Katiebird at The Confluence applied a fact check to Obama's distortion of the truth about jobs during the Clinton presidency specific to Pennsylvania. Nice job. M'yeah, Obama twisted reality. Funny how his eloquence failed him. Or did it? Maybe his economic expertise goes awry because... well... does he have much?
For a national perspective, Krugman supplied a graphic on the ratio of employment to population in a tale of two administrations, Clinton vs. Bush. But to hear Obama's tall tale, "[Jobs] fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration..." Oh, really?
Lambert offered another chart.
And there's more mockery from Obama of Hillary (video). A "man of deep faith" plays politics by accusing Hillary of playing politics.
Click the links and look above at the job numbers. After watching the video, check Obama's contributors, his ties to lobbyists, and his lobbyist advisors. What about his oil company donations and his wealthy donors and bundlers? Don't they count? Or do they fall under Obama Rules.
Methinks he doth protest too much about who's out of touch and playing politics.
SUPSDD (same unity pony sh*t, different day).
Monday, April 14, 2008
Distortions and mocking Clinton
Go read Lambert
Tax time. Too busy to give adequate attention to The RealSpiel.
So go read Lambert on the latest contrived attack on Hillary Clinton related to Obama's gaffe from the hack who kidnapped Josh Marshall.
And then from the ultimate CDS sufferer, the King of the Orange Sippy Cup, "too funny":
The Clintons have no compunction about ripping the Democratic party apart and destroying the career of Barack Obama if it means they might yet win.
Oh, the drama of angry pissypants. Someone order a giant-sized bottle of smelling salts for the Kid. Keep digging through the horse dung, Orange Boyz. Maybe there's a Unity Pony in there somewhere. But I doubt it. And that stink... won't wash off.
Power rift
Obama is standing on the "shoulders of giants." But does that qualify him to lead?My friend Rev. Irene Monroe (bio) posted a column last week on Obama's absence at the 40th anniversary commemoration of MLK's assassination. Clinton and McCain attended. But where was Obama?
One of Obama's political advisors, Princeton University professor and author of Race Matters, Cornel West criticized Barry at HuffPo:
“I want to say that I’m deeply disappointed that my dear brother Barack Obama decided not to go pay tribute and lay his wreath for the great Martin Luther King, Jr. That brother Martin’s profound love and deep sacrifice for black people, America and humanity is in no way reducible to political calculations, even for the campaign for presidency. That Martin Luther King Jr.’s deep commitment to unarmed truth and unconditional love can in no way be subject to strategies for access to political power.”
Rev. Irene pondered:
Was this a public backhand slap from West signaling to the public, as well as to Obama, his concerns about Obama’s calculated ambitions to the White House?
Or, as many Obama supporters in the African American community are now speculating, is there both a personal and ideological rift between West and Obama?
Given West’s prominence and respect in the African American community nationwide, the Obama campaign knows if West breaks publicly from the campaign he’ll take a substantial portion of black voters away from Obama come November (if Obama wins the Democratic nomination).
Having won the majority of African American voters in the Tennessee primary, Obama may have felt he did not need to come back to the state to do face time.
But black talk show radios were abuzz with listeners calling in expressing their disappointment.
Tavis Smiley, one of America’s most celebrated and respected media personalities and author of the bestseller Covenant With Black America, called into the Tom Joyner Morning Show. Smiley asked listeners if Obama’s absence was another signal of Obama only courting the African American vote when it is political advantageous for him to do so.
When the State of the Black Union hosted in NOLA convened, an "event [that] gathers a 'Who’s Who' of black intellectuals, pundits, activists, entertainers and politicians to discuss and brainstorm where black America is and where it is headed," Barry was absent again. He offered his wife Michele as his surrogate, but Obama, too busy on the campaign trail to attend this most auspicious summit, caused African Americans to question if his ambitions were most important to Obama. Rev. Irene pointed to criticism from Darryl Fears:
As the first black person to have a legitimate shot at a presidential nomination, defeating Sen. Hillary Clinton's rich campaign juggernaut, Obama is virtually a third civil rights movement, the manifestation of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream. His candidacy has produced a fervor in black America born of centuries of wanting. Nearly every black vote that Clinton thought was hers at the beginning of the race has been siphoned by Obama.
Each of the presidential candidates were invited to speak [at the State of the Black Union], but only Sen. Hillary Clinton accepted. Clinton is desperate to bolster her flagging campaign with a larger share of the black vote after losing all but a small percent to Obama.
Rev. Irene concluded in her column:
And in Obama winning our votes, he must also hear and heed to the moral imperative and hurt expressed by West:
“I have a very deep disagreement with my dear brother, Barack Obama — in this case, commitment to truth is in tension with the quest for power.”
Otherwise, we must wonder, if Obama can diss King, what manner of man do we have here?
According to Emil Jones, Jr., Obama is a man who seeks pow-er. That's what the president of the Illinois Senate said Obama wanted of him in 2003.
"And [Obama] said to me. . .‘You’re the senate president now, and with that, you have a lot of pow-er.’ ” Jones stretched out the word, as if savoring the pleasure of it, and his voice became very quiet as he continued: “And I told Barack, ‘You think I got a lot of pow-er now?,’ and he said, ‘Yeah, you got a lot of pow-er.’ And I said, ‘What kind of pow-er do I have?’ He said, ‘You have the pow-er to make a United States sen-a-tor!’ ” Jones let out a soft, smoky laugh. “I said to Barack, I said, ‘That sounds good!’ I said, ‘I haven’t even thought of that.’ I said, ‘Do you have someone in mind you think I could make?,’ and he said, ‘Yeah. Me.’ ”
Jones let the words hang for a moment, and then went on. “The most interesting conversation. And so I said to him, ‘Let me think about this.’ ” Obama knew that Jones’s support could single-handedly freeze the discretion of other powerful politicians in the state, and put endorsements of possible rivals on ice. “We met a little later that day, and I said, ‘That sounds good. Let’s go for it.’ ”
The rest is history.
Seeking power isn't bad or wrong if one's intentions to use it once acquired hastens the good of everyone. Those who share power, serve it justly with '"unarmed truth and unconditional love." Think of great people of history who have done just that: Dr. King, JFK, Mother Teresa, Ghandi, Susan B. Anthony, and so forth.
