Racial pretensions

Now more than 36 hours into boycotting TV news, I can always check the pulse of the Obamasphere--these days an extension of the mainstream press--to discern what the air waves have blasted as the latest propaganda spiel. So I'm enjoying music in lieu of hype blaring in the background from tee-vee punditheads. Who needs 'em? I don't.

With that said, onward to race-race-race, a recurring campaign media trope.

Riverdaughter posted terrific commentary this morning on an "annoying theme from yesterday’s sweetie attack... that Kentuckians pretty much admitted that they were racists in exit polls." Garychapelhill followed up with an argument that I also support:

By repeatedly crying wolf on the race issue, Obama lessens the impact of the charge of racism when it really occurs. Despite what the pundits and the Obama campaign say, this exit poll data is of no use when trying to determine the racial attitude of voters. Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look at some numbers.

Gary then examined exit polls from Wisconsin, Georgia, Connecticut, and Florida to demonstrate that building an argument about racism (and sexism) in the primaries--and specifically Hillary's "racist" voters based on exit polls--is not only stupid, but dishonest and destructive in trivializing the real-world problems of post-civil rights era racial injustices.

For further edification, see also Richard Thompson Ford, professor at Stanford and author of the book, The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse.

I left a comment at Riverdaughter's post about the alleged racism of the Kentucky primary, which I'll re-post here with additional remarks, revisions, and panels from the KY exit polls via CNN.

Looking at the exit polls, the Blog Boyz and the media have ignored the nuances. I suspect their motive is to undermine Hillary's huge win in KY in protecting The Precious (h/t Anglachel) and his march to the nomination. Pffft. Pffft. Shield your eyes from the electoral map and how it favors Hillary in the general election. Ignore the argument that Obama isn't as strong in defeating McCain. Instead, they jam the public discourse with race scandal-mongering as a diversion from the issue of Obama's electability.

First, eyeball the vote by race of the exit polls.


African-American voters broke large for Obama, a greater percent than whites who voted for Hillary. But who would be silly enough to criticize AAs for voting for Obama? It's a historical opportunity, a no-brainer.

Next, the specious argument du jour about bluegrass state racism via this exit poll question.

Of the 18% of whites who said race of the candidate was important, 9% of them voted for Obama, 2% voted uncommitted. So that whittles down the argument that one in five bluegrass voters are "white racists." A portion of those 18% whites--9%--voted for Obama because his race was important to them. What's that tell you? Are the alleged racists confused? More sexist than racist? Seriously, wonder about how the question was phrased and whether people say the darnest, dumbest things to end a research survey as quickly as possible.

Additionally, 2% of the 9% of AAs--or 22%--said that the race of the candidate was important.

Of Black Democrats (9%), 91% of them voted for Obama.

Also notice the breakout of party affiliation. Looking at the vote by party and race, the exit poll lumped All Republicans together (6%) and All Other Party (1%) without identifying their race. I suspect these cohorts are white but we don't know because the exit polls didn't provide the data.

What the exit polls didn't analyze is how many of the white group (18%) who said race of the candidate was important came from All Republicans and/or All Other Party. There are no party affiliations attributed to these white voters. None.

Only 7% said that race of the candidate was most important while 14% said that race was one of several factors contributing to their voting decision. What's the race of the 7% and 14% of these respondents? We don't know.


Of the latter 14% group, which said race was one of several factors, 19% of them voted for Obama and 2% for Uncommitted.

Based on this data, to claim that Kentuckians are racists is simplistic and erroneous. I don't fault the overwhelming majority of AAs who voted for Obama. Do the Blog Boyz? Or the media? Hell, no. They're busy shrieking their heads off about Hillary's racist voters.

Is there racism in KY? Probably, just as there is racism and sexism in America. But how deep the racism is--who, what, and where--these exits polls don't probe.

However, it's malignant absurdity to use exit polls to declare "that Kentuckians pretty much admitted that they were racists." What we're seeing mostly, IMO, is racial identity with a candidate. You can see that vividly in how Black Democrats voted--91% for Obama.

Assuming that whites who voted for Clinton aren't voting for Obama because he's African-American dismisses and discounts what Hillary offers to Americans as POTUS.

Violet at The Reclusive Leftist wrote on March 10 about...

...support for Obama from the African-American community, a phenomenon with which I’m deeply sympathetic. Just as millions of women (of all races) see their gender reflected in Hillary, millions of African-Americans (of both sexes) see their race reflected in Obama. You can call it identity politics, but what I call it is the chance to finally feel represented after 200 years in a so-called representative democracy. I begrudge no one that yearning.

