It's capitalism, stupid!

If you listen to Republican legislators at the underwhelming Republican convention these past few days, you understand how disciplined these guys are at message control - and how totally dishonest.

The talking points have obviously been circulated. You hear the following:

"Sarah Palin has more experience than Barack Obama."

"Sarah Palin is a maverick who fights corruption."

"Sarah Palin was thoroughly vetted."


Now I would imagine all good soldiers in movement conservatism would say these kinds of things, but even moderate Republicans like Olympia Snowe are saying them. And, of course, they are all lies, as the media is and will continue to prove.

But here's the dead giveaway, the talking points that prove Repubicans are completely fabricating things. Each and every elected Republican congressman and senator is saying the following:

"People all over my district are stopping me or calling or emailing and saying how excited they are about Sarah Palin - not just Republicans, but Independents and Democrats."

"It doesn't matter if Sarah Palin was vetted or not, America is falling in love with her and her story."

"The media is sexist."

Now these three things cannot be proven or disproven. The first two will play themselves out only on election day. Then we will know if Independents and Democrats turn away from a proven visionary and leader and choose an old soldier, with memory and judgment problems, because he has chosen a hockey mom (her words, not mine, so don't cry "sexist") as his running mate.

The third talking point, that the media is sexist, just doesn't cut it. The media went after Dan Quayle too, and it wasn't because they were biased against white guys. It was because he was a surprise pick who people knew nothing about. As the press learned more that was unpleasant about him (eg. using connections to get him into the National Guard to avoid the draft) they went after him more.

The media, as well as the people, had better take a long and critical look at someone new running for one of the highest offices in the land. They have sure put Obama through the ringer for 18 months, and still are. And Obama has never once cried "racism."

Accusing the press of racism and sexism when they are doing the vetting that needs to be done, or when a campaign is failing because of bad strategy, is what losers do.

Have some in the press made sexist or racist remarks? Sure, that's still the society we live in. Does the press also go after white guys? Ask Bill Clinton how it felt the entire time he occupied the White House. Can you spell Whitewater? Or John Kerry in the last election. Does the term Swift Boat ring a bell? (Sorry for the cliches)

Did the press, the tabloids and the bloggers take the baby story too far? Probably. But remember all the stories about the "murder" of Vince Foster, and the press frenzy whenever any white guy drops his pants when and where he shouldn't? From Larry Craig to John Edwards, sex scandals sell papers and get ratings. This isn't sexism and it isn't racism. It's capitalism.

The press does what the press does.

And politicians do what politicians do.

And Republicans lie.

McCain's strategy

John McCain's strategy, like that of George W. Bush, is to get voters to fear and resent the superior candidate.

McCain's only hope of winning this election is to paint Barack Obama as not "one of us." If only he can convince enough uneducated voters (his base) that Obama is too different, too "foreign," i. e. "black," and that his Harvard education, high intelligence, and early political success is evidence that he is better than us, an elitist, a celebrity, then perhaps a combination of resentment, racism, and paranoia might get just enough voters to choose the inferior candidate.

Here is a post that outlines the fallacy of McCain's argument.

What to make of the Clintons....

I don't know if all this buzz about Bill Clinton's anger and Hillary's machinations is coming from the Clintons, who have a reputation for wanting to be in the spotlight, or if it's coming from the media because they want to stir up controversy before the convention to increase ratings come August 25th.

If the media can get enough voters worried and/or curious about whether or not Hillary's PUMAs will cause an upoar demanding she be nominated, or whether Bill will whole or only half-heartedly endorse Obama, they can get more people to tune in.

It's a terrible thing not to be able to trust the media who have become nothing more than corporate shills.

On the other hand, it's not beyond the pale that the Clintons could be wanting more attention. Attention is the air they breathe.

The Clintons at one time were the future of the Democratic Party, the more centrist Democrats, straight out of the Democratic Leadership Counsel. The enthusiasm for the new baby boomer generation he represented propelled Bill Clinton into the White House, rejecting the older WW II generation of Bush Sr. and then Dole. But that was a generation ago.

Now, the Democratic Party primary voters have decided it is time for another new generation, a post boomer generation. They could have gone for identity politics, and many wanted to. Almost half of the primary voters thought it was time to put a woman in the White House. But the desire for generational change won out (though just barely) and it is time to move on.

This desire for change and the move to a new generation propelled Kennedy as well as Clinton into the presidency, and it is likely to do the same this year (although Obama's race is a wild card in our still-too-racist society.)

The best thing the Clintons could do from this day forward, if they want to see a Democrat in the White House, is stop thinking about themselves and start thinking about the Party. As much as Democrats admire the Clintons and are grateful for the good they did in the nineties, it seems the Party wants to move forward to a new generation, and as the elder statesman and stateswoman of the Party, it is their job to help facilitate that with their support and mentoring.

This is the way of life, the way of the world. Older generations mentor younger ones and prepare them for the roles they must take on. The Party has decided Barack is ready enough, and the Clintons can help tremendously by supporting that decision and being there to assist him when needed.

If, instead, they want to make this race about them, especially if they want it to be an "I told you so" moment in November, as Obama loses to a weak and floundering opponent, they will not be forgiven. Should Obama lose and Democrats believe the Clintons didn't work hard enough to help him win, Hillary's potential 2012 candidacy will be and should be dead.

But I say, let's wait and see. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt. I do believe they are patriots and I don't think they will sabotage Obama's candidacy. However, if all this speculation gets more people to watch the Democratic Convention, and both Hillary and Bill work their magic to unify the Party and get enthusiastically behind Obama, then more people wills see the Party and the candidate at their best, which could translate into millions of votes.

The power of unconscious bigotry

When the history of this presidential race is written, there will be much said about the influence of both sexism and racism on the outcome.

Already much being is being written and said about sexism in the media and how it may have negatively impacted Senator Clinton's campaign. Certainly, there were sexist comments on the cable shows, and in the blogs, but I'm not sure how much sexism factored into voting. I'm not sure we will ever know, in that the media has not focused on polls that tried to measure the effect of gender on voting. By way of contrast, they have looked at polls that asked primary voters whether race was a factor in their vote.

In one CBS poll of voting in Pennsylvania, voters were asked about both race and gender as possible factors in their voting. The findings:

About one in five voters said the race of the candidates was among the top factors in their vote. About as many said that about the candidates' gender. White voters who said race was a factor supported Clinton over Obama by 3-to-1, while whites who said race wasn't a factor divided between Clinton and Obama more evenly. But race and gender played out as factors in very different ways, with Obama's race apparently a negative for him among white voters, while Clinton's gender was a positive factor for her among men and women who said it contributed to their votes. Those who said gender was a factor actually tended to favor Clinton, while Obama did better among those who said gender was not a factor.

So, according to this poll at least, gender was a strong reason why people voted for Clinton, while race was a strong factor in why white people voted against Obama.

