For weeks some Clinton supporters on the Web have pushed rumors about a video in which Michelle Obama goes on a rampage against “whitey.” They’ve hung their hopes and faith on this video, certain it will be the salvation of the Clinton campaign, as soon as it gets out.
I’ve suspected there is no such tape, because if it existed the Clinton campaign would have given it to Matt Drudge by now. But today some Clinton bloggers are certain a TV network has it, because someone on Faux Nooz says so.
Now, apparently, a few on the Left have discerned what’s on The Magic Tape. The BooMan explains that Michelle Obama criticized the Bush Administration:
Why’d he cut folks off medicaid?
Why’d he let New Orleans drown?
Why’d he do nothing about Jena?
Why’d he put us in Iraq for no reason?
If you take this out of context, “why’d he” does sound a lot like “whitey.”
Now, I don’t know that anyone on either side has actually seen The Magic Tape, but if it exists at all this recent explanation makes sense to me. And it’s also why The Magic Tape remains hidden. It’s powers will dissipate as soon as people realize what Michelle Obama really said.
What makes this even more pathetic is that the individual on Faux Nooz spreading this rumor is none other than Roger Stone. As Steve M. points out, this same Roger Stone is responsible for “the 527 group formed solely to insult Hillary Clinton with a sexist acronym — Citizens United Not Timid.” And now some Clinton supporters are embracing Roger Stone as an ally.
This, folks, is what insanity looks like.
Ben Smith reports that the Clinton campaign is heading back to New York and shedding staff. Getting ready to concede? Kyle Moore says maybe, maybe not. (See also “Breaking: Larry Johnson Lost His Last Marble.”)
I want to go back to something the BooMan wrote in his post:
This election has ruined a lot of friendships. I have tried hard not to let it ruin mine. But smears of this type are unforgivable. I have been forebearing. Perhaps, in retrospect, I have been too forebearing. That’s all I say. This is too painful to me.
I know exactly how he feels. The Clinton poison has ruined a lot of friendships in the blogosphere. It’s terribly sad. I’ve chosen not to attend Netroots Nation (formerly Yearly Kos) this summer because there are too many people I’d rather not see now.
See also “Clinton may lose key supporters soon” and Michael Tomasky, in which he writes that, in many ways, the prolonged nomination fight has made Obama a stronger candidate.
Everything that’s happened since Wisconsin – the emergence of Jeremiah Wright, the flap over the “bitter” white working class, and so on – has constituted Obama’s trial by fire. Far better that he had to answer all those questions in March than in October, with millions more voters paying closer attention.
But at the same time, we’ve been hostage to the Clintons’ inability to come to grips with the fact that Hillary was going to lose. Her final descent into rancid demagoguery about Florida and Michigan, comparing them to Zimbabwe and likening the “cause” of seating the states at full strength to the civil rights movement was, for some observers, the last straw. It was a rules dispute over two states that broke the rules; no one was jailed or lynched, and if anyone disenfranchised the voters of those two states, it wasn’t the Democratic party or Obama, it was the political leaders of the states themselves.
We have no idea whether the fuming Clinton partisans at Saturday’s meeting represent thousands or millions. But however many of them exist, the fact is that Clinton worked them into this lather – Eve Fairbanks of the New Republic filed a stomach-turning report for her magazine’s website on some of the things said about Obama outside the hall – and Clinton is responsible as things move forward for working them out of it. That means, for starters, ending her quest soon and letting her backers know that she’s not fighting on to the Denver convention.
If she doesn’t do that, I think her position as a leader in the Dem party will be over.
Is this the best they can do to discredit Obama’s character? If so, it’s not gonna work. Last week I checked in on O’Reilly and Hannity, who both spent hours on their radio shows trying to lather up their audiences into rabid hysterics over Father Pfleger, a SUBSTITUTE preacher at Obama’s church. It seemed to be working on a few yahoos who called in to agree with the host. But if Wright-gate, Madrassa-gate and flag pin-gate are the best they can drum up, Obama has already survived those storms. I would expect more of the same attacks to continue on a daily basis until November, though.
I can’t even get this straight anymore. Clinton is saying that she is ahead in the popular vote (minus the caucus states, of course), and therefore that is, um, the case to take to the superdelegates. Who make the real decision. Heck, even pledged delegates can change their minds, Harold Ickes tells me.
So much for that will o’the people I keep hearing about.
Basically, what I’m hearing from the Clinton camp is that an election is an audition for the people who make the real decision.
All of which would be OK if she and her camp were still out there pitching actual policy differences – if she was still out there because there were some issues that she felt needed to stay in the national spotlight. But there’s actually been less of that in the past few months. I’m losing patience.
Hillary say, “the super delegates are going to have to decide who’ll make the better President and Commander-in-Chief”. The fact that she’s pushing the Commander-in-Chief title is a real turn-off to me, I understand the designation, but accentuating a militaristic aspect of the Presidency is just a continuation of Bush’s ego driven propaganda bullshit that’s been foisted upon us for the last 8 years. Where in American history have the candidates jockied for a slot to be Commander-in-Chief apart from the Presidency?
If she doesn’t do that, I think her position as a leader in the Dem party will be over.
…if she wants to reprise Ted Kennedy’s role in the 1980 primary campaign, Democratic chances for taking over the White House may be over by the end of the convention, too…
I was having a terrible morning at work until I read the news about Fafblog. Bless you, maha, for spreading the word.
Nothing more to say about Hillary that hasn’t been said above….
Been interesting listening to Repub operatives try to explain away McBush’s gaffes. Invariably they wrap up with the Obama-Wright affair which at least now seems to be about the only thing left in their trick bag. Even now it’s met with a lot of eye-rolling. By November, it’ll probably be met with a lot of snoring.
You’d be better off coming to Oregon for the Waterfront Blues Festival or the Oregon Country Fair. Both are good ways to cleanse oneself from the foolishness and rejuvenate the spirit, so we all can be ready for the fall campaign
the whole clinton “ahead in the popular vote thing” is very pertinent, because, after all, the president of the united states is determined by the popular vote.
oh, wait…
One positive from all this for me. Starting with NoQuarter and then including about a half dozen other sites that were daily reads but are now no go zones, I’ve found quite a few other high quality sites to take their place.