Neither do I.

I support Hillary first and foremost because of her policies, her knowledge, her experience, her can-do attitude, and her tenacity. OMG, we need a fighter in the WH when our nation faces crises on so many fronts: the economy, energy, foreign affairs, and national security with two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I also identify with Hillary as a woman, trusting her to represent the interests of half of America better than a man with a sexist attitude who refers to us as sweeties.

So sweetie darthlings, take your racial pretensions about Hillary voters elsewhere. My teevee news programming is dark and Beethoven is playing. Da-da-da-duh.

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.

Nora Ephron's white people

The white people of Nora Ephron's movies.

Joseph alerted me to Nora Ephron's insipid column on "White Men." The Ephron excerpts that he quoted:

This is an election about whether the people of Pennsylvania hate blacks more than they hate women. And when I say people, I don't mean people, I mean white men.

Hillary's case is not an attractive one, because what she'll essentially be saying (and has been saying, although very carefully) is that she can attract more racist white male voters than Obama can.

Oh, gawd. Go read Joseph for his political viewpoints and to get the link to Ephron's column. He's absolutely right about Ephron's implied threat, Vote as I tell you to vote, or I'll call you a racist or a sexist.

What nauseates me about Ephron? Her blindness to her projection onto Hillary of the very criticism of which she's made a career: white woman meets white man, relationship unfolds toward commitment. M'yeah. Meg Ryan, who played the romantic lead in Ephron's movies, Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail, represents a white female who isn't happy without the white man of her dreams played by actor Tom Hanks. Has Ephron considered how she's contributing to the sexist, racist storyline she now decries? She depicts a world in which her main characters are all white. Have Pennsylvania voters become influenced by all the Hollywood movies that reinforce white racial hegemony? Has Ephron considered the underlying racist narratives in her films? Silly idea, isn't it?

Of course, it ridiculous in Nora's mind to entertain the possibility that PA voters prefer Clinton's policy positions over Obama's. Or maybe PA's white male voters have been repulsed by Barry's negative and dubious campaign attack ads against Clinton. I dunno. But I can say with confidence that skin color doesn't qualify a candidate to solve the economic worries that voters say are their top concern. I support Hillary because she offers solutions I prefer. Perhaps Obama hasn't convincingly persuaded PA voters on the issues more than Clinton. But to Nora, those white men in PA are racists and so is Hillary. Disregard that their voting preferences may be predicated on their wallets and who can best fill them with job income and better economic conditions.

I'll set aside the anti-feminist argument that a woman needs a man for her self-fulfillment because humans do crave companionship. How Nora represents these human yearnings irk me as a feminist. Simply, she infers sexist stereotypes. Funny that Nora hasn't discovered the log in her eye.

There's another reason to discount Nora Ephron's ramblings: she mishandles facts. In her column she stated (with emphasis):

Even around the time of Ohio, when there were primarily three candidates, the outlines were murky, because Edwards was still in there, picking up votes from all sectors.

Edwards dropped out of the presidential race before Super Tuesday on Jan. 30, 2008, when he declared, "It's time for me to step aside so that history can blaze it's path." Ohio's primary date was March 4. Hello! Earth to Nora. Edwards was not in the race "around the time of Ohio."

So pardon moi if I open a can of bwahahaha when Ephron makes an fallacious, inflammatory assertion without any proof that Hillary is saying although very carefully that "she can attract more racist white male voters than Obama can." Proof, Nora, present your evidence if you can without mangling the facts. When a pundit undertakes the serious allegation to smear a candidate implying racism, it's her job to present evidence. Subjective propaganda and opinion isn't acceptable. Show me the proof to substantiate the claim or to my thinking, the accuser is an unmitigated slanderer or a hopelessly irresponsible ninny.

Historically, white racists vote Republican (see the Southern Strategy). Why would they turn out for a Democratic primary? I can think of a reason: vote for the unelectable candidate, the one they think their GOP candidate can beat in the fall. I could speculate that spoilers are crossing over in open primaries to help Obama beat Clinton so they can vote against him in November since Clinton is more likely to defeat McCain.

Secondly, Ephron evidently lacks a depth of political knowledge to realize that playing the race card isn't a new invention used against a Democratic presidential opponent. Bill Bradley maligned Al Gore in 2000 when he "ripped the vice president for injecting racism into the 1988 campaign by raising the Willie Horton case against Michael Dukakis.” It wasn't true--Gore is not a racist--but our mindless press corps picked up the racial theme against Gore and spread it, just as our biased media have painted the Clintons as slobbering racists in this campaign. [Ed. note: Al Gore never mentioned Willie Horton in case you don't click the The Daily Howler link. H/t to Joseph Cannon in comments.]

