D
Dr. Jai Maharaj
Guest
Obama was the first to play the race card
Sean Wilentz
is the Sidney and Ruth Lapidus professor of history at
Princeton University
THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Quietly, the storm over the hateful views expressed by Sen.
Barack Obama's pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, has blown
away the most insidious myth of the Democratic primary
campaign. Obama and his surrogates have charged that Sen.
Hillary Rodham Clinton has deliberately and cleverly played
the race card in order to label Obama the "black"
candidate.
Having injected racial posturing into the contest, Obama's
"post-racial" campaign finally seems to be all about race
and sensational charges about white racism. But the mean-
spirited strategy started even before the primaries began,
when Obama's operatives began playing the race card -- and
blamed Hillary Clinton.
Had she truly conspired to inflame racial animosities in
January and February, her campaign would have brought up
the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his incendiary sermons. But
the Clinton campaign did not. And when the Wright stories
and videos finally did break through in the mass media,
they came not from Clinton's supporters but from Fox News
Network.
Although Wright had until recently been obscure to the
American public, political insiders and reporters have long
known about him. On March 6, 2007, the New York Times
reported that Obama had disinvited Wright from speaking at
his announcement because, as Wright said Obama told him,
"You can get kind of rough in the sermons." By then,
conservative commentators had widely denounced Wright. His
performances in the pulpit were easily accessible on DVD,
direct from his church. But Clinton, despite her travails,
elected to remain silent.
Instead, she had to fight back against a deliberately
contrived strategy to make her and her husband look like
race-baiters. Obama's supporters and operatives, including
his chief campaign strategist David Axelrod, seized on
accurate and historically noncontroversial statements and
supplied a supposedly covert racist subtext that they then
claimed the calculating Clinton campaign had inserted.
In December, Bill Shaheen, a Clinton campaign co-chair in
New Hampshire, wondered aloud whether Obama's admitted
youthful abuse of cocaine might hurt him in the general
election. Obama's strategists insisted that Shaheen's mere
mention of cocaine was suggestive and inappropriate -- even
though the scourge of cocaine abuse has long cut across
both racial and class lines. Pro-Obama press commentators,
including New York Times columnist Frank Rich, then whipped
the story into a full racial subtext, charging that the
Clintons had, in Rich's words, "ghettoized" Obama "into a
cocaine user."
The Obama campaign and its supporters pressed this strategy
after Clinton's unexpected win in New Hampshire. Pundits
partial to Obama, including Eugene Robinson of the
Washington Post and John Nichols of the Nation, instantly
mused that their candidate lost because of supposedly
bigoted New Hampshire whites who had lied to pre-primary
pollsters -- an easily disproven falsehood that
nevertheless gained currency in the media.
Next morning, Obama's national co-chair, Jesse Jackson Jr.,
cast false and vicious aspersions about Hillary Clinton's
famous emotional moment in New Hampshire as a measure of
her deep racial insensitivity. "Her appearance brought her
to tears," said Jackson, "not Hurricane Katrina."
Obama's backers, including members of his official campaign
staff, then played what might be called "the race-baiter
card." Hillary Clinton, in crediting both Lyndon Johnson as
well as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for the Civil
Rights Act in 1964, had supposedly denigrated King, and by
extension Obama. Allegedly, Bill Clinton had dismissed
Obama's victory in South Carolina by comparing it to those
of the Rev. Jesse Jackson in the 1980s. (In fact, their
electoral totals were comparable -- and in the interview at
issue, Clinton complimented Obama on his performance
"everywhere" -- a line the media usually omitted.)
Thereafter, Obama's high command billowed further race-
baiter allegations into the media. Pointing to the
notoriously right-wing Drudge Report, Obama's campaign
manager David Plouffe accused the Clinton campaign of
deliberately leaking a supposedly racist photograph of
Obama in African garb, which actually originated on still
another right-wing Web site. Finally, David Axelrod
trumpeted Geraldine Ferraro's awkward remarks in an obscure
California newspaper as part of the Clinton campaign's
"insidious pattern" of divisiveness.
One pro-Obama television pundit, Keith Olbermann of MSNBC,
fulminated that the Clinton campaign had descended into the
vocabulary of David Duke, former grand dragon of the Ku
Klux Klan.
(In his Philadelphia speech on race, Obama pressed the
attack by three times likening Ferraro to Rev. Wright.)
Since the Philadelphia speech, the candidate and his
surrogates have sounded tone-deaf on the subject of race.
On March 20, Obama described his Kansas grandmother to a
Philadelphia radio interviewer as "a typical white person."
