OBAMARAMA

We’ve refrained from saying much about Sen. Clinton on this site. In theory at least, it doesn’t make much sense to go after other Democrats, when the ultimate goal is taking back the White House from wrong-headed Republicanism. Additionally, negative remarks about other Democrats don’t jibe especially well with the overall theme of the Obama movement, which is rooted in optimism and unity.

But if we’ve learned anything from the last two presidential races, it’s that you let pointed attacks go unanswered at your own peril, no matter from what quarter they come. Some things demand redress, and the Clinton campaign’s recent behavior falls into that category.

Make no mistake, Sen. Clinton has pulled out the long knives, and she is coming for Sen. Obama. Behind in South Carolina, she sees him coming into Feb. 5, with its 22 primaries, riding a surge of momentum and holding a lead in the delegate count, and her desperation is palpable.

It’s the only explanation: her desperation pushed her into awkwardly attacking Sen. Obama’s reasonable statements about Ronald Reagan’s transformational presidency (not good transformational, mind you). It compelled her husband to exchange his robes of established statesmanship for the tawdry garb of political debasement, with all the distortions and trickery that go with it. Her desperation even drove her to invoke the debunked and toothless Rezko smear during Monday’s debate.

I don’t think it will work. Sen. Obama was not always concise in his rejection of her smears last night, but he had plenty of powerful moments that put her desperation squarely in the spotlight. Here’s a personal favorite:

If Sen. Obama’s campaign is about anything, it’s about having faith in people’s desire to move past the politics of desperation. In South Carolina, where The State just endorsed Obama for President, it’s looking like that faith is well-placed. Fighting the good fight up to and through February 5th is the only way to prove it for sure.

Should Hillary Clinton win in South Carolina and subsequently steamroll her way to the nomination, the historians and pundits will point to the racial conflagration of the last few days as the Machiavellian key to her success.

Essentially, a series of remarks from the Clinton campaign has been construed by some black leaders as being anywhere from politically tone deaf to out-and-out racist. These remarks include:

• Bill Clinton suggesting that the idea that Sen. Obama has consistently opposed the Iraq war is a “fairy tale“
• An unnamed Clinton advisor saying that Obama voters are just looking for a “hip, black friend“
• Sen. Clinton’s suggestion that despite Martin Luther King Jr.’s contributions, ultimate credit for the Civil Rights movement lies with President Johnson
• Clinton surrogate Andrew Cuomo’s comment that Obama can’t “shuck and jive” his way to the White House

In my view, while a couple of these remarks use loaded language and certainly raise questions about the message the speakers were trying to send, none rises to the level of actual racism. What bothers me is less the content of the remarks than how the Clinton campaign is deflecting the subsequent criticism it has received from the black community.

On Meet the Press this morning, Sen. Clinton claimed that her words have been distorted and pointed a finger directly at the Obama campaign, saying that “I think it clearly came from Senator Obama’s campaign.” She provided no evidence to back this up, however — and in fact, the most public criticism of her remarks came from African American SC Rep. Jim Clyburn, who told the New York Times he was disappointed by them. Yet Clyburn is no Obama surrogate (though he has suggested that the Clinton’s remarks may push him in that direction).

What could be damaging to the Obama campaign is the implication that he is playing what pundits everywhere joyously call “the race card.” This is a charge to which Sen. Obama, being black, is uniquely susceptible, and one that could hurt him by creating the impression that he is trying to use race and inflame racial sensitivities to his political advantage.

He’s done no such thing; in fact, it’s my opinion that Sen. Obama’s unwillingness to take this low road — despite ample opportunities to do so — is directly responsible for making him such a viable candidate in the minds of Americans of every race. Yet Sen. Clinton’s attempt to drag him into the racial imbroglio her campaign created could potentially convince people otherwise.

In the real world, Sen. Obama’s only true comment on the controversy came today, after being personally accused by Sen. Clinton of distorting her words. And what outlandish thing did he say to stoke the flames of racial discontent? He called Sen. Clinton’s MLK comment “unfortunate” and her accusation of Obama’s culpability “ludicrous.”

Indeed, it is. But the irony is that, should the mud she’s throwing stick, the Obama juggernaut could be sunk by a controversy in which it literally played no role. Ah, Rovian politics, how I’ve missed you.

As is so consistently their custom, conservative blogs picked up and ran with a report claiming that Sen. Obama made a mistake — in this case, that he misstated the fuel economy of Japanese-made cars — without checking to see if he was actually wrong.

Newsflash: he wasn’t.

