The Hube Redux
There is no limit to the man’s hypocrisy. Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.
This is Obama responding to a reporter’s question about the alleged Michelle tape:
“We have seen this before. There is dirt and lies that are circulated in emails and they pump them out long enough until finally you, a mainstream reporter, asks me about it,” Obama said to the McClatchy reporter during a press conference aboard his campaign plane. “That gives legs to the story. If somebody has evidence that myself or Michelle or anybody has said something inappropriate, let them do it.”
This from the man whose campaign — not two weeks ago — was furiously pushing the grotesque RFK assassination smear against Hillary. Calling up reporters, circulating quotes out of context, spreading the lies, fanning the flames, pumping the story until it had legs.
And he’s done the same goddamn thing the whole campaign. He’s like Humbert Humphrey, only worse. Humphrey had that whole nice guy shtick going, too. Nice guy, a good guy, your friendly neighbor from Minnesota, always taking the “high road,” as Hube called it, always talking about the politics of decency — while in the background his campaign was slinging every goddamn bit of dirt it could find or create. Pure unadulterated mud. Humphrey also had the corrupt Chicago machine backing him, and a nomination stolen from the more popular candidate.
But Obama’s younger than Hube was, and better-looking, and hip. Poor old Hube didn’t have masses of young fanbots talking about swirling vortexes of love and pink fuzzy hearts. Nobody ever painted a picture of Hubert Humphrey emerging from the Willamette River with roses cascading at his feet and a white horse/unicorn/pony galloping behind him.
And that, my friends, is the difference. It’s all surface shine. All packaging, modern and slick and insidious. Barack Obama is simply the new, millenial version of Hubert Humphrey. He’s Hubert Humphrey with sex appeal. He’s the focus-group-tested, Madison Avenue version. He’s who the Hube would have been if he’d been designed by Ogilvy & Mather.
I feel the way so many of my elders felt in ’68, after Bobby was killed (and Hillary, not Obama, is Bobby’s heir), after McCarthy was robbed, after their last chance to be represented was torn from them and they were stuck with….Humphrey.
Hubert. Fucking. Humphrey.
(Oh, hi, everybody. I’m almost back! A humongous thanks to everyone who has helped and donated, which I’m going to write more about in the morning along with an update. But first, tonight, I had to eject this very bitter pill that was rising up in my throat and suffocating me. Projectile vomiting on the blog, you might say.)
16 Responses to “The Hube Redux”
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julia says:
Violet, I am so glad to see you back!!!
Brilliant post. I wish it weren’t true. How is it possible that the ‘winner’ has fewer votes? Only in Amerika.
I can’t even open a newspaper anymore. I am sick to death of how they smear her at every turn, even now.
I just heard John Perkins (‘Confessions of an Economic Hitman’) praise Latin America for having two women presidents who are “receptive and feminine”. What does that mean about Hillary – that she’s closed down and masculine?
I adore that Hillary is a smart, strong, powerful woman.
I have had it with men telling us how we must be.June 6th, 2008 at 12:26 am EST -
sister of ye says:
Glad to see you’re back! We’ve missed your voice.
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Ciccina says:
I’m very glad you’re back, too!
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Pippa says:
Puke it up dr socks! It’s exactly how we feel.
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kenoshaMarge says:
Hubert. Fucking. Humphrey. LOL!
I voted for him too gagging all the way. I have been guilty of pretty much voting for whatever pinhead came down the road with a “D” after their name. Not all were pinheads of course. Some were votes I was happy about. (Bill Clinton-twice) Most of the others, not so much.
But I have drawn a line in the sand and I will not cross it to vote for a misogynist, race-baiting, empty suit that trash talks the only two term Democratic President in last 40 years.
And I will not support the corrupt Democratic actions of this primary with my vote. I won’t stay home. I always vote. I call it my ticket to bitch. I just don’t know if I can or will vote for McCain. However if enough of us do, here in my purple leaning red state of WI then he has no chance here. Not at all. Nada.
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dak says:
You comments on Hubert Humphrey are correct. I lived in Minnesota when I was growing up, and some of my first anti-war activities were picketing Humphrey, then Vice-President but formerly Senator from Minnesota. Our cry then was “Dump the Hump.” However, I have to disagree about Robert Kennedy: the comparison with Barak Obama is sound.
There is a fond and nostalgic memory about Robert Kennedy now. It’s amazing what a premature death can do for one’s reputation, just look at all the dead rock stars. I’m sure that many of the people who went ga-ga over Kennedy are now doing the same over Obama, for much the same reason, and their children are doing it also.
Kennedy was an opportunist, just like a certain contemporary figure. He started out his career working for Joseph McCarthy, a bit different than working for the Watergate Commission. Kennedy had supported the war in Vietnam while people were asking him to challenge LBJ on that issue. But when Eugene McCarthy, also a senator from Minnesota, did much better than expected in the Minnesota caucuses, which I attended, and the New Hampshire primary of January 1968, Kennedy felt that it was safe for him to run against Johnson.
