P
PissingOffTheLeft@excite.com
Guest
The Left-Wing New York Magazine: "It was a great piece of oratory, and
a good short-term political tactic. But it won't help him beat
McCain."
http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/45317/
Few events in this relentlessly eventful campaign season have felt as
momentous, as freighted with portent, as the speech that Barack Obama
delivered last week on race. As a piece of rhetoric, Obama's address
was pretty much everything one could ever hope for from a presidential
candidate on the vexed topic of black and white: nuanced, candid,
gutsy, and replete with context. But Obama's oration was more than a
speech--it was a political maneuver. And, as such, at least in the
short term, it was as nearly as effective as it was eloquent and
erudite. It helped Obama move past the raging controversy stirred up
by the rantings of Reverend Jeremiah Wright. It put him back on the
elevated plane where he thrives. And, in the words of one Democratic
strategist, "It strummed the mystic chords of the press corps, which
has been south on him since Ohio and Texas."
In the longer term, however, Obama's speech did nothing to defuse an
issue that Republicans clearly intend to beat him senseless with this
fall--assuming that, as seems increasingly likely, he secures the
Democratic nomination. Quite the contrary.
In GOP circles, the incendiary video clips of Obama's former pastor
are seen, not surprisingly, as a gift that will keep on giving. And
indeed, the furor around them has caused Republican strategists to
rethink their preconceptions about whether Obama or Hillary Clinton
would be a more formidable general-election opponent against John
McCain. "Once, there was a clear impression that he would be tougher,"
a senior McCain adviser tells me. "But, after these past few weeks, I
don't think that's the case anymore."
On a microcosmic level, Obama's handling of the Wright imbroglio will
give rise to accusations of dissembling. The Friday before the speech,
Obama told the Chicago Sun-Times, "I'll be honest with you. I wasn't
in church when any of those sermons were issued ... I had not heard him
make such, what I consider to be objectionable, remarks from the
pulpit." But in the speech itself, Obama declared, "Did I ever hear
him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in
church? Yes."
Now, it's true that you can parse these statements so that they are
not strictly in conflict. Yet the fact that Obama and his campaign
have thus far refused to specify what inflammatory sermons he did
witness raises a red flag. And to Republican ears, the apparent
inconsistencies and revisions ring familiar bells. As Pete Wehner, who
ran the Office of Strategic Initiatives in George W. Bush's White
House, observed last week, "This story, which seemingly changes in
every retelling, is beginning to resemble nothing so much as Bill
Clinton's evolving explanation about his draft notice."
Of course, Obama's refusal to disown Wright presents an even larger
target--and one that dovetails perfectly with the campaign that the GOP
was already planning to wage against him. "There will be two
fundamental issues," a top Republican operative told me over lunch a
few weeks ago. "First, that Obama is way too inexperienced to be
commander-in-chief, which is an argument that not only polls
incredibly well but has the virtue of being true. And second, that
he's too liberal." When I asked if that meant an attempt to turn Obama
into the new Mike Dukakis, this strategist replied, "That's right."
When most of us recall the Dukakis campaign, what we remember (beyond
that picture of the governor in a tank, looking like Rocky the
Squirrel) is Willie Horton. But equally devastating was the insidious
way that Lee Atwater and Roger Ailes managed to turn a pair of related
trivialities--Dukakis's membership in the ACLU and his veto of a bill
that would have required all Massachusetts schoolchildren to recite
the pledge of allegiance--into damning indictments of the governor's
patriotism.
Which brings us back to Obama. The hard guys of the Republican Party
have no intention of trying to paint the hope- monger as a closet
black nationalist. They intend to portray him as insufficiently
allegiant to his nation. They will weave together Wright's "God damn
America" with Michelle Obama's statement that this is the "first time"
she has been "proud of my country," Obama's eschewal of the American-
flag lapel pin, and a piece of video that captures him standing at a
campaign event without his hand over his heart during the national
anthem. And, in fact, a trio of right-wing activists have already
thrown together a video doing just that: For a picture of what the
fall campaign will look like, just go to YouTube and type in "Is Obama
Wright?"
