A house divided against itself cannot stand, especially in the face of a unified enemy. The narrative unfolding in Washington, which is backed by some statistics, is that the Democratic coalition is coming apart and suffering from demoralization. Here’s a sample of headlines from today’s newspapers.
Liberals warn Obama that base may skip midterm elections
Midterm backlash may await Speaker Pelosi over Afghanistan troop surge
As U.S. Expands Role Overseas, Survey Finds Isolationism on the Rise
The performance of Republicans in Washington so far this year has been bizarre, obstructive, dishonest, relentlessly negative, and strangely effective. While a fundraising advantage hasn’t materialized for the GOP, they have beaten the Democrats severely in the candidate recruitment department. Their surprising unity of opposition and stubborn willingness to use procedure to slow legislative progress has forced a lot of compromise and led to frustration among the Democratic base.
None of this has made congressional Republicans or their leaders popular. They are about as unpopular as it is possible to be. In the latest Research 2000 weekly tracking poll, we see the following approve/disapprove ratings.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell 15/68
House Minority Leader John Boehner 13/66
Congressional Republicans 14/70
Republican Party 24/66
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid 31/59
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi 41/51
Congressional Democrats 41/54
Democratic Party 43/52
Granted that some other pollsters (particularly the consistent outlier, Rasmussen) find narrower results, it’s clear that the Republicans are not making themselves popular with their tactics. But they are satisfying the desires of their base while causing consternation among Democrats who want to see more legislation passed on more Democratic terms. The result is easily seen here:
A new poll commissioned by Daily Kos, a prominent liberal blog, found that the Democratic base has lost a lot of enthusiasm since the 2008 election.
The survey by Research 2000 found that only 56 percent of Democratic respondents said they would definitely or probably vote in the 2010 congressional elections, compared to 40 percent who said they would definitely or likely not vote. Republican voters were much more enthusiastic by comparison, posting an 81 percent to 14 percent split.
Republican obstruction and united opposition has delayed appointments, prevented the closure of Guantanamo, intimidated Obama into backing down on some promises related to transparency and disclosure of classified information, slowed and weakened the passage of health care, and forced several items to be pushed off to next year. In refusing to offer any bipartisan cover for the most controversial legislation, the Republicans have made Democratic centrists nervous and uncooperative in many areas.
Because the Republicans are pursuing a wholly negative and rejectionist strategy, they would be setting themselves up for a disaster at the polls if next year were a presidential year with high turnout. But next year is a midterm election, where turnout is typically low and outcomes are decided by the relative strength of the party bases more than by the battle to win over independent voters. Their success at recruitment is important because the Democrats have come close to maxing out how many seats they can realistically win. That the Democrats are still more popular than the Republicans is deceptive because to maintain such large majorities, the Democrats have to be much more popular. The Democrats can win many more votes in the midterms and still lose quite a lot of seats.
It’s somewhat sickening to realize that this crazy death panel teabagging craziness is actually working, but it is. And the only way to combat it is to pass more legislation on more Democratic terms. As a matter of survival, the Senate Democrats should consider modifying the Senate rules in order to pass more legislation, make more appointments, and show some results to the Democratic base.
At present, they are being divided and their troops demoralized. The decision to escalate in Afghanistan just made the problem much worse.
A return to Republican control of congress, when the Republican party has become so much more extreme, is a terrifying prospect. Things do look grim. You expect a waning of enthusiasm along with some disillusionment in a party whenever they gain control; given the current recession and everything we’ve been talking about, it’s likely to be worse.
Purely from an electoral perspective, the most important thing Democrats could be doing is getting another stimulus through in the form of a job’s bill. The war matters a lot to politically active progressives, but bread and butter issues are going to matter to the electorate at large. Employment still above 10% should be like a 5 alarm fire; but most Democrats in the congress aren’t treating it like that.
