The Problem With Obama

Since Obama’s coro­na­tion and McCain’s bold selec­tion of Gov­er­nor Sarah Palin as his VP choice we’ve seen worse and more bla­tant misog­y­nism than ever thrown at Clin­ton dur­ing the pri­mary. Obama’s cult fol­low­ing, nut­roots gangs, and media have sav­aged Palin and her fam­ily with deroga­tory, sex­ist, and vicious rants that have no place in any pub­lic or pri­vate con­ver­sa­tion, much less as part of the polit­i­cal elec­tion debate. Through­out this orgy of hate, not one word from Clin­ton. Not once did she voice protest or urge calm. She sat this out.

Now I sup­port Clin­ton and did so, respect­fully, dur­ing the pri­maries. I suf­fered deroga­tory and racist rants from the nut­roots gangs, received the hate mail, and endured attacks on my blogs just like every other Clin­ton sup­porter. I ended the cam­paign set to pick up Clinton’s ban­ner again after Novem­ber and espe­cially in 2012. As pre­vi­ously promised, I have now put my sup­port behind McCain. No to Obama is no to Obama.

I’ve got to be very hon­est and say today that I am very trou­bled by Clinton’s out-​of-​sight inac­tion on the Demo­c­ra­tic attacks against Gov­er­nor Palin.

Make no mis­take, these are Demo­c­ra­tic attacks. I real­ize that Clin­ton wants to be the party loy­al­ist but is she not an Amer­i­can first?

Weren’t her words and actions through­out her career and dur­ing the cam­paign real? That she hasn’t directly spo­ken out reflects poorly on her and her legacy. I increas­ingly won­der if every­thing she said was, like Obama, ‘just words”? Pol­i­tics are rough and tum­ble but there are lim­its, there are words and actions that are inap­pro­pri­ate. Clin­ton should know first hand how hate­ful and how dam­ag­ing the hate is. Yet, she says noth­ing, does noth­ing. Obama has only spo­ken on the mat­ter once.

If Clin­ton does not say any­thing, if she con­tin­ues to ignore the hate and thereby pro­vide her accep­tance and bless­ing to what Obama and his cult, nut­roots gangs, and media fol­low­ing have and are doing, then she will lose my respect. I can­not sup­port and respect some­one who will not stand tall on sim­ple mat­ters of right and wrong. The hate spewed by Democ­rats is wrong and Clin­ton should know this. To not only sit this out, but to go out cam­paign­ing for the can­di­date most respon­si­ble for it is equally wrong.

This is Clinton’s 3 a.m. moment in pol­i­tics and as a polit­i­cal leader. What she does or does not do will for­ever mark her.

Update, Sep­tem­ber 7, 2008, My above post was pub­lished in NoQuar­terUSA, a follow-​on post, below, was pub­lished Mon­day morning:

I wrote a seri­ous post yes­ter­day ask­ing where Clin­ton was (See Where is Clin­ton?). This was not to crit­i­cize her but to chal­lenge that she is now faced with her 3 a.m. call and how she responds will mark her legacy and also deter­mine her future role in the party and as an elected leader. As SJ writes, “a lot of us will be wait­ing and watch­ing.” Even though the orig­i­nal post is now stale in our 24×7 Inter­net age, the mat­ter is far from resolved and Clinton’s moment to respond remains very open, needed, and timely.

Polit­i­cal Cor­rect­ness (PC) neutered every­one such that Obama and his fol­low­ers could run amok. Peo­ple in the Demo­c­ra­tic Party were con­di­tioned to avoid say­ing or doing any­thing that might offend some­one. Hope­fully that is a les­son learned. The Repub­li­cans learned it well watch­ing Clin­ton get sav­aged in the pri­maries. When Obama tried to then play the race card on them they shoved it back in his face and now no one talks about race anymore.

