US 2008 Presidential Campaign/Debate Discussion Thread #6

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Apparently Ohio governor Strickland will not accept a potential VP offer from Obama. That's good news for conservatives, I think. He would have almost guarenteed Ohio for Obama, and therefore, probably the election.
 
2861U2 said:
Apparently Ohio governor Strickland will not accept a potential VP offer from Obama. That's good news for conservatives, I think. He would have almost guarenteed Ohio for Obama, and therefore, probably the election.
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it does depress me that the only votes that count may very well be in OH.
 
Obama Admits Smoking Cigarettes in Last Few Months


June 10, 2008 2:14 PM

ABC News' Sunlen Miller Reports: Senator Barack Obama told reporters in St. Louis today that he has fallen off the wagon and smoked cigarettes in the last few months.

The presumptive Democratic nominee has been open about his smoking past: Once a heavy smoker, he publicly gave up the habit, per his wife’s request, to run for president.

Since quitting, Obama has indicated in the past that he has “fallen off the wagon” but before today was not specific about how recent his smoking was.
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How can we trust him about Iraq?

If he does not keep his word?

What change is this?

He is becoming more W like every day. :shrug:
 
Wall Street Journal:

54% said the statement that “This is a time when it is important to look for a person who will bring greater changes to the current policies even if he is less experienced and tested,” identified more with their personal view, while 42% said the statement that “This is a time when it is important to look for a more experienced and tested person even if he brings fewer changes to the current policies,” was more in line with their view of the race.
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The presidential candidates aren't serious about the budget. - By John Dickerson
slate.com, June 11


I wish presidential candidates were as honest as they tell us they're going to be. For one thing, it would make campaign events more entertaining. I'd like to thank Bill Wilson for that generous introduction if I had any idea who Bill Wilson was. A little honesty would also inject a note of reality—and also panic—into the current debate about the economy. Instead of sticking to the supposed panacea of new programs or tax cuts to lure voters, the presidential candidates would admit that the federal budget is such a mess that voters are likely to face substantial trade-offs and sacrifice in the coming years.
..............................................................................
If the candidates talked straight about the fiscal situation, they would note that much of the budget they will inherit is on autopilot. Entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid take up 42% of the federal pie and will mushroom to nearly 70% over the next two decades as baby boomers retire. That means less discretionary money for all those programs from national parks and homeland security to defense and education.

The 2009 deficit will be in excess of $400 billion, which means it's not enough for a candidate to say that his new programs are paid for. McCain and Obama also have to tell us how they're going to tackle the deficit beast that George Bush failed to tame. Even if the next president scrapped Bush's tax cuts, ended the popular Medicare prescription-drug benefit, and returned defense spending to prewar levels, he would still have to pay off hundreds of billions from the interest on the Bush debt. That will (or at least should) put a cramp in any administration's style.

How great is the state of denial on the campaign trail? When the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget put out its 12-step program to encourage candidates to talk about fiscal responsibility, the first item was to admit that the problem exists. If you listen to former Comptroller General Dave Walker outline what he calls the super subprime crisis of unaddressed problems in the budget and then read an Obama or McCain economic speech, the disparity becomes fantastical. It's as if the candidates are promising everyone free facials and lake-front timeshares.

If conscience doesn't move McCain and Obama to acknowledge all of this, then the policy realities should. The sooner decisions are made about national spending priorities, the more time the public will have to adjust, and the easier it will be to spread the sacrifices broadly. If the winning candidate waits to face these issues once he's in office, he'll have missed the chance to build a national mandate for the tough choices he's going to be forced to make. There's also a crass political reason to start talking about the budget now: When the arithmetic forces a future president to disappoint constituencies, it won't come as a surprise. The president can make denial look virtuous. He can't spend the money because he's keeping his campaign promise to restore fiscal responsibility.