“It’s somewhat sickening to realize that this crazy death panel teabagging craziness is actually working, but it is.”
are you serious?
it is not the republicans that are dividing democrats. It is the democrats themselves.
look, I was willing to accept the whole “make it look like we’re bending over backwards to include the GOP so we can rope-a-dope them” strategy, but what the hell has it gotten democrats other than watered down legislation? Do these people have any sense of the optics when they come out and say that they don’t support health care reform while shoveling money at wall street and wars? Oh and we simply MUST get Olympia Snowe on board, no matter what her ridiculous demands. Gee, do we REALLY want to fulfill a promise we’ve been makign for 50 years? Hey let’s let Bart Stupak hold women’s rights hostage. In short, the democrats have gone out of their way, in the most public fashion possible, to pull a Darth Vader special:
“In refusing to offer any bipartisan cover for the most controversial legislation, the Republicans have made Democratic centrists nervous and uncooperative in many areas.”
This is just making excuses for the democrats’ failure of leadership and failure to keep their promises.
“As a matter of survival, the Senate Democrats should consider modifying the Senate rules in order to pass more legislation, make more appointments, and show some results to the Democratic base.”
And yeah, Afghanistan just made that a shitload worse.
You can lay blame on certain Democrats, certainly. But let’s say that the Republicans had been disorganized and lacked unity. If we were consistently picking up support from Snowe, Collins, Voinovich, and others on a case by base basis, then we wouldn’t be seeing this level of skittishness from centrist Dems. So, the GOP’s strategy is responsible for some of the disunity in the Dem caucus.
Everyone is responsible for their own actions (your point) but you can still lead a horse to water (mine),
“But let’s say that the Republicans had been disorganized and lacked unity.”
You know how you address an organized minority opposition?
WITH AN ORGANIZED RESPONSE.
Instead we get bullshit like this:
let me translate that: “hey america, thanks for the votes, now go fuck yourselves.”
THAT is but one example of why Democrats are demoralized. They are seeing the fruits of their 2008 votes turn out to be shit. It is not because of a bunch of hysterical fruitcakes carrying signs saying “health care = dachau”
Is it anyone’s fault that besides his own that Ben Nelson votes the way he does? Does he vote the way he does because no one has hooked his genitals up to electrodes?
I mean, Ben Nelson just voted against the Mikulski amendment to eliminate co-pays and deductibles for preventative care for women. The amendment passed with 61 votes. The dude is a paternalistic conservative.
But it didn’t matter on this vote because the GOP lacked the unity to defeat it.
“But it didn’t matter on this vote because the GOP lacked the unity to defeat it. “
the inability of the GOP to defeat this measure or that seems to me to be a different topic.
i think we are seeing two different things: you are seeing unified republican minority slowing down a democratic majority, and saying that that unified opposition is what’s dragging the democrats down.
I am seeing a democratic majority that is only too willing to let the GOP have its say and its way, when they could be steamrolling them much the way the GOP steamrolled the Democrats in years past, and I am saying that that refusal to counter that opposition and smack it down, as well as a tendency to go out and say effectively “I’m on the GOP’s side”, is what is dragging the democrats down.
in short, they look like they are too willing to let the status quo continue, and when people are suffering that’s a recipe for losses.
We Do agree on one point though: “the Senate Democrats should consider modifying the Senate rules in order to pass more legislation, make more appointments, and show some results to the Democratic base.”
unfortunately, that’s not going to happen.
Dude, we’re seeing delay for delay’s sake. It took 3 weeks to pass an extension of unemployment benefits, but the vote when it finally took place was 98-0.
Holds, refusal to grant unanimous consent, and filibusters and rampant. Consider this:
They are chewing up weeks of legislative days, which means we have no time to work on appointments, and we had to put off immigration reform and cap and trade until next year even though they were originally planned for this year. Almost none of this is the fault of Ben Nelson or any other Democrats.
