David Gergen Speaks Truth – Denounce Racist Vote
Please blog this, tweet this, and digg this. Let’s get some legs under what really was an historic moment in TV.
Because I no longer watch CNN, I missed seeing this live, but it’s entirely possible that David Gergen has just restored my faith in some pundits and the media, while speaking the truth about tonight’s Kentucky vote. In the video clip below, Gergen says what many have been thinking for the past week: What on earth is Hillary Clinton thinking, courting the racist vote as a last-ditch effort to win the nomination?
He goes further, after hearing the appalling Kentucky statistics rattled off by Wolf Blitzer, challenging Hillary Clinton to take a step back and tell the racist voters that if they voted for her simply because they won’t vote for a black guy, she doesn’t want their vote either. He mixes in her sexism complaints and suggests that for someone who is complaining about sexism, she should be speaking truth about the racism inherent in the exit statistics, denouncing it, and not allowing it to be legitimized in our culture. Watch it here:
Thanks to NattheDem (natthedem on Twitter) for the links, and to liza (aka blogdiva on Twitter) for calling attention to one of the few pundits who isn’t afraid to be intellectually honest and speak truth, even when it goes against what he wishes were truth.
David Gergen may have restored CNN from the place I buried it.
Update: Stefania at MOMocrats wrote something similar a few days ago:
If I were Hillary Clinton, rather than stand up and say that she’s a more viable candidate because a certain segment of the white population seems to prefer her, why doesn’t she stand up and say, “What the fuck is wrong with this country that in this day and age this is still an issue?”
Maybe Gergen is secretly a MOMocrats reader? Stefania has this advice for Senator Clinton:
Sphere: Related ContentHillary, as Gergen says, it’s time to “take the high road” in this campaign. Stop being so smarmy. Add actively courting racists to constantly referencing the Michigan and Florida votes and the referencing of Karl Rove’s maps saying she can beat Obama, and what have we got? A president? I think not. Is contributing to the racial divide so you can fight on for 2 more weeks really worth it? You’ve already lost. So take the high road.
Worthy of attention
- Jeffrey Toobin: In McCain’s Court
- Pentagon Announces Troop Deployments Of 42,000 To Iraq, Afghanistan
- Why Republicans Might Attack Iran Before the General Elections
For example, one of the strongest scenarios among neo-conservatives is based on the hypothesis that in the case of any military attack against Iran — even a limited air strike — the greatest beneficiary among the three presidential candidates would be John McCain. The reason for this is that the American people’s first priority would become national security instead of the economy, and since there might be a “perception” that McCain would deal with foreign policy issues better than economic ones, he would have a stronger chance of winning in November.
- Clinton Puts Up A New Fight
Later, when asked if she thinks this campaign has been racist, she says she does not. And she circles back to the sexism. “The manifestation of some of the sexism that has gone on in this campaign is somehow more respectable, or at least more accepted, and . . . there should be equal rejection of the sexism and the racism when it raises its ugly head,” she said. “It does seem as though the press at least is not as bothered by the incredible vitriol that has been engendered by the comments by people who are nothing but misogynists.”
(My aside: No racism? REALLY? Yes, there has been sexism on the part of the media, the pundits, some Obama supporters and bloggers. But to say there’s been NO racism? That’s just a lie.)
Might he really be a “maverick” when it comes to the Supreme Court? The answer, almost certainly, is no. The Senator has long touted his opposition to Roe, and has voted for every one of Bush’s judicial appointments; the rhetoric of his speech shows that he is getting his advice on the Court from the most extreme elements of the conservative movement. With the general election in mind, McCain had to express himself with such elaborate circumlocution because he knows that the constituency for such far-reaching change in our constellation of rights is small, and may be shrinking.
Today is the day that Barack Obama will tip over the majority of pledged delegates. He will need less than 100 total delegates for the nomination. I would once again encourage the women profiled in the last article to consider the facts in the first article.
Bad Judgment or Race-Baiting?
This is what Georgia bar owner and seller Mike Norman says about it:
Norman said he sees nothing wrong with depicting Obama as Curious George. “Look at him . . . the hairline, the ears, he looks just like Curious George,” Norman said. He said he did not design the shirts himself but bought them through a Web site.