And yet, of course, when you're trying to feel the voters' pain, it's politically dangerous to tell them more is on the way. Obama, who still suffers from his remarks about the bitterness of small-town people, is engaged in a two-week tour on which he's trying to woo white working-class voters who live in swing states. On Monday in North Carolina, he offered tax cuts for middle-income families and retirees, a $50 billion economic stimulus package, expansion of unemployment benefits, and relief for homeowners facing foreclosure. McCain, for his part, is trying to live down his admission that he doesn't know as much about the economy as he does about, say, the Iraq war. On Tuesday, he doled out tax cuts and found a new passion for opposing the estate tax and contradicted a previous position on Social Security tax hikes.

Both candidates also face pressures from within their parties. Barack Obama isn't going to be brave about the trade-offs needed to fix Social Security when many Democrats don't believe there's a problem at all (or if there is, it can be fixed with economic growth). While John McCain is having trouble with evangelicals, he's not going to risk offending his party's other devout wing, the tax-cutters.

So far, Barack Obama has not given a speech on the topic of fiscal restraint or budget balancing. He did give one on Social Security, but it was mostly designed to show that Hillary Clinton hadn't told the truth about what she would consider doing to fix it. And in that speech, Obama retreated from his fiscally honest position of considering a wider number of options for fixing the system.

McCain has said he would balance the budget by the end of his first term, but he's wobbling on that pledge, saying it's now just a goal. Overall, McCain talks more about fiscal responsibility than Obama. He has also done far more to tell voters uncomfortable truths. He's done that on immigration, job losses, and the war. But straighter talk only gets you so far: McCain talks regularly about cutting special earmark programs in the federal budget—as he did this Tuesday—but earmarks are just one sliver of the problem. McCain supports tax cuts that are poised to make the fiscal situation far worse than Obama's spending plans. McCain's team says they can pay for these tax cuts and balance the budget, but budget experts of all ideological persuasions are highly dubious. You can even imagine that the McCain of old, who spoke out against the Bush tax cuts, would call B.S. on his own plan.

To defend themselves, both campaigns point to the relative shortcomings of the other. McCain says Obama's spending plans will bloat the budget, and Obama says McCain's tax cuts will do the same. They're both right, but saying the-other-guy-is-worse-than–I-am is probably not the kind of stirring leadership that brings all those people to those Obama rallies. Nor is it why John McCain has gotten credit for political courage over the years. If the promises of truth-telling keep coming but the serious discussion doesn't, then I'm going to expect some kind of honesty to make up the candor deficit. Ladies and gentlemen, what I'm about to promise you has little bearing in reality.
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salon.com


Wednesday, June 11, 2008 20:40 EDT
Fox News calls Michelle Obama "Obama's baby mama"

An alert reader wrote in just a little while ago to let us know about something he'd spotted on Fox News Wednesday afternoon. During a segment discussing conservative attacks against Michelle Obama, the wife of presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama, the network described the former as "Obama's baby mama."

I checked, and sure enough, as you can see below, our e-mailer was right. In fact, that description was displayed on screen several times during the segment, which featured anchor Megyn Kelly and conservative blogger Michelle Malkin, an FNC contributor.

A clip of the segment in its entirety is below. You may notice that at one point, Malkin says, "By the way, it's not just Republicans who are criticizing some of her comments, but also statements have been made in the left-leaning blog Salon about her comments." I've searched the site, and I can't find anything like what Malkin is talking about. I've e-mailed Malkin asking for clarification -- if and when she responds, I'll update this post.

RedLasso - Fox

Update: Malkin responded to my e-mail; she says she misspoke and that she meant to refer to Slate, not Salon.

story.jpg
 
amazing.

picking on Michelle Obama? a woman who went to Princeton and Harvard Law (in the 80s, when it probably wasn't all that easy to be a high achieving black woman at such WASP bastions) and who's resume is the equal of her husband's and she happens to be quite beautiful, stylish (whispers of a "black Camelot"), and has two polite, well-behaved daughters?

i suppose it would be better if she just inherited a brewery and would remember to stfu when the men are speaking.

the Republicans have nothing.
 