I didn't personally like LBJ, but in the political arena, he exercised presidential power to push civil rights legislation responding to Dr. King's righteous appeals for justice, signed it into law, and did so at the detriment to his party. Truman exhibited his power when he ended racial segregation of the military by executive order at the expense of his party, a decision that initially precipitated the exodus of Dixiecrat segregationists to the GOP that eventually transformed the South into a Republican bastion. These were not perfect men. I vehemently disagreed with their use of military force. However, these examples were acts of sacrifice to answer the call of courage grasping the levers of power embodied in the Constitution that we are all created equal.
As Maya Angelou so beautifully explained, "Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency." And what is power without virtue?
Consider Obama's opposition to a revote in Michigan and Florida. Is this a positive applications of his pow-er? Or is he more interested in winning? Rewind Donnie McClurkin. Was his using his pow-er to denounce homophobia? Or was he pandering to homophobic voters? What manner of pow-er did he display to billionaires at a fundraiser in associating the Clinton Administration's job growth with Bush's abysmal record and in belittling small town folks by characterizing them as "bitter" and clingy?
Obama's silence against misogyny and sexism--attacking his opponent Hillary Clinton's emotions, and in so doing, those of women in general--tells me all I need to know about the nature of the pow-er he seeks.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
No health insurance death toll
Via Susie Madrak, "Death by Lack of Health Insurance." The reality:
In 2002, a groundbreaking national study by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences demonstrated the direct link between a lack of health coverage and deaths from health-related causes. Drawing on that study, Families USA, the national organization for health care consumers, has today made available reports for all 50 states that show how many people are expected to die in each state each week because they don’t have health coverage. A separate report is also available for the District of Columbia.
The individual reports, available on the Families USA Web site, provide eye-opening numbers for every state. Among the figures cited is the fact that more than seven working-age Texans die each day due to a lack of health insurance. Other reports reveal that, on average, approximately 960 people in Illinois died in 2006 because they had no health coverage, and nearly 9,900 uninsured New Yorkers between the ages of 25 and 64 died in the years 2000 to 2006.
“Our report highlights how our inadequate system of health coverage condemns a great number of people to an early death simply because they don’t have the same access to health care as their insured neighbors,” Ron Pollack, Executive Director of Families USA, said today. “The conclusions are sadly clear—a lack of health coverage is a matter of life and death for many people. [Emphasis added.]
People criticize Hillary Clinton's insistence on universal health care with mandates but there's more to her proposal--the chance to live longer--than the economics. Props to John Edwards for his lead on this issue as well.
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?
Lionesses for Hillary
Two Lionesses for Hillary are enjoying a springtime Zen moment before a rally starts. They're ferocious about fundraising to help Hillary Clinton win. So keep 'em purring.
I know. It's not Friday, the typical cat blogging day, but I don't have a cat, let alone two, and I'm partial to big kitty cats as you can see. Why not have a little fun? It's Saturday. Woo hoo!
Friday, April 11, 2008
The aria of Tweety
Political correctness? The "big, boorish baboon sighs."Bob Somerby reviewed Mark Leibovich's, "The Aria of Chris Matthews," a cover story profile of Tweety in Sunday's New York Magazine. As usual, Somerby hits the highlights and cuts through the fluff to unearth the gems: Like this one:
Consider Hillary Clinton, for instance. According to Leibovich, Matthews “notes that he and the former first lady like to ‘kid around’ when they see each other.” If recollection serves, this was Matthews’ interpretation in January when he interrupted a Clinton event to ask a loud, insistent question. In fact, Clinton’s distaste for Matthews seemed clear that day. But so what! When Clinton told Matthews he seemed “obsessed,” he just thought she was kidding around!
Late in the piece, Leibovich captures more of this cluelessness. To his credit, Leibovich makes Matthews and his wife discuss an unpleasant fact—Matthews has often behaved quite boorishly toward women on his cable show. The conversation produces this end:LEIBOVICH: He bemoaned political correctness. “We’ll, we’re just going to have to survive this era,” Matthews said, sighing.
Poor Chris! Like other Bunker types, he seems to think that he’s caught in an anomalous era—an era driven by all that “political correctness.” Soon, we’ll return to the older ways, this big, boorish baboon sighs.
At any rate, Leibovich makes Matthews look foolish throughout—though it’s never entirely clear in such profiles how much of what’s published is fair. (In our experience, Matthews can also be completely personable and appropriate, as is true of most people.) But Leibovich also omits a great deal—including the most disturbing aspects of Matthews’ work in the past dozen years. On Monday, we’ll consider what isn’t found in this profile—the omissions which make this a bit of a surface treatment. Today, though, let’s consider four things which can be found in this piece. . .
Take a peek at Somerby's analysis. The Daily Howler never disappoints.
Hillary Clinton and the B-word
Original photo by Charlie Neibergall/AP via Seattle Times obviously altered.Marc Rudov has been snorting artificial testosterone and smoking stupid crack again. His denial is staggering. From April 10, Your World With Neil Cavuto. Of course, it's from Faux News:
CAVUTO: All right. To New York City, the gender card in play against Hillary Clinton's camp. Elton John with these choice words at a Clinton fundraiser last night.
JOHN [video clip]: I never ceased to be amazed at the misogynistic attitude of some of the people in this country. And I say, to hell with them.
CAVUTO: All righty. Marc Rudov says that Elton is way off-base. He hosts the Marc Rudov radio show. Lis Wiehl says Marc is plain wrong and that Elton is right. So, Marc, what do you find offensive?
RUDOV: Well, this is exactly why men shouldn't allow the vagina monologue to become a dialogue. Hillary Clinton, who's living by the gender sword, is going to be dying by the gender sword. She sends in Elton John to do her hissing when she's having a catfight with America. It's ridiculous for anybody to throw around the misogyny word. When she was the presumptive nominee, we never heard anything about misogyny. But when things go badly -- when she's not getting what she thinks she's entitled to -- all of a sudden it's misogyny. And that's just as bad as throwing around the racism word. [Italics mine.]
Hold up for a fact check. Wayback machine from Nov. 29, 2007, before the first presidential primary votes were cast: Hillary hatred finds its misogynistic voice: "Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., is the target of sexist attacks all over the Internet. An anti-Hillary group on social-networking site Facebook.com titled "Hillary Clinton: Stop Running for President and Make Me a Sandwich" has more than 23,000 members."
M'yeah, have another hit off that pipe, Marc. Stupid crack is cheap.
WIEHL: "Hissing," Marc? I mean, that sounds kind of women-hating right there, my dear.
