Help! I'm A Snob Like Obama!We Marxists think we know better.

Help! I'm A Snob Like Obama! Greg Mitchell ridicules Bill Kristol for insinuating that Barack Obama was a Marxist for saying that residents of economically depressed small towns "cling to guns or religion ... as a way to explain their [economic] frustrations." But of course it was a Marxist thing to say, wasn't it? If Democrats had delivered on the economy, Obama suggests, all those GOP cultural "wedge" issues would lose traction. This idea--that the economy trumps culture--isn't new. It's "materialism." The economic "base," Marxists would argue, determines the cultural "superstructure." If the economy changes (i.e. if small town Pennsylvanians get well-paying jobs) then the superstructure will change (Pennsylvanians will feel less intensely about their religion).

PRINTDISCUSSE-MAILRSSRECOMMEND...SINGLE PAGE

FacebookMySpace Mixx Digg Reddit del.icio.us Furl Ma.gnolia SphereStumbleUponCLOSE

Actually this isn't simply Marxism--it's what, when I was in college at least, was called Vulgar Marxism. More sophisticated Marxists hypothesized various ways the cultural "superstructure" could interact with the economy or take on a life of its own. Less supple Marxists (Engels, if I remember) hew to the crude base/superstructure idea--with feudalism you get feudal beliefs, which give way to bourgeois beliefs once capitalism takes over.

I've sniped at Obama for the condescension implicit in his argument that Pennsylvanians will stop their 'clinging' once Democrats like him start delivering jobs from Washington. But this condescension is inherent in any Vulgar Marxist explanation, isn't it? European peasants thought they were loyal to divine monarchs in a well-ordered hierarchical universe. Comes the industrial revolution and they look like fools. "All that is sacred ...."

The problem for me is that I'm a Vulgar Marxist too. I've always believed that people need to eat, and want to get ahead and prosper. If you give them an avenue that lets them do that, they aren't going to let their religion, their music, their sexual habits, their families or their educational system stand in their way for long. The two most obvious contemporary applications of this economic determinism are 1) China (when the Chinese have a capitalist economy they won't be able to have a Communist government, Vulgar Marxists would say) and 2) the Muslim world (if Islam needs a Reformation in order to prosper in a global market, then Islam will eventually get a Reformation). I agree with both of those propositions.

Does that mean I'm condescending too? It's hard to avoid the charge. If a Chinese Communist Party Official somehow came to me and declared that, no, China would out-compete the West while maintaining Mao-era control over free inquiry, I'd think 'You poor deluded fool. Just wait.' I support Western policies of bringing China into the global marketplace in large part because I think that means Chinese Communism will collapse even if the Chinese Communists don't realize it. Same with fundamentalist Muslims--e.g. Pakistan, when prosperous, will no longer be such a breeding ground of jihadist fanatics. They'll be too busy making money to blow up the world. My attitude toward Pakistan is roughly parallel to Obama's attitude toward rural Pennsylvanians: if the economy really delivered for them, they'd stop clinging to their God. And their guns.

I'm especially appalled by the possibility that I'm as much of a snob as Obama because I've made a big deal about social equality--how treating people as equals, rather than redistributing income, is the essential goal of liberal politics. Condescension, needless to say, is not treating people like equals. (Obama himself seemed to be quite aware of the problem, in his 2004 Charlie Rose interview, when trotting out his "What's the Matter With Kansas" homilies:

"If we don't have plausible answers on the economic front, and we appear to be condescending towards those traditions that are giving their lives some stability, then they're gonna opt for at least that party that seems to be speaking to the things that are giving--that still provide them some solace." [E.A.]

Of course, he sounded a bit condescending when saying that. .....

Seeking a way out of the Condescension Conundrum, I asked my friend Robert Wright, another Vulgar Marxist, for guidance. He wasn't much help! What he said was ... well, you can see what he said here.

Is there an answer? I'm not sure. I suppose the short response is that you worry about condescending to Muslims when you are running for office in a Muslim country, you worry about condescending to Pennsylvanians when you are running in Pennsylvania. But it's not really an answer; 1) Nobody likes to be condescended to, and nobody's likely to be convinced when they feel belittled; and 2) in my view of the world, at least, condescension--social inequality--is a grave political sin in itself whenever it's practiced.

Some other obvious potential ways out come to mind, though they make me sound like a tenth grade civics teacher (or Andrew Sullivan):

1) Always entertain the possibility that you might be wrong and those whose "superstructural" behavior you are explaining are right. Call it the "Marxism of Doubt"! The left ignored this rule when it declared opposition to welfare one of those "scapegoating" behaviors that would thankfully disappear when Democrats delivered good jobs and good wages. In fact, opposition to welfare was fairly constant through good times and bad--perhaps because the opponents of welfare were right (as I think they were). In any case, they won.

Obama ignores this rule when he dismisses opposition to affirmative action and trade and illegal immigration as similar "scapegoating" behavior. Mighty convenient to say that the doomed "superstructure" happens to include all the beliefs you disagree with.

2) Don't pick fights unnecessarily: Do Democrats have to scorn people who cling to God, whatever the reason? No. Do they have to scorn people who cling to guns? Maybe, if Democrats really think they have to believe in gun control to be Democrats. But in fact they've caved on gun control--deciding, in essence, it's not a core position. Maybe they'll soon decide that race-based preferences and legalization of illegal aliens aren't core positions either--perhaps because, heeding Rule 1, they've been convinced by the people they are condescending to. (Obama is clearly a ways away from that moment.)

3) Emphasize the common goal: A companion to rule 2. If Obama thinks Pennsylvanians will stop clinging to God and guns and ethnic prejudices once they have a real prospect of getting national health insurance--well, talk about national health insurance! Let the prejudice take care of itself (if you really think that's what's going to happen).

4) Where you have to disagree, have the respect to do it forthrightly: A modern national Democrat, contemplating religious small town Pennsylvanians, won't want to concede, say, that homosexuality is immoral. Westerners, contemplating the Muslim world, won't want to tolerate stoning adulterers or honor killings, certainly not among Muslim immigrants to the West but not in the East either. Free speech and inquiry aren't things we think Chinese Communists might be right about. In these cases, the only thing to do is to honestly say "Yes, we think you are wrong and that you'll eventually come around."

I'm not sure rules like this really dispel the stench of condescension. Rule #3 seems like a PR gambit--hiding what you really think, maybe by keeping troublesome bloggers out of your San Francisco fundraisers. And even on #4, don't the Chinese know we think we're not only "right" on a specific issue but "better" in some sense--more advanced, further along on the arc of history? I don't know that it helps if they feel the same way about us.

If anyone has the answer-even Charlie Rose!--I'm all ears. 2:44 A.M. link

____________________________

Yes, we are all waiting to see who Chuck Hagel endorses! The excitement builds. ...

P.S.: He might not endorse anyone at all! That would say so much. ... 5:38 P.M.

___________________________

Voyage to Mars almost over. Prediction: No water I was going to predict that Hillary will win Pennsylvania by 8 points--defying Newsweek and the wishful thinking about an Obama surge/surprise. But with some national polls now moving against Obama and the state polls still looking Ohio-esque, that isn't a very courageous call. So how about a double-digit Clinton win? Cling! ... Pay no attention if it's wrong. ... Note also that while reporters and bloggers may have moved past the stage where they are totally exhausted with the race and into that stage where they achieve a sort of giddy high--and then past that into the stage where they are totally exhausted again--many PA voters may not even focus on the race until two days from now. What they see on TV on Monday will be bizarrely important. ... P.S.: She's got her Mutnemom on: "I have to win." Maybe she'll cry! ... 12:01 P.M.

___________________________

Jerry Brown's War on Suburbs: The once and maybe future Gov. Moonbeam, now California's Attorney General, thinks suburbs cause global warming and he's filing lawsuits to force more density. Jill Stewart questions the underlying science. ... P.S.: Didn't Brown get into trouble with his appointment to the state Supreme Court of Rose Bird, whose jurisprudence would have led judges to make lots of decisions now made by elected legislators? Brown seems peculiarly ill-positioned to litigate his way into the governorship. ... P.P.S.: How many thousands in campaign contributions is Brown going to accept from apartment-house developers who are dumbfoundedly ecstatic to find left-wing greenies suddenly on their side. ... It's win-win!