And where are the Democrats on TV and the like talking about this? Where were the Democrats talking about the Republicans delaying the unemployment extension? I didn’t hear any. Part of the problem is that you need message discipline in today’s age .. and that will never happen with Democrats … but even so .. are you saying that Harry Reid is being bested in procedural matters by the Republicans? Why? Reid’s up for re-election for Pete’s sake … doesn’t he realize that this could come back to bit him in the ass? He obviously realizes he’s in deep shit .. since he’s already running commercials … so change the Senate rules!! … and so what if Versailles whines … it’s what those assholes do!! … people won’t care as long as things are being done to improve their lives
the current gridlock can be summed up by the fact that
(1)the party in power is a typical ideologically and geographically broad party that one would expect to see in our presidentialist/first-past-the-post/winner take all electoral institutions.
(2) Such a party in power is trying to move legislation through a set of legislative institutons that were deliberately constructed to produce gridlock the nature of which only consensus can be used to overcome.
(3)the opposition party has internally reorganized and reinvented itself as a parliamentary style party with top-down discipline.
(4)its relatively easy for a parliamentary style opposition party to completely sabotage any plans of electoral success of the party in power under our current legislative institutions.
So I get to the same place you do. the dems need to rewrite the rules or start handing over those plum majority sized offices right now.
Do you mean judicial appointments? Obama’s not appointing the right judges in any case.
Empathic technocrats are not what we need. We need young liberals who had 1) largely managed to hide their ideology as the righties do 2) once ensconced are will to ram the right decisions down the throat of the reactionary judiciary until they choke on it or change.
In general though I agree. Obama did the wrong thing in jumping in front of the bankers and protecting Joe Lieberman but even if he’d lost his chairs and such, he’d still hate the blogosphere’s guts. He’s doing it to get revenge on us, and that’s the long and short of it.
The other might not have taken things so personally but there’s not a whole lot Obama can do other than suggest that the Democrats become more parliamentary.
I’ve enjoyed this back-and-forth between you and Booman. You’ve made some very good points.
Part of the problem—which infects both politics and this debate about it—is a semantic issue which has profound consequences. Many Democrats, too many, though not all of them of course, have believed and continue to believe that Barack 0bama can be fairly and objectively described as ‘a liberal’ and from that spring all sorts of expectations from many self-described liberals; those expectations are being consistently disappointed as much because of the fact that B. Obama simply isn’t what many self-described liberals have believed him to be. Unfortunately, it’s necessary to continually qualify the term “liberal”, even, as here, putting it between quotation marks. This is because, like so much about contemporary politics (everywhere, not just in the U.S.) has become so vague as to be almost impossible to define, discern, or describe. Just what is a “liberal” today? For me, a huge part of the problem is that there is simply no longer any useful consensus on that matter—nor much of any left among Republicans and self-described conservatives, either, for that matter, as they too are coming under the influences of this generalized vagueness although at this point they continue to present rather effective opposition to the Congressional Democrats. That’s largely due to the fact that the Senate is an institution which is beholding to minorities of one for the ability to move anything forward. Repeated comments here calling for reform of procedural rules testify to that.
I find it fascinating that the same sort of phenomenon is operating on both a domestic-policy front and on a foreign-policy. In domestic affairs, the government and people of the U.S. seem determined to do anything rather than to recognize and take seriously into account the fact that the U.S. political system has now reached the point of “broken and unworkable” and must, in order for any useful change to come, be reformed fundamentally. Alas, there is nothing to suggest that the people or, even less, their “representatives”, the political office-holders, are up to that task.
On the foreign-policy front, the phenomenon presents itself as a similarly stubborn refusal but in a different aspect: in the conduct of foreign policy, the people and government of the U.S. seem determined to do anything rather than recognize that they have consistently betrayed the principle of just and fair and democratic practice and consistently done this in favor of advancing policies which are rooted in arrogance, selfishness and based on a now flagrantly-apparent claim to exceptionalism for themselves vis-à-vis the rest of the world. In this, most or all of the traditional western European governments follow and lend support, tacit or explicit, to the U.S.