Obama knows that this is coming. He has his answer ready: that a lot
has changed in twenty years; that voters want to move past the kind of
politics that "uses patriotism as a cudgel"; that they are burning,
yearning, to declare, as he put it in his speech last week, "Not this
time." One hears him say these sorts of things and hopes, audaciously,
that he is right. Then one sees the Republicans licking their chops
and fears that he is not.
a good short-term political tactic. But it won't help him beat
McCain."
http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/45317/
Few events in this relentlessly eventful campaign season have felt as
momentous, as freighted with portent, as the speech that Barack Obama
delivered last week on race. As a piece of rhetoric, Obama's address
was pretty much everything one could ever hope for from a presidential
candidate on the vexed topic of black and white: nuanced, candid,
gutsy, and replete with context. But Obama's oration was more than a
speech--it was a political maneuver. And, as such, at least in the
short term, it was as nearly as effective as it was eloquent and
erudite. It helped Obama move past the raging controversy stirred up
by the rantings of Reverend Jeremiah Wright. It put him back on the
elevated plane where he thrives. And, in the words of one Democratic
strategist, "It strummed the mystic chords of the press corps, which
has been south on him since Ohio and Texas."
In the longer term, however, Obama's speech did nothing to defuse an
issue that Republicans clearly intend to beat him senseless with this
fall--assuming that, as seems increasingly likely, he secures the
Democratic nomination. Quite the contrary.
In GOP circles, the incendiary video clips of Obama's former pastor
are seen, not surprisingly, as a gift that will keep on giving. And
indeed, the furor around them has caused Republican strategists to
rethink their preconceptions about whether Obama or Hillary Clinton
would be a more formidable general-election opponent against John
McCain. "Once, there was a clear impression that he would be tougher,"
a senior McCain adviser tells me. "But, after these past few weeks, I
don't think that's the case anymore."
On a microcosmic level, Obama's handling of the Wright imbroglio will
give rise to accusations of dissembling. The Friday before the speech,
Obama told the Chicago Sun-Times, "I'll be honest with you. I wasn't
in church when any of those sermons were issued ... I had not heard him
make such, what I consider to be objectionable, remarks from the
pulpit." But in the speech itself, Obama declared, "Did I ever hear
him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in
church? Yes."
Now, it's true that you can parse these statements so that they are
not strictly in conflict. Yet the fact that Obama and his campaign
have thus far refused to specify what inflammatory sermons he did
witness raises a red flag. And to Republican ears, the apparent
inconsistencies and revisions ring familiar bells. As Pete Wehner, who
ran the Office of Strategic Initiatives in George W. Bush's White
House, observed last week, "This story, which seemingly changes in
every retelling, is beginning to resemble nothing so much as Bill
Clinton's evolving explanation about his draft notice."
Of course, Obama's refusal to disown Wright presents an even larger
target--and one that dovetails perfectly with the campaign that the GOP
was already planning to wage against him. "There will be two
fundamental issues," a top Republican operative told me over lunch a
few weeks ago. "First, that Obama is way too inexperienced to be
commander-in-chief, which is an argument that not only polls
incredibly well but has the virtue of being true. And second, that
he's too liberal." When I asked if that meant an attempt to turn Obama
into the new Mike Dukakis, this strategist replied, "That's right."
When most of us recall the Dukakis campaign, what we remember (beyond
that picture of the governor in a tank, looking like Rocky the
Squirrel) is Willie Horton. But equally devastating was the insidious
way that Lee Atwater and Roger Ailes managed to turn a pair of related
trivialities--Dukakis's membership in the ACLU and his veto of a bill
that would have required all Massachusetts schoolchildren to recite
the pledge of allegiance--into damning indictments of the governor's
patriotism.
Which brings us back to Obama. The hard guys of the Republican Party
have no intention of trying to paint the hope- monger as a closet
black nationalist. They intend to portray him as insufficiently
allegiant to his nation. They will weave together Wright's "God damn
America" with Michelle Obama's statement that this is the "first time"
she has been "proud of my country," Obama's eschewal of the American-
flag lapel pin, and a piece of video that captures him standing at a
campaign event without his hand over his heart during the national
anthem. And, in fact, a trio of right-wing activists have already
thrown together a video doing just that: For a picture of what the
fall campaign will look like, just go to YouTube and type in "Is Obama
Wright?"
Obama knows that this is coming. He has his answer ready: that a lot
has changed in twenty years; that voters want to move past the kind of
politics that "uses patriotism as a cudgel"; that they are burning,
yearning, to declare, as he put it in his speech last week, "Not this
time." One hears him say these sorts of things and hopes, audaciously,
that he is right. Then one sees the Republicans licking their chops
and fears that he is not.
