Thursday, May 01, 2008

The faux kitchen sink

Media invented the "kitchen sink" with help from Obama's camp
to trash Hillary for trying to drown Barack's presidential bid.


Joseph of Cannonfire explained with facts the fictional kitchen sink chapter on Hillary's campaign:

Although Bob Somerby probably does not read Cannonfire, he has picked up on the absurdity of the "kitchen sink" line, which has been the subject of two previous posts here. The "sink" motif still sees frequent use throughout prog-land and the mainstream media. First, Somerby quotes Joe Klein's anti-Clinton hit piece in Time:

Even as he spoke, the former President was in the midst of a tiny, self-inflicted absurdity, having claimed in a radio interview that the Obama campaign had played the "race card" against him. And that was the least of the damage.

That is, in fact, precisely what happened. As we have seen in many previous columns, the Clintons never -- ever -- used the race card. They had no reason to do so: Such a strategy would have no appeal to any segment of the Democratic electorate, and would serve only to alienate black voters and others. Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe accidentally deep-sixed the O-bot propaganda line when he confessed that no Democrats would make a decision to vote for a presidential candidate based on anti-black antipathy, because the racists all went over to the Republican side long ago. (The exact quote appears in a recent post; scroll down.) An internal Obama campaign memo [emphasis added] revealed that the Clintons-are-racists meme was a deliberate ploy. At the time when the Obama campaign made the calculated decision to spread this unforgivable smear, most black voters favored Hillary....

...Back in February, Clinton gave a round of speeches in which she referred to five reasons not to vote for Obama -- as opposed to, say, two or three reasons. That, friends, is the "kitchen sink."

To which I say: Big deal. I refuse to accept the O-bot redefinition of the term "negative campaigning" to mean any statement which does not acknowledge Obama as the Messiah.

If you look at what Hillary was saying in those days, her commentary was entirely concerned with policy disagreements and Obama's lack of experience. Since when are those considerations out of bounds in a political campaign? [Emphasis added.]

Go read Joseph's entire post for further history and the "highly unreliable" originator of the "kitchen sink fusillade." For now, turn attention to another Cannonfire entry about the internal Obama memo, the dirty tricks played by Barry's team on those allegedly "racist" Clintons. Of course, the Hillary-hating media hyped the race card and the Obamasphere lit bonfires to incinerate Hillary's bid for the nomination. Seriously, I wonder: does the blog of WKJM and the Orange Sippy Cup™ King have dedicated email accounts to receive Obama talking points and distribute 'em?

From Cannonfire:

This memo proves that the Obama campaign has -- since January -- been behind the vile attempt to insinuate that the Clintons are racists. Before the Obamoids embarked on this propaganda strategy -- negative campaigning at its very worst -- Hillary Clinton had the majority of the African American vote. With cool and calculated deceit, the Obama team racialized statements such as Bill Clinton's "fairy tale" remark.

The Obama campaign always knew that this assault was deceptive, as this interview with campaign manager David Plouffe confirms:

I mean the vast, vast majority of voters who would not vote for Barack Obama in November based on race are probably firmly in John McCain's camp already.

Plouffe was caught between a rock and a hard place here. He gave this response after being asked if America's racism rendered Obama unelectable in the general. His answer directly contradicts the Bot Party Line that Clinton has sent out "dog whistles" to those imaginary hordes of Democratic bigots.

Thank you, Joseph. I've argued repeatedly that it is Malignant Absurdity™ to accept that the Clintons are "slobbering racists." Here:

Why liberals fall for this specious propaganda, one can only speculate, but none of the answers are good when allegedly intelligent people follow the plot lines our morally-bankrupt news media concoct. If the Clintons are such super-smart politicians, why the hell would they commit electoral suicide undermining Hillary's chances of winning? It defies logic...

And here:

See The Daily Howler on the racially-concocted dumb-assery of Patterson. Pro-Obama fans, surrogates, and Villagers have screamed race/race/race so often that the accumulated expulsions require a dumpster-sized pooper scooper. The Clintons have played the race card! Oh, puh-leeze, spare me. Think about it: "[I]ndulging in racial politics would be a sure-fire way for the Clinton campaign to shatter its own coalition," a tactic that defies logic, that would invite political suicide. For someone who allegedly "would do anything to win," the accusation makes zero sense.

I'm unsurprised that there is an Obama memo painting the Clintons as racists. Courtesy Joseph, Sam Stein in January 2008:

Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign has prepared a detailed memo listing various instances in which it perceived Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign to have deliberately played the race card in the Democratic primary. [See the full memo here.]

The memo, which was obtained by the Huffington Post and has been made public elsewhere, is believed to have been given to an activist and contains mostly excerpts from different media reports. It lists the contact info and name of Obama's South Carolina press secretary, Amaya Smith, and is broken down into five incidents in which either Clinton, her husband Bill, or campaign surrogates made comments that could be interpreted as racially insensitive.

The document provides an indication that, in private, the Obama campaign is seeking to capitalize on the view - and push the narrative - that the Clintons are using race-related issues for political leverage. In public, the Obama campaign has denied that they are trying to propagate such a perception, noting that the document never was sent to the press.

If you click the link to read Sam Stein's column at HuffPost, the entire memo falls below the fold and outlines five talking points:

  1. Clinton, Criticizing Obama For Promising "False Hope" Said That While MLK Jr. Spoke On Behalf Of Civil Rights, President Lyndon Johnson Was The One Who Got Legislation Passed: "It Took A President To Get It Done."

  2. Bill Clinton Implied Hillary Clinton Is Stronger Than Nelson Mandela

  3. Clinton's NH Campaign Chair Raised The Youthful Drug Use Of Obama And Said It Would "Open The Door To Further Queries On The Matter."

  4. Mark Penn, In Trying To Defend His Campaign Over Bill Shaheen's Obama Drug Use Comments, Used The Word "Cocaine," Drawing A Rebuke From Edwards Adviser Joe Trippi.

  5. Donna Brazile Lashed Into Bill Clinton For Comparing Obama To A "Fairy Tale" And Said "It's An Insult... As An African-American" And That His Tone And Words Are "Very Depressing."

Have you noticed the silence in the Obamasphere about Barry's memo? Well, except that they used it to smear Hillary relentlessly. Had it not been for Joseph Cannon, I wouldn't have known of its existence in my avoidance of HuffPost, which tilts most of its commentary against Hillary, a wasteland of pro-Obama propaganda with a patch of true blue here and there.

Between the false narratives about Clinton's so-called kitchen sink, the sexist dog whistles out of the mouths of Obama and his co-chairs, the character assassination of Hillary, and the campaign secretly promoting the Clintons as racists to the press, I whole-heartedly agree with Cannon's conclusion:

Barack Obama has run the filthiest campaign in the modern history of the Democratic party. We cannot reward such tactics with success, or they will be repeated.

Can I get an amen? I absolutely refuse to be guilt-tripped into voting for Obama if--gawd forbid--he wins the nomination and then loses to McCain in the fall because people like me will not vote for The Fraud. And I'm not voting for Bush III. I will write in my candidate's name or vote for the Green Party whose candidate will likely be an African-American woman. Just try and call me a racist.

POSTSCRIPT: Obama quoted in Klein's hit piece, "She's got the kitchen sink flying, the china flying — the buffet is coming at me." Waah! What an act.

CREDITS: WKJM via Corrente. See their glossaries for the definition.