Update: SacBee's Dan Walters notes that while Brown "has been suing, or threatening to sue, just about anyone who doesn't immediately adhere to his vertical vision,"

his personal commitment is somewhat suspect since he and his wife, citing crime fears, moved from an urban loft in Oakland to a comfortable home in the Oakland hills after he took office last year.

Crime is for the non-visionaries! Let them fight global warming. ... 10:55 P.M.

___________________________

Kate O'Beirne on Peggy Noonan's recommendation that McCain promise not to run for a second term:

Should John McCain pledge to do 3 or 4 big specific things in his one and only term, he would have a mandate.

Hmm. I think I know what one of those 3 or 4 big specific things would be. [Secure the borders!--ed Right] ... Without "comprehensive" immigration reform, does McCain even have 4 big things he wants to do? Iraq, Iraq, entitlements, Iraq? ... P.S.: The real genius behind a one-term pledge is that voters are near-desperate for an end to Republican rule. The pledge would be a signal to them that they could safely act on their anxieties about Obama, confident that they were only giving the GOPs a short-term lease extension. ... The McCain chant would be: "Just Four More Years!" ... 5:14 P.M. link

________________________

How to tell GM's successful cars: When struggling General Motors finally builds a car people actually want to buy, why does the plant that builds it always seem to become the target for a UAW strike? It's happened with the company's popular crossovers (GMC Acadia, Buick Enclave, Saturn Outlook) and with the new Chevy Malibu. I can't tell if this is a case of UAW leaders seeking out the few successful operations of GM in order to extract maximum gain, or if the strikes at successful plants are just the only strikes that get publicized. But you have to wonder whether the UAW understands how strongly consumers might not want to buy cars made in strike-riven factories? ... P.S.: I think the answer is that the national UAW probably understands this, but the union's decentralized structure gives lots of power to the locals. That's another reason--an idiosyncratic one--why the UAW has been a disaster for the American auto industry. ... 4:22 P.M.

___________________________

It's Too Late for Make-Up Calls Now, Arianna! How guilty does the pro-O HuffPo feel about breaking the news that made Obama's week miserable? Very, to judge by the compensatory pile-on of ABC-bashing on her home page after Gibson and Stephanopouos' persistent questioning of Obama. (See 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,10 ....) ... 2:21 A.M.

___________________________

Thursday, April 17, 2008

I Knew That! Several journalists have emailed me questioning whether Obama's answer on affirmative action last night represented any sort of new position, given that he'd suggested a year ago on ABC's This Week that his daughters "probably" shouldn't benefit from race preferences. See update below for why I think last night's statement was a significant strengthening of his position, and potentially a big deal. ... I will now go check the Web to see if he's backtracked yet. ... [You're getting zero pickup on this. You seem to be the only person on the planet who thinks it was significant.--ed The official post-debate story line, laid down by The Curve himself, has to do with ABC's negative questions and Obama's reaction to them. Fair enough. The MSM isn't thinking about affirmative action and doesn't want to think about affirmative action. That doesn't mean it's not significant. Check back in a couple of months.] 5:23 P.M.

___________________________

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Note to HuffPo: "Screw 'em. You don't owe them a thing" isn't condescending! It's not friendly, but it's something you say about opponents who are social equals. ... 'There, there, you poor people cling to God to explain your frustrations'--that's a violation of social equality. ... Backfill: Allahpundit made this point at 4:30. ... Maguire notes that Hillary was saying 'screw 'em' this in defense of traditional liberal policies (which were said to be alienating "Reagan Democrats.") But I don't see why that makes it different from Obama's comment. Obama is advocating traditional liberal policies too. ... P.S.: The full passage is still a timely reminder of what a rebuke the 1994 election was to Hillary's disastrous pursuit of health care reform before welfare reform. As David Plouffe would say, experience does not necessarily equal judgment. ... 9:10 P.M.

___________________________

Philly Debate watching--Pivot Now! Am I crazy or has Obama just opened up a potentially huge Pivot Possibility on affirmative action? His proposal: Allow individualized consideration of "hardship," with overcoming race discrimination being one of the possible hardships that you get points for overcoming.. ... The problem, I suspect, is that this interesting intermediate position (between banning any consideration of race and having race be an automatic plus factor) would, if honestly applied, exclude a huge portion of the current beneficiaries of race preferences (who tend to be the sort of affluent African Americans who, like Obama's daughters, have a more difficult time making an individual "hardship" case). Will Obama now be denounced by the civil rights establishment? Will that help him in Pennsylvania? It would certainly get rid of the Cling. ... Developing! ... Rick Kahlenberg, you're up! ... Note: I think last night's statement adds to what Obama has said before. See below.

P.S.: Aside from that, I thought Obama got the worse of it in the debate. He was on the defensive, and non-inspiring. Hillary was fairly palatable,** despite a few rough moments. ... I have no criticism of Gibson or Stephanopoulos. A relentless focus on negative character attacks can be revealing--and it was. That's especially true in this campaign, where the actual policy differences between the candidates have been small and often tedious. ...

Update: Here's a transcript of what Obama said about race preferences [E.A.]:

And race is still a factor in our society. And I think that for universities and other institutions to say, you know, we're going to take into account the hardships that somebody has experienced because they're black or Latino or because they're women --

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Even if they're wealthy?

SENATOR OBAMA: I think that's something that they can take into account, but it can only be in the context of looking at the whole situation of the young person. So if they look at my child and they say, you know, Malia and Sasha, they've had a pretty good deal, then that shouldn't be factored in. On the other hand, if there's a young white person who has been working hard, struggling, and has overcome great odds, that's something that should be taken into account.

So I still believe in affirmative action as a means of overcoming both historic and potentially current discrimination, but I think that it can't be a quota system and it can't be something that is simply applied without looking at the whole person, whether that person is black or white or Hispanic, male or female.

What we want to do is make sure that people who have been locked out of opportunity are going to be able to walk through those doors of opportunity in the future.

"Shouldn't be factored in." Potential game changer! Hello? A nuclear weapon aimed like a laser at Hillary's white working class base! ... Now if only some enterprising reporter will get Jesse Jackson to take umbrage at Obama's heresy. Is that so hard? (And if Jackson approves of Obama's answer, that's news too.)*** ... My fear is that the civil rights establishment will get to Obama in private, and he'll wuss out and walk it back. ...

Nathan Thurm Memorial Update: I know that Obama said a similar thing about his daughters a year ago on George Stephanopoulos' This Week show. But

1) He hasn't been saying it a lot since, so there was always a question as to whether he meant it or would backtrack, etc. His heretical position isn't featured on his Web site--it ducks the issue, as far as I can see (which itself is suggestive but not exactly clarifying). Even if he had simply repeated his This Week statement it would be significant. But he didn't.

2) On This Week he said:

"I think that my daughters should probably be treated by any admissions officer as folks who are pretty advantaged, and I think that there's nothing wrong with us taking that into account as we consider admissions policies at universities. I think that we should take into account white kids who have been disadvantaged and have grown up in poverty and shown themselves to have what it takes to succeed. So I don't think those concepts are mutually exclusive."

Note that this year-old passage doesn't say his daughters race shouldn't be taken into account at all. He seems more to be saying everything should be taken into account. That, plus the "mutually exclusive" language, led skeptical commentators to speculate that he just wants to layer on another preference for disadvantaged whites--as opposed to taking it away from affluent blacks. ...

Last night, however, he certainly seemed to say race would not be a factor at all for "advantaged" blacks like his daughters. ("Shouldn't be factored in.") That seems like a further step--a big one. Wiping out the race preference for upper class blacks would in practice wipe out most race preference admissions at elite schools, no? It strikes at the core of the actual, practical race-preference constituency. If Hillary said it, there would be a firestorm from the civil rights lobby, I think.

**--I was watching the tiny Webcast picture. Maybe she looked worse full-sized. ...

***--If Obama could simultaneously arrange for race-blindness champion Ward Connerly to denounce him--because Obama's plan still allows race to be taken into account when it causes "hardship"--so much the better. Triangulation! ... 6:45 P.M. link

_____________________________

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

King of Cling Update:

1) Hugh Hewitt argues it is too about the "bitter." ...

2) David Coleman--who was there--notes that in the very same San Francisco talk Obama made

additional observations that black youth in urban areas are told they are no longer "relevant" in the global economy and, feeling marginalized, they engage in destructive behavior.

Coleman points out that "[n]o one has seized upon those words as 'talking down' to the inner city youth whose plight he was addressing." Was Obama condescending to blacks too?

