Hillary Clinton--The Sensitive Thug

Channeling Hova here. But my point continues from the earlier one I made. Here she talks to ABC News about the difficulties of being a candidate:

"And I think women just sort of shake their head," Clinton continued. "My friends do.  They say, 'Oh, my gosh, this is so hard.' Well, it's supposed to be hard.  I'm running for the hardest job in the world.  No one has ever done this.  No woman has ever won a presidential primary before I won New Hampshire.  This is hard. And I don't expect any sympathy, I don't expect any kind of, you know, allowances or special privileges, because I knew what I was getting myself into.

"Every so often I just wish that it were a little more of an even playing field," she said, "but, you know, I play on whatever field is out there."

Nothing that she says is untrue. But if I, as an Obama supporter, read that he was complaining about how difficult it is being a black candidate, it would really piss me. What I see in the statement, and in how Hillary has conducted her entire campaign, is a profound weakness, cowardice and passive-aggressiveness. She's not hard enough to directly come out and call the process skewed, so she calls it skewed and then claims that it doesn't really bother her. Whatever. Whereas a true competitor would relish getting the first question and think only of socking it out the park, Hillary complains about it, and then claims that she's still happy to have at it.

The level of deceit which drips off her answers is nauseating. Here is a candidate so hamfistedly arrogant that she once claimed in a debate that her biggest problem is that she cares too much. Give me a break. The fact of the matter is that there may not have been a worse candidate in the entire field, short of Mike Gravel. Hillary was armed with entire machinery of the Democratic Party, and yet she's going to loose. Everywhere she campaigns her poll numbers sink and her opponent's numbers rise. And her only answer to that is to simply declare that the state doesn't matter. It's OK. One way or the other this is ending, and she's going to loose. If not next Tuesday, if not in the primary, I'm convinced, in the general.

Race v. Gender again...

Katrina vanden Heuvel on Morning Joe. Got a little hot in there weighing race against sex. Pretty interesting.

I really think, at the end of the day, she's just a bad candidate. The question isn't "Will the country elect a woman for president?" as much as its "Which woman will the country elect for president?" There is an implicit sexism in that query, when you note the fact that George Bush got elected to two terms. No woman as incurious and inarticulate as George Bush could even be elected class president. The game is rigged, no doubt. But if you want to win, you've gotta find ways around.

As I said before, Branch Rickey couldn't just snatch any old baseball player out of the Negro Leagues--even if he was a great player. He had to get the perfect one. It was not enough for Martin Luther King to demand equal rights from white America, he had to use nonviolence to demonstrate a level of moral superiority to his oppressors. Obama would be well within his rights to say, "Why do I have to answer for bigots who have no affiliation to my campaign, but John McCain doesn't have to answer for the bigots who are featured on his campaign's website?" But if wants to win, that would be stupid.

At some point, you have to decide whether you're trying to win, or whether you're just trying to even the score. Sexism is a given in any campaign in which a woman is running for president. But are you running to highlight and point out that sexism? Or are you running to overcome it and win? Any candidate who would choose the former would get destroyed in the general election. Thank God this will be over soon. McCain would run over Hillary with a truck.

Especially the blacks and the Jews Cont.

Hopefully the Obama campaign will end the lie that if you somehow are critical of black people, you'll be criticized as an Uncle Tom. This was always a laughable theory proffered by jokers like Shelby Steele. Jesse, for all his foibles, was one of the loudest voices campaigning against blaxploitation in the 70s. The only people Malcolm X excoriated more than white people, were other black people.  I make this point in a piece I just finished for The Atlantic on Cosby. Will obviously link when it's up.

Back to Obama. Check out this piece in the Washington Post in which Obama's relationship with the Jewish community is addressed. One of the great things that Obama has discovered is that you can say the same thing and both white and black people will hear two different things. So when Obama went to Ebeneezer and used all of 10-15 seconds to speak on anti-semitism and homophobia in the black community, white pundits--who tend to believe that before Obama, blacks just sat around patting each other on the back and blaming white people--see a courageous stand. And quite frankly, Obama plays it as such. But black folks just hear a dude expressing his opinion, in much the same way that black folks in private settings tend to generally do. It doesn't sound alien to them. Thus Obama is able to secure white support by appearing to give some ground, when in fact he actually is giving very little ground. Witness the following from none other than the ADL:

To some Jewish leaders, even ones who have remained neutral in the presidential campaign, Obama's struggles are exasperating. Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said yesterday from Jerusalem that Obama has gone much further than other black leaders in his denunciation of Farrakhan and has recently expressed stalwartly pro-Israel views.

"As far as I'm concerned, this issue is behind us," said Foxman, who has not endorsed a candidate. "But with the Internet, as all Jews should know, these things have a half-life. They just keep going."

Remember that Obama has done this while running at near 90 percent in the black community, so this idea that only jokers like Sharpton and Farrakhan have a claim on black folks is stupid. It's amazing that it took a dude running for president to make this clear to media.

The Halfrican Takes An Axe to Sean Wilentz's New Republic Agitprop

Wow. Not for the faint of heart. Anyway Sean Wilentz gets taken to the woodshed for the backwards claptrap he spewed between the pages of The New Republic. 

