We still have a strong woman to support
Now that Obama is the presumptive Democratic nominee, Clinton supporters are understandably disappointed, but the complaints of some are just annoying.
I agree that Hillary was the victim of many undeserved sexist attacks. I would much prefer focusing on the issues rather than stupid crap like pantsuits and cleavage. I’m sure that there are some people who didn’t vote for her simply because of her gender, just as some didn’t vote for Obama because of his race. I don’t think that’s why she lost, but it IS an undeniable fact, and a serious problem with our national political discourse.
Now that Hillary is (presumably) out of the race, though, where do you think that misogyny will be focused next?
Yes, that’s right. Michelle Obama.
We will, hopefully, have another strong, intelligent, independent woman in the White House come January. Michelle Obama is as much a role model for young American women as any other successful female public figure, including Hillary Clinton. She is successful in her own right, having come from Chicago’s South Side and going on to attend Princeton and Harvard Law School. From BarackObama.com:
For three years after law school, Michelle worked as an associate in the area of marketing and intellectual property at Chicago law firm Sidley and Austin, where she met Barack Obama. She left the corporate law world in 1991 to pursue a career in public service, serving as an assistant to the mayor and then as the assistant commissioner of planning and development for the City of Chicago.
In 1993, she became the founding executive director of Public Allies – Chicago, a leadership training program that received AmeriCorps National Service funding and helped young adults develop skills for future careers in the public sector.
Michelle began her involvement with the University of Chicago in 1996. As associate dean of student services, she developed the University’s first community service program. Michelle also served as executive director of community and external affairs until 2005, when she was appointed vice president of community and external affairs at the University of Chicago Medical Center. She also managed the business diversity program.
Michelle has fostered the University of Chicago’s relationship with the surrounding community and developed the diversity program, making them both integral parts of the Medical Center’s mission.
What an impressive list of accomplishments. If it’s really about empowering women, then Hillary’s feminist supporters should get behind Michelle, right? Right?
Hillary’s Snoopy Helmet Moment? (Updated – Update2)
Via HuffingtonPost:
Hillary Clinton’s argument for staying in the race took a disturbing turn today. While meeting with the editorial board of South Dakota’s Sioux Falls Argus-Leader, she raised the specter of assassination while discussing why she would stay in the race:
“My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don’t understand it.”
Oh no she didn’t. She did NOT go there.
There is no way that any thinking person could have believed a reference to any assassination would be appropriate, not this year or any year. Obama has had Secret Service protection for a year because of death threats, earlier than any primary candidate in history.
The Obama camp responded quickly:
“Senator Clinton’s statement before the Argus Leader editorial board was unfortunate and has no place in this campaign,” said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.
Of course, now she’s backpedaling:
“Earlier today I was discussing the Democratic primary history and in the course of that discussion mentioned the campaigns that both my husband and Senator Kennedy waged in California in June 1992 and 1968 and I was referencing those to make the point that we have had nomination primary contests that go into June. That’s a historic fact.
The Kennedys have been much on my mind the last days because of Senator Kennedy and I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation, and particularly for the Kennedy family was in any way offensive. I certainly had no intention of that, whatsoever. My view is that we have to look to the past and to our leaders who have inspired us and give us a lot to live up to, and I’m honored to hold Senator Kennedy’s seat in the United States Senate from the state of New York and have the highest regard for the entire Kennedy family.”
Well, the historic fact didn’t need to include any mention of RFK’s assassination, did it. And I really don’t see an apology to Obama in that mealy-mouthed explanation, only to the Kennedys. But let’s face it, she can’t defend her statement because it’s indefensible.
My husband is calling this her “Snoopy Helmet moment”. He thinks she has completely sunk her campaign with this outrageous remark. I hope he’s right.
Update: Nobody, nobody has anything good to say about Hillary’s statement. There are already three posts up on Huffington Post criticizing her. Bob Cesca writes:
If nothing else, the superdelegates ought to receive this as a blaring, siren-light warning. A giant red flag. Senator Clinton is embarrassing herself and the Democratic Party. She has ceased to be a viable, respectable candidate and has, instead, become a ghoulish, desperate shell of her formerly strong and admirable self.
