars; to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; to ease traffic congestion; to lower the pollution-related health risks and costs. He knows darn well that if he was ever to be a candidate again, there's no way he could say on the stump what he truly believes, not if he wants to win.
In fairness to Obama, he did call yesterday for the investment in new technologies, "so we can replace the internal combustion engine," but such a process, even if fully engaged, would require decades to complete. And many energy analysts believe that high gas prices are beneficial, because they would hasten the day when alternative fuel sources are economically viable.
That, too, is capitalism. But such talk won't work on the stump, and sure won't deliver Pennsylvania in this election cycle.
-------
But speaking of Pennsylvania, congressman John Murtha did Hillary Clinton no favors yesterday when he declared that she would win the state primary by double digits. Murtha, who has endorsed Clinton, would have been far wiser to lowball the expectations for victory - particularly since the latest polls show that the contest is tightening. One new survey even puts Obama ahead.
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Gargling the neocon Kool-Aid
I know this is not a big news story in America anymore, but the question is still worth asking:
How goes President Bush's Iraq democratization crusade these days - the same crusade that would be waged next year by John McCain?
Well, last I checked, America's fighting men and women were putting their lives on the line for the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and for the Badr Organization militia. That's been the situation during the past week, which makes you wonder why Bush bothers to insult the U.S. citizenry with his talk about how we are helping a "young democracy." This is not Thomas Jefferson and John Adams dramatized on HBO, debating constitutionalism and trading rhetorical ripostes. This is about a violent power play in the streets, with American troops caught in the middle.
Our client in Iraq, the prime minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki - whose chief ally, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, runs the Islamic Supreme Council (a political party) as well as his own militia (the aforementioned Badr Organization) - last week put his fragile political capital at risk by seeking to crack down on his Shiite rival in Basra, the militia-backed cleric Moktada al-Sadr. Local elections are scheduled for Oct. 1 in Basra, where Sadr is popular. So, the way things work in this "young democracy," Maliki made the decision to engage Sadr's Mahdi Army in street battles - with military victory as his goal, thereby presumably ensuring political victory at the polls for Maliki's allies in the Islamic Supreme Council and in his own Dawa party.
True to their shared instincts, both Bush and McCain lauded Maliki at the outset of fighting, and raised the stakes accordingly. Bush declared last Thursday that Maliki's decision to battle Sadr in the streets was "a very positive development," indeed "a defining moment" in the brief history "of a free Iraq." McCain a day later characterized Maliki's move as "a sign of the strength of his government." (If you're trying to differentiate between these two cheerleaders, here's a handy tip: Bush is the one who was roundly booed Sunday night at Washington's baseball opener.)
Not suprisingly, over the past few days we have heard nothing further from Bush and McCain about "defining moments" and government "strength" - because, as it turns out, Maliki's Iraqi security forces (the forces that we have long been training to stand up, so that we can stand down) failed in their mission to tame Sadr's fighters. Maliki had vowed to win a clear victory; instead, Sadr's militia ceded almost no ground, and fought the government forces to a standstill.
The result - for now, anyway - is a negotiated ceasefire between the rival Shiite groups that was brokered by the Shiite leaders of Iran. Sadr's militia remains virtually intact; Maliki, so recently lauded by McCain for his "strength," basically sued for peace. As a result, he lost face and political capital.
McCain's reaction? Today on CNN, he tried to characterize the ceasefire as "very helpful." Then, finally, he admitted that Maliki's military campaign, conducted by his U.S.-trained forces, "was not the success, apparently so far, that we hoped it would be."
All of which prompts these questions: Amidst all the attention being paid to the steel-cage match between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, will John McCain be closely questioned about his fealty to the ongoing Iraq fiasco - and to the Bushspeak that, for five years, has repeatedly been contradicted by the realities on the ground? Or are the Iraq realities - all those Shiite factions warring with each other, plus the discontented Sunnis - simply too complicated for most Americans?
Here are two possible scenarios for next November:
(1) Voters simply tune out the war. They have no patience to differentiate between Shiite factions or keep the names straight (see fourth paragraph). Being Americans, they prefer a clean fight with designated good guys and bad guys; denied that in Iraq, they wash their hands of the whole mess and go to the mall. They look at the candidates, and figure that maybe the one with the most military and foreign policy experience is best qualified to clean things up, whatever that means. Advantage, McCain.
(2) Voters lead busy lives and don't have the time to figure out all the factions in Iraq. So they skip to the bottom line and instinctively recognize that the constant ebb and flow of sectarian fighting, and the shellings of the supposedly safe Green Zone, are all signs of the ongoing chaos that undercuts Bush's incessant booster rhetoric - and here is McCain saying the same stuff. Advantage, Democrats.
Candidate McCain is currently embarked on a biographical tour, backed by a 60-second TV ad that culminates with the newly-freed POW reciting his Navy serial number from a hospital bed. It's powerful material that plucks traditional American chords. Assuming (just for the heck of it) that the Democrats manage not to implode this summer, the autumn race is likely to be close. And the outcome may well hinge on whether McCain's heroic profile is deemed more important by swing voters than the fact that he is Bush's echo on Iraq, still gargling the neocon Kool-Aid.
How goes President Bush's Iraq democratization crusade these days - the same crusade that would be waged next year by John McCain?
Well, last I checked, America's fighting men and women were putting their lives on the line for the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and for the Badr Organization militia. That's been the situation during the past week, which makes you wonder why Bush bothers to insult the U.S. citizenry with his talk about how we are helping a "young democracy." This is not Thomas Jefferson and John Adams dramatized on HBO, debating constitutionalism and trading rhetorical ripostes. This is about a violent power play in the streets, with American troops caught in the middle.
Our client in Iraq, the prime minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki - whose chief ally, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, runs the Islamic Supreme Council (a political party) as well as his own militia (the aforementioned Badr Organization) - last week put his fragile political capital at risk by seeking to crack down on his Shiite rival in Basra, the militia-backed cleric Moktada al-Sadr. Local elections are scheduled for Oct. 1 in Basra, where Sadr is popular. So, the way things work in this "young democracy," Maliki made the decision to engage Sadr's Mahdi Army in street battles - with military victory as his goal, thereby presumably ensuring political victory at the polls for Maliki's allies in the Islamic Supreme Council and in his own Dawa party.
True to their shared instincts, both Bush and McCain lauded Maliki at the outset of fighting, and raised the stakes accordingly. Bush declared last Thursday that Maliki's decision to battle Sadr in the streets was "a very positive development," indeed "a defining moment" in the brief history "of a free Iraq." McCain a day later characterized Maliki's move as "a sign of the strength of his government." (If you're trying to differentiate between these two cheerleaders, here's a handy tip: Bush is the one who was roundly booed Sunday night at Washington's baseball opener.)
Not suprisingly, over the past few days we have heard nothing further from Bush and McCain about "defining moments" and government "strength" - because, as it turns out, Maliki's Iraqi security forces (the forces that we have long been training to stand up, so that we can stand down) failed in their mission to tame Sadr's fighters. Maliki had vowed to win a clear victory; instead, Sadr's militia ceded almost no ground, and fought the government forces to a standstill.
The result - for now, anyway - is a negotiated ceasefire between the rival Shiite groups that was brokered by the Shiite leaders of Iran. Sadr's militia remains virtually intact; Maliki, so recently lauded by McCain for his "strength," basically sued for peace. As a result, he lost face and political capital.
McCain's reaction? Today on CNN, he tried to characterize the ceasefire as "very helpful." Then, finally, he admitted that Maliki's military campaign, conducted by his U.S.-trained forces, "was not the success, apparently so far, that we hoped it would be."
All of which prompts these questions: Amidst all the attention being paid to the steel-cage match between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, will John McCain be closely questioned about his fealty to the ongoing Iraq fiasco - and to the Bushspeak that, for five years, has repeatedly been contradicted by the realities on the ground? Or are the Iraq realities - all those Shiite factions warring with each other, plus the discontented Sunnis - simply too complicated for most Americans?
Here are two possible scenarios for next November:
(1) Voters simply tune out the war. They have no patience to differentiate between Shiite factions or keep the names straight (see fourth paragraph). Being Americans, they prefer a clean fight with designated good guys and bad guys; denied that in Iraq, they wash their hands of the whole mess and go to the mall. They look at the candidates, and figure that maybe the one with the most military and foreign policy experience is best qualified to clean things up, whatever that means. Advantage, McCain.
(2) Voters lead busy lives and don't have the time to figure out all the factions in Iraq. So they skip to the bottom line and instinctively recognize that the constant ebb and flow of sectarian fighting, and the shellings of the supposedly safe Green Zone, are all signs of the ongoing chaos that undercuts Bush's incessant booster rhetoric - and here is McCain saying the same stuff. Advantage, Democrats.
Candidate McCain is currently embarked on a biographical tour, backed by a 60-second TV ad that culminates with the newly-freed POW reciting his Navy serial number from a hospital bed. It's powerful material that plucks traditional American chords. Assuming (just for the heck of it) that the Democrats manage not to implode this summer, the autumn race is likely to be close. And the outcome may well hinge on whether McCain's heroic profile is deemed more important by swing voters than the fact that he is Bush's echo on Iraq, still gargling the neocon Kool-Aid.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Breaking bread with the vast right-wing conspiracy
While scanning the various Sunday commentaries, I stumbled across these laudatory effusions for Hillary Clinton: "...courage and confidence...political courage...impressive command...her answers were thoughtful, well-stated, and often dead-on...a very favorable (impression) indeed..."
The author of this particular newspaper editorial was Richard Mellon Scaife.
If that name doesn't ring a bell, here's some short-hand: Richard Mellon Scaife praising Hillary Clinton is roughly analagous to George Steinbrenner wearing Red Sox regalia. Or Keith Obermann vacationing with Bill O'Reilly. Or Woody Allen quoting approvingly from Mein Kampf. Or George W. Bush confessing all his screwups to Cindy Sheehan. Or some other topsy turvy notion, straight out of Bizarro World in the Superman comics.
Scaife is the reclusive rich guy who financed what Hillary once called "the vast right-wing conspiracy." She returns to that theme on page 449 of her memoir, referring to Scaife as "the reactionary billionaire who had bankrolled the long-term campaign to destroy Bill's presidency." That's basically accurate.
In late 1996, while I was researching a magazine story on the interlocking alliances of conservative Clinton-hunters, I found Scaife's fingerprints everywhere. Scaife, a western Pennsylvania heir to the Mellon fortune, financed something called "The Arkansas Project," an ambitious (and ultimately futile) effort to destroy Bill Clinton's presidency by probing his tenure as governor of Arkansas and unearthing evidence that he had run drugs and murdered people. He also funnelled money to the conservative American Spectator magazine, which at the time was hot on the trail of Bill's various Arkansas paramours.
He also funnelled money to the various conservative legal groups that offered legal advice to sexual-harassment accuser Paula Jones. He also sought to prove, via his generous largesse, that a Clinton aide who in 1993 was found to have committed suicide (Vince Foster) had actually been murdered by undetermined assassins, presumably at the behest of the Clintons. The coroner's suicide ruling was repeatedly debunked in the pages of Scaife's newspaper, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review - more on that newspaper in a moment - and Scaife himself told a magazine in 1998 that Bill was a potential murderer: "Listen, (Clinton) can order people done away with at his will. He's got the entire federal government behind him."
But Scaife was still wearing his tinfoil hat long after the Clintons left the White House. As recently as three years ago, as Hillary was gearing up to run on her own, some of the Scaife-financed conservative "news" websites were flacking a new Hillary-bashing biography written by Ed Klein, with special emphasis on the "widely rumored" whispers that Hillary was a lesbian...and that her daughter was allegedly conceived during an act of rape.
But Scaife's influence extends far beyond his anti-Clinton crusades. He has reportedly donated upwards of $1 billion (in current dollars, adjusted for inflation) to conservative causes and institutions, thereby playing an instrumental role in establishing the think tanks and publications and law firms and watchdog groups that have put liberals and Democrats at a distinct disadvantage over the past four decades. In other words, he stands for everything that the Clintons and their political compadres have long been working against. (And in 1981, when a Columbia Journalism Review reporter stopped Scaife on the street and tried to quiz him about his influence in conservative circles, he called her a "communist," along with a common pejorative slang for the female genitalia.)
Yet this very same guy, in the same Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, was gushing about Hillary in his signed commentary yesterday. And this was because Hillary herself stopped by early last week to shoot the breeze with Scaife and his editorial writers for 90 minutes. Result: "(A) lesser politician - one less aself-assured, less informed on domestic and foreign affairs, less confident of her positions - might well have canceled the interview...I have a very different impression of Hillary Clinton today than before last Tuesday's meeting - and it's a very favorable one indeed."
Nobody is quite sure why Scaife has suddenly morphed into a pussycat; there have been various reports that Scaife admires Bill's post-presidential work on global issues, or that he's boosting Hillary because he thinks she beatable in November, or he's merely trying to stick it to his estranged wife (with whom he is immersed in an ugly divorce) because she is reportedly a Barack Obama supporter. Or maybe he was sincerely dazzled last week by Hillary's wonky presentation.
Whatever. What most interests me is why Hillary decided to seek out Scaife and sit with him in the first place.
At a time when Obama is still getting grief for his long association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, it's worth debating whether Hillary can justify enlisting, as a new best friend, the same guy who has called her own husband a murderer - and whose money has long empowered the conservative movement that Hillary views as an impediment to social and economic progress. A reasonable case can be made that Richard Scaife's money has had more impact on the life of the average citizen than Jeremiah Wright's rhetoric.
Yet, as a short-term tactic, Hillary's sitdown with Scaife was arguably a smart move. Upscale liberals probably scoff at Scaife's paper, but those folks are voting for Obama anyway. Culturally conservative Democrats in western Pennsylvania are more likely to read Scaife's paper, and Hillary badly needs those people to turn out on April 22. Secondly, by declawing somebody like Scaife, the Clinton camp can float the message that she's not such a polarizer after all, that she too has the potential to unite Americans across partisan lines. (Indeed, a Clinton spokeswoman said yesterday that the candidate "has demonstrated the ability to bridge old divides and get things done. Winning over Mr. Scaife is just another example.")
But with yet another Democratic senator today declaring support for Obama - Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, the 64th superdelegate to back Obama since Feb. 5, as opposed to just nine for Clinton - it may be too late for the trailing candidate to shed her polarizing image. Scaife helped cement that image, and breaking bread with the guy won't make it go away.
-------
On the broader issue of when (or whether) candidates should (or should not) be judged by the company they keep, I wrote about the outbreak of '08 proxy scandals in my Sunday print column.
-------
And on the veracity front, this might not rank with Hillary's fantasy claim of dodging sniper fire, but nevertheless it stands as another tall tale from the trail:
Barack Obama has claimed that he owes his "very existence" to the Kennedys, because, in his telling, the legendary family provided the student scholarship money that enabled his future father to visit America in 1959 and meet his future mother. Turns out, however, that the Kennedys didn't kick in money for that particular program, which involved the airlifting of Kenyan students, until 1960.
The Obama campaign came clean yesterday. Unlike Hillary on the Bosnia falsehood, at least Obama didn't try to blame it on sleep deprivation.
The author of this particular newspaper editorial was Richard Mellon Scaife.
If that name doesn't ring a bell, here's some short-hand: Richard Mellon Scaife praising Hillary Clinton is roughly analagous to George Steinbrenner wearing Red Sox regalia. Or Keith Obermann vacationing with Bill O'Reilly. Or Woody Allen quoting approvingly from Mein Kampf. Or George W. Bush confessing all his screwups to Cindy Sheehan. Or some other topsy turvy notion, straight out of Bizarro World in the Superman comics.
