What to Call an Obama Critic

After winning the North Carolina primary, Senator Barack Obama said of John McCain:

His plan to win in November appears to come from the very same playbook that his side has used time after time in election after election. Yes, we know what's coming. I'm not naive. We've already seen it, the same names and labels they always pin on everyone who doesn't agree with all their ideas. . . . The attempts to play on our fears and exploit our differences, to turn us against each other for political gain, to slice and dice this country into red states and blue states, blue collar and white collar, white, black, brown. . . .

He accuses the Republicans of slicing and dicing the country into red states and blue, but Republicans don't do that. The electoral college does. If a presidential candidate wins a state, the TV networks illustrate it by turning that state red or blue on their electoral maps. The only way to prevent it would be to concede the election.

Obama’s been using this line since his famous speech to the Democrats in 2004. Everyone appreciates it when he speaks abstractly of unity. But as an attack, it’s feeble. He's saying that, horror of horrors, the other side wants to win this election! They want to win every state they can!

He complains that Republicans try to exploit differences. Is he saying that he doesn’t? How about practically every line of this speech?

He abhors the Republican playbook (sometimes known to Democrats as “Karl Rove’s playbook” as in, “That’s right out of Karl Rove’s playbook!”) He says its strategy is to divide us between white-collar and blue-collar. Oddly enough, Obama himself has made this division more acute than any presidential candidate in many years.

Finally, he accuses Republicans of trying to divide the country by race. Here he seems to be confused. He’s clearly talking about page one of the Democratic playbook.

The mainstream media not only agree with Obama’s assessment of Republican strategy, they take it for granted. They don’t even think to question the red state, blue state absurdities just mentioned.

Newsweek Finally Gives Up On Journalism

In its May 19th issue, Newsweek did a story on “How Obama and his team will battle the GOP onslaught.” It couldn’t have been more favorable to Obama if it had been written by his PR agent.

Here’s a sampling.

Newsweek — The Republican Party has been successfully scaring voters since 1968 . . .

Do they really believe that scaring voters started with Richard Nixon? They don’t mention Democrats ever scaring voters. Remember John Kennedy in 1960 and “the missile gap”? History proves it was a lie, but Kennedy exploited concern that the Soviet Union had more missiles than the United States in order to “scare up votes.”

Democrats and Republicans have been trying to scare voters since each party’s inception.

Before leaving this topic, we should consider whether this is as evil as Newsweek implies. Yes, fear makes for bad motivation, but pointing out real danger is legitimate. The candidate who fails to do so, isn’t doing his job.

Newsweek — It is a sure bet that the GOP will try to paint Obama as "the other"—as a haughty black intellectual who has Muslim roots (Obama is a Christian) and hangs around with America-haters.

There are many things I don’t like about John McCain, but I cannot imagine him attacking Obama “as a haughty black intellectual.” It won’t happen.

Newsweek threw in the ridiculous stuff about haughty blacks and being a Muslim to try to get the train going in a certain direction before they threw in a legitimate concern that will be questioned in the campaign. Obama has a history of “hanging around with America-haters.” And we are known by the company we keep.

Newsweek — Senator John McCain himself has explicitly disavowed playing the race card or taking the low road generally. But he may not be able to resist casting doubt on Obama's patriotism.

Here the word “patriotism” is meant to mislead. It’s a preemptive strike against anyone who brings up Jeremiah Wright or other America-haters with whom Obama is friendly.

But the Wright question is not about patriotism. It’s about judgment and wisdom. Do you want the man who chose Jeremiah Wright as his pastor to choose the next Secretary of State? When Pastor Wright went on his publicity offensive, he showed the world that he was just as nutty as the man in the video clips we had all seen. Senator Obama seemed shocked. He was outraged. He found it hard to believe. Do you want someone with this level of discernment to choose the next member of the Supreme Court?

Newsweek — If McCain's camp does try to exploit Obama's ties to the fiery Reverend Wright, the Obama-ites can question his sincerity — is he really the "Straight Talk" candidate? And if McCain can't stop others from the sort of innuendo and code that Republicans have learned to frighten voters, Obama can cast doubt on McCain's credentials as a commander in chief.

Notice the double standard. Obama says he can’t control what his pastor says on his behalf, but McCain is either weak or evil if he can’t control what others say.

Notice, too, the phrase “innuendo and code that Republicans have learned to frighten voters.” Besides being poorly worded, this goes to the basic elitist assumption that ordinary Americans are out there with their ears alert to any hint of racist code words. When they hear them, they will snap to attention and do whatever they’re told.

But “innuendo and code” can be in the mind of the hearer and not the speaker. The ability to criticize what they think people might be saying allows the Obama campaign (and their helpers at Newsweek) to paint all criticism of the Senator as invalid.

Susan Estrich

On March 12th, Susan Estrich, former campaign manager for Michael Dukakis, wrote in her column, “There is no question that the Republicans will try to do to Obama what they did to Dukakis: paint him as a liberal, out of touch with the values of average (white) Americans. . . .”

This is called “playing the race card.”

Susan’s a smart woman. She can be fair and thoughtful, but she’s playing mind games when she parenthetically throws in the word “white”. She’s giving us a taste of the campaign to come. Call Obama liberal, say his values don’t represent those of average Americans, and expect to be called a racist.

It’s gutter politics — the cheapest of cuts, the lowest of lows — to throw around accusations of racism without evidence. If people exhibit racism they should be exposed, but to stamp the label on someone just because you don’t like him or for political advantage, is bigoted, unjust, undemocratic, and unfair.

Posted: 5-16-2008
Note: At original posting, all links were active.