Obama Tries To Rise Above Farcical “Debate”

Wednesday night’s ABC News debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama was laughable. The two hosts, George Stephanopoulis and Charlie Gibson, asked the worst questions that I have ever heard asked in a televised debate. Their questions seemed designed to draw the candidates into petty feuding. And while Hillary Clinton certainly seemed eager to roll in the muck, Barack Obama tried to rise above the circus act to talk about the issues.

Gibson and Stephanopoulis revisited every non-issue that the media has attempted to cook up in the past three weeks on either of the two candidates. They rehashed the Reverend Wright non-story, they rehashed the Bosnia tall-tale non-story, and they even revisited the bitter nation non-story. After this fiasco, hopefully Obama will see that it is not in his best interest to involve himself in any further debate with Clinton. It may serve Clinton’s interests and it certainly serves the media’s salacious interests, but it does not serve the best interest of the people, our country or the Democratic Party.

As the hosts repeatedly attempted to put Obama on the hot seat, Barack Obama, to his credit, firmly but politely put them on notice that these kinds of questions don’t serve any positive or productive purpose. He rightly pointed out that these manufactured “issues” serve only to distract the country from solving the real problems that confront us. He even gallantly side-stepped his opportunity to heap it on Clinton. And he did it without appearing defensive, though perhaps occasionally annoyed. And viewers could not fault him because they were getting annoyed too.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, joined the attempted attack on Obama with relish. She sounded like a broken record, repeating the same smug, tired lines about people choosing their Pastors and how out-of-touch Obama is with the “little people.” She took every opportunity to pile it on and then defended her actions by saying that Obama had to be prepared for the dirty tricks that the Republicans would throw at him. Well, with friends like this, who needs enemies, eh Hill?

Clinton also went on about how her daddy was raised in Scranton and tried real hard to feed into this whole Citizen Clinton shtick she has invented. How many times has she been to little Scranton, PA in, say, her whole, entire life? It's the same way that she pretends to have some connection to the state of New York. What is her connection, other than that she moved there to take a political seat in possibly the only district in the country that she thought she could win? So now she waxes poetic about Scranton.

Whatever Hillary! Sip another shot of whiskey and nurse that warm beer. I‘m not buying your good old gal crap. And neither are most people. You look ridiculous. And puh-leeze spare us the guns and ammo talk. When is the last time you went hunting? Do you own any guns? If so, do you even know where they are right now? Bet not.

This whole bit with her running around posing as a working-class citizen is political theatre at it’s most absurd and despicable. Working-class people have real jobs; they can’t pack up and move to another state to run for a Senate seat; they don’t have wealthy friends to finance their campaigns; and they can’t pull the funds from their private accounts when the campaign donations slow down. Not all working class people spend all their free time in church, or hunting, or throwing back boilermakers. And they are not stupid enough to believe that she knows what their lives are really like. Someone should tell Clinton that this posturing is more insulting than it is endearing to most of us working class citizens. And it reminds of a certain George W. Bush running for President as the guy you’d like to drink some beers with. Well, how well did that work for us, America?

Obama took a lot of crap off the hosts and Clinton at this debate. He handled it mostly by trying to politely put the rascals in their places. He declined to join in when the hosts confronted Clinton on some of the non-issues that they have tried to cook up. While gallantly side-stepping most of the opportunities the hosts gave him to Clinton-Bash (he even appeared to be defending her at one point), he DID get in one well-deserved dig when he said that Clinton had learned the wrong message from all of her years taking it on the chin from the likes of Karl Rove.

Obama showed that he possesses patience, intelligence, maturity, diplomacy, logical and analytical thinking skills, courtesy and tact. Now we just have to see if that is what the American people want in their leader or if they are going to go back to the same two-faced, manipulative, shallow leadership that they have fallen for in the last several elections.

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Bitter? You Bet Your Ass I Am.

This is what I read about Barack Obama on Yahoo News:

…trying to explain his troubles winning over some working-class voters, saying
they have become frustrated with economic conditions:
‘It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.’

And I think, well, at least someone is paying attention.

It’s a fair way to sum up the situation, except that I would add that, historically, these sorts of resentments are strategically inflamed by the corporate media and power-mongers who use the working class’ bitterness to rise to power or fatten their wallets. [Against the Communist menace, the Black menace, the Welfare menace, the Liberal menace, the Mexican menace.] We have seen this over and over again, especially when the nation is in the throes of economic hardship (usually in the waning days of a Republican presidential administration).