Good question. The short answer is "yes." The longer answer, I think, is that it's different when you are explaining behavior that's unquestionably bad. Then the issue becomes whether you're making excuses (a point Coleman raises). Imagine if Obama had confined himself to explaining white Pennsylvanian racism--the "excuse-making" issue would get a lot more attention than the condescension issue. ... The trouble is Obama also tried to explain local Pennsylvania habits, like religious faith, that aren't incontrovertibly "destructive"--raising the additional question of why he felt a need to make an explanation in the first place. Imagine if Obama had tried to explain black churchgoing as a reaction to inner-city residents no longer feeling "relevant" in the global economy. Yikes! Condescension City! He'd be reamed and rightly so. ...

Making excuses for autonomous human actors is always a form of condescension, I'd say. But when you make excuses for what many people regard as normal, even laudable behavior, you double down on the disrespect, because you are also challenging your subjects' moral framework

3) Alert emailer M wonders why Obama is applying a Tom Frank analysis--of working class voters who vote Republican--to Pennsylvania, since unlike Kansas, Pennsylvania is a blue state that "hasn't voted for a Republican presidential nominee since 1988." And the most economically distressed parts of the state are the most Democratic, despite all the clinging to guns and God that's going on. [**See Correction, below] In short, Obama's explaining something that doesn't happen. ... I suppose one answer is that Obama wasn't explaining why Pennsylvanians wouldn't vote for a Democrat but why they might not vote for him--a black, liberal Democrat. But Obama says he's explaining why small-town Rustbelt voters don't buy the idea that government can help them, which sounds an awful lot like not buying Democratic ideology generally. ...

**Correction: I misstated emailer M's argument. He's not arguing that Pennsylvania's less prosperous areas are more Democratic than, say, Philadelphia. They aren't. He's arguing that they were Democratic in the '80s, when economic distress was at its peak, and have become more Republican since, as the distress eased. M cites The Almanac of American Politics, co-authored by Michael Barone, who wrote:

"Relieved of economic stress, voters here [Western PA] moved towards Republicans in the 1990s."

But I don't think Barone is saying that it's prosperity that bred Republicanism (which would be the opposite of the Obama "cling" theses). I think he's talking mainly about migration--the unemployed workers who voted Democratic in the 1980s have simply left, leaving behind older voters who are more content living where they are living. It's a sorting out frustration-reducing process, not a prosperity-driven frustration-reducing process. Either way, it's not the "cling" process that Obama is imagining (though in the absence of real prosperity some "clinging" could be going on too). ... P.S.: But it's mainly happening in Western PA's Pittsburgh suburbs. In the 2004 presidential race, rural towns seem to have remained pro-Republican by about the same margin as in 1988. ...

Update: Alter Untanked Jon Alter agrees with "M," not Obama:

[i]t turns out that working-class Americans have not left the Democratic Party, except in the South, where practically everyone except the black community has turned Republican. In the north, as Princeton political scientist Larry M. Bartels establishes in an important new book, "Unequal Democracy," working-class voters have actually been trending Democratic in recent elections, which helps explain why longtime bellwether states like Illinois and Pennsylvania have been more reliably blue. According to Bartels, more affluent voters are the ones who have been swayed by social issues like abortion and guns. Working-class voters, he writes, are still motivated by economics.

5:06 A.M. link

___________________________

Suicide Marketing! Has Microsoft hit on a brilliant new sales strategy? Here's how it's done: First, you screw up your major product, replacing it with a fancier version that is widely derided and universally regarded as inferior to its main competitor. But--key point--you keep selling the old, popular product. Then you announce that you'll stop selling the popular product on June 30. This causes a predictable--and highly profitable--surge in sales. ("Last chance to buy Windows XP!") You pocket the millions from those sales, but then at the last minute announce a reprieve. Bowing to customer demand you'll keep selling XP--until you need another little boost in the bottom line, when you will announce once again that you're killing it after a date certain. Last last chance! Really. We mean it this time! Then another reprieve, and another deadline, and another surge of panic buying, etc.--on and on, seemingly ad infinitum (at least if you are a monopoly player like Microsoft). ...

It seems like a can't-lose approach for the Redmond, Wash. firm, as long as a) they continue to cultivate the image of a big, clumsy and greedy organization that's just stupid enough to kill a product consumers like in order to try to force them to purchase a product the corporate bureaucracy has ploddingly disgorged and b) their new products continue to be awful.

There hasn't been a breakthrough business plan like this since New Coke. "Suicide marketing." (Buy this before we do something rash!) ...

P.S.: The only fly in the ointment is the slim possibility that Microsoft's next operating system, due in 2010, will actually be an improvement over Windows XP. But Ballmer & Co. know better than to let that happen.

P.P.S.: Back in 2001, I was so convinced of the primacy and potential of Windows XP that I predicted its launch would end the recession then underway. This was amateurish economic idiocy--though the October 25, 2001 launch date of XP did turn out to eerily coincide with the end of the last recession (in November of that year).

Will the debacle of Windows Vista have a conversely depressing effect on the economy--as many businesses decide to hang on to their old XP machines and hope they can make it to 2010 without having to install Vista? That wouldn't do wonders for the demand side. But to the extent that Microsoft's suicide marketing plan can keep drumming up panic demand for last-chance XP machines, the "systemic risk" presented by Vista will be contained. It's win-win--for Microsoft and for the nation. ... 1:10 A.M. link

___________________________

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Nein, bitter: There would seem to be four distinct, major problems with Obama's "cling" gaffe.

1) It lumps together things Obama wants us to think he thinks are good (religion) with things he undoubtedly thinks are bad (racism, anti-immigrant sentiment). I suppose it's logically possible to say 'these Pennsylvania voters are so bitter and frustrated that they cling to both good things and bad things," but the implication is that these are all things he thinks are unfortunate and need explaining (because, his context suggests, they prevent voters from doing the right thing and voting for ... him). Yesterday at the CNN "Compassion Forum" Obama said he wasn't disparaging religion because he meant people "cling" to it in a good way! Would that be the same way they "cling" to "antipathy to people who aren't like them"--the very next phrase Obama uttered? Is racism one of those "traditions that are passed on from generation to generation" that "sustains us"? Obama's unfortunate parallelism makes it hard for him to extricate him from the charge that he was dissing rural Pennsylvanians' excess religiosity.

2) Even if Obama wasn't equating anything on his list with anything else, he did openly accuse Pennsylvanians of being racists ("antipathy to people who aren't like them").

3) He's contradicted his own positions--at least on trade and (says Instapundit) guns.. Isn't Obama the one trying to tar Hillary as a supporter of NAFTA? Is that just 'boob bait'?

4) Yes, he's condescending. It's not just that in explaining everyone to everyone Obama winds up patronizing everyone. He doesn't patronize everyone equally. Specifically, he regards the views of these Pennsylvanians as epiphenomena--byproducts of economic stagnation--in a way he doesn't regard, say, his own views as epiphenomena.** Once the Pennsylvanians get some jobs back, they'll change and become as enlightened as Obama or the San Franciscans to whom he was talking. That's the clear logic of his argument. Superiority of this sort--not crediting the authenticity and standing of your subject's views--is a violation of social equality, which is a more important value for Americans than money equality. Liiberals tend to lose elections when they forget that.

Please note that Obama's characterization of Pennsylvanians as "bitter" doesn't even make the top four. (See Instapundit: "Bitter is the least of it" Patrick Hynes: "It's not about the bitter.") At this point, the MSM and Hillary are only doing Obama a favor by focusing on the "bitter" dispute. ... Anyway, maybe he meant "bitter" in a good way!

P.S.: Andrew Sullivan and John Rosenberg both say that Obama's "cling" argument comes from Thomas Frank's economistic "What's the Matter with Kansas?"--which seems semi-tragic to me. I'm convinced that the great achievement of Republicanism over the past decades was getting average Americans to think that it was the Democrats who were the snobs. The person who convinced me of this (in a highly persuasive lecture) was Thomas Frank. Now Frank's theories--if you follow Rosenberg--are on the verge of convincing millions of average Americans that the Republicans were right, at least about the likely Dem nominee. ...

See also this 2004 interview, in which Obama appears totally aware of the condescension problem--though I don't think he avoids it there either. His now-familiar go-to idea--that men spend time hunting and women go to church because of deindustrialization, as opposed to because they like to hunt and believe in their religion--seems inherently condescending (see below).