Scaife is the reclusive rich guy who financed what Hillary once called "the vast right-wing conspiracy." She returns to that theme on page 449 of her memoir, referring to Scaife as "the reactionary billionaire who had bankrolled the long-term campaign to destroy Bill's presidency." That's basically accurate.
In late 1996, while I was researching a magazine story on the interlocking alliances of conservative Clinton-hunters, I found Scaife's fingerprints everywhere. Scaife, a western Pennsylvania heir to the Mellon fortune, financed something called "The Arkansas Project," an ambitious (and ultimately futile) effort to destroy Bill Clinton's presidency by probing his tenure as governor of Arkansas and unearthing evidence that he had run drugs and murdered people. He also funnelled money to the conservative American Spectator magazine, which at the time was hot on the trail of Bill's various Arkansas paramours.
He also funnelled money to the various conservative legal groups that offered legal advice to sexual-harassment accuser Paula Jones. He also sought to prove, via his generous largesse, that a Clinton aide who in 1993 was found to have committed suicide (Vince Foster) had actually been murdered by undetermined assassins, presumably at the behest of the Clintons. The coroner's suicide ruling was repeatedly debunked in the pages of Scaife's newspaper, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review - more on that newspaper in a moment - and Scaife himself told a magazine in 1998 that Bill was a potential murderer: "Listen, (Clinton) can order people done away with at his will. He's got the entire federal government behind him."
But Scaife was still wearing his tinfoil hat long after the Clintons left the White House. As recently as three years ago, as Hillary was gearing up to run on her own, some of the Scaife-financed conservative "news" websites were flacking a new Hillary-bashing biography written by Ed Klein, with special emphasis on the "widely rumored" whispers that Hillary was a lesbian...and that her daughter was allegedly conceived during an act of rape.
But Scaife's influence extends far beyond his anti-Clinton crusades. He has reportedly donated upwards of $1 billion (in current dollars, adjusted for inflation) to conservative causes and institutions, thereby playing an instrumental role in establishing the think tanks and publications and law firms and watchdog groups that have put liberals and Democrats at a distinct disadvantage over the past four decades. In other words, he stands for everything that the Clintons and their political compadres have long been working against. (And in 1981, when a Columbia Journalism Review reporter stopped Scaife on the street and tried to quiz him about his influence in conservative circles, he called her a "communist," along with a common pejorative slang for the female genitalia.)
Yet this very same guy, in the same Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, was gushing about Hillary in his signed commentary yesterday. And this was because Hillary herself stopped by early last week to shoot the breeze with Scaife and his editorial writers for 90 minutes. Result: "(A) lesser politician - one less aself-assured, less informed on domestic and foreign affairs, less confident of her positions - might well have canceled the interview...I have a very different impression of Hillary Clinton today than before last Tuesday's meeting - and it's a very favorable one indeed."
Nobody is quite sure why Scaife has suddenly morphed into a pussycat; there have been various reports that Scaife admires Bill's post-presidential work on global issues, or that he's boosting Hillary because he thinks she beatable in November, or he's merely trying to stick it to his estranged wife (with whom he is immersed in an ugly divorce) because she is reportedly a Barack Obama supporter. Or maybe he was sincerely dazzled last week by Hillary's wonky presentation.
Whatever. What most interests me is why Hillary decided to seek out Scaife and sit with him in the first place.
At a time when Obama is still getting grief for his long association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, it's worth debating whether Hillary can justify enlisting, as a new best friend, the same guy who has called her own husband a murderer - and whose money has long empowered the conservative movement that Hillary views as an impediment to social and economic progress. A reasonable case can be made that Richard Scaife's money has had more impact on the life of the average citizen than Jeremiah Wright's rhetoric.
Yet, as a short-term tactic, Hillary's sitdown with Scaife was arguably a smart move. Upscale liberals probably scoff at Scaife's paper, but those folks are voting for Obama anyway. Culturally conservative Democrats in western Pennsylvania are more likely to read Scaife's paper, and Hillary badly needs those people to turn out on April 22. Secondly, by declawing somebody like Scaife, the Clinton camp can float the message that she's not such a polarizer after all, that she too has the potential to unite Americans across partisan lines. (Indeed, a Clinton spokeswoman said yesterday that the candidate "has demonstrated the ability to bridge old divides and get things done. Winning over Mr. Scaife is just another example.")
But with yet another Democratic senator today declaring support for Obama - Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, the 64th superdelegate to back Obama since Feb. 5, as opposed to just nine for Clinton - it may be too late for the trailing candidate to shed her polarizing image. Scaife helped cement that image, and breaking bread with the guy won't make it go away.
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On the broader issue of when (or whether) candidates should (or should not) be judged by the company they keep, I wrote about the outbreak of '08 proxy scandals in my Sunday print column.
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And on the veracity front, this might not rank with Hillary's fantasy claim of dodging sniper fire, but nevertheless it stands as another tall tale from the trail:
Barack Obama has claimed that he owes his "very existence" to the Kennedys, because, in his telling, the legendary family provided the student scholarship money that enabled his future father to visit America in 1959 and meet his future mother. Turns out, however, that the Kennedys didn't kick in money for that particular program, which involved the airlifting of Kenyan students, until 1960.
The Obama campaign came clean yesterday. Unlike Hillary on the Bosnia falsehood, at least Obama didn't try to blame it on sleep deprivation.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Casey at the bat, and the brushback pitch
Big story this morning, broken by one of my colleagues: Senator Bob Casey, the ever-cautious Democratic centrist whose surname is golden among white Catholic working-class Pennsylvanians, is endorsing Barack Obama today. It's a surprise, because Casey (also a superdelegate) was expected to hang back during the runup to the April 22 primary. Theoretically, Casey will help Obama with the voters whom Obama needs most.
Endorsements don't always translate into votes, of course, and maybe Casey's nod won't make any difference in the end. Nevertheless, we can expect Hillary Clinton's message practitioners to lurch into characteristic overdrive today, maybe like this...
11:30 a.m., from the spin shop: "Senator Clinton does not need a lecture from Bob Casey about how to reach the hardworking Pennsylvanians who in four weeks will launch her on the road to a party-unifying victory at the Democratic convention. This race is ultimately about the candidates, not about endorsements. Endorsements are not important. We are pleased that Gov. Rendell and congressman John Murtha have endorsed us, and we are confident that the voters will note that importance."
1 p.m., from the spin shop: "Bob Casey lost to Ed Rendell in the 2002 gubernatorial primary, and now he is seeking to avenge his defeat by breaking ranks with the popular governor. It is regrettable that, at a time when Senator Clinton is enjoying unstoppable momentum, Bob Casey is reduced to playing partisan political games."
2 p.m., from the spin shop: "Some may suggest today that Bob Casey is attempting to settle an old score with the Clintons, by endorsing Senator Obama. Some may suggest that this endorsement is just petty payback for what happened at Bill Clinton's 1992 Democratic convention, when Casey's father, the governor of Pennsylvania, was barred from speaking because of his anti-abortion views. But today Bob Casey is not engaging in this kind of petty payback, as far as we know."
3 p.m., from the spin shop: "All endorsements by first-term senators of any state with more than 20 electoral votes, tendered before voters get the opportunity to exercise their democratic rights, should be considered automatically illegitimate. And any presidential candidate with a gift for pretty speechmaking who accepts such endorsements should be considered illegitimate."
4 p.m., an open letter to Bob Casey, from prominent donors to the Clinton campaign: "We have long been strong supporters of Democratic senatorial candidates. We request that you re-clarify your position on the Pennsylvania primary, that you keep an open mind, and that you show respect for the electoral process. If you prefer instead to disenfranchise Pennsylvania voters, we have no choice but to remember that you are up for re-election in four years. We have warned House Speaker Pelosi about the consequences of opposing Senator Clinton, and now we are warning you."
5 p.m., a special message from James Carville: "Bob Casey is Judas. Sold her out for a money bag and a fistful of silver. Not tryin’ to say that he’s a turncoat betrayer or that she’s the same as Jesus Christ, but there ya go."
6 p.m., a special message from Bill Clinton: "There's no good reason for male bullies to gang up on a girl who loves this country. Senator McCain, I know he also loves this country. I think it's a shame that others would try to disrupt an election between these two candidates who at least do love this country."
6:10 p.m., from a media availability with Hillary Clinton: "Rev. Wright, Florida. Rev. Wright, Michigan. Rev. Wright, Rev. Wright, Rev. Wright."
6:11 p.m., during a spin shop conference call with reporters: "We also think it's important to remember that Bob Casey hails from a famous political family, and, while we want to underscore our belief that this endorsement is no big deal, we do think that it shows what can happen when a political dynasty presumes to throw its weight around...(long pause)...OK, we'd like to rephrase that."
Endorsements don't always translate into votes, of course, and maybe Casey's nod won't make any difference in the end. Nevertheless, we can expect Hillary Clinton's message practitioners to lurch into characteristic overdrive today, maybe like this...
11:30 a.m., from the spin shop: "Senator Clinton does not need a lecture from Bob Casey about how to reach the hardworking Pennsylvanians who in four weeks will launch her on the road to a party-unifying victory at the Democratic convention. This race is ultimately about the candidates, not about endorsements. Endorsements are not important. We are pleased that Gov. Rendell and congressman John Murtha have endorsed us, and we are confident that the voters will note that importance."
1 p.m., from the spin shop: "Bob Casey lost to Ed Rendell in the 2002 gubernatorial primary, and now he is seeking to avenge his defeat by breaking ranks with the popular governor. It is regrettable that, at a time when Senator Clinton is enjoying unstoppable momentum, Bob Casey is reduced to playing partisan political games."
2 p.m., from the spin shop: "Some may suggest today that Bob Casey is attempting to settle an old score with the Clintons, by endorsing Senator Obama. Some may suggest that this endorsement is just petty payback for what happened at Bill Clinton's 1992 Democratic convention, when Casey's father, the governor of Pennsylvania, was barred from speaking because of his anti-abortion views. But today Bob Casey is not engaging in this kind of petty payback, as far as we know."
3 p.m., from the spin shop: "All endorsements by first-term senators of any state with more than 20 electoral votes, tendered before voters get the opportunity to exercise their democratic rights, should be considered automatically illegitimate. And any presidential candidate with a gift for pretty speechmaking who accepts such endorsements should be considered illegitimate."
4 p.m., an open letter to Bob Casey, from prominent donors to the Clinton campaign: "We have long been strong supporters of Democratic senatorial candidates. We request that you re-clarify your position on the Pennsylvania primary, that you keep an open mind, and that you show respect for the electoral process. If you prefer instead to disenfranchise Pennsylvania voters, we have no choice but to remember that you are up for re-election in four years. We have warned House Speaker Pelosi about the consequences of opposing Senator Clinton, and now we are warning you."
5 p.m., a special message from James Carville: "Bob Casey is Judas. Sold her out for a money bag and a fistful of silver. Not tryin’ to say that he’s a turncoat betrayer or that she’s the same as Jesus Christ, but there ya go."
6 p.m., a special message from Bill Clinton: "There's no good reason for male bullies to gang up on a girl who loves this country. Senator McCain, I know he also loves this country. I think it's a shame that others would try to disrupt an election between these two candidates who at least do love this country."
6:10 p.m., from a media availability with Hillary Clinton: "Rev. Wright, Florida. Rev. Wright, Michigan. Rev. Wright, Rev. Wright, Rev. Wright."
6:11 p.m., during a spin shop conference call with reporters: "We also think it's important to remember that Bob Casey hails from a famous political family, and, while we want to underscore our belief that this endorsement is no big deal, we do think that it shows what can happen when a political dynasty presumes to throw its weight around...(long pause)...OK, we'd like to rephrase that."
Thursday, March 27, 2008
More quote marks for McCain
As part of my continuing effort to persuade media colleagues to put quote marks around the word maverick when writing about John McCain, here's his latest pit stop on the flip-flop express.
Ten years ago, while burnishing the "maverick" image that has prompted so much swooning among Washington scribes, McCain styled himself as a courageous foe of the tobacco industry. He routinely condemned them and he vowed to take their money. He championed a Senate measure to slap a tax on Big Tobacco - to the tune of $1.10 per pack - and route the revenue to federal programs designed to curb underage smoking.
When Big Tobacco squawked, and vowed to spend tens of millions of dollars to stop him, McCain declared, "I'm honored by the attacks by people who have addicted our children and lied to Congress" - the latter, of course, referring to the tobacco CEOs who testified under oath about the safe, non-addictive properties of their products.
When he first announced his $1.10 tax plan, he said in a press release: "The health and well-being of America's children is a cause that transcends party affiliation."
When fellow Republicans asked McCain how he could dare push for a tax hike and still call himself a Republican, he replied on the Senate floor (June 17, 1998): "Maybe we ought to remember the obligations that we incur when we govern America. We might want to understand that our obligation first of all is to those who can't care for themselves in this society, and that includes our children. Isn't it out obligation - shouldn't it define the Republican party that we should do everything we can to handle this scourge, this disease that is rampant throughout young children in America? Doesn't that define the Republican party?"
And when fellow Republicans that day called him a tax-raiser, he replied: "This bill is not about taxes. It's about whether we're going to allow the death march of 418,000 Americans a year who die early from tobacco-related disease and do nothing."
Indeed, when McCain was asked earlier that spring on PBS whether he'd give in to his Republican critics, he replied, "Never."
Well, you guessed it. McCain has given up. Today he is against the concept of taxing Big Tobacco, after he was for it.
Right now, there's a Senate bill - nearing a vote - that would slap a 61-cent tax on every pack of butts, and earmark the money for a children's health program. But as McCain reportedly remarked at a recent policy conference, "Now help me out here: We are trying to get people not to smoke, and yet we are depending on tobacco to fund a program that's designed for children's health? I can't buy that."
Who would ever want to buy such a whacky concept? McCain did, of course, but that was in his previous incarnation. McCain 2.0 has recalibrated his convictions, bringing them more into line with Republican orthodoxy. By that standard, the idea of imposing a sin tax on a major industry - one, by the way, that gives most of its money to the Republican party - is ludicrious and, even worse, smacks of liberalism. As such, it was necessary for the "maverick" to stand down.
Ten years ago, while championing the tobacco tax, he told GOP colleagues that the vote was about "whether we're going to have the will to serve the public interest, or the special interest."
The new McCain has now given us his answer.
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Did you know that Hillary Clinton really did brave sniper fire in Bosnia, after all? See the exclusive video right here.
Ten years ago, while burnishing the "maverick" image that has prompted so much swooning among Washington scribes, McCain styled himself as a courageous foe of the tobacco industry. He routinely condemned them and he vowed to take their money. He championed a Senate measure to slap a tax on Big Tobacco - to the tune of $1.10 per pack - and route the revenue to federal programs designed to curb underage smoking.
When Big Tobacco squawked, and vowed to spend tens of millions of dollars to stop him, McCain declared, "I'm honored by the attacks by people who have addicted our children and lied to Congress" - the latter, of course, referring to the tobacco CEOs who testified under oath about the safe, non-addictive properties of their products.
When he first announced his $1.10 tax plan, he said in a press release: "The health and well-being of America's children is a cause that transcends party affiliation."
When fellow Republicans asked McCain how he could dare push for a tax hike and still call himself a Republican, he replied on the Senate floor (June 17, 1998): "Maybe we ought to remember the obligations that we incur when we govern America. We might want to understand that our obligation first of all is to those who can't care for themselves in this society, and that includes our children. Isn't it out obligation - shouldn't it define the Republican party that we should do everything we can to handle this scourge, this disease that is rampant throughout young children in America? Doesn't that define the Republican party?"
And when fellow Republicans that day called him a tax-raiser, he replied: "This bill is not about taxes. It's about whether we're going to allow the death march of 418,000 Americans a year who die early from tobacco-related disease and do nothing."
Indeed, when McCain was asked earlier that spring on PBS whether he'd give in to his Republican critics, he replied, "Never."