The media, especially the cable outlets, certainly displayed some ugly sexist commentary, and much less (from my observation) blatant racism. But how this plays out in actual influence on voters seems to be a different story. Decent people were mostly repulsed by the sexism they saw on television and the internet, as they would have been, I believe, by blatant racist comments, had they occurred.

We did not see many overt racist comments, however, mainly because they are so swiftly identified and punished, as they were with Don Imus last year. There were, though, covert racist attacks against Obama. For example, the FOX News highlighting of Obama's middle name, and the huge coverage of the outrageous statements of Jeremiah Wright (in contrast to the much briefer coverage of the equally outrageous statements of pastors supporting Senator McCain), are covert ways of scaring voters into rejecting Obama. A black pastor was portrayed as scarier than a white pastor, and an Arabic middle name hinted that Obama must be a Muslim. Combine that rumor with assorted internet rumors about Obama's schooling and family, and the connection of Obama's pastor with Louis Farrakhan, and you are playing guilt by association, and portraying Obama as a black Muslim who is unacceptable to white America – all without ever uttering a racial slur or talking about Obama's skin color.

It seems to me that this kind of coded racist attack on Obama is far more damaging than any boorish sexist comments against Senator Clinton. The sexism of the media may actually have strengthened her image in the electorate, as many people rejected and criticized it. However, the coded attacks on Obama were not attacked as racist by the media or regular voters. Why? Because there are many voters who don't think there's anything unusual or odd about feeling uneasy about a black nominee for president. These people do not consider themselves racist or prejudiced in any way, yet there is something in them that sees African Americans as different, foreign, and not "one of us." Barack Obama spoke to this when he talked about his white grandmother wanting to cross the street when she saw a black man walking towards her.

My elderly mother, one of the kindest and caring people I know, a woman who would help anyone in need, asked me yesterday if I thought a presidential victory by Obama would mean "the blacks would take over everything."

After I picked myself up off the floor, I expressed complete horror at what she said, as I have never known her to express racial prejudice.

She said "Well, they were treated pretty badly by the white people. Maybe they would want to have power over them."

We didn't get into a discussion as we were getting ready to go to the doctor, but I have thought a lot about what she said and wondered whether it was indicative of what a lot of people of her generation are thinking.

I remember a few weeks ago, when Barack Obama was a guest on The Daily Show, John Stewart asked him the following tongue-in-cheek question: "Sir, if you become president will you enslave the white race?" The audience got a good laugh, but what if this is a real fear, not just a joke on The Daily Show?

If my mother is any indication, Barack Obama may have a real problem becoming president. While younger and more educated voters have little problem with Obama's race, older Americans, good and decent people like my mother, even those who would never say or do anything overtly racist, still harbor unconscious negative thoughts and feelings about African Americans that may make them unwilling to vote for Barack Obama.

So while it cannot be denied that overt sexist comments were used against Hillary Clinton, it is also true that covert racist campaigns are being waged against Obama. These campaigns work, in part, because unconscious, irrational fears and negative appraisals of African Americans still lurk in the psyches of many white Americans.

This election will, to some extent, be a test of whether there are enough young and enlightened voters to outnumber those who, whether consciously or only unconsciously, carry the last remnants of our nation's hideous history of racial bigotry.

Voting on the basis of race and gender

This morning on MSNBC, columnist Richard Cohen and regular contributor Pat Buchanan were arguing about what constitutes "racism" and what is simply "voting for your tribe," as Buchanan called it.

Cohen said that this election exposed the racism that is still in this country but that has not been talked about in a long time. He cites exit polls in many Appalachian states where white voters said race had played a role in their choice of candidates, and of these a majority voted for Hillary Clinton.

Buchanan said he saw no difference between blacks in Philadelphia voting for Barack because he is black and whites in West Virginia voting for Hillary because she is white.

Cohen replied that the difference was that many whites in West Virginia were actually voting against Barack because of his race, while in Philly blacks may have been voting for Barack because of his race, but were not voting against Hillary because of either race or gender.

Pat Buchanan is not the only white commentator, nor white American, who fails to see a distinction between African American citizens voting for a fellow black American and white citizens voting for a fellow white American. They are both examples of voting for your tribe and should be seen as perfectly acceptable, according to Buchanan.

I almost don't know how to respond to this. It's one of those things that no matter how you argue it, the other side simply does not get it. But I will try.

First off, blacks have more often than not voted for white candidates, sometimes because the white candidate was better than the black candidate, sometimes because the white candidate was the only candidate. In presidential contests, there have been very few black candidates an African American could vote for. The fact that for the first time in the history of this country there is the actual possibility that an African American could become president is something extraordinary, and it seems logical to me that a majority (though not all) of African Americans would see this as a historic opportunity to elect one of their own. The large majorities of women who support Hillary Clinton feel exactly the same way about voting for a woman for the first time.

It should be said that African Americans are not voting overwhelmingly for Barack Obama just because he is black, but also because he is a gifted candidate. Indeed, he could not have gotten as far as he has were he not extraordinary. The same is true for Hillary Clinton. She could not have gotten as far as she has were she not extremely bright and highly talented. Women and men who voted for Hillary at least in part because they wanted to elect a woman to the presidency are voting honorably. (I might add here that the intelligence and skills of the two Democratic candidates are of a completely different caliber than that of John McCain, who is a mediocre talent at best, no matter how compelling his personal story.)

But somehow voting for Hillary Clinton, or John McCain, or any other white candidate, just because they are white, as voting for John McCain or Mike Huckabee or any other white male, just because they are white and male, has an element of prejudice about it. There's nothing wrong with voting for any candidate because you think they would make a good president, regardless of race or gender, but to vote for one gender or one race because you have a bias against the skin color or anatomy of the other candidate is something different.

Pat Buchanan wants to act as if we are a country with no history of racial hatred and violence. He wants to see the actions, thoughts, and history of white Americans as completely analagous to the actions, thoughts and history of black Americans and this is to completely ignore reality.

Pat knows as well as anyone that this country has a long history of discriminating against people based on the color of their skin, a history that began with white Americans owning African American slaves. Ever since then, it has been a struggle for African Americans to be treated as well as their white counterparts. First slavery had to be outlawed and the slaves emancipated, then segregation eliminated and Jim Crow laws overturned. Then voting rights had to be legally protected. The job isn't finished, however. Deep in the hearts of some people in this country, the color of one's skin determines how worthy a human being you are. This is something that cannot be overcome with laws. It can only be overcome with education and inspiration, and it has not happened yet in many areas of the country, as we have discovered in this primary season.

Those white voters who voted for Hillary Clinton in West Virginia and other Appalachian states, who said race played a role in their vote, were making a statement about their lingering attitude towards people whose skin is dark. Many of these same people would not vote for Hillary Clinton in the Fall were she the Democratic nominee, because they would actually prefer a white male like John McCain. Since they didn't have a white male candidate, they chose a white female candidate. In the lingering caste system they live by, a white male is superior to a white female, but a white female is superior to a black male.

