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Friday, August 01, 2008
The Obama campaign's lame excuse
When Obama spoke this week about how the Republicans and John McCain would come at him by saying that he has a funny name and doesn't look like the other presidents on the currency, the McCain campaign jumped in with counterattacks that Obama was playing the race card. Obama aides tried to pretend that there was no racial message in Obama's words by saying that he wasn't talking about being a different race than previous presidents.Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said that the candidate was not referring to race.Hmmm, let's see, who is on the United States currency? George Washington who held no elected office before becoming president except a few terms in the Virginia House. Abraham Lincoln who served in Washington for a full two years during the Mexican War. Alexander Hamilton who never held elective office and was a lawyer and military officer before becoming Secretary of the Treasury. Andrew Jackson who served briefly in the Senate before resigning, but whose main qualifications for the presidency were his military accomplishments. Ulysses Grant who had never held elective office, and Benjamin Franklin who, again, hadn't held elective office. Perhaps the aide was thinking of the coins where, in addition to Washington and Lincoln, we could add in JFK, FDR, and Jefferson. All those had served in Washington at some point in their careers but not for very long. JFK had served in the House and Senate; FDR as Assistant Secretary of the Navy; and Jefferson as Secretary of State. Is Obama's aide implying that these three heroes of the Democratic Party were weakened because of the time they had spent in the nation's capital?
"What Barack Obama was talking about was that he didn't get here after spending decades in Washington," he said. "There is nothing more to this than the fact that he was describing that he was new to the political scene."
Of course, that excuse was just laughable. Especially since Obama has used similar locutions in previous speeches. Earlier in June, he'd been more specific,“The choice is clear. Most of all we can choose between hope and fear. It is going to be very difficult for Republicans to run on their stewardship of the economy or their outstanding foreign policy. We know what kind of campaign they’re going to run. They’re going to try to make you afraid. They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?"And also, in his ballyhooed Berlin speech, he once again celebrated his own racial difference,"I know that I don't look like the Americans who've previously spoken in this great city,"Tom Maguire pointed out that this bit of self-puffery ignored other prominent African Americans who had spoken in Berlin such as Paul Robeson, Martin Luther King, Jesse Jackson, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice.
Obama has been making this explicit racial appeal while simultaneously trying to inoculate himself by claiming that the Republicans were going to attack him. It just doesn't hold up.
So now we're reduced to hearing complaints that the Celebrity ad that the McCain campaign has been running with images of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton is, wait for it, also a racial attack. As one liberal blogger put it,This vicious, nasty, disgusting ad is about the black mens and the white womens. And how the former ain't supposed to touch the latter. It's about a threat to the white womens! Rape! Why else juxtapose two comely young white ladies in striking profile shots against the vaguely threatening, kinda shadowy image of a black man, with sorta scary chanting in the background. That chanting has a purpose - it says the black man has somehow bewitched the white folk and fooled them with his mystical savage black powers somehow. This is so freakin' 19th century. Is Nathan Bedford Forrest McCain's Veep-pick?Wow, talk about going around the bend, swallowing the Kool-Aid, going out in the midday sun without your tinfoil!
Even the New York Times sees a hint of O.J. Simpson in the McCain campaign's response.The ad gave us an uneasy feeling that the McCain campaign was starting up the same sort of racially tinged attack on Mr. Obama that Republican operatives, some of whom work for Mr. McCain now, ran against Harold Ford, a black candidate for Senate in Tennessee in 2006. That assault, too, began with videos juxtaposing Mr. Ford with young, white women.These howls of protest indicate one thing. The Mccain approach of pointing out that Obama is a celebrity with as little reason to be so loved as Paris Hilton and Britney Spears have for all the attention that they get is a winner argument. It might be too subtle for the New York Times, but it definitely is hitting a sore spot in the Obama camp. So all they can do is whine about negative attack ads and racism. What they can't do is argue that their guy has done anything, anything in his life to justify the celebrity status and adulation he is receiving.
Mr. Obama called Mr. McCain on the ploy, saying, quite rightly, that the Republicans are trying to scare voters by pointing out that he “doesn’t look like all those other Presidents on those dollar bills.’’
But Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, had a snappy answer. “Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck,” he said. “It’s divisive, negative, shameful and wrong.’’
The retort was, we must say, not only contemptible, but shrewd. It puts the sin for the racial attack not on those who made it, but on the victim of the attack.
It also — and we wish this were coincidence, but we doubt it — conjurs up another loaded racial image.
The phrase dealing the race card “from the bottom of the deck” entered the national lexicon during the O.J. Simpson saga. Robert Shapiro, one of Mr. Simpson’s lawyers, famously declared of himself, Johnny Cochran and the rest of the Simpson defense team, “Not only did we play the race card, we dealt it from the bottom of the deck.”
It’s ugly stuff. How about we leave Britney, Paris, and O.J. out of this — and have a presidential campaign?
(Cross-posted at Fox Forum)Labels: Obama
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Comments:
When Obama spoke this week about how the Republicans and John McCain would come at him by saying that he has a funny name and doesn't look like the other presidents on the currency, the McCain campaign jumped in with counterattacks that Obama was playing the race card. Obama aides tried to pretend that there was no racial message in Obama's words by saying that he wasn't talking about being a different race than previous presidents.
