"Presumptuous"
Barack Obama has long been his party's presumptive nominee. Now he's becoming its presumptuous nominee.
That's Dana Milbank in this morning's WP. Imagine! Obama holds meetings with enthusiastic supporters from his own party "pep rallies"! He gets motorcades! He plans a presidential transition! (Everyone knows it's far better to wait till November.)
The "presumptuous" meme is swooping virally through the media. Nexis picks up 23 mentions in major newspapers in less than three weeks--about one a day. Why do I think what they really mean is "uppity"?
Thanks to Matt Yglesias for ringing the bell on the vile, even crazy part of Milbank's stuff, his interpretation of Obama's talk to House Democrats. I can't put this any better than Matt:
So it seems that Barack Obama said something like:It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign, that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It's about America. I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions.
One could dispute that theory, but it's not a particularly remarkable thing to say. You have a candidate who was greeted enthusiastically in Europe saying that the enthusiasm was about something larger than him -- about the United States and about the values Barack Obama and millions of other Americans cherish and hope will once again govern the country.
But Dana Millbank wanted to write an article about how "Barack Obama has long been his party's presumptive nominee. Now he's becoming its presumptuous nominee."...And now for hours the press and the GOP have been in a frenzy about Obama's arrogance. Because he tried to say something humble about why he was greeting by hundreds of thousands of people when he gave a speech.
John McCain is traveling around in $520 loafers--silly me, I didn't know there were any such things--but he's not called "presumptuous" for it. He claims to have foreign policy experience because he was a prisoner of war, but he's not called "presumptuous" for that, either.
Come on, journalists, have the guts to say what you mean. Use the U-word out front.
Update: Not having spent enough time on the Internets the last few days, I missed earlier callouts of the presumptuous/uppity meme. Hat tips to Bob Cesca and the indefatigable Digby (several entries in the last week, including this).
Gravitas was the magic word in 2000, Hubris in 2004...looks like Presumptuous will be the word of this cycle.
July 30, 2008 11:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hubris it is, although presumptuous is up there.
Of course, those are the words used by the press.
The same words from 2000, 2004 and now 2008 apply to the press: self centered, lazy, stupid, and
narrative driven. The latter term describes to the cover they give themselves to hide the obvious applicability of the first three adjectives.
July 30, 2008 5:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know what accounts for Milbank's reaction, but 90% of people I have encountered offering up this "arrogance" and "presumptuousness" notion are both (i) older than Obama and (ii) whiter than Obama.
So it's impossible to say if their problem is that they are white, and it disturbs them that Obama is an uppity black man, or if the problem is that they are old, and it disturbs them that Obama is young upstart. But I think it is usually one or the other. There is absolutely no substance to the criticism; and the reaction says more about the people exhibiting it than it does about Obama.
I think they should try to get over these feelings. Barack Obama is running for president. He's therefore going to act like any other guy running for president, that is, like someone who thinks he should be elected president on his merits. He's asking people for their votes on that basis, and is not going to act like he is asking for older, whiter people to do him a special and extraordinary favor by elevating a black man over their fellow white pals, or by elevating a young man over their old cronies.
He's not going to act like their shoe shine boy. He's not going to act like a student looking for a gold star. Rather, he is trying to act "presidential", in the way candidates for president usually do. If some people harbor the nagging feeling that young black men have no business trying to be presidential, that's their problem.
July 30, 2008 11:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Apparently we are now so used to presidential candidates who act like tongue tied idiots that a candidate who shows clear evidence of an ability to think, to reason, and to speak is a rude jolt. Perhaps senility is now a criteria by which we select a president?
Then again, perhaps we just have a hard time accepting someone with darker skin coloration as a candidate.....nah, that couldn't be.
July 30, 2008 11:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
They grow old, they grow old they shall where their trousers rolled. They have heard the mermaids singing "500 loafers on the beach?"
July 30, 2008 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think there's a healthy dose of jealousy that underlies the presumptuous/arrogant/hubristic meme, especially as it applies to the media bigshots pushing this line.
July 30, 2008 1:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
They ALWAYS hate candidates who are smarter than they are. This one is also younger, better-looking- and non-white. The combination absolutely sets their midget brains on fire.