It is different with black voters, who are far more willing to vote for the white candidate. Even the exit polls showed that far more Obama supporters said they would vote for Hillary in the Fall if she were the nominee, than Hillary supporters said they would vote for Barack. This was especially true among voters who said race played a role in their choice of candidate.

Wanting to vote for the first female nominee for president if you are a woman, or the first black nominee for president if you are African American, is understandable. There is nothing prejudiced about it. Blacks have been voting for white presidential nominees for decades and women have been voting for male candidates since 1893, but this is the first year either group has actually had an opportunity to vote for a viable candidate of their race or gender. This year blacks didn't all of a sudden become prejudiced against whites (although Obama's opponents will try to use the comments made by pastors in his former church to make the case that his supporters are "racist") or females prejudiced against males. This is simply the first year these constituencies actually had a choice other than a white male, and they felt pride in those candidates.

Certain groups of white voters, on the other hand, who voted against Obama because of his race, were doing something completely different than voting on the basis of pride in their candidate. They were voting against a candidate because they did not see him as worthy, based only on his race.

If Pat Buchanan cannnot see this, perhaps it is because he shares their prejudice.

Hillary's choice: cynical manipulation or a grand opportunity?

The Washington Post is out with a story today about the overt racism encountered by young Obama volunteers on the campaign trail.

I read the story and felt sick. I know - intellectually at least - there is still racism in this country, and I know the Republicans have been exploiting it in the South for decades. I wasn't prepared for it to show itself among Democrats.

Naively, I suppose, I thought the worst of racism was behind us. If the worst means slavery and lynching, then the worst hopefully is behind us. But in reading this article and hearing the things people are still willing to do and say to someone who is African American or is promoting an African American candidate, I have come to realize there is still terrible potential for racially motivated violence.

According to the article, doors are slammed in campaign workers' faces, Obama headquarters are vandalized and windows spray painted with racial slurs and references to the false rumors that Obama is a Muslim. A group of young black volunteers holding Obama signs on the side of the road in Kokomo, Indiana were greeted by angry motorists who yelled racial slurs at them. And this…

In a letter to the editor published in a local paper, Tunkhannock Borough Mayor Norm Ball explained his support of Hillary Clinton this way: "Barack Hussein Obama and all of his talk will do nothing for our country. There is so much that people don'tknow about his upbringing in the Muslim world. His stepfather was a radical Muslim and the ranting of his minister against the white America, you can't convince me that some of that didn't rub off on him. "No, I want a president that will salute our flag, and put their hand on the Bible when they take the oath of office."

Here are some other direct quotes from voters, as recounted by campaign volunteers.

I'll never vote for a black person.

Hang that darky from a tree.

White people look out for white people, and black people look out for black people.

He's a half-breed and he's a Muslim. How can you trust that?

How discouraging that, 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation and forty years after the death of Martin Luther King Jr., there would still be such ignorance, hatred and racism in this country. It's hard to believe, yet there it is.

Furthermore, I never thought I would see a Democratic candidate so willing to use racism to her advantage, and to fuel it with her rhetoric as well as her silence. (What she may not have considered, but ought to, is that some of these anti-Obama voters who say they support her may be only doing so because she is the white candidate. If Obama were white, many of her current male supporters would probably not vote for her because she is female. Racism and sexism go hand in hand, and while Obama is today's victim of discrimination, she could just as easily be tomorrow's.)

When Hillary Clinton criticizes Obama for staying in his church, she is not just questioning his judgment, she is reminding voters of his angry "black" pastor. When she speaks of her supporters being hard working white voters, she is sending a covert message to her supporters that the other guy is not one of them. When her husband dismisses Obama's win in South Carolina by saying "Jesse Jackson won here twice," he is really saying "Well the other black guy won here too, so it's no big deal." When Hillary tells voters of West Virginia to "send them a message," she is channeling segregationist presidential candidate George Wallace, who said the same thing. And when she remains silent in the face of false rumors spread by her campaign and Obama's opponents about who he is and what he stands for, she is using racism to her benefit.

Hillary Clinton is not a racist, but she is an opportunist and an enabler. The spouse or friend who buys the booze for the alcoholic, makes excuses for him, and covertly gives him excuses to drink, is not an alcoholic, but he or she can do just as much damage in enabling the drinker to go on drinking. That is what Hillary did in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and now West Virginia.

So today, I am sending Hillary a message:

Hillary, you are enabling this racism. You are encouraging it. No amount of good intentions or desire to carry the dreams of American women to Washington can possibly excuse your complicity in this travesty. How would you feel if one of those young campaign workers was killed either intentionally or unintentionally as a result of the racism you have enabled, and even manipulated for your own benefit? And even if no one dies, how willing are you to look the other way when racial epithets are hurled, buildings vandalized and doors slammed in the faces of young people, people even younger than your daughter, just because of the color of your opponent's skin?

Is your victory worth this? Does this make you proud? Are you this ambitious, this cynical?

You are not going to win, and at this point your only reason for dishing out false hope to your supporters may be to continue to take in contributions so you can pay off your campaign debt. But is money more important than uniting the country, more important than using this grand opportunity when you are still on the national stage to help the country move beyond its tarnished history?

You could do something important to help people overcome their racism right now. You could stop with the coded language. You could set an example for them by embracing the candidacy of Barack Obama.

You could give a grand concession speech in which you address the issues of sexism and racism and beg your supporters not to fall for the rumors and innuendos about your opponent, and ask them to rise above the legacy of slavery and segregation and Jim Crow and join with all of their fellow Americans, of every race and creed, to vote for a man you know to be a good and decent American, someone more than qualified to be President of the United States.

You have a once in a lifetime opportunity now to help your fellow Americans overcome their fear and ignorance.

But to use the coded words of George Wallace to your supporters in West Virginia?

That is simply inexcusable.

Hillary Clinton: fueling racism

There is simply no denying it anymore. A large segment of America is still, 145 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, steeped in hatred for and fear of African Americans. And nothing has brought it to the fore more than this year's presidential race.

Of course, ever since the Southern Strategy of Richard Nixon, when Republicans actively began courting racist whites in the South, turning the once Democratic area of the country Republican, race has been actively used to defeat Democratic presidential candidates.

But this year, for the first time, two Democrats are using race so that one of them can defeat another Democrat. And it sickens me.

I've tried to catch snippets of speeches by Bill and Hillary and they have gotten really good at sending out coded and not so coded messages to white working class voters (code: voters who aren't so keen on voting for a black man). They call Obama "elitist," for instance. How could that be racial code, you ask. Well, a working class white who has always had racist sentiments, doesn't want to ever think that a black man is better than him. So if you say that black man acts or talks like he is better, or even imply that the black man looks down on him, you are igniting that white supremacist mentality, even if that white man would never admit these feelings in public. "Elitist" is code for "uppity black." All Southerners know what that means. Now we know that there are a significant number of people in Ohio and Pennsylvania who carry around the same prejudice.

