Remember that “national conversation on race” that we talked about but never had? Now we’re having it. Too bad for racists that the field is tilted the other way from when they tried to make it about OJ.
Open thread.
by Tim F| 188 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics
Remember that “national conversation on race” that we talked about but never had? Now we’re having it. Too bad for racists that the field is tilted the other way from when they tried to make it about OJ.
Open thread.
Comments are closed.
Lavocat
It’s simple: fire Ferraro’s ass. Now.
Lavocat
Good info says Spitzer will be resigning this afternoon, BTW.
Jen
I’d like to quote the Backyardigans.
Racing day, it’s racing day
Racing day, it’s racing day!
It’s not self-effacing day, today’s the day we race.
repeat chorus
It’s not sausage casing day, today’s the day we race.
repeat chorus
It’s not puppy-chasing day, today’s the day we race.
repeat chorus
It’s not doily-lacing day, today’s the day we race.
Punchy
No, here’s a deeper thought.
God damn, to think Cole once belonged to these fucking idiots….just wow.
Zifnab
I think it is unfair that Barack Obama is getting all this media attention because he is black, while he takes a free pass on his “cut-and-run” Middle East policy, he absolute and total lack of experience, and the fact that he is of a clearly inferior race.
When will the media wake up and start asking the really tough questions?
Jake
I would like to thank Ms. Ferraro for proving my theory that the wailing and gnashing of teeth over the “monster” comment would come back and bite Camp Clinton’s ass Right Off.
L Boom
Curious about the odds. I think Ferraro’s statements are very much calculated for the PA primaries, so I have a feeling she won’t get booted. She’ll just be a target of a lot of vitriol by Dems that will “prove how badly whites are discriminated against” to a lot of casual racists in PA.
Note: I grew up in PA outside of Harrisburg (in the Alabama section of the state) and racism is alive and well there, although much more of the dog-whistle variety that Ferraro’s gunning for rather than overt racists. More the kind where an office full of white guys sits around and complains about the one black guy in the company who could only be an affirmative action hire than the cross-burning types.
Wilfred
Yeah, let’s talk:
That’s Malcolm, referring to white liberal hypocrisy, the kind once embodied by I.F. Stone and now assumed by Clinton and her allies.
joe
Michael from The Office is Geraldine Ferraro?
I never knew.
Zifnab
And why would she? A veiled racist remark against Obama is entirely different from calling Hillary a “monster”, then attempting to swiftly retract the statement as inappropriate.
Clinton Rules, Bitches!
myiq2xu
Malcolm Forbes?
jj
As a black dude, I can honestly say that traveling through Central PA is much more nerve wracking than travelling in the deep south. At least in the south you some black folk
OTOH, my wife and I are vendors at an arts festival in downtown Harrisburg every fall and have always been received warmly.
Nevertheless, it’s no coincidence that PA has more Klan activity than any other state in America. It still remains a very racist place, and once you get out side of the urban centers you can feel it roiling just beneath the surface of forced civility.
I don’t expect Obama to win PA, but I think the cities will make it too close for the outcome to be of any help to Hillary.
joe
Malcolm Forbes?
Malcolm McDowell?
Neal
It’s a tough one to tackle, this race issue. I do believe that people tend to be a bit over sensitive about some comments and I do believe that political correctness gets taken way too far. At the same time, I acknowledge the fact that I am a white male with very little knowledge of the experiences many blacks face these days (or have in the not too distant past). I can’t empathize because I have no reference point and I try to keep that in mind.
As far as Ferraro goes, fuck her. I’m not going to say she’s a racist. I doubt that she is…but she has a history of saying these sorts of things now. She said it about Jesse Jackson in 88 and now Obama in 08 – and they are two vastly different candidates who both happen to be black.
If there is anything I have been irritated by in this race (no pun intended), it is this focus on identity politics and demographics from both surrogates of the candidates (on either side) and the national media. I think it’s great that a black man won Iowa and I think it’s great that a woman won New Hampshire (though I was personally rooting for the black man). These are great steps for our country…but instead of appreciating those simple facts, we get the Clinton/Jesse Jackson comments in South Carolina. We get headlines like “Deep racial divide in MS exit polls”. So on and so forth. It just gets old.
Again, I don’t claim to have an answer or an infallible viewpoint, I just get tired of the focus being on how black Obama is or Clinton’s feminist credentials. I want a good president and I am perfectly fine with that president being a white male, black male, female, etc. I just want them to represent me well and do a good job.
TheFountainHead
A few more thoughts..
1. If you’re a black person and you support Obama, could you support Hillary in a general election if she somehow wrangles it away from Obama?
2. Can a Democrat win a general election in this country without enthusiastic support from the black population?
3. Can these comments, superficially an issue of racism between whites and blacks, fester and hurt Hillary with other minority groups who have long seen underrepresentation in American politics, possibly even women??
I don’t know the answers, but I think this is a “real” thing and if it gets traction in the media, these are the questions the Superdelegates are going to have to answer for themselves.
jj
Malcolm Forbes?
Malcolm McDowell?
No. Malcolm Jamal Warner, aka Theo Huxtable.
If anyone knows about American racism, it’s Theo.
myiq2xu
I had to go back and read Izzy Stone’s bio on wiki but I didn’t see anything about him embodying “white liberal hypocrisy.”
Neal
My neighbor and I played the “things white people like” game recently. The Huxtables were on there. Right after mayonnaise.
myiq2xu
Probably not, which makes false accusations of racism against Hillary very disturbing.
shortstop
Bingo.
jcricket
On point with what John posted yesterday about Spitzer bringing his wife up to stand beside him on stage while he “apologized” is this political cartoon.
While I don’t get where Ferraro is going with these comments. I think they’re less calculated (i.e. dog whistle politics to speak to disgruntled middle/lower-class whites) and more a reflection of someone who thought they were saying one thing, which was interpreted by most differently, who subsequently dug her heels in. (i.e. find yourself in a hole, stop digging).
p.a.
Who would have thought Hillary’s salvation would depend on Reagan Democrats!
jj
It depends.
If she and her cronies keep up the dirty campaigning, it will become increasingly difficult to hold my nose and vote for her.
Problem is, the alternative is far, far, worse: President John McCain. This outcome is almost assured to result in more war, more economic turmoil and an acrimonious political climate.
This is why I curse our two-party, privately funded, winner take all electoral system more with each passing cycle.