For more details about the comparison between Obama and Kennedy from someone who was there, see http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=489.
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Hazel Stone says:
“I feel the way so many of my elders felt in ‘68, after Bobby was killed (and Hillary, not Obama, is Bobby’s heir)”
Can you explain your thinking on this?
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octogalore says:
Glad you are back, VS! I’m not ready for the glorious “unity” that so many blogs are preaching. Same shit, different packaging. Glad you are keeping it real.
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ginmar says:
It’s bad when it’s directed at the Savior’s wife; when it’s the Savior going after his opponent, then it’s A-okay.
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atheist woman says:
But ginmar, the savior doesn’t even have a wife. The savior is a virgin, otherwise he wouldn’t have a unicorn in his painting. The kids and the wife are just prop pieces in his path to godhood.
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Splee says:
Hazel, I’ll take a crack:
Hillary is a NY Senator, just as RFK was a New York Senator. Both candidates were made better by their campaigns, both won California, and both seemed to reach/address the concerns of the electorate’s unrepresented. RFK, as we all know, was assassinated in June – “fortunately,” Hillary has only experienced character assassination – but both acts were designed to keep them from the Presidency, in spite of the wishes of a (probable, in RFK’s case) majority of registered Democrats.In contrast, Humphrey (Obama) avoided the primaries (and/or was too late to enter them) and concentrated on winning delegates in non-primary states; by June he was seen as the clear front-runner for the nomination, with the help of Chicago’s Mayor Daley and enabled by the party elites, though this status was also perceived as illegitimate by the electorate. He lost the (close) election to Nixon, winning only 13 states. George Wallace (Bob Barr) was a 3rd party candidate whose participation may have had an impact.
I don’t presume to speak for Violet, but those are the parallels I see.
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Violet says:
Hazel, as I said on a previous thread about the assassination smear:
“The irony — or one of the ironies — is that Hillary was implicitly comparing her campaign to RFK’s. She, not Obama, is Bobby Kennedy — the come-from-behind candidate, the Senator from New York trailing in pledged delegates but with a groundswell of popular support (in places like Indiana and West Virginia). She’s a former First Lady; Bobby was the President’s brother and Attorney General. She’s Bobby.”
In addition, I would add that Hillary represents the same kind of values that RFK represented (or was thought to represent); while Obama, like Humphrey, is a company man through and through, no matter what his young fans imagine. And Obama, like Humphrey, is the choice of the Democratic party leadership, as well as of the corrupt Chicago machine.
In many ways Hillary’s appeal to working class people and women and immigrants reminds me very much of Bobby Kennedy’s appeal, and the way the party leadership was simply bound and determined to force Humphrey on us no matter what. The Kennedys, like the Clintons, had enormous popular support but were regarded as usurpers by many party stalwarts.
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Violet says:
I haven’t read yet the essay dak pointed us too, but I will. But let me say one more thing:
I have never had any personal admiration for the Kennedy men. Some people are born great, and some people have greatness thrust upon them. I think that is true of the Kennedys, who, despite extreme personal shortcomings (treating women like garbage), became champions of big ideals.
In some way I think that is sort of true of Hillary, though I don’t think she has extreme personal shortcomings at all. But throughout her campaign I had a sense that she was growing into a true champion of the downtrodden and the disadvantaged — really growing into greatness. Or maybe I was just getting to know her better.
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Alikatze says:
Violet, I am with you on not being fond of the Kennedy men. In fact, I’m pretty bored with the entire Kennedy clan — they do not speak for the left-wing or the liberals in this country, yet, they think they still do. And it makes me want to just retch when I see Obama flocking to Ted’s side, flapping his arms about Ted, smiling and back-slapping as if only Ted Kennedy (because he’s a KENNEDY) could put the final (only?) stamp of Left Wing Approval on Obama’s ascendence of the American throne – er, Presidency. This nomination has lost all sense of an electoral process and instead has become a beauty pageant. Ugh.
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ginmar says:
God, it’s so nice to have an Obama-cheerleaders-free space. This morning I got told that I had lost my perspective and that I was saying voting for him was anti-feminist. Evidently in order to have perspective one has to vote for him and accept all the bullshit that spills forth from his PR guys. That picture of Obama in an unbuttoned shirt with roses and unicorns and ponies? That’s the view of his supporters.
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Pieter B says:
1968 was the first presidential election I voted in, and like a dutiful Dem, I voted for Hu-bird holding my nose. Forty years is enough nose-holding. I’m glad I live in the solidly blue state of California, so I probably won’t have a difficult decision to make. If we become a swing state, I will vote against John McCain, but if I don’t have to, I won’t.
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