RUDOV: Does it?
WIEHL: But let's look at the evidence. I mean, let's look at the fundraiser that McCain was at when he was asked by somebody at the fundraiser, "How can we beat the B-word?" I mean, can you imagine if they had used the N-word? Or the other B-word for a man who doesn't know who his father is? Can you imagine the outrage that would have happened there? You go on the Internet -- you look at Internet sites that say, you know, "Life's a 'B' -- don't vote for one," or "Hillary, you shouldn't be running for president, you should be running the dishwasher," or "Hillary, stop running for president and make me a sandwich," or the T-shirts that say -- this is -- I'm not making this stuff up. It's out there.
CAVUTO: Really?
WIEHL: It's out there.
CAVUTO: Who came up with the making the sandwich one? 'Cause that's pretty clever.
WIEHL: It's on Facebook. It's on Facebook.
CAVUTO: All right. So, Marc, you hear this stuff, right?
RUDOV: That's mild compared to what they say about me, Neil.
CAVUTO: Well, actually, it is, Marc. It is -- it is mild.
WIEHL: Well -- that's another story.
CAVUTO: But if Elton John is playing into that view, you think he alienated people last night.
RUDOV: Well, not only that -- he's totally wrong. This is a gynocracy. Women have all the rights and privileges. The reason that Hillary is losing is because people don't like her. That's all it is.
WIEHL: But Marc, it's -- you're buying into that old thing. It's the old thing, Marc, of if a woman is aggressive, then she's, again, the B-word. If a man is aggressive, he's just assertive and claiming his own. I mean, the woman can't win. And also, look, when you've got Saturday Night Live --
RUDOV: That's not true.
WIEHL: When you've got Saturday Night Live several weeks ago, you know, pillorying what was going on in the media and saying, look, you know, "Obama, do you want a pillow?" and really making fun of the fact that Hillary has had a tough time, a tough go of this -- that's Saturday Night Live. Come on, Marc.
RUDOV: I'm sure that the Joint Chiefs of Staff can't wait to report to a commander whose representative is Elton John. . . This is absolutely silly, Lis. You know what? The woman is not called a B-word because she's assertive and aggressive; she's called a B-word because she acts like one. . .
WIEHL: -- that is crazy. How can you say that? How can you call her a B-word? You don't know the woman. She doesn't act like that to you. That is just wrong and outrageous. And you -- you, Marc Rudov, are exhibit A of exactly what Elton John has been talking about. . .
RUDOV: -- but the fact of the matter is, if a man -- if a man is assertive and aggressive and nobody likes him, he won't get any results. So being assertive -- there's nothing wrong with that if you're a woman. But if you're assertive and nobody likes you, you're going to get nowhere. And that's really what it is. There aren't any male executives who are disliked who are effective.
WIEHL: Marc, you know as well as I do that that label is never attached -- the other B-word is never attached to a guy who's just being assertive and running for something. It's been attached -- you go on the Internet, you look at the T-shirts out there that say, you know, "Hillary should have married OJ. We would have been all better." There are T-shirts out there that say that, Marc. . .
CAVUTO: But that's not the majority.
RUDOV: Lis, there's no misogyny, there's no misogyny --
WIEHL: That's not the majority, but Elton John [unintelligible] that some people say that --
RUDOV: She's dying by the gender sword, and that's all that it is -- that's all there is to it.
CAVUTO: All right, can we get back to the sandwich analogy? That one --
WIEHL: You like the sandwich? Or the running the dishwasher?
CAVUTO: That one I could understand. . .
Hey, Neil! Go wash my car. And, Marc... Go to rehab! That fake testosterone has rotted your brain.
Watch the video for the full effect if you dare. Lis Wiehl holds her own. But, crikey! This is what passes for news? News?!!
PREVIOUS SPIEL:
An Iraq War running mate?
You've just got to laugh at the Boy Bloggerz who threw Hillary under the bus because she voted for the Iraq AUMF. . . Yet! Sweet Irony, having roared in from the magical kingdom of snakes and snails and puppy dog tails, inspired them with a Wiley Coyote epiphany. Can't you picture the cartoon balloon? Within it pops up the face of Joe Biden, and then the Aha! moment.
Obama needs to pick Joe Biden (who voted for the AUMF) as his running mate. Hilarious!
OBAMA III: Vice President Biden?
Several liberal bloggers are discussing Marc Ambinder's decision to put Joe Biden on the shortlist to be Obama's running mate:
The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias doesn't think Obama should choose someone who voted for the Iraq War: "Biden's a sometimes maddening figure, but he's been impressive lately and there's a lot to be said on his behalf. But putting someone who voted for the war, even someone who did so half-heartedly and after making a quasi-promising effort to restrain [George W.] Bush, seems to muddy way too much of the argument Obama is making."
Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum disagrees: "Once he leaves the cozy confines of a primary where the anti-war base is enough to win, Obama is going to enter the chillier territory of a general election where he'll need to draw a bunch of votes from the ranks of people who once supported the war. He needs a good way to signal these folks that he doesn't consider them tainted forever by their erstwhile support, and what better way than by choosing a moderately hawkish senator who once favored the war but has since changed his mind? The opposite tack -- insisting that he'll associate only with the pure of heart who opposed the war from the beginning -- would be something of a disaster. People won't vote for a candidate who tacitly seems to be calling them idiots."
[snip]
Carpetbagger Report's Steve Benen has a more complicated view: "I tend to think Kevin's right about this, in part because Obama already has credibility on the issue by virtue of having gotten the big question right. He wouldn't necessarily need a running mate who agreed with him on Iraq from the start, and would disqualify many qualified people if he did. That said, I have a few concerns...The very first thought that popped into my mind was that awful ranking system from the National Journal. If Biden were Obama's running mate, the RNC and its cohorts will boast that the Democratic ticket featured the #1 and #3 most liberal senators. It'd be ridiculous, but I guarantee it'd be at the top of the talking points. [...Also, Biden's] negatives are numerous. First and foremost, Biden led the way on that ridiculous bankruptcy bill, and I'll probably never forgive him for it. Second, he eschews message discipline, and is well known for sticking his foot in his mouth with embarrassing gaffes. Third, I can't think of a single state or constituency that Biden would help Obama win in a general election that Obama couldn't win just as easily with someone else."