Well, you guessed it. McCain has given up. Today he is against the concept of taxing Big Tobacco, after he was for it.
Right now, there's a Senate bill - nearing a vote - that would slap a 61-cent tax on every pack of butts, and earmark the money for a children's health program. But as McCain reportedly remarked at a recent policy conference, "Now help me out here: We are trying to get people not to smoke, and yet we are depending on tobacco to fund a program that's designed for children's health? I can't buy that."
Who would ever want to buy such a whacky concept? McCain did, of course, but that was in his previous incarnation. McCain 2.0 has recalibrated his convictions, bringing them more into line with Republican orthodoxy. By that standard, the idea of imposing a sin tax on a major industry - one, by the way, that gives most of its money to the Republican party - is ludicrious and, even worse, smacks of liberalism. As such, it was necessary for the "maverick" to stand down.
Ten years ago, while championing the tobacco tax, he told GOP colleagues that the vote was about "whether we're going to have the will to serve the public interest, or the special interest."
The new McCain has now given us his answer.
-------
Did you know that Hillary Clinton really did brave sniper fire in Bosnia, after all? See the exclusive video right here.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Under fire, but not from snipers
Maybe she was hoping that the toy companies would agree to market a Hillary Clinton Action Figure. More likely, she was probably hoping that she could inflate her meager foreign policy experience by goading the electorate into swallowing a lie.
Now that Clinton has been exposed as a serial peddler of falsehoods, in her retelling of the 1996 visit she made to Bosnia as First Lady, it's worth noting why this campaign episode is important. She has based her increasingly desperate candidacy on the proposition that she is best qualified to be commander-in-chief at 3 a.m. on Day One, and that in turn hinges on the argument that she has passed some of the character tests that are requirements for command. Physical courage, for example.
Hence, her desire to make people believe - in direct contradiction to the facts, as captured on video - that she braved sniper fire in Bosnia. And it's not actually the lie that was most telling. It's her attempt to lie about the lie.
This week, Clinton has claimed that she merely "misspoke" when she said in a March 17 speech: "I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base." (Whereas, as the video clearly shows, she sauntered across the tarmac, bent down to engage a Bosnian child in conversation, with daughter Chelsea in tow, then continued to saunter.)
But in fact Clinton did not "misspeak" (as she insisted again yesterday on Pittsburgh radio); nor was it merely a case of being "sleep-deprived" (as she insisted yesterday in a chat with a Pittsburgh newspaper). Her March 17 remarks were scripted in advance, and even appeared in the text of the speech posted on the Clinton campaign website. It was clearly the campaign's intention to show her braving enemy fire.
Nor was it the first time that she sought to rewrite reality.
She also apparently "misspoke" in Texas on Feb. 29, when she told an audience: "I remember particularly a trip to Bosnia, where the welcoming ceremony had to be moved inside because of sniper fire." And maybe she was merely "sleep-deprived" in Iowa on Dec. 29, when she said that she and her entourage "ran out because they said there might be sniper fire. I don't remember anybody offering me tea on the tarmac."
On Dec. 29, she also told the Iowans that since the airport was too dangerous for a presidential visit, she was sent instead ("if a place was too dangerous, too small, or too poor, send the First Lady")...which, if true, prompts me to wonder why she decided to bring her daughter along. Are we supposed to believe that the Tuzla airport was too treacherous to risk Bill's life, but not Chelsea's?
Her last spin offering yesterday was a surrender of sorts. She said that she'd "made a mistake," and that "it proves I'm human." In a sense, she is right. Aspirants for the highest office are very human; by definition, they are often abnormally driven and self-absorbed and prone to believe whatever delusions leap off their tongues.
So Clinton is hardly the first to fit that profile. Ronald Reagan, whose World War II experiences never extended beyond the Hollywood lot, used to give speeches implying that his scripted roles were actually real. Lyndon Johnson, as a young congressman in 1942, flew once as an observer on a Pacific bombing mission, but the plane turned back within 13 minutes because of a faulty generator, having never reached its target - yet LBJ later claimed that (a) he had been under fire, (b) he had actually flown on many missions, and (c) the crews had nicknamed him Raider Johnson.
So you can rightly characterize this kind of bull-slinging as "human," but, really, it is something more. It is calculation. In the Bosnia case, it was a deliberate attempt to falsely inflate, by dint of repetition, the "experience" credentials that supposedly will inspire the superdelegates to overturn the verdict of Democratic primary voters...and inspire Barack Obama's delegates to abandon their pledges and flock to her banner.
Regarding the latter, she's clinging to that possibility as well, telling Time that "every delegate with very few exceptions is free to make up his or her mind however they choose. We talk a lot about so-called pledged delegates, but every delegate is expected to exercise independent judgment."
So-called pledged delegates...I suppose that tearing one's party apart in the service of personal ambition can also be categorized as very human.
-------
Speaking of very human: If you're missing the Eliot Spitzer story, and the whole topic of political sex scandals, you can journey down memory lane to the scandal that changed the rules of political reporting. That would be the Gary Hart affair, two decades ago. I wrote this freelance article, in the new issue of Smithsonian Magazine.
-------
And speaking of freelance articles, I wrote this new piece, in Obit Magazine, about the 4,000th American death an Iraq. It barely overlaps with what appeared on this blog yesterday.
Now that Clinton has been exposed as a serial peddler of falsehoods, in her retelling of the 1996 visit she made to Bosnia as First Lady, it's worth noting why this campaign episode is important. She has based her increasingly desperate candidacy on the proposition that she is best qualified to be commander-in-chief at 3 a.m. on Day One, and that in turn hinges on the argument that she has passed some of the character tests that are requirements for command. Physical courage, for example.
Hence, her desire to make people believe - in direct contradiction to the facts, as captured on video - that she braved sniper fire in Bosnia. And it's not actually the lie that was most telling. It's her attempt to lie about the lie.
This week, Clinton has claimed that she merely "misspoke" when she said in a March 17 speech: "I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base." (Whereas, as the video clearly shows, she sauntered across the tarmac, bent down to engage a Bosnian child in conversation, with daughter Chelsea in tow, then continued to saunter.)
But in fact Clinton did not "misspeak" (as she insisted again yesterday on Pittsburgh radio); nor was it merely a case of being "sleep-deprived" (as she insisted yesterday in a chat with a Pittsburgh newspaper). Her March 17 remarks were scripted in advance, and even appeared in the text of the speech posted on the Clinton campaign website. It was clearly the campaign's intention to show her braving enemy fire.
Nor was it the first time that she sought to rewrite reality.
She also apparently "misspoke" in Texas on Feb. 29, when she told an audience: "I remember particularly a trip to Bosnia, where the welcoming ceremony had to be moved inside because of sniper fire." And maybe she was merely "sleep-deprived" in Iowa on Dec. 29, when she said that she and her entourage "ran out because they said there might be sniper fire. I don't remember anybody offering me tea on the tarmac."
On Dec. 29, she also told the Iowans that since the airport was too dangerous for a presidential visit, she was sent instead ("if a place was too dangerous, too small, or too poor, send the First Lady")...which, if true, prompts me to wonder why she decided to bring her daughter along. Are we supposed to believe that the Tuzla airport was too treacherous to risk Bill's life, but not Chelsea's?
Her last spin offering yesterday was a surrender of sorts. She said that she'd "made a mistake," and that "it proves I'm human." In a sense, she is right. Aspirants for the highest office are very human; by definition, they are often abnormally driven and self-absorbed and prone to believe whatever delusions leap off their tongues.
So Clinton is hardly the first to fit that profile. Ronald Reagan, whose World War II experiences never extended beyond the Hollywood lot, used to give speeches implying that his scripted roles were actually real. Lyndon Johnson, as a young congressman in 1942, flew once as an observer on a Pacific bombing mission, but the plane turned back within 13 minutes because of a faulty generator, having never reached its target - yet LBJ later claimed that (a) he had been under fire, (b) he had actually flown on many missions, and (c) the crews had nicknamed him Raider Johnson.
So you can rightly characterize this kind of bull-slinging as "human," but, really, it is something more. It is calculation. In the Bosnia case, it was a deliberate attempt to falsely inflate, by dint of repetition, the "experience" credentials that supposedly will inspire the superdelegates to overturn the verdict of Democratic primary voters...and inspire Barack Obama's delegates to abandon their pledges and flock to her banner.
Regarding the latter, she's clinging to that possibility as well, telling Time that "every delegate with very few exceptions is free to make up his or her mind however they choose. We talk a lot about so-called pledged delegates, but every delegate is expected to exercise independent judgment."
So-called pledged delegates...I suppose that tearing one's party apart in the service of personal ambition can also be categorized as very human.
-------
Speaking of very human: If you're missing the Eliot Spitzer story, and the whole topic of political sex scandals, you can journey down memory lane to the scandal that changed the rules of political reporting. That would be the Gary Hart affair, two decades ago. I wrote this freelance article, in the new issue of Smithsonian Magazine.
-------
And speaking of freelance articles, I wrote this new piece, in Obit Magazine, about the 4,000th American death an Iraq. It barely overlaps with what appeared on this blog yesterday.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
The 4,000th death as metaphor
The occasion of the 4,000th American military death in Iraq has actually triggered something akin to a miracle on the home front, forcing people to focus anew (albeit briefly) on President Bush's historic misadventure - at the expense of ignoring (albeit briefly) the potential death spiral of the fractious Democrats.
I won't use this milestone to broadly recount how the "cakewalk" morphed into a catastrophe, or to lament on how Bush will be dropping his slop into the lap of his successor. I'll simply note the manner in which the 4000th soldier met his demise (in the company of three comrades), and suggest why the incident is a metaphor for the ill-begotten war.
The 4,000th was killed by a roadside, makeshift bomb - in military parlance, an improvised explosive device (IED). How perversely fitting. According to the Pentagon, IEDs for the first time are now responsible for a majority of American military deaths. Twenty-one percent of the first 1,000 deaths were caused by IEDs; 35 percent of the second 1,000 deaths were caused by IEDs; 46 percent of the third 1,000 deaths were caused by IEDs; for the fourth 1000 deaths, it's 54 percent.
Why the death toll? Because, as has been well documented, the Bush war planners in 2002 and 2003 did not anticipate that insurgents armed with IEDs would be an obstacle to the vaunted American military juggernaut - because they didn't forsee the possibility of an insurgency, despite CIA prewar warnings. All this, despite Bush's assurance, in an Oct. 7, 2002 speech, that "we will plan carefully" for any conflict in Iraq.
The Bush planners, in the early months of 2003, spoke instead of quick surrenders and citizens greeting us with flowers. They hinted at times of a two-week war. They never bothered to draft a plan to secure the thousands of Iraqi munitions caches, which reportedly contained as much as one million tons of explosives; as Gen. John P. Abizaid, the new chief of U.S. Central Command, confessed to Congress when the war was four months old, "I wish I could tell you that we had it all under control. We don't."
So explosives, reportedly by the tens of thousands, were spirited away from these ill-guarded munitions dumps, and, by the summer of 2003, IEDs were killing American soldiers, many of them traveling in lightly-armored Humvees that offered little defense from the blasts. Soldiers foraged on their own for scrap metal, in the hopes of shoring up their vehicles. The Pentagon set up a team to figure out how they could combat the IED epidemic; the task-force workers put up a sign on the wall that said "Stop the Bleeding."
The bleeding continued, but for several more years the Bush team didn't see the urgency. Military specialists and outside consults reportedly staged presentations on the IED issue for then-Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, the now-disbarred felon Lewis "Scooter" Libby. But the Bush team felt that training the Iraqi army was sufficient, and Cheney hewed to his belief that the insurgency was dying. These sentiments slowed Pentagon efforts to combat the IEDs by, among other things, investing in more solidly armored vehicles.
Result: In 2005, the Marines Corps' inspector general was still complaining that the 30,000 Marines in Iraq were traveling in vehicles that were no match for the IEDs. Part of the problem was that, faced with a weapon that nobody seemed to have anticipated during the runup to war, the government finally responded by flailing in all directions. At one point, 132 different government agencies were reportedly scrambling to address the IED issue, with minimal coordination among them.
The military during the past several years has become more adept at protecting the soldiers and tracking down IED bomb-makers - at a cost, during the Pentagon's current fiscal year, of at least $4.5 billion in off-budget "supplemental" funding - but, as recently as last May, the House Armed Services Committee still concluded that the anti-IED project had achieved only "marginal success."
And so the 4,000th soldier died, yet another facet of the failed Bush legacy.
I won't use this milestone to broadly recount how the "cakewalk" morphed into a catastrophe, or to lament on how Bush will be dropping his slop into the lap of his successor. I'll simply note the manner in which the 4000th soldier met his demise (in the company of three comrades), and suggest why the incident is a metaphor for the ill-begotten war.
The 4,000th was killed by a roadside, makeshift bomb - in military parlance, an improvised explosive device (IED). How perversely fitting. According to the Pentagon, IEDs for the first time are now responsible for a majority of American military deaths. Twenty-one percent of the first 1,000 deaths were caused by IEDs; 35 percent of the second 1,000 deaths were caused by IEDs; 46 percent of the third 1,000 deaths were caused by IEDs; for the fourth 1000 deaths, it's 54 percent.
Why the death toll? Because, as has been well documented, the Bush war planners in 2002 and 2003 did not anticipate that insurgents armed with IEDs would be an obstacle to the vaunted American military juggernaut - because they didn't forsee the possibility of an insurgency, despite CIA prewar warnings. All this, despite Bush's assurance, in an Oct. 7, 2002 speech, that "we will plan carefully" for any conflict in Iraq.
The Bush planners, in the early months of 2003, spoke instead of quick surrenders and citizens greeting us with flowers. They hinted at times of a two-week war. They never bothered to draft a plan to secure the thousands of Iraqi munitions caches, which reportedly contained as much as one million tons of explosives; as Gen. John P. Abizaid, the new chief of U.S. Central Command, confessed to Congress when the war was four months old, "I wish I could tell you that we had it all under control. We don't."
So explosives, reportedly by the tens of thousands, were spirited away from these ill-guarded munitions dumps, and, by the summer of 2003, IEDs were killing American soldiers, many of them traveling in lightly-armored Humvees that offered little defense from the blasts. Soldiers foraged on their own for scrap metal, in the hopes of shoring up their vehicles. The Pentagon set up a team to figure out how they could combat the IED epidemic; the task-force workers put up a sign on the wall that said "Stop the Bleeding."
The bleeding continued, but for several more years the Bush team didn't see the urgency. Military specialists and outside consults reportedly staged presentations on the IED issue for then-Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, the now-disbarred felon Lewis "Scooter" Libby. But the Bush team felt that training the Iraqi army was sufficient, and Cheney hewed to his belief that the insurgency was dying. These sentiments slowed Pentagon efforts to combat the IEDs by, among other things, investing in more solidly armored vehicles.
Result: In 2005, the Marines Corps' inspector general was still complaining that the 30,000 Marines in Iraq were traveling in vehicles that were no match for the IEDs. Part of the problem was that, faced with a weapon that nobody seemed to have anticipated during the runup to war, the government finally responded by flailing in all directions. At one point, 132 different government agencies were reportedly scrambling to address the IED issue, with minimal coordination among them.
The military during the past several years has become more adept at protecting the soldiers and tracking down IED bomb-makers - at a cost, during the Pentagon's current fiscal year, of at least $4.5 billion in off-budget "supplemental" funding - but, as recently as last May, the House Armed Services Committee still concluded that the anti-IED project had achieved only "marginal success."
And so the 4,000th soldier died, yet another facet of the failed Bush legacy.