Come on, Boo!! Does Blanche Lincoln still want to be Ag Chair come 2011? Or, since she’s a DINO, does she get whatever she wants regardless on who is the chair is? Why take the blame off the Democrats? They have 60 votes in the Senate. I’ll lay the blame solely where it belongs. With Obama and Rahm Emanuel. Why is Emanuel trying to primary Donna Edwards? We all know he is behind that. They are the ones responsible for the divisions among Democrats. Why they think it is more important to suck up to “Bobo” Brooks and “Dean” Broder than it is to the base I don’t know. Broder and Brooks never vote Democratic. They have to get their base excited. How are they going to do that? By passing good health care!! By reigning in the TBTF banks!! Where is Axelrod? he’s a political advisor, right? WTF is he doing then? Where is his advice telling them all this? Or do they not care? I can accept Afghanistan because he did exactly was he said he was going to do on the campaign trail. Have they accomplished a lot? Sure. Sadly, it’s not the kind of easily condensed campaign slogans. And what they need are the big ones that can be easily condensed campaign slogans.
got any source for this Donna Edwards/Rahm Emanuel conspiracy theory?
Howie Klein has been all over it … check his Twitter feed … and i’ll see if I can dig up the links
I found it:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/02/AR2009120204063.html
I know that she has a primary challenger. Where do you get the idea that Rahm Emanuel is behind it? From Howie? Anything else?
Didn’t Rahm threaten anyone who voted against the war funds authorization earlier this year? And why would “establishment” players try and primary a sitting Congresswomen? I put two and two together, that’s how I figure Rahm was behind it
AIPAC has been wanting to challenge Donna Edwards. Not everything is about Obama or Emmanuel/
So where is Ivey going to get his funds from? We know that the WH is not above threatening to cut off funds from Democratic groups or candidates(like challengers to Gillibrand)
The DCCC protects incumbents, period.
Ivey will get his money from the pro-Gaza invasion crowd.
“Why they think it is more important to suck up to “Bobo” Brooks and “Dean” Broder than it is to the base I don’t know.”
One thing it tells us is that there is something severely deficient about the base. Or at least we’re mischaracterizing what it consists of. We’re the one who are supposed to be making them do it. I think that’s what we need to be discussing.
If the teabagger crazies are able to make Dems “skittish”, they really are not worth bothering with. Republicans are behaving like they always do. Waxing nostalgic for how it was 30 years ago is useless, and arguing as if we should still expect it it be that way is just wrong.
These Dems are not “centrists”, they’re stupid, weak, and corrupt. If there were such a thing as a centrist, they would be acting out of some kind of conviction. It is impossible to define any principle or conviction motivating the behavior of the Dems you name and the rest of their kind. The real problem is that Dems have been screwing up like crazy for decades and been saved by GOP greater stupidity. That can’t go on forever, but like the Wall Street scammers, it’s hard for them to face up to the idea that they actually have to do something to earn their privileges or the luck will run out.
the key here is that the key variable is the GOP’s mutation into a parliamentary, top down style party. Nelson has been consistently conservative his whole career and there’s really nothing too surprising about the positions he’s taking. Nelson’s tragic flaw is not his conservatism or his obstruction, but his inability to realize that the opposition party has evolved and the rules of the “legislative game” have changed. He’s like a spoiled child picking up the ball with his hands during a gym class soccer game because yesterday he was having so much fun playing kick ball. As party leader, its Obama’s job to make sure everyone on his team understands what’s going on and adapt accordingly. I’m not sure whether OBama himself is clueless, whether he knows himself and is choosing not to act, or whether he knows himself and is still biding his time (or working the angles behind closed doors in a way the Versailles press hasn’t picked up on yet).