I have also heard Bill Clinton talk about Obama's campaign being willing to "beat up a girl." While it may sound silly and even demeaning to call Hillary a "girl," Bubba, a child of the South, knows exactly how such language plays. And it, too, is code.

In the South, for hundreds of years, black men were lynched for even looking at a white woman, let alone treating her with any kind of disrespect. There is a long history of whites in the South fearing the (imagined) behavior of black men towards their women. To accuse Obama and his campaign of "beating up on a girl" brings up all those fears and is one of the most coded racist things I can imagine Bill saying.

Then, of course, there's what he said about Jesse Jackson winning South Carolina twice, and what Geraldine Ferraro said about Obama only being where he is because he's black, giving a nod to the hatred working class whites have towards affirmative action.

If Clinton somehow grabs the nomination from Obama, it will mainly be because in the second half of her campaign, she used her own "Southern Strategy" and appealed in both overt and coded ways to the racism of the voters. She will have not only destroyed the ability of one of the most gifted politicians of our time to move us past the remaining vestiges of racism, she will have fueled the racism that remains. In other words, she and her husband will have made us worse as a country.

And I will never, ever, forgive her for that.

It was never going to be easy

I and other Obama supporters should have known better.

First, we got all fired up over his Iowa surprise win. Then we got ecstatic over his 11 state victories in a row. Then we rationalized that his loss in Texas really got him more delegates so it wasn't a big deal.

But each time we had reason to hope that this time it would be different, that this time the American people were moving past race, ready to finally put the nail in the Clinton political coffin, and really ready to change the way politics is done in this country, we got shot down by the old tactics, the slash and burn campiagns of past years, the pathology of the Clintons, and the lingering racism of far too many voters.

We should have known that, no matter how different and ecxiting our candidate was, no matter how reminiscent of JFK or RFK, no matter how brilliant and seemingly post-racial, it was never going to be easy for him to secure the nomination. And no matter how many times we try to convince ourselves that he still can, that there are enough good and decent people who will not vote against him because he is black, we inevitably come up against three realities: Far too many older women - women who were there when feminism first began - want to see a female president before they die; far too many white voters still will not vote for a (1/2) black candidate, no matter how brilliant or post racial; and the narcissism and power madness of the Clintons will stop at nothing to destroy Obama.

After Pennsylvania, much of the press seems to be rooting for her and gunning for Obama and exit polls from Pennsylvania show just how powerful a factor race still is. The very fact that a sizable number of her supporters say they will vote for McCain if she is not the nominee is really all you need to know about how much of a factor race plays in elections in this country.

If these were loyal democrats who simply preferred Clinton to Obama, but found themselves faced with an Obama victory in the primaries, they would either vote for Obama, or simply sit out in November, especially since there is so little difference between their two policies. But because so many are willing to vote for someone with a completely different political philosophy which amounts to a continuation of Bush policy, there can be only one reason they would move from Clinton to McCain. They will only vote for the white candidate.

Unlike Clinton voters who say they will not vote for Obama, the far fewer Obama voters who say they will not vote for Clinton, do so mainly because they are appalled by her tactics, many of them subtle appeals to the racism of her supporters. She has so violated the trust they once had in her and her husband, so much trust that they thought of him as the "first black president," that it would be morally wrong - in their minds - to support this tactical but subtle racism on the part of the Clinton campaign.

While we never thought it would be easy to nominate and elect Obama, we underestimated the amount of racism still lingering in the nation. And we certainly weren't prepard for it to be used by the Clintons.

Barack can still win the nomination, but it becomes harder and harder as she attacks him with subtle racial digs, lies and distorts her ability to win, and as the MSM piles on and repeats her propaganda. And should she wrest the nomination from him by her sleazy disgusting tactics, it will be a long time before a viable African American candidate comes forward again. The Clinton tactics, backed up the main stream media, have made it clear. No black candidate will be treated fairly because no black candidate will ever be allowed to win as long as they have anything to say about it.

The Clintons are phonies, with no hearts, and with political plasma running through their veins. Nothing else matters to them except winning. And if that means destroying the most decent and gifted (but black) politician to come along in decades, they will do it.

They will destroy the country rather than allow this young, bold and charismatic leader to win what they believe is rightfully theirs. They will never give up.

If Hillary Clinton succeeds in her ugly tactics to destroy her rival and steal the nomination, using Rovian reptilian tactics, I hope with all my heart that she loses, not just the presidential race, but the next senatorial race that she wages. I hope she never again wins any political office because she has burned so many bridges behind her. I hope she and her husband have finally destroyed their legacy, because what they are doing is immoral, unconscionable, and highly destructive. They even appear willing to destroy the Party to get what they want.

I return to my original realization. It was never going to be easy, in the land that at its founding approved of slavery, the land that fought a war over whether it would be allowed to continue, the land where even though slavery was outlawed, segration and Jim Crow remained, the land where racism lives in the hearts of many Americans, not just in the south, but apparently in Ohio and Pennsylvania. (And some call this a 'Christian country?")

It was never going to be easy, and Hillary and Bill Clinton's pathological narcissism has made it even more difficult, for Obama to be the first black president.

One thing is certain after this nominating process, perhaps the only comfort we can find should Obama lose the nomination: Bill Clinton will never, ever again be called "the nation's first black president." That nonsense is over.

Hillary Clinton and the subtle racism of her campaign

My husband and I have been watching the John Adams miniseries on HBO these past few weeks. In fact, we upgraded our Dish Network package just to be able to see it.

It has not disappointed. It has educated me about the characters of John Adams, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson, as well as the other players in the early American nation. The sets, the costumes, and the acting are all, in my opinion, superb. Next week is the last episode and I will be sorry to have this television class in American history end.

The thing that struck me the most about this most recent episode, however, was watching the construction of the White House using slave labor. As Abigail Adams said as she stared at the horrible scene of black men and women breaking their backs to build this house which at the time they believed would never be inhabited by a black president, "nothing good can come of this."

I also watched the documentary Finding David Wilson, last Friday on MSNBC. For those who may have missed it, it was a film depicting the meeting between David Wilson, the great grandson of a former slave, and a second David Wilson, the grandson of the former slave owner. Through the film the two get to know each other, and while walking in the ruins of the fomer slave quarters, the black David Wilson realizes that the sacrifices of his ancestors had not been in vain in that their suffering ultimately led to the benefits he enjoyed as a free and equal citizen of the United States.

