6 posts tagged “biden”
I am not going to spend much time on this, since tomorrow morning I leave for Asheville NC and a celebration of our 1st anniversary. I will say that I feel these debates were inconclusive in terms of moving the race forward.
What I will say quite firmly, and I hope that my liberal readers will concede this point, is that Sarah Palin exceeded expectations tonight. She did a much better job of connecting with the audience than Biden, even if Biden was the more collected speaker. Palin did well to play to conservative fears about Obama, and to hammer the ticket on their flawed Iraq stance.
Essentially, Biden had the most to lose tonight and Palin the most to gain. He made no gaffes or sexist remarks and so broke even. I tend to think of Biden as the guy who Obama needs to convince people that Obama's not a completely liberal Ivy-league socialist monster. If Biden's spin is effective then they gained some points.
Palin demonstrated that she does indeed possess competency and ideological clarity if not the polished rhetoric of her Senatorial opponents. Her areas of expertise are energy and government oversight, and those are critical topics right now. She did well to remind people that she has more on her resume than just Mayor, Governor, VP pick. Palin made up the ground lost because of her bad interviews, and showed the American people more of who she is.
I liked her very much. And here's the kicker, I still kind of like Joe Biden. I said it before in this blog, but Biden is likeable. I may hate his policies and his support of Obama's policies, but he's just a personable man who has in his life showed integrity and honor. Worst sort of person, the kind you hate to disagree with...
Good thing I like Palin better.
So, my final thought is that interpretation of this debate will break down along partisan lines...just like everything in this damned race. But I would hope to see a number of liberals reconsidering Palin, and even perhaps acknowledging/admitting that she did well tonight.
See, conservatives believe in hope too!
Journalists continue to ask, “What was John McCain thinking in selecting the gaffe-prone Gov. Sarah Palin?”
In what has now become a disturbing pattern, the Alaska governor seems either unable or unwilling to avoid embarrassing statements that are often as untrue as they are outrageous. Recently, for example, in an exclusive interview with news anchor Katie Couric, Palin gushed, “When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the, you know, princes of greed. He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened.’ ” Apparently the former Alaskan beauty queen failed to realize that in 1929 there was neither widespread television nor was Franklin Roosevelt even President.
Get the point?
I know this is so last news cycle, but Obama has chosen Joe Biden to be his running mate. Anyone else laughing? Joe Biden was and is the very sort of candidate Obama proclaimed to be running against! He is a long-time Washingtonian, he voted for the Iraq War. Wasn’t that the main issue on which the Obama campaign was based? What’s humorous to me is that this is the same Joe Biden who was marginalized early in the primaries, when he made the point that while Obama was nice and “articulate” he was in no way ready for the Presidency. Apparently, “articulate” is race-code for “uppity” and the Obama camp pounced. It’s not worth asking the Obama supporters, but do you remember? Yet now it’s Biden for VP. Biden is the one that Obama chooses, in direct contradiction to the entire message of a campaign driven by Obama’s cult of personality.
Obama is a victim of his own success here. He couldn’t tap Hilldawg for the spot because to do so would admit he was weak without her. He couldn’t tap another woman like Sebelious without infuriating the Hillocrats. He couldn’t take somebody like Kaine, with a comparable dearth of experience. And all the time he needed a VP who would shore up his weaknesses in foreign policy and actual leadership.
See how many times Joe Biden mentions what Obama said, versus what he did. The question a Republican needs to hammer home in the VP debate is “That’s all well and good Joe, that Obama said that, but what has he done?” Then make the point that Obama’s been running for President since before he was elected to the Senate and has missed half or more of the last 100 votes. (Hmm, more like 75% by my rough, terrible math, go to the "by the numbers" box at the bottom) See if Biden figures a way out. It’s possible, he is an intelligent man. But he’s also impatient and compromised in certain key areas.
Obama’s choice is direct, unabashed political pandering. He is Obama’s blue-collar-getter, his Catholic-getter, his white-getter. Workingman-like he is, white he is, but let’s make one thing clear: Joe Biden suffers from the same diseased, compromised Catholicism that plagues the whole Democratic Party.
He is an abortion trusty, and whether Catholic Democrats want to admit it or not abortion is a (if not the) central issue to the Faith and to a Catholicism that is engaged with the world. Biden, Pelosi, et al. have never understood the idea that by your actions you can separate yourself from the Church. They claim that there is no clear teaching on the subject, citing St. Augustine or some such luminary. May I submit to them that the Church has had 1500 years since the time of Augustine to both refine and build upon a consistent teaching of respect for life? Awfully progressive of them to mindlessly cite ancient Doctors of the Church and ignore shining intellects of the past 20, 50, or 150 years.
