Obama
If you type the word “Obama” into the search window to your right, a number of highly critical, negative pieces come up about the candidate. It’s no secret that Obama’s not my first choice for President. However, my feelings about Clinton, and the kind of politics she represents makes the choice easy. I wish Edwards was still in the race, but if it’s a choice between Clinton and Obama, I’m going with Obama.
One thing that has made my choice even easier is the ever-more ridiculous excuses and attacks Clinton’s supporters are lobbing at Obama. Last week he was a sexist. This week he’s the House Negro:
No longer would whites, especially males, be compelled to answer for their privileged status. A 40-plus year annoyance was nearly over, since Blacks had “already come 90 percent of the way” to equality. Obama told them so.
[snip]
His white male wooing is made much easier by the fact that those who consider themselves his “sisters” and “brothers” demand nothing whatsoever from him. Just come home when you get ready, brother. Obama is free to concentrate his attentions on the hard-to-get demographics, especially white men with their peculiar notions of “change.” No need for Obama to promise the hood a damn thing, except that he’ll cut a dashing figure in the Oval Office and make the homefolks proud that he’s there, symbolically representing them.
The problem with attacks like this is that they are easily disproved. It took me all of two minutes to find and download Obama’s “Blueprint for Change” (warning PDF) which clearly points out:
“End Racial Profiling
Obama will ban racial profiling by federal law enforcement agencies and provide federal incentives to state and local police departments to prohibit the practice.
Reduce Crime Recidivism by Providing Ex-Offender SupportObama will provide job training, substance abuse and mental health counseling to ex-offenders, so that they are successfully re-integrated into society. Obama will also create a prison-to-work incentive program to improve ex-offender employment and job retention rates.
Eliminate Sentencing DisparitiesObama believes the disparity between sentencing crack and powder-based cocaine is wrong and should be completely eliminated.
Expand Use of Drug CourtsObama will give first-time, non-violent offenders a chance to serve their sentence, where appropriate, in the type of drug rehabilitation programs that have proven to work better than a prison term in changing bad behavior.
And that’s just for starters and doesn’t include proposals to stop predatory lending, give middle-class and working-class families a tax break, expand SCHIP, and a bunch of other ideas. “No need for Obama to promise the hood a damn thing”?? Whether you believe any of this or not, only someone who has not read up on the candidate’s proposals would make such an easily disprovable comment.
And then there’s the growing chorus of “he hasn’t accomplished anything!”
Yeah. Nothing at all:
But I do follow legislation, at least on some issues, and I have been surprised by how often Senator Obama turns up, sponsoring or co-sponsoring really good legislation on some topic that isn’t wildly sexy, but does matter. His bills tend to have the following features: they are good and thoughtful bills that try to solve real problems; they are in general not terribly flashy; and they tend to focus on achieving solutions acceptable to all concerned, not by compromising on principle, but by genuinely trying to craft a solution that everyone can get behind.
[snip]
Nonproliferation: the poster child for issues that people ought to care about, but don’t. Here Obama has teamed up with Richard Lugar (R-IN)…
Avian flu: Obama was one of the first Senators to speak out on avian flu, back in the spring of 2005, when it was a quintessentially wonky issue, not the subject of breathless news reports. There’s a list of Democratic efforts on avian flu here; Obama shows up early and often. He has sponsored legislation, including what I think is the first bill dedicated to pandemic flu preparedness…Regulating Genetic Testing: It was while I was reading about this issue that I first thought: gosh, Barack Obama seems to turn up whenever I am reading about some insanely wonky yet important issue. And this one is not just off the radar; it and the radar are in different universes. Anyways:
You might be surprised to learn that there is very little quality control over genetic testing. I was.
And so on and so forth. The point of all of this is not to say “Gee, what a Great Guy that Barack Obama is.” The point is that when you hurl shallow, disprovable, ad hominem, and false attacks that are so easily disspelled at the candidate, eventually you begin insulting my intelligence. Arguing that the word “peridiocally” has ANYTHING to do with women’s menstruation is just fucking stupid: it’s as dumb as claiming John McCain went cuckoo-bananas in Viet Nam and fathered a secret black baby, or saying that Al Gore claims to have invented the Internet. When you present dogshit like that as if it was true, I cannot take you seriously anymore.
If anything, the effect of the freakout meltdown Clinton’s supporters are having right now is actively driving me to Obama. Every day I read some stupid and far-fetched accusation, and then I try to find out if it’s true. Invariably, the charges are as bogus as the Easter Bunny, and I am left not only with a profound feeling of disrespect and contempt for those who tried to steer me wrong, but good feelings for Mr. Obama, who really does appear to have substantive proposals that I can get behind.
Criticize the candidates all you want: they deserve ruthless scrutiny if they want to run the country. But for the love of Mike, stop making shit up. It makes YOU look like an asshole, makes the candidate you love to hate look better by comparison, and furthermore makes me not trust you anymore.
And I swear to God, if I hear one more person claim that “periodically” has anything to do with menstruation, I will personally menstruate all over that person. Out of my ass.
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