The same day, Sen. John Kerry said that Obama would help
U.S. relations with Muslim nations "because he's a black
man." Another Obama supporter, Sen. Claire McCaskill of
Missouri, called him the first black leader "to come to the
American people not as a victim but as a leader." Her
history excluded and conceivably denigrated countless black
leaders, from Frederick Douglass to Rep. John Lewis. Obama
remained silent, refusing to take Kerry and McCaskill to
task for their racially charged remarks.
Neither candidate can win sufficient elected delegates in
the remaining primaries to secure the nomination, and so
the battle has moved to winning over the superdelegates.
Obama's bogus "race-baiter" strategy is one of the main
reasons he has come this far, and it is affecting the
process now. But by deliberately inflaming the most
destructive passions in American politics, the strategy has
badly divided and confused Democrats, at least for the
moment. And having done so, it may well doom the Democrats
in the general election.
- - -
Sean Wilentz's forthcoming book is "The Age of Reagan: A
History, 1974-2008."
More at:
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/currents/20080330_Obama_was_the_first_to_play_the_race_card.html
Jai Maharaj
http://tinyurl.com/24fq83
http://www.mantra.com/jai
http://www.mantra.com/jyotish
Om Shanti
Hindu Holocaust Museum
http://www.mantra.com/holocaust
Hindu life, principles, spirituality and philosophy
http://www.hindu.org
http://www.hindunet.org
The truth about Islam and Muslims
http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate
DISCLAIMER AND CONDITIONS
o Not for commercial use. Solely to be fairly used for the educational
purposes of research and open discussion. The contents of this post may not
have been authored by, and do not necessarily represent the opinion of the
poster. The contents are protected by copyright law and the exemption for
fair use of copyrighted works.
o If you send private e-mail to me, it will likely not be read,
considered or answered if it does not contain your full legal name, current
e-mail and postal addresses, and live-voice telephone number.
o Posted for information and discussion. Views expressed by others are
not necessarily those of the poster who may or may not have read the article.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This article may contain copyrighted material the use of
which may or may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright
owner. This material is being made available in efforts to advance the
understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic,
democratic, scientific, social, and cultural, etc., issues. It is believed
that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title
17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without
profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included
information for research, comment, discussion and educational purposes by
subscribing to USENET newsgroups or visiting web sites. For more information
go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this article for purposes of
your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the
copyright owner.
Sean Wilentz
is the Sidney and Ruth Lapidus professor of history at
Princeton University
THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Quietly, the storm over the hateful views expressed by Sen.
Barack Obama's pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, has blown
away the most insidious myth of the Democratic primary
campaign. Obama and his surrogates have charged that Sen.
Hillary Rodham Clinton has deliberately and cleverly played
the race card in order to label Obama the "black"
candidate.
Having injected racial posturing into the contest, Obama's
"post-racial" campaign finally seems to be all about race
and sensational charges about white racism. But the mean-
spirited strategy started even before the primaries began,
when Obama's operatives began playing the race card -- and
blamed Hillary Clinton.
Had she truly conspired to inflame racial animosities in
January and February, her campaign would have brought up
the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his incendiary sermons. But
the Clinton campaign did not. And when the Wright stories
and videos finally did break through in the mass media,
they came not from Clinton's supporters but from Fox News
Network.
Although Wright had until recently been obscure to the
American public, political insiders and reporters have long
known about him. On March 6, 2007, the New York Times
reported that Obama had disinvited Wright from speaking at
his announcement because, as Wright said Obama told him,
"You can get kind of rough in the sermons." By then,
conservative commentators had widely denounced Wright. His
performances in the pulpit were easily accessible on DVD,
direct from his church. But Clinton, despite her travails,
elected to remain silent.
Instead, she had to fight back against a deliberately
contrived strategy to make her and her husband look like
race-baiters. Obama's supporters and operatives, including
his chief campaign strategist David Axelrod, seized on
accurate and historically noncontroversial statements and
supplied a supposedly covert racist subtext that they then
claimed the calculating Clinton campaign had inserted.
In December, Bill Shaheen, a Clinton campaign co-chair in
New Hampshire, wondered aloud whether Obama's admitted
youthful abuse of cocaine might hurt him in the general
election. Obama's strategists insisted that Shaheen's mere
mention of cocaine was suggestive and inappropriate -- even
though the scourge of cocaine abuse has long cut across
both racial and class lines. Pro-Obama press commentators,
including New York Times columnist Frank Rich, then whipped
the story into a full racial subtext, charging that the
Clintons had, in Rich's words, "ghettoized" Obama "into a
cocaine user."