Make no mistake: Barack Obama is an enemy of the pro-life movement. He has never once stood in opposition to the interests of abortion providers. Never. Once. He has refused to condemn what is, after all the rhetoric, infanticide. Obama’s abortion record is not in any way softened by the selection of a Catholic who stands in opposition to a clear moral imperative from his Church. It only highlights the hypocrisy.
Joe Biden is a man who has plenty of redeeming qualities. The loss of his wife and infant daughter surely had a profound effect on him. His principles, unfortunately, are not as finely honed regarding the faith to which he claims to adhere. Obama made another of his famous errors in judgment with the choice of Biden as VP.
Obama the 'Magic Negro'
The Illinois senator lends himself to white America's idealized, less-than-real black man.
AS EVERY CARBON-BASED life form on this planet surely knows, Barack Obama, the junior Democratic senator from Illinois, is running for president. Since making his announcement, there has been no end of commentary about him in all quarters — musing over his charisma and the prospect he offers of being the first African American to be elected to the White House.
But it's clear that Obama also is running for an equally important unelected office, in the province of the popular imagination — the "Magic Negro."
The Magic Negro is a figure of postmodern folk culture, coined by snarky 20th century sociologists, to explain a cultural figure who emerged in the wake of Brown vs. Board of Education. "He has no past, he simply appears one day to help the white protagonist," reads the description on Wikipedia http://en.-wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Negro .
He's there to assuage white "guilt" (i.e., the minimal discomfort they feel) over the role of slavery and racial segregation in American history, while replacing stereotypes of a dangerous, highly sexualized black man with a benign figure for whom interracial sexual congress holds no interest.
As might be expected, this figure is chiefly cinematic — embodied by such noted performers as Sidney Poitier, Morgan Freeman, Scatman Crothers, Michael Clarke Duncan, Will Smith and, most recently, Don Cheadle. And that's not to mention a certain basketball player whose very nickname is "Magic."
Poitier really poured on the "magic" in "Lilies of the Field" (for which he won a best actor Oscar) and "To Sir, With Love" (which, along with "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," made him a No. 1 box-office attraction). In these films, Poitier triumphs through yeoman service to his white benefactors. "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" is particularly striking in this regard, as it posits miscegenation without evoking sex. (Talk about magic!)
The same can't quite be said of Freeman in "Driving Miss Daisy," "Seven" and the seemingly endless series of films in which he plays ersatz paterfamilias to a white woman bedeviled by a serial killer. But at least he survives, unlike Crothers in "The Shining," in which psychic premonitions inspire him to rescue a white family he barely knows and get killed for his trouble. This heart-tug trope is parodied in Gus Van Sant's "Elephant." The film's sole black student at a Columbine-like high school arrives in the midst of a slaughter, helps a girl escape and is immediately gunned down. See what helping the white man gets you?
And what does the white man get out of the bargain? That's a question asked by John Guare in "Six Degrees of Separation," his brilliant retelling of the true saga of David Hampton — a young, personable gay con man who in the 1980s passed himself off as the son of none other than the real Sidney Poitier. Though he started small, using the ruse to get into Studio 54, Hampton discovered that countless gullible, well-heeled New Yorkers, vulnerable to the Magic Negro myth, were only too eager to believe in his baroque fantasy. (One of the few who wasn't fooled was Andy Warhol, who was astonished his underlings believed Hampton's whoppers. Clearly Warhol had no need for the accouterment of interracial "goodwill.")
But the same can't be said of most white Americans, whose desire for a noble, healing Negro hasn't faded. That's where Obama comes in: as Poitier's "real" fake son.
The senator's famously stem-winding stump speeches have been drawing huge crowds to hear him talk of uniting rather than dividing. A praiseworthy goal. Consequently, even the mild criticisms thrown his way have been waved away, "magically." He used to smoke, but now he doesn't; he racked up a bunch of delinquent parking tickets, but he paid them all back with an apology. And hey, is looking good in a bathing suit a bad thing?
The only mud that momentarily stuck was criticism (white and black alike) concerning Obama's alleged "inauthenticty," as compared to such sterling examples of "genuine" blackness as Al Sharpton and Snoop Dogg. Speaking as an African American whose last name has led to his racial "credentials" being challenged — often several times a day — I know how pesky this sort of thing can be.