Monday, March 24, 2008
A Hillary surrogate retrofits his convictions
It was excrutiating yesterday to watch Senator Evan Bayh audition on CNN for the job of Hillary Clinton's running mate. One of the requirements, apparently, is that the applicant must be ready and willing to scrap his convictions for the good of the team. By that measure, Bayh probably ensured his status on her short list. Assuming she ever gets the chance to wield such a list.
One of the tasks of any Clinton surrogate these days is to pick up the goalposts and move them around, with the aim of supplying Democratic superdelegates with a plausible reason why they should coronate the chronically trailing candidate. And Bayh, who is also being entrusted with delivering his state of Indiana to Clinton in the May 6 primary, spun a very creative argument on CNN.
Bayh said that the Democratic nomination should be awarded to the candidate whose primary victories, when added together, represent the most electoral votes in the November election; not coincidentally, Clinton's victorious states currently add up to 219 electoral votes, while Obama's stack up at 202. (I'm not counting meaningless Florida and Michigan, for reasons I explained on Friday.)
The absurdity of this argument - that winning big primary states is proof of November electability - is easily demonstrable; in 1980, 1988, and 2004, Jimmy Carter, Mike Dukakis, and John Kerry, respectively, all triumphed during the primaries in a number of big states with a lot of electoral votes, only to be defeated in those states by their Republican opponents in November.
But that's not what interests me most about Bayh's argument. The hypocrisy is what interests me most.
Here he was yesterday, on CNN: "...we do elect presidents based upon the Electoral College. So who carried the (primary) states with the most Electoral College votes is an important factor to consider because, ultimately, that's how we choose the president of the United States."
So Evan Bayh believes that the Electoral College should be an important determinant, both in choosing a nominee and choosing a president? Wait a sec, let's take a quick stroll down memory lane.
On Nov. 16, 2000, Bayh appeared on CNN and voiced his support for a constitution amendment eradicating the Electoral College as the means for choosing a president, and relying instead on the popular vote. He said, "I do believe that we should have popularly elected officials in our country. I think our government officials should reflect the will of the governed...we ought to try and make sure that in the future we have the person who gets the most votes hopefully will be the president."
Here he is in a speech on April 10, 2001, when he dismissed the Electoral College as outmoded: "Times have changed over the last couple hundred years, and where before we were interested in insuring that every state was adequately represented, now we are a country of people, not just of political subsidiaries. And you can make a compelling case for the direct popular election of the president. You can make a compelling case for the direct popular election of the president...I personally feel that we've moved to the point where we ought to have people choosing the president."
Here he is again five years later, in a North Carolina newspaper: "I think our president should be chosen by the majority of the American people." As for using the Electoral College to elect presidents, "I just don't think in the modern era that is appropriate."
It should also be noted that the abolition of the Electoral College has long been a Bayh family crusade; Evan's father, Birch Bayh, a long-serving Indiana senator a generation ago, has spent part of his time as elder statesman serving on reform panels that want the College gone.
Still, I have a twinge of sympathy for the younger Bayh. Politicians often retrofit their principles in accordance with the exigencies of the moment. And the moment apparently calls for desperate rhetorical measures, since Clinton is losing in the popular vote, the pledged delegate count, and has been routed in the tally of superdelegates who have made up their minds since early February.
And, in this case, Bayh is merely toeing the Clintonian line - because the candidate for whom he is currently auditioning was also apparently against the electoral-vote standard before she was for it. As Hillary said at the end of 2000, "I believe strongly that in a democracy, we should respect the will of the people and to me, that means it's time to do away with the Electoral College and move to the popular election of our president." (Hat tip for that quote to Kit Seelye of The New York Times.)
But this retrofitting doesn't work even on its own terms. Clinton's 14 winning states, totaling 219 electoral votes, includes California and New York. Those two states are worth 86 electoral votes. Those two states, in 2008, will almost certainly vote Democratic in November - no matter who wins the nomination. So, even by the electoral-vote measure that Bayh and Clinton formerly denounced, Clinton is inflating her primary season achievements.
And every day that she and her surrogates persist, the Republicans sit back and smile.
-------
Speaking of Republicans, John McCain got a helping hand yesterday from Brit Hume on Fox News. Although in the end I wonder whether Hume did him any favors.
Hume was opining about McCain's error last week about how the Shiites in Iran were supposedly training terrorists for al Qaeda (a Sunni group) and sending them into Iraq. The error was so flagrant that even fellow warrior Joe Lieberman felt compelled to correct him. But, as I mentioned here last Thursday, McCain repeated this error in several venues, thereby grossly exaggerating the al Qaeda threat in Iraq (just as Bush and Cheney routinely do).
Of course, if Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama had gone to Iraq and uttered such a jaw-dropping inaccuracy, Fox News would be running the video on every talkfest. But Hume told his viewers yesterday that, since McCain did it, it was not such a big deal.
"The mistake," Hume said, "raises not the question about his knowledgeability - we all kind of believe that he has that. The question perhaps is about his age, which is an issue...that he might have had kind of a senior moment there. And I think that's unfortunate for him."
So...It was really OK that McCain screwed up so badly on a fundamental piece of national-security info, because he was merely having a "senior moment." This is a defense? To suggest that the guy carrying the nuclear football may be prone to a "senior moment?" Better that such moments be reserved for botching the food order at the early-bird special.
One of the tasks of any Clinton surrogate these days is to pick up the goalposts and move them around, with the aim of supplying Democratic superdelegates with a plausible reason why they should coronate the chronically trailing candidate. And Bayh, who is also being entrusted with delivering his state of Indiana to Clinton in the May 6 primary, spun a very creative argument on CNN.
Bayh said that the Democratic nomination should be awarded to the candidate whose primary victories, when added together, represent the most electoral votes in the November election; not coincidentally, Clinton's victorious states currently add up to 219 electoral votes, while Obama's stack up at 202. (I'm not counting meaningless Florida and Michigan, for reasons I explained on Friday.)
The absurdity of this argument - that winning big primary states is proof of November electability - is easily demonstrable; in 1980, 1988, and 2004, Jimmy Carter, Mike Dukakis, and John Kerry, respectively, all triumphed during the primaries in a number of big states with a lot of electoral votes, only to be defeated in those states by their Republican opponents in November.
But that's not what interests me most about Bayh's argument. The hypocrisy is what interests me most.
Here he was yesterday, on CNN: "...we do elect presidents based upon the Electoral College. So who carried the (primary) states with the most Electoral College votes is an important factor to consider because, ultimately, that's how we choose the president of the United States."
So Evan Bayh believes that the Electoral College should be an important determinant, both in choosing a nominee and choosing a president? Wait a sec, let's take a quick stroll down memory lane.
On Nov. 16, 2000, Bayh appeared on CNN and voiced his support for a constitution amendment eradicating the Electoral College as the means for choosing a president, and relying instead on the popular vote. He said, "I do believe that we should have popularly elected officials in our country. I think our government officials should reflect the will of the governed...we ought to try and make sure that in the future we have the person who gets the most votes hopefully will be the president."
Here he is in a speech on April 10, 2001, when he dismissed the Electoral College as outmoded: "Times have changed over the last couple hundred years, and where before we were interested in insuring that every state was adequately represented, now we are a country of people, not just of political subsidiaries. And you can make a compelling case for the direct popular election of the president. You can make a compelling case for the direct popular election of the president...I personally feel that we've moved to the point where we ought to have people choosing the president."
Here he is again five years later, in a North Carolina newspaper: "I think our president should be chosen by the majority of the American people." As for using the Electoral College to elect presidents, "I just don't think in the modern era that is appropriate."
It should also be noted that the abolition of the Electoral College has long been a Bayh family crusade; Evan's father, Birch Bayh, a long-serving Indiana senator a generation ago, has spent part of his time as elder statesman serving on reform panels that want the College gone.
Still, I have a twinge of sympathy for the younger Bayh. Politicians often retrofit their principles in accordance with the exigencies of the moment. And the moment apparently calls for desperate rhetorical measures, since Clinton is losing in the popular vote, the pledged delegate count, and has been routed in the tally of superdelegates who have made up their minds since early February.
And, in this case, Bayh is merely toeing the Clintonian line - because the candidate for whom he is currently auditioning was also apparently against the electoral-vote standard before she was for it. As Hillary said at the end of 2000, "I believe strongly that in a democracy, we should respect the will of the people and to me, that means it's time to do away with the Electoral College and move to the popular election of our president." (Hat tip for that quote to Kit Seelye of The New York Times.)
But this retrofitting doesn't work even on its own terms. Clinton's 14 winning states, totaling 219 electoral votes, includes California and New York. Those two states are worth 86 electoral votes. Those two states, in 2008, will almost certainly vote Democratic in November - no matter who wins the nomination. So, even by the electoral-vote measure that Bayh and Clinton formerly denounced, Clinton is inflating her primary season achievements.
And every day that she and her surrogates persist, the Republicans sit back and smile.
-------
Speaking of Republicans, John McCain got a helping hand yesterday from Brit Hume on Fox News. Although in the end I wonder whether Hume did him any favors.
Hume was opining about McCain's error last week about how the Shiites in Iran were supposedly training terrorists for al Qaeda (a Sunni group) and sending them into Iraq. The error was so flagrant that even fellow warrior Joe Lieberman felt compelled to correct him. But, as I mentioned here last Thursday, McCain repeated this error in several venues, thereby grossly exaggerating the al Qaeda threat in Iraq (just as Bush and Cheney routinely do).
Of course, if Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama had gone to Iraq and uttered such a jaw-dropping inaccuracy, Fox News would be running the video on every talkfest. But Hume told his viewers yesterday that, since McCain did it, it was not such a big deal.
"The mistake," Hume said, "raises not the question about his knowledgeability - we all kind of believe that he has that. The question perhaps is about his age, which is an issue...that he might have had kind of a senior moment there. And I think that's unfortunate for him."
So...It was really OK that McCain screwed up so badly on a fundamental piece of national-security info, because he was merely having a "senior moment." This is a defense? To suggest that the guy carrying the nuclear football may be prone to a "senior moment?" Better that such moments be reserved for botching the food order at the early-bird special.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Good riddance to the rule breakers
Scanning the landscape at week's end:
There has been a paucity of commentary in this space about Florida and Michigan. And now that the Democratic do-over scenarios have evaporated, I can summarize my reaction in just two words.
Good riddance.
It's really quite simple. The Democratic National Committee, in its attempt to stop the extreme front-loading of the calendar, established rules barring those states from staging primaries in January. Both states were determined to break the rules anyway, by staging primaries in January. The DNC warned that the states would be stripped of their delegates if they broke the rules. The states ignored the threat and broke the rules. They were then stripped of their delegates. Now they have to live with the consequences. Too bad. Deal with it.
Hillary Clinton (who has taken up Michigan's cause only because she desperately needs to find ways to topple frontrunner Barack Obama) claims that this "disenfranchisement" of Michigan will hurt the Democrats in the autumn campaign against John McCain, but that's just spin from a seriously trailing candidate. Six months from now, the Democratic nominee (whoever it is) will be spending a lot of time in Michigan, talking about the kitchen-table economic issues that Michigan voters care about most, issues that typically favor the Democrats, issues that McCain is barely conversant about. Six months from now, the spat over the primary calendar will mean squat to the average Michigan voter. Six months is an eternity in politics.
Meanwhile, what a huge relief it is to learn that Florida will not be conducting a do-over primary. It's akin to getting the news that the lunatic distant cousin in your family will not be coming for Thanksgiving after all. Now we can eat in peace.
Seriously, can you imagine Florida trying to run a newfangled kind of primary, by mail or whatever, with only 60 days notice? Florida in 2000 couldn't even run a general election with four years notice. Then they brought in touchscreen machines, and, sure enough, in 2004, a state legislator in Broward County won his race by 12 votes because some new machines inexplicably failed to record the votes of 134 people; state law required a hand recount, but there was nothing to recount because the machines had no paper receipts. Then, with two more year's notice, another beaut occurred in 2006. On the Gulf coast, a congressional candidate declared victory by a margin of 369 votes; the only problem was, touchscreen machines in Sarasota County failed to record the sentiments of as many as 18,000 voters.
And today? Eight Florida counties are currently junking their touchscreens and changing over to optical-scan voting equipment...and probably wouldn't have been ready in time for any June primary do-over.
I have a smidgen of sympathy for the Florida Democratic party, because it is true that the Republican-run state legislature was primarily responsible for passing the bill that mandated a January primary date for both parties. However, the bill was co-sponsored by a Democrat, state party leaders echoed the desire for a January primary, and Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson wanted it as well. The DNC's threat to strip the delegates was always clear, and the Florida Democrats ignored it. Nor did I ever hear Hillary Clinton cry "disenfranchisement" back when she assumed she'd cruise to the nomination; it was not until this winter, when it became clear she'd need to scrounge for every vote, that she chose to make Florida a moral cause.
Today she insists that the meaningless Florida primary should be retroactively decreed a genuine victory for her, but I'll make two points about that: (1) Floridians were repeatedly warned in advance that the Jan. 29 contest was meaningless, so there's no way of knowing how many prospective voters (sympathetic to Obama or Clinton) decided to simply stay home, and (2) The playing field was tilted in Clinton's favor. Neither candidate actively campaigned in Florida, in accordance with a DNC rule, which meant that Clinton had the advantage because she was universally known already. Obama, at the time, was not. More than Clinton, he needed to be there in person. But he was not. So this imbalance skewed the vote tally as well.
So enough with Florida. We should be happy if the state simply gets its act together in time for November, with all voting machines, of whatever technological nature, in good working order.
-------
The Florida and Michigan meltdowns have further narrowed Clinton's prospects of surpassing Obama in the national popular vote and pledged delegate count. And today, another blow: New Mexico Gov. and former candidate Bill Richardson - twice a member of Bill Clinton's Cabinet - is formally endorsing Obama.
We know that generally the value of endorsements is limited; Ted Kennedy's Obama endorsement couldn't even sway Massachusetts. But Richardson's nod could matter in several ways:
1. Richardson is a superdelegate. He may well have influence over New Mexico's 11 other superdelegates. And, lest we forget, this race has devolved into a national competition for the unpledged superdelegates.
2. Richardson - a popular western governor, and an Hispanic - can help make the case to other superdelegates about Obama's electability. New Mexico has been a swing state in the last two presidential elections. Colorado and Nevada are also western states with large Hispanic populations.
3. Richardson has a lot of foreign policy experience (thanks largely to the Clintons, who must be ticked off today), and he elevates the less experienced Obama simply by the act of vetting him. And we can expect months of buzz about a prospective Obama-Richardson ticket. Which would suit Richardson just fine. And which probably played a role in his thinking.
-------
By the way, Clinton's desperation tactics are getting worse. While trying to inflate her own foreign policy credentials during a speech last Monday, she boasted that she braved "sniper fire" after landing at an airport in Bosnia in 1996. She said, "We just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles."
Now take a look at this photo, snapped on the day in question. Maybe it all depends on what the meaning of the word ran is. A candidate who is already perceived by a majority of Americans as untrustworthy probably shouldn't be spinning tall tales.
There has been a paucity of commentary in this space about Florida and Michigan. And now that the Democratic do-over scenarios have evaporated, I can summarize my reaction in just two words.
Good riddance.
It's really quite simple. The Democratic National Committee, in its attempt to stop the extreme front-loading of the calendar, established rules barring those states from staging primaries in January. Both states were determined to break the rules anyway, by staging primaries in January. The DNC warned that the states would be stripped of their delegates if they broke the rules. The states ignored the threat and broke the rules. They were then stripped of their delegates. Now they have to live with the consequences. Too bad. Deal with it.
Hillary Clinton (who has taken up Michigan's cause only because she desperately needs to find ways to topple frontrunner Barack Obama) claims that this "disenfranchisement" of Michigan will hurt the Democrats in the autumn campaign against John McCain, but that's just spin from a seriously trailing candidate. Six months from now, the Democratic nominee (whoever it is) will be spending a lot of time in Michigan, talking about the kitchen-table economic issues that Michigan voters care about most, issues that typically favor the Democrats, issues that McCain is barely conversant about. Six months from now, the spat over the primary calendar will mean squat to the average Michigan voter. Six months is an eternity in politics.