No Kidding:
Right wing Democratic party politicians are doing this all on their own. They can either choose to enact the Democratic party legislative agenda or they can choose to be part of a Republican super minority.
It is pretty clear what they have chosen to do without any help from the GOP.
And it isn’t crazy teabaggrrrrs or the GOP causing the problems. Nothing they are doing is “working”.
It is all the making of Conservadems. And all of the Dems will pay the price for letting the Liebermans, Nelsons and etc. of their own caucus do what they do.
when it comes to procedural delay, this is simply false. The Republicans have denied unanimous consent more in this Congress than in any point in history.
The GOP approach is not working; rather, the Dems are doing their usual job of eating their own.
We’d be in the same place if the GOP had been entirely silent the last 9 months.
Simply put, I agree.
That’s what Democrats do best. Piss on their own tents.
link
That’s rich coming from a backstabbing corporate whore
Nationally, there may be disorder in the base but in some of the most Republican of districts in the South, Democrats are beginning to flex their muscles. As you know, Charlotte NC has its first Democratic mayor since Sue Myrick beat Harvey Gantt by 1800 votes in 1987.
The meltdown of Gov. Mark Sanford has brought three strong Democrats into the governors race among a field of five Democrats.
And in NC-05, Virginia Foxx’s district, a Democratic committeeman and radio talkshow host is the beneficiary of a draft-him campaign.
And it’s a long way to next November. And it is unclear how long the Republicans can sustain the party discipline they have shown thus far. At some point the dam on legislation breaks in the Democrats’ favor.
And public opinion on issues is definitely flying against the Villagers’ conventional wisdom.
But yes, the Democrats in Congress definitely need a wakeup call. That could come from some specific-issue alliances between the populist left and the populist right, such as on the Fed audit.
That’s a depressing lay of the land to read this morning!
OT, I find it not too surprising that there’s not one diary on DKos or a headliner splashed across HuffPo today regarding the big news last night and today that BofA is going to repay their 45 billion in TARP funds in the NEXT FEW DAYS.
I probably read no less than 100 DKos diaries and months worth of screaming headlines on HuffPo – all about “bailing out Wall Street” and all the misplaced anger when the markets were crashing late last year/early this year. It was rather annoying when these folks didn’t understand the necessity for this at the time nor the fact that it could be repaid within a year.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/34245067
http://bonddad.blogspot.com/2009/12/beige-book-sees-improvement.html
Why aren’t our elected Democrats out there talking up how good these things are UNDER THEIR WATCH?? Oh wait, then they wouldn’t be able to bitch about Obama having Summers and Geithner on his team. I can only IMAGINE how the Republicans would be on the airwaves ad nauseum if the reverse was true. A Democrat had run the country into the ground and the Republicans had corrected it.
As I see it, the Obama political strategy was to appear “reasonable” to the middle, while passing some key progressive legislation (e..g. health care) to please the base.
But the first part of the strategy founders if the economy sucks. Most people in the middle don’t really follow politics. If there are no jobs, they are going to vote against the incumbent, which right now means voting against democrats.
And the second part of the strategy founders on the current antidemocratic rules of the Senate. Really, we can complain about Dems all we want, and we should, but the fact is that health care passed the house, and has the support of about 55-56 democratic senators. That’s actually pretty good unity.
I agree that we should modify the Senate rules. Not just because they are obstructing our goals now, but because I don’t think it is possible for this country to ever address any of its problems with such an antidemocratic system. The endgame of this process is presidential dictatorship, because it will be the only way to get anything done. The same thing happened in ancient Rome.
I’ve been waiting for the left to wake up. The biggest mistake Democrats always make is to assume that logic and reason and the ‘best case’ will win out. It will not! Illogic and appeals to base emotion always prevail.
That’s why we should have at least pushed for ELECTION REFORM this season, because we could well lose our majorities and never have another chance.