That being said, at this point Hillary has proven that doesn’t deserve my vote, but neither does McCain.
A good VP choice would go a long way towards making me feel better (not good mind you, better..than shitty) about voting for her. Dodd or Richardson would be a good fit.
Either way, she will get my (reluctant) support if she somehow wins the nomination.
RSA
For a Jon Swift-like take, check out stuff white people like. Pretty funny,
jj
Perhaps Hillary should hire you to teach both her and her surrogates how not to make comments that might be misconstrued as racist, racially insensitive or condescending towards certain minorities.
Her campaign seems intent on stepping into the same pile of shit on the race issue, over and over again.
She and Bill screwed the pooch in South Carolina.
Period.
Whether her campaign has been making an intentional play for the “dog-whistle racist” vote or it has been unintentionally stumbling over the sensibilities of the general electorate, it does not speak well of her judgement or her ability to govern.
The bad luck for Hillary is that people seem to want to belive bad stuff about her, so these memes stick to her like glue.
Harley
Poor Geraldine. This is just Rest Home Talk — she’s old and out of touch with the current political/racial realities in the country. That she shares the Clinton entitlement — how dare he interrupt the coronation?! — only makes it worse. But I’d stop well short of calling her a racist.
But it’s also clear that this is exactly the conversation the Clintons want to have before the Pennsylvania primary, and in its way, is simply another subset of the He’s Not Qualified line of attack.
In this case, the lovely notion that he is an affirmative action hire. Thanks HIllary. Just what we needed.
rob!
L Boom
jj, it’s a strange place for sure. It seems like everyone gets along quite well across racial lines in the actual city, but it gets real bad real quick once you get to the suburbs. Haven’t lived there in a long time, and when I go to visit my parents it still freaks me out a it how angry people are there about race.
I think it’s a Rust Belt scapegoat thing; the economy there went straight to hell so quickly that everyone’s just looking for someone to blame, and with such a homogeneous population over most of the state, it was pretty easy to find someone to pin it on. All the anger over immigration seems to bear that out, too.
Wilfred
That would be Malcolm X, of course. It was I.F. Stone who called Malcolm a “Babbitt”, a huckster salesman for Islam. This because Stone and his friends at the Nation liked their Negroes the way Elvis liked his, with the small addition of their undying gratitude and their votes.
White liberal hypocrisy is the thin line between paternalism and racism, which is only crossed when white liberal power structures are really threatened, as they are now.
cbear
I’d prefer we have a “national conversation” on assholes.
As in:
Why are these assholes stealing our money.
Why are these assholes sending our kids off to be maimed and killed in misbegotten and mismanaged wars.
Why are these assholes decimating our miltary.
Why are these assholes prosecutiing and imprisoning our fellow citizens based on party affiliations.
Why are these assholes using our Constitution for toilet paper.
ad infintium…
TheFountainHead
I was going to give her a pass for these reasons at first, but then she defended it…and then again this morning….and then I see via Ben Smith this morning that she said the exact same things about Jesse Jackson in 84′. So now, this is no McCain Moment (c wut i did thar?) this is a woman who believes that Obama is being allowed to steal this from Hillary because he’s black. It’s absurd on its face and I don’t see how we can avoid calling it a racist comment if using the word “periodically” to describe the way in which Hillary attacks Obama is sexist.
Billy K
You’re right. But it makes the accurate accusations even more disturbing.
(And no, I don’t think Hillary is a racist. But she has used race as a wedge and some of her surrogates has made racist remarks.)
Billy K
(raises hand)
That is, and always has been, the Clintons’ natural demographic.
cleek
my father’s family is from north-central PA and i learned more racial epithets from them than i’ve heard in my 11 years in NC, or that my wife learned from her Alabama-born mother. there probably wasn’t a black person within 100 miles of their little town, but somehow they managed to find a way to work all those slurs into conversation. nice people, but wow.
beautiful country in that area, though.
jj
Yeah, I get that sense too.
Sure, people are nice to me, the “artsy negro from far away who isn’t here to take anything (jobs) from us”, but when I look around at the sheer devesation the economic displacement of the past 30 years has brought about in the Rust Belt, it’s difficult not to empathize with the fury a lot of these folks must be feeling.
Everytime I go to a flea market, second hand store, or pawnshop (I collect old Vinyl LPs and electronic gadgets) in one of those states, the sheer volume of tools, work apparel and assorted gear that was formely devoted to industry; all for sale at cents on the dollar, brings home the truth about what has happened to a large sector of society.
For the most part, these were honest, hardworking Americans who have been screwed over so Wall Street could make a buck, and it’s inescusable.
I just wish there were some way to make them understand two things:
1. It ain’t my fault
2. We are on the same side.
myiq2xu
I hate repeating myself, but I keep hearing the same bullshit from Obots:
When I first heard Russert’s debate question about Louis Farrakhan I thought it was ridiculous and unfair. I thought Hillary’s response over-the-top as well, although the whole thing seemed to be a tempest in a teapot.
But then when Obama started reusing the “hoodwinked” and “bamboozled” lines from the Malcolm X movie, it clicked.
He’s dogwhistling.
Obama has previously been accused of plagiarism for using those lines. Now he’s using them again. In front of predominantly black audiences (again.)
The movie was a portrayal of Malcolm X, a member of the Nation of Islam. Farrakhan’s group. Although there is no record of Malcolm X actually using those lines in a speech, most young people have no memory of Malcom X, and they are more familiar with the movie.
Malcolm X was a racist and a follower of Elijah Muhammed, just like Louis Farrakhan. Some people believe Malcolm X had moved away from racism before he died, but the part of the movie that the speech is from was a portrayal of his racist days as a NOI minister in Harlem.
From wikipedia:
Here’s the relevent part of the Malcolm X movie speech Obama’s “riffing” from:
Obama uses the “hoodwinked/bamboozled” lines talking about the Clintons. He’s using words closely associated with an infamous black racist to criticize Bill and Hillary.
IOW – “Don’t trust ‘Whitey.'”
If Hillary started talking to white, southern audiences about “states rights” nobody would think she was referring to arcane consitutional law issues.
The Grand Panjandrum
Shorter Ferraro: We want your votes! WE just don’t want Those People steering the Ship of state.