John McCain--Do You Denounce AND Reject Your Supporter Who Blames Katrina On The Gays?

Folks I could do it all day--or just link to other people who can it all day. Witness John Hagee, supporter of John McCain. This is not semantic--McCain has is plugging this dude's support on his site. Hagee is the dude who told Terry Gross that Muslims "have a scriptural mandate to kill Christian's and Jews." Hagee is the dude who said of Hurricane Katrina, "All hurricanes are acts of God, because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that."

Black bigots just slide into irrelevancy all the while hanging like albatrosses from the necks of legitimate black public figures. But white bigots? They take meetings in the White House and get to endorse leaders of the free world. Like I say. Good work, if you can get it.

Tim Russert--Will You Reject AND Condemn Don Imus?

Haha. Courtesy of TPM. Only blacks are required to denounce the bigots among them. For white public figures, bigotry is apparently the default setting, so it's fine I guess. The funny thing is that where as Farrakhan is simply a friend of a friend of Barack's, Russert and Imus actually are boys.

Hillary Declines to Denounce OR Reject Racist Supporter

You know I don't much care about this. But I have no problem judging her by the very standard she set. The Essence:

A day after lecturing her presidential rival for not rejecting a controversial minister's support, Hillary Rodham Clinton declined Wednesday to reject one of her Texas backers who commented on Barack Obama's race.

During a series of satellite television interviews, Clinton was questioned by Dallas station KTVT about comments by Adelfa Callejo, a local activist who supports Clinton candidacy. The interviewer quoted Callejo as saying "Obama's problem is he happens to be black" and asked Clinton to respond.

And then:

The interviewer asked Clinton whether she rejected or denounced Callejo's comment.

"People have every reason to express their opinions, I just don't agree with that," she said, adding "You know, this is a free country. People get to express their opinions."

Uhm, pot...Calling pot...

Hillary v. Obama; Gender v. Race

OK, so I was groaning even as I wrote that blog title. Feels like its '94 and I just finished a Bell Hooks polemic. One thing I want to note is that, a few days ago, I wrote that Hillary's problem wasn't that she was a woman, it was that she wasn't funny. As my partner of ten years and baby-mamma Kenyatta, pointed out, that's only half true. It is a problem that she's funny, but it's also a problem that she's a woman--and those two issues are kind of related.

The fact is that frankly, for a woman, it's always going to be harder. And in cases where it may not be harder, you're haunted by the possibility of it being harder. I think it's difficult to miss the fact that Chris Matthews rants against Hillary are tainted by a sort of blockhead view of gender, and I suspect he isn't the only one out there like that. Hillary Clinton has to--or at least thinks she has to--worry about toughness in a way that a man never would. Hillary Clinton has to worry about being taken seriously--or at least she thinks she has to worry about it--and thus is not free to be joke in the way that Obama is.

I only hedge on this point, because I think a significant part of Clinton's view on what she can or can't say has to do with her age. She comes from a generation of women where these were legitimate concerns, and thus has been formed by that. Whether that's true today is beside the point. This is the crucible in which she was forged. It's worth noting that the same thing has taken place among blacks. Older African-Americans, of the civil rights generation, have always been obsessed with how they come across to whites (it's no mistake that the ceremony is called the NAACP Image Awards). But Barack Obama is younger and of an age where these issues were more complicated, and didn't require such a defensive crouch, as Andrew Sullivan put it.

That said, once you decide to run for President, all of this is unimportant. You play the game as it is. You know when you take the field your playing in an away stadium, and you've got to take that into account. Here is where the color and race thing differ. Barack Obama's campaign hails back to the old black mantra of "twice as good." You can't sit around complaining about racism if you want to win. You have to accept it, and win despite it. That's an attitude born of of constituting only 13 percent of the population--you simply can't change the rules from the outset with those sorts of numbers.

But Hillary's base--women--constituite a majority of the electorate, and to her mind, that allows her to question the rules. From her perspective, she should be able to function on the same level as a man because the numbers favor her. All of that works fine, until you face a dude like Barack who actually is "twice as good." The fact is that, in a perverse way, racism and sexism can you make you better, because it means you have to work harder to get ahead. Jackie Robinson wasn't just the first black ballplayer, he was a GREAT ballplayer. Jim Brown isn't just one of the great football players of all-time--he is also considered to be one greatest lacrosse players of all time. Martin Luther King wasn't just a civil rights leader, he was child prodigy.

Racism has made Barack a better, tougher candidate. It's taught him the futility, as an individual, of expecting--as Clinton expects--that the media is going to be fair to you. It's taught him that even when people are slighting him, he has to be gracious in a way that John McCain just doesn't have to. It's taught him that running as a black guy is suicide, while running as a white guy is just, well, it just is. Hillary is at a disadvantage because she's fighting a dude who has basically learned to kick ass (sorry Pops) while fighting with one hand tied behind his back. While she's off complaining about the rules, he's steady putting together combinations. Last night she whined about media coverage. But when Barack was asked about her shrill impression of him, he just laughed it off and kept moving. When she tried to press him on Farrakhan and score points, Barack not only dodged the haymaker, but exposed an opening and popped her with a quick jab. Hillary is in a street-fight. There are no rules here--at least none that will help her.