As Media Matters for America documents, the hubbub began when a Chicago Tribune columnist “wrote that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) ‘has more homework to do’ and ’should [hire] a fact-checker’ because Obama stated that ‘Japanese cars [are] now getting an average of 45 miles to the gallon.’” The article quoted a Toyota rep saying “I’m not sure where he got that figure…No carmaker gets 45 m.p.g.”

Instantly, rightwing blogs picked this up and ran with it like a fat kid with a piece of cake. As Hotline On Call points out, the rightwing media site Newsbusters used it as an excuse to launch one more liberal bias jihad against the media:

Obama makes another mistake, will media report it? –The junior senator and god-in-the-making bungles the facts on the fuel efficiency of American and Japanese cars. Will the media report this “lie?”

As of this posting, Newsbusters has yet to wipe the egg off their face. But the facts are undeniable, as the Hotline and Media Matters also note. From the Hotline:

Obama was right. In the US, Japanese-made cars would get 45 m.p.g. assuming they were subjected to the US fuel economy test cycle. Here’s the wonky paper he based his claim on.

And MMFA:

The report also stated that, according to the Japanese Automobile Manufacturers Association, the 2002 average fleet fuel economy value in Japan was 46.3 miles per gallon. More recently, on March 21, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) asked former Vice President Al Gore at a House hearing if he supported an “increase [in fuel-economy standards] like they have in Japan, that’s over 45 miles per gallon?”

Media Matters goes on helpfully to chart the uncorrected, mindless repetition of this falsehood through the conservative blogosphere. I’m beginning to understand why unaccountability is so rampant among Republican politicians, who apparently take the cue from their supporters…

• In a May 10 blog post, National Review Online contributor Jim Geraghty wrote that Obama “Botched the Facts” and that the column was a “good catch.”
• In a May 10 post, Power Line blogger Paul Mirengoff uncritically wrote that “Jim Geraghty reports that Obama botched his facts.” Fellow Power Line blogger John Hinderaker added that “Obama is showing a disconcerting tendency to make things up, as well as a lack of common sense” because “it should be obvious that no company’s entire fleet of automobiles — let alone a country’s — averages 45 mpg.”
• In a May 11 post, Jim Addison of Wizbang Politics uncritically cited Mirengoff’s post, writing that Obama “misstated fuel economy statistics, according to Paul Mirengoff of Power Line.” Addison added that “Obama’s youth and inexperience is [sic] beginning to show.”
• A May 11 post on Human Events Online’s Rightometer blog linked to the Tribune column under the headline “Obama Must be Tired Again.” The post also quoted “The Whistler” of the blog Say Anything, who wrote in a May 11 post about the Tribune column that Obama is “a fool” who is “willing to make up anything he has to” and suggested that Obama has no “grip on reality.”

Memo to conservative bloggers: it’s called research. Give it a try sometime.

Much is being made in some quarters over Sen. Obama’s comment in Iowa that there’s “at least one senator in Iowa who could be helpful” in overriding President Bush’s veto of Congress’s Iraq funding bill. In response, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley — the subject of Sen. Obama’s remark — called the comment “not senatorial,” adding that “when you’re in another state, you don’t take pokes at a fellow senator.”

Boo freaking hoo. According to the Chicago Tribune, Grassley went on to assert that “he would never go into Illinois and tell Obama’s constituents to ‘get on him about something.’” “You know what really makes it less presidential,” Grassley said, is “I’m not running for president. I’m not one of his opponents.”

Except that, on the issue of the war, you are.

Inexplicably, the Trib titles their report on the exchange “Obama’s Faux Pas,” as if encouraging people to encourage their representatives to override the veto is somehow a “mistake” — as if adhering to the “gentlemanly” senatorial protocol is somehow more important than the moral imperative of ending an immoral war.

Sorry Chuck, but it looks like the U.S. Senate is no longer a safe haven for thin-skinned whiners. To reappropriate a favorite old phrase, You’re ass is Grassley, and Sen. Obama’s the lawnmower.

UPDATE: This evening’s Post headline: “Obama Renews Pressing Grassley on Iraq.”

The big campaign news late last week was that Sen. Obama was placed under Secret Service protection, the first presidential candidate ever to be guarded so early in a campaign. The reason has not been made public by the Secret Service or the Obama campaign, but Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff signed off on it “after consultations with House and Senate leaders in both parties,” according to the Post.

There should be no doubt that credible threats to Sen. Obama’s safety prompted this decision.

