[digg-reddit-me]The rumor of a tape with Michelle Obama using a slur against white people has finally been substantiated and Barack Obama has been caught in a lie! I am disillusioned.
On to the videotape:
Thanks to Andrew Sullivan and John Cole for finally getting the word out there.
This is almost as serious as Dunkin Donuts’ promulgation of terrorism. Almost.
No – I’m not talking about her campaign – although the tag could just as easily apply to her mismanaged attempted coronation. From Daniel Koffler of Jewcy:
On Tuesday night, Hillary Clinton gathered her supporters in a literal concrete bunker several stories beneath the surface of the earth, with walls thick enough to block out all cellular reception and no TV monitors or any other medium of communication with the outside world. There, amid cheers of “Denver! Denver!” she congratulated her friend Senator Obama for having run a sporting race, proclaimed herself the rightful victor, and appealed to Americans young and old to pawn their video games and withdraw from their pension accounts (respectively) in order to keep her historic campaign squarely on track to the White House. Yet by the following evening, her aides announced the suspension of her campaign and her endorsement of Barack Obama.
What transpired in those fewer-than-24 hours? Only the most audacious squeeze play of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s political careers, and – because of its spectacular failure – the last.
The rest here. I think the Clintons may have a few more power plays left in them. But their latest failure is yet another sign that we are entering a new post-Clinton era.
Clinton’s campaign had leaked to the press word that she was going to suspend her campaign and endorse Obama early yesterday afternoon after Clinton received strong push-back in her meetings around Washington to the idea of staying in the race a bit longer. The Obama campaign first learned of this development from the press.
Early this morning, Hillary’s campaign made an official announcement via an email to her supporters at 1:53 am entitled, “I want you to know.” The full text:
Dear Joseph,
I wanted you to be one of the first to know: on Saturday, I will hold an event in Washington D.C. to thank everyone who has supported my campaign. Over the course of the last 16 months, I have been privileged and touched to witness the incredible dedication and sacrifice of so many people working for our campaign. Every minute you put into helping us win, every dollar you gave to keep up the fight meant more to me than I can ever possibly tell you.
On Saturday, I will extend my congratulations to Senator Obama and my support for his candidacy. This has been a long and hard-fought campaign, but as I have always said, my differences with Senator Obama are small compared to the differences we have with Senator McCain and the Republicans.
I have said throughout the campaign that I would strongly support Senator Obama if he were the Democratic Party’s nominee, and I intend to deliver on that promise.
When I decided to run for president, I knew exactly why I was getting into this race: to work hard every day for the millions of Americans who need a voice in the White House.
I made you — and everyone who supported me — a promise: to stand up for our shared values and to never back down. I’m going to keep that promise today, tomorrow, and for the rest of my life.
I will be speaking on Saturday about how together we can rally the party behind Senator Obama. The stakes are too high and the task before us too important to do otherwise.
I know as I continue my lifelong work for a stronger America and a better world, I will turn to you for the support, the strength, and the commitment that you have shown me in the past 16 months. And I will always keep faith with the issues and causes that are important to you.
In the past few days, you have shown that support once again with hundreds of thousands of messages to the campaign, and again, I am touched by your thoughtfulness and kindness.
I can never possibly express my gratitude, so let me say simply, thank you.
Sincerely,
Hillary Rodham Clinton
There’s still asking their supporters to Contribute which is interesting – understandable too, as her campaign is in quite a bit of debt.
[digg-reddit-me]The #2 Digg link at the moment is a lie worthy of Karl Rove: “Obama to eliminate Iran.”
Given the gap between what the article itself and the Digg description of it, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Karl Rove or some Republican agent trying to sow dissatisfaction with Obama now that he has the nomination in the bag.
But what is worse is that so many people are accepting the premise of the link as true without even following the link. Isn’t that just as bad as those idiots who read that Obama is a secret Muslim in an email and that:
We checked this out on ‘snopes.com‘. It is factual. Check for yourself.