The lack of Dem interest in real electoral reform is the very heart of their problems, but nobody wants to talk about it. The inability of incumbents to lessen their advantages for the sake of the greater good is what ultimately destroys nations. Which is why Jefferson said, God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion.
First party to adopt an ardently anti-Wall Street populism wins.
The institutional barriers against that happening are so immense that the vacuum goes unfilled. I’m not sure there’s ever been anything quite like it in our history before.
as usual Booman, you’re on target. Hard to say it better than this:
>>the only way to combat it is to pass more legislation on more Democratic terms… make more appointments, and show some results to the Democratic base.
The Dems HAVE to finally accomplish something instead of just continuing to run on a platform of “the other guys would be worse”.
>>The decision to escalate in Afghanistan just made the problem much worse.
Obama seems to be choosing, willingly, to play the role of LBJ in ’65. Can he do this and avoid the result of LBJ in ’68?
Like Carter, Obama came in with a lot of enthusiasm amidst a “throw the bums out” type of wave. Carter was pragmatic and had a lot of good ideas. but like Obama, Carter faced a mutation in the tactics and nature of the conservatives that he wasn’t prepared to fight. Obama and Carter each carried with them certain assumptions about how the other side would act and certain rules and norms they would follow that proved tremendously naive. The mutations were different(under Carter it was the ability of the GOP and the christian right to begin to work together strategically and tactically, rather than just as party and interest group, as well as the rise of right wing media; under Obama, the mutation is the transformation of the GOP into a parliamentary-style party with top-down discipline), but the effect is the same: conservatives are able to hold the line against real progressive change.
perhaps – and, the other parallel to Carter that you left out is that division inside the party did a lot to cause his problems, and a Democratic-majority Congress refused to pass his legislation. The conservatives preventing change include too many inside the Democratic party.
This is bullshit. We have known the republicans are a parliamentary party since 9/11.
Great post- hope this gets some attention by Obama’s political team or at least approximates their views on things. I think the decisive moment when the paradigm of politics in this country shifted and the GOP’s tactical decision to use every rule and informal norm available to prevent Obama from any legislative success became clear was Judd Gregg’s decision not to go to Commerce. Gregg, as evidenced by his recent memo and his long history in the senate, is one of the key lieutenants in the GOP mafia, he’s smart and loyal, knows all the rules, where the bodies are buried and can turn the screws on his fellow party members. He turned down a great cabinet post (great for him individually) in order to be one of the leaders of his parties obstructionist tacticts. Under the old rules of the game, he would have gone to Commerce and Obama’s gambit to soften the legislative territory would have worked. I think that’s the moment everything changed and really took the Obama administration by surprise.
Now Obama has to make some hard decisions in the next month or so on his domestic agendaand he has 2 options: (1) take the clinton triangulation govern from the center route or (2) take a risk and stare down the obstructionists in his own party and use the bully pulpit to fight against the GOP. If he does the latter, he risks his own reelection (could be Jimmy Carter!) but still has the chance to be a transformation president (which given his Afghanistan policy, he’s looking at an LBJ, not an FDR). At this point, I think its 60/40 he decides to lay up and take the Clinton route- guys like Rahm and Summers are incredibly persuasive and every indiciation is that Obama trusts their counsel considerably.
Obama is a crude disappointment to all but the most cynical “Liberal” who still sees Obama as some sort of Great Hope. Obama has turned out to be the most lily-livered, yellow-tailed chump that the WH has ever had to disgrace its doorstep. He compromises (read: sells out) on everything. There isn’t a principle that he holds that he won’t shirk at the drop of a short-term political opportune dime. We still don’t know anything about what Obama truly believes outside of his well-known Reagan worship. He is always out there bowing and scraping to woo “the opposition” while kicking sand into the eyes of his supporters because he sees this as the way Washington works. He is right in the short term, but I fear that he will get a SHOCK during midterms when his party is completely washed out and Obama is a lame duck only two years into his miserable, unaccomplished presidency. He still hasn’t done anything worthwhile. He was bestowed with a Nobel Peace Prize on the eve of escalating a War for Profit. His healthcare bill is so watered down and “compromised” that it’s unrecognizable. His stimulus package was sold out with 40% Republican tax cuts to accommodate 3 Republican Senate votes.