The biggest mistake she made in this campaign was expecting that she would have a fair fight. As Maureen Downd pointed out today, Obama could easily complain that he lost eleven straight elections he'd be written off. But why should he? Hillary seems to be running to expose the hypocrisy and sexism inherent in the process. She's hoping that on the way to becoming the first female president she can actually expose some of the biases. Fair enough and point taken. But Barack isn't running a campaign to call out the hypocrisy and racism of media. Dude is running to win. Who's being naive now?

How We On The Darker Side Will Remember Buckley

We live in era when Barack Obama must lead a lynch-mob to the home of Louis Farrakhan in order to allay the suspicions of certain white pundits. Meanwhile, these fools are tripping over each other to praise a dude who,if it were up to him, would have kept black folk in the grips of homeland terrorists. Witness the mindless bigotry of the now departed William F. Buckley:

The central question that emerges…is whether the white community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically. The sobering answer is YES — the white community is entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race.

That's from the National Review in 1957. I want to get really clear on something. For a lot of folks in the commentariat the Civil Rights movement, Jim Crow, segregation is essentially theory. It is an abstract notion to them, because for the most part they don't know any black people outside the ones working in their mailrooms (this is less true at newspapers, by the way). But for people like me Buckley's words are not hypothetical. We understand  what "such measures as are necessary" has always meant. I am never happy to see someone die. But when Farrakhan's time comes, I don't expect his death to be a waiver against all the hate he's spewed in his lifetime. I don't expect the Million March to indemnify him against denunciation. But Buckley, of course, is from the other side of the tracks. Man, I tell you, it's good to be the king.

Oh well, I need cheering up. Here's how you handle death. Talk to 'em Hitch:

The Value of 19 Debates

The fact is that Obama has just gotten better and better. It's either that or he just performs better in the one on ones. Two things: I want Obama to get that Jeremiah Wright defense down pat, and then I want him to do the right thing on public financing. If you're gonna be about it, be about it.

More on Obama v. Farrakhan

From Josh Marshall:

As a Jew and perhaps more importantly simply as a sentient being I found it disgusting. It was a nationwide, televised, MSM version of one of those noxious Obama smear emails.

Kevin Drum weighs in:

Just kidding. Seriously, though, can someone please put a sock in Tim Russert? I didn't even see the entire exchange, but his badgering of Obama on the Louis Farrakhan issue was pretty wretched. It was maybe legitimate to bring it up in the first place, but to keep at it well after Obama had made his position crystal clear was beyond the pale.

Andrew Sullivan dissents:

Does Obama understand that saying he has consistently denounced him is not the same as simply saying, "I denounce him"? A weak response - reminiscent of Dukakis. (By the way, why is it somehow only a question for Jewish Americans that Farrakhan is a fascist hate-monger? It's a question for all Americans.) Obama's Farrakhan response suggests to me he is reluctant to attack a black demagogue. Maybe he wants to avoid a racial melee. But he has one. He needs to get real on this. Weak, weak, weak.

And then hears about it from his readers:

Obama both rejected and denounced Farrakhan.  If you'd like, I guess they could have offered Farrkhan's head on a platter to him during the debate for a ritualistic slaying.  But other Jewish friends I know have been calling telling me they absolutely loved his response--and these are those who doubted him on the subject.

Obama vs. Farrakhan

If you want to know why I support Obama, check out his answer to the ever present Farrakhan test for black folks. It was no shock that Obama denounced Farrakhan, and while white people seem convinced that it takes great courage to do this, most black folks know that Louis Farrakhan hasn't been relevant for over ten years. Furthermore, us brothers are still wondering what the hell he did with all that money he collected at the Million Man March. Anyway, the beautiful thing about Barack's answer was how he counterpunched Hillary when she tried to press the issue against him, and get into a Will-You-Condemn-A-Thon with him.

His answer is standard black boilerplate when it comes to the Farrakhan test, but he really smacked it out the park with his "reject/denounce" answer. It put a spotlight on Hillary cheap hamfisted attempt to score points. If you detect any reluctance from Obama to go after Farrakhan, it has to do with black politicos understandable fatigue with having to answer for this bozo. It's pretty disgusting. On a side note, I am so tired of people having to talk about rebuilding a "black/Jewish coalition." Much like the alleged "black/Latino coalition" this crap is a myth. That's no disrecpect to my Jewish or Latino brothers, but the fact is that while there have been coalitions among the leadership, most black folks just aren't thinking about these issues. The leadership is not equal to the people

More Clusterbombing of Clinton

For whatever reason, I often assume that people who I hear a lot about are overrated. I can't tell you how often I've been wrong about that. Given that I mostly make this assumption about writers, frankly, I think it's just my own jealousy and neurosis. I don't usually read Frank Rich and this piece makes me feel stupid for that practice. This is just a superb example of great argument. Rich basically fillets the Clinton campaign, on the one thing that they've made their centerpiece--competency. Here's a taste:

But it’s the Clinton strategists, not the Obama voters, who drank the Kool-Aid. The Obama campaign is not a vaporous cult; it’s a lean and mean political machine that gets the job done. The Clinton camp has been the slacker in this race, more words than action, and its candidate’s message, for all its purported high-mindedness, was and is self-immolating.