Oh, but I forgot AGAIN…public people are not supposed to tell the truth. They are supposed to dance around it like The Lord of the Dance, but never rest upon it lest the citizenry glimpse the web of lies at the foundation of the system under which we allow ourselves to be governed (and manipulated and used).

Americans have good reasons and a RIGHT to be bitter and angry.

We have been lied to by our leaders; lied into a war in Iraq, our young men and women carelessly and callously thrown into an impossible situation that has only wrought more riches for multinational corporations and their stockholders while destroying lives and families both here and in Iraq.

We have been used and thrown away by our corporate leaders, sidelined by “outsourcing,” undermined by their use of illegal workers to drive down the wage, destroying our quality of life. These same corporations that built their wealth and power on the backs of workers in the ’60’s through ‘80’s, then turned around and spit on us all when they went global.

The news media, “The Fourth Estate” that we had always considered our advocates and our protection against dishonesty and double-dealing in government, has been taken over by corporate fascists and the denizens of “journalism” have become prostitutes for a New Propagandism. So intertwined are these “journalists” and our criminal government leaders that they wind up wrapped up in scandal together.

This current administration has broken our democracy with its reckless disregard of the law and its denial of the rights and powers of the citizenry. It has broken our military with its reckless war-mongering for profit and political power and its reckless disregard for the lives of our brave soldiers. It has broken our economy by allowing corporations to rule, unfettered by oversight or regulation, over the rights and powers of the people. The trickle-down theories of those in power have rained poverty and hopelessness on the working classes that make up the foundation of our society. But it has not broken our spirit.

So, Obama rightly observes that the citizens of this nation are fed-up, they are angry and they are bitter. Of course you expect the Republican party, who feeds its members on lies, denials, half-truths, propaganda and intolerance to cry out in protest. They must deny that we are angry or bitter because if they acknowledge our anger, they must acknowledge both the cause and their complicity in it.

But you might expect more honesty from a fellow Democrat. You would be woefully mistaken:

Clinton supporters were eagerly hoping (to use this to their advantage)...They handed out "I'm not bitter" stickers in North Carolina, and held a conference call of Pennsylvania mayors to denounce the Illinois senator. In Indiana, Clinton did the work herself, telling plant workers in Indianapolis that Obama's comments were "elitist and out of touch."…Clinton attacked Obama's remarks much more harshly Saturday than she had the night before, calling them "demeaning."…The Clinton campaign is parsing every word, focusing on what Obama said about religion, guns, immigration and trade. Clinton hit all those themes…"The people of faith I know don't 'cling' to religion because they're bitter. People embrace faith not because they are materially poor, but because they are spiritually rich," she said. "I also disagree with Senator Obama's assertion that people in this country 'cling to guns' and have certain attitudes about immigration or trade simply out of frustration," Clinton added. "People don't need a president who looks down on them," she said. "They need a president who stands up for them."

We should not be surprised that Hillary is feeding into Republican lies and denials. She who recently began a desperate attack to paint Obama as a “liberal” (ooooh, doesn’t it give you shivers?) the same way that Rush Limbaugh successfully labeled her years ago. She has begun to pull plays straight out of the Immoral Karl Rove PlayBook.

The truth is, Hillary is no liberal and Obama isn’t liberal enough to solve all the problems that have been created by a decade of conservative rule in this country. The true liberal candidates were weeded out by the media before most of the public ever got a chance to hear their ideas.

The truth is Hillary may as well BE a Republican, except that they wouldn't have her because they can't stand her. And like the girl that never could make the cheerleading squad, she just keeps hanging around trying to worm her way in by wearing the right clothes, listening to the right music, saying the right thing. Bill Clinton was never the liberal that he was painted to be and Hillary has proven herself to be even more conservative than her husband.

The truth is, Americans are bitter, but the media and Republicans like to deny that we are or try to make us feel ashamed of our anger. They employ all sorts of excuses for the woes of the citizenry and manipulate us into turning our anger on illegal immigrants, lazy welfare recipients, elite liberal intellectuals, and anywhere else but where it actually belongs. This perpetuates our problems, keeps them in power and allows corporations to continue manipulating laws and workers to feed their incessant greedy lust for an ever-higher percentage of profit.

The truth is, Hillary wouldn’t tell you the truth, even if she knew what the truth was, because all she cares about is getting into the White House. Her lust for power rivals that of any Republican leader and any corporate bigwig.

And who is it, do you think, that is backing her, that is pulling for her to win? It’s not the rank-and-file members of the Democratic Party, the majority of whom have cast their votes for Obama already. And although she has a lot of the Unions behind her, it's not the rank-and-file union member. It’s not the party leaders, most of who have stated that they will vote to nominate the candidate that the people choose.

