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Did Hillary Miss an Opportunity when she took the High Road on the Obama/Wright debasement?
Hillary camp took the high road on the Obama/Wright debasement by not pushing it and pursuing it in the press. Will the high road earn her points? Will it show Obama that the high road is more than a speech and that it is actionable? Do you think if he were already the dem candidate, that McCain would have been so graceful?
Obama supporters, Do you think Obama would have shown this kind of restraint? Clinton supporters, Do you think she is doing herself a disservice by ignoring this opening?
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Comments (14)
I wouldn't characterize Clinton's silence as "taking the high road." It was taking the safe road. Yes, she could have come out to condemn Obama, but that would have worked against her once the storm around the tapes calmed down.
The opportunity she missed was to come out in defense Obama and to say that Rev. Wright is a well known religious figure, served as a Marine and was our guest at the White House at a prayer breakfast. If she had done this the day BEFORE Obama had given his big speech, she would have looked magnanimous, it would have killed much of the firestorm around her supporting McCain, and she would have taken the wind out of Obama's sails the next day.
BUT, she only thinks in the short term and she won't do ANYTHING that MIGHT help a competitor. So, in the end, she's the big loser. No, Clinton did NOT take the high road - if she actually had, she would have come out of this in better shape.
March 24, 2008 11:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
And to actually answer your question, had the tables been turned, I think Obama would have been the first to defend Clinton and the first to point out that Wright's statements were pulled out of context.
March 24, 2008 11:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Do we yet know who provided the initial push to the story?
March 24, 2008 11:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, let's try a thought experiment. If video emerged of Hillary burning bras at a demonstration in 1972, and it was getting lots of play on Fox news, where the anchors were asking whether this video proves that a woman president is "too radical for mainstream America" . . . would Obama be calling the superdelegates to argue that the scandal makes Hillary unelectable?
Since that's what the Clinton camp has done, it must be what you mean by the "high road." In which case, I have to say that I think Obama would *not* take "the high road."
March 24, 2008 11:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
well thunderwood the fact that you equivalate the wright mess with hilliary burning her bra at a demonstartion is proof positive you have no idea how damging the wright videos will play out to many in this country.
i lthought this article...one of many cropping up across america is telling.
Obama's brilliant bad speech
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-rodriguez24mar24,0,5884639.column
At least one way to explain that choice is that by allying himself with Wright (who presided over his wedding and baptized his daughters), Obama sought to anchor and legitimize himself in Chicago's black community, which might not have otherwise welcomed an Ivy Leaguer raised in Hawaii by his white mother and grandparents. Without challenging Obama's claim that Wright "helped introduce [him] to his Christian faith," his choice was also invariably a political one, and a very bad one at that.
It's all fine and good that Obama has "condemned" the worst of what he calls Wright's "wrong" and "divisive" comments, but his refusal to "disown" his former pastor is academic. Part of Obama's seductive appeal is that he sees political action in terms of sweeping gestures and crusades. Idealistic young people in particular like the idea of being caught up in a wave of change. Obama even ended his race address with yet another of his patented calls to "come together." In his vision, whites and blacks (and the rest of us!) would move beyond racial discord by fighting common injustices.
But just maybe the complexity of race in contemporary America no longer requires the massive collective action it did half a century ago when blacks in the South were living under Jim Crow, a legal apartheid. Just maybe we don't have to suffer through yet another national debate on race -- President Clinton launched his fruitless Initiative on Race in 1997 quoting, as Obama did, the preamble to the Constitution. Just maybe more progress will be made if average, fair-minded, decent people simply chose not to associate with -- and lend their credibility to --haters, extremists or sowers of racial discord. Obama could have taken that simple path any time over the last 20 years. He chose not to. Now it's too late.
March 24, 2008 11:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
I assume you're equally outraged over Wright's presence at Bill Clinton's prayer breakfast, then.
March 24, 2008 11:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
My point being: Wright is not in fact a hater. However this may play in Peoria, I don't think any less of Barack for going to Wright's church.
And the polls indicate that Barack's defense is playing rather well in Peoria, by the way.
March 24, 2008 12:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
I haven't seen the Peoria polls posted anywhere. Could you provide a link? ;)
March 24, 2008 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Michelle, please watch the goddamn sermons in full before commenting on them, OK?
Those sermons were exactly in line with progressive thought of the past 30-40 years. Yes, the judicial system is still stacked against the minorities and the poor and God damn America for it if he exists.
Yes, the actions of the United States in the past were one of the causes of the 9/11 attacks and haughtily denying it, refusing to understand and learn will only guarantee that it will happen again.
I have not been able to obtain a full transcript of the HIV one yet so for now we can grant that it is obviously incorrect if he was in fact saying exactly that the U.S. invented and introduced HIV as a means of killing off/controlling africans. But, seeing as for example the "chickens coming home" line is actually him quoting someone, I am as yet unconvinced that it was not a case of hyperbole or another misquote. Plus, as many have pointed out, the Tuskegee experiments (and many others) have certainly left their wounds.
March 24, 2008 12:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
The interesting question here is whether her silence gave her any points. I think it left her neutral with respect to her supporters and anyone who'd just as soon ignore it.
However, don't be fooled into thinking she's not going to use it. You can bet that a few days before PA her campaign will push the Wright issue very, very hard as proof of Obama's extremism and anti-Americanism. Her surrogates and those sweet folks on her daily conference calls will poison the airwaves with this stuff. And she and Bill will find more coded ways of convincing conservative Pennsylvanians that Obama is a very, very dangerous black man.
A month or two ago I might have hesitated before saying this. But the pattern has been unmistakable, so we might as well say it.
March 24, 2008 12:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am not sure I would call using this against Obama in conversations with Superdelegates and then conveniently "leaking" it qualifies as the "high road" but whatever.
Yeah, she did miss the opportunity to go down in flames with the rest of the idiots.
March 24, 2008 12:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
She didn't take the high road. Her boys are coordinating a massive PR offensive about it, through her and surrogates and with the superdelegates. Your premise is wrong.
Bill did have the Reverend over to help him out of Monicagate.
March 25, 2008 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Do we yet know who provided the initial push to the story?"
I think HRC pushed ABC on this story.
It has her greasy hands all over it.
Timing would never be GOP -- they'd rather have it in October.
March 25, 2008 7:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't believe it's right for Cynthia to Post campaign memos word for word as a response to other blog posts. She did that on my post and it was an insult to the conversation chain because it had nothing to do with what we were talking about.
March 25, 2008 8:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
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