Hillfans not voting for BO, base-running, and education questions

1) Over at the Guardian is an interesting two-part piece (part one here and part two here ) about how old, debunked and just plain vicious right-wing rumors and lies about HRC and BC are recycled by today’s “progressive wing” of the Democratic Party. Why this should be so is not explained (and is there any acceptable explanation?).

It’s worth the read. Part one starts out like this:

In 1998, as six years of a national campaign to demonize First Lady Hillary Clinton — funded by conservatives and rooted in profound anti-feminism — was reaching a fevered crescendo, then-conservative David Brock (now of Media Matters) penned a book called The Seduction of Hillary Rodham. The publisher’s note for the tome says of its subject: “No public figure in contemporary life has elicited more polarized reactions than Hillary Rodham Clinton. The first presidential spouse who pursued a major policymaking role, the beleaguered first lady has been a heroine and role model to her feminist allies – and a malevolent, power-mad shrew to her conservative foes.”

Sometime in the last decade, her liberal foes evidently decided that whole “malevolent, power-mad shrew” thing sounded pretty good, too.

Throughout the course of the Democratic primary, it was neatly repackaged as “wildly ambitious person who will do anything in her voracious quest to win including destroying the Democratic Party while cackling monstrously and whose womanness totally doesn’t matter we swear.” The classic misogynist charge once used against Clinton by the vast right-wing conspiracy became the rallying cry of large swaths of the erstwhile reality-based community.

Without a hint of irony.

Read the rest ->

Part two starts out like this:

It was an indication of how thoroughly the left co-opted the use of the GOP and media-created scandals, to smear Hillary Clinton during the presidential primaries, that the Republicans weren’t even mentioning them much anymore, content to let the Left do its dirty work. There was little reason for GOP operatives to get their hands dirty reviving the villainous First Lady Macbeth caricature, when many liberals were happy to do it for them.

Not content to merely destroy the entire Democratic party single-handedly, Hillary Clinton was hell-bent on murder. Evidently having failed to satiate her bloodlust after murdering Vince Foster – or such was the claim of her ideological enemies, a charge still being chanted like a demonic incantation by rightwing pain-maker Rush Limbaugh – now she was openly lusting for the assassination of her opponent, Barack Obama. (That is not to suggest there were no legitimate concerns about her statement.) And Randi Rhodes – a “progressive talk radio personality” – fresh from calling Clinton a “fucking whore,” fanned the same flames when she announced fearing for her life after delivering the insult to someone who routinely has her enemies whacked.

Give this a read. Although stomach-churning, it calls out the that orange place and Randi Rhodes for their smears. And it’s not a bad thing to remember why we’re still fighting for HRC.

2) This morning, CNN has a story about Clinton supporters not going for Obama. According to a poll, fewer Clinton supporters say they will vote for Obama than a month ago. (See also: “Obama Fails to Attract Hillary’s Supporters.”)

According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Friday, the number of Clinton supporters who plan to defect to Republican Sen. John McCain’s camp is down from one month ago, but — in what could be an ominous sign for Obama as he seeks to unify the party — the number of them who say they plan to vote for Obama is also down, and a growing number say they may not vote at all.

In a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey completed in early June before the New York senator ended her White House bid, 60 percent of Clinton backers polled said they planned on voting for Obama. In the latest poll, that number has dropped to 54 percent.

In early June, 22 percent of Clinton supporters polled said they would not vote at all if Obama were the party’s nominee, now close to a third say they will stay home.

Looks like PUMA and Obama’s many position switches may have had an effect here. Unfortunately, CNN still ascribes this unwillingness to vote for Obama to sour grapes rather than for any principles or ideas about leadership.

“These things always take time to heal,” said Bill Schneider, CNN senior political analyst. “I think Clinton’s supporters are waiting to see if Sen. Obama will pick her as vice president. That would certainly be very healing to them.”
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“If he doesn’t pick her, a later stage of grief is depression and then acceptance,” Schneider said. “In the end I expect Clinton supporters will accept Obama, because they will listen to Sen. Clinton, who has said the stakes are too high for Democrats to sulk.”

Then the article slinks down to talking about how Bill Clinton needs to “repair” his image. Blech. CNN would have spent their time better to figure out exactly what the voters’ objections to Obama really are.

But I guess it’s a step up from saying it’s just a racist plot against Obama, right??? Racists, sore losers, bitter old white women and, later, just bitter white people. And the ideas that we need to just “get over it” and “come home.”

Yeah, yeah, we know. The beatings will continue until morale improves. Yada, yada, yada.

3) Over at Redstate, conservatives ponder Obama’s position(s) on abortion and figure he might not be so bad after all. Of course, they also recognize you can’t tell where he really stands. Hey, Redstate, we can’t tell either!