Yet, in spite of David Wilson's optimism and reconciliation with the family that previously owned his family, we know that racism remains in America. It may be quieter, it may not be verbalized, but it is there. It is what is behind much of Hillary Clinton's pitch to the superdelegates that Obama is not electable. When she says she is the one who can win in big states like California it is at least partly because she knows many Latinos have animosity to African Americans. And when she says only she can garner the votes of blue collar workers, or laid off workers in the rust belt, it is because she knows many of them would never vote for a black man. That this may very well be true is distressing, that Hillary Clinton would use it to defeat her African American opponent is despicable.

Instead of being part of the solution to the ongoing racism in this country, Hillary Clinton, by using Obama's race against him, however under the radar she keeps it, is part of the problem.

We Obama supporters always knew it would be an uphill battle to elect the nation's first black president. We are neither naïve nor stupid. But the one thing we always hoped was that as democrats we would all pull together and defy the odds. We hoped that a powerful ex president like Bill Clinton would get behind Obama and urge every democrat, independent and open minded republican to vote for him. And we hoped that Hillary Clinton, realizing that her chances for the nomination were slim to none, would graciously concede defeat, and lend her support to him. Only by having the support of every influential former democratic president and vice president, governor and mayor, senator and congressperson, could the Democrats hope to overcome the lingering racism in this country and send the first black president to Washington, to live in the house that was once built by slaves, men and women who could not have imagined that a man of their own race would ever inhabit it.

But Hillary and Bill Clinton have chosen not to do that. They have demeaned Obama after his win in South Carolina, attacked him in Nevada, accused him of unfair tactics, of not being black enough, of being too black (after all, he attended that black church in Chicago) and now of being elitist. As Bob Herbert so brilliantly put it in his New York Times article today, Obama's awkward explanation of why some voters in places like Pennsylvania don't vote for their economic interests and instead vote on the basis of wedge issues like religion and guns, was partly the result of his being unable or unwilling to speak the truth that some of these voters simply will not vote for a black candidate because blacks, in their minds, are inferior.

The real truth is even more distressing. Hillary Clinton, instead of using her considerable influence and power to ensure that the first black candidate in the history of the country is elected president, is doing everything she can to ensure that he isn't, and that includes using republican dog whistle tactics to get voters in her own party to vote against him. And she is doing this because all she cares about is winning.

She doesn't care about the will of the people. She doesn't care about the Democratic Party. She doesn't care about the country. And, in spite of the fact that she was once popular among African Americans, she doesn't care about race relations in this country.

I still think Obama can defeat her. And I still believe, in spite of her pitch to superdelegates, that Obama can defeat John McCain. He is one of the most skilled politicians we have seen in our lifetimes, and I think he can weather any storm the she-demon stirs up to destroy him. It won't be easy, but it can be done. And in spite of Hillary's belief that too many racist white voters will not vote for an African American, I have a little more faith than that in the American people. In spite of what may happen in Pennsylvania, there are enough Americans who have moved past the abhorrent politics of Karl Rove. There are enough Americans who are not racist. And there are enough Americans who are not threatened by the possibility of a black president.

Hillary Clinton is the one who is threatened by Obama, and if we can only defeat her, John McCain will be a piece of cake. He is an extremely flawed candidate, and I think a united Democratic Party can defeat him. Hillary's power madness, and need to overcome the humiliation she suffered during her husband's administration, is causing her to act like a desperate, unhinged rejected spouse, and she more than anyone can defeat obama's bid for the presidency.

It remains to be seen whether she will continue to encourage the racism that is smoldering under the surface so that she can defeat Obama, or if she will finally decide to be part of history by putting aside her irrational ambition and helping him win the presidency. If there is any decency under her blind ambition, her power madness, and her need to overcome the humiliation her husband dished up to her, she will ultimately do the right thing.

Otherwise, we can only conclude she has no decency. And that would make her a terrible president indeed.

The angry sermons of Jeremiah Wright

Barack Obama's pastor, Jeremiah Wright, has been condemned for giving fiery, angry sermons that criticized and even condemned America for its treatment of African Americans as well as its foreign policies that led to some fanatics attacking us on 9/11. Obama himself is being attacked for not having distanced himself from the church and condemned Wright earlier.

One thing I think a lot of people are missing is that Wright's angry sermon after 9/11 was given when a lot of people were angry. He was not a politician, not speaking to a national audience. He was talking to his African American flock that had known terrorism of one variety or another for generations. He was speaking in a language few if any white churches are familiar with and he was coming from an attempt to understand 9/11, and to put it into a context his congregation could understand.

It has been a long time since the Emancipation Proclomation, and a lot of whites think slavery and discrimination ended then, but any African American can tell you they still face discrimination. The recent subprime meltdown, for example, is a testimonial to the fact that far more blacks were targeted for unfair loans than whites. And the candidacy of Obama has brought racism to the fore, even from his opponent on the Democratic side. Angry sermons in African American churches should therefore not surprise or horrify us.

It has also been a long time since 9/11 and a lot of us have forgotten how angry many of us were, and how we were searching to understand what had happened and why. Some of us (like Bush) put all the blame on Islam and a handful of militants. Other of us, including me, saw a bigger picture in failings of our government and foreign policies that caused "blowback." This is what Rev. Wright was saying in that sermon after 9/11.

I went back into my own writings from that time and found an article I wrote shortly after 9/11. I include it here. It is full of anger.

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First shock, then horror, then grief. Finally anger. I’m angry!

Naturally, most of my anger is directed towards the terrorists who, in their fanaticism and ignorance, their inhumanity and evil, killed thousands of Americans and visitors from other countries, and destroyed the lives of tens of thousands of others. I’m angry because they robbed countless children of their parents, parents of their children, husbands of their wives and wives of their husbands. They took away aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends, fiances, boyfriends and girlfriends.

I’m angry because these foreign invaders robbed us all of our security. How can we ever again trust - as we once did - in the safety of our airplanes, the stability of our high rise buildings, the purity of our water and air, the hearts, minds and intentions of some of those walking freely among us, using the civil liberties we so generously extend to them to hurt us? Oh, we will say in a burst of patriotism that we can’t let the terrorists win by being afraid, but those are words. We are afraid!

I’m outraged at a fanatical wealthy Muslim whose name invades every newspaper, magazine and television news broadcast - Osama bin Ladin, the man now hiding in a cave in Afghanistan. I loathe his protestations of Islamic piety which contradict everything true faith in God teaches, and the Taliban who harbor him and match him in their cruel, indiscriminate violence against their own people, especially their women.

But I’m not just angry at the terrorists. The value of justifiable anger is that it forces one to think and urges one to action. My anger calls on me to look, not only at others but also at myself, not only at other nations and religions, but also at my own. And so my anger is directed far beyond the 19 hijackers and the cells of Islamic fundamentalists all around the world who even today continue to conspire against the United States, Israel, and western culture. I am also angry at those closer to home.