Broken people. Really badly broken.
July 30, 2008 1:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bring back Jeff Gannon - he was a true straight talkin' Loyal Bushie!
July 30, 2008 1:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jonathan Capehart implied that Obama was "uppity" twice this morning, actually using the word. Video here.
July 30, 2008 1:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
"bumping up against the uppity ceiling"
July 31, 2008 11:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
And this is all a major distraction from Obama's point. WaPo is more interested in tying themselves in knots to find some basis for accusing Obama of arrogance, than in analyzing WHY he was received so enthusiastically during his overseas tour. What has gone so terribly wrong in our foreign policy in the last 8 years that would make our allies so open to the kind of change that Obama represents? Even when that change also carries some risk for some of these parties?
July 30, 2008 1:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is feeling like 1988 and 2004 all over again. It's time for Obama to throw a few haymakers himself. The readers of TPM might not see it, but I'll bet voters in swing states like mine see Obama in Europe while McCain's with people like them. I live 30 miles north of Philadelphia in Ed Rendell country and as many people as not detest Obama, and that's just people I deal with in my town.
It's time to stop preaching to the choir and bring back those skills he used in Chicago. The important point is not what Dana Milbank or Maureen Dowd or whoever says, but that Obama, and not others, defines himself and tells his story. Right now, McCain's people are telling Obama's story for him. (A few ads of McCain & Poppy on the golf cart wouldn't hurt either.)
July 30, 2008 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
They are just trying to sell newspapers, making things such as this quote sound more explosive and more entertaining than the actual substance in the statement. This what we get as Americans when we have a market driven by very few players (MSM) who are worried about staying in the black and are fearful of retribution by readers or by those in its stories who might sue. It's quite pathetic and really harmful not national discourse. Its just plain poor criticism of a American who actually has a lot of substance ot his life story and the educational path he has followed in his life.
July 30, 2008 2:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Millbank is a dweeb, not a racist. If you look at him on MSNBC, when he appears there, he is the living epitomy of the Mainstreamn Media, always obliged to say "but . . . " any time he has something positive to say about Obama, and always ready to parrot a McCain talking point like it's fact based, which it almost never is.
Now just because Obama looks infinitely more Presidential than the Chimp, George Dubya Bush, or Grandpa McCain, is not a walking embarassment to the USA, and is actually admired by Europeans, is no reason to get snarky. The McCain (and by extension, press) criticism has been that Obama is too inexperienced to be Commander in Chief, and to hold his own on the international echange, a criticism that Obama just blew out of the water. And not only that, Obama actually knows how to find a website on teh internet and use a computer, and has been to a grocery store more than 3 or 4 times in his LIFE. And most of the times McCain has attacked him, it has been because Obama said or did something that involved taking a more humble approach to a situation -- like here, where his statement that his phenomenal success in the Middle East and Europe last week (which even the MSM can't deny, because the pictures do in fact tell 1,000 words -- make that 200,000 words) -- is because they see in him some things about America that they want to see and embrace, is a humble statement intended to downplay his celebrity appeal and show how being embraced by them redounds to our benefit as a nation. And this is what McCain chooses to attack, in some of the most dishonest political attacks so far this year. Amazing.
July 30, 2008 2:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Obama campaign seems to be using the Clinton campaigns "inevitability" meme.
That was a bad idea for Hillary because it was so...presumptuous.
Democratic candidates should get in the back of the bus or stay in the kitchen, aye?
July 30, 2008 2:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
According to the New York Times disciples of Karl Rove from the 2004 campaign and the Bush White House. have joined the McCain campaign.
link
We will see just how dumb and racist American voters are if they buy this crap again in 2008.
Note to right wingnuts, if you threaten your wife and she gets a restraining order against you, if you lose your job and then your food stamps, shooting 'liberals' won't make it all better. Oh, and McCain won't do a damn thing for you either.
July 30, 2008 2:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Presemptuous is such a big word. Why not use uppity (which is what they really mean in the first place)/
July 30, 2008 3:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
It seems like just yesterday that the press was all over Hillary Clinton for being arrogant and presumptuous. Obama supporters criticized her for these traits also.
The more things change, the more they stay the same...
