The truth is, Barack Obama has already spoken out against his pastor’s offensive comments and addressed the issue of race in America with a deeply personal and uncommonly honest speech.

If a Hillary statement had said anything like this, the Obama people would leap to say that if that speech was _uncommonly honest_, that must be an admission that all the other speeches aren't commonly honest, and in fact they must have been _dishonest_! They admitted it! OMG OMG wait till Kos hears about this!

Posted at March 25, 2008 7:39 PM in response to Hillary Amplifies Criticism Of Obama Over Wright

How is it a stretch? It fits quite comfortably into the universe of electoral gamesmanship. Obama supporters have their own version, and it goes a little like this:

"Hillary Clinton makes everyone think of all the Clinton scandals. I have scandal fatigue. Even if it was all trumped up in the first place, I don't want to go through that all over again. Pick Obama and turn the page."

Part of the reason I voted for Obama was that I felt like the atmosphere around Hillary had become toxic, that too many people hated her so much that she'd have a hard time winning and then an even harder time governing.

That's really the same logic Bill is using: there's a perception or an attitude that's out there, true or not, and it's going to mess with Democrat X, so turn the page, stop the drama, and vote for Democrat Y.

You don't have to be suggesting that the perception is true to be leery that it will play a role in the election.

Posted at March 24, 2008 8:31 PM in response to Obama Campaign Manager Hints Clinton Camp Has "Pattern" Of Questioning Obama's Patriotism

The context helps, but it's not damning in the way you're suggesting, because what Bill means is that a campaign between McCain and Hillary won't involve one side playing "quien es mas macho" on the subject of patriotism. The corollary is that having Obama as the nominee will enable the Republicans to play these tiresome gotcha games with Obama's patriotism. It is not that Obama _isn't_ patriotic but rather that the Republicans will run against him _as if_ he isn't.

Everyone is right to liken this to the "commander-in-chief test" exchange from a while back, which I would say was likewise about _perceptions_ of the candidates and the likelihood that they'd be attacked on a certain front.

Both statements together show that the Clinton campaign wants to say that Obama is vulnerable to a certain kind of smear, so we should back Hillary and prevent it from coming up in the first place. I haven't won many converts, but I think it's quite similar to the case against Howard Dean in '04: the Republicans will say he's a granola-eating pacifist, so nominate John Kerry, a decorated veteran whose toughness no one can question. (Ahem.)

Of course that move was a fiasco, and it actually helps refute Bill's central claim, because Republicans will always find a way to smear a Democrat's patriotism. (If they can do it to John Kerry and Max Cleland, you really think they can't do it to Hillary?) But it's not an allegation that Obama isn't a patriot, it's an allegation that Republicans will do their damnedest to make him look that way.

Posted at March 24, 2008 7:07 PM in response to Obama Campaign Manager Hints Clinton Camp Has "Pattern" Of Questioning Obama's Patriotism

You're right, it would be nice to have an election that wouldn't allow the media to cover the kind of annoying distractions and gotchas they love so well.

That was also Bill Clinton's point.

Posted at March 24, 2008 6:53 PM in response to Bill Clinton Re-Emerges As Major Issue In Campaign

The similarity is that Obama's case involves something like

"Vote for me and avoid having to talk about Clinton-era bullshit" [Whitewater, Vince Foster, cattle futures, etc.]

while Bill Clinton says

"Vote for Hillary and avoid having to talk about loyalty bullshit." [flag pins, Wright, turban photos, etc.]

Both arguments are constructed along the lines that choosing one candidate spares the world the nonsense that the other candidate's _critics_ and _media_ will inevitably bring up.

Posted at March 24, 2008 5:28 PM in response to Obama Campaign Manager Hints Clinton Camp Has "Pattern" Of Questioning Obama's Patriotism

Yes, that's pretty much the way I see it too.

Posted at March 24, 2008 5:22 PM in response to Obama Campaign Manager Hints Clinton Camp Has "Pattern" Of Questioning Obama's Patriotism

it seems to me you're drawing a distinction without much of a difference. Even if you believe that Clinton was making the case that his wife's candidacy would somehow preempt patriotism attacks from the right, isn't he then by necessity legitimizing that very line of attack?

Perhaps. I don't know if it's "legitimizing" it so much as it is _acknowledging_ that it'll happen: it's not true, but it'll cause a distraction, because, as they say, "it's out there." Nominate Obama, he says, and we'll set ourselves up to waste a lot of time talking about smears and distractions.

Again, I don't think it's a _great_ argument, but it's not the same thing as saying that there are only two candidates who love their country and Obama ain't one. And Hillary isn't exactly Teflon against smears. But those smears probably won't be about her level of American-ness.

I think the closest Obama himself has come to a "move on" argument against Clinton is his statements about how he doesn't have a frame of reference that derives from the '60s. There I detect a similar exasperation, a note of "Do we really have to go through _this_ for the rest of the year?"

Posted at March 24, 2008 1:57 PM in response to Obama Campaign Manager Hints Clinton Camp Has "Pattern" Of Questioning Obama's Patriotism

That makes no sense, because poisoning the well for 2008 would leave a bad taste in 2012 too.

Posted at March 24, 2008 11:57 AM in response to Obama Campaign Manager Hints Clinton Camp Has "Pattern" Of Questioning Obama's Patriotism

he was also clearly impugning Obama's "love of country" (read: patriotism) by omission.

Nope. He was saying that the Republicans and their media abettors will pound Obama on patriotism, so we should take the opportunity to deprive them of that attack. That's not saying that Obama ISN'T patriotic, it's saying that he'll be subjected to treatment AS THOUGH HE WASN'T patriotic.

I don't think it's a winning argument, because the Republicans will be eager to smear Hillary with all kinds of stuff, from cattle futures to Vince Foster to lesbianism, none of which we'll have to deal with if Obama is the nominee.

But, you know, I've heard Obama supporters _saying_ versions of that: vote Obama so we can move on from The Clintons and the way the media loves to hate them.

In other words, vote for one candidate over another so as to deny the opponent of a particular attack.

And Bill's line was _very_ similar to the reasoning for Kerry against Dean in '04: Dean can be smeared as an unpatriotic hippie-dippie type, whereas Kerry is a decorated veteran, so nominate Kerry and make it difficult for the Republicans to question Democratic seriousness and patriotism.

That one, shall we say, backfired. But it showed very similar reasoning.

Posted at March 24, 2008 11:55 AM in response to Obama Campaign Manager Hints Clinton Camp Has "Pattern" Of Questioning Obama's Patriotism

My _least_ sympathetic take accords with yours: the idea would be that a Hillary vs. McCain election wouldn't be dogged by _spurious_ and _distracting_ "other stuff" about the relative patriotism of the candidates. So if you're tired of hearing the Republicans and the media whine about patriotism and flag pins and Jeremiah Wright, vote Hillary and spare yourself the aggravation.

When Obama says that when he's the candidate we won't have to hear about politics as framed by the culture wars of the '60s and '70s, he's doing the same thing. If you don't want yet another campaign that re-fights Vietnam, pick me and move on.

Posted at March 24, 2008 11:46 AM in response to Obama Campaign Manager Hints Clinton Camp Has "Pattern" Of Questioning Obama's Patriotism