_____

**--You might argue that this was the same 'it-will-go-away' attitude Obama had toward the anger of parishioners of Rev. Wrights's church--which would reinforce the "he condescends to everyone" theory of Obama. But the parallel isn't there. Obama describes ongoing black anger about racism as an artifact of racism--it's an epiphenomenon only in the sense that it will eventually disappear when its legitimate cause disappears. Obama describes white anger--indeed white anger, white racism, white religiosity, white NRA membership and white opposition to comprehensive immigration reform--as an artifact of something unrelated, namely the loss of good industrial jobs. It''s fundamentally inauthentic, Obama suggests, because (unlike black anger) it isn't caused by what those who express it say it is caused by.

And Obama never describes his own views as the products of anything except an accurate perception of reality. Come to think of it, has he ever expressed any doubt about--let alone apologized for--his views? He certainly didn't apologize in his "race" speech. He presents himself as near ominscient, the Archimedean point from which everyone else's beliefs and behavior can be assessed and explained, and to which almost everyone's beliefs will revert after the revolution. ... sorry, I mean after President Obama has restored hope! ... 10:59 P.M. link

___________________________

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Watch that Myth: Hillary Clinton had apparently stopped losing ground in PA polls before Obama's "cling" fling in Frisco. It's a bit unfair to say that 'Obama had been gaining ground until ...," though I think I've heard that nascent myth being spread at least three times today. ... P.S.: Obama's lead on Rasmussen (11 points a week ago) has gone and disappeared. Note that the slide began pre-gaffe. ... 7:29 P.M.

___________________________

Strike 2.5--They're bitter, left-behind, and have their little traditions: Don't think this digs Obama out of his hole. Might even dig it a bit deeper. ... 9:23 A.M.

____________________________

Friday, April 11, 2008

Ann Coulter is reading Obama's autobiography and comes up with a not-implausible interpretation of the famous Racist Grandma incident:

As recounted in Obama's autobiography, the only evidence that his grandmother feared black men comes from Obama's good-for-nothing, chronically unemployed white grandfather, who accuses Grandma of racism as his third excuse not to get dressed and drive her to work.

10:17 P.M.

___________________________

Cling Along with Barack: The always-suspect Michael Lind nevertheless sends around a useful commentary on Obama's gruesomely off-key condscension toward downscale Rustbelt voters:

According to Obama, working class (white) people "cling to guns" because they are bitter at losing their manufacturing jobs.

Excuse me? Hunting is part of working-class American culture. Does Obama really think that working-class whites in Pennsylvania were gun control liberals until their industries were downsized, whereas they all rushed to join the NRA ...

I used to think working class voters had conservative values because they were bitter about their economic circumstances--welfare and immigrants were "scapegoats," part of the false consciousness that would disappear when everyone was guaranteed a good job at good wages. Then I left college. ...

P.S.: Because Obama's comments are clearly a Category II Kinsley Gaffe--in which the candidate accidentally says what he really thinks--it will be hard for Obama to explain away. [He could say he was tired and it was late at night?--ed But he was similarly condescending in his big, heartfelt, well-prepared "race speech" when he explained white anger over welfare and affirmative action as a displacement of the bitterness that comes when whites

are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition ...

Obama's new restatement confirms the Marxist Deskwork interpretation of the race speech, removing any honest doubt as to his actual attitude.

Rather than trying to spin his way out, wouldn't it be better for Obama to forthrightly admit his identity? Let's have a national dialogue about egghead condescension!]

P.P.S.: Note that guns are not the only thing Obama says "white working class" people "cling" to for economic reasons:

[I]t's not surprising then 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. [E.A.]

Hmm. Isn't Obama the one who has been clinging to religion lately? Does he cling to his religion for authentic reasons while those poor Pennsylvania slobs cling to it as a way to "explain their frustrations"? ... They worship an awesome God in the blue states because they're bitter about stagnant wages! I think that's what he said in his 2004 convention address ... 4:41 P.M. link

___________________________

Thursday, April 10, 2008

"Iraqi Offensive Against Militia is Raising Concerns on Stability"--Headline on April 8 NYT story. Uh oh. And it's a front-page story--sounds like the whole Maliki government might collapse. But we shouldn't hide our heads! Let's confront the bad news unearthed in "interviews with dozens of Iraqi politicians, government leaders, analysts and ordinary citizens" by the nine (9) Times reporters who contributed. Here's the story:

A crackdown on the Mahdi Army militia is creating potentially destabilizing political and military tensions in Iraq, pitting a stronger government alliance against the force that has won past showdowns ...

"Potentially destabilizing." Hmm. That's a bit weaker, no? A lot of things are "potentially destabilizing," like having sectarian militias in control of your major port city! And what's this about "stronger government alliance." It's stronger, and as a result there are increased "concerns" about its "stability"? Perverse and dialectical!

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki's military operations against the Mahdi Army that Mr. Sadr leads have at least temporarily pacified Sunni political leaders ...

So the Sunni political leaders are pissed off! Oh wait, no, they're pacified. This doesn't sound so unstable, yet. Ah, but it's only "at least temporarily." Maybe the long run is where the "concerns on stability" are raising. That must be it!

And both the Kurds and some of Mr. Maliki's Shiite political rivals, who also resent Mr. Sadr's rising power, have been driven closer to Mr. Maliki. This may give him more traction to pass laws and broker deals.

Now Maliki has two additional sets of allies, and "more traction." The instability better be coming soon, because this is beginning to sound like the makings of, you know, stability.

But the badly coordinated push into Basra has unleashed a new barrage of attacks on American and Iraqi forces and has led to open fighting between Shiite militias.

Aha! He launched an attack, which led to ... fighting! But we already know he launched the attack. That's what strengthened his ties to the Sunnis, Kurds, and other Shiite groups.

Figures compiled by the American military showed that attacks specifically on military targets in Baghdad more than tripled in March, one of many indications that violence has begun to rise again after months of gains in the wake of an American troop increase.

Violence rose in March. Maliki launched his attacks March 25, meaning that most of the rising March violence happened before the (potentially) destabilizing crackdown. Blinded by conventional notions of time and causation, you might even suspect the rising violence prompted the crackdown.

In Iraq, where perceived power is a key to real authority, Iraqis saw the Mahdi Army stopping Mr. Maliki's Basra assault cold, then melting away when Mr. Sadr ordered them to lay down their arms.

Talking about "perceived power" conveniently allows the NYT to avoid reporting whether the actual events in Basra conform to its description of "Iraqis[']" perceptions. (The one Iraqi man on the street who is quoted says something a bit different: "I think Maliki and America are more powerful than [the Mahdi Army], but Maliki alone would be smashed by it." He is the first and last "ordinary citizen" in the story.)

The rest of the piece: "Senior Iraqi officials" see the rallying behind Maliki as "turning point" that could bring political reconciliation. "But for many Iraqis ... Mr. Maliki has cemented his reputation as a tool of the Americans." Nobody is quoted from this "many" except a Sadrist official. ... An NGO type says that the Sadrists are not going to disband, but that they are facing a dilemma because not disbanding might cost them the right to participate in elections. ... A parliamentarian says that disarming the Sadrists is "not an easy job." ... The Times opines that a "truer gauge of the two sides' real power" may come Wednesday, "when Mr. Sadr has called for a million of his followers to march through the streets of Baghdad." (He has now called the march off.)

Then there is the final ominous kicker:

One unexpected bonus for Mr. Maliki is that the Sadrists appear to have been dismayed by the political establishment's decision, at least in public, to back him.

"We were astonished at the political blocs' stance in supporting Maliki's government," said Hassan al-Rubaie, a Sadrist lawmaker.

Even the Sadrists are dismayed by Maliki's breadth of support. Another sign of instability! But of course it's "unexpected." (Really? By Maliki?)

kf Nut Graf: The Iraqi government may be on the verge of collapse, or not, but the NYT's piece doesn't come close to substantiating increased concerns about its stabiity. It's more like the opposite.

I'm not saying that the Times editors are predictable anti-war, anti-Bush types who reflexively leaped to a pessimistic extrapolation from the muddled Basra fighting and imposed that unsupported conclusion on their reporters. But they definitely succeeded in producing the piece that predictable anti-war types would have generated given no more information than the news that Maliki had failed to take all of Basra. Arianna Huffington could have written it from her sofa after coming back from a party. Except it would probably be more convincing. ... 10:44 P.M.