July 30, 2008 3:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Um, Quahog, I think the word for Hillary was "inevitable," not arrogant or presumptuous. Those have been reserved exclusively for Obama, as code for "uppity."
July 30, 2008 4:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
ah, TPM Cafe: where the race card is always in play.
nobody's allowed to criticize Obama because obviously if you don't adore everything about him, you are a racist.
the fact that he went to Europe and played President when he hasn't even officially gotten the nomination at the convention? why, that's not presumptuous, it's uppity, and we can't have that because he's black and that's why the right wing hates him.
and of course anybody who supported a Democrat other than Obama is also a racist. I mean, obviously.
and you are the same people who pretend to be sad because "we can't have a national conversation about race" and refer to Obama as "the first post-racial candidate"? are you kidding?
btw SFC Wallace: "hubris" works just fine this year too.
July 30, 2008 5:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know if you're a racist or not, but you're quite clearly a gutless idiot. You're welcome to prove me wrong though. Why don't you start by defining "Race Card" for us? What does that mean exactly?
July 30, 2008 5:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
gretz,
your imagination is running wild, get a hold of yourself.
July 30, 2008 5:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Does this mean that he has passed the Can he be Presidential/CINC test?
July 30, 2008 5:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
First off who on this post said anything about a national conversation about race, GRETZ?
Second, who isn't allowed to criticize Obama, sfwallace, as well as gotalife have in the past, so I fail to see where the TPM community disallows the freedom of expression. Stick to the issues regarding this post, which if you read above relate to the fact that national reporter, Dana Milbank, who writes for the Washington Post decided to cherry pick part of a statement by Obama and thus create a narractive that eludes the entire context and meaning of the statement given. Unless you can read into Obama's thoughts about himself via some sort of mind-reading then what Milbank did was not criticism but rather gossip and gossip built around words that Obama did not use.
If you think Obama is presumptious then point to facts, but I think it is fair to say the only party that seems presumptious in this election is the Republicans, who seem to think that all of their decisions are the right ones for America and any who oppose them have either been brainwashed by our Liberal education system, are socialist or traitors to America. For example, Republicans have railed for years about the government interfering in the markets, well hello Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Republicans for years have been railing against multilateral foreign diplomacy, yet just this past month William Burns met with Iranian officials. Republicans for years have been railing against Gays, yet all of the scandals involving gay themes have involved Republicans. And now we have Republicans railing against the oppositions to off-shore drilling, well let's start with the fact that the Oil companies own thousands of leases which they are not exploring. If they are so interested in expansion, then why wait on congress they have the leases now, so expand already. They complain about domestic production yet they have not built a new refinery in decades, yet they rail against the regulations which make refining oil an expensive proposition. And still they are making massive profits, Exxon had the biggest some of the biggest profits in American history. That tells me that these companies are doing pretty well, rather than suffering form some overburdening regulatory structure.
What George Bush adn company has done to this country is a disgrace to America and the people of America. I know he will have to live with his decisions, unfortunately so do the American people. And he said he was for small government and fiscal responsability, have you see the deficit he is leaving after have come into office with a surplus?
July 30, 2008 5:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
when Dana Milbank can't suggest that Obama is "presumptuous" because it's a "code word for uppity," people can't criticize Obama.
or, oh, do you mean that it's ok to criticize Obama but only when you say it's ok?
take a look at yourselves sometimes! you guys are incredible. not only are you hypocrites, but the tone of this website is soooo much nastier than any other ones I've been on. you guys are like the people who couldn't quite get into Mensa, so you come here and try to make everyone else feel like they're idiots.
not working!
July 30, 2008 5:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Milbank lied for dramatic effect.
So yeah, excuuuuse us for getting hot under the collar because poor old you can't make your points slathering them up with juicy old lies.
Like they say in the old time churches: AWAY FROM ME SATAN!
July 30, 2008 8:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dana Milbank was the first to use the discredited as distorted quote attributed to Obama that "I am the symbol" at a Democratic Congressional meeting.
Milbank attributes it to a "witness." Anyone who has to rely on a single "witness" for that damaging a quote delievered in front of a large group of elected officials is either 1) stupid and lazy, or 2) malicious.