Should we really be surprised? We’ve documented here the sort of fanatical rage that many on the right feel toward Sen. Obama in our “Expose the Hate” feature. In many cases, his skin color is a major factor in their disparagement — as it was for Rush Limbaugh, whose racist “Barack the Magic Negro” song (posted here last week) is now making headlines.

One journalist tracked the fixation some white supremacist groups have on Sen. Obama, and made an important point about how deeply un-American these attacks on Sen. Obama actually are, especially in the context of the struggle against terrorism:

[T]here is no telling how many potential black candidates–for the presidency, or for lower office–have been dissuaded by white supremacist groups. If we are serious about fighting terrorists who threaten U.S. interests, we should be equally serious about making sure that homegrown terrorists do not get to decide who runs for president.

Over the past five months, we’ve documented the wide array of attacks that have been launched against Sen. Obama by his opponents in politics and the media. For the most part, these baseless caricatures have been debunked and have largely fallen by the wayside (”He’s a junkie,” “he’s a Marxist leftist,” “he’s too black,” “he’s not black enough,” “he’s a hypocrite,” “he’s a Muslim“…just to name a few).

Up until now, though, the attack that has arguably stung Sen. Obama’s supporters the most is the suggestion that he is “all style, no substance.” We’ve known that it’s not true, but given the nature of the campaign, its quick and early start, and Sen. Obama’s need as a relative newcomer to build momentum and enthusiasm, we haven’t had as many tools as we’d like to rebut it.

That’s about to change.

Earlier this week, Sen. Obama addressed the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, where he discussed his foreign policy vision. It was a 40-minute speech that was reported in the New York Times under the headline, “Obama Outlines His Foreign Policy Views,” and was very well received by pundits and experts alike.

Lest there be any question about the substantial nature of the speech, here is a video of Sen. Obama’s remarks in their entirety:

As Sen. Obama builds on his momentum and grassroots support by laying out the specifics of his candidacy, I suspect we’ll be seeing a lot more speeches like this one. And as we do, OBAMARAMA will lay them out here in a new segment called “Here’s the Beef.”

Frankly, it’s just nice to know that the biggest knock against Sen. Obama is based on a total underestimation of his ability to back up charisma with meaty policy proposals. Those of us who have been following him know that won’t be any problem — and appreciate having such a low bar to step over.

A great piece up today at Media Matters for America looks at journalists’ obsession with touting trivial non-stories about Sen. Obama — from his uncontroversial driveway purchase to his investment non-scandal — and promoting them as significant simply because they “raise questions.”

It’s a pretty low bar to set for news, especially since these “questions” usually come from unnamed “political strategists” (some of whom are later revealed to be “political operatives” who actually work for Sen. Obama’s “opponents”).

The latest non-story involves a photograph of Sen. Obama talking with his communications guru David Axelrod in his Senate office — a situation that manages to “raise questions,” according to Roll Call, despite the fact that it violates exactly no ethics rules. As the inimitable SSM makes clear:

The Roll Call column is just the most recent example of an emerging trend in the media’s treatment of Obama. In the past six months, there have been several news reports that have purported to expose wrongdoing on Obama’s part, but, at the same time, noted that there exists no allegation or evidence that Obama acted improperly. Nevertheless, these reports claim that Obama’s actions “raise questions” or “raise flags” — presumably as justification for publishing a piece that contains no real evidence of impropriety.

Never let the facts get in the way of a good story, that’s what I always say.

The Hotline blog points us toward an RNC press release meant to coincide with Sen. Obama’s appearance tonight on “The Late Show with David Letterman.” The topic: “Obama’s Top Ten Fabrications — Some Suggestions For David Letterman’s Top Ten List Tonight As Obama Drops By The Late Show.”

Judging by the list, though, I doubt Letterman will be interested. A boring rehash of debunked and trivial nonsense (Did he really learn Indonesian as quickly as he claims he did as a six-year old?!? His teacher kind of suggests otherwise!!!), the release reveals less about Sen. Obama than it does about the RNC’s fear of him.

You can read the release here. Some of the reader comments are particularly worth a gander, such as Jake’s suggestion that “They really are in deep trouble if this is the best they got on Obama.”

And don’t forget to tune in to Letterman tonight for some actual entertainment. We’ll be sure to post the video as soon as it’s available.

Critics of Sen. Obama have been looking for anything to throw at him, and have lately seized on the fact that a story he said he read as a child in Life Magazine wasn’t able to be located there. The story was about a black man who had tried to bleach his skin, and Sen. Obama wrote in his memoir that it was a formative moment in the development of his racial identity.

