From Tuesday night's Hardball, talking about McCain's flip-flopping statements about raising taxes:

WALTERS:  I think what you are going to see is you are going to see the Republican right in meltdown mode over this.  It is one thing to be impeached by the words of your opponent in a primary, in this case Hillary Clinton versus Barack Obama.  It‘s another thing to be impeached by your own words.  How many times have we heard John McCain saying, that guy is going to raise your taxes, I won‘t.  Now, all they have to do is play that clip that you just played, where they hear John McCain saying one thing and then turning around and saying another thing.  I think this is the worst type of flip-flop, because, to go back to the last election, it‘s the economy.  That‘s the one thing everybody is going to be talking about, how do I fill up my gas tank and how do I keep a roof over the top of my head. 

BARNICLE:  Richard Cohen, tell me whether or not you had the same feeling I had when I listened to that clip.  You and I are old enough.  We have been in a million states, a million campaigns.  I kept hearing the John McCain of 2000 when I heard just that clip, the real John McCain.  What did you hear? 

COHEN:  I had the same feeling that every once in awhile John McCain just can‘t contain himself when he says the truth.  This is the truth.  The United States has something like 37 trillion—trillion—trillion dollars in unfunded Medicaid obligations.  We have got to do something here.  The Club for Growth is the club for growth of deficits.  Either we are going to raise taxes or we‘re going to lower entitlement.  Something has to be done.  McCain is facing that. 

So, on Sunday with George, the Real McCain was just coming through and telling the truth?  Doesn't that mean he's lying all of those other times?

Lots of folks on the Sunday shows saying they're sure Hillary would say she chose her words poorly  regarding those "hardworking white folks" comments to USA Today.  But why haven't we heard from Hillary on this?  Will she be forced to make the same clarifying comments that Obama was forced to make about his "angry and bitter folks" comments in San Francisco?

I've posted this as a comment a couple of times, but thought I'd blog it--this is my response to the "pay Hillary's campaign debts" issue:

Give us a list of payables. We'll pay all of your vendors, the printers and venues and such, and we'll pay your ground-level campaign workers. But not a dime to Wolfson, Ickes, Penn or to repay the Clintons' loans.

I've been saying in comments that I believe Obama is the real deal because I see the themes in his presidential campaign as consistent with those he has expressed and lived throughout his adult life.  I see that when I read the stories of how he approached community organizing, how he became president of the Harvard Law Review, and how he got death penalty reform passed in Illinois, for example.

And so it was interesting to me to read the following in an article written in 1995 when he was running for the state legislature:

About what's wrong with politics and politicians:

...when he met with some veteran politicians to tell them of his plans, the only jobs he says they wanted to talk about were theirs and his. Obama got all sorts of advice. Some of it perplexed him; most of it annoyed him....Obama...was also told--even by fellow progressives--that he might be too independent, that he should strike a few deals to assure his election....

"Now all of this may be good political advice," Obama said, "but it's all so superficial. I am surprised at how many elected officials--even the good ones--spend so much time talking about the mechanics of politics and not matters of substance. They have this poker chip mentality, this overriding interest in retaining their seats or in moving their careers forward, and the business and game of politics, the political horse race, is all they talk about...."

Obama thinks elected officials could....lead their communities out of twin culs-de-sac: the unrealistic politics of integrationist assimilation--which helps a few upwardly mobile blacks to "move up, get rich, and move out"--and the equally impractical politics of black rage and black nationalism--which exhorts but does not organize ordinary folks or create realistic agendas for change.

About the challenges of his approach:

...many have expressed doubts about the practicality of his ambitions...."Three major doubts have been raised," he said. The first is whether in today's political environment--with its emphasis on media and money--a grass-roots movement can even be created. Will people still answer the call of participatory politics? "Second," Obama said, "many believe that the country is too racially polarized to build the kind of multiracial coalitions necessary to bring about massive economic change. "Third, is it possible for those of us working through the Democratic Party to figure out ways to use the political process to create jobs for our communities?"

About his putting his money where his mouth is:

....

In 1992 Obama took time off to direct Project Vote, the most successful grass-roots voter-registration campaign in recent city history.

About the impressions he makes on others:

;

"What I liked about Barack immediately is that he brought a certain level of sophistication and intelligence to community work," Owens says. "He had a reasonable, focused approach that I hadn't seen much of. A lot of organizers you meet these days are these self-anointed leaders with this strange, way-out approach and unrealistic, eccentric way of pursuing things from the very beginning. Not Barack. He's not about calling attention to himself. He's concerned with the work. It's as if it's his mission in life, his calling, to work for social justice.