Who stands to gain from another Clinton presidency? Who gained last time there was a Clinton in the Whitehouse? Remember NAFTA? Did that help the working man? Did it help the Mexican economy? Who benefits from unemployed Mexicans? Remember welfare reform? Did that help the working poor? Did it reduce the burden on society? Remember the scandals? Did those help the Democratic Party? Did they help the Evangelical zealots to gain power over government? Did they help the Republican party to gain power and sell it to the highest corporate bidder?

Conservatives must be drooling already if they think Hillary has Obama on the run. To the corporate sector, there is not much difference between a Clinton presidency and a McCain presidency. They don’t have to fear regulation from either of these two. What they worry about more is an Obama presidency, now that they have effectively filtered out John Edwards, the one candidate that might have brought meaningful change.

I AM bitter, Hillary.

I AM angry.

If you believed half the things that you profess to believe, if you cared about democracy, freedom, our military, the poor, YOU would be angry, too.

Declaring that she ISN'T angry or bitter (at least about anything besides her husband's philandering), and wagging a finger at those who ARE, just goes to prove that she is CLUELESS. When she says Obama is "elitist" and "out of touch" she more accurately describes herself. And when she says that the people need a president that will stand up for them, she can't possibly be describing herself.

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Not Bush-Lite, Bush-Femme

Have you noticed that the more Hillary Clinton scrabbles to win the Democratic nomination, the more her campaign resembles that of George Bush?

From what we’ve seen lately, she’ll do anything to win. The end justifies the means.

Is that really the kind of attitude we are looking for again? Do we want to end up with a female George Bush--can’t admit mistakes, lies when convenient, overestimates self-worth, underestimates and undervalues the citizenry, so wise that they can decide what is right for the American people, whether the people agree or not?

All is not fair in love, war and politics; that is just a thing that people say to justify being nasty.
It’s laughable that Hillary paints herself as the victim of attacks and smears when she employs the tactics herself. She must have taken some notes from her nemesis, Karl Rove, because some of the goings-on in this campaign lately have seemed sickeningly familiar.

Paint your opponent as effete, out-of-touch. If he is black, paint him as not black enough, or too black. Paint him as out of touch with the black voter. Attack his “morals,” even in an unprincipled way. If he is a hero, paint him as a coward. Paint him as “weak on terror.” And if he is reasonable and intelligent, paint him as a liberal. The American public has bought into this in the past, but will it work again? Kick ‘em when they’re up, kick ‘em when they’re down—attack, attack, attack.

Who dug up the clips of Reverend Wright that have so repulsed the white folks in Indiana that they now feel that they must vote for Hillary? To those that would fly to Hillary’s side over this flap, I would ask: Is it really a coincidence that this came out when Hillary looked like she was down for the count? Question the source, question the motivation, recognize the smear.

Even if the campaign wasn't behind it, they have certainly reveled in it and used it to their political advantage. What Geraldine Ferraro said wasn't racist or ridiculous (though she quickly disappeared from the staff), but what Jeremiah Wright said was? So Hillary repudiated the woman, but not the words.

Hillary equates herself to the fictional Rocky Balboa, fighting the good fight. Rocky, indeed. Rocky never threw a punch below the belt, even when he was down. Rocky didn’t employ a win-at-all costs, kitchen-sink attack. Rocky didn’t fire his manager when things looked grim, he fought harder, not dirtier. Rocky would have stood by his corner man no matter what. That's what made him a hero. Ma'am, you are no Rocky.

How many of the folks in the Clinton campaign have stepped down due to some flap or another? Do we really want to elect someone with no allegiance to those that helped her to get where she is? Nope, just "Buh-bye." The end is what's important.

Does the American public expect and demand that Obama completely repudiate the man that he has considered his friend and spiritual advisor? That’s the kind of “character” we are looking for in a President? That’s what the media and the Clinton Campaign would have you believe.

Apparently Hillary would have no second-thoughts about it. Is that a good thing? Rush to judgement; Off with his head! And she’s damn proud of it.

The Clinton Campaign’s desperate, win-at-all-costs mentality is not going to bring people together when the nomination comes down. Call me a hand-wringer if you want; the truth remains.

The sad thing is that she knows it, but doesn’t care. Kind of like George Bush, who, in Orwellian style, called himself the “Uniter” and then proceeded to divide this country and the entire world, truth be damned.

Long before she announced, conservatives labeled Hillary as “divisive.” She appears to be living up to that label and playing right into their hands.

I never dreamed I would ever agree with a conservative.

And that makes me feel dirty.

Thanks, Hill.

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