Insider Take: Clinton Trying to Save Dems from Selves

This link from the respected DC website Politico is to an interesting article contending that Hillary and Bill Clinton continue to hammer so hard at Barack Obama for reasons other than their collective ego and sense of entitlement. They are apparently convinced that the Republican machine will chew Sen. Obama up so assiduously that he’ll be running to Rev. Wright screaming “God damn America” by October.

At first I found the reasoning compelling, in a cynical way. I mean, when do the ads from Weather Underground Victims for Truth start airing? John McCain might be principled, but he can’t stop that stuff.

But in the end, I find its logic unsatisfying, though it does make the Clintons appear a bit less craven. If you think Obama can win at this point, it’s on the premise that he can convince enough Americans to ignore the slanderous ads from 527 groups and vote their hopes, not fears and knee-jerk sensitivities.

The worrisome question is to what extent can Obama get the media to ignore trivialities? Part of why George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson could not see the obdurate arrogance of their questioning last Wednesday (“Will you commit on this stage . . .”) was they and the nation’s entire insider political realm, whether media, campaign hacks, consultants, ad producers, etc., are steeped in this culture Obama is trying to deviate from.

They believe this is all part of the game and that you are not ready or worthy until the process has vetted you or destroyed you. They believe as much because to believe otherwise is to devalue and call into question the very way they have chosen to spend their careers and lives. To believe anything else makes them cynical hacks. Your call.

Obama might well fail, might be too naïve for this. But it’s about time someone tried to break the cycle, isn’t it? Bill Maher posited Friday night that things are bad enough in this country for people not to fall for and propagate the kind of political reasoning that got us two terms of GW.

Comments

[Robb]

Ignore trivialities?

You know, I am a bit concerned that if people in the media can paint anti-Americanism, anti-patriotic flag waving, religious branding and finger pointing, and guilt-by-association: I don't think these things are all that trivial. If a few radical frantic, and might I add extreme, voices can dominate using fear than we have significant problems within our democracy.

Perhaps you mean you wish we could trivialize their influence on the political process? Clearly after witnessing the last few weeks and months (from Republicans and Democrats alike) I am beginning to wonder if it will ever be possible to have sane and rational political debate. Hysteria has taken over.

Do you think will end when Hillary Clinton is history? Do you think it would stop if Hillary became the Democratic nominee? They are prepared to whip up sectarian hatred and religious fear in big heaping pailfuls. Our founding fathers have got to be rolling in their graves. They never wanted a nation divided by the extremists we see today.

This hysteria and focus on banalities is badly damaging the fabric of the whole country and, obviously, benefiting a chosen connected few whose bank accounts swell hugely with billion dollar infusions from the U.S. Treasury.

I would think the first people to be alarmed with this would be Conservatives. Money is disappearing at alarming rates and deficits are growing astronomically. Our debt to foreign nations with horrible human rights, controlled by abusive centralized dictators and the value of our currency abroad is fallen drastically. Aren't these things Conservatives take special notice of with their prudent economic pledge and small government principles?

We are in a war with no end in sight, no exit strategy, and without a specific and achievable purpose or goal. We are fighting in a country where we were never welcomed and still despised by its general population. We entered their nation on the basis of a lie (Remember WMD?). Billions of dollars are going down the drain and young American men and women are being killed not to mention hundreds of thousands of Iraqi innocents. Are we distracted enough to want four, eight or a hundred more years of this bumbling incompetence?

And the hysteria in our election and on our TVs is about wearing a lapel flag pin? It is far more patriotic to want to fix the problems we face, condemn the inaction and idleness of those who prolong the suffering and the perpetrate the lies.

Banalities simply cover the grievous errors, decisions, and continued misdirection of the country. We are arguing over whether a candidate knew his minister who quoted a white minister who said, "...the chickens have come home to roost!" and "God damned America." Being a free nation, the white man who said that is free to speak and so is Rev. Wright free to quote him and then disagree.

What most of the jockey's sitting at those desks at CNN and FOX can't comprehend, and do not wish to quote the entire statement because the hysteria is far more important to them than a clear vision for the future. And nothing better to create hysteria and stir up the country into fear than religion.

That's just smear. It is smear with the purpose of distortion, distraction, to disable and destroy democracy in this country. I don't see that as trivial.