___________________________

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Meet 'Johm McCain": Is McCain's first ad really as bad as blogger "Richelieu" says. No. It's worse! The problem is a) the voice-over voice, simultaneously pompous, condescending and saccharine, almost a parody of an announcer's voice. Think "Real Men of Genius." b) The disjointed rhythm of the script, with its fake-profound get-up-and-get-a-beer questions substituting for arguments ("What must a President believe about us. About America? That she is worth protecting? ...") in which the insertion of a groaning cliche ("Has he walked the walk?") seems almost like a bit of down-to-earth relief,** all building to a semi-anticlimactic video of a captured McCain lying in a North Vietnamese bed and reciting his name and serial number. ...

It's almost as if McCain's ad man secretly likes Obama. Correction: Not secretly!

P.S.: This one is even more awful! A 10 on the Condescendometer. Also endless. After 30 seconds you are yelling at it "Get to the F-----g Point!" It never does. It's Barney the purple dinosaur's speech at the next Bloomberg Nonpartisanship Symposium. Repeat playing would be an excellent enhanced interrogation technique.

P.P.S.: At least they didn't misspell the candidate's name in the final frame. ... Oh, wait! "Paid for by Johm McCain 2008."

Request: Someone do a screen cap of that frame before they fix it? Thanks. ... Update: Got plenty now--much appreciated. You can see the relevant frame here and here ... and now, in an unprecedented display of multimedia mastery, here. [Click to enlarge]

**--Though, as Jacob Weisberg notes in his recent book, 'walking the walk' may also contain a special targeted meaning for conservative Christians who might have been turned off by McCain. ... 1:00 A.M. link

___________________________

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

L.A.'s Special Order 40--a "sanctuary" rule that has been interpreted to prevent police officers from asking even known, previously deported gang members about their immigration status--comes under attack from African American victms of crime. Touchy issue for Dems! Jill Stewart notes the discomfort. ... P.S.: The city's much-admired police chief William Bratton made his name in New York proving the efficacy of the "broken windows" theory--the idea that cracking down on minor crimes reduces major crime. Isn't entering the country illegally a "broken window"? ... 5:02 P.M.

___________________________

Monday, April 7, 2008

Bob Wright perversely--yet not crazily--thinks the muddled outcome (so far) of the intra-Shiite warfare in Iraq means we can withdraw rapidly with less worry about leaving behind a bloodbath. ... P.S.: As my Iraq-vet friend P told me, just because Iran can broker a cease fire in Basra doesn't mean they can broker a cease fire in Baghdad. (That's quite apart from whether we even want a ceasefire that allows a non-state militia to control chunks of Iraq.) ... 11:17 P.M.

___________________________

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Clintons' Tax Returns: The press is focused on where all that money ($109 million) came from. Fair enough. But where did it all go? This seems like a genuine mystery. It's not as if the Clinton's live especially lavishly, or own huge estates. It's not like Bill has to pay for all his hotels and travel. The Clintons only gave about $44 million to the IRS and to charities (including their own). Where's the rest of it? If it's all invested, what is it invested in? Green companies pursuing sustainable growth and living wages? Or hedge funds seeking the highest returns? And assuming it's invested, what are they going to do with it later?...

Update: They did have "an interest of an undisclosed size in a private investment fund known as the Quellos Alpha Engine, based in the Cayman Islands." OK, that's a start. ...

More: Thomas Edsall, in the face of widespread skepticism, is sticking by his story that Bill Clinton was "deeply angered" by a WSJ story on the dealings of his partner Ron Burkle, and "intends to sever his financial ties with Burkle" ... Possibly related: "Thinking About Sex Makes Men More Likely to Take Financial Risks." ...

Fastest Way to Understand What May Be Fishy About Bill's Burkle Money: Dick Morris' column. Did the Emir invest in a future President's spouse? ... 2:22 A.M.

___________________________

Thursday, April 3, 2008

I'm not a Porsche fan, but I passed by this car once and it's the prettiest 911 I've ever seen. Not cheap, though. And better check the brakes. ... 11:11 P.M.

___________________________

MSM Rot Watch: Another tomato farmer gives up due to the failure to legalize illegal immigrants! ... Oh wait, it's the same guy, Keith Eckel of Clark's Summit, PA., who got publicity for the same reason last week. ... Is Eckel the only one the MSM could find? He's the Greg Packer of farmers! ... He's so famous he's already been contacted by Obama's people. ... P.S.: The NYT, unlike the Philadelphia Inquirer (which had last week's Eckel story) somehow doesn't have room to mention that Eckel is giving up tomatoes but planting corn. Instead reporter Paul Vitello deceptively says that Eckel has been put "out of business." ... And of course neither story mentions that corn prices are at record highs due to "surging demand for the grain used to feed livestock and make alternative fuels including ethanol." ...

So let's see: Corn prices soar. Farmer decides to plant corn. It's the yahoos fault! ... 10:52 P.M. link

___________________________

"Edwards: No VP"--Drudge: Well, right. Would you want to vet this? ... Update: Slate headline--

Why Edwards Refuses To Be Vice President

Please tell me that's a joke. ... 2:28 P.M.

___________________________

Updates on Speaker Pelosi's Last Minute Quickie Amnesty Sneak Play from Roll Call [$], Brian Faughnan, and WaPo. It's not dead yet! ... 1:16 P.M.

___________________________

H(illar)ysteria? Christopher Hitchens blasts Hillary Clinton's "flagrant, hysterical, repetitive, pathological lying." Stanley Crouch says that on TV she "seems by turns icy, contrived, hysterical, sentimental, bitter, manipulative and self-righteous." The common word here: "hysterical"--is the only one that doesn't seem to me to fit. I don't particularly like Hillary, but she doesn't seem that "hysterical." Certainly her embellishing seems more cool and semi-calculated than "hysterical" (in any of its definitions). ... .P.S.: Hitchens, who did ride on a plan that made a corkscrew landing in Sarajevo, says with "absolute certainty that it would be quite impossible to imagine that one had undergone that experience at the airport if one actually had not." But that's because Hitchens has undergone the experience. Hillary has not undergone the experience, so wouldn't it be entirely possible for her to imagine she has (not knowing what that would entail)? ... [via Drudge] 1:35 A.M. link

___________________________

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Worried that the Dem primary fight will elect McCain? Jerry Skurnik has a reassuring scary story. 12:55 A.M.

___________________________

Fixing It! Whether it was an incremental success or a humiliating fizzle, hasn't the Maliki government's assault on Sadr-linked Shiite militias operated, de facto, as a highly efficient purge of the Iraqi army? According to Juan Cole, those who heeded calls for defection or who otherwise refused to fight have been fired. ... P.S.: Meanwhile, some 10,000 militia members who did fight on the government's side have reportedly been inducted into the security forces. This second development seems not un-problematic, if the Iraqi security forces don't want to be seen as siding with the Iran-backed Badr Corps in intra-Shiite disputes (since Badr Corps members now are the Iraqi security forces). ... P.P.S.: Note that Cole responds by seeming to endorse more inductions--e.g. of Sunni Awakening Council militias--suggesting that it's one way of building the army a functional unified state would need. ... 6:05 P.M.

___________________________

John McCain: "I never miss an episode of The Hills." He was joking, right? Or lying. We'll take lying. ... Really. Lying would be fine. ... 5:31 P.M.

___________________________

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

David Smith says scandal-scarred Fannie Mae and other "government sponsored enterprises" (GSEs) have successfully dodged the threat of stronger government oversight, thanks to the mortgage crisis--and the 2006 election. This appears to be a case where Republicans are more amenable to stricter regulation than Democrats:

In political terms, Democrats are GSE supporters, Republicans are GSE skeptics. (Departed former CEO Franklin Raines was President Clinton's OMB Director)

You have to click on Smith's links to find out what the regulation (which he supported) would have entailed. Cheap visual devices are employed, as usual. 11:02 A.M.

___________________________

Crooked Listening? Before you buy into the CW that, unlike the Democratic candidates, John McCain abjures pandering in favor of principled stands, take a look at this poll on the immigration issue (where McCain abruptly revised his position precisely to make it more pleasing to Republican primary voters). Some 35% of McCain voters wrongly think he favors an attrition strategy that would cause illegals to go home. Ten percent think he favors mass deportation! Only 34% of McCain's own voters correctly identify his support for a "path to citizenship" for illegals providing they pay a fine, learn English, etc. ... If McCain's been engaging in straight talk, it's not getting through. ... P.S.: More than 60% of Edwards voters favored either attrition or deportation, suggesting that his supporters weren't necessarily the conventional anti-poverty lefties you might have expected. In contrast, a plurality of Clinton voters and a majority of Obama voters favored the "path to citizenship." ... 1:52 A.M.

