Comments on Bark Back News: Press' Treatment of Clintons Fuels Obama; ...

Obama's pedestal continues to shrink

AP sto...

2008-03-27T23:26:00.000-04:00

Obama's pedestal continues to shrink

AP story (truncated) from March 27:
WASHINGTON - White House hopeful Barack Obama suggests he would have left his Chicago church had his longtime pastor, whose fiery anti-American comments about U.S. foreign policy and race relations threatened Obama's campaign, not stepped down.
"Had the reverend not retired, and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn't have felt comfortable staying at the church," Obama said Thursday during a taping of the ABC talk show, "The View." The interview will be broadcast Friday.
Asked about the controversy Wright's comments have created, Republican John McCain said while campaigning in Denver: "I can only say that I am sure, knowing Senator Obama, that he does not share the extreme views that were expressed that I saw on television."

Three conclusions:

1. Obama now apparently sets human resources policy for the Trinity United Church of Christ of Chicago. Because his ambition was slightly derailed by a minister who has several thousand loyal worshippers, those several thousand loyal worshippers will not have their spiritual needs met by the man they came to see each week. Is Obama's gall only surpassed by his narcissism or vice versa?

2. McCain is licking his chops that Obama prevails. Think the POW would be this kissy face with a similar Hillary kerfuffle? Oh, that's right, McCain hasn't EVER responded to any of Hillary's bumps in the campaign road. The POW knows his best shot is against an untested demagogue who has a problem with southern voters.

3. Choosing the estrogen-packed View for this Uncle Tommish mea culpa is bullseye at Hillary's base. If Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton hadn't already been kneecapped by the Obama mafia, I would have delighted at their reaction to Friday's minstrel show.

Yours is not a voice of reason as indicated by you...

2008-03-10T14:47:00.000-04:00

Yours is not a voice of reason as indicated by your article but that of desperation. The Clintons are master manipulators who who have underestimated their opponents by believing their own hype. Hillary now has the gall to ask to have the credentials of the Florida and Michigan delegations reinstated. Hillary has won Florida but as for Michigan, she did not play by the rules and did not withdraw her name from the ballot as the other candidates have. Since she was the only name on the ballot for the democratic party she of course won the nomination. Now she wants all of Michigan's democratic delegates to boot. Bottom line, I think that Hillary has too much excess baggage to become president--it would be politics as usual. Also, if Bill and Hillary are not careful they would be instrumental in dragging down the democratic party even further. As for now I don't know if the democratic party would survive a spectacle of a brokered convention--where it would be, 'politics as usual'.

As usual, the Hillary haters want it both ways. Th...

2008-03-08T06:41:00.000-05:00

As usual, the Hillary haters want it both ways. They want you to believe that she was some kind of manipulative co-president when she was in the White House, but when she tries to use some of that experience as a qualification to hold the office, she is just the ex-president's wife trying to use sleeping in the same bed as an accomplishment. She just can't win.

After he co-opted them, the media assisted King Ge...

2008-03-08T03:30:00.000-05:00

After he co-opted them, the media assisted King George II in his 2000 coup of the presidency. But the mediots have raised the bar in 2008 with their Obama ass kissing. Maureen Dowd of the NYT has been portraying Hillary as an addled uber bitch for weeks. The Washington Post weighed in Sunday with this insidious commentary trash in covert Hillary bashing: http://tinyurl.com/2wqbam

Postscript: Now that Hillary has proclaimed...

2008-03-07T22:24:00.000-05:00

Postscript: Now that Hillary has proclaimed her foreign policy superiority to the nation, she is being challenged on what she actually did. This was inevitable, and she should have foreseen it. Clumsy.

Lots of anger here. More than than, lots of name-c...

2008-03-07T17:25:00.000-05:00

Lots of anger here. More than than, lots of name-calling of other Democrats, as though anyone who thinks ill of the Clintons is being "ridiculous" or "naive." I don't understand the almost-Pavlovian rage that sparks in some people when the Clintons' tactics are challenged. Sure, many good things happened during Bill Clinton's administration ... but Bill isn't running. I know that Bill himself needs a reminder of this from time to time, but he's not running. And that makes a big difference.

And what about the "who do want answering that phone call at 3 a.m." nonsense? Think about this logically: If sharing a bed with the President of the United States for eight years makes you a foreign policy expert -- even though you didn't have the security clearance to sit in any of Bill's important meetings -- then hell, why hasn't the GOP nominated Laura Bush? ;-) This is the bind that Hillary has put herself in with this attack on Obama's credentials. Because now that she has set this standard for what makes someone more qualified to be President, then on every single score -- from Senate experience to foreign travel to life experiences -- John McCain beats her. Hands down.

Clearly, she didn't envision that when she launched the attack, but her campaign has been pretty shortsighted from the get-go, never thinking in the long term.

For instance, what could have possibly been thinking when she --not once but twice this week -- strongly implied that the GOP candidate is better qualified to be President than her fellow Democrat?

That's not the action of a "progressive" Democrat. That's the sort of party betrayal I expect from Joe Lieberman. If Obama had been playing footsie with his GOP opponent as much as Clinton has done this week, you'd be outraged. And rightfully so.

So again, what's with the blinders on the Clintons? You praise them for their tough, do-what-it-takes-to-win attitude ... but then you don't think they would ever play the race card? Bill knew what he was saying with the Jesse Jackson comment. He could've picked from a number of Democratic candidates who scored early victories, but he reached back 20 years ago to pick ... the black guy. By deliberately choosing to equate Obama with Jackson, Bill wanted to portray Obama as a fringe, black candidate with little hope of winning over the white voter ... and until this week, Obama has done pretty well on that score. (I believe he still scored about half of the white male vote in Ohio, which considering the lousy PR week he had, ain't too shabby.)

As for the press, they've played games with both sides for the sake of a good story. Obama was new and fresh; Hillary was a known quantity. And as a newspaper guy yourself, you know that the new stuff always makes for the better copy. Frankly, Hillary got a pretty cushy treatment during the month of February. Think about it: She lost 11 straight contests. Had she been, say, Rudy Giuliani, she would have been openly mocked in the press for refusing to get out of the race.

As for the right-wing religious nutjobs getting their minions to march in lockstep vs. Obama, two points: 1) They weren't successful in getting their followers to vote for GOP choice #1, Rudy. They hate McCain! 2) What, they would attack Obama ... but somehow go easier on Hillary? At best, this is a wash. There's no way most of those fanatics would vote for any Democrat.

In general, with regard to Hillary's electability, she probably would beat McCain -- and she should, especially if John "W." McCain continues to let Bush portray him as the candidate who will Stay The Course. But I'll say again that the GOP would love to run against her. Sure, Gore was a dope in 2000, but again, Bill Clinton isn't running. People, even Republicans, get weak at the knees around the Schmoozer-in-Chief (and that's a compliment -- he's damn talented), but I know quite a few moderate Republicans who are sane, rational people ... yet they go absolutely apeshit when Hillary's name is mentioned. And it seems the one thing that could unite a dispirited GOP votership is having their Antichrist, Hillary, as the opponent. Inexplicable.

Now is that rational? Is it fair to Hillary? No. But that's the way it is. People don't have the warm fuzzies for her like they do for Bill.

The best outcome that could come out of this tussle is that Obama gets to hone his "rapid response" team (which has been weak) and that any skeletons in Clinton's and Obama's closets come out now, rather than in August or September (which is why I'm concerned that Clinton seems to keep pushing off the release of her tax returns -- first, after Ohio & Texas, and now "mid-April," presumably after the Pennsylvania primary).