The gap in hard work between the two campaigns was clear well before Feb. 5. Mrs. Clinton threw as much as $25 million at the Iowa caucuses without ever matching Mr. Obama’s organizational strength. In South Carolina, where last fall she was up 20 percentage points in the polls, she relied on top-down endorsements and the patina of inevitability, while the Obama campaign built a landslide-winning organization from scratch at the grass roots. In Kansas, three paid Obama organizers had the field to themselves for three months; ultimately Obama staff members outnumbered Clinton staff members there 18 to 3.

What people are missing in all of the coverage of the Obama phenomenon is that this dude has just run a hell of a campaign. Hillary thinks she's being funny and cute when she, and her surrogates, mock Obama's followers. But the joke is ultimately on them. If this dude is such an empty-suit, with zero accomplishments, than what it does it say about you that you can't beat him? If he's a nothing, but your loosing to him, what are you? In the words of Dre, when you dis Obama in that fashion, you dis yourself. A significant part of politics is convincing people to vote for you. Claim all you want that the voters are being hoodwinked, but that's all in the game. It's like if the Patriots claimed that they would have won the Super Bowl if not for the Giants blitz. Uhm yeah. That's football.

Clinton Supporters Start To Slowly Back Away

OK, so maybe not start. More like "continue." Anyway this report from my home state.

Especially the blacks and the Jews

My good buddy Eyal Press pushes the issue--in a positive direction.

Obama and Jewish voters

I have to say I love hearing this:

"If we cannot have an honest dialogue about how do we achieve these goals, then we're not going to make progress," he said.

He also criticized the notion that anyone who asks tough questions about advancing the peace process or tries to secure Israel by anyway other than "just crushing the opposition" is being "soft or anti-Israel."

Obama made the comments in a closed-door meeting with several members of Cleveland's Jewish community, who will be participating in the crucial Ohio primary to be held next Tuesday.

The thing about Obama, is that he is just young enough, just untainted enough to speak obvious truths. That he does this in the face of that turban nonsense as well as an endorsement from Farrakahan (are all the high priests of 80s ID politics rising from the dead or what?) impresses me even more. Anyway more on the possible gulf between Obama and Jewish voters here. I gotta say, an notions of "black anti-semitism" always strike me as laughable--as if Farrakhan and Crown Heights somehow rep for all of black America. It's not that I don't think it happens, it's just that, while I've heard my share of venom directed toward whites in general, and venom toward Asians (sad as that is), black anti-semitism just hasn't been as prevalent. And now I defer to James Baldwin. Oh who am I kidding. Come and talk to 'em Chris:

Clinton Campaign Flailing

Interesting piece from Mike Allen and John Harris over at Politico, detailing the last stages of the Clinton campaign. Complaining about the media to the media is the surest sign of a looser:

Communications chief Howard Wolfson — echoing a strong belief of the Clintons themselves — blamed the news media Monday for allegedly tossing bouquets to Obama whenever he criticizes Clinton but writing that she is throwing low blows whenever she draws contrasts with him.

Hmm, I guess. But dude, do your job. You were hired to handle the press, if Clinton is catching more negative coverage than Obama, than, by definition, it's your fault. It's not that I think Wolfson is wrong--I think Hillary does get harder than Obama. But for much of the campaign she's been the front-runner. The front-runner ALWAYS gets hit harder, as I suspect Obama is about to find out. Plus the Clinton attempts at spin were always lazy--I mean really, the only state's that matter are the ones you win? What a joke.

Furthermore, it isn't that the media is bias as much as they're lazy. They're looking for cheap narratives. Obama has, at almost every turn, altered whatever narrative box the pundits put him in. Before SC, they said he couldn't black voters. He did it. Then they said he couldn't get white votes. Check, he did it.
They said he couldn't get working class votes. He did that too. Now it's down to blue-collar white women who are over 60. The message is simple. WInning makes everything go away. These fools need to go out, stop crying and win something. Winning spins itself.

Hillary Clinton: Back to her old tricks

She's just shameless. I didn't link this before because it was on Drudge and hadnt been confirmed. But as TPM makes clear the "Obama is a Muslim" campaign is chugging along.

Why The New Republic Is Down With Us

Reverse that I guess, since I've never had the pleasure of working with those guys. TNR takes a lot of heat, and perhaps deservedly so, for its Mideast politics. But every once in a while you see something like this, something you know simply would not be published virtually anywhere else that matters. Here's TNR's frank assessment of Bush's over-lauded Africa policy:

Consumed by the war on terror, Bush has taken a far different approach. Rather than supporting democratic institutions and criticizing a new generation of African authoritarians, the Bush administration has backed whatever African leader claims to be battling militant Islam. For example, the White House has developed a close relationship with Ethiopia's thuggish leader Meles Zenawi, supposedly an ally in the war on terror and a partner in battling militancy in neighboring Somalia. The administration has provided military aid to Ethiopia with virtually no conditions on the assistance. It has also offered advisers to support Ethiopia's invasion of neighboring Somalia, an invasion which only led to more chaos in that benighted nation. Meanwhile, in recent years Zenawi's government has overseen a massive crackdown on opposition activists and a brutal offensive in the country's Ogaden region; in 2005, after disputed elections, the Ethiopian government arrested over 30,000 of its own people.