Right or wrong; that is the message I hear. Jesus! I’m about as white as the come, but when I hear Ferraro saying she is being attacked because she’s white; I cringe. This country has a long way to go in race relations, and Democrats need to face the fact that they are part of problem.
The Clinton camp is frustrated by its inability to land an effective blow on the the Obama campaign. Ferraro’s intemperate remarks exposed the bigotry that still exists in the Democratic Party.
We would like to fool ourselves and believe that this attitude exists only in areas where uneducated, ignorant, mouth breathing rednecks live. Ferraro is none of those things. She could be the your neighbor in any upscale liberal leaning neighborhood.
Billy K
Maybe he likes that movie. Maybe he likes those words. Seriously – if this is all you’ve got, you should throw in the towel.
Those are three words.
The Moar You Know
myiq:
You have just jumped the shark. Congrats.
Billy K
Or maybe he likes Denzel Washington just a little too much. Have we checked Denzel’s countertops lately?
mightygodking
It takes serious balls to call Malcolm X – a man who was assassinated by the Nation of Islam for seeking reconciliation between whites and blacks – an “infamous black racist.”
Of course, Mxy is trying to say that Ferraro’s comments were innocent, so what can you expect…
Nim, ham hock of liberty
Fixed Ferraro’s typo.
The Grand Panjandrum
Ruh-roh. Sharks! Jump!
joe
The problem with trying to draw that parallel is that Obama doesn’t have to try to hide the fact that he’s accusing the Clinton campaign of playing on race, because there is nothing shameful about calling them out for that.
While the Clinton campaign has to try to hide the fact that they’re playing the race card, because they know how deplorable it is.
tBone
..but somehow I’ve got to make this jackalope run, dammit!
Give it up, already. Put the poor thing out of its misery.
cleek
you don’t read TPM much, do you?
myiq2xu
Where the fuck did I say that?
Billy K
Obama is clearly playing the race card.
Xenos
Let me get this straight – Malcolm X never said these words, but now owns them, so that Obama saying them immediately associates Obama not with Malcolm X, but with Farrakhan?
I am getting dizzy here.
The whole point of the Malcolm X story, whether the autobiography or the movie, is that the Nation of Islam racism is as much of a bamboozlement as white racism. The underlying concept of baboozlement/hoodwinking goes a lot farther back than Malcolm X, though, and that is why both X and Obama make use of the term.
Most Democrats under the age of 60, whether white or black, understand where the terms come from (‘bamboozle’ is catchier than ‘propagating false consciousness to the masses in order to divide the working class and so better exploit surplus labor’). No dog whistle there, just some clear communication using a well established and understood turn of phrase.
Billy K
LOLLOLLOL JMM is TEH RACIZT!!!!!1uno
srv
That’s why I’d vote for Malcolm X.
I’d like to think Obama offers something other than the status quo of the white, liberal hypocrisy and power structures, but I don’t see any evidence of it. In fact, he goes out of his way in his speeches to equate Americanas collective “suffering”.
He doesn’t intend to ever actually get this country to the point of having the conversation – it is to be avoided. I can understand why, but it doesn’t create a reason to vote for him.
demimondian
Oh, come on, folks. Of course Geraldine knows what she’s talking about. I mean, really, when it comes to tokenism, she’s the world great expert on what it feels like to be a token offered up to soothe a beaten-upon constituency when the powerful knew it wouldn’t matter.
Grumpy Code Monkey
Hey, look over here; is there a spine solidifying in the gelatinous ooze that is Congress?
jcricket
Too busy smelting down his Oscar(s) already to make gold “frons” for his grill(tm) to install granite.
Billy K
racist
TheFountainHead
Actually, I was surprised he used hoodwinked and bamboozled as well, but I never thought of Malcom X. I thought of all the literature I’ve read from the Reconstruction Era and the rest of the late 19th century (c. 1870-1915) in which blacks were portrayed as Sambos and chased out of the watermelon patch by Farmer White. To me it seemed to be an attempt on his part to take the racial connotations OUT of those words by applying then to the Clinton campaign. Or maybe he was calling them out for racism. Either way, it’s still not racist to say someone is being a racist when they are. On that point, myiq, you fail.
Billy K
ahhh…the good ol’ days. Hillary would’ve won the nom by now if ’twere 1880 again.
Wait…
Dennis - SGMM
You tell ’em myiq! I’ll never forget when Obama said, “We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock landed on us.”
It’s only fair, and a clever strategy to boot, that Clinton works so hard to bring the Dixiecrats back into the fold.
jcricket
Too funny not to pass on, about why Obama’s win in Mississippi doesn’t count:
tBone
Myiq doesn’t think Ferraro’s comments were innocent – that’s why he keeps trying to deflect, distract and divert everyone’s attention from them.
jcricket
Look, these are just the facts. If you can’t handle smack-talk about Denzel, maybe Obama shouldn’t be president :-)
myiq2xu
From the Orlando Sentinal:
DOJ approval is needed presumably because of the Voting Rights Act.
IOW – The plan is racist!
John S.
Nah, he jumped the shark weeks ago. Right around the time he realized Hillary was a dead woman walking.
Now he’s just in it to spin it!
Callisto
I’m wondering that myself. So let me get this straight:
1) Obama uses the word “hoodwink” in a speech.
2) Denzel Washington once used the word “hoodwink” in a movie.
3) In that movie, he was portraying Malcom X.
4) ???
5) Farrakhan, people. FARRAKHAN!
It all adds up. Well, if you’re the sort who’s so good at math that you think Clinton is ahead.
TheFountainHead
There are a lot of reasons a mail-in vote needs to be approved by the DOJ. One of which is straight-up fraud. Hard to game up a fair election system on short notice and short of cash.
Sojourner
Okay, that was fun. Can we stop now?
Xenos
Excellent idea. In 20 years a lot of the people I do not want to have that conversation with will no longer be around.
And my kids will be too busy playing video games online to get around to having it.
Billy K
What “mess?” There is no mess. Florida broke the rules, knew what would happen if they broke the rules, broke them anyway, and now Hillary is complaining. The only mess is the stench of gaming the system.
jj
Oh brother :rolleyes:
OK myiq,
Let’s go through this step by step, shall we?
Hillary Clinton in SC
“Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964” and “It took a president to get it done.”
This remark fails on several counts. In one breath it disregards everything that happened in concert with Dr. King’s speeches and Lyndon B. Johnson’s strongarming the Civil Rights Act into passage. The voter registration drives, sit-ins, protests, arrests, beatings, murders and bombings?