Can't help but notice the unwavering faith in the inevitability of Obama's nomination. But who is it? Gosh, can't put my finger on it just right now, the name is on the tip of my tongue. . . but someone who has won big states with Electoral College cha-ching, someone who who has actually won primaries, and who voted for the AUMF.
??????
Seriously, a trip into the Boy Blogz thought world is like a visit to the Twilight Zone. Reality-based community no mo'.
Didn't a few of these dudely bloggerz cheerlead the Iraq War? M'yeah, they did.
As noted in March:
They were for the war before they were against it, "all rah-rah war supporters when it first began." And they were wrong. Had they been U.S. senators, would they have voted, "Yea!" for the AUMF? I'm guessing in a snap. Watching the drama unfold, witnessing the pillory of Hillary as if the Blog Boyz had morphed into Beltway hacks or right-wing freaktards has been creepy.
Contemplating Joe Biden as Barry's veep blows the rationale for rejecting Clinton over her "war" vote. Oh, sure, there were other legitimate reasons I betcha. Of course, Hillary's vote was a bit more complicated than these fellers like to acknowledge. Like Joe Biden's.
Well, boyz will be boyz. Must be some of that mis-o-gy-ny many of us Hillary bloggers have *cough!* been talkin' about.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Sir Elton John and Hillary
Photo from the Telegraph UKThe Rocket Man performed at Radio City Music Hall last night in support of Hillary's presidential campaign. The Telegraph reported:
Sir Elton John claimed that the "misogynistic attitudes" of some Americans were hampering Hillary Clinton's presidential hopes when he performed in a fund-raising event for her campaign. . .
He told the 5,000-strong audience: "I've always been a Hillary supporter. There is no one more qualified to lead America. Having said that, I never cease to be amazed at the misogynistic attitude of some people in this country. And I say to hell with them... I love you, Hillary. I'll be there for you."His remarks, at an event not short on mutual adoration, echoed those of Mrs. Clinton, who said on Tuesday that there was a "double standard" in media coverage of the presidential race. . .
Before performing his song The Ballad Of The Boy In The Red Shoes, he told the crowd: "This song is about a boy who was dying of Aids. At that time Ronald Reagan was president, and the Reagan administration did nothing to help people with Aids, and that is a disgrace."
. . .Introducing her latest - and most famous - celebrity fund-raiser as a "friend of Bill's and mine for many years", [Hillary] recalled how moved she had been when she heard him perform Candle In The Wind at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales. Confirming what most Americans know already, Mrs Clinton said she couldn't sing but, borrowing the title of an Elton John song, she added: "What I want you to know is 'I'm still standing' and I believe this country is worth fighting for."
The concert raised $2.5 million (£1.25 million). You can watch a video snippet, "Singing praise," here.
The Advocate: Obama's interview
Obama granted his second interview with The Advocate published today. Although he said seemingly positive things, his responses were tepid if not evasive. So buckle up for a long ride into the meandering of Obama on gays and lesbians.
Take his biggest claim:
I haven’t been silent on gay issues. What’s happened is, I speak oftentimes to gay issues to a public general audience. When I spoke at Ebenezer Church for King Day, I talked about the need to get over the homophobia in the African-American community, when I deliver my stump speeches routinely I talk about the way that antigay sentiment is used to divide the country and distract us from issues that we need to be working on, and I include gay constituencies as people that should be treated with full honor and respect as part of the American family.
A passing remark here and there doesn't cut it. Take a stand, Barry. Take a stand if you dare.
Talking about "the need to get over the homophobia in the African-American community" doesn't rise to championing a cause nor has he offered a persuasive argument why homophobia is destructive, immoral, undemocratic, and in defiance of the scientific and psychological community's conclusions: gays and lesbians are normal albeit a sexual minority. Neither does speaking about how "antigay sentiment is used to divide the country and distract us from issues that we need to be working on" indicate his commitment that LGBT equality is a democratic issue that we need to be working on. His words are as bland a sentiment as lukewarm toast, no butter. Anti-gay bias isn't a distraction: it is in opposition to our founding principles predicated on equality under the Constitution. Can I hear a, "Yes, we can?"
Obama brags, "So I actually have been much more vocal on gay issues to general audiences than any other presidential candidate probably in history," but that's overly self-congratulatory at best and stretching his rhetoric to the point of absurdity. What gay issues? What policies? Has he rallied his general audiences to back programs of equality? Clinton has spoken about gay issues to general audiences in primary debates, in the Senate, on news programs, and in her book, Living History. But here we go with Obama into the issues with a non-general audience (Advocate questions in bold):
I think the underlying fear of the gay community is that if you get into office, will LGBT folks be last on the priority list?
I guess my point would be that the fact that I’m raising issues accordant to the LGBT community in a general audience rather than just treating you like a special interest that is sort of off in its own little box – that, I think, is more indicative of my commitment. Because ultimately what that shows is that I’m not afraid to advocate on your behalf outside of church, so to speak. It’s easy to preach to the choir; what I think is harder is to speak to a broader audience about why these issues are important to all Americans.
Did he plainly say yes in all those sentences? Jeebus, give me a machete. Who is he kidding? Does he advocate for gay equality, an end to discrimination against LGBTs, federal benefits for "married" gays and lesbians or immigration policies for same-sex couples in his public speeches? Is he outlining specifics at his events? No, he hasn't. And we know why. Obama doesn't want to make waves with constituents he might alienate by explaining what he would do--if he would do it--as president if elected.
On "don't ask, don't tell," he doesn't promise to end it: "I reasonably can see “don’t ask, don’t tell” eliminated." So how Barry? Hillary has explained her approach. Got any plans on how you will eliminate it?
When he speaks about ENDA, he follows Ted Kennedy's latest move to exclude transgendered people, and to be fair, Hillary has equally been timid on introducing gender identity issues into law:
I think that’s going to be tough, and I’ve said this before. I have been clear about my interest in including gender identity in legislation, but I’ve also been honest with the groups that I’ve met with that it is a heavy lift through Congress. We’ve got some Democrats who are willing to vote for a non-inclusive bill but we lose them on an inclusive bill, and we just may not be able to generate the votes.
He also repeated what Hillary has proposed as a co-sponsor in 2006 of the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligation Act, a bill that was reintroduced recently, and her endorsement of extending federal benefits to civil unions during her interview with the Philadelphia Gay News:
The third thing I believe I can get done is in dealing with federal employees, making sure that their benefits, that their ability to transfer health or pension benefits the same way that opposite-sex couples do, is something that I’m interested in making happen and I think can be done with some opposition, some turbulence, but I think we can get that done.
