Blog Nightline
19 May 2008 8:57 pm by Taylor Marsh
Guest post by Grey
Anglachel writes about unity and makes the only point that matters:
Unity is not obedience or falling into line. It is being able to strongly and persuasively present yourself and your objectives and be victorious, but do so in a way that does not demand the humiliation, denegration [sic] or destruction of your opponents. It is to treat others as valued colleagues to be won over, not as enemies to be obliterated.
Yes. One candidate has campaigned this way, never faulting those who vote for her opponent, never denigrating their choices, never taking a single vote for granted and never once suggesting they would all fall in line and vote for her once the dust settled. Instead, Sen. Clinton has opted to take the media to task for their aberrant, presumptuous, hostile coverage, and rightfully so. Who’s the unifier again?
Big Tent Democrat praises Michelle Obama because, when asked about whether Sen. Clinton might join her husband’s ticket as Vice President, she said this:
“I think the world of Hillary Clinton. Particularly, as a woman, having watched her go through a lot of what I might be going through, and doing it with a level of grace, and raising a phenomenal daughter, which I have two girls. And I know how hard just in the little bit of exposure I’ve had to this what she’s had to deal with, and what she’s accomplished. So that being said, you know, there is no way that I would say absolutely no to one of the most successful and powerful and groundbreaking women on this planet. What I have said is that I think one of the things that the nominee has earned is the right to pick the vice president that they think will suit them. I think this should be Barack’s say, through and through.”
I agree with her position on the nominee having earned the right to select whomever he or she wants as Vice President, but BTD seems to think that the earlier portion of Michelle’s comments are worthy of praise. Taken alone, they may very well be. However, Mrs. Obama was asked about Sen. Clinton on February 4th, again for a segment shown on Good Morning America, and her take then was rather different:
Robin Roberts: So what if Senator Clinton defeats her husband, becoming the first woman nominee. Could you see yourself working to support the first woman nomination? Michelle Obama: I’d have to think about that. I’d have to think about that, her policies, her approach, her tone.
Robin Roberts: That’s not a given?
Michelle Obama: You know, everyone in this party is going to work hard for whoever the nominee is. I think that we’re all working for the same thing. and, you know, I think our goal is to make sure that the person in the White House is going to take this country in a different direction. I happen to believe that Barack is the only person who can really do that.
Mrs. Obama’s opinion of Sen. Clinton isn’t quite so gracious when it’s in context, is it? It’s easy to be magnanimous when things are looking up, but that’s not when one takes the measure of a person. Rather than commending Michelle’s late burst of faint praise, we should recognize it for what it is: a rather blatent attempt to pacify Clinton’s base should she not win the nomination. Some will fall for it, others will pass.
Andrew Sullivan thinks Obama should declare victory tomorrow night because “[t]he Clintons will never go quietly or gracefully:”
I know the dangers of provoking the wave of victimhood that Clinton will invoke if anyone dares to point out that she has lost. But at some point the sheer classless, graceless sore-loser tackiness of the couple requires an end to the enabling. Obama, one fears, is too much of a gentleman. You can’t always maintain class with people who have none.
Oh, the hilarity. So, Obama should go ahead and declare victory because he will have a majority of the elected delegates available even though that count does not take into consideration Florida and Michigan? A person with grace and class would surely wait until at least May 31, when the Rules and Bylaws Committee will let everyone know what the actual count should be. Yes, how terribly “classless” and “graceless” of Sen. Clinton to want her supporters to have a chance to vote for her. The reality is that neither she nor Senator Obama has enough total delegates to declare anything and that, in fact, having enough elected delegates is not a signal to the superdelegates to move en masse. That’s not what the rules say, is it? No. The rules say something else entirely, and Sen. Clinton is entitled to play by them without being excoriated by the likes of Andrew Sullivan, despite the alacrity and relentlessness with which he fashions himself moral arbiter of public behavior.
David Kurtz, Jake Tapper and Ben Smith covered Obama’s “lay off my wife” interview with ABC’s Good Morning America today. Sen. Obama was asked about this Tennessee GOP video, which mocks Michelle Obama for something she said while campaigning in Wisconsin last February: “For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country.” Sen. Obama responded this way:
“The GOP, should I be the nominee, can say whatever they want to say about me, my track record. If they think that they’re going to try to make Michelle an issue in this campaign, they should be careful because that I find unacceptable, the notion that you start attacking my wife or my family.” [...]
“These folks should lay off my wife.” “Michelle loves this country. For them to try to distort or to play snippets of her remarks in ways that are unflattering to her is, I think, just low class. I think that most of the American people would think that as well.”
Get off that Unity Pony Unicorn of Hopium, why don’t you? First, spouses are always an issue in the campaign and you don’t get an exemption. Second, where was all this outrage when your campaign was making an issue out of Bill Clinton? In fact, you did a lot of the mud-slinging: what’s with the double-standard, Precious? Third, what Michelle said is unacceptable in any context and her remarks were not twisted in any way. If they make you uncomfortable, take it up with her. Fourth, should you decide to build a case of sexism – and understanding your campaign’s cynicism as well as I do, I will not be surprised when it happens – I will point to your behavior during this entire campaign as “low class.” When it came time to speak up and speak out about the way Sen. Clinton was being treated (still is, as a matter of fact), your word fog suddenly cleared and you had not one thing to say. I don’t share your outrage and I don’t feel your pain, Barry, especially since this is a wholly contrived controversy: the shame is all yours.