Meh.
In HillaryworldTM, all you need is a deciderator and things get done.
Racist? No. Condescending and paternalist. Hells yeah.
Then there was the oblique spin around her losses in Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and Louisiana. Hillary cited an “energized African-American” electorate as the reasons for her losses, which leads me to the question: Why bring race into the discussion at all Hillary? Moreover, up until her (and Bill’s) clumsy performance in South Carolina, the black electorate was much more evenly split between Hillary and Obama.
Fast FWD to Ferraro’s remarks and Hillary’s not looking so hot to people who pay attention to such things. Let’s see if she sends the money from Ferraro’s fundraiser back.. my guess is that she can’t afford to.
You must be joking. Oh wait….you’re serious.
1. Rotsa Ruck trying to tie the image of Obama to that of Malcolm X (vice the man who would become El-hajj Malik Shabazz).
2. “Hoodwinked and Bamboozled” is a running joke amongst black folks. It’s a touchstone for its sheer “over the topness”.
Nevertheless, you know why my mother said to me after South Carolina?
“The Clinton’s have shown me their true colors”
And in those eight words, I knew it was over for the Clintons. If you are a Democrat, when 70 year old black ladies turn on you, you are finished.
Remember, Bill Clinton was largely beloved by the black elecorate, in spite of his laissez-faire economics and punitive welfare reforms. He was even called “America’s first black President” by Maya Angeolou, and few protested. Personal ancetdote and the polls inform me that this sentiment has almost completely eroded amongst black voters, largely due to the compelling nature of Obama himself but no doubt assisted by Clinton’s clumsy, inapt campaigning.
Which brings me to my third and final point.
3. Fuck you for thinking so little of voters who happen to be black; that we are swayed by nothing more than coded racial demogogery and clever speech.
Here’s another clue asswipe: Issues matter to us too. The economy, the war, torture & human rights, the integrity of the constitution, the separation of powers, the USSC.
If you get one thing through that thick skull of yours in this admittedly short lifetime, let it be this fact:
First and foremost, all of these things matter to me. Not a black man, but an American.
TenguPhule
No, the floggings will continue until morale improves.
Wilfred
I give up. Even knowing that hot air is the rule and not the exception around here I just can’t participate at the level of abject stupidity required by people like myiq and p. Lukasiak.
Any hope for the blogosphere becoming a public sphere has been crushed by the unrestricted access of ignorant bastards.
myiq2xu
GOS wants to reduce the delegates by 50% and split the delegates between HRC and BHO.
Nice of kos to overrule the will of the people (in other states than his own) and give some free delegates to his candidate.
Snail
Oh my, jj, that was a magnificent beatdown.
L Boom
Really all that’s left is for Mark Penn to do a press conference in blackface, then indignantly proclaim minstrelsy an important part of white heritage. Maybe he can cap it off by singing “Mammy” or something.
What the hell planet are we on now?
Billy K
This is exactly how I felt Friday. I almost wrote a GCW to John to tell him I’d be back when he shitcanned the trolls. But things are much better this week. They seem to be imploding under the weight of their sheer ridiculousness.
Billy K
Only because he’s black.
John S.
I realize you have your shill-o-meter turned up to 11, but the fucking Florida House Democrats are opposed to any sort of do-over as well.
Damn the Great Orange Satan! He’s got all the Florida congressional Democrats in his pocket, too!
myiq2xu
Fuck you for putting words in my mouth.
I said Obama was dogwhistling. Where did I say blacks are “swayed by nothing more than coded racial demogogery and clever speech?”
Fuck you for assuming because I am white that I am racist.
Sojourner
Ahhh, now I get it. Thanks much!
myiq2xu
They want to seat them as-is based on the two primaries.
scrutinizer
What two primaries? MI and FL didn’t have Democratic primaries, they only had preference polls.
TheFountainHead
Which they can’t do because then they sink any chance of a Democrat in the White House in 2009, which leaves us with the only viable alternative we’ve had all along. The nominee will be decided sans the delegates of Florida and Michigan, whose delegates will be seated by the subsequent nominee in a show of good faith and good will. This is how it was always going to go down and how it should still go down.
jj
OK, then tell me what you mean by
Clearly, you think this is Obama’s intended message for black audiences.
Just as
this can be considered dog-whistle racist code meant to appeal to segregationists (And as we all know, this very thing was integral to the Republican Southern Strategy)
Anyway, the implication was clear.
So was my reply.
I assume no such thing. Ill-informed paternalism maybe, but not racism.
myiq2xu
So the disputed delegates should STFU until Obama is the nominee and then kiss his ass?
How will the voters of Florida and Michigan who voted for Hillary feel about that? Will they be hoodwinked and bamboozled into voting for Obama in November?
Billy K
They should be pissed off the state party screwed up their chance to be a part of a historic campaign.
scrutinizer
There are no delegates from MI and FL. There is only Hillary, who agreed that there would be no delegates from MI and FL, who is now turning her back on that agreement. Political opportunism, nothing more.
myiq2xu
I said nothing about the effectiveness of his message, only it’s intent.
That’s not what you said:
You accused me of racism. Fuck you
TheFountainHead
There’s nothing disputed about them. As far as the convention in Denver is concerned, neither Florida nor Michigan has any recognized pledged delegates. Period. And they needn’t kiss his ass, and I never suggested they should. I just said that the nominee would seat them. They can do as they please once they get on the floor, but I hear security is pretty tight at these things.
The voters of Florida and Michigan who voted for Hillary in the meaningless state presidential primaries will have the exact same choice as anyone who voted for Hillary in a state presidential primary. They can accept that their nominee was not chosen and vote for Obama on policy anyway, they can stay home in bitter frustration and accept the outcome forthwith, or they can vote for John McCain for reasons passing understanding. On top of all that they can lobby their local representatives to ensure that their voices are heard in the next Democratic primary.
w vincentz
JJ,
Wow!
I like ya! Keep talkin’!
tBone
You and Geraldine should go have a pity party. “Why can’t we say stupid offensive shit without people calling us on it? Reverse racism! Reverse racism!”
myiq2xu
There are delegates, the DNC is saying they will not be seated.
Hillary agreed she would not campaign in either state and kept that agreement. She never agreed there would be no delegates. That was the DNC rules committee’s decision.