Obama's fame right now has little to do with his political record or what he's written in his two (count 'em) books, or even what he's actually said in those stem-winders. It's the way he's said it that counts the most. It's his manner, which, as presidential hopeful Sen. Joe Biden ham-fistedly reminded us, is "articulate." His tone is always genial, his voice warm and unthreatening, and he hasn't called his opponents names (despite being baited by the media).
Like a comic-book superhero, Obama is there to help, out of the sheer goodness of a heart we need not know or understand. For as with all Magic Negroes, the less real he seems, the more desirable he becomes. If he were real, white America couldn't project all its fantasies of curative black benevolence on him.
I found this article to be an interesting take on the Obamenon among
liberals today. The man has enjoyed an unprecedented level of
goodwill and support in the past two years. Since his election to
the Senate over Alan Keyes, his name has been one of the most whispered
about presidential contenders for 2008. While at first the
whispering was merely idiotic, it has now become slightly less
so. At the time of his election, the man was coming from a
background in state politics and community organization before
that. Hardly a presidential resume these days, but that didn't
seem to shake the conviction of his supporters that B.O. would make a
stellar president.
Why? What in this man's background
qualifies him to even run at this stage? He has less than a full
term in the U.S. Senate, and no executive experience that can be
applied to the job of President. He has been a legislator and
organizer. These are very different animals when compared to a
President or even a governor. The mechanics are different, the
job is different -- and he hasn't proven his worth in his own elected
position yet.
Why indeed should he garner such wide support if not for the the overwhelming desire of some Americans to demonstrate that
the time of racism has passed? I would argue that this is a form
of racism in itself. Why should his race be a driving factor in
his support? We should be able to assess the man free of these
factors.
I would not say that Obama would be a terrible president...our elected
leaders can only get our country into so much trouble, without
help. Obama's inexperience is not an asset, nor is his
relative newness to Washington and its corrupting influence. I
posit that Obama has jumped the gun tremendously. His character
and freshness will not see him through the meatgrinder of this election.
Regarding white guilt...what a terrible motivation to support this
man. It is not as if there is a conscious awareness of the
feeling. Every supporter of Obama needs to search their heart and
eschew every ounce of patronizing guilt over this man's blackness
before they throw their lot in with him. And then they need to
look at his record and make the right decision: Vote experience,
not personality.
And did we notice that Wikipedia has been used as a reference tool in this article? Seeing that more and more...Not that I have a problem with it.
Barely aught 7, begins the push
For who will lead us after Bush.
Early though it now might seem,
Aspirants are building steam
Sniping Bush and one another,
Opposition yet to smother
'Fore the prize can be secured-
Four the prize to be endured.
Biden's own scathing diner talk-
The elder's contempt all unblocked-
By such tone all growling came
To make profane a sacred name.
That of course was his intent
If soon he might be President.
More from him is in the cards,
More teasing hapless John Edwards.
While I may be conservative
(Cultural preservative),
To a qualm I must confess
Which my readers may address:
A reaction visceral
To a feeling general
That we have no one to run
That could beat Mrs. Clinton.
I won't vote for him, but Joe Biden seems to have his head somewhere other than buried in his heinie. Of course, he won't get the nomination. But this article reminded me of high school. All the popular kids won't even respond to his criticism since he's a third-tier "nobody" on the playground. I simplify, but that was my feeling.
And hey, I don't agree with his politics, but I like his tone. Aside from the media hoopla over his remarks about B.O. ("I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy'..."), he really does seem like someone I'd enjoy.
I particularly like the tone he reserves for John Edwards, that ambulance-chasing nincompoop:
Mr. Biden seemed to reserve a special scorn for Mr. Edwards, who suffered from a perceived lack of depth in foreign policy in the Presidential election of 2004.“I don’t think John Edwards knows what the heck he is talking about,” Mr. Biden said, when asked about Mr. Edwards’ advocacy of the immediate withdrawal of about 40,000 American troops from Iraq.“John Edwards wants you and all the Democrats to think, ‘I want us out of there,’ but when you come back and you say, ‘O.K., John’”—here, the word “John” became an accusatory, mocking refrain—“‘what about the chaos that will ensue? Do we have any interest, John, left in the region?’ Well, John will have to answer yes or no. If he says yes, what are they? What are those interests, John? How do you protect those interests, John, if you are completely withdrawn? Are you withdrawn from the region, John? Are you withdrawn from Iraq, John? In what period? So all this stuff is like so much Fluffernutter out there. So for me, what I think you have to do is have a strategic notion. And they may have it—they are just smart enough not to enunciate it.”
The emphasis is mine.
I hope he loses, but I want to see more of him.