And finally, an area that I’m very interested in is making sure that federal benefits are available to same-sex couples who have a civil union. I think as more states sign civil union bills into law the federal government should be helping to usher in a time [during his presidency?] when there’s full equality in terms of what that means for federal benefits.
What about DOMA? He's "interested" in repealing it. But...
Do you think it’s possible to get full repeal of DOMA? As you know, Senator Clinton is only looking at repealing the plank of DOMA that prohibits the federal government from recognizing state-sanctioned unions.
Now wait for it. Obama replied (with emphasis):
I don’t know. But my commitment is to try to make sure that we are moving in the direction of full equality, and I think the federal government historically has led on civil rights -- I’d like to see us lead here too.
Jeez, a non-commitment commitment. And who is us? What about you, Obama, as president? One can understand the criticism that Obama's words are "just words." Again, The Advocate asked:
Back to “don’t ask, don’t tell” real quick -- you’ve said before you don’t think that’s a heavy lift. Of course, it would be if you had Joint Chiefs who were against repeal. Is that something you’ll look at?
I would never make this a litmus test for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Obviously, there are so many issues that a member of the Joint Chiefs has to deal with, and my paramount obligation is to get the best possible people to keep America safe. But I think there’s increasing recognition within the Armed Forces that this is a counterproductive strategy -- ya know, we’re spending large sums of money to kick highly qualified gays or lesbians out of our military, some of whom possess specialties like Arab-language capabilities that we desperately need. That doesn’t make us more safe, and what I want are members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who are making decisions based on what strengthens our military and what is going to make us safer, not ideology.
Did he give a straight answer (no pun intended)? So which is it? Non-ideological Joint Chiefs who can keep us safe and accept gays and lesbians with their specialized skills to enhance national security? Or Joint Chiefs who may be bigoted against gays and lesbians in the military? Did Obama straddle the fence on this one? Oh, I know. It's complicated. Wheeee-ooooo!
What Obama completely ignores and doesn't address is the law that prohibits a president from rescinding “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Why did he avoid that fact? Has he done his homework? Clinton has. Does he even know he would have to get legislation passed to rescind the ban?
In so many words, the Advocate interviewer asked about his position favoring gay civil unions over marriage, querying whether he's asking same-sex couples to wait their turn? Obama waffled and dodged:
I don’t ask them that. Anybody who’s been at an LGBT event with me can testify that my message is very explicit -- I don’t think that the gay and lesbian community, the LGBT community, should take its cues from me or some political leader in terms of what they think is right for them. It’s not my place to tell the LGBT community, wait your turn.
OK, fair enough. But does Obama take his cues from others? Does he believe that doing the right thing is the right thing to do?
Like Obama, Clinton favors civil unions over marriage for gays and lesbians. She spells her position out in unambiguous terms: "Would [she] support federal domestic-partner legislation to give rights to all LGBT citizens, not just federal employees? 'Of course. . . the states are making determinations about extending rights to same-sex couples in various forms and the federal government should recognize that and should extend the same access to federal benefits across the board. I will very much work to achieve that.' " Including changing the tax code.
What annoyed me the most was Obama's evocation of Dr. King:
I’m very mindful of Dr. King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” where he says to the white clergy, don’t tell me to wait for my freedom.
So I strongly respect the right of same-sex couples to insist that even if we got complete equality in benefits, it still wouldn’t be equal because there’s a stigma associated with not having the same word, marriage, assigned to it. I understand that, but my perspective is also shaped by the broader political and historical context in which I’m operating. And I’ve said this before -- I’m the product of a mixed marriage that would have been illegal in 12 states when I was born. That doesn’t mean that had I been an adviser to Dr. King back then, I would have told him to lead with repealing an anti-miscegenation law, because it just might not have been the best strategy in terms of moving broader equality forward.
That’s a decision that the LGBT community has to make. That’s not a decision for me to make.
Is it fair for the LGBT community to ask for leadership? In 1963, President Kennedy made civil rights a moral issue for the country.
But he didn’t overturn anti-miscegenation. Right?
True enough.
As I said, I think the LGBT community has every right to push for what it thinks is right. And I think that it’s absolutely fair to ask me for leadership, and my argument would be that I’m ahead of the curve on these issues compared to 99% of most elected officials around the country on this issue. So I think I’ve shown leadership.
Not compared to Hillary. Obama acts as if he doesn't have a clue about the entirety of gay and lesbian advocacy. He's fallen for Republican talking point on the gay marriage thang and dismissed the movement's press toward resolving the economic impact of discrimination, visitation rights, adoption issues, the tax-filing dilemma, Social Security benefits denied to surviving partners, VA benefits, immigration, and a host of other discriminatory aspects that keep gays and lesbians segregated from married and/or single heterosexuals to equal access under the law. You know why equal marriage rights matter to gay and lesbian couples especially now? Because we are getting older and have to consider what happens in the event of death or disability.
Legally, our marriages may be codified as civil unions, but we can call it marriage and get married in churches that support us. What matters most is equality--not special interests but equal rights--under the law.
I had the pleasure of hearing Coretta Scott King speak at a Gay Pride event and she didn't try to wiggle away from bestowing full equality upon LGBTs. In her words:
For too long, our nation has tolerated the insidious form of discrimination against this group of Americans, who have worked as hard as any other group, paid their taxes like everyone else, and yet have been denied equal protection under the law.... I believe that freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. My husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” On another occasion he said, “I have worked too long and hard against segregated public accommodations to end up segregating my moral concern. Justice is indivisible.” Like Martin, I don’t believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others. So I see this bill as a step forward for freedom and human rights in our country and a logical extension of the Bill of Rights and the civil rights reforms of the 1950’s and ‘60’s. The great promise of American democracy is that no group of people will be forced to suffer discrimination and injustice.
I miss Coretta terribly and sobbed with grief on the day of her funeral. One of our heroines had passed. But, Obama, in comparing gay rights to African-American civil rights movement, balked and parsed his words timidly (with emphasis):
You always want to be careful comparing groups that have been discriminated against because each group’s experiences are different. I think that the transition toward fuller acceptance of the LGBT community has happened without some of the tumult and violence that accompanied the civil rights movement. But we still have a long ways to go, and I think that it also obviously varies geographically. I think in urban communities, you can’t say there’s full equality, but in terms of the LGBT community daily round they’re not as likely to experience certainly the discrimination that they experienced 25 years ago.