Repub­li­cans are sham­ing Democ­rats on sex­ism and Obama’s misog­y­nism. The party, at least Obama, his cult fol­low­ing, nut­roots gangs, and ador­ing media are being painted for what they are racists, sex­ist, and hate-​filled peo­ple. Unfor­tu­nately, this poi­son will last beyond Obama’s defeat in the November.

Clin­ton has faced and fought against the party’s estab­lish­ment and the hate-​filled peo­ple sup­port­ing Obama. She lost the nom­i­na­tion, in large part to their hate. She too often played nice, played polite, and played party loy­al­ist rather than call­ing hate, whether racist or sex­ist, for what it is — wrong and unac­cept­able. As her sup­port­ers we’ve been far more will­ing to chal­lenge this hate and say no. We own our votes. We’ve now walked from the party’s nom­i­nee and with a wide range of emo­tions will vote for the Repub­li­can ticket of McCain and Palin this fall, ignor­ing Obama and Biden, wish­ing and work­ing for their defeat.

Back to my ear­lier post. This is Clinton’s 3 a.m. moment vis-​à-​vis the Demo­c­ra­tic Party: go along to get along or say ‘No, this is wrong and I want no part of it.’ In my post I sug­gested that Clin­ton can­not retain her legacy and have a future in the party by becom­ing a part­ner in Obama’s cam­paign. She’s in a lose-​lose posi­tion wherein she’ll be blamed for Obama’s loss whether she helps him or not. Should he win, he’ll ignore her and toss her aside. As Dean, Brazile, and oth­ers have stated, they don’t need whites, women, lati­nos, blue col­lar work­ers, small town res­i­dents, peo­ple of reli­gion, and oth­ers in their new party — if they win, this is con­firmed and Clin­ton might as well either retire or start a new party.

The responses to my orig­i­nal post now num­ber 700 and range from agree­ment to shock and anger that the topic was even being raised. Take a moment to read through them. Note, impor­tantly, as you do that it was and is a civil dis­cus­sion, shared emo­tion, expe­ri­ence, con­cern, and hope. The few nut­roots gang or off-​thread com­ments were politely addressed. The com­mu­nity at NoQuar­terUSA is not Daily Kos, TPM, or other places where any incon­ve­nient ques­tion is met with hate­ful and foul-​mouthed response, nor where dif­fer­ences of opin­ion are not welcomed.

The responses can be orga­nized into sev­eral views and pro­posed courses for Clin­ton to follow:

• Should she be a nice girl and keep her mouth shut and cam­paign for Obama and/​or down ticket can­di­dates? (That might work for expe­di­ency but there is there future upside to this course, whether Obama wins or loses. Impor­tantly, if she says noth­ing of the hate, does this mean it is okay to use hate against another party but not within the party?)
• Should she punt and say that this is not her fight? The party rejected her and she’ll just sit out the cam­paign, thank you. (Just take a break for a few months. Return after the vote in Novem­ber to help rebuild the defeated party.)
• Should she fill the moral and lead­er­ship vac­uum and say no, this cam­paign of hate has gone on far too long, enough-​is-​enough, I want no part of it? (My pre­ferred choice as lead­er­ship requires grownup action, what­ever the cost. Right and wrong are impor­tant judg­ments that are not a mat­ters of expe­di­ency and convenience.)
• Don’t talk about it as all we do is feed the critics.

This is Clinton’s 3 a.m. moment. It is not a ques­tion of McCain or Palin (and it pained me to see some of the nut­roots trash about Palin repeated in the thread). It is sim­ply a ques­tion of what is best for the Demo­c­ra­tic Party and Clinton.

What are your thoughts on this?

Update 2, as I’ve just com­mented at NoQuarterUSA:

I am now lis­ten­ing to Hillary Clin­ton speak in Florida. As a long-​time, orig­i­nal sup­porter from the early 90s, I’ve got to say I am extremely dis­ap­pointed to hear her speak uncon­strained words of praise and sup­port for Obama. So she has opted to be brow beaten by Obama and still come out and say, he’s a great per­son, our only choice. I’m sorry, I own my vote and I refuse to for­give or forget.

This is a sad day…

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