The Obama campaign and its supporters pressed this strategy
after Clinton's unexpected win in New Hampshire. Pundits
partial to Obama, including Eugene Robinson of the
Washington Post and John Nichols of the Nation, instantly
mused that their candidate lost because of supposedly
bigoted New Hampshire whites who had lied to pre-primary
pollsters -- an easily disproven falsehood that
nevertheless gained currency in the media.
Next morning, Obama's national co-chair, Jesse Jackson Jr.,
cast false and vicious aspersions about Hillary Clinton's
famous emotional moment in New Hampshire as a measure of
her deep racial insensitivity. "Her appearance brought her
to tears," said Jackson, "not Hurricane Katrina."
Obama's backers, including members of his official campaign
staff, then played what might be called "the race-baiter
card." Hillary Clinton, in crediting both Lyndon Johnson as
well as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for the Civil
Rights Act in 1964, had supposedly denigrated King, and by
extension Obama. Allegedly, Bill Clinton had dismissed
Obama's victory in South Carolina by comparing it to those
of the Rev. Jesse Jackson in the 1980s. (In fact, their
electoral totals were comparable -- and in the interview at
issue, Clinton complimented Obama on his performance
"everywhere" -- a line the media usually omitted.)
Thereafter, Obama's high command billowed further race-
baiter allegations into the media. Pointing to the
notoriously right-wing Drudge Report, Obama's campaign
manager David Plouffe accused the Clinton campaign of
deliberately leaking a supposedly racist photograph of
Obama in African garb, which actually originated on still
another right-wing Web site. Finally, David Axelrod
trumpeted Geraldine Ferraro's awkward remarks in an obscure
California newspaper as part of the Clinton campaign's
"insidious pattern" of divisiveness.
One pro-Obama television pundit, Keith Olbermann of MSNBC,
fulminated that the Clinton campaign had descended into the
vocabulary of David Duke, former grand dragon of the Ku
Klux Klan.
(In his Philadelphia speech on race, Obama pressed the
attack by three times likening Ferraro to Rev. Wright.)
Since the Philadelphia speech, the candidate and his
surrogates have sounded tone-deaf on the subject of race.
On March 20, Obama described his Kansas grandmother to a
Philadelphia radio interviewer as "a typical white person."
The same day, Sen. John Kerry said that Obama would help
U.S. relations with Muslim nations "because he's a black
man." Another Obama supporter, Sen. Claire McCaskill of
Missouri, called him the first black leader "to come to the
American people not as a victim but as a leader." Her
history excluded and conceivably denigrated countless black
leaders, from Frederick Douglass to Rep. John Lewis. Obama
remained silent, refusing to take Kerry and McCaskill to
task for their racially charged remarks.
Neither candidate can win sufficient elected delegates in
the remaining primaries to secure the nomination, and so
the battle has moved to winning over the superdelegates.
Obama's bogus "race-baiter" strategy is one of the main
reasons he has come this far, and it is affecting the
process now. But by deliberately inflaming the most
destructive passions in American politics, the strategy has
badly divided and confused Democrats, at least for the
moment. And having done so, it may well doom the Democrats
in the general election.
- - -
Sean Wilentz's forthcoming book is "The Age of Reagan: A
History, 1974-2008."
More at:
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/currents/20080330_Obama_was_the_first_to_play_the_race_card.html
Jai Maharaj
http://tinyurl.com/24fq83
http://www.mantra.com/jai
http://www.mantra.com/jyotish
Om Shanti
Hindu Holocaust Museum
http://www.mantra.com/holocaust
Hindu life, principles, spirituality and philosophy
http://www.hindu.org
http://www.hindunet.org
The truth about Islam and Muslims
http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate
DISCLAIMER AND CONDITIONS
o Not for commercial use. Solely to be fairly used for the educational
purposes of research and open discussion. The contents of this post may not
have been authored by, and do not necessarily represent the opinion of the
poster. The contents are protected by copyright law and the exemption for
fair use of copyrighted works.
o If you send private e-mail to me, it will likely not be read,
considered or answered if it does not contain your full legal name, current
e-mail and postal addresses, and live-voice telephone number.
o Posted for information and discussion. Views expressed by others are
not necessarily those of the poster who may or may not have read the article.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This article may contain copyrighted material the use of
which may or may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright
owner. This material is being made available in efforts to advance the
understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic,
democratic, scientific, social, and cultural, etc., issues. It is believed
that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title
17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without
profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included
information for research, comment, discussion and educational purposes by
subscribing to USENET newsgroups or visiting web sites. For more information
go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this article for purposes of
your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the
copyright owner.