Hillary's Problem Isn't That She's A Woman, It's That She's Not Funny

Imagine a comedian coming out on stage and heckling the entire audience. I don't mean in the tradition of black comics who snap on particular people in the audience, but a comic who literally insults the ENTIRE audience. This is what Hillary did with her sarcasm bit in Rhode Island. Barack Obama frequently uses humor to defend himself against negative attacks, but he never uses his humor to make fun of Hillary or the people who vote for her. Know why? Because he wants her votes. It'd be suicide for him to mock the very people he's trying to bring to his side. The one time he did mock her ("You're likeable enough Hillary") it didn't turn out well.

There's another problem. Hillary isn't funny. It really is that simple. She can't hold a riff the way Obama can, and furthermore even when she attempts to do it, she shoots at the wrong target. Compare the following if you will:

Barack to Fake Conservative Patroits--I Am Coming For You

Man maybe I should speak for myself, but screw the speechfiying, the thing about Obama is that he just isn't afraid. Peep how he responds to Tapper's question on Republican questions on patriotism:

As far as the American flag pin, I mean when we start getting into those definitions of patriotism that’s a debate I’m happy to have, because I will come right after them. This is a party that presided over a war in which our troops did not get the body armor that they needed, or sending troops over who were untrained because of poor planning, or are not fulfilling the veterans benefits that these troops need when they come home, or undermining our constitution with warrantless wiretaps that are unnecessary

I WILL COME RIGHT AFTER THEM. Not I'm going to triangulate them, not I'm going to capitulate, not I'm going to try look tough in the general. I love that. The whackest thing about the Clintons was how they just would fold before the conservatives in an attempt to look tough. Everytime I see Hillary I think of that old great Churchill quote--"You accepted shame to avoid war, now you have both." Since these jokers came on the scene, their whole campaign has wreaked of political cowardice. I can't wait for the dagger.

Andrew Sullivan Clusterbombs Hillary

Oh come now Andrew, tell us how you really feel:

How did they come this close to losing this? They had all the money, all the contacts, all the machine levers, the entire establishment, the biggest Democratic name in decades, and they've been forced into a humiliating death-match by a first-term black liberal with a funny name. It seems obvious to me that the Clintons blew this because they never for a second imagined they could. So they never planned to fight it. Once put in a fair contest, they turned out to be terrible campaigners, terrible politicians, bad managers, useless executives, wooden public speakers. If you're a Democrat, that's good to know, isn't it? All that bullshit about Day One and experience? In retrospect: laughable.

It's a great post. And basically true. I'd like to add one thing--this is a monumental failure of the press. It was media that bought into Hillary as the Inevitable One. Much of what went wrong in her campaign--her reliance on big doners especially--was observable. They got none of it.

Obama: Rhetoric v. Substance

Nice analysis in the Chicago Tribune of whether Obama's speeches and this hogwash claim that Obama speeches don't contain any specifics:

For a speaker who is best known for his lofty and airy rhetoric, it's an ironic reality that Obama's public appearances very often turn into drawn-out dissertations.

In fact, read side-by-side with the other candidates' current stump speeches, the Obama script makes at least as many references to policy proposals as do theirs.

Sigh, the perils of McAnalysis

So, I just heard that, basically, these mailers that hillary got so pissed about have been out for weeks. She basically staged this angry--Shame on you--moment. I stand by what I said about Obama. But in this case, it looks like Hill was the more deceptive.

The Controversy Over Michelle Obama's Thesis

What a yawner. Why this was ever put under lock and key, I have no idea. Anyway Politico got it--from the Obama campaign, it's worth noting. Among the many racist bombshells to be found amongst 22-year old MIchelle Obama's anti-white, anti-American, anti-Apple Pie diatribe:

"My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'blackness' than ever before," the future Mrs. Obama wrote in her thesis introduction. "I have found that at Princeton, no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my white professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don't belong. Regardless of the circumstances underwhich I interact with whites at Princeton, it often seems as if, to them, I will always be black first and a student second."

I'm sure the GOP will find some way to twist this. I guess. Though I have no idea how. This sound like every black kid I ever knew who went to an Ivy. Shoulda picked The Mecca, hun.

The Lies Of Barack Obama

One of harder things to accept about democracy, and it's the reason why up until 2006 I had never voted, is lying. Politicians will lie, and there is basically nothing you can do about it. They will lie willfully about huge matters. It's important to note, while a lot of us get self-righteous about the lies of Bush, the same man that brought us the voting rights act, also brought us the Gulf of Tonkin.