The DNC says that the delegates will be seated if the states find another way to select them. One solution is a re-vote. Hillary has agreed. So far Obama has not.
myiq2xu
Fuck you too
Billy K
FWIW, I haven’t gotten around to it yet, but I also consider you a racist.
TheFountainHead
I find it hard to believe that Hillary has agreed to a re-vote since no such re-vote has been proposed by either state parties. By the same token, Obama has rejected no such re-vote, lacking such a re-vote to reject.
So far this has mustered up a whole lot of posturing and one big question: Who the fuck wants to pay for a re-vote that shouldn’t need to occur in the first place?
srv
Clearly, your mother was swayed by Hillary’s stance on the issues.
w vincentz
myiqx2,
Could you please include me?
You obvious intellect underwhelms me.
mrmobi
Fountainhead, you’re barking up the wrong tree trying to convince low-IQ about anything so basic as fairness.
I, for one, don’t understand why Obama is not against a re-do for Michigan and Florida. If voters from those states feel disenfranchised, they should take it up with their party leaders and other elected representatives.
Everyone knew going in that these delegates would not be seated, Hillary included.
A re-do means the Democratic party will have no control over future Democratic primary elections. See Terry McAuliffe back in 2004. Hint: he didn’t not give an inch on states changing their primary election dates.
No, low-IQ and the Clinton Campaign simply can’t accept playing by the rules. Winning is everything, whatever the cost.
John S.
Which Howard Dean has already rejected as an option.
Back to the drawing board…
mrmobi
That should be “didn’t give an inch.”
Snail
(snort)
tBone
Ah, I made the cut for the myiq2 Fuck You club. I feel special.
TheFountainHead
mrmobi: I understand that I’m likely to fall on deaf ears, but forming the arguments as coherently as I can is a fun challenge, so you might say I do it as much for myself as for them.
In other news, I think this pithy comment lifted from Hillaryis44.com pretty much embodies just how far gone many of her die-hard supporters are:
tBone
Ah, I made the cut for the myiq2 Fuck You club. I feel special.
myiq2xu
You should feel special. As in “Captain of the short-bus” special.
Neal
There are delegates, the DNC is saying they will not be seated.
Hillary agreed she would not campaign in either state and kept that agreement. She never agreed there would be no delegates. That was the DNC rules committee’s decision.
The DNC says that the delegates will be seated if the states find another way to select them. One solution is a re-vote. Hillary has agreed. So far Obama has not.
jj
Nice plea.
Which brings me back to your ‘IOW – “Don’t trust ‘Whitey.’”’ statement.
You remain full of it.
The fact that you think the whole “hoodwinked and bamboozled” theme is exclusive to the conflict between blacks and whites says more about you than it does about Barak Obama.
You could have just as easily (and only slightly less ridiculously) claimed Obama’s intent was IOW – “Don’t trust ‘The Clintons.’” and the statement would have been accurate.
And let’s recall, these words – “Don’t Trust Whitey” were not actually uttered by Obama, but are instead myiq’s very own interpretation of what Obama intended to say to black audiences in a speech.
And where does myiq’s interpretaion lead us?
Right to “race”, as it were.
So when you play dumb (or coy), with shit like this.
Color me (pun intended) unmoved.
What I accused you of being is more accurately defined as an “asshole”. But if that’s what you want to think. Fine.
Guess what?
Your talking points still suck.
You cry foul because you think I am calling you a racist, when it is you who in fact have ascribed racism to Obama on the thinnest of supporting evidence.
What color is the sky in your world?
Asshole. Yeah, I think that fits you.
cleek
yeah… it’s like everybody’ desirous that Obama do well.
Snail
It looks like myiq has cashed in his gift certificate good for one brutal beating.
Neal
.
Okay, let me try this again. My 12:45 comment didn’t seem to work right.
I am a Florida voter – and a registered independent – who was told that my vote would not count in the Democrat primary. Therefore, I did not bother changing my party affiliation to Dem since I was told – once again – that it wouldn’t count. I know at least four people in the same situation. I also know a few registered Dems (like my fiance) that didn’t bother taking part in what was being considered an opinion poll.
Do I feel disenfranchised? Not really. I just think that the DNC and the Florida Democrat Party are a bunch of whiny politicians. Oh well. I would feel more “disenfranchised” if they changed their minds after the fact and gave the votes to Clagina and that somehow affected Barack’s dozen state, 800000 vote, 150 delegate lead. That might do it.
Neal
One point to be made. Obama is half white and from reading his books I know that he adored his white mother and grandparents – you know, that ones that raised him.
As a white guy, I don’t feel an ounce of racism coming from Obama. I’m sure millions would agree with me.
I remember when Obama was low in the polls and some in the black community that just loved the Clintons talked about how he wasn’t “black enough”. He overcame that. The Clinton’s had the ball and they dropped it. Starting primarily with South Carolina. Deal with it.
tBone
Tell us more about your fascinating Malcolm X>Farrakhan>Obama theories. We functionally retarded folks just can’t get enough of that.
Billy K
Well, Hillary, not to be outdone, has announced she is only half-woman.
something similar about not woman enough…
I think you mean he transcended that.
Billy K
Denzel is the key.
And Malcolm-Jamal Warner. He is the second of The Three Malcolms.
cleek
the Malcom In The Middle, if you will.
Billy K
I give you my vote for PoTD.
Neal
No, he overcame it. Ralph Emerson transcended things.
He OVERCAME Hillary’s name recognition, party power, cronies, wealth, etc etc etc…and he had more than just a victory party planned for February 6th and after.
Billy K
You must be new here.
Billy K
For Neal.
Neal
No. I’ve been lurking around these parts for a little while now. I don’t post often. It’s a slow day at the office.
I know all about the MUP transcending things. I just find it silly. I don’t claim Barack Obama to have transcended anything.
I read that post the first time around.
shera
Myiq, can I get a “fuck you” too? I would be honored.
Please?
Sojourner
You are having way too much fun with this!
Neal
Oh, and Billy K, was that an elaborate “Fuck You”?
Just trying to keep score with this thread.
Billy K
.
Nah. I’ve just always hated the “Obama has transcended” thing. I like to poke at things I hate. So any mention of the word “transcend,” and I have to talk about Obama’s transcending ways. I guess it’s a way of taking the piss out of a phrase.