Whereas, in the African-American community, you can still see some fairly overt racism. On the other hand, in rural communities, I think attitudes are slower to change.
What mealy-mouthed mush! I object to who's been victimized more, a specious argument. Ever heard of the Stonewall Riots or the despicable pickets of the God Hates Fags bigots, Barry? Remember when homosexuality was illegal and sodomy was a crime? The Religious Right has made a career of openly smearing gays and lesbians in the media and from the pulpit. Obviously, Obama knows little of the daily overt gay-bashing--one in five have suffered from a hate crime--that occurs throughout America even to this day. Yes, we are different. We can hide in the shadows pretending we're straight, those of us who can, to save ourselves from death, from violence, from being discharged from the military, from being evicted, from losing our jobs or not getting hired. But we have died in large numbers as a marginalized minority.
When the AIDS epidemic hit in the 1980s, we were judged and convicted as unworthy of assistance, rejected as outcasts, shunned as pariahs. Gay teens struggle in schools everyday where the epithet, f*ggot, has replaced the racial smear now so taboo to speak out loud. We are not considered family--something African Americans have never had to suffer--when our loved ones are hospitalized. We have had our property taken away from us when our lifetime partners have died and our kids removed from our homes because we were decried as unfit. And we live under the threat of death, violence, verbal abuse, vandalism, and prejudice if we inadvertently go to places that are dangerous to our kind. I personally had to flee my hometown as a teen because I was warned by a dear friend that a group of boys who knew of my relationship with a girlfriend were going to abduct and rape me to show "the dyke" what she's been "missing." And if I dare to speak openly that I am a lesbian online or in public, OMG! The sexual harassment that I sometimes get from supposedly enlightened liberal men is unnervingly lurid and undignified.
Yes, our experiences are different but the methods denigrating us are the same. As King so eloquently summed up, "I believe that freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience." And “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Read the rest of Obama's interview. I cannot stomach another word of a man presuming to be president, so arrogant to boast that he's been "more vocal on gay issues to general audiences than any other presidential candidate probably in history," and so ignorant of the LGBT experience and our life struggles.
Equal protection under the law, Mr. Obama. Equal protection under the law!
Not a feminist, not a progressive
Yes, Anglachel is so right. Melissa McEwan did nail it:
Feminism is an integral part of progressivism.
If you're not a feminist, you're not a progressive.
No matter how much you hate Bush.
No matter how much you hate the Iraq war.
No matter how much you hate our current torture policy.
No matter how much you want to restore habeas corpus.
No matter how much you're totally going to vote for the Democrat in November.
If you're not a feminist, you're not a progressive.
You're a fauxgressive.
End of story.
Anglachel then articulated at length the inherent sexism in the Obamasphere, "the anti-feminist behavior of self-identified liberal men," their racial guilt, and the turf battle: white guys protecting their self-interests, the decaying class infrastructure that once privileged them, and how women threaten their hegemony in competing for "economic success." The Obamasphere smear, WWTSBQ, epitomizes the resentment online and offline.
Go read both Anglachel and Melissa for the goods.
I'm still too nauseous from having read Obama's wimpy interview with The Advocate from this morning. I can't add anything meaningful. Besides, what Anglachel and Melissa wrote is perfection as is.
But I will expand on Melissa's righteous prose, if I may be so bold...
If you're afraid to stand up for LGBT equality, you're not a progressive.
More about that statement after I recuperate from the mealy-mouthed piffle that Obama imagined was his "commitment" to LGBTs gays and lesbians.
First, I need to go sharpen my labrys.
UPDATE: The Advocate interview with Obama
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Image bias?
What is Reuters attempting to communicate with this photo series of the three presidential contenders?
REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
REUTERS/Tim Shaffer
REUTERS/Jonathan ErnstWhat emotions? What attributes? Who's depicted least to most favorable? Thoughts?
Zinger of the day
BBC News, Inheriting President Bush's war (with emphasis):
"We are stuck in a twilight zone in Iraq," said Democratic Senate Majority leader Harry Reid. "When violence is up, the president says we cannot bring our troops home.
"When violence dips, the president says we cannot bring our troops home. With 160,000 courageous American troops serving in Iraq, President Bush has an exit strategy for just one man - himself on 20 January, 2009."
Florida DNC appeals
Via the 2008 Democratic Convention Watch blog, Jon Ausman's letter explaining the Florida DNC appeals dated 8 April 2008 (with emphasis):
The staff of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) have completed and submitted their review of the two appeals seeking to have 23 superdelegates and 92 pledged delegates award to Florida .
The first appeal notes the DNC Charter states Democratic US Senators, Democratic US House Members, former DNC Chairs and DNC Members “shall” be delegates to the Democratic National Convention. This “bill of rights” given to 23 Floridians cannot be taken away by a subordinate body created by the DNC since that subordinate body does not have the authority to do so.
The second appeal states the penalty for violating the “timing rule” “shall be” a fifty percent (50%) reduction in the pledged delegates and the loss of the three (3) unpledged add-on delegates. This means Florida should have at least 92 pledged delegates.
The remaining 93 pledged delegates and three (3) unpledged add-on delegates I hope to win at a later time if not on this appeal itself.
Review by Co-Chairs, Rules and Presidential Politics
The two Co-Chairs of the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) have been reviewing the staff comments and recommendations since 31 March 2008. While the 2008 Delegate Selection Rules provide a strict timeline in many areas when an appeal is made it is silent on how long the Co-Chairs can review the appeals and the staff review.
For those who suggest the Co-Chairs are stalling, or planning to delay hearings until June, I say lets [sic] give them a reasonable amount of time to review the documents. If the staff has two weeks to review and write a report then lets give the Co-Chairs the same two week period of time.
This means the Co-Chairs should make a statement on Monday, 14 April 2008, at the latest.
The Co-Chairs can say one or both appeals are meritorious and grant the sought for remedies, they can deny one or both appeals (which will allow me to appeal such a denial within five days to the DNC RBC, or they can call for a DNC RBC Committee to here argument on the appeals.
I believe we are going before the full DNC RBC and I would like to be there no later than Saturday, 10 May 2008.
Unfortunately, these two appeals involve more than the consideration of what the written rules governing the DNC say. Rather than interpret the rules as written consideration is now being given to what the two Presidential campaigns want (what they want, of course, is what benefits them the most).
