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Sunday, April 27, 2008

For Shame, McSame

For the sake of her Party, for heaven's sake, Clinton should stop chewing the scenery, already, gobbling up endless millions of activist dollars and endless hours of airtime squabbling and dart-throwing and derailing progressive enthusiasm for vitally necessary change November in her continuing failed scorched-earth bid for the White House so that we can redirect our righteous energies to corporate media darling and cynical warmongering cronyist neoconman John McCain.

5 comments:

Michael Anissimov said...

Hillary '08

got experience?

Instead of, "uh, I had NO IDEA that my pastor, who I listened to every Sunday, was preaching for years about how HIV is a synthetic virus introduced to inner cities by the government".

Dale Carrico said...

The primary contest is over, there are no numbers that add up for Clinton -- and the corporate media is keeping alive the lie that it isn't over because they enjoy the "drama" and filthy lucre of the contest, and are also hoping against hope that the interminable primary can poison the well or produce an Obama "gaffe" they can spew through their vomit-funnel forcefully enough to give their darling McCain a chance in hell.

Obama has a lifetime of experience in public life, including elected public office, exactly as impressive as if not imncomparably more impressive than Clinton's, and your demagoguing of the Wright issue (to which Obama has responded with a gravitas that no-one else has remotely risen to in this debased crap-culture) is stomach-churningly cynical.

If you're going to flog corporate media talking points why aren't you just talking about shark attacks instead of pretending to care about issues?

Michael Anissimov said...

I do care, and am ready to give Obama 100%. It's just that I, and others, are rightly concerned about Wright's comments. Obama has essentially claimed disassociation from these comments, but they're so extreme and unusual, it's hard to see how he couldn't have known about them and made the concrete decision to be complacent.

Some things are media talking points. For instance, "bittergate" is stupidity. But some of Wright's comments raise legitimate concern, which will be repeated endlessly by the Republicans until the election, if Obama wins the primary.

The race is not over. Know why? Because superdelegates have absolutely zero obligation to vote along with the popular vote. Howard Dean has made that completely clear.

Being an activist in Chicago cannot be compared to being a world-class lawyer, children & family activist, and First Lady that has visited 80 countries. Come on.

McCain is not the darling of the media. Fox News maybe. CNN, accused of being right-wing, focuses mostly on Obama, just like every other media outlet. The Obama obsession is well-documented in the numbers. It didn't fade until Hillary bravely accused the media of being biased.

Democrat '08, but until the race is settled, I'm with Mrs. Clinton, who, in the longer run (beyond the temporary obsession with Obama's rhetoric, often lacking in concrete recommendations) has a better chance of edging out McCain anyway. (Not to mention those little states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas, California, New York, etc.)

Dale Carrico said...

Obama has essentially claimed disassociation from these comments, but they're so extreme and unusual, it's hard to see how he couldn't have known about them and made the concrete decision to be complacent.

So, you are "rightly concerned" that maybe Obama secretly approves or tacitly condones the claim that "HIV is a synthetic virus introduced to inner cities by the government" and yet plan to "give Obama 100%" anyway? How does your head not explode generating both of these claims?

Because superdelegates have absolutely zero obligation to vote along with the popular vote.

Most superdelegates are beholden to the voters whose "popular vote" you claim they have zero obligation to, not to mention the fact that most are too devoted to the Party's fortunes to cheerfully overturn the will of a majority of states, a majority of voters, a majority of activists, a majority of delegates and sow crippling dissension in the party structure at an historical moment that should consolidate Democratic power in every branch of government instead, just because Clinton doesn't want to be a "quitter" after she's already lost.

Being an activist in Chicago cannot be compared to being a world-class lawyer, children & family activist, and First Lady that has visited 80 countries.

I disagree. What, Obama hasn't traveled internationally enough for you? His time in actual elected office counts less toward "experience" than being First Lady? Their activism is comparable. You say, "come on," as if there is an obvious imbalance here. The "imbalance" is a complete fabrication.

McCain is not the darling of the media. Fox News maybe.

The media bar-b-cues on the "Straight Talk Express" are amply well-documented, as are pundit admissions that the media is McCain's "real base," attested to on MSNBC and CNN as much as on Fox. For more: Free Ride: John McCain and the Media.

I'm with Mrs. Clinton, who, in the longer run... has a better chance of edging out McCain anyway.

Clinton went into this race with historically unprecedentedly high negatives. She hasn't made a dent in them. If people wanted somebody who was a shoe-in to beat McCain on the numbers, they would have supported the incomparably better John Edwards, in my view. But it doesn't matter -- McCain loses to anybody this election.

Obama is the better candidate for me because his purple-state strengths and activist energizing gives him better coat-tails and hence more Democratic asses in the seats to implement necessary progressive policies once he's in office and because he is more beholden to small campaign donors who are left of the corporate-militarists of the Village. In terms of policy and character I don't honestly think there is that much to distinguish them, although I have found the last couple of months of the Clinton campaign enormously ugly and off-putting.

VDT said...

Michael Anissimov said:

Instead of, "uh, I had NO IDEA that my pastor, who I listened to every Sunday, was preaching for years about how HIV is a synthetic virus introduced to inner cities by the government".

Although I am aware of the dubious credibility of the website it is published on, I still suggest you read an essay entitled Reverend Jeremiah Wright Is Right About Man-Made AIDS By Alan Cantwell, MD, simply as an exercise in devil's advocacy.

That being said, Michael, have you actually listening to Wright's entire sermons (rather than decontextualized Youtube clips), the Bill Moyers Journal interview of Wright, and Wright's speech at the Detroit chapter of the NAACP?

Now that I have I would gladly go his church every Sunday despite the fact I am an agnostic Unitarian Universalist.