No, she's just a BABY MAMA

Is Cindy McCain just a baby mama? What's the difference between them? Hmmm

Fox "news" is disgusting. I don't know who can watch that and actually think it's news.


Fantasia Barrino
Baby Mama

[Chorus]
B-A-B-Y M-A-M-A
This goes out to all my baby mamas
This goes out to all my baby mamas
B-A-B-Y M-A-M-A
This goes out to all my baby mamas
I got love for all my baby mamas

It's about time we had our own song
Don't know what took so long
Cuz now-a-days it like a badge of honer
To be a baby mama
I see ya payin' ya bills
I see ya workin' ya job
I see ya goin' to school
And girl I know it's hard
And even though ya fed up
With makin' beds up
Girl, keep ya head up
All my

[Chorus]
B-A-B-Y M-A-M-A
This goes out to all my baby mamas
This goes out to all my baby mamas
B-A-B-Y M-A-M-A
This goes out to all my baby mamas
I got love for all my baby mamas

I see you get that support check in the mail
Ya open it and your like "What the Hell"
You say "This ain't even half of daycare"
Sayin to yourself "This shit ain't fair"
And all my girls who don't get no help
Who gotta do everything by yourself
Remember: What don't kill you can only make you stronger
My baby mama...

[Chorus]
B-A-B-Y M-A-M-A
This goes out to all my baby mamas
This goes out to all my baby mamas
B-A-B-Y M-A-M-A
This goes out to all my baby mamas
I got love for all my baby mamas

Cuz we the backbone (of the hood)
I always knew that (that we could)
We can go anywhere, we can do anything
I know we can make it if we dream
And I think it should be a holiday
For single mothers tryin' to make a way
But until then
Here is your song
Show love to my....

[Chorus]
B-A-B-Y M-A-M-A
This goes out to all my baby mamas
This goes out to all my baby mamas
B-A-B-Y M-A-M-A
This goes out to all my baby mamas
 
haha, what a surprise

Huckabee joining Fox News as political commentator

By ANDREW DeMILLO, Associated Press Writer 24 minutes ago

Mike Huckabee, a former Republican presidential hopeful, has been hired by Fox News Channel as a political commentator.

"Gov. Huckabee's campaign experience and knowledge of politics makes him a great addition to our ongoing election coverage," Bill Shine, senior vice president of programming, said in a statement Thursday.

Huckabee, who served as governor of Arkansas for 10 1/2 years, dropped out of the race in March, after John McCain won enough delegates to clinch the Republican nomination. Despite a financially strapped campaign, Huckabee won the leadoff caucuses in Iowa and seven other states.

"I hope to bring the unique perspective from `inside the dragon's belly' as well as to try and speak for the millions of hardworking middle-class Americans who really do feel that their voices are not being heard," Huckabee said in a statement released by his daughter, Sarah. "I saw that on the campaign trail and continue to see as I speak to groups of all kinds around the country as well as campaign for other candidates."

Financial terms of the agreement weren't released.

Huckabee, an ordained Baptist preacher, has been mentioned as a potential running mate for McCain. Since leaving the race, Huckabee has formed a political action committee that he says will help raise money for McCain and other Republicans.
 
Capitalism!!!

If you give people the choice between some centrist lefties and right wing nutbars they obviously vote with their wallets.

I should stipulate that I have nothing but contempt for theocons and bombastic newstainment, I vote with my wallet and hit the blogs for links to decent articles by different columnists.
 
I've said before and will continue to say, if Fox News would honestly label themselves as a conservative network that favors conservative views then fine. But that they try to put themselves out there as "Fair and Balanced" is a mockery.
 
