Lou Dobbs: I don’t understand why “the Republicans aren’t doing everything they can to get this man the nomination”
By SusanUnPC on April 27, 2008 at 1:10 PM in Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Obama Attack Ads, Obamedia, Republicans, Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.
| From CNN’s Lou Dobbs This Week, aired April 26, 2008, with guests Diana West, Hank Sheinkopf, and Errol Louis:
“DOBBS: I have to say that what I don’t understand. … With the antipathy towards Senator Obama that has built up over the last few weeks, for the life of me, I don’t understand why the … Republicans aren’t doing everything they can to get this man the nomination.” |
My thoughts too — all along. And that’s why I believe the GOP and the conservative pundits have hit Hillary much harder, for over a year, while praising Obama: They know Obama will be far easier to beat in the general election. So Lou Dobbs and panel wonder why the North Carolina GOP is hitting Obama with attack ads at this juncture, before the Democratic nomination is settled.
Shorter me and Dobbs: DON’T LOOK A GIFT PONY IN THE MOUTH!
Actually, I think the rationales behind the GOP hitting Obama now are important, and probably smart strategy, for 1) rallying its base, and 2) raising funds for John McCain, whose fundraising has lagged badly behind both Democratic candidates. The GOP presumes that if Obama is the nominee, they need to begin firing up their reliable voting base and, the more and more the GOP can get their base to hate and distrust Obama, the more and more money will come pourin’ in.
Transcript snippets below:
FROM the Lou Dobbs This Week, aired April 26, 2008 — including portions that aren’t in the video clip above:
DOBBS: And is it – let’s go to Hillary Clinton whose narrative is now starting to move in to the national media. Diana West, is it that we have been too pro-Obama or too anti-Clinton in the national media for that narrative to be so late to the forefront of our reporting?
WEST: Well I think that the press has given Senator Obama a pass for the first year or so of his campaign. And so he’s facing questions that really should have come to him and embedded months and months ago, which is very difficult for him. I mean I think one of the things that it’s not just about Reverend Wright, we are now assembling a cast of anti-American characters including the former weatherman Bill Ayers. We have in his – also among people in his padre, Rashid Khalidi, who is a, you know, well-known apologist for (inaudible).
DOBBS: I have to say that what I don’t understand, Diana West, is this.
WEST: Yes.
DOBBS: With the antipathy towards Senator Obama that has built up over the last few weeks, for the life of me, I don’t understand why the democrats, I mean the republicans aren’t doing everything they can to get this man the nomination. You know, he…
WEST: Maybe that’s behind John McCain’s order to the North Carolina party, I don’t know, to stop the bleeding. I don’t know.
DOBBS: But it still seems that the republicans fare Senator Clinton far more.
SHEINKOPF: The stake for them – that is a major mistake. That’s not smart thinking and if the votes in Pennsylvania are any indication of what the future looks like, they look at the spread of those counties by counties in the vote, they should not – they should be really afraid of her and they should know they can take him down. That’s the difference.
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And here’s part of the earlier discussion, on Rev. Wright:
DOBBS: We are back now with Diana West, Hank Sheinkopf, and Errol Louis. Good to have you all with us again today. Hank, this ad with the – showing – in North Carolina by the republicans, showing Reverend Jeremiah Wright back in our faces again, back with Bill Moyers on his PBS broadcast, why won’t this guy go away? Is he trying — does he have any concept of what he is doing to Senator Barack Obama?
SHEINKOPF: What he has found is that he can extend 15 minutes of fame into 20 minutes. And he’s going to use it any way he can because he believes in the rightness of his position. No pun intended there. I mean that’s what this is all about and damn politics. What he said publicly, if you look at the quotes last week, he kind of said Barack Obama is just another politician. And he’s going to now prove that point.
DOBBS: Well, let’s take a look and listen. Let’s hear what he had to say about Senator Obama’s speech in Philadelphia. Here we go.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL MOYERS, PBS, HOST: In the 20 years since you have been his pastor, have you heard him repeat any of your controversial statements as his opinion?