Any intelligent person who follows the link finds that Snopes has declared the story “False.”
Now, from the other side of the political spectrum, someone – whether a cynic who saw no difference between Gore and Bush and sees no difference between Obama and McCain – or a Republican operative posts an extremely misleading headline for a link that – if you follow it, leads you to a very different conclusion. And the link becomes popular and lies are spread.
Some people even had time to post comments but not to follow the link!
As for the facts of what Obama said: He certainly is more pro-Israel than many would like. But he is also for talking with Iran. I have only seen excerpts of Obama’s speech – and I’m not sure the full text is posted anywhere yet – but given that Obama’s critique of McCain is that McCain is vowing to continue the Bush policy of refusing to engage in diplomacy with Iran, I’d have to imagine Obama’s remark was part of a message that went something like this – extrapolated from his previous statements:
I won’t stand here and pretend that there are many good options left in Iraq, but what’s not an option is leaving our troops in that country for the next hundred years – especially at a time when our military is overstretched, our nation is isolated, and nearly every other threat to America is being ignored.
One of those threats is the nuclear ambitions of Iran, the country that has gained the most influence and strength from the McCain-Bush foreign policy of waging war first and trying to pick up the pieces later. Iran is stronger now than it was eight years ago.
On September 11, 2001 there were vigils in Tehran as thousands of men and women crowded the streets in solidarity with the citizens of New York City and Washington, D.C. As our nation prepared to invade Afghanistan to go after the terrorists who attacked us, Iran offered us substantial assistance. As a result of these positive encounters, the Iranian leadership sent President Bush a letter offering to resolve all of the outstanding issues between our countries. The letter went unanswered.
After seven years of McCain-Bush aggression, Iran has moved away from the United States, but it’s people still maintain an affection for this country if not for our recent actions towards them. I have committed myself to engage in diplomatic relations with Iran without preconditions. I believe it is a sign of strength to sit down with our enemies rather than ignoring them. I do not pretend that this will be easy. But it is essential that we try.
We must eliminate the threat from Iran and protect the state of Israel. We must stop Iran from gaining nuclear weapons. The McCain-Bush policy of war and aggression is not the answer. But I must warn anyone who would test my resolve on this issue: I am not opposed to all wars; just to dumb wars, and I will not hesitate to respond forcefully if Israel’s or America’s existence is threatened.
But it’s easier just to post some sensationalist headline.
[digg-reddit-me] [The bulk of this is a re-post, because it seems that the issue is newly and especially relevant.
After last night’s non-concession – in which Clinton revved up her crowd of supporters as they began to chant, “Denver! Denver! Denver!” – and in which she conceded nothing to reality, it seems clear that Clinton wants something. That something – according to reports from various news sources – is the vice presidency. Others indicate that she just wants to be offered the vice presidency. Either way, rather than graciously bowing out (as I rather prematurely asked her to do in January when she had won two of the four contests), she is bitterly clinging to her candidacy: pretending to win in her defeat, avoiding Barack Obama’s phone calls, and putting off the meeting that it is reported he requested.
There are better candidates out there for Obama to pick. Hillary Clinton has undoubtedly run an historic and groundbreaking campaign – and has come into her own as a political figure in her own right. She is a force to contend with. But it is time for her to withdraw unconditionally and endorse Obama. And she must let him choose his own Vice President – based on who would make the best ticket. Clinton is not it.
So here, modified and expanded, are eight reasons why Hillary Clinton should not be chosen as Obama’s vice presidential running mate:
[It would be] very awkward for a vice presidential candidate to be on a presidential candidate’s ticket after she has made repeated references to his potential death. Yes, that would be weird.
A backroom deal with Clinton would make a mockery of Obama’s language of hope and change. It would make Obama appear weak, and it would reward Clinton for running a campaign more vicious than anything Lee Atwater could have cooked up. More importantly, Obama would be choosing a fundamentally weak and unpopular running mate who has masked her marked executive inexperience through endless misrepresentation of her role in the Clinton White House – a role that begins and ends with a healthcare debacle that would have gotten anyone other than a First Lady fired.