I’m angry at the intelligence agencies for failing us. Perhaps that’s unfair, but it now appears that the CIA, FBI and other agencies whom we count on to keep us protected, knew for a long time about the dangers of terrorism and still did not prevent this horror. I’m angry at budget cuts and regulations which prevented these agencies from doing their jobs as well as they could have.

I’m angry at our political leaders who focused so much on protecting our borders against drug dealers and illegal immigrants that they allowed madmen from the middle east to enter our country and stay for years to plan their evil deeds. Why did we have a very visible “war on drugs” long before we focused on terrorism?

I’m angry at Republicans for spewing so much hate against President Clinton, and spending so much valuable time examining his sex life, that they neglected the work of intelligence and counter terrorism and at the same time gave our enemies reason to believe we were a frivolous people, an easy target.

I’m angry at Democrats and Republicans for prolonging the recent presidential election and leaving our country in limbo for so many months. In the wake of the deaths of over three thousand people, I’m angry at our pettiness.

I’m angry at years of short sighted foreign policy - both Republican and Democrat - that has given power and arms to our current enemies and cost the lives of so many military and civilians, all in an effort to promote our current interests. Didn’t we help Saddam Hussein in his fight against Iran and didn’t that only give him the ammunition he needed to fight us a few years later? Didn’t we support the Taliban against the Soviet Union? When will we learn?

I’m angry at the owners of a few flight schools who were more interested in making money teaching Arab men to fly “but not take off and land,” than in notifying authorities of such suspicious requests. Again, it’s probably an unfair accusation, but anger is there nonetheless.

I’m angry at the media for becoming more a purveyor of entertainment than an essential source of needed information. While the plot to destroy America was being hatched, surely the biggest story of the past fifty years, the media were busy playing Sherlock Holmes in the case of Gary Condit and the missing intern. Where were the brilliant investigative journalists when we really needed them? Now the media is fully engaged, each television network obsessed with the story of September 11 and America’s plans to respond, some giving music and a title to their coverage, as if the events of the past weeks are a mini-series. What rationale, I ask, is behind CNN calling their coverage America’s “New War” as if current events have to do with fashion or the promotion of a new product?

I am angry at the complacency and blindness of the masses of American people, including myself, who care more about their latest trip to McDonald’s or the prestige of the university - or even preschool - they wish their children to attend than they do about their fellow human beings on the other side of the world who have neither food nor water, let alone any education. In fact, it is both poverty and ignorance that allows a few mad leaders to build hatred among their uneducated followers, hatred that targets an entire culture.

I’m angry at everyone in this country - from the politicians to the car manufacturers - who refused to develop alternate sources of energy so that we could stop our dependency on corrupt dictatorships in the middle east for oil to feed our gas guzzling SUVs.

I’m angry at all the good Muslims who did not speak against those who have hijacked their religion for their own purposes. They complain now that they are being discriminated against, but they shouldn’t really be surprised. If in months and years past they had loudly and passionately condemned those who plot murder and destruction while professing to be devout Muslims, Americans could make a distinction. But they remained silent while they allowed radical murderers to define their religion, worship in their mosques and collect money from them to commit murder.

I’m angry at all religious fundamentalists, not just the Islamic variety. From the crusades and inquisition, undertakings performed in the name of Christ, to the militant leaders of the pro-life movement who inspire men to kill doctors, religious fundamentalists bring violence and hate to the world. Is the killing of a doctor by a “Christian” any less a violation of the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” than the act of a suicide bomber? Genuine holy people do not murder human beings, nor say, as did Jerry Fallwell and Pat Robertson, that a people deserve to be murdered. Those who kill in the name of God, Yahweh or Allah are anything but holy. They may be fervent, passionate believers in something, but it is related neither to God nor to holiness.

My anger, however, does not dim my love for my country. Americans may sometimes be frivolous and arrogant, but we can be a great people. We look at all sides of an issue; we tolerate multiple viewpoints; we have freedom of speech and religion; we care for our elderly and our sick. Large numbers of our citizens provide health care and food to our poor as well as the poor all around the world where we are welcome. We rescue those in danger, even giving our lives to save others, and we give generously to victims of disasters. No one who is paying attention to the stories of the past three weeks can deny that America is a nation of heroes who would sacrifice their lives for those they do not even know.

But we have a dark side. We export music and movies which some parts of the world see as evil. To them, our freedom of expression is proof we are the great Satan. Why must we continue to show this side of ourselves? Must we, in the name of artistic expression and freedom of speech, produce pornographic movies and rock songs espousing violence? Would our country suffer without them? After all, while we were going to the movies and watching fictional thrillers and spy stories, complete with special effects pyrotechnics, flesh and blood men were planning the real thing. Even though we abhor state sponsored censorship, can we not censor ourselves and present a better picture of our goodness to the world?

Must we also continue to be so greedy? On a daily basis, the bottom line in America is always money. While that has made us a wealthy nation it has also made others envy and hate us. Must our corporations care so much about huge profits that they refuse to pay a living wage to Americans and instead take advantage of the poverty of other nations to pay a pittance to workers there? Must they pollute environments and create 25% of the world’s greenhouse gases while they pressure our government not to sign the Kyoto environmental treaty, leading President Bush to say “I will not accept a plan that will harm our economy or hurt American workers”? He might as well have said “Screw you, countries of the world, we want to drive our SUV’s, build our mansions and get rich.” But are our workers and our economy any more important than those of any other country? Must we insist on being the richest nation in the world? Don’t we understand that as our wealth grows, the envy of others grows as well? Yes we are generous, but we have given a small amount of our own money when we could have helped other nations become prosperous too.

I’m angry that we unwittingly gave the terrorists the weapons to attack us. They used our technology, our airplanes, our flight training, probably even our money. They took advantage of our trusting natures, our friendliness, our willingness to welcome foreigners and accept immigrants and tourists. And they used some of our exports of popular culture to propagandize against us, build religious fervor and recruit young men to commit suicidal/homicidal acts. I am angry at the frivolous, greedy, selfish, narcissistic and immoral side of our culture which - to the Islamic world - masks our seriousness, our generosity and our kindness.

Finally, I am angry because my life, the lives of my children and grandchildren, and America itself will never be the same. Most Americans aren’t striving to be rich or famous. All most of them want is to be with their families, to love them and keep them as safe as possible, to do the work they need to do, to walk down the street without fear, to have enough money to live in a home and buy weekly groceries and to be able to see a doctor when they are sick. Most human beings around the world want the same things. While many citizens of the world have never had those simple luxuries, we in American have, and today, for the first time in my life, I am worried that this could change.

Terrorism could destroy everything - our security, our economy, our environment, our freedom, our ability to protect our families. The attack of September 11 has already had an impact. And to some extent, those who have grasped for superfluous material wealth, unlimited sexual freedom, hedonistic personal pleasures, excessive power and celebrity and even questionable “artistic expression” have presented a vision of America to the madmen of the world which has given them a fanatical justification to plot our destruction.