Not any kind of “fuck you” to you, though I’m surprised you don’t recall the constant transcending the MUP was accused of around here in the early days of Obamamania. “You must be new here” is just kind of a standard internet answer.
tBone
No, we keep our “Fuck You!”s short and to the point around here. Occasionally a “Go Fuck Yourself” is acceptable if you feel the need to stretch out a little.
Don’t even think about a “Go fuck yourself, you fucking fuckhead.” We frown on lily-gilding.
Sojourner
Is the following allowed:
Fuck you! :-)
I want to make sure I understand the rules.
Neal
No, I remember it very well. I also thought it was silly. Some stupid pundit uses it and they all rush to say the same thing like a bunch of lemmings. I just avoid saying it myself when trying to make a semi serious point.
Now that I’m done doing that…
…and seeing as how Hillary is a white lady and this is a race thread…
…I’m going to say Obama transcends white people.
Xenos
Question for the day-
Is the critical issue here that of race and class (ie, middle class white women resenting Obama) or is it a matter of generations (baby boomers seriously pissed of that after just 15 years they are being left in the dust by the Obama phenomonon).
As a post-boomer, I can’t see how Obama and his movement fail to show proper respect for the elder generations. Furthermore has not been the one to inject race in this debate. I do see some very pissy people who seem to resent Obama for failing to wait his turn to run for office.
Boomer vs Post-Boomer issues usually make for good flame wars, in any case.
Billy K
As a Boomer-hater, I think anything that even comes close to overshadowing them is a threat. I don’t think they give two shits about respect. They just don’t want to give up the reins. This is the generation that made plastic surgery and other age-inhibitors a part of daily life.
dslak
Although I won’t claim this applies more generally, it does seem to be like this in academia.
From what I understand, the Boomers really wanted mandatory retirements for academic staff (out of fairness, of course!), back when they were the ones trying to get jobs.
Now that it’s all Boomers reaching retirement age, guess who opposes mandatory retirement as unfair?
Sojourner
It’s also the generation responsible for starting movements for racial, gender, and sexual orientation equality. It’s also the generation that stopped a war.
What has your generation done that’s so great?
Neal
What? Are we talking about the 1860s? Them crazy abolitionists?
Or Susan B Anthony? She was a baby boomer?
I’m confused.
Neal
What? Are we talking about the 1860s? Them crazy abolitionists?
Or Susan B Anthony? She was a baby boomer?
I’m confused.
Martin
BTW, all of the rules are the DNC rules committee’s decision. If Hillary doesn’t think the delegate seating is fair, why doesn’t she just attack the apportionment of delegates as well? Maybe New York deserves 100 more delegates on account of it being a reliable blue state? Why is that rule any more or less valid than the Florida/Michigan one? And before you reply too quickly, Delaware had their delegates stripped a few elections ago for the same infraction, so there’s precedent for it being a proper rule.
Whether Clinton agreed or not, she accepted that they wouldn’t be counted per a radio interview in NH last October.
Obama hasn’t ruled out a revote, he just raised concerns about a mail-in. Clinton rejected a caucus but seems okay with the other options. But Florida has given up on a revote anyway. Given that Pelosi is chair of the convention and seems a bit pissed at Clinton over the assertion that McCain is more qualified than Obama, I think people ought to just give up on any leniency toward Clinton on the delegate issue.
jj
Speaking only for Gen-Xers here, Boomers represent the nadir of generational narcissism.
My Generation is no great shakes, but at least we aren’t annoying. :)
And not to be a stickler, but the Generations that actually started the movements for racial and gender equality in this country FAR predate the Baby Boomers.
Martin
Damn, I was duped into replying to miq by pulling his quote from Neil. Greasemonkey has failed me.
Sojourner
Find yourself a good history book. That should take care of it.
Agreed. Poor choice of wording on my part.
And yes, my generation has gotten incredibly annoying. But at least we have fond memories of when we made a positive social contribution.
John S.
Speaking as a fellow Gen-Xer, I second that.
I tire of Boomers waxing poetic about themselves. IMHO, they are more accurately summed up by a line from the movie SLC Punk!, where the protagonist’s father (after having this very argument) declares:
I didn’t sell out — I bought in!
jj
I just think it’s fascinating to watch each generation slowly turn into that which it abhorred about previous generations.
For example, the Boomers (in a stereotypical sense) were all against things like entrenched power structures and dynastic party politics until they got hold of the reigns.
Now, we get to watch in horror and disappointment as an archetypical boomer (Hillary) grasps and claws to maintain that very system.
It’s all too sad.
Billy K
I was going to say this:
Also, Boomers need to get over themselves. Their habit of taking credit for things they had little-to-no effect on is annoying at the very least.
(mumble mumble…biggest hypocrites ever… mumble mumble..)
Neal
Sojourner, as someone who absolutely loves history and reads about it obsessively…I’d be glad to debate this one. In fact, I used two historical items to semi-refute your point and you conveniently did not quote that part of my comment. Lovely.
TheFountainHead
As a Gen Y Guy, this is a touchy subject I like to call, “The Thing My Father and I Fight About Every Time We Talk.”
The Boomers are a problem. Pure and simple. They had every opportunity to recognize and do something about the fact that the economic forces they wield would crush Social Security under their weight and make Universal Healthcare neigh on impossible to achieve until long after they were dead and gone. And that doesn’t begin to touch on the disproportionate weight they have on our social agenda. Every generation struggles with their progenitors, this is nothing new. What IS new to modern society is the progenitive generation outnumbering their offspring by such numbers and for such a long period. Age and accident generally thin the numbers to the point where the progressive mindset of the younger generation is allowed to be brought to fruition by sheer force of will. I think the recent political and social climate is evidence that this is no longer the case.
Like I said, the Boomers are a problem, as a bloc.
Neal
Sorry. My internet has been fucking up all day…so please excuse the half quotes and double posts. I am aware.
TTT
The narcissism and greed of the Boomer generation has ruined so much else about America, it makes sense it would get in the way of the ’08 election also.
Geraldine Ferraro is a nobody. Her campaign lost 49 states a lifetime ago, and since then she has done absolutely nothing. She emerges now from her hibernation of irrelevance to try to shoot down a genuine people-powered, issues-based diverse coalition for progress. Maybe she can be Nader’s VP.