After the Chicago Tribune reported that they could find no such story in the archives of Life (or Ebony, another possibility), many looking to score cheap political points on an issue of minor importance have highlighted the incident, ostensibly as an example of some sort of intellectual dishonesty.

A recent discovery means it’s time for that stop.

(Read more after the jump…)

I’m not generally in the habit of writing FOX News-esque rhetorical-question titles like the one above. But then again, I’m not Associated Press reporter Nedra Pickler.

An AP article by Pickler and published this morning in the Washington Post is entitled “Is Obama All Style and Little Substance?” — but it has some serious substance issues of its own, particularly when it comes to Sen. Clinton.

In an attempt to reinforce the image of Sen. Obama as inexperienced, Pickler falsely claims that John Edwards is “the only other candidate to serve less time in elective office than Obama.” Edwards was a US Senator for six years; Sen. Obama has served in the US Senate for over two years, following eight years as a state senator in Illinois.

But what about Sen. Clinton? She was reelected to the US Senate last year, and has served for just over six years — nearly exactly the same amount of time as Edwards. This is her first time holding elective office. So why does Pickler not include her among the ranks of candidates who have served less time in elective office than Sen. Obama?

Perhaps it’s for the same reason that she lets Sen. Clinton off the hook for not having a written health care plan yet, while with the other hand she attacks Sen. Obama for the same infraction. Here is her stunning justification:

New York Sen. Hillary Clinton doesn’t have a written plan yet, but no one questions her expertise, since she was the chief proponent of the issue during her husband’s presidency.

No one questions her health care expertise? Seriously? I’m not in the business of attacking fellow Democrats, but I do expect an AP political reporter to have at least some familiarity with political history.

Pickler doesn’t exactly have a clean slate when it comes to covering Democrats. Sen. Obama’s policy proposals will undoubtedly come in time, and talking about their absence in the meantime is certainly fair game. What’s deplorable is that Pickler has chosen to do so by distorting the facts about other candidates in order to paint Sen. Obama in a negative light.

UPDATE: Media Matters takes Pickler to task for her claim that Sen. Obama has “delivered no policy speeches” and “provided few details about how he would lead the country,” noting the utter inaccuracy of those assertions.

In what has become a ridiculous and inexplicable pattern, The Politico’s Mike Allen has penned yet another gratuitous and insubstantial attack piece on Sen. Obama and cloaked it in the guise of “political journalism.”

Titled “Rookie Mistakes Plague Obama,” the article documents exactly zero instances of what could reasonably be classified as rookie mistakes, opting instead to harp on the sort of unimpressive minutiae that could be found in any campaign.

It opens breathlessly by suggesting that Sen. Obama is disingenuous when he condemns the practice of having lobbyists write legislation, since he once voted for and (gasp!) publicized his support of a Senate energy bill. But nowhere does Allen provide evidence that the bill was written by energy lobbyists, something he would need to do to support his implied charge of hypocrisy.

Nor does Allen note that the bipartisan bill included substantial funding for alternative fuel development, did not open the Arctic to drilling (as the House version did), and addressed “the concerns of Democrats and environmentalists that more needs to be done to conserve energy and develop cleaner energy alternatives,” according to an actual newspaper, The Washington Post.

(Read more after the jump…)

This may not seem like the sort of video you’d expect to find on a site dedicated to promoting Sen. Obama’s candidacy, and for good reason: it is a negative spot conflating his name with that of known tyrants and terrorists.

The video’s focus on Sen. Obama’s name is purely superficial, and belies more than anything the creator’s discomfort with the idea of a black man with an unfamiliar name running the country. I opted to post it because I think it’s typical of the attacks we’ll see on Sen. Obama from many on the right once he becomes the Democratic nominee.

Some Democrats are undoubtedly uneasy with what they perceive as a vast swath of this country that simply will not vote for Sen. Obama based on his name and his skin color. I think that logic sells Americans short. I wouldn’t put “Hussein” on the campaign literature exactly, but we should welcome discussion about Sen. Obama’s name — and showcase the small-mindedness of those who will try to use it against him.

The fact is, if that’s the line conservatives choose to take, it means they’re unable to engage on the issues, and Sen. Obama’s supporters shouldn’t miss an opportunity to point that out. I was encouraged when reports came out a few months ago that callers to Sen. Obama’s office inquiring about his middle name were told that “It’s Hussein, like the dictator.” That, my friends, takes balls. And if there is one thing Democrats need…

At the end of the day, I’m confident that those who are persuaded by the sophomoric “Obama rhymes with Osama” line wouldn’t have voted for Sen. Obama anyway — and that many more will be turned off by such ignorance than will be drawn to it.