Irvine511 said:
is he there to provide "commentary" or is he actually reporting?
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Well, according the article he'll simply be providing commentary. It's no different than MSNBC regularly using Rachel Maddow from Air America. I don't get it. What's the problem?
 
2861U2 said:
Well, according the article he'll simply be providing commentary. It's no different than MSNBC regularly using Rachel Maddow from Air America. I don't get it. What's the problem?
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she's not an elected official, nor is she panting to be on the ticket.

Fox can do whatever it wants. it also can drop any pretense to being "fair and balanced."
 
deep said:
How can we trust him about Iraq?

If he does not keep his word?

What change is this?

He is becoming more W like every day. :shrug:
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this, to me, sounds much more like W's trust fund kid fecklessness:

[q]McCains report more than $100,000 in credit card debt
By Kevin Bogardus and Manu Raju
Posted: 06/13/08 10:20 AM [ET]
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and his wife reported more than $100,000 of credit card liabilities, according to financial disclosure documents released Friday.

The presidential candidate and his wife Cindy reported piling up debt on a charge card between $10,000 and $15,000. His wife’s solo charge card has between $100,000 and $250,000 in debt to American Express.

Another charge card with American Express, this one for a “dependent child,” is carrying debt in the range of $15,000 and $50,000.

Cindy McCain reported a wealth of assets, including properties in Arizona and one she sold in La Jolla, Calif. for more than $1 million in profit.

In addition to his Senate salary, McCain received an annual pension from the U.S. Navy that is worth more than $58,000.

Democratic candidate, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), reported no liabilities in his annual financial disclosures.[/q]



does this matter? should this matter?
 
Good article about Michelle Obama. If anyone has never heard that roommate story-that's just part of what she has experienced.



Learning to be Michelle Obama
At Princeton, she came to terms with being a black achiever in a white world

By Sally Jacobs, Boston Globe Staff | June 15, 2008

As Catherine Donnelly climbed the stairs to her dorm room at Princeton University over a quarter-century ago, the Louisiana freshman felt ready for whatever lay ahead. But then she met Michelle.

Her full name was Michelle LaVaughn Robinson. She was so tall that her head seemed to brush the sloping ceiling of the cramped fourth-floor room. She was Donnelly's new roommate. And she was black.

Well, this was new.

Growing up in the South, Donnelly had gone to school with a handful of black classmates, but living together was quite another thing. Donnelly quickly warmed to Robinson, with her big sense of humor and riveting stories. But she was worried that her mother, who Donnelly said had grown up in a racist family, would not react well. She was right.

When Donnelly's mother, now 71, learned the race of her daughter's roommate , she was beside herself. She called alumni friends to object. And the next morning she marched into the student housing office.

"I said I need to get my daughter's room changed right away," recalled Alice Brown, a retired schoolteacher, who has since come to regret her reaction. "I called my own mother and she said, 'Take Catherine out of school immediately. Bring her home.' I was very upset about the whole thing."

For 17-year-old Robinson - who is now Michelle Obama and the first African-American woman to face the real prospect of becoming first lady - the incident was a stunning beginning to a formative chapter in her life. It was a time when her views on race and American culture began to coalesce - views that have helped make her a compelling figure but also somewhat of a lightning rod during the campaign. Just last week the Barack Obama campaign took on an apparently baseless rumor that she had once been taped talking of white Americans as "whitey."

Obama says she did not know about Alice Brown's actions until several weeks ago. But she wonders now if the incident might explain in part why she and Brown's daughter did not become better friends.

"We were never close," Obama said in an e-mail. "But sometimes that's the thing you sense, that there's something that's there, but it's often unspoken."

At the time Obama entered Princeton in 1981, the Ivy League campus was largely, if unofficially, segregated socially and Obama found her years there marked by questions about race and loyalty - much the same questions she and her husband often face today. Then, as now, Obama's focus was on overcoming differences rather than igniting them. The lesson she finds in the roommate incident is one of hope - Alice Brown is now considering casting her vote for Barack Obama.