"Anyone who knows me knows that I'm one of the most cynical people you want to see, always looking for somebody's angle or personal interest," Owens added. "I've lived in Chicago all my life. I've known some of the most ruthless and biggest bullshitters out there, but I see nothing but integrity in this guy."
...Woods was the first foundation to underwrite Obama's work with DCP. Now that he's on the Woods board, Rudd says, "He is among the most hard-nosed board members in wanting to see results. He wants to see our grants make change happen--not just pay salaries."

....Another strong supporter of Obama's work--as an organizer, as a lawyer, and now as a candidate--is Madeline Talbott, lead organizer of the feisty ACORN community organization, a group that's a thorn in the side of most elected officials. "I can't repeat what most ACORN members think and say about politicians. But Barack has proven himself among our members. He is committed to organizing, to building a democracy. Above all else, he is a good listener...."

About the "moral agenda":

"I want to break this down. We talk 'they, they, they' but don't take the time to break it down. We don't analyze. Our thinking is sloppy. And to the degree that it is, we're not going to be able to have the impact we could have...."

"What we need in America...is a moral agenda that is tied to a concrete agenda for building and rebuilding our communities," he said. "We have moved beyond the clarion call stage that was needed during the civil rights movement....We must invest our energy and resources in a massive rebuilding effort and invent new mechanisms to strengthen and hasten this community-building effort....The biggest failure of the civil rights movement was in failing to translate this energy, this moral fervor, into creating lasting institutions and organizational structures."

"The political debate is now so skewed, so limited, so distorted," said Obama. "People are hungry for community; they miss it. They are hungry for change.

...."The right wing, the Christian right, has done a good job of building these organizations of accountability, much better than the left or progressive forces have. But it's always easier to organize around intolerance, narrow-mindedness, and false nostalgia. And they also have hijacked the higher moral ground with this language of family values and moral responsibility....

On attending the Million Man March (organized of course by Farakhan):

"What I saw was a powerful demonstration of an impulse and need....But what was lacking among march organizers was a positive agenda, a coherent agenda for change...Just as holding hands and singing 'We shall overcome' is not going to do it, exhorting youth to have pride in their race, give up drugs and crime, is not going to do it....Exhortations are not enough....Any solution to our unemployment catastrophe must arise from us working creatively within a multicultural, interdependent, and international economy. Any African-Americans who are only talking about racism as a barrier to our success are seriously misled if they don't also come to grips with the larger economic forces that are creating economic insecurity for all workers--whites, Latinos, and Asians. We must deal with the forces that are depressing wages, lopping off people's benefits right and left, and creating an earnings gap between CEOs and the lowest-paid worker that has risen in the last 20 years from a ratio of 10 to 1 to one of better than 100 to 1....cursing out white folks is not going to get the job done. Anti-Semitic and anti-Asian statements are not going to lift us up. We've got some hard nuts-and-bolts organizing and planning to do. We've got communities to build."

http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/archive/barackobama/

I tell ya', this guy's the Real Deal

and I don't understand why.  I've always been faithful to her.

Let me tell you the story.

There is a couple that lives in our neighborhood, Bill and Bernadine.  They're college professors.  We first met them about 12 years ago, when a mutual friend, Alice, got us invited to a cookout at their house.

We don't know Bill and Bernadine that well.  Bill and I were both on the board of our neighborhood homeowners' association for a few years.  And we see them on occasion at the school fall festival and such.

Anyway, it turns out that years ago, even before we met them, Bill and Bernadine were big swingers, into free love.  My wife and I aren't prudes or anything, but no way are we going there.

So last week my wife gets a call late one night from her friend Marie, who was very upset, and rushes out of the house to comfort her.  Marie had just found out that her husband was having an affair with his secretary.

A couple of days later, my wife hears that on that very same night, this guy Bill was spouting off at some party about how people aren't meant to be monogamous, and everyone should just be having sex with everyone else and not be so hung up on it.

So she comes home, tells me that she's sure that I feel exactly the same as Bill, and leaves with the kids to go to her mother's house.

I just don't understand.

My wife e-mailed the Deborah Howell, Washington Post's ombudsman, to ask why Obama is identified as black or African-American and not mixed-race, a subject which has been commented on here from time to time.  And here is the response:

He identifies himself as black. That's why the news media does.

Deborah Howell
Washington Post Ombudsman

Sad that there were select quotes heavily publicized in advance of the airing of the Bill Moyers interview with Jeremiah Wright, but no real coverage or discussion afterwards.