Funniest part: her claim that Obama shouldn’t piss her off because if he’s the nominee he’ll need her as a fundraiser. Dearie, while I’m sure you’re the toast of the assisted-living facility’s Bingo night, out here where people actually have to work for a living Barack Obama has over one million donors to his campaign. He can get along fine without you; goodness knows, America has for 25 years.
Sojourner
I’m not going to get into a debate over this. I have too much else going on today.
All I will say is that a lot of the attitudes you folks take for granted did not exist when I joined the work force. The women I work with are confident that they will be treated as part of the team and that they have options when it comes to fighting bad behavior like sexual harassment (the real thing – the kind that forced some women to leave the company). This was not the case when for a good chunk of my career.
So if you want to believe that the boomers have done nothing for anyone else, have at it.
But I’m still waiting to hear about your generations’ many accomplishments.
Martin
TTT misses the point of Ferraro. From one of the abandoned threads I wrote:
But the new strategy here for Clinton is clear. This is the occupation gambit played in politics. Just as Bush’s invasion of Iraq forced even opponents of the war to provide support for the effort since the invasion couldn’t be undone, Clinton is poisoning the general election with the hope that now that the election is about race filling in for Obama’s lack of qualification it will force the party to support her since that race card can’t be undone (I’m not sure this can be undone or not). It’s extremely deliberate given the timing as it allowed the Mississippi vote to be used as the best possible evidence that it is true (though it isn’t true if you look at the larger whole). This becomes an irreversible process. Clinton is forcing the party to make a choice – back Obama on principle and lose or back me in disgust but win.
Clinton/Ferraro don’t care if you think they are racists or irrelevant. If they succeed at convincing Democrats that Obama can’t win because voters in the general will see Obama as a product of social affirmative action (a seed they planted), then they know Dems will go to Clinton out of sheer practicality. It’s like the backup quarterback kneecapping the starter in practice the day before the Superbowl and asking the coach rhetorically “So what are you going to do now?”
Dork
I think NASCAR fans are racist. Always worrying and talking shit about races. “Daytona rules! The Brickyard 500 sucks!”. Every week, they’re angry again at another race.
Bey
Oh, yes you are.
I wasn’t aware that the Clinton/Obama contest is breaking down along generational lines. As a boomer woman voting for Obama, I clearly missed the memo.
dslak
According to Hillary, LBJ was responsible for all that good stuff in the ’60s, and he was no Boomer.
Bey
Oh, yes you are.
I wasn’t aware that the Clinton/Obama contest is breaking down along generational lines. As a boomer woman voting for Obama, I clearly missed the memo.
myiq2xu
Gen X must suffer from the drugs their parents did at Woodstock.
Obama is a Baby Boomer!
TheFountainHead
Hahahaha.
Hard to have accomplishments when your society is too busy talking about Gay marriage and the threat of radical Islam to deal with it’s real problems.
Hard to have accomplishments when the economy is literally groaning under the weight of the largest generation in history who saved nothing and instead spent and invested on or in whatever they could.
Hard to have accomplishments when there’s just no damn room in the workforce because you aren’t retiring/dying fast enough.
Hard to have accomplishments when we’re brought up in an age of anti-education and a public school system that was gutted by government failures long before we got here.
Hard to have accomplishments when more than 50% of us were brought up in broken/fractured/dysfunctional homes.
Hard to have accomplishments when we’re busy trying to afford the housing and healthcare we need which is unattainable because of the number of you receiving the lionshare of it and driving up insurance costs.
Don’t look down on us and say, “Make something of yourselves!” while you still have your boot on the small of our back. I have no love for the lazy and incompetent members of my generation, but I see plenty of my generation struggling against forces brought to bear on them by the disregard of your generation for mine.
myiq2xu
Call Whine-1-1 and they’ll send you a WAHmbulance.
TheFountainHead
Correct, and one who has had the good sense to realize that there is a generation war being fought, perhaps subtly now, throughout America. He’s on the younger end of the Baby Boomer scale and he sees that the front half of his generation has had it’s opportunity to improve our standing in the world and while it has accomplished much on one hand, it has dug its heels in and refuses to go one step further on the other. Obama sees that the only way to effect a better life for Americans is to do so with the support of the Americans that still think a better life is out there for them, and that is not the Boomers. Sorry.
Sasha
The political philosophy that Obama follows would probably be best described as “post-Boomer.”
Whether he himself is a Boomer is something else. The beginning/end of a “generation” is debatable. By some metrics, he was born on the very tail end of the Baby Boom; by others, he was born on the very beginning of Gen X. Both generations wouldn’t be wrong to claim him as their own.
Apropos considering his reputation as the Magical Unity Pony. He transcends generations.
TheFountainHead
Cute. And exactly what I expected from you.
Bey
Oh please. You are hardly being opressed by the boomers. I’m sure you’d start whippin’ out those accomplishments if we would only hurry up and die already. /snort
In other news: Geraldine has stepped down.
Gilmore
Some people believe Malcolm X had moved away from racism before he died
Dude, what is this shit. Unless ‘some people’ includes, you know, Malcolm X, you’re just being a prick or talking out of your ass. Read the autobiography. Then again you have twice my IQ, so what do I know?
Sojourner
Of course. Because it was the Boomers who elected Bush.
Never heard a boomer make that claim!!!
Martin
Sweet! Old and Busted vs New Hotness wars.
I’m 39. What camp do I belong in?
jj
Dear Sensitive BJers,
My tongue is only slightly in cheek as I write this.
Bey,
Do some research. Cruise the intertrons, take an informal poll amongst aquaintances, go the Onion, whatever.
I will bet you a $5 gift certificate to Jack ‘n the Box (or the similarly undelicious fast food chain of your choosing) that Boomers will prevail, by a large margin, in any contest of ‘most annoying living generation’.
It’s not that at all. We just don’t buy the whole “we started racial and gender equality” thing. Not even close.
Besides compared to the Silent Generation (1921-1941), Boomers come across as whiny, self absorbed layabouts.
Barak Obama may technically be a Boomer but to me, his message embodies a pan-generational sense of shared responsibility to something larger than the individual (something Boomers are not exactly known for).
Kind of like Hillary’s “It takes a village” meme – one which has since transmogrified into a sort of twisted “Army of One” approach that is somewhat more off-putting.
Just my .02
myiq2xu
As if “Boomer” was a political philosophy.