Meanwhile, what a huge relief it is to learn that Florida will not be conducting a do-over primary. It's akin to getting the news that the lunatic distant cousin in your family will not be coming for Thanksgiving after all. Now we can eat in peace.
Seriously, can you imagine Florida trying to run a newfangled kind of primary, by mail or whatever, with only 60 days notice? Florida in 2000 couldn't even run a general election with four years notice. Then they brought in touchscreen machines, and, sure enough, in 2004, a state legislator in Broward County won his race by 12 votes because some new machines inexplicably failed to record the votes of 134 people; state law required a hand recount, but there was nothing to recount because the machines had no paper receipts. Then, with two more year's notice, another beaut occurred in 2006. On the Gulf coast, a congressional candidate declared victory by a margin of 369 votes; the only problem was, touchscreen machines in Sarasota County failed to record the sentiments of as many as 18,000 voters.
And today? Eight Florida counties are currently junking their touchscreens and changing over to optical-scan voting equipment...and probably wouldn't have been ready in time for any June primary do-over.
I have a smidgen of sympathy for the Florida Democratic party, because it is true that the Republican-run state legislature was primarily responsible for passing the bill that mandated a January primary date for both parties. However, the bill was co-sponsored by a Democrat, state party leaders echoed the desire for a January primary, and Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson wanted it as well. The DNC's threat to strip the delegates was always clear, and the Florida Democrats ignored it. Nor did I ever hear Hillary Clinton cry "disenfranchisement" back when she assumed she'd cruise to the nomination; it was not until this winter, when it became clear she'd need to scrounge for every vote, that she chose to make Florida a moral cause.
Today she insists that the meaningless Florida primary should be retroactively decreed a genuine victory for her, but I'll make two points about that: (1) Floridians were repeatedly warned in advance that the Jan. 29 contest was meaningless, so there's no way of knowing how many prospective voters (sympathetic to Obama or Clinton) decided to simply stay home, and (2) The playing field was tilted in Clinton's favor. Neither candidate actively campaigned in Florida, in accordance with a DNC rule, which meant that Clinton had the advantage because she was universally known already. Obama, at the time, was not. More than Clinton, he needed to be there in person. But he was not. So this imbalance skewed the vote tally as well.
So enough with Florida. We should be happy if the state simply gets its act together in time for November, with all voting machines, of whatever technological nature, in good working order.
-------
The Florida and Michigan meltdowns have further narrowed Clinton's prospects of surpassing Obama in the national popular vote and pledged delegate count. And today, another blow: New Mexico Gov. and former candidate Bill Richardson - twice a member of Bill Clinton's Cabinet - is formally endorsing Obama.
We know that generally the value of endorsements is limited; Ted Kennedy's Obama endorsement couldn't even sway Massachusetts. But Richardson's nod could matter in several ways:
1. Richardson is a superdelegate. He may well have influence over New Mexico's 11 other superdelegates. And, lest we forget, this race has devolved into a national competition for the unpledged superdelegates.
2. Richardson - a popular western governor, and an Hispanic - can help make the case to other superdelegates about Obama's electability. New Mexico has been a swing state in the last two presidential elections. Colorado and Nevada are also western states with large Hispanic populations.
3. Richardson has a lot of foreign policy experience (thanks largely to the Clintons, who must be ticked off today), and he elevates the less experienced Obama simply by the act of vetting him. And we can expect months of buzz about a prospective Obama-Richardson ticket. Which would suit Richardson just fine. And which probably played a role in his thinking.
-------
By the way, Clinton's desperation tactics are getting worse. While trying to inflate her own foreign policy credentials during a speech last Monday, she boasted that she braved "sniper fire" after landing at an airport in Bosnia in 1996. She said, "We just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles."
Now take a look at this photo, snapped on the day in question. Maybe it all depends on what the meaning of the word ran is. A candidate who is already perceived by a majority of Americans as untrustworthy probably shouldn't be spinning tall tales.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
The intellect versus the visceral
Millions of Americans, and certainly the media commentariat, were bedazzled by Barack Obama's eloquent and gutsy plea for racial reconciliation. Forty-eight hours later, however, it's time to return to the nuts and bolts world of practical politics - as distasteful as this exercise may be - and ask whether his speech has erased the questions voters might have concerning his relationship with the Rev. Jerimiah Wright. Is he in the clear, or not?
Not.
Ideally, from Obama's perspective, his speech would be read in its entirety by one and all, thereby magically transforming our civic dialogue and human nature itself. Americans of all racial and ideological persuasions would suddenly rise above their basest petty suspicions and march together on the high road. Our politicians would travel that path as well, aiming their messages at the intellect, not the gut.
But here in the real world, where the 17th-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes once ruminated about the "nasty, brutish" nature of our species; a world where journalists are expected to probe rather than swoon; a world where many voters will always be guided by their visceral instincts, certain nagging questions about the Obama-Wright connection still remain:
1. Why did Obama wait until his speech to admit that, yes, he had indeed heard Wright utter incendiary remarks during church sermons - after previously claiming that he had not heard anything of the sort? Why is he now characterizing certain Wright remarks as inflammatory and even ignorant, whereas, in Ohio earlier this month, he said that "I don't think my church is actually particularly controversial"? These questions go to the issue of credibility.
2. What specific incendiary remarks did he personally listen to, and did he ever make it clear to Wright or other church leaders that those remarks were inappropriate or worse? What provocative comments, uttered when he was not in attendance, did he nevertheless learn about, and did he lodge any private protests against them? As an influential Illinois political leader, did he ever share any concerns with fellow congregants? These questions go to the issues of character, judgment, and leadership.
Obama did explain, at some length in his speech the other day, that Wright's rhetorical excesses should be viewed in a broader context, as the bitter utterances of an African American who grew to manhood at a time when whites were systematically relegating blacks to second-class status. It was a worthy argument. However, a lot of white working-class voters will not embrace that argument; fairly or not, a lot of them don't want to hear anymore about how blacks were suppressed in the past. Obama's argument may play well with highly-educated white liberals in the Philadelphia suburbs - but not with lunch-bucket whites in northeast Philadelphia and in the downtrodden towns that are the swing battlegrounds in the April 22 Pennsylvania primary. That's just reality.
His full speech text was an appeal to the intellect, but the short-hand version of this affair packs a visceral punch. Some voters will simply reduce it all to a few sentences: Why didn't Obama, upon hearing something vile or hateful, simply get up and walk out? How could Obama stick by a reverend who stands in the pulpit and says "God damn America?"
(Dick Morris, the ex-Clinton pollster, suggested the other day that Obama stuck with Wright for old fashioned earthbound political reasons: "Because he's a black Chicago politician who comes from a mixed marriage and went to Columbia and Harvard. Suspected of not being black enough or sufficiently tied to the minority community, he needed the networking opportunities Wright afforded him in his church to get elected. If he had not risen to the top of Chicago black politics, we would never have heard of him. But obviously, he can't say that.")
Anyway, I suspect that these questions will also be a concern for many Jewish voters, particularly those who are strong supporters of Israel and who are now aware that Wright once accused Israel of practicing "state terrorism against the Palestianians." Jewish voters may not be particularly numerous - just three or four percent of the national electorate - but they are highly concentrated in the big electoral states, and they are loyal Democratic donors. They will also vote heavily in Philadelphia and its suburbs on April 22 - the region where Obama needs overwhelming support.
Obviously, they're not all obsessed with Israel. My point is that, if Obama has any hopes of winning Pennsylvania, or blunting Hillary Clinton's victory margin, he can ill afford any erosion in the populous southeastern corner of the state. And it's worth noting that, according to the exit polls thus far, Clinton has bested Obama among Jewish voters, 52 to 46 percent.
William Galston, a longtime Democratic activist/scholar who likes Obama, nevertheless addressed Jewish concerns in an online commentary the other day: "I attend a small synagogue in Washington D.C. When my rabbi says something controversial, the entire congregation quickly learns about it. Members who are offended do not remain silent. They often reprove him. Some threaten to leave unless he apologizes and changes course. A few have left to join other congregations...Successful leaders must know when to draw lines and say no. They must accept that, as they do so, they will leave some people out and make enemies...I do not believe Senator Obama yet understands how questionable (his refusal to reject Wright) appears to many Americans..."
All told, Galston wrote, these nagging concerns "present a window on his character and help us judge what kind of president he would be." And the problem for Obama is that there are few other windows available. He is so new to the national scene, and still such a blank slate to so many low-information voters, that an issue this visceral becomes all the more magnified. His words on Tuesday were magnificient, but one speech can't remake the world.
Not.
Ideally, from Obama's perspective, his speech would be read in its entirety by one and all, thereby magically transforming our civic dialogue and human nature itself. Americans of all racial and ideological persuasions would suddenly rise above their basest petty suspicions and march together on the high road. Our politicians would travel that path as well, aiming their messages at the intellect, not the gut.
But here in the real world, where the 17th-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes once ruminated about the "nasty, brutish" nature of our species; a world where journalists are expected to probe rather than swoon; a world where many voters will always be guided by their visceral instincts, certain nagging questions about the Obama-Wright connection still remain:
1. Why did Obama wait until his speech to admit that, yes, he had indeed heard Wright utter incendiary remarks during church sermons - after previously claiming that he had not heard anything of the sort? Why is he now characterizing certain Wright remarks as inflammatory and even ignorant, whereas, in Ohio earlier this month, he said that "I don't think my church is actually particularly controversial"? These questions go to the issue of credibility.
2. What specific incendiary remarks did he personally listen to, and did he ever make it clear to Wright or other church leaders that those remarks were inappropriate or worse? What provocative comments, uttered when he was not in attendance, did he nevertheless learn about, and did he lodge any private protests against them? As an influential Illinois political leader, did he ever share any concerns with fellow congregants? These questions go to the issues of character, judgment, and leadership.
Obama did explain, at some length in his speech the other day, that Wright's rhetorical excesses should be viewed in a broader context, as the bitter utterances of an African American who grew to manhood at a time when whites were systematically relegating blacks to second-class status. It was a worthy argument. However, a lot of white working-class voters will not embrace that argument; fairly or not, a lot of them don't want to hear anymore about how blacks were suppressed in the past. Obama's argument may play well with highly-educated white liberals in the Philadelphia suburbs - but not with lunch-bucket whites in northeast Philadelphia and in the downtrodden towns that are the swing battlegrounds in the April 22 Pennsylvania primary. That's just reality.
His full speech text was an appeal to the intellect, but the short-hand version of this affair packs a visceral punch. Some voters will simply reduce it all to a few sentences: Why didn't Obama, upon hearing something vile or hateful, simply get up and walk out? How could Obama stick by a reverend who stands in the pulpit and says "God damn America?"
(Dick Morris, the ex-Clinton pollster, suggested the other day that Obama stuck with Wright for old fashioned earthbound political reasons: "Because he's a black Chicago politician who comes from a mixed marriage and went to Columbia and Harvard. Suspected of not being black enough or sufficiently tied to the minority community, he needed the networking opportunities Wright afforded him in his church to get elected. If he had not risen to the top of Chicago black politics, we would never have heard of him. But obviously, he can't say that.")
Anyway, I suspect that these questions will also be a concern for many Jewish voters, particularly those who are strong supporters of Israel and who are now aware that Wright once accused Israel of practicing "state terrorism against the Palestianians." Jewish voters may not be particularly numerous - just three or four percent of the national electorate - but they are highly concentrated in the big electoral states, and they are loyal Democratic donors. They will also vote heavily in Philadelphia and its suburbs on April 22 - the region where Obama needs overwhelming support.
Obviously, they're not all obsessed with Israel. My point is that, if Obama has any hopes of winning Pennsylvania, or blunting Hillary Clinton's victory margin, he can ill afford any erosion in the populous southeastern corner of the state. And it's worth noting that, according to the exit polls thus far, Clinton has bested Obama among Jewish voters, 52 to 46 percent.
William Galston, a longtime Democratic activist/scholar who likes Obama, nevertheless addressed Jewish concerns in an online commentary the other day: "I attend a small synagogue in Washington D.C. When my rabbi says something controversial, the entire congregation quickly learns about it. Members who are offended do not remain silent. They often reprove him. Some threaten to leave unless he apologizes and changes course. A few have left to join other congregations...Successful leaders must know when to draw lines and say no. They must accept that, as they do so, they will leave some people out and make enemies...I do not believe Senator Obama yet understands how questionable (his refusal to reject Wright) appears to many Americans..."
All told, Galston wrote, these nagging concerns "present a window on his character and help us judge what kind of president he would be." And the problem for Obama is that there are few other windows available. He is so new to the national scene, and still such a blank slate to so many low-information voters, that an issue this visceral becomes all the more magnified. His words on Tuesday were magnificient, but one speech can't remake the world.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
John McCain, congregant in the church of Bush
I'm just wondering. Which of these affiliations is worse: Barack Obama and his pastor...or John McCain and his president?
The 24/7 story du jour continues to be Obama-Wright, but let us at least briefly pause to ponder the McCain-Bush connection. Because I would argue that McCain's fealty to the lame-duck Decider who launched a needless war based on false premises (at a current cost of 4000 American dead and three quarters of a trillion dollars) is at least as worrisome for America as Obama's fealty to a preacher who talks fast and loose.
And yesterday, buried beneath the news about Obama's speech, we got a vivid reminder that when McCain opens his mouth about Iraq, Bushspeak dribbles out.
Bush's penchant, over the past few years, has been to characterize all anti-American combatants in Iraq as "al Qaeda" - even though, as has long been documented, only a fraction of those combatants have any ties to Osama bin Laden's organization. Bush's conflation of all fighters into "al Qaeda" has allowed him to maintain the implicit link to 9/11 (a falsehood still embraced by a healthy minority of credulous Americans), and has enabled him, with some success, to paint all Democratic dissenters as soft on Osama bin Laden, thereby forestalling any fundamental change in America's overall strategy.
McCain worships in the same church, where fact-averse sermons have become commonplace these past eight years. Yesterday in Iraq, McCain stated: "Well, it's common knowledge, and has been reported in the media, that al Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training, and are coming back into Iraq from Iran. That's well known."
OK, here we go, just as we always do with Bush: It's actually not common knowledge, it has not been reported in the media, and it is not well known. Because McCain's whole statement was false.
Iran is a 90 percent Shiite nation. The al Qaeda organization is Sunni. Iran, according to the U.S. government, is indeed making mischief across the border by sending in Shiite extremists (thanks to the war we launched, which toppled the Sunni dictator who had kept the Iranian Shiites at bay), but that has nothing to do with al Qaeda.
Note the certitudes in McCain's remark, about how it's "well known" and "common knowledge." That's the way Bush's mentor, Dick Cheney, and Bush's chief war planner, Donald Rumsfeld, used to talk when they would claim that there was "bulletproof" incontrovertible evidence of Hussein-al Qaeda-WMD complicity.
It speaks volumes about the strength of the Bush-McCain mind meld that McCain had to be corrected, on the spot, by, of all people, uber-hawk Joe Lieberman. Lieberman whispered in McCain's ear, whereupon McCain said, "I'm sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al Qaeda." And shortly afterwards, a McCain spokesman said, "John McCain misspoke and immediately corrected himself."
The problem is, McCain said the same thing this week on conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt's radio show: "As you know, there are al Qaeda operatives that are taken back into Iran, given training as leaders, and they’re moving back into Iraq." Hewitt, naturally, didn't question this remark; talk-show hosts on the right have long been acclimated to accept Bushspeak as synonymous with empirical truth.