4) ABCnews blogger Greenburg finds it interesting that Obama has supported the gun ban reversal and death penalty decisions from SCOTUS. In particular, Obama’s position on the abortion question (saying mental distress is not a reason) is one held previously only by Justices Thomas and Scalia. Not the usual playground buddies for a Democrat.

“. . . McCain and . . . Obama praised the conservative’s position [on the DC gun ban]. The same thing happened the day before in another sharply divided 5-4 case over whether states can execute people who rape, but do not kill, children. This time conservatives lost, but again McCain and obama were on the same side, blasting the liberals’ decision striking down laws that allowed the death penalty for child rape.

“But on two of the biggest social controversies to reach the Court this year, Obama, too, [like McCain] sided with conservatives — rejecting opinions by the liberal justices who, presumably, are of the kind he would appoint if elected President.

But that’s nothing compared to Obama’s most recent comments about the most controversial social issue of them all: abortion.
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. . . there’s no mistaking that Obama says he no longer will support what’s long been a cornerstone of the abortion rights debate: The Court’s insistence that laws banning abortions after the fetus is viable (now about 22 weeks) contain an exception to allow doctors to perform them if necessary to protect a pregnant woman’s mental health.”

Greenburg notes that Obama’s current position is in opposition to the current law of the land on this issue. She notes as well that his current position contradicts earlier legislation co-sponsored by Obama himself.

“The Freedom of Choice Act specifically allows abortions after viability where necessary to sprotect a woman’s health, and the legislation refers repeatedly to the guarantees of Roe and Doe, which protect the right to an abortion where necessary for a woman’s physical and mental health.

One of its co-sponsors? Barack Obama.

5) At fivethirtyeight.com there’s an article from June 26 about which candidate, Obama or McCain, has a problem with his base. The answer is both of them.

We’ve long assumed this about McCain, but this is a change for Obama. It may even be stronger now. We’ll just have to see. Perhaps the more interesting question now is whether or not the Obama campaign cares if its most enthusiastic base is fully behind him. Judging by his recent moves, I’d say no.

6) At therealbarackobama, Steve Diamond writes that the American Federation of Teachers is defending Obama and his education advisor Linda Darling-Hammond and suggests the AFT doesn’t want Obama and Darling-Hammond’s close relationship to Bill Ayers to get much attention. Both the AFT and National Education Association will endorse Obama.

Diamond wrote about the relationship between Obama, Darling-Hammond and Ayers before.

When I pointed out at the Edwize Blog sponsored by the United Federation of Teachers, the big New York division of the AFL-CIO affiliated AFT, that Darling-Hammond backs the same key policy proposal (repayment of centuries of “education debt” to people of color) as Bill Ayers, long time education advocate and co-worker of Obama, and that Ayers and Obama are far from being “casual acquaintances” as Leo Casey of the AFT had contended, Casey replied with the following false claims . . .

Diamond outlines Casey’s counterclaims and then states his position on those. While all this is a little “weedy” for those not involved in education, it is noteworthy that Diamond’s ends his post with the following:

While no one could, or should, impute to Obama any support for the terroristic activity of Ayers, Dohrn and others, there is an important connection between Ayers’ politics then and his approach to education policy today: Ayers and the Weather Underground promoted a politics built around the absurd idea of “white supremacy,” which Ayers calls even today the “monster in the room” at the heart of American life.

This was linked to another idea that was widely held among the maoist elements that took hold in the early 70s in the US: that American workers and their unions were part of a giant labor aristocracy that exploited workers of the south, the so-called Third World. Inside the US, the Weather Underground argued that a global form of “unequal exchange” was reproduced in the relationship between white and black workers.

Thus, when an idea like repayment of centuries of accumulated “education debt” is proposed as the top priority of the next federal government as it has been by Darling-Hammond, Ladson-Billings and Bill Ayers, all of whom have links to Obama, it is reasonable to ask what Obama’s view are on such a critical issue. The presumptive nominee has yet to explain how it is that his education advisor can promote such an idea and yet he remains silent on it.

I would think the members of America’s teachers’ unions would like to know the answers to such questions as well before they decide how to approach the upcoming elections.

I’ve heard from teachers for a long time now that “there are NO stupid questions, only the ones you don’t ask.” Well, how about asking a few? Of course, even if Obama promised the unions he wouldn’t significantly change education policies they advocate, why should they believe him?

After all, the Obama bus has a lot of blue meat under it already. Of course, teachers’ unions aren’t favorites of a lot of “middle America,” so there may simply be a collective yawn when the unions find themselves at odds with Obama later. Because, you know, all the truly progressive educated people loooooovvvveee Obama. And they make more money than teachers.