It’s worth mentioning this as well: Norman’s bar is in a very conservative area of Georgia. I use the term ‘conservative’ guardedly, since I know lots of conservatives who are not Republicans or bigots.
Evidently Norman gives equal play to women, too. On his restaurant sign, he’s posted these fine examples of political discourse:
“I wish Hillary had married OJ,” “No habla espanol — and never will” and the standard “I.N.S. Agents eat free.”
In an effort to justify his musings, he says “he says out loud what everyone in this town whispers.”
That much is certainly true. Given that, I’d say the t-shirt graphic was hardly accidental.
Technorati Tags: racism, bigot, georgia, marietta, tshirt,
Sphere: Related ContentWhere the Clinton campaign tears a page out of Richard Nixon’s playbook
In 1950, Richard Nixon ruined Helen Gahagan Douglas, a passionate progressive California Congresswoman who was running for the Senate. Douglas, originally an up-and-coming Hollywood star, turned to politics after spending time in Central California with the migrant farm workers flowing in from Oklahoma and elsewhere. She was well-respected in the Congress, on track to become head of the Foreign Relations Committee, and popular among Democrats in California.
Her reasons for running for the Senate seat aren’t completely clear, but they centered around young Richard Nixon (then 37), who first tried running for Congress as a Democrat before switching to the Republican party in time to vie for the open Senate seat. The primary was a difficult process, due in part to the fact that her opponent (Manchester Boddy) was a newspaper publisher with no political experience whatsoever. It was bitter, and ugly, and the Republicans were able to groom their candidate during the primary to pick up the ball where her opponent left off, effectively finishing her for the general election.
She lost the election in a year where more Democrats than ever voted. The reason she lost? Voters thought she was a communist.
Not that Nixon ever came out and said that. Not quite, anyway. In over 300 pages of interviews done in 1976, campaign aides, union supporters, and friends talk about the quiet, but effective smear of Helen Gahagan Douglas.
Here’s one excerpt that describes how the primary worked to Nixon’s benefit:
When Nixon went to attack Douglas on legitimate issues, it was always framed inside of the more subtle and frightening message that she was really a Commie in a pretty pink dress. (See Pink Sheet (PDF)) That tactic has now been employed by Clinton supporters and has proven extremely effective against Obama in states like West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas. Only this time it’s not the “commie” label that’s been applied; it’s the “Muslim” label, with the subtle subtext that voters need to fear Barack Obama because of his middle name and color of his skin.
From Good Morning America (I can’t get the video to embed, so click here to see it on video)
GMA’s KATE SNOW: Janis said she can’t support Obama.
JANIS: He’s Muslim and you know, and that that has a lot to do with it. I just, you know, I just rather have Hillary.
GMA’s KATE SNOW: Just for the record he constantly says he’s a Christian -
JANIS: I know he does. He says he is.
GMA’s KATE SNOW: You don’t believe him?
JANIS: No.
Hillary Clinton has had more than one opportunity to set this record straight, and hasn’t. There’s only one reason for her not to, and that’s to weaken Obama enough to slide herself across as the ‘electable’ one. By playing the subliminal ‘pink paper’ in interviews (“Not that I know of….”), by continuing to hammer on the Reverend Wright issue in town halls and by using surrogates, Hillary Clinton has laid the strategy bare for the Republicans.
This time it won’t be pink sheets. It’ll be flag pins, pledges, and interviewers like the one on Good Morning America who set the stage.
The racists in this country will be racists no matter what. We won’t change them. But at the same time, they shouldn’t be allowed to frame a candidate this way, and particularly not with the complicity of mainstream media outlets like ABC and Good Morning America. (Not to mention print publications like the LA Times, who ‘forgot’ to qualify an interview statement about Obama’s alleged “Muslim affiliations” by reminding the reader that he is in fact, NOT, a Muslim).
Democrats everywhere need to read about how an honorable woman was smeared and ruined by insinuation with no fact, with much assistance from the press and ‘word of mouth’, and then decide whether they want that again this time. I sure don’t. I’d like to see Hillary Clinton exposed and barred from politics forever for what she’s done.
Technorati Tags: clinton, helen gahagan douglas, nixon, campaign tactics, smear tactics, idiocy, racism, bigots
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