Blog Nightline
22 May 2008 8:35 pm by Taylor Marsh
Guest post by Grey
Via The Buzz, word that Bill Daley and Donna Brazille don’t like that Sen. Clinton is comparing Florida 2008 to Florida 2000:
“That’s ludicrous,” former Gore campaign chairman Bill Daley told Buzz Thursday. “This isn’t like we woke up the day of the election and there are total screw-ups. Everybody knew the rules all along.” [...]
Gore campaign manager Donna Brazille, ostensibly neutral and a key member of the panel that stripped Florida of its delegates, also dismissed the 2000 analogy: “It was an unfair comparison given the history of the recount and the politics of state officials who openly defied party rules.”
Quick: name two things that Daley and Brazille have in common!
Al Giordano is peddling a rumor that “Senator Clinton has directly told Senator Obama that she wants to be his vice presidential nominee, and that Senator Obama politely but straightforwardly and irrevocably said ‘no.’” It’s juicy and irresistible to Markos, but even more so to Aravosis:
As I’ve written repeatedly, there’s a certain illogic to Hillary’s actions of late, and something is missing from the story – something that would explain what she’s doing and why. An irrational, emotional response to not getting the vice presidency is certainly one theory that explains her childish and destructive behavior. It’s a temper tantrum. And it’s destroying her family name and legacy.
You’ll have to excuse John’s temper tantrum; after all, he’s having an irrational, emotional, childish fit because he’s worried about Clinton’s “family name and legacy.” There, there.
Andrew Sullivan on Judgment Day:
Judgment Day was a long time ago. If I were forced to predict, I’d say she’s taking it to Denver. Yes, they’re that psycho.
“She” and “they.” Really? Not even going to pretend you’re never really just talking about Hillary, are you? Principles matter, and when actions are directed by and predicated upon principles, the hysterical insults hurled by cretins are a tribute. Voting is a civil right, and if you think rules should stand in the way of a legally cast vote, then that’s your lot. I know you don’t think “the Clintons” have any principles, which means that the civil rights argument is probably an affront to your own sense of morality, so let’s just hash it out in political terms: She has every right, every right, to carry her political battle as far as she wants. That’s politics, and all the players get to have a go at it, not just those you like. So sorry if that ruins your mood (but not really).
John Judis writes a post-mortem, but that’s not why he makes the Nightline. This is:
Obama, too, was, and is, history–the first viable African-American presidential candidate. Yes, Hillary Clinton was the first viable female candidate, but it is still different.
That line encapsulates everything that’s wrong with the Oppression Olympics. It’s not enough that both are historical candidacies? Do we really need to try and determine which one is more of a “breakthrough” based on our pathetic history with both racism and sexism? Can we do no better than this premise, that Obama’s run is more historic because all Presidents have been white, but Clinton’s is more historic because all Presidents have been men? That’s where we are, and it’s an astonishingly reductive and torpid argument. It’s lazy, it’s intellectually dishonest, to quantify which win is more determinative of our evolution because it’s impossible to do so without, as Judis does above, shoving the other -ism aside, even if only reflexively.
“But it is still different.” Why, because sexism is not as vicious? Not as corrosive? Not as pervasive? Less historically made of unequivocal and crashing failure? Bull. What will Judis and others like him argue next, that electing either Clinton or Obama will be proof that we’ve moved on and are, finally, a decent and respectable society? This is colossal lunacy. Neither Clinton nor Obama is running to dispense collective redemption or as a measure of our triumph over prejudice. Let them be candidates.