The “Goldberg Principle” – You can prove any thesis to be true if you make up your own definitions of words.
I dare you to accuse me of plagiarism.
Billy K
What TheFountainHead said. Boomers had everything handed to them and fucked it all up, betraying their core principles the whole way.
Zero respect.
Bey
I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but you’re in the My-ass-is-falling-down, my-hair-is-falling-out, I-can’t-remember-where-I-put-the-car-keys camp. It’s a bad camp.
But after 10 years you get to graduate to the Old and Busted camp where your ass is still falling, but you say screw it and go out to party anyway.
Billy K
You’re with me – stuck in the middle. But if you don’t have a simmering anger towards boomers, you haven’t been invested in the job market or politics much the last 20 years.
Bey
JJ, I hope you are savoring these moments. Someday you’re going to be in the most annoying evar! group.
It helps to have a sense of humor when it happens. :D
Gilmore
Sorry, I posted that before I saw JJ’s epic sand-filled-garden-hose beatdown. Didn’t mean to gild the lily there.
myiq2xu
I can’t wait until I’m old enough to retire. Then I can vote to increase the Social Security payroll taxes on the young snots who will be supporting me.
They’ll be able to afford it, they’ll have all those high-paying jobs we have now.
dslak
Boomers will only prove to be the most annoying because they were the most numerous.
Grumpy Code Monkey
Great; from racism to generationism. Just when you think things couldn’t get any sillier.
Some years ago, I read about demographers who had created a separate category (variably called Wedgies, Gappers, or Tweeners — I prefer Wedgie myself) of those people who come between the Boomers and Xers and don’t really fit either category. I always phrased it as “too young for tie-dye, too old for tattoos.” Basically it’s those of us who were in high school when MTV went live.
‘Sides, he’s not self-congratulatory enough to be a true Boomer. :p~~~
myiq2xu
Hmmmm?
Sounds like typical me! me! me! Boomer bullshit to me.
Sasha
Boomer isn’t a political philosophy per se, but I’m sure you would agree that, simply as a matter of generational culture, Boomers tend to approach and answer political questions and situations in a different manner than those of earlier or later generations. This is what I meant.
Obama was born in 1961. Wikipedia notes that though most consider the Boom to have ended in 1964, there are many reasoned arguments placing the end date sooner. I would consider Obama a post-Boom/pre-Gen X child — what is apparently called Generation Jones (again, courtesy of Wikipedia).
For what? Borrowing a witticism in an attempt to refute a point? You are being way too defensive.
tBone
Sorry, but I have to dock major points for the smiley. We must strive to be earnest and forthright with our Fuck Yous.
Teh Wiki:
Shorter Wiki: myiq2 is wrong. Again.
myiq2xu
Who exactly did I borrow it from?
myiq2xu
No, I don’t agree. You’re wrong again.
tBone
Next on the Myiq2 Show: Idiots Who Think the Sky is Blue, and Why I Hate Them.
Sasha
I believe our esteemed host coined the phrase (IIRC). Otherwise, I have no idea why you would think that I would think you’re plagerizing someone. I never suggested it in any of my posts.
Sasha
So you don’t believe that the political approach of George Bush Sr. vs. George Bush Jr. has anything to do with the generation each Bush happened to belong to?
[shrug]
myiq2xu
No, he did not.
srv
Ah, I’m going to start using pan-dimensional now.
srv
The swing vote when it comes to passing euthenasia legislation and unplugging the baby boomers.
Wilfred
Ram a lead pipe up his ass and give the ball to someone else.
Sojourner
Thanks, tBone, for not letting me down.
And thank you even more for making me laugh… ALOT.
In the midst of stupidity without end on the political front, it is still possible to find laughter.
Now if we can only get on with electing Obama.
Calouste
The Boomers are disappointed with themselves that from all those thought they had at Woodstock about how they were going to change the world, they ended up with giving it Clinton I and Bush II. They are desparate to have one more shot to redeem themselves and get back their youthful ideas with Clinton II, only to find out that they have turned into what they despised in their youth and the younger generation is carrying the flame of changing the world in Obama.
srv
Two words, weedhoppa.
Xenos
They have always been what they claimed to despise, except for a small subgroup of honest, brave, and principled boomers who have made a tremendous difference.
As for ‘Xers (and jonesers, to a lesser degree), we can’t sell out because we have never had the chance to buy in. I suppose that makes us a pissy bunch. It has also made Xers much more generous to the Yers… most Xers I know make a real attempt to hold the ladder for following generations rather than to pull it up with them.
Chuck Butcher
Let’s see now, what Obama said was the he admired OR’s vote by mail but he doubted FL’s ability to get it up and running since they do no such thing. I live in OR and think everybody should VBM. You also are an idiot if you think doing it clearly and transparently is something FL could manage in a matter of weeks. I am real confident of our votes as are almost all Oregonians, we also have a small population and we built the system with foreknowledge we were doing it.
I’ll be goddamed if myiq2xboxofrocks gets to hijack my language for his racist code. I live in one of the most WHITE places in this country and I get to hear hoodwinked on a fairly regular basis. Hoodwinked and bamboozled were both pretty common currency in Ohio and surrounding states in my younger years. Both have the sort of rolling syllables popular within the preaching specialties. Ya stupid fuck, the Chinese-Americans outnumber blacks here and there are very few Chinese-Americans here and it is white people saying hoodwinked and they did not get it from Malcolm X. You’re running out of Hillary shit to run at that rate.
Here’s the short version, she is not to blame ever, somebody else is to blame always, somebody else is doing it, she deserves to be president – her call. We don’t need this damn election a coronation will do fine.
tBone
True, but I think I’m going to have to stock up on nitrous oxide if this keeps up much longer.
Beej
Oh good grief! The Boomers, the Gen Xers, the Gen Yers are not some separate monolithic forces who collectively plan and execulte self-interested political strategies. I’m a Boomer, one of the earliest of that generation. Too many of you who are younger have apparently swallowed whole the Boomer myths. You know the ones: we single-handedly ended segregation, created gender equality, ventured into space, etc. What we actually did was what every other generation has done and will continue to do for the rest of time-we did what seemed best, most fun, most interesting, most noble at the time. Some of us were racists. Some of us were communists. Some of us were violent. Some of us were peaceniks. We are liberal, conservative, and everything in between and WE ALWAYS WERE. It’s just that some of us made a whole lot of noise.