In an effort to get that ball rolling, here is a video entitled “How To Remember Barack Hussein Obama’s Name” from RepublicanMan10, whose depth of argument is matched only by his camerawork:

First CNN sent a reporter to Jakarta following FOX News’s fallacious reporting on Sen. Obama’s schooling. Now ABC has analyzed Sen. Obama’s position on the Iraq War following the Clinton’s campaign’s disingenuous claims about its consistency.

Their finding: “However much others try to fuzz up the record,” Sen. Obama has had a “consistent anti-war message” and “stood out” for “opposing the war quite firmly when the war was overwhelmingly popular.” The reporters analyzed Sen. Obama’s interviews and remarks — including those cited by the Clinton campaign — and concluded that his opponent’s spin on his position is precisely that: spin.

The article quotes Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton, who sums it all up:

“The important thing here is that Obama has been 100% consistent in his opposition to the war, and now he has a responsible plan to end the conflict,” said Obama spokesman Bill Burton. “Even when you look at the statements he’s made about others who supported the war, it’s clear that he’s in sharp opposition to the war.”

ABC also has a comprehensive video to back up their findings entitled “Obama Opposes Iraq War From Start.”

Given Sen. Obama’s consistency, it’s understandable that Josh Gerstein at the New York Sun is saying that “why Mrs. Clinton’s team would want Mr. Obama’s strongly anti-war statements from 2002 in broader circulation is beyond me.”

Us too.

An article appearing on the website of the American Conservative magazine and titled “Obama’s Identity Crisis” gives a skewed and racially-charged analysis of Sen. Obama’s personal history, calling him “an updated Black Pride version of the old ‘tragic mulatto’ stereotype” and asserting (without support, obviously) that “He wouldn’t be a serious candidate for president at age 45 if he weren’t part black.” The author is Steve Sailer, a columnist for the xenophobic VDARE website.

The article, which focuses primarily on Sen. Obama’s recounting of his life in his autobiography Dreams From My Father, accomplishes little more than presenting excerpts from the book in negative, racially-loaded terms. For instance, Sailer suggests that Sen. Obama’s father “added two more wives to his collection” and refers to him as his “polygamous pop.” He also claims that Sen. Obama’s “overwhelmingly white upbringing is apparent in his coolly analytical depiction of his mother” — suggesting that only a white upbringing could yield “cool analysis” — and asks rhetorically, “Why was Obama so insistent upon rejecting the white race?”

As for Sen. Obama’s supporters, Sailer claims (once again, without support) that “The message much of white America hopes to send to black America by electing Obama is: Don’t Be So Black. Act More Barack.” Sailer’s misconception is not unlike that of many in the traditional media, who assume all African Americans will support Sen. Obama based on his race. Similarly, Sailer seems to think all Sen. Obama’s white supporters are doing the same, apparently in a bizarre attempt to send a message to the black community.

What unites both misinterpretations is their failure to account for the possibility that Sen. Obama’s supporters back him because of his values, his character, and his policies.

(Read more after the jump…)

Here’s what Rev. Al Sharpton had to say about Sen. Obama yesterday:

“Why shouldn’t the black community ask questions? Are we now being told, ‘You all just shut up?’” Sharpton told CBS 2’s Marcia Kramer Monday. “Senator Obama and I agree that the war is wrong, but then I want to know why he went to Connecticut and helped [Sen. Joseph] Lieberman, the biggest supporter of the war.”

Sharpton also questioned why Obama supports “tort reform, which hurts police brutality victims.”

What set Sharpton off was a published report that he is trying to hurt Obama’s campaign because he’s jealous. Sharpton says that claim is untrue, charging the story came from the Obama camp to pressure him into an early endorsement.

“I’m not going to be cajoled or intimidated by any candidate not for my support,” Sharpton said.

For decades, Rev. Sharpton (along with Rev. Jesse Jackson) has been the face of African American political leadership in this country. He has also been the Democrats’ most prominent black presidential candidate — so it’s understandable if he feels displaced by Sen. Obama’s meteoric rise.

But that doesn’t entitle him to make unfounded claims about Sen. Obama. If Rev. Sharpton is so sure that rumors that he is “jealous” came from the Obama camp, he should say how he knows this. If he is being “cajoled or intimidated” by Sen. Obama, as he suggests, he should back that up. And exactly who from the Obama camp told him “You all need to shut up”? If Rev. Sharpton knows the answers, he should say.

(Read more after the jump…)