Daily Archives: October 27, 2008

Why Righties Are Living on a Different Planet

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As if you didn’t already know that they’re living on a different planet — see Bill Whittle’s post at NRO — Barack Obama is quoted from a radio interview he gave in 2001 on the subject of funding schools equally after the Brown vs Board of Ed. decision. — keep that context in mind —

Obama speaks:

You know, if you look at the victories and failures of the civil-rights movement, and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples. So that I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at a lunch counter and order and as long as I could pay for it, I’d be okay, but the Supreme Court never entered into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society.

And uh, to that extent, as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution — at least as it’s been interpreted, and Warren Court interpreted it in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties: [It] says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.

And that hasn’t shifted, and one of the, I think, the tragedies of the civil-rights movement was because the civil-rights movement became so court-focused, uh, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change. And in some ways we still suffer from that.

A caller asks, “The gentleman made the point that the Warren Court wasn’t terribly radical. My question is (with economic changes)… my question is, is it too late for that kind of reparative work, economically, and is that the appropriate place for reparative economic work to change place?”

Obama replies:

You know, I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. The institution just isn’t structured that way. [snip] You start getting into all sorts of separation of powers issues, you know, in terms of the court monitoring or engaging in a process that essentially is administrative and takes a lot of time. You know, the court is just not very good at it, and politically, it’s just very hard to legitimize opinions from the court in that regard.

So I think that, although you can craft theoretical justifications for it, legally, you know, I think any three of us sitting here could come up with a rationale for bringing about economic change through the courts.”

Whittle and the entire Right Blogosphere believe they’ve found the smoking-gun proof that Obama is a socialist. I’m serious. That’s how insane they are. Righties are absolutely bouncing off the walls convinced they’ve found “the bombshell” that will sink Obama’s campaign. Just read Whittle’s “interpretation” of Obama’s remarks. They are pathological.

As Prometheus 6 says, “What they are doing is standing strong against equal rights for all Americans with this attack. And The National Review is right in the mix. And all of them disgust me.”

The McCain campaign is putting out the lie that Obama called it a “tragedy” that the courts didn’t order “redistributive change.” As Greg Sargent notes,

As you can see, Obama simply didn’t say that the court’s faiulre to take up redistribution was a tragedy. Rather, he was arguing that it was a “tragedy” that the Civil Rights movement expected the courts to do too much in this regard, which led the movement away from other ways of accomplishing redistributive goals, such as organizing and legislative politicking.

And taking such matters out of courts and instead working through the legislative process is something righties have said they favor, or so I thought.

The problems is, of course, that if the entire noise-making apparatus of the Right jumps on this lie and pounds on it together, they could peel some votes away from Obama. So even though it’s absolute nonsense, it could do some damage. Stay tuned.

See also Oliver Willis and Martin Lewis.

The Al Sharpton – Sarah Palin Connection

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Sarah Palin is countering the $150,000 wardrobe story by saying the clothes are not her property.

“Those clothes, they are not my property. Just like the lighting and the staging and everything else that the RNC purchased, I’m not taking them with me. I am back to wearing my own clothes from my favorite consignment shop in Anchorage, Alaska. You’d think — not that I would even have to address the issue because, as Elisabeth is suggesting, the double standard here it’s — gosh, we don’t even want to waste our time.”

Palin, however, forged on.

“I am glad, though, that she brought up accessories also. Let me tell you a little bit about a couple of accessories, didn’t think that we would be talking about it, but my earrings — I see a Native Americans for Palin poster,” she said. “These are beaded earrings from Todd’s mom who is a Yupik Eskimo up in Alaska, Native American, Native Alaskan.

“And my wedding ring, it’s in Todd’s pocket, ’cause it hurts sometimes when I shake hands and it gets squished,” she continued. “A $35 wedding ring from Hawaii that I bought myself and ’cause I always thought with my ring it’s not what it’s made of, it’s what it represents, and 20 years later, happy to wear it. And then finally the other accessory, you bet I’m a gold — I’m a blue star mom. I’m wearing this in honor of my son who is fighting over in Iraq right now defending all of you.”

This triggered a dim memory. It took me some time to find it, but this is what Palin reminds me of —

Asking How Sharpton Pays for Those Suits; Case Offers Glimpse of His Finances

By ALAN FEUER
Published: December 21, 2000 [New York Times]

He says he owns no suits, but has ”access” to a dozen or so. He says he owns no television set because the one he watches in his home was purchased by a company he runs. He says he has no checking accounts, no savings accounts, no credit cards, no debit cards, no mutual funds, no stocks, no bonds, no paintings, no antiques. The only thing he admits to owning is a $300 wristwatch and a 20-year-old wedding ring.

The finances of the Rev. Al Sharpton have a somewhat troubled history. He was indicted on charges of income tax fraud and stealing from charitable donors in 1989, but was eventually acquitted at a trial. In 1993, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of failing to file a tax return for 1986. His eponymous promotional company has no official documents on record with the state. As recently as two years ago, he drew no salary, but he still manages to send his daughters to an expensive and respected private school.

Mr. Sharpton has always been studiously circumspect when talking about his pocketbook in public, yet this month he suddenly announced that he could not afford to pay a judgment entered against him in the Tawana Brawley defamation case. As a result, he gave a lengthy deposition to lawyers for the man that he was found to have defamed, Steven A. Pagones, a former prosecutor whom Mr. Sharpton claimed had raped Ms. Brawley 13 years ago.

The deposition was never made public, though excerpts from it were given to The New York Times by a supporter of Mr. Pagones. It offers a privileged peek into the byzantine world of Mr. Sharpton’s personal finances as he considers running for mayor. In its combative back-and-forth and unintended humor, it sketches a portrait of the fiscal Al Sharpton, a man who claims to own virtually nothing but has almost everything he needs.

Yes, the old “this is not my designer suit even though I’m wearing it” dodge.

See also “Palin’s Nightmare.”