And McCain used the same rhetorical conflation on Monday, when he assailed Hillary Clinton for daring to suggest in a speech that perhaps a new Iraq strategy might be worth trying. Referring to her speech, he said: "So I just think what that means is al Qaeda wins...And their dedication is to follow us home."
That's verbatim from the Bush playbook - the idea that all new ideas must be summarily shot down, lest we give aid and comfort to "al Qaeda"; the implication that any Democrat who dares discuss a pullback of troops is enabling "al Qaeda."
All this Bushspeak from McCain, despite the inconvenient fact that the offshoot group known as al Qaeda in Iraq did not exist until Bush's invasion gave it a reason to be formed. All these Bush echoes from McCain, despite the documentation that Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda never had traction under Hussein; indeed, as the Republican-run Senate Intelligence Committee concluded back in September 2006, Hussein was "distrustful of al Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al Qaeda to provide material or operational support."
Perhaps McCain's verbatim allegience to Bush - and its core relevence to the '08 election - is dismissed merely as an old story, lacking the visceral power of the race issue. But I have yet to hear Barack Obama utter so much as a single verbatim phrase from the reverend's incendiary playbook.
The 24/7 story du jour continues to be Obama-Wright, but let us at least briefly pause to ponder the McCain-Bush connection. Because I would argue that McCain's fealty to the lame-duck Decider who launched a needless war based on false premises (at a current cost of 4000 American dead and three quarters of a trillion dollars) is at least as worrisome for America as Obama's fealty to a preacher who talks fast and loose.
And yesterday, buried beneath the news about Obama's speech, we got a vivid reminder that when McCain opens his mouth about Iraq, Bushspeak dribbles out.
Bush's penchant, over the past few years, has been to characterize all anti-American combatants in Iraq as "al Qaeda" - even though, as has long been documented, only a fraction of those combatants have any ties to Osama bin Laden's organization. Bush's conflation of all fighters into "al Qaeda" has allowed him to maintain the implicit link to 9/11 (a falsehood still embraced by a healthy minority of credulous Americans), and has enabled him, with some success, to paint all Democratic dissenters as soft on Osama bin Laden, thereby forestalling any fundamental change in America's overall strategy.
McCain worships in the same church, where fact-averse sermons have become commonplace these past eight years. Yesterday in Iraq, McCain stated: "Well, it's common knowledge, and has been reported in the media, that al Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training, and are coming back into Iraq from Iran. That's well known."
OK, here we go, just as we always do with Bush: It's actually not common knowledge, it has not been reported in the media, and it is not well known. Because McCain's whole statement was false.
Iran is a 90 percent Shiite nation. The al Qaeda organization is Sunni. Iran, according to the U.S. government, is indeed making mischief across the border by sending in Shiite extremists (thanks to the war we launched, which toppled the Sunni dictator who had kept the Iranian Shiites at bay), but that has nothing to do with al Qaeda.
Note the certitudes in McCain's remark, about how it's "well known" and "common knowledge." That's the way Bush's mentor, Dick Cheney, and Bush's chief war planner, Donald Rumsfeld, used to talk when they would claim that there was "bulletproof" incontrovertible evidence of Hussein-al Qaeda-WMD complicity.
It speaks volumes about the strength of the Bush-McCain mind meld that McCain had to be corrected, on the spot, by, of all people, uber-hawk Joe Lieberman. Lieberman whispered in McCain's ear, whereupon McCain said, "I'm sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al Qaeda." And shortly afterwards, a McCain spokesman said, "John McCain misspoke and immediately corrected himself."
The problem is, McCain said the same thing this week on conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt's radio show: "As you know, there are al Qaeda operatives that are taken back into Iran, given training as leaders, and they’re moving back into Iraq." Hewitt, naturally, didn't question this remark; talk-show hosts on the right have long been acclimated to accept Bushspeak as synonymous with empirical truth.
And McCain used the same rhetorical conflation on Monday, when he assailed Hillary Clinton for daring to suggest in a speech that perhaps a new Iraq strategy might be worth trying. Referring to her speech, he said: "So I just think what that means is al Qaeda wins...And their dedication is to follow us home."
That's verbatim from the Bush playbook - the idea that all new ideas must be summarily shot down, lest we give aid and comfort to "al Qaeda"; the implication that any Democrat who dares discuss a pullback of troops is enabling "al Qaeda."
All this Bushspeak from McCain, despite the inconvenient fact that the offshoot group known as al Qaeda in Iraq did not exist until Bush's invasion gave it a reason to be formed. All these Bush echoes from McCain, despite the documentation that Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda never had traction under Hussein; indeed, as the Republican-run Senate Intelligence Committee concluded back in September 2006, Hussein was "distrustful of al Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al Qaeda to provide material or operational support."
Perhaps McCain's verbatim allegience to Bush - and its core relevence to the '08 election - is dismissed merely as an old story, lacking the visceral power of the race issue. But I have yet to hear Barack Obama utter so much as a single verbatim phrase from the reverend's incendiary playbook.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Wright, race, and the post-racial campaign
Barack Obama delivered a remarkable speech this morning in Philadelphia, directly tackling the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy with daring arguments and nuanced historical context rarely heard on the American campaign stump.
He challenged white voters to better understand the roots of black anger. He challenged black voters to move beyond their sometimes "shocking ignorance." All told, Obama sought in his ambitious address to deliver tough love to both sides of the racial divide, while simultaneously trying to appeal to the better angels of our nature. I know that the Robert Kennedy analogies have gotten a heavy workout in recent months; this speech, however, was an RFK classic, and I'm old enough to remember that '68 campaign.
Was Obama effective? That will depend on how it is received, particularly by the millions of white voters who, in the midst of forming their first impressions of Obama, may have been spooked by Wright's most incendiary remarks. Indeed, Obama's immediate audience was probably the white working-class, culturally conservative voters who may prove pivotal in the April 22 Pennsylvania primary; a lot of those folks undoubtedly were not charmed to learn that Obama's favorite pastor, for two decades, was a guy who intoned "God damn America" from the pulpit.
Obama clearly needed to put his firm imprint on this burgeoning dispute; to spin it to his advantage; to squelch the nagging questions about what he as a congregant had heard or not heard; to explain Wright and rhetoric and race in a way that would fit with the overarching narrative of his aspirationally post-racial campaign. Above all, he needed to supplant the video images of a ranting Wright with fresh clips of himself speaking to the issue without apology, and with his sights still fixed on the high road.
The speech was effective, if only in the sense that he accomplished most of those goals. For starters, he 'fessed up that he indeed had heard Wright say some loopy stuff during Sunday sermons: "Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely..."
Then he laid out his disagreements: "(Sometimes Wright) expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam. As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems..." Moreover, some of Wright's comments have "denigrated the greatness and goodness of our nation."
Skeptical white voters, listening to those passages, might still wonder whether Obama had ever protested to Wright in private. Obama did not address that question. And Obama is still open to the flip-flop charge, since, just a few days ago, he had suggested that none of Wright's strongest rhetoric (perhaps slogans such as "US of KKK A") had ever directly reached his ears...whereas now he says some of it did, albeit unspecified. But at least, by confronting the awareness question, Obama may avoid being nagged further on that front.
But one of his trickiest tasks was to rebuke Wright for sounding insufficiently patriotic (thereby reclaiming the flag for himself), without sounding as if he was throwing Wright under the bus in the service of his own political ambitions. So he said that Wright has a good side that doesn't show up on YouTube, that Wright is an ex-Marine who "has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over 30 years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS."
Most importantly - and this was his challenge to white voters - Wright was shaped, for better or worse, by his experiences growing up in an America segregated by race, an America where blacks were relegated to second-class status: "For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table...And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning."
This was gutsy stuff, perhaps impolitic. It's always risky to tell white voters that they are willfully clueless about how black people really feel. Although Obama also made sure that he honored the legitimate grievances of the white working stiff: "They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense."
But Obama also challenged his own brethren, the heart of his political base, by suggesting that the harsh rhetoric in black churches is too often a dead end: "The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America...That anger...all too often distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change...It means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans - the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny."
Then he pivoted to the high road, challenging all sides: "For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words...
"We can do that. But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change. That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, 'Not this time.'"
One hardy piece of political advice is: Cut your losses, and turn things to your advantage. Obama today tried just that, to knock down a bad story and challenge the electorate in a manner consistent with his core campaign theme. I won't hazard a guess on whether he succeeded; the risk is that too many skeptics will cherry-pick the passages that tick them off, and ignore the rest. But Obama's future as a potentially transformative politician may hinge on the outcome.
-------
Tonight, I'll be in the CNN studio in New York, for Campbell Brown's show (8 to 9 pm). No doubt I will be asked something about the Obama speech, and maybe I can find something new to say.
He challenged white voters to better understand the roots of black anger. He challenged black voters to move beyond their sometimes "shocking ignorance." All told, Obama sought in his ambitious address to deliver tough love to both sides of the racial divide, while simultaneously trying to appeal to the better angels of our nature. I know that the Robert Kennedy analogies have gotten a heavy workout in recent months; this speech, however, was an RFK classic, and I'm old enough to remember that '68 campaign.
Was Obama effective? That will depend on how it is received, particularly by the millions of white voters who, in the midst of forming their first impressions of Obama, may have been spooked by Wright's most incendiary remarks. Indeed, Obama's immediate audience was probably the white working-class, culturally conservative voters who may prove pivotal in the April 22 Pennsylvania primary; a lot of those folks undoubtedly were not charmed to learn that Obama's favorite pastor, for two decades, was a guy who intoned "God damn America" from the pulpit.
Obama clearly needed to put his firm imprint on this burgeoning dispute; to spin it to his advantage; to squelch the nagging questions about what he as a congregant had heard or not heard; to explain Wright and rhetoric and race in a way that would fit with the overarching narrative of his aspirationally post-racial campaign. Above all, he needed to supplant the video images of a ranting Wright with fresh clips of himself speaking to the issue without apology, and with his sights still fixed on the high road.
The speech was effective, if only in the sense that he accomplished most of those goals. For starters, he 'fessed up that he indeed had heard Wright say some loopy stuff during Sunday sermons: "Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely..."
Then he laid out his disagreements: "(Sometimes Wright) expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam. As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems..." Moreover, some of Wright's comments have "denigrated the greatness and goodness of our nation."
Skeptical white voters, listening to those passages, might still wonder whether Obama had ever protested to Wright in private. Obama did not address that question. And Obama is still open to the flip-flop charge, since, just a few days ago, he had suggested that none of Wright's strongest rhetoric (perhaps slogans such as "US of KKK A") had ever directly reached his ears...whereas now he says some of it did, albeit unspecified. But at least, by confronting the awareness question, Obama may avoid being nagged further on that front.
But one of his trickiest tasks was to rebuke Wright for sounding insufficiently patriotic (thereby reclaiming the flag for himself), without sounding as if he was throwing Wright under the bus in the service of his own political ambitions. So he said that Wright has a good side that doesn't show up on YouTube, that Wright is an ex-Marine who "has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over 30 years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS."
Most importantly - and this was his challenge to white voters - Wright was shaped, for better or worse, by his experiences growing up in an America segregated by race, an America where blacks were relegated to second-class status: "For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table...And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning."
This was gutsy stuff, perhaps impolitic. It's always risky to tell white voters that they are willfully clueless about how black people really feel. Although Obama also made sure that he honored the legitimate grievances of the white working stiff: "They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense."
But Obama also challenged his own brethren, the heart of his political base, by suggesting that the harsh rhetoric in black churches is too often a dead end: "The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America...That anger...all too often distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change...It means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans - the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny."
Then he pivoted to the high road, challenging all sides: "For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words...
"We can do that. But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change. That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, 'Not this time.'"
One hardy piece of political advice is: Cut your losses, and turn things to your advantage. Obama today tried just that, to knock down a bad story and challenge the electorate in a manner consistent with his core campaign theme. I won't hazard a guess on whether he succeeded; the risk is that too many skeptics will cherry-pick the passages that tick them off, and ignore the rest. But Obama's future as a potentially transformative politician may hinge on the outcome.
-------
Tonight, I'll be in the CNN studio in New York, for Campbell Brown's show (8 to 9 pm). No doubt I will be asked something about the Obama speech, and maybe I can find something new to say.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Obama plays by the Friday Rule
Barack Obama says he's a new kind of politician, but, when necessary, he knows how to play by the old unwritten rules. One such rule decrees: Always release bad news on a Friday, when the news audience is arguably the smallest.
And so, last Friday, there were two developments. Obama told the Chicago Tribune that, hey, you know what, as a matter of fact, it must have slipped his mind, but his former buddy, the indicted real estate hustler Tony Rezko, actually had raised a lot more money for his political campaigns than he had previously stated. Obama had said that Rezko, prior to being collared by the feds on corruption charges, had raised $150,000 for his first three political races; but late Friday, Obama said it was actually $250,000.
With respect to a particularly nagging question - why would Obama agree to let Rezko help him swing a deal for his new home in 2005, at a time when Rezko was under federal investigation? - Obama told the Tribune that, as a matter of fact, he had asked Rezko about his questionable dealings while the house deal was being worked out...and Rezko had basically shrugged off Obama's concerns. Which apparently was good enough for Obama; as he told the Tribune late Friday, "my instinct was to believe him."
So Obama gave Rezko the benefit of the doubt. And it was also clear, in another Friday development, that he had given his pastor, the Rev. Jerimiah Wright, the benefit of the doubt.
In a statement posted online Friday, Obama essentially said that he knew nothing about Wright's most provocative sermons, such as the time Wright essentially blamed America for 9/11 and the time Wright suggested that the phrase "God damn America" was preferable to "God bless America." Obama's key line: "(Those) were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation." But there was a lot of wiggle room in that sentence. Had he not heard about the controversial preachings from others, at the time? He now says that those preachings were "inflammatory and appalling," but did he believe that at the time?
In other words, with respect to both Rezko and Wright, what matters more: his contemporaneous behavior, or his after-the-fact statements issued in accordance with the Friday Rule? Most importantly, I'm just asking: Do these episodes provide insights into Obama's character? Do they tell us anything important about Obama's judgment?
If what happened in Iowa this weekened is any guide, however, the Rezko and Wright affairs probably won't damage Obama among Democratic activists. Twenty four hours after his Friday disclosures, Obama actually picked up more delegates, thereby widening his national lead over Hillary Clinton. Such were the results Saturday at the Iowa county conventions.
I know, you thought Iowa was all over. But the January caucuses were actually only the first step toward delegate selection; phase two occurred at the county level. And apparently, Obama gained as many as nine new adherents - primarily refugees from the defunct John Edwards campaign. As one Iowa participant reportedly remarked, "If (Wright's words) didn't come out of (Obama's) mouth, I don't care about it."
But, as I mentioned Friday, the Wright factor may matter more down the road. As a nominee, Obama would need the working-class white Democrats who are currently voting for Hillary Clinton. If many of these voters come to believe (or are encouraged to believe) that Obama had chosen to be willfully oblivious about, among other things, "God damn America," the '08 autumn showdown with John McCain could be extremely close.
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Catching up on old stories the other day, I ran across this paragraph, buried deep within a March 10 article about the Clinton campaign's internal turmoil:
"Mrs. Clinton showed a tendency toward an insular management style, relying on a coterie of aides who have worked for her for years, her aides and associates said. Her choice of lieutenants, and her insistence on staying with them even when friends urged her to shake things up, was blamed by some associates for the campaign’s woes. Again and again, the senator was portrayed as a manager who valued loyalty and familiarity over experience and expertise."
Insular...sticking with inept aides...valuing loyalty over expertise...
Gee. Does that sound like anybody we know?
