two recent Cockburn columns on Obama the Obeisant Shill

"What a slimy fellow Obama is"

"Every time I look up he's doing something disgusting"

"a symbol of everything that's been wrong with the Democratic Party for the past twenty years"

SRSLY

xpost hahaha nice try morbius but the rules i'm referring to are the unspoken rules of seniority that go with ANY JOB in the US and apply to BOTH repubs AND dems in offices all over america and in politics this goes x 20; second of all for obama to create a noble rift in the democratic party six months away from midterms elections would be suicide. some people though, some people just act like they were born to lose...

hardly

Good stuff on MoveOn's crap Big Media Buys strategery after Obama in #2, also.

or, indeed, at all!

Eisbar, I didn't know much of that about Booker, but Newark's been a cesspool of pols forever (since before I was born there!).

but that obama's flacking for lieberman (as undeniably detestable as joementum is) isn't something that i'd necessarily hold against him. file it under "paying yer dues."

xpost: it's precisely because so much is expected of obama that he has to play the game well in his early years in the senate - the freshman on the team doesn't have the prerogative to start ignoring departmental orders, ESPECIALLY when he's been anointed the golden child. and again, somehow there's this idea that obama has to be better than everyone else just to be considered as good as them.

xpost to colin: the same rules applied during kennedy's time, carter's time and clinton's time, and y'know, probably john q. adams' time, too, so i'm not sure about the causality here

get it?

"Let's wait for the real Obama once the dues are paid" reminds me of the Liberal Second-Term Clinton we were promised by the starry-eyed in '96.

"when Hillary does it"? Like when she draws breath?

xpost: morbius i'm not saying i like it, i'm just saying it's very very very par for the course and i'm guessing actually totally unavoidable in our current set-up, so subtracting race from the equation makes cockburn's singling out of obama nonsensical

you mean, like conservative Dems and some Republicans?

gosh these people seem to elect EVERYBODY! Its always refreshing to have a Dem Party apologist shill reiterate that the votes of the poor, minorities, and liberals count for so little.

The problem with the "safe black" line here is that it comes with a comparison to Rice.

"House nigger" accusations against people like Rice tend to be based on the idea that black people should be Democratic loyalists who talk like progressives, and that black-conservative success thus means selling out to the enemy. The reason this is shitty is because it strips black people of the opportunity to believe whatever they believe and be taken seriously for it.

Casting that over at Obama -- a Democratic loyalist like any number of black politicians -- would thus be based on what: the idea that black people should be political radicals who decline to cooperate with the political establishment at all? Stripping black people of the opportunity to, umm, be a meaningful, powerful part of the current political process at all?

That said, I'm not sure race is that big of an issue here: it seems like basic (and potentially useful) contrarianism in pointing out that the golden child isn't that golden, just good and likeable. It's the use of words like "slimy" and "disgusting" that's over-the-top and galling and stupid, unless Cockburn's prepared to describe anyone who functions within the established congressional system as reprehensible. "Not as golden as we've enjoyed thinking (though for obvious and legitimate reasons)" is a far cry from "slimy."

i apologize if my use of "house nigger" offended, but given what i know about cockburn and his political views i see him projecting his own fears and obsessions. and, to repeat tracer's point, it really doesn't make any sense to me either w/t taking into account obama's race (and how someone like cockburn seems to think that a black elected official "should act.")

nabisco, I would't say "anyone," but Cockburn has precious little use for many in either chamber except Feingold, Durbin, McKinney, Sheila Jackson Lee, etc. People who lead with their scruples, and whom the strategist types find risible.

xpost
A Harvard education isn't an automatic signifier of a closed mind ... but it's the way to bet.

If you just woke up from a coma and read a discussion about Obama and race, I'll bet you'd never guess that he's Kenyan and white. Ha: "safe black" = more like "thin nose, light skin, this guy's alright!"

A.C. cites numerous examples of this -- Obama voting for "tort reform," to re-up the Patriot Act, keeping mum on Guantanamo, being part of the Dem counterattack on Murtha -- but maybe EVERYTHING is garden-variety dues-paying?

Also, I think I would much rather have nabisco in Congress than almost anyone mentioned in this thread. Run, sir!

At his press conference on Monday night, Mr Bush answered: "Let's see. There I was sitting around the table with foreign leaders looking at Colin Powell and Condi Rice _ " His voice then trailed away, he shook his head and moved on to the next question; the implication being that two black people in his inner circle was a substitute for outreach to the rest of the community.

