There We Go Again
As usual, some supporters of Barack Obama are crying, swearing and cursing (all at the same time) because someone asked their favorite candidate a difficult question. Tim Russert asked him something about Farrakhan. No! He shouldn’t have done that, they say. There’s no use in it. It’s a smear!
Guess what, Obama goes to a Church. The Preacher of the Church preaches black exceptionalism, if we can call it like that, and is quite a divisive person (with regards to social views). To make matters worse, this preacher believes that Louis Farrakhan – a black racist – is a great human being.
And then Farrakhan praises – and endorses – Obama.
Not only that, there are also people who believe indicate that there are ties between Obama and, in this case, Nation of Islam. Now, that’s far from sure, they may not be on board, but it’s an interesting question, all the more so because black racists seem quite fond of Obama.
If Obama were white, and Farrakhan a member of the KKK, everyone would be writing about it and everyone would demand an honest and straight answer from Obama. But, because he’s not white, you’re not allowed to ask him any questions about.
Call that either racism or affirmative action, in either case I’m against it (and so should intellectually honest Obama supporters be).
As Ann Althouse points out, by the way, Obama’s response to Russert’s question was… fascinating.
SEN. OBAMA: You know, I have been very clear in my denunciation of Minister Farrakhan’s anti-Semitic comments. I think that they are unacceptable and reprehensible.
Note that he doesn’t, again as Ann points out, distance himself from the person Farrakhan, but only from certain anti-Semitic remarks.
Later Obama said:
SEN. OBAMA: Well, Tim, you know, I can’t say to somebody that he can’t say that he thinks I’m a good guy. (Laughter.) You know, I — you know, I — I have been very clear in my denunciations of him and his past statements, and I think that indicates to the American people what my stance is on those comments.
Again Ann responds brilliantly:
“Of him” here matters. This is the one place where there is a reference to the man — though perhaps only the man and his comments — the man if he continues to come attached to the kind of statements he’s made in the past. And there is still a failure to say that he rejects the support. And he’s still speaking in the past tense. He still won’t say “I denounce Farrakhan” or “I reject his support.” He must want the support for the good it can do him.
Addendum: I can’t help but wonder whether Obama’s campaign received donations from Farrakhan or other prominent Nation of Islam members. If so, he should return the money immediately (or give it to charity), just as Ron Paul should have done with the money he received from Don Black (and for which he was blasted on every blog, including this one, including by a co-blogger who supports Obama).
Obama said in the debate that there was no ‘formal offer of support to reject’
I mean, if I were asked a question like that if I were running for office; I would basically be thinking, people support me or they don’t support me, that’s their own decision, its nothing that i can meaningfully reject.
If they supported me using racist reasoning, or something like that, suggesting I should be president for racist reasons, it might make sense to say I reject their support, as a way of saying I distance myself from their statements of support.
If that was the situation maybe Obama could more easily answer the question that way.
But generally I’ve always thought the whole business of "rejecting support" to be a calculated, but meaningless, rhetorical phrase.
Which is why I thought the squabble over rejecting support vs. denouncing him was a bit silly
I hope everybody who is still critical of Obama realizes Hillary made herself look stupid.
Isn’t that what Ron Paul said? And wasn’t he – rightfully – blasted for it?
Hypocrisy at work here.
Rejecting and denouncing weren’t enough for you?
Also, you’re really doing yourself a disservice with the constant sarcasm and attack-dog tone.
Did you read the post. If you did, your first line, well, you know my response to it don’t you? Half-baked rejection.
They all hate Russert, Michael. You’re reaching again.
Michael, one wonders what Russert would have made of the situation if Ted Haggard had been Obama’s pastor.
Personally, I look forward to a time in this country when a candidate need not have any religious affiliation in order to be considered "viable". That, of course, will never happen, certainly not in my lifetime. This year the gender or racial barrier may be broken but the religion barrier to office will probably never go away.
To Kevin, I think Russert pompous gasbag who cheapens our political discourse with second or third tier "not even concerns"
instead of talking about real issues….
Kevin, frankly you´re becoming a bit annoying. The point isn´t Russert, the point is whether teh question should have been asked or not.
What do you think of that?
And no, I’m not reaching. As I said, if Obama was white, as was Farrakhan, there would have been no outrage, only encouragement to ask more.
NEW COMMENT: for some reason I can’t leave a comment, I don’t see the spam checker.
So , should Obama denounce every black person in the country involved in some kind of illegal or untoward activity, or should McCain do the same to white people?
JHC Sashal. IN this case, with this person, with possible indirect connections, perhaps even direct, yes he should distance himself completely from Farrakhan. Seriously, what a bunch of hypocrites. With a white person: PROBLEM. With a black person: RACIST! STRETCHING! Affirmative action at display I guess.
So , should Obama denounce every black person in the country involved in some kind of illegal or untoward activity, or should McCain do the same to white people?
Like I said , Russert is an idiot, gasbag, and he should not have asked this question imho, Michael…
Aren’t we all.
Note by MvdG: how’s that
#9.
Not me, jason, I bet you all do not have enough of me.
lol
LOL, you boys ought to all go to your rooms and not come out until you can play nicely together.
"White people are potential humans…they haven’t evolved yet."
If they supported me using racist reasoning, or something like that, suggesting I should be president for racist reasons, it might make sense to say I reject their support, as a way of saying I distance myself from their statements of support.
Racist enough for you?
MvdG: exactly.