While I condemn Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, who so callously stated that we deserved this horrendous attack because of our immorality, I nevertheless am angry at those in America who lure and are lured by so much that contradicts the values we once stood for. America, the land and the people I love, did not deserve this. So, in addition to waging a war against terrorism, America must realize that the rest of the world is watching us. We can be a good role model or we can be ugly Americans. We can give all people a reason to love and admire us or to hate and condemn us.

While we root out those lunatics who would kill themselves and others in a twisted and rabid sense of God’s will, we must also face the choice before us. We can educate ourselves about those who view the world from a different perspective, and reevaluate our values, our foreign policy and our priorities. We can export our goodness instead of our vacuous popular culture, use our enormous resources to lead and help the world, protect the environment and focus on the things that really matter, or we can remain self-indulgent, capricious and complacent.

What is called for now is a new American dream, not the one that is limited to our shores and concerned about economic success, but one that includes the rest of the world. We can no longer afford to be a nation that thinks only of its own citizens. We cannot remain rugged individualists and single-minded entrepreneurs. Nor can some of our citizens continue to insist that we are a “Christian nation” that must convert others to our beliefs.

Our new American dream must be world peace, tolerance among believers of all the world’s religions, and cooperation and understanding among nations. We must listen to those abroad who hate us and envy us. We may not agree with them, we may believe they have misjudged us, we do not have to give in to their demands, but we must listen nonetheless. You don’t have to agree with someone to listen to them. We must digest their words and look at ourselves. Yes, it’s time for us to defend ourselves and put an end to terrorism, but it’s also time for us to examine our national conscience.

Sexism isn't what is defeating Hillary

The cable news networks are being very careful not to count Hillary out, even as she loses superdelegates and sees her lead slipping in the upcoming primary states. They got burned once before and they could get burned again by a premature political obituary, so they're keeping a race alive that they might otherwise have written off.

In the days when they might have been covering the beginning of McCain vs. Obama, therefore, they are endlessly discussing how the inevitable Hillary got into the underdog position, and what she has to do to win. They are dissecting the politics of the African American vote vs. the female vote and concluding that sexism is more of a barrier to the presidency than racism, and that Hillary's potential slide from frontrunner to loser must be partly the result of sexism.

The problem with this argument is that Hillary Clinton is not a typical woman, nor even a typical candidate. Her candidacy is representative of so much more than just the aspirations of a woman to the presidency.

Hillary Clinton is a former First Lady, the wife of a president who was impeached, the wife of a man who publicly humiliated her by having a sexual relationship with an intern.

Hillary Clinton is part of a husband wife team. People do not talk about Hillary Clinton in isolation. We hear about "the Clintons" or about the antics of her husband as much as we hear about her policy proposals.

Hillary Clinton is a woman who aspired to the presidency for at least eight years, and possibly more, running for the Senate in New York even though she was not a resident of New York, precisely because it would give her a good forum from which to launch a presidential bid.

Hillary Clinton is responsible for the failure of universal health care to be implemented and for a near sixteen year setback to the cause of health care reform.

Hillary Clinton is part of the presidential team that is largely responsible for giving us eight years of George W. Bush. Hillary Clinton said that Ralph Nader cost Al Gore the presidency in 2000, but the reality is that her husband Bill Clinton caused Al Gore to lose. Had Clinton not been impeached, George W. Bush could not have run on a pledge to restore dignity to the White House, Clinton could have campaigned for Gore and touted his excellent economic credentials, and Bush would not have gotten close enough to have Nader's votes even matter.

Bottom line: Hillary Clinton cannot run on her accomplishments alone. Fair or not, the reality is that Hillary Clinton brings enormous advantages as well as enormous baggage to her run for the White House. Any other woman running for the presidency would have neither those advantages nor those disadvantages.

Her huge advantages in being married to a popular former president and having a large contingent of Clinton loyalists behind her do not make her election to the presidency inevitable. They only get her close. But while her gender is significant, sexism in the American electorate will not be the reason she fails in her bid for the nomination. She will fail because of who she is, and the baggage she brings. She will fail because gender alone, and having the name of Clinton, is not enough for the American people. And she will fail because she is up against a superior candidate, and because the American people, having been burned by electing a second Bush, do not want to elect a second Clinton.

It isn't sexism that is defeating her. It is a combination of Clinton fatigue and Obama fever. And no matter how smart Hillary is, no matter how qualified, no matter how clever, these are factors she cannot overcome, and couldn't overcome even if she were a man.

Shouldn't we be past this by now?

Being neither African American nor Jewish, I must admit I don't fully understand the depth of feeling that some people have in the racially tinged controversy going on now between the Clinton and Obama campaigns. The latest salvos, even as the two candidates made statements yesterday intended to calm things down, have come from two Democratic African American leaders, Charlie Rangel and John Lewis, and a columnist from the Washington Post, who seems intent on accusing Obama of being in league with anti-Semites.

It seemed obvious to me from the beginning that, while the Clintons (yes, you still get two for the price of one) were not saying anything directly detrimental regarding Obama, they felt very threatened by Obama's candidacy, especially in the Black community. They obviously wanted to remind African Americans that white politicians like Hillary Clinton were acceptable, and that one didn't need a black president to achieve all of the objectives of the black community. This is why she reminded them that it was a white president who signed civil rights legislation.

But let's back up a step and look at the timeline of events leading up to this controversy.

In December, 2007, Bill Shaheen, Clinton co-chair, brought up Obama's past "drug use" and said it would be used by Republicans in the general election to suggest he had been a drug dealer as well. The drug dealing reference was interpreted by some as a reference to Obama's race (even though there are probably more white drug dealers than black ones) and so Shaheen resigns and Clinton apologizes.

On Jan. 7, 2008, Bill Clinton called Obama's opposition to the Iraq War a "fairy tale" and, probably because of the demeaning tone in which he said this, angered many African American voters who saw this as an attack on Obama's qualifications to be a candidate. (Clinton is a powerful voice in this country, and as a former president, his words carry much weight. When he attacks his wife's opponent in such an emotional outburst, it is going to get a reaction among those who feel kindly towards that opponent.)

On that same day, Hillary Clinton made her famous remark about the importance of Lyndon Johnson to the civil rights movement and angered more African Americans who overreacted to what she was saying. While she acknowledged Dr. King as the leader of the movement, she said "it took a president to get it [civil rights legislation] done." Since all of our presidents have been white, some people heard her comments as saying that while blacks can demonstrate, whites must legislate. I don't believe that is what she was saying, but I do believe she was trying to downplay the importance of having a black president. The Clintons don't say anything they haven't thought of carefully.