"What it demonstrated was the growth that this parent had," Obama wrote. "What that told me is that, yes, the problems we face in this nation around race are real . . . but we also have to remember that people change and they grow."

Michelle Obama has often been cast as the more adamant half of the Obama household, when it comes to racial matters, and some have traced this thread to her Princeton years. But she was hardly a campus activist. Instead, she pursued quieter means of change characteristic of her practical nature, according to classmates with whom she remains close. In her efforts to understand the lot of black students, this determined young woman with the big hair and trademark strand of pearls attended meetings with school administrators about the African- American Studies department, helped bring black alumni to campus to address students, and worked afternoons in the school's Third World Center. It was, according to several professors and friends close to her, a critical passage in her life.

"Princeton was a real crossroads of identity for Michelle," said Harvard Law School professor Charles J. Ogletree, who was her law school adviser and now works with the Obama campaign. "The question was whether I retain my identity given by my African-American parents, or whether the education from an elite university has transformed me into something different than what they made me. By the time she got to Harvard she had answered the question. She could be both brilliant and black."

Search for racial identity
Obama's questions became, in part, the subject of her senior thesis, called "Princeton-Educated Blacks and The Black Community." Much has been made in the blogosphere of Obama's observation in that work: "My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'Blackness' than ever before . . . Regardless of the circumstances under which I interact with Whites at Princeton, it often seems as if, to them, I will always be Black first and a student second."

But her 1985 thesis is not just about her own experience, but also examines larger issues of racial identity. The thesis had been embargoed until after the presidential election, but when the campaign came under criticism, it was released in February.

"Michelle's central question was what good does a Princeton education do for the black community," recalled Howard Taylor, sociology professor emeritus, and former chairman of the Center for African American Studies. "What will it do for me? Will it separate me from the black community?"

Princeton in the early 1980s was not an easy place to be black. For young Michelle Robinson, reared on the South Side of Chicago and the daughter of a municipal pump operator, it was "a new frontier," as Katie McCormick Lelyveld, Obama's director of communications, described it. Long regarded as the most conservative of the Ivy League schools, its social scene was dominated by elite "eating clubs" where blacks sometimes worked but were rarely members. Many blacks socialized largely among themselves, according to some students, including the school's director of communications, Lauren Robinson-Brown, a classmate of Obama's.

"We ate together. We partied together. We were each others' support system," she said.

When Obama entered Princeton, she was one of 94 black students in a class of 1,141. Her transition from her family's one-bedroom urban apartment to the exclusive suburban campus was made somewhat easier by the fact that her brother Craig Robinson had arrived there two years earlier. Robinson, now the head basketball coach at Oregon State University, was a star basketball player who had been recruited to the campus and his success opened many doors for his younger sister. But still, the veil of race hung heavy.

Despite her mother's opposition, Catherine Donnelly was drawn to her new roommate, one of two young women with whom she shared the low-ceilinged room in Pyne Hall. She recalled that Obama, whom many called "Miche," "had these beautiful long-fingered hands that she used to tell great stories with. I loved her hands."

But when another room became available the following semester, Donnelly moved out. She says it was not because of her mother's racial concerns, but because the new room was larger. Once she moved out, she said she and Obama rarely spoke, even when they passed each other on campus.

"Michelle early on began to hang out with other black students," said Donnelly, now a lawyer in Palmetto, Ga. "Princeton was just a very segregated place. I wish now that I had pushed harder to be friends, but by the same token she did not invite me to do things either."

Obama herself often felt stigmatized on campus. In her thesis, she wrote that at Princeton, "No matter how liberal and open minded some of my White professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don't belong."

Obama and her friends talked about the racial situation on campus a lot. "But Michelle kind of stayed away from the fray," recalled Lisa F. Rawlings, a classmate who is now a program director at Prince George's Community College in Maryland.