I raise this because of Hillary's recent tirade against Barack Obama for a deceptive mailer which Obama sent out regarding Clinton's health care policy. Essentially, Obama's mailer raises the specter of working people being forced to pay for health care they can't afford. Clinton's plan does have some mandates, but Obama takes that grain of truth and turns it into a loaf of bread. Clinton's plan may indeed, in some cases force people to pony up, but in others it offers a batch of government subsidies to close the gap. I'm not taking Clinton's side, her "Shame on you Barack Obama" line is laughable. This from the camp that tried to turn Obama into Jesse Jackson, and from the family that brought us Sista Souljah.

My point is that they both would lie to you if they thought it would help them politically. This is not cynical, it's just true. I guess that's my problem with that mindless "Yes We Can" Will.I.Am. video. I don't buy most of the scribblings about Obama as cult-figure--except in the case of that video. It's good to be optimistic. It's good to be idealistic, even. But please stay clear on this one point: Barack Obama, as exciting as he is, as intelligent as he is, is a politician. Don't ever forget that.

Oh man, Michael Steele's about to speak...

Think he'll get booed? Like I said hopefully video soon.

Watching the State of the Black Union on C-Span and...

...I think people who are dissing this as a Tavis ego trip, or a talk-a-thon are wrong. Now, as you guys have likely read, I thought Tavis was wrong to air Barack out for not coming. But that said, it's good to hear folks from all walks of life speaking on black folks and where they think we should go. I just listened to Donna Brazile give a really impassioned speech, it almost sounded like she was about to run. We should be careful about dissing talking, obviously talk without action is bad news. But you still have to communicate before you can act. Hopefully I'll have some video for you guys soon...

Ohio and Texas breakdown

Nice write-up from AP. I think one of the most amazing things about Obama is his ability to draw from demographic groups that either seem to be, or actually are, in opposition. Consider this:

In the 22 contested Democratic primaries so far, independents made up 22 percent of the vote and they supported Obama by an overwhelming margin of 64 percent to 33 percent. Crossover Republicans, a far smaller percentage in the Democratic primaries, backed him 55-33.

Yet Obama has had the left flank covered, too: a 52-44 advantage over the New York senator among those who consider themselves very liberal.

That is what you call cornering the market. Essentially Obama is competitive or dominant in every single political demographic that's voting in the Democratic primaries. Obama's best quality is that he plays on his opponents side of the field. He is the fulfillment of Howard Dean, in that Dean had the left locked--though he really wasn't a leftie--and really wanted to grab the indies and some Republicans. This is what he meant by his over-critiqued confederate flags and pickup trucks line. This makes you reconsider the whole Blacks v Hispanics idea that some Dems and pundits have pushed. I doubt that Hispanics don't like Obama because he's black. More likely, Hispanics follow the pattern of other voters, in that, the more they see, the more they like. They are supporting Hillary, at the moment, because they know her best. Quiet as its kept, we saw the exact phenomenon with black folks only a year ago.

Also Texas doesn't matter

Continuing with the theme, straight from Hillary:

I’d love to carry Texas, but it’s usually not in the electoral calculation for the Democratic nominee.

So yeah, about that Hillary surrender...

Last night the word was that Hillary's moment of graciousness at the end indicated a chance that she might be winding her campaign down. Right. Anyway in the Texas Monthly--which I really need to subscribe to--Hillary shows that there is exactly zero chance that she's backing down. Instead, she claims she'll be pushing to have the Michigan and Florida delegates seated. The Essence:

There’s been a lot of talk about what your campaign would do should it get to the convention. Would you commit today to honoring the agreement made earlier not to seat the Michigan and Florida delegations?

Let’s talk about the agreement. The only agreement I entered into was not to campaign in Michigan and Florida. It had nothing to do with not seating the delegates. I think that’s an important distinction. I did not campaign--

The press seems to have missed the distinction if that’s the case. The talk is that you agreed not to seat the delegation.

That’s not the case at all. I signed an agreement not to campaign in Michigan and Florida. Now, the DNC made the determination that they would not seat the delegates, but I was not party to that. I think it’s important for the DNC to ask itself, Is this really in the best interest of our eventual nominee? We do not want to be disenfranchising Michigan and Florida. We have to try to carry both of those states. I’d love to carry Texas, but it’s usually not in the electoral calculation for the Democratic nominee. Florida and Michigan are. Therefore, the people of those two states disregarded adamantly the DNC’s decision that they would not seat the delegates. They came out and voted. If they had been influenced by the DNC, despite the fact that there was very little campaigning, if any, they would have stayed home. But they wanted their voices heard. More than 2 million people came out. I mean, it was record turnout for a primary. Florida, in particular, is sensitive to being disenfranchised because of what happened to them in the last elections. I have said that I would ask my delegates to vote to seat.

I just don't know what she thinks she has to gain here. Does she really believe the DNC can be strong-armed here? She must know that a straight-seating of the delegates would rip the Dems in half. Further, according to the math, Hillary still can't win, even with those delegates seated. There are those amongst us who believe that we need more of the other sides "Win at all costs" mentality. I think what we're seeing is where that mentality ultimately leads. This is disgusting, and it won't work.