I believe one campaign is very interested in allowing the DNC RBC decide the matter while the other is stalling in order to preserve their position.
One would think both parties would see the tremendous advantage of resolving this matter early as it would help improve fundraising for both campaigns in Florida (not to mention DNC and FDP fundraising) as well as allow our attention to focus on getting ready to be [sic] Senator McCain, but short-term views are prevailing over the long-term benefits of ending this running sore.
With respect, I am,
Jon M. Ausman, Member
Democratic National Committee
Florida
What campaign would stall to preserve its position? Sen. Hillary Clinton hasn't enjoyed any pledged delegate or superdelegate counts from FL. So what advantage would she gain from a delay? What say you?
Generals say Hillary will be best Commander-in-Chief
Photo by Barbara KinneyFrom Aliquippa, PA, Hillary explained her solutions to bolster the U.S. military, to bring relief to the battle-worn, and she reaffirmed her commitment to end the war in Iraq.
“The War in Iraq has been a harsh and daily toll on our men and women in uniform, many on their second, third, and fourth tour of duty. Among combat troops sent to Iraq for the third or fourth time, more than one in four show signs of anxiety, depression or acute stress, according to an official Army survey of soldiers’ mental health,” said Clinton. “And we cannot forget the toll on military families. So it is vital for our national security – and for the health and safety of our men and women in uniform – that we end the war in Iraq and begin to rebuild our military.
“That’s why I am calling on President Bush to stop playing games by negotiating a long-term security pact with Iraq that will saddle the next president with his failed policies – without the review of the U.S. Congress. And I am calling on the president to answer the question General Petraeus did not: What is our endgame in Iraq, given the failure of the surge to achieve its objective?”
She discussed her proposals before a panel discussion with several retired military leaders, including Rear Admiral David Stone, Brigadier General Michael Dunn and Brigadier General John M. Watkins, Jr. They are among 35 Admirals and Generals who have endorsed Hillary Clinton to be our nation’s next Commander-in-Chief. In addition, she was also joined by Monroeville Mayor Gregory Erosenko, a Vietnam-era Army veteran, and Thomas Giza, a former Army Specialist and Iraq veteran, who is also from Monroeville. Mayor Erosenko also announced his endorsement of Hillary Clinton today.
Today’s town hall is part of the campaign’s ongoing effort to reach out to veterans and their families. In fact, several volunteers are currently conducting a grassroots Veterans for Hillary tour, visiting 37 towns and cities all across Pennsylvania. Throughout their stops, the Veterans for Hillary are visiting veterans who are sick or injured, meeting with local veterans at Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion halls, and signing up volunteers.
In brief, Clinton's plans include:
An end to stop loss.
Allowing "sufficient time at home between deployments to rest," adopting Murtha's proposal "for every month they spend in the field, soldiers will be guaranteed one month here at home."
Rebuilding the military for conventional warfare and new strategic challenges.
Guaranteeing health care for every vet and reducing the backlog of disability claims to get the system back on track.
Restoring and expanding the TBI program.
Modernizing the GI Bill of Rights.
Overhauling military hospitals.
Full details from Clinton's website here.
Elizabeth Edwards likes it
She prefers Hillary's health care plan over Obama's:
"You need that universality in order to get the cost savings," Edwards said on ABC's "Good Morning America." "I just have more confidence in Senator Clinton's policy than Senator Obama's on this particular issue."
Both candidates have been assiduously courting Edwards since he dropped out of the race. When Clinton last week proposed creating a poverty czar, many saw that as reaching out to Edwards, who has made fighting poverty his calling and who, along with former Vice President Al Gore, is perhaps the highest-impact uncommitted Democrat.
In the interview, Elizabeth Edwards also said that she wouldn't be upset if the nomination battle went all the way to the August national convention and that Clinton and Obama would be a great joint ticket.
Always liked Elizabeth and wishing her the best. John, too.
WHOOPS! Tipped off to the news by Lambert.
Respect my sexist attitude!
That's the Boy Blogz media darthling Josh Marshall's unofficial slogan freshly-minted during his latest sexist episode of CDS and taken to the woodshed by Melissa McEwan:
Are you fucking kidding me, Josh Marshall? Because I quite honestly can't believe that a person who identifies as a progressive and has two brain cells still knocking together doesn't understand why it's problematic, to put it charitably, to frame Hillary Clinton pushing her male chief strategist from power as "gelding" him.
I find it difficult to believe that a man of your intelligence doesn't know that "to geld" means to castrate, and I find it similarly difficult to believe that a man of your experience doesn't know that powerful women are routinely cast as castrating bitches, and I further yet find it difficult to believe, in light of your constant reminders that you've spent a good part of your adult life defending the Clintons, that you are totally unaware of the existence of "hilarious" novelty items like the Hillary Clinton nutcracker. So where exactly is the disconnect, Josh, that allows you to use such disgusting language in reference to a sitting senator and presidential candidate? Or any woman, for that matter.
With "allies" like these...
And with that, Melissa lists 75 episodes from the "Hillary Sexism Watch." Click onward.
Psycho Babel
Clinton Derangement Syndrome abounds in the media in a sickening incarnation:
During the April 7 edition of Fox News' America's Election HQ, radio host Tammy Bruce joined the growing list of media figures who have purported to diagnose Sen. Hillary Clinton with a mental disorder, asserting of Clinton, "Well, there's an actual psychiatric term called mythomania, and it's part of a larger psychiatric scheme of people who make up fantastic stories to bolster their own image." As supposed evidence of Clinton "literally making up things out of whole cloth," Bruce claimed that Clinton had discussed "Chelsea being at the World Trade Center on September 11th." In fact, Hillary Clinton did not claim that her daughter, Chelsea Clinton, was "at the World Trade Center on September 11th"; rather, as Media Matters for America has documented, Hillary Clinton said that her daughter had "gone, what she thought would be just a great jog. She was going to go down to Battery Park, she was going to go around the towers. She went to get a cup of coffee and -- and that's when the plane hit."