Asked if Obama experienced incidents of racism, Lelyveld said in an e-mail that, "So many years down the line, she [Obama] can't say for certain whether there were any specific incidents." Lelyveld initially said that Obama did not remember her freshman roommate.

But several of Obama's African-American classmates say they found the campus was as racially fragmented as it was elitist, and some white students agree. Hilary Beard, a friend of Obama's who is African-American and was a class ahead, recalls, "A lot of white students there had never been around black students. . . . They would want to touch my hair." And Rawlings says, "I cannot tell you the number of times I was called 'Brown Sugar.' "

While many found such incidents disturbing, Obama's brother, Craig Robinson, says that few got up in arms about it.

"We all viewed it as what you needed to do, to do business there," said Robinson. "You had to put up with certain things."

By her second year, Obama had settled in with three roommates of color in a suite of sparely furnished rooms. She quickly gained a reputation for her vast collection of Stevie Wonder records. An early riser, she was also known for her stylish appearance.

"Michelle was always fashionably dressed, even on a budget," remembers Angela Acree, Obama's roommate for three years and now a Washington, D.C., lawyer. "You wouldn't catch her in sweats, even back then."

But mostly Obama was recognized for her commitment to her studies. Part of it was the rigor of the school. And part of it was the expectations that she - like many black students who were the first in their family to go to college - knew awaited her back home.

"Michelle and Craig spoke a lot about their parents," said Beard. "She was going to succeed for them as much as herself."

Obama, who majored in sociology with a minor in African-American studies, dedicated her thesis to, "Mom, Dad, Craig and all of my special friends. Thank you for loving me and always making me feel good about myself."

Although Obama had friends who were both black and white, her social world revolved around several of the black organizations on campus, as it did for many other black students. Obama was a member of the Organization of Black Unity, a primary resource for black students on campus which arranged speakers and programs. There was also a Black Thoughts Table, a popular discussion group about current affairs and race.

Obama also took part in two fashion shows that were sponsored largely by black student groups. In one devoted to the Ethiopian Relief Fund in 1985, and dubbed "Secret Fantasy," she modeled a sleeveless red velvet ball gown. In the other, which benefited a local after-school program, she was clad in a yellow Caribbean peasant skirt. Lelyveld said that Obama does not recall the events, but the organizers remember her vividly. Karen Jackson Ruffin, who designed the dresses Obama wore, recalled that she asked Obama to participate, "because she is so tall and carries herself so well. Michelle is very mellow and she said, 'Sure.' "

A cultural home
One of the issues debated among black students at the time was whether they could partake in white-dominated schools and careers and still remain connected to the black community.

"The question was were you a traitor to your race to go to a white-dominated school at all," said Steve Dawson, a Princeton alumnus and the former head of the Association of Black Princeton Alumni. "Michelle had crossed that threshold in going to Princeton. But she was concerned as she considered law school, is it still an OK thing to do?"

While Obama was a familiar figure in many black circles, it was the Third World Center, a hub for students of color and different nationalities, housed in a boxy red-brick building, that was the center of her cultural life at Princeton. Obama was a member of the Center's governance board, and was coordinator of an after-school program for local children.

"The Third World Center was our life," Acree said. "We hung out there, we partied there, we studied there."

And Obama sometimes played the piano there. Jonathan Brasuell, the son of the former director of the Third World Center, who spent time in the after-school program there, remembers her playing the title theme of "Peanuts" for him when he was about 7.

"I could not go though a week without hearing that," recalls Brasuell, now 31.

At the center, there was also a lot of talk about the racial situation on campus.

"Michelle was very much a part of the conversation about this," recalled Beard, now a writer living in Philadelphia. "But while she would get annoyed, she had a lot of equanimity."

In her thesis, Obama observed that Princeton, like other predominantly white universities, was "designed to cater to the needs of the White students." She pointed out that there were only five tenured black professors and that "Afro American Studies is one of the smallest and most understaffed departments in the University." Activities organized by university groups, she added, "such as Student Government, rarely, if ever, take into account the diverse interests which exist at a University that is not 100 percent White."