REV. JEREMIAH WRIGIHT, TRINITY UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST: No. No, absolutely not. I don’t talk to him about politics. And so he had 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 to speak to the people of god about the things of god.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOBBS: What do you think?
LOUIS: I think it explains some of why we do find him in our face. I mean, he – especially some of his followers who set up this whole website to try to set the record straight, they have the naive belief –
DOBBS: How did they do? How did they do?
LOUIS: Well, they have this naive belief. It’s actually touching in a way that if they just have him explain it. If they just go back to the Bible. If they just talk about what goes on in church, that somehow outside political observers will look at and say, oh, that makes sense. And you know, maybe in the right context, it is not quite so offensive. They couldn’t be more wrong. If the political advisers could have them go on vacation for the next six months, I’m sure they would do it. But…
DOBBS: It is too late now.
LOUIS: Well, that’s right. And, look, they have every right, like any other American to advance their cause. If they want to try to be clear about what they think has been misinterpreted by the media, they have every right to go out and do it. If they had a better advisory team, I think they might decide whether or not this was the right time to do it. Maybe after next January they could set the record straight.
DOBBS: The best advice that any of us gets, and most of us often neglect is, just shut up. And they — they, being Jeremiah Wright, and the members of the church, will not shut up. There is also in that breathtaking suggestion that maybe there’s a double standard in this country that you can be absolutely acrimonious toward this country and have it be accepted on some basis. There is – I just have to let everybody know, there is no out in this country for those who do not respect this country. There are a lot of sins that will be forgiven, but working against this country, taking this country down will not be one of those in which you find an out for any reason at any time.
SHEINKOPF: I couldn’t agree more. Look, I had a friend for many years, a good criminal lawyer who used to tell people that no one went to jail for not saying something, not seeing something, not hearing something. And you know what, it is time for Reverend Wright, although it is very late in the game to say that I got to disappear for six months. I got to do something but every minute he shows up is another minute he takes something out of Barack Obama’s fight. It’s just that simple.
DOBBS: Diana, your thoughts?
WEST: Well, I think it also shows the extent to which Reverend Wright doesn’t say really anything wrong with anything that he had said. And I think on that sort of fork tongue messages in terms of “I as a pastor, say what, do what I have to do” and Senator Obama as a politician does what he has to do, I think it muddies the message. Does that mean that Senator Obama knows full well he is trying to repudiate something that he doesn’t really mean to repudiate? I mean, what is the message there?
DOBBS: You know what the message is. It’s straight forward. He’s saying that he’s got a job to do. It is like slicing and dicing us all by race, by demographics, by income, by geography and occupation and saying, and of course, behave as you will, because none of that matters against the greater identity, which is we are American citizens and we have a nation to preserve, protect, and defend. I don’t get how there can be this going on within the democratic party. LOUIS: Well, you know, here again, Jeremiah Wright is not within the democratic party. I mean, I don’t know what his registration may be, but he is not – he is not what you call a team player when it comes to democratic politics. I think you know, this is what you get when you get these holy men. You know — whether it is Jeremiah Wright, Dalai Lama, Martin Luther King, any minister you want, they are not going to be that helpful from a political standpoint. They are talking about or attempting to talk about something that is so far above the level of politics they’re just – it’s not going to be consistent, it’s not going to be helpful or comprehensible to a lot of folks.
DOBBS: What about Senator Obama’s responsibility here, Hank?
SHEINKOPF: Well, Barack’s responsibility – average person when you talk to the street will say, white Catholic or blue collar people will say, you know, it’s not that I left the democratic party, it’s that the democratic party left me. That was the excuse for Reagan, and that will the excuse for Obama if he’s the nominee for a lot of people, why?
WEST: Well, the biggest problem…
SHEINKOPF: The Reverend.
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Read the full segment.
SPECIAL THANKS to V4Hill for the video clip.
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