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, but don't expect to find sound reasoning in Ephron's column (or from rubes who swallow such drool).

Based on Nora's own "insights," how has Ephron exempted herself from the fact that she devises a world on film that is predominantly white-skinned? Are we to assume, based on Nora's suppositions, that she is saying she can attract more racist white movie-goers than Spike Lee can (and has been saying, although very carefully)? Goose, gander, sauce, Nora.

Ephron bemoans, "after all these stupid articles about how powerless white men are. . . after all this, they turn out (surprise!) to have all the power." You know what's ironic? The swooning of Nora's female characters into the arms of men in her cinematic works. In You've Got Mail, the Hanks character owns a bookstore chain that eventually puts our struggling heroine's independent bookstore out of business. The female lead played by Ryan can't stand the powerful businessman who precipitates her company's demise. Yet, in the end, they fall in love. Cue soundtrack, Over The Rainbow. Can you believe it? Maybe it's time to start boycotting her sexist movies where men "turn out (surprise!) to have all the power."

Why Nora continues to churn out intellectually-shallow polemics is a mystery. In her "White Men" column, I wonder if she's attempting to assuage her white guilt for having been racially insensitive in casting and writing screenplays that tell stories about white people. Just a guess. I have no proof other than her filmography, which relegates African-American actors to bit parts. To foster such an argument is as overly-simplistic as Ephron saying that Hillary can "attract more racist white male voters than Obama can."

Maybe Nora hasn't paid attention. Obama is attracting more African American voters than Hillary, but I wouldn't particularly assign a racial component to Barry's voting bloc. History-making and enthusiasm? Yes. Racist? No. Sexist? Maybe. Of course, there are racists, sexists, and homophobes. But are we to blame the candidates for how bigots vote? Not if they don't pander to them. What's also troubling is Ephron's judgment that "white men cannot be relied on, as all of us know who have spent a lifetime dating them." Ahem. Making judgmental generalizations isn't helpful in healing whatever divides men, women, ethnic groups, or any segment of our society.

I don't have time today--aren't you lucky--to analyze why women like Nora dislike Hillary enough to slime her. But there's something deeply pathological and psychologically disturbing going on. Using racial smears is ugly business. Doing so without facts is libelous.

One thing you can bet: Winged Tasmanian wombats will fly out my bum before I waste one dollar on any Nora Ephron enterprise past or future.

POSTSCRIPT: One key observation from Joseph that I failed to mention: "People like Nora Ephron do the Republican Party's work so expertly that I wouldn't be surprised to learn of a covert GOP pay-off."

IMAGE: Cropped from a movie poster of Sleepless in Seattle. Poll graphic from Yahoo! News.

UPDATE: Edited for clarity.

Someone make Obama stop

And his little sycophants, too. Hillary hate has gotten out of control and turned formerly intelligent people into numbskulls irresponsibly throwing around the race card. First off, why does Obama and his minions ignore the misogyny underpinning their attacks on Clinton? And second, the Magnificent One's mythical Unity Pony doesn't exist. He can't unify the country when he's insulting the working class of the big states.

Must read. Start with Obama's latest condescension:

• BDBlue at Corrente on "Barack Obama at his recent billionaire fundraiser in San Francisco talking about those struggling folks in Pennsylvania." A real class ass!
  

• Move on to Anglachel to understand how "The Precious has gone and stuck his foot in his mouth again, dissing working class Democrats and the Clintons." With Barry, he's a victim of racism despite polling to the contrary.
  

• And shame on Brad Delong! Big Tent Democrat at TalkLeft explained why Delong's goofball--"white reluctance to vote for an African-American candidate"--is acting like CDS-sufferer Josh Marshall's propaganda apparatchik.

A campaign that's more about politics than policies doesn't fathom that Hillary Clinton has more credibility than Obama on jobs and the economy because she came from the working class, can relate to them, and is fighting for them with actual policy proposals.

Obama? He criticized them. . . "they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” Whoa! Winning hearts and minds, Barry?

Obama and his OFB spin narratives packaged in purdy-sounding yet dubious claims to protect the hero's self-inflicted wounds. They chide Hillary supporters as racists. Do they really want to further this argument? Because it doesn't endear Hillary voters to support BO if he wins the nomination. And where's his Unity Pony? MIA?