___________________________

Monday, March 31, 2008

NBC's First Read:

The problem for Clinton is that she's busier trying to prove her relevance in the process rather than debating Obama about the economy, health care, or Iraq. Indeed, Clinton told the Washington Post that she's in until the end. But it's simply not good for any campaign to have call up major national reporters to tell them that.

Really? Maybe she's just triggering her mutnemom! Hillary arguably needs to have her back to the wall, remember. If the election is about proving her "relevance in the process" she maybe does better than if the election is about the "issues." ... 9:53 A.M.

___________________________

Much is being made of Hillary Clinton's seemingly friendly interaction with conservative Pennsylvania newspaper owner--and Vast Right Wing Conspiracy funder--Richard Mellon Scaife. (See, e.g., "Hell Has Officially Frozen Over.") But Lewinsky trivia experts will remember that in April, 1998, [** see correction below] at the height of the Clinton sex scandal, Scaife actually appeared at a formal White House dinner where he also interacted pleasantly with the Clintons. The event was designed to reward big contributors to a fund for the preservation of the White House building--and Scaife was one of those contributors. Still, at the time I remember being stunned by the Clintons' graciousness. Only now does it look like the more familiar Clinton cunning. ...

** Correction: The dinner was on January 21, 1998, the day the Lewinsky scandal broke. ... Frank Rich mockingly speculated at the time that Scaife was a "double agent for the left ." ... 1:40 P.M.

___________________________

Crop Rot Watch: Tom Bevan on a Pennsylvania tomato grower who's giving up because (he says) Congress failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform! "No one will harvest tomatoes in 90 degree weather except immigrant labor," says the farmer, Keith Eckel, who says he paid an average of $16.59 an hour. He also seems to agree that many of the documents immigrant workers showed farmers like him were fraudulent. ... But note that no tomatoes are rotting in the fields in this story. Eckel has just decided to plant another, less labor-intensive crop: "45 acres of sweet corn, and 1,200 acres of corn for grain." Is this a tragedy, or a surprisingly painless transition away from a business that used illegal labor to a business that uses legal labor? We will buy fewer Pennsylvania tomatoes and more Pennsylvania corn. So? ... P.S.: Bevan questions whether Eckel really couldn't get non-immigrant Pennsylvanians to pick his crops for such a relatively high wage. I suspect the answer is he could, but that the (largely illegal) immigrant workers would be much better at it than the non-immgrant workers. ... That could be one dirty little secret of the immigration debate: It's not that employers can't get legal workers. It's that at any given wage they'd prefer the non-legal workers, and not only for the familiar disreputable reasons (e.g., that illegals live in fear and are therefore more docile). ...

Update: Reader G.S. emails: "Don't forget the fact that the field corn is now selling at prices much higher than a few years ago, due partially to the ethanol subsidies." 1:04 A.M. link

___________________________

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Nora Ephron is the real Frank Rich: "[N]ow that we're down to two contenders, it's turned into an unending last episode of Survivor. They're eating rats and they're frying bugs, and they're frying rats and they're eating bugs; no one is ever going to get off the island and I can't take it any more." ... Also see Ephron's explanation of how Hillary stopped being a "truthful person." ... 12:46 P.M.

___________________________

Friday, March 28, 2008

Two Memes Running: I'll try to keep track of the two most underdeveloped negative memes on Obama:

1) He's a wuss! He hedges on welfare, he hedges on affirmative action. "[H]e has a major deficiency in the realm of moral courage." He won't speak up against his own church's victim mentality until he absolutely has to (because he himself gets in political trouble). In the campaign he's done a whole lot of pandering and not much Sister Souljahing--certainly nothing as bold as Bill Clinton saying welfare should be two-years-and-out. He listens to everyone and everyone loves him for it. But he's conflict-averse--it would be more reassuring if everyone didn't love him. ...

2) He's arrogant! His failure to even admit to the slightest mistake in the Wright affair plays into this meme, originally ratified by AP's Ron Fournier. My colleague Robert (no relation) Wright thinks he saw additional evidence recently. ...

Are these memes contradictory? Not really. Maybe they go together. Arrogance is likely to build up in the absence of conflict, no? You can't take it out on your enemies in public so you take it out in private. Are they disqualifying? No. I'm not sure Obama can't accomplish a lot by being conflict-averse and respectful. But I don't think there was a conflict-averse way to, say, reform welfare. The liberal interest groups who supported the system weren't about to be "illuminated" or "elevated" (or fooled). They had to be beaten. The same probably goes for some conservative interest groups in, say, the health care debate.

As for arrogance--well, he's likeable enough! ...

Update: Jonathan Rauch, the anti-Sullivan, accuses Obama of a different kind of pandering--pandering to fantasies of trans-partisanship:

[S]ometimes I wonder if that isn't many Obama supporters' real hope: Use post-partisan rhetoric to win a big partisan majority and then roll over the Republicans.

Rauch's underdeveloped argument is that with Democrats firmly in control of Congress, actual post-partisanship is unlikely. I'm not so sure. I'm with Rauch's fictitious interlocutor--he's too jaded. Clinton passed NAFTA (whatever you think of it) with Dems in control of Congress. But it takes some triangulatin'--another circumstance in which Obama's conflict-aversion could become a major handicap. ... [via Insta] 6:32 P.M. link

____________________________

McCain may or may not be blocking Heath Shuler's immigration-enforcement bill--Shuler says yes, Brian Faughnan argues no, and McCain's camp denies it. But shouldn't McCain at least have to take a position on the bill, if he's such a secure-the-borders-first man? ... Of course, the same reasons why McCain hasn't taken a position (e.g., he's not a secure-the-borders-first man, and he covets Latino votes) are the reasons people would think he'd want to block the bill from coming to a vote, no? ... P.S.: The dirty secret, of course, is that the Dem leadership isn't blocking the bill because its unpopular with House Democrats. They're blocking it because it's popular with House Democrats, who'd love to have a tough-on-illegals bill to vote for before the 2008 election. ... 5:41 P.M.

___________________________

Patterico thinks there's more to the Chuck Philips/LAT scandal and has imported a mysterious guestblogger ("WLS") to give some background. ... Update: For more, follow the links in Jill Stewart's survey of the disaster zone. ... 5:17 P.M.

___________________________

Page 293 (paperback edition): On his radio show yesterday, Hugh Hewitt played excerpts of Barack Obama reading from his autobiography, Dreams of My Father. In one, Obama remembers a sermon by Rev. Jeremiah Wright:

[T]he pastor described going to a museum and being confronted by a painting title Hope.

"The painting depicts a harpist," Revernd Wright explained, "a woman who at first glance appears to be sitting atop a great mountaintop. Untill you take a closer look and see that the woman is bruised and bloodied, dressed in tattered rags, the harp reduced to a single frayed string. Your eye is then drawn down to the scene below, down to the valley below, where everywhere are the ravages of famine, the drumbeat of war, a world groaning under strife and deprivation.

It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks' greed runs a world in need, aprtheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere ... That's the world! On which hope sits."

And so it went, a meditation on a fallen world. While the boys next to me doodled on their church bulletin, Reverend Wright spoke of Sharpesville and Hiroshima, the callousness of policy makers in the White House and in the State House. ... [E.A.]

Sounds ... controversial! Keep in mind: a) Obama isn't disapproving of this sermon. In the book he weeps at the end of it; b) Demonstrating that at least some blaming of "white greed" for the world's sins--which Obama now criticizes-- isn't an exceptional topic for Rev. Wright in a few wacky sermons ("the five dumbest things") that Obama may or may not have missed. It's at the quotidian core of the Afrocentric philosophy that Obama says drew him to the church; c) Indeed, in his big March 18th race speech Obama reads the passage from his book that describes his emotional reaction to this very sermon (his "first service at Trinity")--how it made "the story of a people" seem "black and more than black." d) This is also the sermon that gave Obama the title of his next book, The Audacity of Hope. e) The "profound mistake" of this sermon is not that Wright "spoke as if our society was static"--Obama's analysis on Feb. 18th. The problem is that "white folks' greed" is not the main cause of a "world in need."