Of course, that excuse was just laughable. Especially since Obama has used similar locutions in previous speeches. Earlier in June, he'd been more specific,
Obama has been making this explicit racial appeal while simultaneously trying to inoculate himself by claiming that the Republicans were going to attack him. It just doesn't hold up.
So now we're reduced to hearing complaints that the Celebrity ad that the McCain campaign has been running with images of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton is, wait for it, also a racial attack. As one liberal blogger put it,
Even the New York Times sees a hint of O.J. Simpson in the McCain campaign's response.
(Cross-posted at Fox Forum)
0 comments
When Obama spoke this week about how the Republicans and John McCain would come at him by saying that he has a funny name and doesn't look like the other presidents on the currency, the McCain campaign jumped in with counterattacks that Obama was playing the race card. Obama aides tried to pretend that there was no racial message in Obama's words by saying that he wasn't talking about being a different race than previous presidents.
Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said that the candidate was not referring to race.Hmmm, let's see, who is on the United States currency? George Washington who held no elected office before becoming president except a few terms in the Virginia House. Abraham Lincoln who served in Washington for a full two years during the Mexican War. Alexander Hamilton who never held elective office and was a lawyer and military officer before becoming Secretary of the Treasury. Andrew Jackson who served briefly in the Senate before resigning, but whose main qualifications for the presidency were his military accomplishments. Ulysses Grant who had never held elective office, and Benjamin Franklin who, again, hadn't held elective office. Perhaps the aide was thinking of the coins where, in addition to Washington and Lincoln, we could add in JFK, FDR, and Jefferson. All those had served in Washington at some point in their careers but not for very long. JFK had served in the House and Senate; FDR as Assistant Secretary of the Navy; and Jefferson as Secretary of State. Is Obama's aide implying that these three heroes of the Democratic Party were weakened because of the time they had spent in the nation's capital?
"What Barack Obama was talking about was that he didn't get here after spending decades in Washington," he said. "There is nothing more to this than the fact that he was describing that he was new to the political scene."
Of course, that excuse was just laughable. Especially since Obama has used similar locutions in previous speeches. Earlier in June, he'd been more specific,
“The choice is clear. Most of all we can choose between hope and fear. It is going to be very difficult for Republicans to run on their stewardship of the economy or their outstanding foreign policy. We know what kind of campaign they’re going to run. They’re going to try to make you afraid. They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?"And also, in his ballyhooed Berlin speech, he once again celebrated his own racial difference,
"I know that I don't look like the Americans who've previously spoken in this great city,"Tom Maguire pointed out that this bit of self-puffery ignored other prominent African Americans who had spoken in Berlin such as Paul Robeson, Martin Luther King, Jesse Jackson, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice.
Obama has been making this explicit racial appeal while simultaneously trying to inoculate himself by claiming that the Republicans were going to attack him. It just doesn't hold up.
So now we're reduced to hearing complaints that the Celebrity ad that the McCain campaign has been running with images of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton is, wait for it, also a racial attack. As one liberal blogger put it,
This vicious, nasty, disgusting ad is about the black mens and the white womens. And how the former ain't supposed to touch the latter. It's about a threat to the white womens! Rape! Why else juxtapose two comely young white ladies in striking profile shots against the vaguely threatening, kinda shadowy image of a black man, with sorta scary chanting in the background. That chanting has a purpose - it says the black man has somehow bewitched the white folk and fooled them with his mystical savage black powers somehow. This is so freakin' 19th century. Is Nathan Bedford Forrest McCain's Veep-pick?Wow, talk about going around the bend, swallowing the Kool-Aid, going out in the midday sun without your tinfoil!
Even the New York Times sees a hint of O.J. Simpson in the McCain campaign's response.
The ad gave us an uneasy feeling that the McCain campaign was starting up the same sort of racially tinged attack on Mr. Obama that Republican operatives, some of whom work for Mr. McCain now, ran against Harold Ford, a black candidate for Senate in Tennessee in 2006. That assault, too, began with videos juxtaposing Mr. Ford with young, white women.These howls of protest indicate one thing. The Mccain approach of pointing out that Obama is a celebrity with as little reason to be so loved as Paris Hilton and Britney Spears have for all the attention that they get is a winner argument. It might be too subtle for the New York Times, but it definitely is hitting a sore spot in the Obama camp. So all they can do is whine about negative attack ads and racism. What they can't do is argue that their guy has done anything, anything in his life to justify the celebrity status and adulation he is receiving.
Mr. Obama called Mr. McCain on the ploy, saying, quite rightly, that the Republicans are trying to scare voters by pointing out that he “doesn’t look like all those other Presidents on those dollar bills.’’
But Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, had a snappy answer. “Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck,” he said. “It’s divisive, negative, shameful and wrong.’’
The retort was, we must say, not only contemptible, but shrewd. It puts the sin for the racial attack not on those who made it, but on the victim of the attack.
It also — and we wish this were coincidence, but we doubt it — conjurs up another loaded racial image.
The phrase dealing the race card “from the bottom of the deck” entered the national lexicon during the O.J. Simpson saga. Robert Shapiro, one of Mr. Simpson’s lawyers, famously declared of himself, Johnny Cochran and the rest of the Simpson defense team, “Not only did we play the race card, we dealt it from the bottom of the deck.”
It’s ugly stuff. How about we leave Britney, Paris, and O.J. out of this — and have a presidential campaign?
(Cross-posted at Fox Forum)
Labels: Obama
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