It was an a sterling interview by Moyers, and by Wright.  Moyers drew out of Wright an excellent explanation of Black Liberation Theology, and of TUCC's motto "Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian."  And giving much more context to the "God damn America" sermon.

I was going to say "sterling performance," but that might be taken to imply something less than honest, while it was actually a frank, candid and intellectual discussion.  And Moyers wasn't in a rush to talk about Obama.

Similarly, the "he spoke as a politician" quote has been taken by some as Wright implying that Obama's speech in Philly was just political talk.  As with the other notorious sound bites of Wright, however, it sounds a lot different in fuller context.
________________

BILL MOYERS: So what blues are you singing right now?

REVEREND WRIGHT: Don't know why they treat me so bad....That, what man meant for evil, God meant for good....That's a quote from Joseph, in the bible, the Book of Genesis.

BILL MOYERS: And what do you take that to mean?

REVEREND WRIGHT: That Human beings, many times, do things for nefarious purposes. And God can take that and turn something- make something good out of it.... That those sound bytes, those snippets were taken for nefarious purposes. That God can take that and do something very positive for it- with it. That, in Philadelphia, in response to the sound bytes, in response to the snippets, in Philadelphia Senator Obama made a very powerful speech in terms of our need as a nation to address the whole issue of race. That's something good that's already starting. That because of you guys playing these sound bytes now what's getting ready to happen as something very positive, and something very powerful that God can take what you meant to try to hurt somebody to help the nation come to grips with truth. To help a nation come to grips with miseducation. To help a nation come to grips with things we don't like to talk about. To help a nation--

BILL MOYERS: You know, you mentioned Senator Obama. In the 20 years that you've been your pastor, have you ever heard him repeat any of your controversial statements as his opinion?

REVEREND WRIGHT: No. No. No. Absolutely not. I don't talk to him about politics. And so here at a political event, he goes out as a politician and says what he has to say as a politician. I continue to be a pastor who speaks to the people of god about the things of God.

BILL MOYERS: Here is a man who came to see you 20 years ago wanting to know about the neighborhood. Barack Obama was a skeptic when it came to religion. He sought you out because he knew you knew about the community. You led him to the faith. You performed his wedding ceremony. You baptized his two children. You were, for 20 years, his spiritual counselor. He has said that. And, yet, he, in that speech at Philadelphia, had to say some hard things about you. How, how did it go down with you when you heard Barack Obama say those things?

REVEREND WRIGHT: It went down very simply. He's a politician, I'm a pastor. We speak to two different audiences. And he says what he has to say as a politician. I say what I have to say as a pastor. Those are two different worlds. I do what I do. He does what politicians do. So that what happened in Philadelphia where he had to respond to the sound bytes, he responded as a politician. But he did not disown me because I'm a pastor.
_______________

It's sad that the sound bite of this discussion of the issue of the deceptiveness of sound bites is itself an illustration of the same point.

But at least you can easily watch the interview in its entirety on the web and make up your own mind:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04252008/watch2.html

Linda Wertheimer had a story on NPR this morning talking to female voters.  One of them said the following about Obama's "bitter" comment:

"I read the quote in the newspaper and my first reaction was 'wow, I can't believe he actually said it, it's so insightful and it's accurate.  And then I thought 'Oh my God, I can't believe he said that.  Here it comes.'  And they took it and they spun it and he became and elitist.

And that's what I'm a little bit concerned about with Obama.  I think his honesty and the fact that he is so forthright, I think it could get him into trouble once we get into a national campaign, and the Republicans are just sitting there waiting to pounce."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89676020

So this is where we are as Democrats?  Too afraid to nominate the guy who is insightful, honest, and forthright?

I've heard similar comments made here and elsewhere.  How sad.  People actually think that the only way we can beat the Rovian Republicans is to become them.

If you want to vote for Clinton because you believe she would make the best president, do it.  But please, please, don't vote for her out of the "fear of possibility", as Michelle Obama called it.

If you want to vote for Clinton because you were offended by Obama's remarks, go ahead and do it.  But don't do it because, even though you personally think it was an insightful comment, you're worried about how some certain demographic might take it.

Doing that is giving in to a mainstream media that covers only the horserace aspects of the campaign.

Doing that is giving in to a Karl Rove view of the electorate.

If I start believing that, then I stop believing in the viability of democracy.

I'm not being naive; I do understand that we have to win.  I'm not encouraging anyone to vote for Kucinich, or Nader.  I'm encouraging people NOT to vote for the lesser of two evils, but for the person they actually believe in.  And I firmly believe that if that happens, Obama will be our nominee, and our next president.