Michael:
http://tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=907272c4-54db-4fba-9149-e95b7293d6a0
Sy: what’s your point of that link if I may ask?
Let’s see, you start out with childish sarcasm, you then call one of your fellow bloggers annoying, you lump all Obama supporters into one homogeneous category, and your entire argument that he hasn’t distanced himself enough hinges on an innocently placed "of."
I’m not trying to be mean, Michael, but like I said before, you’re doing a disservice to yourself and your blog by acting immature and unprofessional. This has the potential to be a good forum, but I find myself intentionally avoiding it because of your rotten attitude and tone.
Only in response to this:
"If Obama were white, and Farrakhan a member of the KKK, everyone would be writing about it and everyone would demand an honest and straight answer from Obama. But, because he’s not white, you’re not allowed to ask him any questions about. "
The article suggests:
"Thus, a recent essay by one John Brown on the website of the racialist journal American Renaissance attributes Obama’s rise to white liberals in search of an idyllic post-racist society (which of course they will never actually find): "The reality is that white America has more invested in this candidate than does black America." For Brown, Obama’s success against Hillary should actually comfort anyone wringing their hands over a White House beholden to black America: "[I]f Clinton wins, she will be more beholden to African Americans than Obama will be if he wins. She will owe them in a way that Obama [never] will.""
Seems to respond to:
"If they supported me using racist reasoning, or something like that, suggesting I should be president for racist reasons, it might make sense to say I reject their support, as a way of saying I distance myself from their statements of support."
Excuse me? "All Obama supporters"? Read it again. It starts of like this: "As usual, some supporters of Barack Obama"
Hmm, makes one think.
As for the second paragraph: I’ll consider that as advise. Thank you, I appreciate the feedback.
Absolute nonsense! If he issued a half-rejection, may I give to you, Michael, my full, complete and total rejection. Regarding the denunciation… which level do you prefer? Happy now? Or, is your cry-baby antics getting to be too silly?
One gets the impression that Obama will be hounded by this until he literally goes after the guy with a baseball bat. It’s completely silly. He has stated that he rejects the guy and denounces his blatantly racist and anti-semitic remarks. Somehow that isn’t enough, one has to go into the semantic subtleties of the matter to see if there is ANY way those statements leave room for the most minimal doubt. If they do, the attack is renewed as if the first denunciation never happened. This is not the first time Obama has gone through this. It becomes more absurd on each iteration, a less patient man would forget about denouncing and distancing (gestures that clearly mean nothing to those determined to tie the two together) and tell the lot of them to go Cheney themselves.
Michael, I have enough respect for you to not tell you what you’ve become…publicly. The same courtesy and candor would be appreciated in return. All I’ll say is that your sophomoric obsession with Obama has blinded your ability to make clear and objective political analysis. You, frankly, have Obama on the brain.
The reason people are upset with Russert’s question–and mind you, I am a repeated Russert apologist–is that it is devoid of substance. It’s a silly, silly stretch. You’re trying to smear and assault Obama’s supporters, once again, because they are upset with Russert’s line of questioning. My point was that they’d be attacking Russert today had it been a similarly inane question for Hillary.
And the association is absurd. Obama–as redfish tried to point out to you–hasn’t had any kind of official support from Farrakhan to denounce. He hasn’t taken the man’s money, he hasn’t had the man volunteer for him, and he has never made public overtures to the man. He denounced him and rejected his previous statements on Jews and Israel.
You’re simply looking for a straw man here. Obama answered the question. And as an Obama supporter, I don’t care that Russert asked it. This is a stupid, stupid debate to even be having, but anything that can muddy Obama is news to you. Presidential candidates will get the support of all sorts of unsavory characters–even bad people get to vote. The 1st amendment applies to them, too.
It would be great if turning out nuns, Mormons and otherwise pleasant people alone could win you elections. Sadly, it does not.
I think all of this hating on Russert is misplaced. Russert has long been one of the best interviewers and most non-partisan interviewers on TV. Meet The Press is a good program. Russert is putting out questions that are floating around in the public, though I think he’s not been scrupulous enough recently in determining what questions deserve to be ignored. However, people who complain about more substantive questions not being asked in the debates are missing the point. There were plenty of questions on substance; Kosovo, NAFTA, Russia, Health Care; but they were all general and shallow; and they were general and shallow because of the sound bite format of the debates. Its fashionable to make a big thing about the fact that this election we’ve had more televised debates than any other election; and already people are starting to compare this to the Lincoln-Douglas debates. But the Lincoln-Douglas debates were formatted to longer answers, and a freer format; which allowed substantive discussion. Even though the Democrats have had 20 debates, they’ve all been formatted in a way that the candidates are just repeating the same stump phrases and slogans and soundbites; until there’s some change in the dynamic of the election, and they come up with new soundbites. Nothing is ever said in the debates that we haven’t heard before; they’re just testing the candidates "performance" to see if they can phrase things in a way that sounds ‘Presidential’ and racks up debate-points for their performances. That Russert has to work with that is not his fault. If you want more substantive debates, we need to change the format to be more meaningful.
I wonder how they will react to today’s news. A supporter of Sen. Clinton is quoted as saying "The problem with Obama is that he’s black." And Clinton, when challenged by a reporter, refused to either reject or denounce that bit of racism.
So, continue to complain about Sen. Obama being asked the question? Or switch to pointing up Clinton’s failure to reject racism in her supporters? Hard choice? Nah, pretty easy.