Maybe my husband is right.
Update 2: I knew Keith Olbermann wouldn’t let this pass without a Special Comment.
Hillary Clinton: God Bless Rich People
The elitist-hating populist had this to say on the O’Reilly Factor:
I can’t believe she said that out loud. Who is she talking to? I’m pretty sure that statement doesn’t play well with the “lunch-pail voters”. It DOES, however, play well with rich people who don’t want to give anything back to the country/system that made them rich.
I have a question, though. The argument against raising taxes on the rich is the redistribution of wealth. But, assuming the Law of Conservation of Matter, if the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer…doesn’t that mean the rich are taking from the poor? Just sayin’.
Al Giordano and Operation Anti-Chaos: The Narrative on “White Voters” Is Fiction
Since the Pennsylvania primary, I haven’t been able to watch cable news without getting sick to my stomach. Nobody discusses how Hillary’s huge lead shrank to just under 10%. Instead, they question whether or not working-class White voters will vote for a Black candidate, while pointing to Hillary’s barely-eked-out win in PA as evidence that Obama has a problem with this demographic. They also keep repeating that bullshit “elitist” meme, thereby perpetuating it, while asking how Obama is supposed to combat it. Only a few pundits, like Rachel Maddow , are challenging this “conventional wisdom”.
Imagine my happy surprise, then, to find this article by Al Giordano at The Field (h/t Jack and Jill Politics and Huffington Post) (bold mine):
I turn on the TV, read the political columnists (and a significant number of analytically-challenged bloggers, too) and all I hear is a bunch of white folk prattling on about their favorite narrative: “Obama’s losing white voters!”
They’ve swallowed the Clinton racially-obsessed spin, hook, line and sinker. Some, because they are gullible, haven’t an original idea in their little pea brains, and follow the pack of what everybody else is talking about. Others, because they like to toss around knowing falsehoods. Nary a superdelegate can go on Fox News without being berated by an anchorperson screeching (this is pretty close to an exact quote): “But your duty as a superdelegate is to select the most electable and that’s Hillary Clinton!” That these anchorpersons are Republican partisans openly cheering for Senator Clinton is our first clue of the game afoot. One of the major successes of Rush Limbaugh’s Operation Chaos is that it has got all the right-wing pundits and reporters marching lockstep behind the effort to give Clinton enough oxygen to keep slashing away at Senator Obama, who remains the prohibitive likely Democratic nominee.
And when Clinton wins state primaries that, because of demographics, she was always going to win – last week, Pennsylvania and next week, Indiana – they then wave that event up like a blood-soaked flag as proof of their narrative: See? See? We told you so! White people won’t vote for Obama!
So imagine my pleasant surprise this morning to see a New York Times columnist, Charles Blow, who did what none of these chattering lunkheads have done. He looked at the hard data of how voters, white and black, view the two Democratic candidates – favorably or negatively? – and how those views have progressed over time. The data is based on multiple CBS-New York Times polls (among the most respected survey outfits among competing pollsters) over two years and more. Check it out:
Look at the damn graphs. You can see that Clinton is in a staggering free-fall among African-American voters, her favorability is down 36 points while 17 percent view her more negatively than before, while Obama’s favorable and negative ratings among whites have paired at five point increases. You can even see the small dip – about two percentage points – in his popularity among whites that can be attributed to the news cycles about his ex-pastor, and see that it has leveled out and is now on a straight horizontal line (meanwhile, Clinton’s numbers among blacks continue on an extreme downward precipice). The greater context is that even including Obama’s slight dip, he’s more popular today among white voters than he ever was prior to February.
Obama’s “White voter problem” is a lie being spread by the MSM, which has a financial interest in seeing the primary go on as long as possible. Seems to me, the REAL question is: How is Hillary supposed to win without the Black vote? Superdelegates, do you really want to find out?
Hillary vs Right-Wing (coffee) Machine
I’m posting this for my sister, who missed it. She needs a laugh.
Too bad she didn’t have her duck-hunting rifle. Pfft, what a poser.
Ylizaville 
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