Hook Up Culture: I call BS

I'm listening to Kathleen Bogle on WNYC this morning discussing her new book Hooking Up. I'll post audio later. To her credit, she's not as foolish as Tom Wolfe or some of the other idiots who've taken this issue on. But I have to say, this has the whiff of BS all over it. One thing that immediately catches my eye--no one seems to be able to quantify this alleged phenomenon. Maybe we're dealing in the limits of sociology here, but when I hear young men and women are more promiscuous today than in the past, alarm bells start to ring. Of course the first question is, are people just more likely to self-report now than they were in the past? Not that it matters, since I haven't seen much evidence to prove the first claim.

Another problem--maybe I'm just missing this. Allegedly, hook up culture (I can't believe I'm even using that term, it just wreaks of adult condescension) originated in the 80s. By the time I got to college in the 90s, it seemed like people would find their way into sex in all sorts of ways. Some would date. Some would study together. Some would spark an El. Others would just be drunk at the club. Usually there some combo of them all. But it's hard for me to sum all of that up into something resembling a culture. Call me daft, but I'd need to see hard evidence that what I saw in 19795 at Howard University, was not the case in 1975. But then I guess I wouldn't know--Bogle limited mostly all of her study to white people.

Debate Wrap

I think John Dickerson basically nails it over at Slate. Obama basically proved he could dance last night and held his own with Clinton over policy. I think the following point is particularly intersting:

In the end, the attack on Obama as a substance-free orator may backfire. It lowers the bar for him, so that when he offers detailed plans and speaks of his accomplishments, he sounds commanding. The attack also gives him an opening to take umbrage on behalf of his supporters, one of the easiest and effective political postures to take. Obama flamboyantly exploited this opportunity. Noting that Clinton lately had been urging voters to turn from him by saying, "Let's get real," Obama said, "The implication is that the people who've been voting for me or are involved in my campaign are somehow delusional."

I remember this happening to Al Gore in his run at Bush. Basically everyone said Gore was this incredible debater, thus all Bush had to do was look not-stupid and he wins. Obama is superior to Bush, but Dickerson is right. Her own campaign basically lowered the bar for Barack and he exploited the opening.

Tonight We Learn If Obama Can Dance

This is what I suspect. He's in an interesting position. Basically, it's the ninth round and he's up on points. But she's a ferocious brawler--think Ricardo Mayorga in his prime--who really could take him out. Thing is he doesn't know how she'll come out, and Obama, I believe, is basically an inferior debater. He doesn't speak in soundbites. He rarely throws the killer right hook. I don't think he can just dance away from her. He's gonna have to fight. He can't just defensive. Tonight we learn if the boy can throw down.

Bjork as a Child-Rearing Tool

So I'm sitting here writing with Bjork's live Vespertine album playing in the background. My seven year old son son, whose drawing super-heroes with colored pencils, looks up and asks "What's this song about?" That would be Pagan Poetry, one of my all-time favs. At any rate, I'm on some new, highly-educated isht, so we went to the dictionary and looked up "pagan." After pushing through words like polytheistic, and irreligious, I think he got it. So I played the song again and told him to tell me what it means at the end. I figured it'd be fun, because, hell, I don't even fully know what the song's about. Anyway at the end, I asked him and he says, "It's about someone whose irreligious." Heh, can't win em all, I guess. Or maybe I did. At any rate, in honor of the boy, here's Bjork live from Harlem/Morningside Heights.

Oh screw it let's make it a two-fer. Here's All Is Full Of Love

What the Dems can expect in Pennsylvania

Speaking of the New Republic, my old buddy Mike Schaffer (sorry Mike, you can't make me say "Michael" or "Currie," no matter how big time you are!)  weighs in on Pennsylvania politics and what Obama and Clinton can expect, should the primary stretch past March 4. The Essence:

While Iowans trumpet their nerdy earnestness by asking detailed policy questions of presidential wannabes every fourth winter, Keystone State politics are entirely un-self-conscious. This is an old example, but a relevant one. The last year the Pennsylvania primary mattered, in 1984, one of the more memorable moments came when Walter Mondale met with the ward leaders who ran Philadelphia's Democratic machine. When the former vice president took questions, one of them rose to ask ... how much street money he could look forward to on Election Day. Not the sort of thing you usually hear in Cedar Rapids.

The New Republic Weighs In On McCain and The Times

And so the plot thickens. The Times isn't looking good in this one. The Essence:

Beyond its revelations, however, what's most remarkable about the article is that it appeared in the paper at all: The new information it reveals focuses on the private matters of the candidate, and relies entirely on the anecdotal evidence of McCain's former staffers to justify the piece--both personal and anecdotal elements unusual in the Gray Lady. The story is filled with awkward journalistic moves--the piece contains a collection of decade-old stories about McCain and Iseman appearing at functions together and concerns voiced by McCain's aides that the Senator shouldn't be seen in public with Iseman--and departs from the Times' usual authoritative voice. At one point, the piece suggestively states: "In 1999 she began showing up so frequently in his offices and at campaign events that staff members took notice. One recalled asking, 'Why is she always around?'" In the absence of concrete, printable proof that McCain and Iseman were an item, the piece delicately steps around purported romance and instead reports on the debate within the McCain campaign about the alleged affair.

Mark Penn to Voters: No One In America Matters (Unless they voted for Clinton)

Heh, the old "this state doesn't matter" meme, picks up some steam. Good look to Andrew Sullivan for the link.