Or, to put it as John Edwards did:
As a bonus:
Let’s get on to the main event already.
Drop out, Senator, and settle for becoming the next Secretary of Defense or a Supreme Court Justice.
The zeitgeist, the Force even, is with Obama in this American moment.
So, let’s get on to November before Obama loses his opportunity to get in the requisite attacks on McCain and his dangerously misguided policies before the entire country goes on vacation for the summer.
This is a fight we can win, and one we must win:
America, this is our moment. This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past. Our time to bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face. Our time to offer a new direction for the country we love.
This is a political fight that I’d like to see. And it looks like we’ve now got the chance.
From last night’s speech, excerpting the sections on Iraq:
And it’s not change when he promises to continue a policy in Iraq that asks everything of our brave men and women in uniform and nothing of Iraqi politicians – a policy where all we look for are reasons to stay in Iraq, while we spend billions of dollars a month on a war that isn’t making the American people any safer.
So I’ll say this – there are many words to describe John McCain’s attempt to pass off his embrace of George Bush’s policies as bipartisan and new. But change is not one of them.
Change is a foreign policy that doesn’t begin and end with a war that should’ve never been authorized and never been waged. I won’t stand here and pretend that there are many good options left in Iraq, but what’s not an option is leaving our troops in that country for the next hundred years – especially at a time when our military is overstretched, our nation is isolated, and nearly every other threat to America is being ignored.
We must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in – but start leaving we must. It’s time for Iraqis to take responsibility for their future. It’s time to rebuild our military and give our veterans the care they need and the benefits they deserve when they come home. It’s time to refocus our efforts on al Qaeda’s leadership and Afghanistan, and rally the world against the common threats of the 21st century – terrorism and nuclear weapons; climate change and poverty; genocide and disease. That’s what change is.
The close of Obama’s speech tonight:
In our country, I have found that this cooperation happens not because we agree on everything, but because behind all the labels and false divisions and categories that define us; beyond all the petty bickering and point-scoring in Washington, Americans are a decent, generous, compassionate people, united by common challenges and common hopes. And every so often, there are moments which call on that fundamental goodness to make this country great again.
So it was for that band of patriots who declared in a Philadelphia hall the formation of a more perfect union; and for all those who gave on the fields of Gettysburg and Antietam their last full measure of devotion to save that same union.
So it was for the Greatest Generation that conquered fear itself, and liberated a continent from tyranny, and made this country home to untold opportunity and prosperity.
So it was for the workers who stood out on the picket lines; the women who shattered glass ceilings; the children who braved a Selma bridge for freedom’s cause.
So it has been for every generation that faced down the greatest challenges and the most improbable odds to leave their children a world that’s better, and kinder, and more just.
And so it must be for us.
America, this is our moment. This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past. Our time to bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face. Our time to offer a new direction for the country we love.
The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth. This was the moment – this was the time – when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals. Thank you, God Bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America.
Watching Hillary’s performance tonight, I think the best response is to let her stand alone.
She just asked everyone to share their opinions with her about what she should do next on her website, HillaryClinton.com. I for one will be sharing my opinion in a respectful tone.
Edit: Andrew Sullivan summarizes the difference between Clinton’s speech and Obama’s speech very well:
As classy as she was classless; as graceful as she was rigid; as generous as she was stingy.
We all know that economics isn’t really McCain’s thing. But apparently, neither are judges:
In his 22 years in the Senate, Mr. McCain has never been a major player in the judicial wars. Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, said Mr. McCain “has never been really interested in judges.”
“It’s sort of something far afield because his interests are otherwise,” Mr. Specter said.
Apparently, McCain’s only thing is national security – and he still hasn’t managed to figure out the difference between Sunnis and Shiites.