I'm not saying voters shouldn't cut Obama a lot of slack on Wright's anti-white fulminations. But the Senator should have spoken up publicly against the semi-paranoid "white greed" explanation a long time ago, no? And he could show a little humility. Again, this wasn't the occasion for him to be lecturing everyone else. ...

Update: On The View, Obama suggests Wright has sort of apologized:

"Had the reverend not retired, and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn't have felt comfortable staying at the church," Obama said Thursday during a taping of the ABC talk show, "The View." [E.A.]

Tom Maguire is on the case, noting that Obama has now left the rarefied air of transracial elevation and entered conventional political BS-land, given that there is no evidence of any sort of Wright apology (though maybe now one will be produced) or a previous Obama inclination to leave the church. ... Meanwhile, Perry Bacon of WaPo tries to figure out which "controversial" or "objectionable" sermons Obama heard. Again, I don't think this is necessary. Wright's sermon at Obama's very first service, highlighted in his book and his 3/18 speech as an epiphanic moment, was controversial and objectionable enough. And it didn't make him leave the church. It made him join the church. At least a bit of self-criticism seems in order. ... [via Instapundit and JustOneMinute]

Update/Backfill: Oddly, the "white folks' greed" line and the Haiti reference do not appear in the seemingly official version of the sermon. But Obama has them in his book within quotation marks. Sweetness & Light asks: "Did Mr. Obama hear something that Mr. Wright didn't even say." And if so, why pick those particular lines? Or did the spoken version differ from the official text? ... Here's a recording of Wright delivering the sermon, which tracks the "official" text above. It sure doesn't sound like Wright is talking in church. Maybe there are two versions, one more palatable. ... See also Lowry, Smith. ... 4:02 A.M. link

___________________________

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Bradley still in the race: Gallup (telephone poll) and Rasmussen (robo-poll) continue to diverge. ... 1:31 P.M.

___________________________

I attempt a Unified Obama Theory. ... Bloggingheads commenters are not appreciative. ... It's disturbingly similar to what--according to Mark Halperin--is John Edwards' theory. ... 1:15 P.M.

___________________________

He said "pivot." Heh, heh, heh ... 1:04 P.M.

___________________________

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

In North Carolina, Obama doesn't seem to be losing ground. He's up 21 points, according to the RPP poll. He was up only one point in the same poll a week ago--although the results aren't strictly comparable because RPP expanded its universe of "likely" voters this week to include all 2006 general election participants. Still. ... Obama gained substantially (19 points) among white voters. ... And this is a robo-poll, which theoretically minimizes the Bradley Effect. It's one sign Obama's race speech might have worked, at least temporarily--though he also visited the state and "got lots of free media." ...

kf Fallback Position: It worked because voters didn't hear it! They only heard the MSM summaries--e.g. that he'd repudiated Wright and called for racial understanding. ... 12:49 P.M.

___________________________

The Nightmare of Illumination: Jon Alter writes of his candidate (Obama) that "[even] if his legislative agenda founders, he might be able to help the nation raise its sights ..."

[P]residents must do more than rally the country enough to win backing in polls for a course of action. That's relatively easy. The hard part is using the bully pulpit to instruct and illuminate and rearrange our mental furniture. Every great president has been a captivating teacher. By talking honestly and intelligently about a subject that most Americans would rather ignore, Obama offered a preview of how he would perform as educator-in-chief. ... Barack Obama knows how to think big, elevate the debate and transport the public to a new place. [E.A.]

Hmmm. After last Tuesday, I'm not sure I want to be instructed and elevated any more by Prof. Obama. I'd kind of like to rearrange his mental furniture on welfare and affirmative action, where his vagueness suggests incoherence more than brilliance. Alter holds out the prospect that an Obama Presidency will not be four years of merely winning "backing in polls for a course of action"--oh no, that's easy!-- but ... well, four years of insufferable pedagogic condescension.

And here I thought Hillary was the self-righteous know-it-all. Obama lectures even when he's the one who's been called into the principal's office. Alter has presented the most compelling case for Al Gore I've read. ... 12:29 A.M. link

___________________________

Monday, March 24, 2008

Waiting For Pivot: A Kinsley Gaffe is offically defined as

when a politician tells the truth.

To cover the Obama race speech, we may need a second kind of Kinsley Gaffe, call it KG II, that would apply to the trouble generated

when a politican says what he or she actually thinks (whether or not it's the truth).

That is to say, whatever the result of Obama's race speech, it's hard to conclude he didn't honestly say what he believes. He believes, among other things: 1) black churches like Jeremiah Wright's are too victim-oriented; 2) it's offensively prejudiced to be wary of black men on the street.

He's also 3) reluctant to think white resentments over welfare and affirmative action are justified as objections to welfare and affirmative action, and 4) prefers to see them as expressions of "legitimate" frustration over uncertain living standards.

That's what he thinks! He's being "courageously honest." We have to deal with it.

Candor is surely the necessary starting point for a useful national conversation on race (the one that Obama didn't seem to want to have until his pastor got him in political hot water). One side says, "You're scared of young black men." The other side says, "Yes, and here's why." Progress becomes possible. One side says, "You get all these breaks just because of your race." The other side says ,"We have to be twice as good to get the same respect." If you don't ever have the argument you probably can't get over the argument.

But candor isn't a sufficient--or maybe even necessary--quality in a President. That depends more on what you think about what Obama thinks.

For myself, I tend to agree with Obama's point 1), the passage that rightly impressed Abigail Thernstrom. But I disagree with 2), and suspect a lot of other "typical" voters may also (and not like to be lectured about it). More important, on (3) and (4), it's hard to believe we're about to nominate a Democrat who doesn't acknowledge the lesson of the 1990s--that voters are worried about issues like welfare because they are worried about welfare, not because "welfare" is a surrogate for "lack of national health insurance." Can a Dem who hasn't learned that lesson can be elected in a two-candidate general election? That's no longer unthinkable, but it would require not only that the old Carter-Ford-Reagan-Clinton issues like welfare, crime, etc. recede into the background (replaced by Iraq and the economy). It would also require Republicans who are too stupid to find a way to bring them back into the foreground.

For those Democrats worried about Obama's seemingly old-fashioned liberalism--sorry, progressivism!--the great hope has been that of course he'll pivot and turn toward the reformist, Clintonian center once he's got the nomination in hand. But what if The Pivot never happens (as David Frum, for one, has predicted)? That's a big issue--maybe the big issue--raised by Obama's "race" address. That's a big--maybe main--reason that it's a gaffe. Obama's honesty is bracing. But he honestly doesn't seem to be the sort of neoliberal politician who wins national elections. ... 2:17 A.M. link

__________________________

Sunday, March 23, 2008

The 'Bradley Effect' is Back? Gallup's national tracking poll has Obama retaking the lead over Hillary after bottoming out on the day of his big race speech. Rasmussen's robo-poll, on the other hand, shows Obama losing ground since last Tuesday. True, even Rasmussen doesn't seem to be putting a lot of emphasis on his survey's 6-point shift. But isn't this week's primary race exactly the sort of environment--i.e.., the issue of race is in the air--when robo-polling is supposed to have an advantage over the conventional human telephone polling used by Gallup? Voters wary of looking like bigots to a live operator--'and why didn't you like Obama's plea for mutual for understanding that all the editorial pages liked?'--might lie about their opinions, a phenomenon known as the Bradley Effect. But they might be more willing to tell the truth to a machine. ...

P.S.: I take no position on this issue. I say wait for Pennsylvania. I've previously argued that the robo-pollers' truth-divining advantage might well have disappeared because, with all the computers now tracking expenditures and generating credit ratings, etc.--people are scared to tell the truth to machines too. But this theory was dismissed by Pollster.com's Mark Blumenthal as lacking "supportive evidence." Picky! But maybe Blumenthal's right, in which case Obama should be worried. ...

P.P.S.: Of course, the 'Bradley Effect' could be inflating Obama's numbers in both the Gallup and Rasmussen polls to at least some extent, in which case Obama should be very worried. ...

Backfill: Blumenthal posted on another bad-for-Barack robo-poll (Survey USA) on Friday, but needs to update! ...

More: First Read's daily email identifies a third robo-poll, in North Carolina, in which Obama did relatively poorly (leading by only a point in a state he's supposed to win). ...

Three. Trend! ...