July 30, 2008 6:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
oh and by the way, ondioline, you are pretty tough posting an ANONYMOUS COMMENT about someone ELSE being a "gutless" idot. yeah, it takes a lot of guts to do what you do.
July 30, 2008 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
All I can say is that I had better not see Dana Milbank on Olbermann's show tonight, unless (A) Keith takes him to the woodshed over this, and/or (B) he winds up as the "Worst Person in the World".
-- ARG
July 30, 2008 6:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Per Wikipedia
"Dana T. Milbank (born 27 April 1968) is a political reporter for The Washington Post. He is a graduate of Yale University, where he was a member of Trumbull College, the Progressive Party of the Yale Political Union and the secret society Skull and Bones."
Gee, wasn't there a time when journalists came up the hard way, reported the police beat, learned a little about the mean streets or even about people in the great vast hinterland beyond Yale and Scull and Bones?
This is major problem with today's pundits. They've lived coddled lives and all they know how to do is "report" what someone told them at a cocktail party in Manhattan or Washington.
July 30, 2008 6:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Last time I will comment on this again Gretz:
your comment: "when Dana Milbank can't suggest that Obama is "presumptuous" because it's a "code word for uppity," people can't criticize Obama.
or, oh, do you mean that it's ok to criticize Obama but only when you say it's ok?
take a look at yourselves sometimes! you guys are incredible. not only are you hypocrites, but the tone of this website is soooo much nastier than any other ones I've been on. you guys are like the people who couldn't quite get into Mensa, so you come here and try to make everyone else feel like they're idiots."
not working!
Now if you actually read what I wrote here "If you think Obama is presumptious then point to facts," and here, "Second, who isn't allowed to criticize Obama, sfwallace, as well as gotalife have in the past, so I fail to see where the TPM community disallows the freedom of expression"
Clearly I have zero issue with you criticizing Obama, I am just reiterating that in order to further the discourse you need to point to facts. That is what the author was doing when he wrote this piece and clearly not what Dana Milbank was doing when he wrote his piece. If you have a problem with these facts then by all means bring them to light. I am sure, if you are rational individual that you can at least understand that it is frustrating when the media clearly gets quotes and facts wrong, no? If Dana Milbank wanted to criticize Obama for what he said during a speech to DNC members, then he should ask Obama what he said, ask people who were at the event what he said. Whatever the case may be, he got the quote wrong and created a narrative, and possibly a rather disparaging one about Mr Obama, that disregards the context of his statement. As a professional journalist I am sure it will do little for his career and his ability to gain trust when making such a bone-headed mistake. But people make mistakes, but his mistakes has created an entire TV and newspaper media around it, and here I thought one of the worst mistakes a journalist can make is inserting themselves into the story.
Gretz criticize away!
Obama 08
July 30, 2008 6:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
But more to the point, are they not holding Mr. Obama to much higher standards than Mr. McCain? Who holds a weekly presidential radio adress, who ran television ads lableled President McCain, who held a press conference talking all about his "vision" of the U.S. after his first term? I don't think it was Mr. Obama. To me, that is presumptuous and arrogant.
July 30, 2008 7:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
"If what you're trying to do is micromanage and solve everything, then you end up being a dilettante," - Obama to British PM Gordon Brown
Newsflash to Dana Milbank, this advice Obama shows the exact opposite of, as you put it, "the inexpierence of Obama like that of George Bush in 2000"
- Actually, the complete opposite. I live in London, and Gordon Brown's leaderships is sinking faster than the Titanic did... For me, if anything, this shows Obama has a lot wisdom beyond his years.
Age isn't everything, eh McCain?
July 31, 2008 7:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am not surprise by the Dana Millbank comments; I have watched him many times on countdown and see him grudgingly give favorable views on behalf of Obama. Millbank opinions are almost always parse with a tinge of malice and envy as if Barack didn't know his place. I have noticed this same attitude towards Obama coming from Howard Fineman and chuck Tood. I would not be surprise in the near future to see a similar critique of Obama coming from Fineman or Tood. Some of these reporters on countdown who work for MSNBC are not to be trusted. On face value it would seem that they are giving Obama fair play;but inwardly they are ravenous wolves and carrying water for McCain. Only Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow are fair and honest in their presentation.
July 31, 2008 12:59 PM | Reply | Permalink