The McCain "Scandal": Weaksauce Defined

I'm not sure I buy McCain's categorical denial. Having said that, I really really don't get this. In a perfect world, this would dead all talk of liberal media bias. This story will do nothing but unify conservatives against the hated liberal New York Times. I consider the McCain scandal to be of the same species as the attempted weak hit piece Barack Obama piece on drugs.

But this McCain business is worse. What the piece basically concludes is that a bunch of former McCainites, too scared to be named, thought he was trading favors for success. THERE IS NO ON THE RECORD ATTRIBUTION FOR THIS SCURRILOUS CHARGE. Now, it may turn out that McCain was doing just that, but if you're going to say something like this, you can not mess around playing footsie. You need someone on the record, or some sort of paper documentation, something that would convincly show that your charge isn't just the mumblings of disaffected ex-friends. I mean seriously. Come correct, dog. Or don't come at all.

More on last night's Exit Polls

This, I think, spells trouble for Hillary. The Essence:

In a state where half the voters were white women, where only one in ten voters were minorities, and where more than half were from households that made less than $74,999 annually, Wisconsin should have comported with Clinton's strengths. But the exit polls, conducted by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International for television networks and the Associated Press, offered scarce news of encouragement for the New York senator.

He basically beat her on her home-field. What I want to know is by what logic do you decide to cede ten primaries to a guy? Worse, the Clinton folks had already seem this strategy bomb for Guiliani. Why try to repeat it? I think this really shows that what folks have been saying is true: There simply was no Clinton post-Super Tuesday strategy.

The Democratic Race Is Over

This is not some dreamy prediction. Obama won Wisconsin last night by 17 points. You guys are news-savvy so I'm not going to repeat what's been said repeatedly already. Suffice to say the base in Wisconsin was more Hillary than Obama. More to the point, we are starting to get to a point of mathematical impossibility. Basically for Hillary to win, she needs to carry every state in the fashion that Obama carried Wisconsin. Remember, no one predicted Obama would win by 17, so the idea that Hillary will rise from the dead and pull this off, well...don't just take my word for it...

Michelle Obama, ashamed of America?

You know, I see a lot of people flipping over Michelle OIbama's statement that for the first time in her adult she's proud of America. Meh, I know she will likely have to put out a statement of apology today, but I have to say I agree with her. It's wrong to infer from there, that I, or anyone else, is ashamed of being American. I'm not. I think this is the greatest country in the world. Michelle herself is fond of the "only in America" line. But pride comes from a country, or a person, mobilizing to do something. I can't think of a single thing which this country has done--in my lifetime--that's made me feel pride.

Now let's put that in context. I can only think of one thing that black folks have done that filled me with pride--the Million Man March. Besides that, I got nothing. Of course there are black people who I am proud of as individuals, but I don't walk around with my chest out because I'm black. Hell, I can only think of about two or three things that I've done as an individual that have made be proud. People really need to calm down, and chill with the psuedo-patriotism.

Is Obama black enough now?

OK, so let's just state from jump that I am against ANYONE questioning ANYONE else's blackness. I was against it when folks did it to Obama last year (how quickly we forget)and I'm against it now. That said, how can you not appreciate the irony here. Let's go:

Obama has swamped Clinton among black voters in each of the 20 contests that had exit polls and large enough samples of African Americans to be meaningful. Just to put that kind of shutout in perspective, black voters represent the only demographic group that the New York senator has not carried at least once during the Democratic primary campaign. Obama now has such a lock on the loyalties of African Americans -- 84 percent of the black vote in Alabama, 87 percent in Georgia, 84 percent in Maryland, and on and on -- that the black vote is no longer contestable.

Which brings us back to the dilemma facing some of Clinton's high-profile black supporters -- those with titles and constituencies of their own. They are feeling some kind of crazy pressure. Last Friday, about 25 of them held an hour-long conference call to discuss what one described as an effort to "pester, intimidate, question our blackness" for not supporting Obama.

I am sorry, but this is rich. Last year, you couldn't pick up a newspaper, read a blog, or watch a news show without someone questioning Obama's blackness. Now it's Clinton's endorsers whose blackness is now being called into question, Amazing, That said, I am always skeptical of anonymous claims like this. Who are these people who are questioning your blackness? Call them out please. Beyond that, contrary to popular belief, the black political class has always been subject to the same forces that any other political class was subject to. A lot of these guys forgot that they ruled with the consent of the people, and with the people going the other way now, well....

Even More on Tavis and Obama

Nice piece on this in the Post. As you guys know, I disagree with Tavis on this one, but I don't believe it was ego, as much as a misjudgment of the mood of black folks. That said, man its shocking how hard people are jumping on him. I also think that this has more to do with the excitement around Obama, than a beef with Tavis.

Chris Hitchens takes on Dinesh D'zouza

If you've got a second, check this out. Pretty entertaining. It clocks in at almost an hour, though. You know me though. I'm such a geek that I watched this while making home fries and eggs for me and my son this morning. Great quote from Hitchens--"I don't need two minutes to finish with this religion, but thanks." LOL. Classic Hitchens