By the way, one of the most underreported stories lately is how Clinton's lead over Obama, among superdelegates, has steadily eroded since early February. According to trackings by CBS News and The New York Times, 303 superdelegates had declared for a candidate back on Feb. 2; of those declarants, Clinton was ahead by a margin of 105 (204 to 99). Contrast that to March 14, when 322.5 had declared a preference (superdelegates affiliated with Democrats living abroad get half a vote each); on that date, according to the trackers, Clinton's margin was down to only 20.5 (221 to 201.5).
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Here's the quote of the weekend, seeking to explain why the Republican prospects for winning back the House and Senate seem so dim: "It's no mystery. You have a very unhappy electorate, which is no surprise, with oil at $108 a barrel, stocks down a few thousand points, a war in Iraq with no end in sight and a president who is still very, very unpopular. He's just killed the Republican brand."
He's just killed the Republican brand...Those are the words of Tom Davis, a prominent House Republican. And the reason that Davis felt free to speak so boldly is because he's bailing out of the House. It's amazing how the happy prospect of voluntary retirement will sometimes inspire a lame-duck politician to commit candor.
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Speaking of Iraq, this week the war is five years old. McCain, who continues to get a free ride from Democrats, thanks to their obsession with their own troubles, is touring Iraq as we speak (in his role as senator, thereby allowing him to make a de facto campaign stop on the taxpayer's dime). Meanwhile, I offered some thoughts on that ignominious milestone in a Sunday print column, sort of a mordant tone poem.
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In recent years, The New York Times has been embarrassed by staffers who made stuff up (Jayson Blair), and wrote phony WMD stories on page one (Judith Miller). So I found it puzzling, several months ago, that the paper would hire, as an op-ed columnist, neoconservative Bill Kristol, whose hawkish whoppers on behalf of the Iraq war have long been documented. (Among many examples, here he is in 2003: "There’s been a certain amount of pop psychology in America...that the Shia can’t get along with the Sunni, and that the Shia in Iraq just want to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. There’s almost no evidence of that at all.")
There are many quality conservative columnists; I am a George Will fan, for instance. The problem with hiring an ideologue, however, is that you give up a certain amount of journalistic quality control. In his very first column, he misattributed a quote to the wrong conservative ally. And yesterday, more importantly, Kristol, in his eagerness to tie Obama to Wright, stated in his Sunday column that Obama had been seated in the congregation last July 22 during one provocative Wright sermon. Kristol attributed this information to a report from journalist Ron Kessler; however, he did not tell readers that Kessler's story had appeared on Newsmax, which is one of those fevered right-wing websites that is - how shall I put this delicately - known primarily serving up red meat.
Anyway, it turns out that Obama was actually in Florida last July 22, addressing an Hispanic organization, and not in the Trinity Church; there is even a YouTube clip from his speech that day. Kessler, meanwhile, had based his own report on a single source who has now backed away from his original claim. And this statement now tops his column, as it appears online: "The Obama campaign has provided information showing that Senator Obama did not attend Trinity that day. I regret the error."
Perhaps a certain institution, by lowering its journalistic standards, should also be expressing regret.
And so, last Friday, there were two developments. Obama told the Chicago Tribune that, hey, you know what, as a matter of fact, it must have slipped his mind, but his former buddy, the indicted real estate hustler Tony Rezko, actually had raised a lot more money for his political campaigns than he had previously stated. Obama had said that Rezko, prior to being collared by the feds on corruption charges, had raised $150,000 for his first three political races; but late Friday, Obama said it was actually $250,000.
With respect to a particularly nagging question - why would Obama agree to let Rezko help him swing a deal for his new home in 2005, at a time when Rezko was under federal investigation? - Obama told the Tribune that, as a matter of fact, he had asked Rezko about his questionable dealings while the house deal was being worked out...and Rezko had basically shrugged off Obama's concerns. Which apparently was good enough for Obama; as he told the Tribune late Friday, "my instinct was to believe him."
So Obama gave Rezko the benefit of the doubt. And it was also clear, in another Friday development, that he had given his pastor, the Rev. Jerimiah Wright, the benefit of the doubt.
In a statement posted online Friday, Obama essentially said that he knew nothing about Wright's most provocative sermons, such as the time Wright essentially blamed America for 9/11 and the time Wright suggested that the phrase "God damn America" was preferable to "God bless America." Obama's key line: "(Those) were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation." But there was a lot of wiggle room in that sentence. Had he not heard about the controversial preachings from others, at the time? He now says that those preachings were "inflammatory and appalling," but did he believe that at the time?
In other words, with respect to both Rezko and Wright, what matters more: his contemporaneous behavior, or his after-the-fact statements issued in accordance with the Friday Rule? Most importantly, I'm just asking: Do these episodes provide insights into Obama's character? Do they tell us anything important about Obama's judgment?
If what happened in Iowa this weekened is any guide, however, the Rezko and Wright affairs probably won't damage Obama among Democratic activists. Twenty four hours after his Friday disclosures, Obama actually picked up more delegates, thereby widening his national lead over Hillary Clinton. Such were the results Saturday at the Iowa county conventions.
I know, you thought Iowa was all over. But the January caucuses were actually only the first step toward delegate selection; phase two occurred at the county level. And apparently, Obama gained as many as nine new adherents - primarily refugees from the defunct John Edwards campaign. As one Iowa participant reportedly remarked, "If (Wright's words) didn't come out of (Obama's) mouth, I don't care about it."
But, as I mentioned Friday, the Wright factor may matter more down the road. As a nominee, Obama would need the working-class white Democrats who are currently voting for Hillary Clinton. If many of these voters come to believe (or are encouraged to believe) that Obama had chosen to be willfully oblivious about, among other things, "God damn America," the '08 autumn showdown with John McCain could be extremely close.
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Catching up on old stories the other day, I ran across this paragraph, buried deep within a March 10 article about the Clinton campaign's internal turmoil:
"Mrs. Clinton showed a tendency toward an insular management style, relying on a coterie of aides who have worked for her for years, her aides and associates said. Her choice of lieutenants, and her insistence on staying with them even when friends urged her to shake things up, was blamed by some associates for the campaign’s woes. Again and again, the senator was portrayed as a manager who valued loyalty and familiarity over experience and expertise."
Insular...sticking with inept aides...valuing loyalty over expertise...
Gee. Does that sound like anybody we know?
By the way, one of the most underreported stories lately is how Clinton's lead over Obama, among superdelegates, has steadily eroded since early February. According to trackings by CBS News and The New York Times, 303 superdelegates had declared for a candidate back on Feb. 2; of those declarants, Clinton was ahead by a margin of 105 (204 to 99). Contrast that to March 14, when 322.5 had declared a preference (superdelegates affiliated with Democrats living abroad get half a vote each); on that date, according to the trackers, Clinton's margin was down to only 20.5 (221 to 201.5).
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Here's the quote of the weekend, seeking to explain why the Republican prospects for winning back the House and Senate seem so dim: "It's no mystery. You have a very unhappy electorate, which is no surprise, with oil at $108 a barrel, stocks down a few thousand points, a war in Iraq with no end in sight and a president who is still very, very unpopular. He's just killed the Republican brand."
He's just killed the Republican brand...Those are the words of Tom Davis, a prominent House Republican. And the reason that Davis felt free to speak so boldly is because he's bailing out of the House. It's amazing how the happy prospect of voluntary retirement will sometimes inspire a lame-duck politician to commit candor.
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Speaking of Iraq, this week the war is five years old. McCain, who continues to get a free ride from Democrats, thanks to their obsession with their own troubles, is touring Iraq as we speak (in his role as senator, thereby allowing him to make a de facto campaign stop on the taxpayer's dime). Meanwhile, I offered some thoughts on that ignominious milestone in a Sunday print column, sort of a mordant tone poem.
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In recent years, The New York Times has been embarrassed by staffers who made stuff up (Jayson Blair), and wrote phony WMD stories on page one (Judith Miller). So I found it puzzling, several months ago, that the paper would hire, as an op-ed columnist, neoconservative Bill Kristol, whose hawkish whoppers on behalf of the Iraq war have long been documented. (Among many examples, here he is in 2003: "There’s been a certain amount of pop psychology in America...that the Shia can’t get along with the Sunni, and that the Shia in Iraq just want to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. There’s almost no evidence of that at all.")
There are many quality conservative columnists; I am a George Will fan, for instance. The problem with hiring an ideologue, however, is that you give up a certain amount of journalistic quality control. In his very first column, he misattributed a quote to the wrong conservative ally. And yesterday, more importantly, Kristol, in his eagerness to tie Obama to Wright, stated in his Sunday column that Obama had been seated in the congregation last July 22 during one provocative Wright sermon. Kristol attributed this information to a report from journalist Ron Kessler; however, he did not tell readers that Kessler's story had appeared on Newsmax, which is one of those fevered right-wing websites that is - how shall I put this delicately - known primarily serving up red meat.
Anyway, it turns out that Obama was actually in Florida last July 22, addressing an Hispanic organization, and not in the Trinity Church; there is even a YouTube clip from his speech that day. Kessler, meanwhile, had based his own report on a single source who has now backed away from his original claim. And this statement now tops his column, as it appears online: "The Obama campaign has provided information showing that Senator Obama did not attend Trinity that day. I regret the error."
Perhaps a certain institution, by lowering its journalistic standards, should also be expressing regret.
Friday, March 14, 2008
The thread of truth in the web of lies
If Barack Obama wins the Democratic nomination, his longtime church pastor is going to be a big political headache.
Most voters won't hold Obama responsible for the Rev. Jerimiah Wright's most provocative pulpit pronunciamentos. Most voters won't automatically assume that Obama shares the views expressed at the Trinity United Church of Christ. But for those voters who are prone to believe that Obama is insufficiently American, or a Muslim foreign agent who is bent of destroying America from within, certain Wright rhetorical tidbits will fit the profile just fine.
From 2003: "The government gives (blacks) drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."
From 2006: "America is still the No. 1 killer in the world...We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns, and the training of professional killers...We bombed Cambodia, Iraq and Nicaragua, killing women and children while trying to get public opinion turned against Castro and Ghadhafi...We supported Zionism shamelessly while ignoring the Palestinians and branding anybody who spoke out against it as being anti-Semitic...We care nothing about human life if the end justifies the means...We started the AIDS virus..."
From 2001, five days after 9/11: "We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."
Those excerpts are a treasure trove for voters who want to believe the worst about Obama. (The Obama-as-Muslim scenario is actually contradicted by the fact that Wright's church is Christian, but this will be overlooked.) I can foresee the circulation of this kind of meta-rumor: "Barack Obama, who was schooled as a Muslim in a foreign country and who was sworn into office on a Koran, and who refuses to wear an American flag pin or place his hand on his heart during the Pledge of Allegience, has for 20 years entrusted his soul on Sundays to a pastor who rails against 'God damn America,' attacks Israel, and blames our own country for 9/11."
And I know first-hand that the rumors have legs; if anything, the rumors have metastisized. One emailer wrote me yesterday: "I know someone who watched the debates. According to this person, at the start of the one debate she said that Obama just stood there during the Pledge of Allegiance while the other candidates placed their hands over their hearts. I have been looking for video of this ever since. Have you seen this?" I wrote back to say that, if Obama had ever behaved that way on national television, at the start of a presidential debate, we would all have been talking about it. I told her that this particular rumor was just a new form of the old Pledge of Allegiance lie that has been circulating for many months.
But back to the Wright factor. When ABC News aired a segment on Wright yesterday morning, a Obama spokesman said that the candidate "does not think of the pastor of his church in political terms. Like a member of his family, there are things (Wright) says with which Sen. Obama deeply disagrees. But now that he is (newly) retired, that doesn't detract from Se. Obama's affection for Rev. Wright, or his appreciation for the good works he has done."
And here's Obama himself, quoted yesterday in a Pittsburgh paper: "This is a pastor who is on the brink of retirement who in the past has made some controversial statements. I profoundly disagree with some of these statements. Obviously, I disagree with (the 9/11 sermon). Here is what happens when you just cherry-pick statements from a guy who had a 40-year career as a pastor. There are times when people say things that are just wrong. But I think it's important to judge me on what I've said in the past and what I believe."
Most voters probably accept that line of reasoning. But it's not just the paranoid who could pose problems for Obama. Many Jewish voters have been slow to embrace Obama - in the exit polls thus far, they reportedly have favored Hillary Clinton by six percentage points - in part because they too have heard the rumors and seen the viral emails. Wright's remarks championing the Palestinians as victims of "state terrorism" will further compel Obama to spend more time allaying their concerns.
Jewish voters are a fraction of the electorate, but they are disproportionately strong in the biggest electoral states. For instance, if senior Jewish Floridians Florida cherry-pick some of the false rumors and tie them to Wright's documented words, Obama as nominee could face serious obstacles in that crucial state. It needs to be remembered that a grand lie is often spun from a thread of truth.
Obama's whole campaign is a daring appeal to our better angels; the problem is that some people are often prepared to believe the worst. Obama is merely battling Hillary Clinton at the moment; if he wins the nomination, he will be battling the basest impulses of human nature.
Most voters won't hold Obama responsible for the Rev. Jerimiah Wright's most provocative pulpit pronunciamentos. Most voters won't automatically assume that Obama shares the views expressed at the Trinity United Church of Christ. But for those voters who are prone to believe that Obama is insufficiently American, or a Muslim foreign agent who is bent of destroying America from within, certain Wright rhetorical tidbits will fit the profile just fine.
From 2003: "The government gives (blacks) drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."
From 2006: "America is still the No. 1 killer in the world...We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns, and the training of professional killers...We bombed Cambodia, Iraq and Nicaragua, killing women and children while trying to get public opinion turned against Castro and Ghadhafi...We supported Zionism shamelessly while ignoring the Palestinians and branding anybody who spoke out against it as being anti-Semitic...We care nothing about human life if the end justifies the means...We started the AIDS virus..."
From 2001, five days after 9/11: "We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."
Those excerpts are a treasure trove for voters who want to believe the worst about Obama. (The Obama-as-Muslim scenario is actually contradicted by the fact that Wright's church is Christian, but this will be overlooked.) I can foresee the circulation of this kind of meta-rumor: "Barack Obama, who was schooled as a Muslim in a foreign country and who was sworn into office on a Koran, and who refuses to wear an American flag pin or place his hand on his heart during the Pledge of Allegience, has for 20 years entrusted his soul on Sundays to a pastor who rails against 'God damn America,' attacks Israel, and blames our own country for 9/11."
And I know first-hand that the rumors have legs; if anything, the rumors have metastisized. One emailer wrote me yesterday: "I know someone who watched the debates. According to this person, at the start of the one debate she said that Obama just stood there during the Pledge of Allegiance while the other candidates placed their hands over their hearts. I have been looking for video of this ever since. Have you seen this?" I wrote back to say that, if Obama had ever behaved that way on national television, at the start of a presidential debate, we would all have been talking about it. I told her that this particular rumor was just a new form of the old Pledge of Allegiance lie that has been circulating for many months.
But back to the Wright factor. When ABC News aired a segment on Wright yesterday morning, a Obama spokesman said that the candidate "does not think of the pastor of his church in political terms. Like a member of his family, there are things (Wright) says with which Sen. Obama deeply disagrees. But now that he is (newly) retired, that doesn't detract from Se. Obama's affection for Rev. Wright, or his appreciation for the good works he has done."
And here's Obama himself, quoted yesterday in a Pittsburgh paper: "This is a pastor who is on the brink of retirement who in the past has made some controversial statements. I profoundly disagree with some of these statements. Obviously, I disagree with (the 9/11 sermon). Here is what happens when you just cherry-pick statements from a guy who had a 40-year career as a pastor. There are times when people say things that are just wrong. But I think it's important to judge me on what I've said in the past and what I believe."
