A legitimate shame.
I *like* Brendan Loy, you see. He's a good egg.
By Moe Lane Posted in 2008 | Feet of Clay | Rooting For Injuries — Comments (3) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
So it's a shame that he's about to get his heart broken:
I just sent the following letter to the Obama campaign through their contact page:
Dear Senator Obama,
Like many Americans, I have been inspired by your message of hope and change, and by your belief that politicians should be able to "disagree without being disagreeable." Your victory speech after the Iowa caucuses gave me goose bumps -- and I am usually a jaded political junkie, not prone to such emotional reactions. But your campaign is something special, or so it has seemed to me. Thus, in the past few weeks, I've changed from a tentative Hillary Clinton supporter to a tentative Barack Obama supporter.
I am deeply concerned, however, by recent events surrounding your campaign. Media reports indicate that a number of your supporters and surrogates have suggested that recent remarks by Bill and Hillary Clinton were racially insensitive. Yet the remarks in question, while perhaps substantively wrong, had nothing whatsoever to do with race. Criticism of the Clintons' statements should be limited to the actual substance of what they said, without resort to such divisive rhetoric. I urge you to publicly disavow the cynical tactic of using race as a wedge issue, and to dissociate yourself from anyone who persists in using such tactics.
(Via Glenn)
Well, maybe not broken, but it's going to get a good whack or two to it.
Read on.
As I said, Brendan's a good guy - good blogger, too - so he gets to be immune to the usual cheerful enjoyment I display when a Democratic/progressive/Leftist blogger gets a reality check like this. He deserves better; he's just not going to get it. Senator Obama is going to let his people play the racism card against Clinton - thanks, by the way! It'll be very useful against her in the general* - and to heck with the audacity of hope. The audacity of hope didn't win him New Hampshire, after all.
Of course, the Senator probably doesn't see this in the same terms. Presuming that Obama is actually bothered by this new tactic, I expect that it would be very easy to rationalize it away as being a temporary gambit. A weapon that need only be used at need; hopefully only once, but surely no more than two or three times. Such a light transgression, really, when weighed against all the good that the Senator can accomplish as President. And does not the target truly deserve it, anyway? Does she have scruples against using any weapon to hand?
Besides, one must be prepared for the general election.
(Shrug) Politicians are politicians. I had about a paragraph of blathering following that, but it occurred to me that I could sum it all up with those three words. Unfortunately for Brendan Loy - and I really am sorry for him - he's going to have the same revelation, fairly soon.
Moe Lane
*I just said that Brendan was going to be immune.
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A legitimate shame. 3 Comments (0 topical, 3 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
I'm not sure the author of this letter has done the necessary "spade work" (the clinton's new favorite phrase in reference to obama), to draw the conclusions he does
Unfortunately, it's the reasonable moderate left (a small but existant group) like Brendan who must take up that fight. If we stand against race-baiting, it just becomes "see, even the racist Republicans are agreeing with her." Whereas if we cheer on the Hillary attack, we only legitimize the tactic for when it's inevitably used against us again.
Let's get something straight; when it comes to race, and instigating veiled comments regarding same, the Clintons know exactly what is being said, by whom, and for what purpose. Anyone thinking otherwise is a fool. They don't appreciate the fact that this young black man has made his way into the Democrat process and effectively disrupted Hillary's
"inevitable" coronation. Of course, she didn't mean her election was inevitable, but you get the drift. So Benjy baby should get his head out of the sand and redirect his letter to the true guilty parties in this nonsense, the tag team of Hill and Bill with their trusty minions in toe.