As Media Matters noted, in a February 25 National Review Online blog post, CNBC host Lawrence Kudlow wrote, "Now I'm no psychiatrist, far from it, but I think a simple answer is that Senator Clinton could be depressed." In a February 27 New York Times column, Maureen Dowd wrote that Clinton "has turned into Sybil," an apparent reference to a book and movie about a woman who developed multiple personality disorder after being severely abused as a child. On the February 26 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, commentator Jack Cafferty claimed Clinton "[r]esembl[ed] someone with multiple personality disorder." And on the February 25 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, Chicago Tribune reporter Jill Zuckman asserted that Clinton's behavior "comes across as a little schizophrenic." As Media Matters further documented, in her book The Extreme Makeover of Hillary (Rodham) Clinton (Regnery Publishing, 2007), Republican strategist Bay Buchanan suggested that Clinton may have a disorder "involving narcissistic personality style," and was quoted in an article about the book as saying, "[W]e are talking about a clinical condition that could make her [Clinton] dangerously ill-suited to become President and Commander in Chief."
A clinically-trained mental health professional would never attempt a psych evaluation from afar but these pundits--who aren't qualified or evidently self-aware enough to diagnose their own shameless behavior--do. Puh-leeze. They're snarling Hillary-hating loudmouths with a megaphone at their disposal to disseminate mindless irresponsible pronouncements and fork-tongued propaganda.
You can't miss the misogyny in some of the rhetoric, in Kudlow's case, a blog post entitled, "Hillary's Mental Roller Coaster"...
Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed Hillary's erratic, roller-coaster, mood swings these past few weeks?
She's all over the map. Irritable and angry. Manic. Pessimistic and sad. One minute she's shedding tears, the next minute she's shouting and attacking, then she's sarcastically ripping on Obama, and on and on it goes.
C'mon. We know a sexist dog whistle when we hear it, the implication that Hillary acted like an unhinged, hysterical female. The "sarcastically ripping on Obama" likens to Marc Rudov's whiny characterization of "when Hillary Clinton speaks, men hear, 'Take out the garbage.' " What Kudlow wrote doesn't unveil anything truthful or relevant: it's chatter exposing him as an exaggerator, whose embellished tale delivers a dramatized slimeball he can toss.
Not only is our media the worst, sleaziest press corps possible, but they're predatory and paid handsomely, some of them multi-millions, to say depraved, toxic, inflammatory nonsense. They do it to get people to watch The Show, to read Their Words, to listen to Their Shtick and they're smirking all the way to their estates in Nantucket having reeled in the rubes who lap up their craptoids as if they're M&M candies. Those media darthlings who haven't made it that big yet are slobbering rapaciously in their quest for "Millionaire Pundit Values."
The sane choice of any sentient being is to turn 'em off with the realization, "Television is not the truth. Television is a goddamned amusement park." Which applies to the Tower of Noise, the babbling bobbleheads, the media's hit men, The Village.
UPDATE: Susie Madrak picked up on Dick Morris' lie, his contribution to the towering Psycho Babel.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Hillary for gays, lesbians--Obama not so much
Previously mentioned in passing, Hillary Clinton's interview with the Philadelphia Gay News.
Yesterday, Sapphocrat (love the name) dived inside the pages of the PGN. Noteworthy from page 11:
At this point in the Democratic presidential campaign, we’re able to view the candidates by their actions. And we have found that Sen. Barack Obama would rather talk at the LGBT community than with it. While Sen. Hillary Clinton has been accessible to the local LGBT press with numerous “no rules” interviews, Obama simply has not. The fact is that Obama has spoken with the gay press only twice, and one of those interviews, which appeared in chicago’s Windy City Times, was in 2004 before he became a U.S. senator. The other limited interview occurred after controversy erupted when his campaign added an anti-gay minister to his tour of the South. It has now been 1,522 days since Obama has been accessible to our community. The question is now this: Is he trying to play it safe or has he become a managed candidate?
But there’s more to this story.
The LGBT press, which has been fighting for respect since its inception, expected this to be the year that candidates would respond to us as they do to the Hispanic, black and other community press… The local gay press is to our community what churches are to the black community — our lifeline for information. The local gay press now has a national weekly audience of some 2.2. million readers, not including our Web sites. Collectively, we reach more LGBT people than any other source. While Obama has issued numerous statements, he has only granted one interview in this campaign. This begs the question, is he uncomfortable with the LGBT community? …
So whom has he spoken with in that time? Christianity Tody [sic], local Philadelphia sports radio station, Grist and Paris Match. Guess he’s going for the French vote.
Sapphocrat then added these disheartening tidbits:
After giving PGN the runaround, PGN complained to Obama’s communications director that the campaign’s “actions, not just to PGN, but to the entire LGBT press, have been disrespectful,” noting that Republicans Bob Casey and Arlen Specter (no friends to the gay community, they) and even “nightstick-carrying” former Mayor Frank Rizzo have granted interviews to PGN.
“The last candidate running for office that refused an interview with PGN,” the paper reminds us, “was Sen. Rick Santorum.”
PGN then speaks directly to Obama, whomping him over the head with this hard little truth: “We were treated with more respect by Republican John McCain’s campaign than yours.”
The lone interview Obama has given during this campaign was to The Advocate, in which he made a pitifully lame attempt to defuse the outrage over the Donnie McClurkin insult (and during which he stepped even deeper into his own doo-doo by suggesting that queers and Democrats — as if the two groups were mutually exclusive — are “hermetically sealed from the faith community”).And that interview was six months ago.
(And, for the record, the pandering, meaningless campaign ads he took out in gay print publications just prior to the Ohio and Texas primaries do not count as “interviews.” Neither does his appearance at the LOGO debate; for one thing, his absence would have been more than conspicuous, and for another, the questions lobbed at him weren’t even softballs, but wiffle balls.)
So what, you say? So, Obama hasn’t given an interview to the gay media (even the outlets that support him) since.
And it’s not like he hasn’t been asked. Repeatedly.
I wrote Barry off after his Donnie McClurkin episode. My preferred candidate, Hillary Clinton, is far, far, far more supportive of gays and lesbians, one of a lot of reasons I'm sticking with her even if I have to write her in name on my November ballot if I can. Otherwise, I'll vote for the Green Party candidate. No way I'm endorsing Mr. Audacity of Hope when clearly he's not audacious enough to stand up for my community. A deal breaker.
His words that he doesn't "think the LGBT community or the Democratic Party is served by being hermetically sealed from the faith community and not in dialogue with a substantial portion of the electorate" just shows that Obama doesn't understand who we are, our activists, our outreach, and our clergy.
Hillary gets it by personally associating with us, marching with us, and advocating for our equality. Action speaks louder than words.