Blumenthal responds: Mystery Pollster notes that if you average poll results since the Wright controversy broke on the 14th, Obama does slightly better in Rasmussen's robo-poll (where he's a point above Hillary on average) than in Gallup's regular poll (where he's two points down on average). But the two polls aren't that different. ... kf: But if you look at the trend since Obama's 3/18 speech--which is what arguably charged the campaign with high-minded condemnation of racism and MSM sympathy for Obama of the sort that might produce a Bradley Effect--Obama gains 6 points in Gallup and loses 6 in Rasmussen through last Friday (and he's since lost one more on Rasmussen). That seems like a non-small difference. ... 3/25 Update: Obama has now lost a net of 8 points on Rasmussen since the 18th, and 11 points since the 14th. On Gallup, he's gained several points. ... 11:10 P.M. link

___________________________

Saturday, March 22, 2008

A job for Eliot!... 1:44 P.M.

___________________________

Friday, March 21, 2008

Sniper Fire: Hillary appears to have been totally busted on her claim of a dangerous landing during her 1996 Balkans trip. WaPo has photos and video. ... P.S.: Always trust content from Sinbad. ... 11:12 A.M.

___________________________

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Abby Thernstrom liked Obama's race speech for its anti-black-victim-mentality passages. I think she's a bit of a cheap date in that respect, but maybe I'm being too expensive. If only he'd left out the bogus parallel with "white resentments." ... In fact, wouldn't the best parallel to a black victim mentaility be the populist victim mentality that Bob Shrum always seeks to nurture--and, to a certain extent, that Obama seeks to nurture in this very speech with his talk about how the "real culprits of the middle class squeeze" are

a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests ...

I would tend to blame ... increasing returns to skill produced by trade and technological change! They are hard to personify and demonize--they're just problematic trends we all need to confront. But the need to demonize is the problem with a victim mentality, isn't it? ...

Update: Marc Ambinder gives Obama credit for saying "white resentments ... are grounded in legitimate concerns." The problem is he said that only after the populist passage cited above. The clear implication was not that resentment about welfare and affirmative action was "legitimate," but that these resentments were actually misguided symptoms of the legitimate anxiety, which would be anxiety over "stagnant wages," etc. caused by "corporate ... greed" etc.. ... If you think concern over welfare and affirmative action has an independent, legitimate basis apart from anxieties about the "middle class squeeze," it's highly condescending for Obama to tell whites (and similarly disposed blacks, for that matter) that, in effect, that they suffer from false consciousness--'I know you're really concerned about economics and declining wages and in your anxiety you let yourself be distracted into blaming welfare and affirmative action.' But that's what he says, as I read it and heard it. (Obama does allow that concern over crime is in itself legitimate, but spoils this 1992-era insight when he disses his grandmother--a "typical white person," he tells us today--for worrying about getting mugged.) ... 4:38 P.M. link

____________________________

Geraldine Ferrar ... Sorry, John Kerry speaks: Obama supporter Kerry says Obama's unique selling proposition is he's black. From First Read:

Obama supporter John Kerry gave an interview with a local N.H. paper, reports NBC/NJ's Mike Memoli. In it, Kerry said the color of Obama's skin makes him uniquely qualified for president and even reach out to the moderate Islam world. During an interview with the New Bedford Standard Times, portions of which were posted on YouTube, John Kerry says bluntly that Barack Obama has the potential to "bridge the divide in religious extremism" because he is black.

"It would be such an affirmation of who we say we are as a people if we can elect an African American president, a young leader who is obviously a visionary and got an ability to inspire people," Kerry said. "It will give us an ability to talk to those countries, to in some cases go around their dictator leaders to the people and inspire the people in ways that we can't otherwise."

The Massachusetts senator said Obama has an ability to perhaps even empower moderate Islam "to be able to stand up against the racial misinterpretation of a legitimate religion." Asked by a reporter what gave Obama the credibility to do so, Kerry said, "Because he's African American. Because he's a black man, who has come from a place of oppression and repression through the years in our own country. [E.A.]

I don't think Kerry's argument is crazy at all. I just don't think the Obama campaign can then sneer at Geraldine Ferraro for saying the same thing--i.e., that Obama is where he is because voters are "caught up" in the Kerry argument. Obama's camp can't have it both ways--arguing we should vote for him "[b]ecause he's a black man" and then arguing it's racist to say being black has helped his candidacy. ... 1:51 P.M. link

_____________________________

Change You Don't Want to Xerox: Cautionary Obama precursor Deval Patrick's big casino gambling plan going down to defeat in the Massachusetts legislature. ... 12:36 P.M.

___________________________

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

The finely tuned affirmative action "goals" ("quotas are prohibited"!) of the California Democratic delegation to the party's August convention reminds me of Michael Kinsley's riff on the 1984 Democratic requirement of "fair and equitable participation of ... persons of all sexual preference consistent with their proportional representation in the party.":

Thirteen who prefer the lights on and thirty-seven who prefer the lights off. ...

Fourteen a cigarette afterward, ten a long talk, nine an old movie on TV, eight a shower, six chocolate-chip ice cream, three cab fare homw.

Fifty who prefer no sex at all to any cuts in Social Security.

P.S.: Part of an occasional series for whippersnappers who think everything about Democratic politics has changed since 1984. No it hasn't. ...[Tks. to JH] 10:42 P.M.

__________________________

Don't Let Caffeine Do This To You: A more ... intense discussion of Obama's speech. The problem with Obama's choice of churches isn't Rev. Jeremiah Wright's controversial (e.g., "damn America") statements. ... P.S.: I thought I might have gone overboard, in a might-as-well-be-hung-for-a-sheep kind of way, when I said Obama's big race speech was "a disaster." But maybe not. ... [Tks to reader C.M.] 10:21 P.M.

____________________________

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

We Can't Ignore Race, So Let's Ignore Race: Some (tentative!) reactions to Obama's somewhat arid talk--which a) probably advanced the discussion of racial issues, b) gave me a much better (and basically appealing) idea of where Obama is coming from, but c) didn't particularly advance his case to be President--especially, I fear among doubting white, male, non-college, etc. voters:

Obama gives Archie Bunker a chance to tune out: The speech starts by talking about slavery. Yikes. Why are we talking about slavery? We know about slavery. We want to know why Obama picked his paranoid pastor! One of the troubles with African-American pastors like Wright, after all, is what seems to be an excessive emphasis on the racial sins burdens of the past. The last thing we want from Obama is more talk of slavery.

Finally in paragraph six or so, the speech starts again on a better note. ("I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas.")

Troublesome Equivalence #1:

On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action ... On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language ....

It won't do much to reassure voters worried about affirmative action, or worried that Obama is unqualified, to have their concerns lumped with Wright's "offensive words."

Two little Souljahs, too late? Finally, around Paragraph 13, a sentence that seems to recognize the problem:

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. ... Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America;

OK! Then:

As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity;

Doesn't Obama mean Rev. Wright's comments were 'not only divisive but wrong,' rather than the other way around? Isn't it worse to be wrong than "divisive"? Is unity the overriding virtue for Obama?

The only other Souljah-esque passages I picked up were a half-sentence on welfare [E.A.]:

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families - a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened.

Also, a crucial but non-specific allusion to the way black anger "keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition," and an anti-victim paragraph about

taking full responsibility for own lives - by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

All good, but Obama can be very pointed and specific when he wants to be (e.g. "purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap"). Here he keeps the anti-victim language at a muffled level of high generality. Obama doesn't talk about never-married mothers, for example, or non-marrying non-working fathers--all things Bill Clinton was able to mention. Obama talks about general "responsibility" and a failure to spend time reading. (Also note that it's not necessarily a violation of liberal orthodoxy to say that welfare policies worsened the black family problem--many liberals lamented that welfare checks went mainly to mothers, supplanting the role of fathers. The liberal solution, though, was to put the fathers on welfare too.)

Troublesome Equivalence II

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street .... [E.A.]

The most disastrous sentence in the speech. If Obama's saying that those who fear young black men on the street are racists, the equivalents of Rev. Wright in offensiveness, then he's just insulted a whole lof ot people. If he loses the votes of everyone who fears young black men, he loses the election. People fear black men on the street--as even Jesse Jackson once momentarily admitted--because they cause a wildly disproportionate share of street crime. Does Obama want to be the candidate who says that thought is verboten?

Later, he says:

So when [whites] are told ... that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Who would tell them such a thing? Obama, a dozen paragraphs earlier, dissing his own grandmother.

In general. Obama's explanations of black anger seem intimate and respectful. His explanations of white anger seem distant and condescending. ("They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away ....") Unfortu