On Jan. 10, 2007: Andrew Cuomo, another famous Clinton supporter, explains Hillary's win in New Hampshire by saying, "you can't shuck and jive at a press conference. All those moves you can make with the press don't work when you're in someone's living room." The terms "shuck and jive" were deemed offensive and racist by some in the African American community. That same day, a British newspaper says a Clinton advisor referred to Obama as some people's "imaginary hip black friend."

On Jan. 11th, the Obama campaign suggests these remarks are not accidental, but instead part of a pattern, and the offended South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn says he might rethink his neutrality in the South Carolina primary. Hillary Clinton reacts by saying the Obama campaign is making political hay out of some unfortunate and misinterpreted comments.

On Jan. 13th, Clinton goes on Meet the Press and says the Obama campaign is distorting things but on that same day, in South Carolina, BET founder Robert Johnson, on the stage with Hillary Clinton, makes some even more inflammatory remarks, saying that the Clintons were supporting black causes when Obama was (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) "doing something in the neighborhood." Most Obama supporters believe this was a not-so-thinly disguised reference to Obama's admitted drug use as a teenager, though Johnson denies it. Johnson also made a reference to America not needing some "Sidney Poitier guess who's coming to dinner" kind of candidate, and I'll let you all figure out what that meant.

Understandably, Obama's campaign has responded to these comments by Clinton, her husband, and her supporters, and even used them to fund raise. Would any Democrat expect him not to respond after the damage we saw four years ago from the "Swift Boat Veterans?" Obama has to prove he can stand up to overt as well as covert attacks, and it is obvious that many attacks against him, especially from those in his own party, have been covert. If he can't respond quickly to Clinton, how can he respond quickly and effectively to the Republican smear machine? And while I am sure Obama is capitalizing on this politically, I don't think anyone can accuse him of starting the whole sordid mess.

Yet even after yesterday's "truce" between the candidates, you have John Lewis attacking Obama on the News Hour last night and Charlie Rangel calling Obama "stupid" this morning on CNN.

And now this new twist: Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen has today attacked Obama for his association with Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ and its minister, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. Wright's daughter is the editor of Trumpet Magazine, a church publication that gave Louis Farrakhan an award, and Rev. Wright has apparently spoken highly of Farrakhan. Since Farrakhan has made some atrocious anti-Semitic statements, Cohen is saying that Obama's association with the Chicago church is troubling, even though there is absolutely nothing in Obama's past or in any of his writings or speeches today associating him in any way with Farrakhan or his viewpoints. Cohen is applying a different standard to Obama than all the other candidates, who have not been asked to distance themselves from opinions of pastors or other people in their churches. Must each candidate's church be examined for evidence of something offensive? If so, the candidates would all be spending time distancing themselves from their churches.

Cohen's column, though, is not about the candidates' religious affiliations, nor about any danger posed to the Jewish community by the candidacy of Obama. It is rather an obvious attempt to discredit Obama and follow up on the mass emails (like the one forwarded by a staffer in the Clinton campaign) saying Obama was Muslim or "part-Muslim" and implying he was therefore an enemy of Christians and Jews. It is an attempt to hurt Obama and help Clinton and most of the Republicans, whom Cohen sees as friendlier to Israel.

Cohen challenged Obama to condemn the actions of his church and now we have this response from the candidate which should stop things, but probably won't:

I decry racism and anti-Semitism in every form and strongly condemn the anti-Semitic statements made by Minister Farrakhan. I assume that Trumpet Magazine made its own decision to honor Farrakhan based on his efforts to rehabilitate ex-offenders, but it is not a decision with which I agree.

So where do we go from here? We aren't even two weeks into the primary season and already race has become a huge issue, not only between the candidates and their surrogates, but in the media, which loves to cover the down and dirty aspects of campaigns.

We haven't really come that far, have we? Like ignorant and uneducated throwbacks to the nineteenth century, we are still ready to pit brother against brother over issues of race (and if Hillary Clinton is the nominee we will see attacks based on gender, with sister vs. sister). And our candidates seem to be willing to say and do anything to win – and on this I put more blame on the Clintons than I do on Obama. Obama may have defended himself, his campaign perhaps even overreacting to ambiguous statements, but I simply can't see how he started it. And the acrimony that comes through in the voices of Charlie Rangel and John Lewis, people I admire greatly, when they attack Obama for reacting to what can be characterized as covert smears is something I don't understand. Neither do I understand the condescending way Bill Clinton talks about Obama, unless he is acting as a protective husband defending his wife's honor, something he certainly didn't think about eight years ago. Bill Clinton would do his wife's campaign an enormous service if he would keep his mouth shut. And if she wants to win, she ought to see that he does.

Furthermore, people like Robert Johnson, Charlie Rangel and John Lewis don't help the black community by voicing such anger towards the first viable African American presidential candidate, nor does Richard Cohen help anything with such provocative columns. None of them help unify the country, which interestingly enough is something the man they attack is trying to do.

While not too long ago I was enormously proud to say I belonged to the party that was putting forth the first serious woman candidate and the first serious African American candidate for president, today I am enormously embarrassed to belong to that party, embarrassed to be part of a political system that plays such ugly games, and embarassed to be part of a species that can be so destructive to other members of the species. Maybe tomorrow I'l feel differently, but that's how I feel today.

Those magic "tears"

The pundits want you to believe it was Hillary's tears that helped her win in New Hampshire.

First of all, there were no tears.

Hillary choked up a bit and sounded a tad emotional as she talked about how desperately she wanted to help the country, but so what? Big deal! Rudy said he cried every time he thought of 9/11 (gag!) and Bush claims he sheds tears over fallen soldiers (which I doubt).

And whether or not Hillary's choke-up moment was scripted or spontaneous, it doesn't matter. That isn't what caused her to inch out Obama. I don't believe for a minute that women voted for her because they felt compassion for her, or men voted for her because they felt protective of her, as men tend to do when women "cry."

She didn't cry!

This is just a stupid analysis. Hillary won because she won. Somehow she reached enough voters, or the polls were dead wrong, or whatever. Elections can be unpredictable, we are finding out.

She didn't win because she choked up on Monday. That's a sexist conclusion any way you look at it.

And Obama didn't lose because of the "Bradley effect," the supposed tendency of white voters to tell pollsters they will vote for a black candidate when in the privacy of the voting booth, they won't. That argument is racist as well. Obama ended up only three percentage points behind Clinton. I'm not sure you can even consider that a loss when he was expected to lose big time in New Hampshire only a week ago.

Obama got 103,000 votes to Hillary's 110,000. That's 55,000 more votes than the white male Democrat, John Edwards and 17,000 more than the white male Republican John McCain. Now since it has always been my experience that racism and sexism go hand in hand, I just don't see how a combined vote of 213,000 votes for a woman and an African American amount to the "Bradley effect."

There are two powerful and popular candidates running for the lead on the Democratic side, neither of them white men.

In the Democratic Party, at least, we are past sexism and racism.

With the pundits and the Republicans, it's apparently a different story.