That Shufflin’ Huckster has got to go and allow a Real Republican take his place. I am so ashamed of that Coward in the WH that I could spit.
Delonjo, don’t you find “Shufflin’ Huckster” a wee bit racist? I mean, that was your point, right? To show that racists dislike Obama? Because most people here already knew that.
looks like delonjo thought this was redstate. or something.
Which should give us pause, maybe.
the infestation here is getting worse and the orange place is completely out of control.
maybe the comment was created with some kind of comment-creating software. librul cynics who subscribe to hope strikes me as paradoxical
RE: “Delonjo, don’t you find “Shufflin’ Huckster” a wee bit racist? I mean, that was your point, right?”
Suppose “Delonjo” is Black—did that possibility occur to you? Your comment as I read it seems to assume that he or she is White . How and why do you know or assume that about him or her? Is it that you assume that no Black person would or could ever refer to Obama as a “Shufflin’ Huckster”? As I recall, some Black Americans referred to a Black political figure as a “house negro”, didn’t they? Amazing things are possible.
Or is it that you assume that no black person could be racist? You contradict your own assertion.
One: I am black.
Two: Black people cannot be racist but we can be bigoted. Black people being “racist” against whites would somehow mean that black people somehow have systems that could possibly keep whites down or dispossess them, which we don’t. There will never be a White Jim Crow or any way for blacks to truly threaten white privilege, which is what the word “racism” means in its purist form.
3. Obama is a con artist. A smooth-talking, educated, urbane, witty figure who still has no principles other than rabid self-interest.
It’s always interesting when anyone believes that I must be a white conservative Republican when I criticize Obama. But what could be more “racist” than someone believing that one black man couldn’t possibly do anything other than glorify Obama? I guess that’s what we’re all supposed to do, right?
Don’t know where you’re from, but in Chicago, at least, black people are acutely aware that there’s such a thing as racist black cops, for example.
“Or is it that you assume that no black person could be racist? You contradict your own assertion.”
Well, first of all, if we can take Delongo at his word, he’s a Black person–which just confirms my point but your comment ignores it. Second, no one else other than Delongo himself (who confirmed my point), yourself included, bothered to answer in any direct way to the point I’d made.
Instead, you offer this nonsense:
“Or is it that you assume that no black person could be racist? You contradict your own assertion. “
Unlike Delongo, I don’t agree that Blacks lack any of the essential requirements for exhibiting racism; my view is that, as human beings, they share all the faults and frailties, including that of racist beliefs. I don’t agree that some sort of social or other dominance on one part is necessary before people within any particular definable group can behave in a racist manner.
But your reply seems to assume that I do. It’s more of your rubbish. There is nothing contradictory in my view or claims. You simply are stuck in your determination to make Delongo’s comment “Shufflin’ Huckster” by definition. But anyone else who’s not so blinkered can recognize what you cannot: that I make no such assumption about Blacks at all. Nor is there any good reason to suppose that the comment couldn’t have had any other motive than a racist one. Apparently, just because many “liberals” consider themselves able to spot racism in words and deeds, they feel that virtually everything and anything they label as racist simply has to be such.
For me, that shows amazing arrogance and lack of basic intellectual modesty on the part of such people. You made huge assumptions about Delongo, a person about whom, clearly, you actually know next-to-nothing.
I guess I should have said “Dithering Huckster.” What difference would it really have made? What many people see as Obama’s “dispassionate analysis,” I see as him just lying back and just allowing whatever to happen to happen, so long as he has got his pension and celebrity status. I see him as “Bush the Lesser.”