During the years that Obama was at Princeton, there were a number of racially charged issues percolating on campus. There were demonstrations against apartheid, and protests over the university's investments in South Africa. But Obama took part in little of it. When the Rev. Jesse Jackson visited campus in her senior year - Obama was a childhood friend of his daughter - she did not attend.

"She was not at all politically motivated," Lelyveld wrote.

Even some who were politically inclined did not attend events where they stood a chance of getting arrested.

"Remember, most of us black students had no social safety net," added classmate Beard. "You had an opportunity to change the arc of your life and you were not going to mess it up."

By her last year at Princeton, Obama was looking ahead. As part of her thesis work, she surveyed a group of black alumni to see if their attitudes had changed during their years at Princeton, and in particular if they had become "more or less motivated to benefit the Black Community."

What she found surprised her. As students, she wrote, the alumni were closely identified with the black community. But after graduating, she wrote, "their identification with Whites and the White community increased." The finding seemed to give her some pause.

Going to Princeton had left her striving for the same goals as her white classmates, such as acceptance at a graduate school or successful corporation. Indeed, Obama would go on to Harvard Law School, and would ultimately work as a corporate lawyer and for a major city hospital. But in her final months of college, she seemed to balk at such a path.

Further assimilation into the white social structure, she concluded," will only allow me to remain on the periphery of society; never becoming a full participant," she wrote.

Since graduating, Obama has not returned to the Princeton campus. But after leaving the college behind, she found a way to resolve her dilemma while remaining true to herself.

"Michelle answered the question by going to Harvard," Ogletree said. "And she came with no ambiguity about her race or gender. She would navigate corporate America, but she would never forget her father's values and where she came from."
 
Whatever � Fox News Would Like To Take a Moment To Remind You That the Obamas Are As Black As Satan’s Festering, Baby-Eating Soul



Published by John Scalzi at 11:22 am

Back in the day – you know, when presidential candidates were respectably white – news organizations called potential First Ladies “wives.” But now that black folks are running, we can get all funky fresh with the lingo, yo. So it’s basically fine for Fox News to use “Baby Mama” for Michelle Obama, slang that implies a married 44-year-old Princeton-educated lawyer is, to use an Urban Dictionary definition of the term, “some chick you knocked up on accident during a fling who you can’t stand but you have to tolerate cuz she got your baby now.” Because the Obamas are black! And the blacks, they’re all relaxed about that shit, yo. Word up. And anyway, as the caption clearly indicates, it’s not Fox News that’s calling Michelle Obama “Baby Mama,” it’s outraged liberals. Fox News is just telling you what those outraged liberals are saying. They didn’t want to use the term “Baby Mama.” But clearly they had no choice.

Meanwhile, over at her personal site, Michelle “Fox News’ Ethnic Shield” Malkin defends Fox News’ use of the “Baby Mama” phrase by essentially making two arguments. First, Michelle Obama once called Barack Obama her “baby’s daddy,” and as we all know, a married woman factually and correctly calling her husband her child’s father is exactly the same as a major news organization calling a potential First Lady some chick what got knocked up on a fling. Second, the term “baby-daddy” has gone out into the common culture; heck, even Tom Cruise was called Katie Holmes’ baby-daddy, you know, when he impregnated her and she subsequently gave birth while the two were not married, which is exactly like what happened between Michelle and Barack Obama, who were married in 1992 and whose first child was born six years later.