Most voters probably accept that line of reasoning. But it's not just the paranoid who could pose problems for Obama. Many Jewish voters have been slow to embrace Obama - in the exit polls thus far, they reportedly have favored Hillary Clinton by six percentage points - in part because they too have heard the rumors and seen the viral emails. Wright's remarks championing the Palestinians as victims of "state terrorism" will further compel Obama to spend more time allaying their concerns.
Jewish voters are a fraction of the electorate, but they are disproportionately strong in the biggest electoral states. For instance, if senior Jewish Floridians Florida cherry-pick some of the false rumors and tie them to Wright's documented words, Obama as nominee could face serious obstacles in that crucial state. It needs to be remembered that a grand lie is often spun from a thread of truth.
Obama's whole campaign is a daring appeal to our better angels; the problem is that some people are often prepared to believe the worst. Obama is merely battling Hillary Clinton at the moment; if he wins the nomination, he will be battling the basest impulses of human nature.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
The latest Clinton Keystone spin
On a conference call with journalists late this morning, the Clinton spinners basically spelled out their strategy for wresting the nomination away from Barack Obama. The overlapping items:
1. Market the April 22 Pennsylvania primary as the most important event on the political calendar between now and the August convention, on the assumption that Hillary will win it.
2. Market Pennsylvania as a microcosmic cross-section of America itself, on the assumption that Hillary will win it.
3. Market the Pennsylvania primary as a bellwether contest that will demonstrate which candidate is best positioned to win the general election. On the assumption that Hillary will win it.
4. Pile up the largest possible victory margin in Pennsylvania, in the hope that, by the end of the primary season, and with Florida and Michigan perhaps re-voting, Hillary can wipe out Obama's national lead in the popular vote.
Mark Penn, the chief strategist and pollster, pushed the first item vociferously ("this is an incredibly important state"). Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter cited a recent Obama campaign memo which seemed to indicate that Obama was just as focused on some of the states that vote in May; indeed, the Clinton team will float the notion that Obama is insufficiently committed to competing in Pennsylvania and is therefore insulting Pennsylvanians. Nutter suggested that Obama will be satisfied to merely play "political rope a dope" in the state.
But this spin was later undercut - inadvertently, of course - by the ever-locquacious governor, Ed Rendell. During the conference call, he mentioned in passing that Obama has hired one of Rendell's former political lieutenants to work the state, a smart ground-game guy who helped Rendell win both of his gubernatorial races. Rendell then told us that Obama, by making such a hire, would be "formidable" in Pennsylvania. Which prompts me to wonder: why would Obama bother to hire that strategist if he wasn't planning to take the primary seriously?
(Obama, on his plane this morning: "We will go there, we will campaign vigorously, we will spend money, we will have staff on the ground, I will spend a lot of days in Pennsylvania...we’re going to compete actively and we want to try to win the state like we tried to win every other state...We think they’re all important, and Pennsylvania is important. Now we do think the other nine states afterwards are also important, so we’re going to be spending time there as well, but there’s no notion whatsoever that we are ceding Pennsylvania. We’re going to try to compete there as hard as we can." He has also agreed to debate Clinton in Philadelphia on April 16.)
Anyway, regarding items two and three: The Clinton people - making their electability argument to fence-sitting superdelegates nationwide - want to frame the Pennsylvania primary as a mini-general election. Their pitch is that if Hillary wins the primary, it means that she'd win the state in November (yes, it's a critical state in any winning Democratic scenario); and if Obama loses the primary, it means that he'd lose the state in November.
They're conveniently forgetting something: The state's primary electorate differs greatly from the state's general electorate. The primary is closed to independents - one of Obama's strongest constituencies. Which means that Hillary has a structural advantage on April 22. It's a different deal in November, when all can participate; independent voters are likely to swing the state, and, although the Clinton spinners are loathe to say this, Hillary is far less popular among independents than Obama. That has proven to be true in virtually every open primary.
Rendell, at one point, had to partially concede that an Obama loss in the primary would not necessarily foreshadow an Obama defeat in November: "Nobody is saying that Barack Obama would definitely lose Pennsylvania in the fall. Absolutely not."
Rendell also tackled item four. Clearly, the Clinton team does not want to be in the position of asking the superdelegates to overturn the verdict of the primary electorate. (And a good thing, too, since that would tear the party apart.) They seem to grasp that it would be bad PR to wrest the nomination away from the guy who has more pledged delegates and more popular votes. So since it will be nearly impossible to pass Obama in the delegate count, the goal is to surpass him in popular votes. That way, at least the Clinton team would have something they could wave at the superdelegates. Rendell has already teed up the talking point: "Which is more democratic - to give the nomination to (the winner of) the popular vote...or to the leader in pledged delegates?"
There were other matter of interest (aside from spokesman Howard Wolfson's deadpan observation that Geraldine Ferraro "is no longer a member of the campaign's finance committee"). Wolfson was asked about a new poll that shows Clinton leading Obama by 18 points in the Pennsylvania primary - yet shows Obama performing better than Clinton in an autumn matchup in Pennsylvania. Doesn't that contradict item three? His response: "Different polls show different things."
Also, Wolfson was asked how, having built up the importance of Pennsylvania, the Clinton campaign would react if Obama winds up winning the primary. Would that mean the Democratic race is effectively over?
Uh, well, he said, the Obama campaign "would publicly promote that notion." Then more stalling: "Should Senator Obama be successful, that's obviously a decision voters should make." (Whatever that means.) Then, finally, "if our optimism is not borne out, we can revisit the question."
Translation: If they lose Pennsylvania, they'll just move the goalposts again.
1. Market the April 22 Pennsylvania primary as the most important event on the political calendar between now and the August convention, on the assumption that Hillary will win it.
2. Market Pennsylvania as a microcosmic cross-section of America itself, on the assumption that Hillary will win it.
3. Market the Pennsylvania primary as a bellwether contest that will demonstrate which candidate is best positioned to win the general election. On the assumption that Hillary will win it.
4. Pile up the largest possible victory margin in Pennsylvania, in the hope that, by the end of the primary season, and with Florida and Michigan perhaps re-voting, Hillary can wipe out Obama's national lead in the popular vote.
Mark Penn, the chief strategist and pollster, pushed the first item vociferously ("this is an incredibly important state"). Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter cited a recent Obama campaign memo which seemed to indicate that Obama was just as focused on some of the states that vote in May; indeed, the Clinton team will float the notion that Obama is insufficiently committed to competing in Pennsylvania and is therefore insulting Pennsylvanians. Nutter suggested that Obama will be satisfied to merely play "political rope a dope" in the state.
But this spin was later undercut - inadvertently, of course - by the ever-locquacious governor, Ed Rendell. During the conference call, he mentioned in passing that Obama has hired one of Rendell's former political lieutenants to work the state, a smart ground-game guy who helped Rendell win both of his gubernatorial races. Rendell then told us that Obama, by making such a hire, would be "formidable" in Pennsylvania. Which prompts me to wonder: why would Obama bother to hire that strategist if he wasn't planning to take the primary seriously?
(Obama, on his plane this morning: "We will go there, we will campaign vigorously, we will spend money, we will have staff on the ground, I will spend a lot of days in Pennsylvania...we’re going to compete actively and we want to try to win the state like we tried to win every other state...We think they’re all important, and Pennsylvania is important. Now we do think the other nine states afterwards are also important, so we’re going to be spending time there as well, but there’s no notion whatsoever that we are ceding Pennsylvania. We’re going to try to compete there as hard as we can." He has also agreed to debate Clinton in Philadelphia on April 16.)
Anyway, regarding items two and three: The Clinton people - making their electability argument to fence-sitting superdelegates nationwide - want to frame the Pennsylvania primary as a mini-general election. Their pitch is that if Hillary wins the primary, it means that she'd win the state in November (yes, it's a critical state in any winning Democratic scenario); and if Obama loses the primary, it means that he'd lose the state in November.
They're conveniently forgetting something: The state's primary electorate differs greatly from the state's general electorate. The primary is closed to independents - one of Obama's strongest constituencies. Which means that Hillary has a structural advantage on April 22. It's a different deal in November, when all can participate; independent voters are likely to swing the state, and, although the Clinton spinners are loathe to say this, Hillary is far less popular among independents than Obama. That has proven to be true in virtually every open primary.
Rendell, at one point, had to partially concede that an Obama loss in the primary would not necessarily foreshadow an Obama defeat in November: "Nobody is saying that Barack Obama would definitely lose Pennsylvania in the fall. Absolutely not."
Rendell also tackled item four. Clearly, the Clinton team does not want to be in the position of asking the superdelegates to overturn the verdict of the primary electorate. (And a good thing, too, since that would tear the party apart.) They seem to grasp that it would be bad PR to wrest the nomination away from the guy who has more pledged delegates and more popular votes. So since it will be nearly impossible to pass Obama in the delegate count, the goal is to surpass him in popular votes. That way, at least the Clinton team would have something they could wave at the superdelegates. Rendell has already teed up the talking point: "Which is more democratic - to give the nomination to (the winner of) the popular vote...or to the leader in pledged delegates?"
There were other matter of interest (aside from spokesman Howard Wolfson's deadpan observation that Geraldine Ferraro "is no longer a member of the campaign's finance committee"). Wolfson was asked about a new poll that shows Clinton leading Obama by 18 points in the Pennsylvania primary - yet shows Obama performing better than Clinton in an autumn matchup in Pennsylvania. Doesn't that contradict item three? His response: "Different polls show different things."
Also, Wolfson was asked how, having built up the importance of Pennsylvania, the Clinton campaign would react if Obama winds up winning the primary. Would that mean the Democratic race is effectively over?
Uh, well, he said, the Obama campaign "would publicly promote that notion." Then more stalling: "Should Senator Obama be successful, that's obviously a decision voters should make." (Whatever that means.) Then, finally, "if our optimism is not borne out, we can revisit the question."
Translation: If they lose Pennsylvania, they'll just move the goalposts again.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Archie Bunker at the kitchen sink
As Hillary Clinton falls farther behind the frontrunner - her delegate gains last week have been wiped out, courtesy of Barack Obama's landslide wins in Wyoming on Saturday and Mississippi last night; she has received 700,000 fewer popular votes; in the pledged delegate count, she trails by roughly 160 - one can only imagine what new rhetorical weapons she will unleash upon Obama, as part of her "kitchen sink" strategy.
But whatever she comes up with, it may be hard for her to top Geraldine Ferraro. When last seen on the national stage, 24 years ago, veep candidate Ferraro worked with presidential nominee Walter Mondale to lose 49 states in a Ronald Reagan landslide. Today, she's a Clinton surrogate and member in good standing of Clinton's finance committee. In that capacity, she's trying to do her part to diminish Obama before it's too late.
Her apparent tactic of choice is to morph into Archie Bunker.
As I briefly referenced late yesterday, Ferraro told a California newspaper the other day that "if Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position." And, as I also noted, her assertion reminded me of something that baseball pitcher Bob Feller said 62 years ago about Jackie Robinson, shortly before Robinson broke the color line: "If he were a white man, I doubt that they would even consider him as big league material."
In 1946, after Robinson signed a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers, whites typically sought to denigrate the notion that he had risen on his own merits (notably, his rare athletic gifts). They typically argued, as Feller did, that he was in favor only because he was black - a bizarre argument, since at the time the number of blacks playing big-league baseball totaled exactly zero.
Now consider Ferraro's remark. By attributing Obama's strong position to the color of his skin, she is denigrating his rare political gifts - all of which have actually enabled him to transcend the de facto color barrier that, until now, has prevented black candidates from ascending to the top tier.
Or look at it this way: If Obama is indeed well positioned in this campaign primarily because he is black, why is it that no black has ever achieved this position before?
It's tragic for the Democratic party that one of its pioneer feminists would sound like Archie Bunker in his easy chair on All in the Family, grousing about affirmative action, about how blacks are getting a leg up solely because of their race. Because this is the message of reverse racism, widely embraced by whites who believe that they're getting a raw deal in an unfair modern world. (Witness Ferraro's anger at being criticized for her Obama remark; her latest retort is, "I really think they're attacking me because I'm white.")
Clinton has characterized Ferraro's remark as "regrettable," but that's basically the extent of it. In fact, I bet the Clinton camp doesn't mind at all that her lament has gained wide circulation. For proof, just consider the political landscape in Pennsylvania, and her current political requirements:
Clinton needs to roll up a huge popular vote victory on April 22, if she hopes to make even a dent in Obama's national delegate lead. To trump Obama's expected victory margin in Philadelphia (blacks and white liberals), and perhaps in the Philadelphia suburbs (affluent, highly educated white liberals), Clinton needs a huge outpouring of support, elsewhere in the state, from working-class and culturally conservative whites. That's a sizeable demographic in Pennsylvania; accurately or not, a lot of those folks believe that blacks have unfair advantages in today's society. And, with respect to Ferraro's remark, if they can be encouraged to assess Obama not on his merits, but as an affirmative action symbol, all the better for Clinton.
But even if Clinton somehow manages to get the nomination in this fashion, I wonder whether she will be able to eradicate all the dirt that has accumulated in the kitchen sink.
But whatever she comes up with, it may be hard for her to top Geraldine Ferraro. When last seen on the national stage, 24 years ago, veep candidate Ferraro worked with presidential nominee Walter Mondale to lose 49 states in a Ronald Reagan landslide. Today, she's a Clinton surrogate and member in good standing of Clinton's finance committee. In that capacity, she's trying to do her part to diminish Obama before it's too late.
Her apparent tactic of choice is to morph into Archie Bunker.
As I briefly referenced late yesterday, Ferraro told a California newspaper the other day that "if Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position." And, as I also noted, her assertion reminded me of something that baseball pitcher Bob Feller said 62 years ago about Jackie Robinson, shortly before Robinson broke the color line: "If he were a white man, I doubt that they would even consider him as big league material."
In 1946, after Robinson signed a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers, whites typically sought to denigrate the notion that he had risen on his own merits (notably, his rare athletic gifts). They typically argued, as Feller did, that he was in favor only because he was black - a bizarre argument, since at the time the number of blacks playing big-league baseball totaled exactly zero.
Now consider Ferraro's remark. By attributing Obama's strong position to the color of his skin, she is denigrating his rare political gifts - all of which have actually enabled him to transcend the de facto color barrier that, until now, has prevented black candidates from ascending to the top tier.
Or look at it this way: If Obama is indeed well positioned in this campaign primarily because he is black, why is it that no black has ever achieved this position before?
It's tragic for the Democratic party that one of its pioneer feminists would sound like Archie Bunker in his easy chair on All in the Family, grousing about affirmative action, about how blacks are getting a leg up solely because of their race. Because this is the message of reverse racism, widely embraced by whites who believe that they're getting a raw deal in an unfair modern world. (Witness Ferraro's anger at being criticized for her Obama remark; her latest retort is, "I really think they're attacking me because I'm white.")
Clinton has characterized Ferraro's remark as "regrettable," but that's basically the extent of it. In fact, I bet the Clinton camp doesn't mind at all that her lament has gained wide circulation. For proof, just consider the political landscape in Pennsylvania, and her current political requirements:
Clinton needs to roll up a huge popular vote victory on April 22, if she hopes to make even a dent in Obama's national delegate lead. To trump Obama's expected victory margin in Philadelphia (blacks and white liberals), and perhaps in the Philadelphia suburbs (affluent, highly educated white liberals), Clinton needs a huge outpouring of support, elsewhere in the state, from working-class and culturally conservative whites. That's a sizeable demographic in Pennsylvania; accurately or not, a lot of those folks believe that blacks have unfair advantages in today's society. And, with respect to Ferraro's remark, if they can be encouraged to assess Obama not on his merits, but as an affirmative action symbol, all the better for Clinton.
But even if Clinton somehow manages to get the nomination in this fashion, I wonder whether she will be able to eradicate all the dirt that has accumulated in the kitchen sink.
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