His words were certain to cause outrage, and seemed an uncharacteristic piece of political ineptitude.

"You can't be president of all the people when you only want to be president for some of the people," said the NAACP chief executive, Kweisi Mfume.

Julian Bond, the NAACP chairman, said of Mr Bush: "We knew he was in the oil business - we just didn't know it was snake oil."

Mr Bond said that groups opposed to civil rights now held "unprecedented power" in the Bush administration.

A justice department spokeswoman, Barbara Comstock, said the speeches ignored the administration's actual record.

The Houston Chronicle suggested that the snub had been deliberate: "In search of a more receptive audience, Bush is taking his message of home ownership, welfare reform and faith-based initiatives directly to the African-American churches, service providers and others who may be more likely to embrace it."

The Chronicle reported that in a recent internal White House memo on political strategy African-Americans were the only group listed under "areas for improvement".

At the 2000 election, Mr Bush won just 9% of black votes, and there is bitterness that without the effective disenfranchisement of many black voters in Florida, Al Gore would be president.

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002

xpost no!!! ew!

ive always loved that one photo of really young julian bond

ROFFLICIOUS

I'm changing my answer to "kinda".

xpost i don't get anything like that in tennessee but i can easily imagine it, like if you're in an elevator with a guy and a girl with a big ass and she walks out and the guy feels like he's got free reign to relate his sickest fantasies to you

HAHAHAHA!

I take back what I said. You really never can give GWB too little credit.

Cuz his race is irrelevant as a political factor. So we could just refer to him in '04 as a gutless, prevaricating shit.

cockburn's daughter is some kind o' somethin

cockburn's daughter is some kind o' somethin

?

I've come to hate this guy.

never trust a wealthy socialist

i still can't believe that video exists - still - at whitehouse.gov

>You don't hear anyone accuse John Kerry of being a "safe white." <
Cuz his race is irrelevant as a political factor

I know what you're saying, Morbius, but I don't think you actually mean this: Race is obviously a relevant political factor in the candidacy of any white candidate, it's just an unspoken/invisible one.

cockburn's daughter is some kind o' somethin

-- banriquit, Tuesday, June 10, 2008 4:32 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Link

come anticipate 'the year one' with me

yes. But a factor that no one talks about (or tries to use against someone?) is more, I dunno, nearer to a "constant"?

never trust a wealthy socialist

What kind do you trust?

dennis perrin lol

Your humble correspondent is happy to be tapping this at his cluttered desk, rather than texting it in from the emergency room. Earlier this morning, while driving the fine Michigan streets that are the envy of Ozark gravel road riders, I nearly bought it. Sitting at a red light, blasting Rob Zombie's "Dragula," enjoying my caffeine high, I felt some contentment. I do most mornings, before the day's shit wind whips up and blows its fecal horror in my face. That usually doesn't occur until afternoon, after I've run errands and mixed with some of the local population.

uhhh what

http://dennisperrin.blogspot.com/2008/06/clouds-part.html

Perrin is most definitely not wealthy.

"uhhhh what" wd be a much more descriptive handle for you.

Rob Zombie's "Dragula" would be a better one for you

...

Perrin is most definitely not wealthy.

we guessed

He's mopped floors fairly recently in fact. Did you ever fucking do any such low, shameful proletarian shit, Prince Eustace?

are you for real dog

lol

I admit I lolled at "Prince Eustace"

Cosign

Wait, does that make Morbius Aslan, showing Gabbneb the error of his ways?

ethan should change his name to Edmund.

Invoking Narnia was entirely accident; I don't know that shit, DAWGS!

Eustace, gabbnerd variety:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e4/New_Yorker_cover.jpg/200px-New_Yorker_cover.jpg

http://jacobinmag.com/blog/2012/07/alexander-cockburn-1941-2012/

alexander cockburn RIP

i respected him just enough to post this column here instead of there: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/12/24/anthropogenic_global_warming_is_a_farce.html

that is so fucking classy of you

couldn't be more OTM on Obama-warning, eh?

for obama to create a noble rift in the democratic party six months away from midterms elections would be suicide. some people though, some people just act like they were born to lose...

How's winning workin' out for us/you?

Had forgotten exactly how right he was about the Chief.