So by Malkin’s reasoning it’s perfectly fine for Fox News to call Michelle Obama the unmarried mother of Barack Obama’s children because an entirely different phrase has to her mind entered the common culture, and there was this one time that Michelle Obama once uttered something that sounded like that entirely different phrase, which is not the phrase that Fox News used. But wait! Malkin also points to someone in her comment thread saying that one time, Michelle Obama actually used the phrase “baby daddy”! No apostrophe! It’s in a comment thread, so it must be true. Therefore, Michelle Obama apocryphally using a piece of urban slang makes it perfectly okay for Fox News to use an entirely different piece of urban slang. And that’s why, you see, it won’t be a problem for Bill O’Reilly to refer to Barack Obama as “my nigga” on the next O’Reilly Factor.

It’s shit like this that makes this story on CNN, about whether Barack Obama should be considered black or biracial, an absolute hoot. Here’s a quick test on whether Obama should be considered fully black: Poof! Barack Obama has been magically transported to a KKK meeting in deepest, whitest Klanistan without his Secret Service detail. There’s a rope and a tree nearby. What happens to Obama? If you say, “why, Barack Obama walks out of there alive, of course” then sure, he’s biracial. Also, you’re a fucking idiot. To everybody who cares about Obama’s racial identity, either positively or negatively, the man is a black man, married to a black woman, who has black children. Black black black black black black black black.

It sure as hell matters to Fox News, which is why it’s dog whistling about Barack so loudly that it’s vibrating the windows. Calling Michelle Obama a “baby mama” isn’t just Fox News having a happy casual larf; it’s using urban slang to a) remind you the Obamas are black, b) belittle a woman of considerable personal accomplishment, and c) frame Barack Obama’s relationship to his wife and children in a way that insults him, minimizes his love for and commitment to his family, and reinforces stereotypes about black men. Someone at Fox News just ought to call Barack Obama “boy” at some point so we can have all the cards right out there on the table.

This will keep happening. Fox News will keep finding ways to remind its viewers that the Obamas are black (and possibly Muslim), Michelle Malkin will continue to make excuses for Fox News’ dog-whistling racism that expose the fact that she’s about as familiar with logical thinking as a rainbow trout is with knitting, and eventually some portion of the Fox News audience will get to the ballot box in November convinced that they’re not really racists, they just know that there’s something about that Obama boy they just don’t like. This is how it will go. Let’s not pretend it’s not part of equation, this election year.

:applaud:
 
McCain to cancel Texas fund-raiser over joke

June 15, 2008

WASHINGTON - Questions from the media prompted Republican John McCain to cancel a fund-raiser at the home of a Texas oilman who once joked that women should give in while being raped.

The Texan, Republican Clayton Williams, made the joke during his failed 1990 campaign for governor against Democrat Ann Richards. Williams compared rape to the weather, saying, "As long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it." He also compared Richards to the cattle on his ranch, saying he would "head her and hoof her and drag her through the dirt."

Williams's comments made national news at the time and remain easy to find on the Internet. Even so, McCain's campaign said it had not known about the remarks.

"These were obviously incredibly offensive remarks that the campaign was unaware of at the time it was scheduled," McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said. "It's positive that he did apologize at the time, but the comments are nonetheless offensive."

The campaign said it would not return money Williams had raised for McCain because the contributions came from other individuals supporting McCain and not from Williams. Williams told his hometown newspaper, the Midland Reporter-Telegram, that he had raised more than $300,000 for McCain.

Democrats said McCain should give back the money: "Senator McCain's claim of ignorance is no excuse for refusing to do the right thing now. Offensive, disgusting comments like these cannot be tolerated," said Karen Finney, the Democratic National Committee spokeswoman.

The flap comes as McCain's campaign reaches out to women and to backers of Democrat Hillary Clinton. McCain began a women-focused outreach effort in recent days, sending a well-known female supporter, Carly Fiorina, a former Hewlett-Packard chief executive to campaign in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

"I respect and admire the campaign she ran," McCain said yesterday on a telephone town hall meeting. "Every place I go, I'm told that Senator Clinton inspired millions of young women in this country. And not necessarily young women; she inspired a whole generation of young people in this country."

ASSOCIATED PRESS
 
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