If you vote for Obama, this is what you’re voting for (Reminder #6)
Barack Obama’s campaign has, since the beginning, operated on two levels. There’s the “hope and change” level, which is just for show — but of course that’s the only level his supporters choose to see. The other level, the real campaign, the background stuff through reporters and netroots mouthpieces, has been relentlessly negative. The dress rehearsal for his campaign’s assault on Sarah Palin (which I’ll get to in another reminder) was the year-long spree against Hillary Clinton, in which Obama exploited every last drop of wingnut hatred and cultural misogyny in order to destroy — not just defeat, but destroy — Sen. Clinton.
Here are a few examples from eriposte (only up through March 2008), and note that this doesn’t even include most of the misogyny and sexist dogwhistles:
- February 2007 onwards: Obama repeatedly claims Sen. Clinton lacks judgment when it comes to national security and foreign policy.
- Summer 2007: Obama campaign urges press to look into Bill Clinton’s "post-presidential" sex life (a favorite topic of Republicans).
- June 2007: Obama campaign peddles false story that the Clintons were trying to profit from 9/11.
- June 2007: Obama campaign circulates borderline racist "D-Punjab" attack against Sen. Clinton.
- August 2007: The Obama campaign contacts the press to tie Norman Hsu to Sen. Clinton - even though Hsu was a donor and fundraiser to/for Sen. Obama as well.
- October 2007: Due to a flagging campaign, Sen. Obama and his campaign/surrogates falsely paint Sen. Clinton as a liar, basically adopting the fraudulent words that Bill Bradley used to trash Al Gore in 2000 - words that were subsequently picked up by George Bush and the GOP and used very effectively against Al Gore in the 2000 general election. This is one of the classic examples of "providing ammunition to the opposition party that can be used to destroy your party’s nominee" - after all, these words were used by Bush and the GOP to significantly tarnish Gore. Even more audacious, if you will: Sen. Obama’s character attack on Sen. Clinton was over a stance she took that was essentially identical to the stance Sen. Obama took in his own book.
- November 2007: Sen. Obama uses GOP "crisis" rhetoric on social security to bolster his false attacks on Clinton and gets called on it by Paul Krugman and many in the blogosphere. His response? "So the notion that somehow because George Bush was trying to drum up fear in order to execute [his] agenda means that Democrats shouldn’t talk about it at all I think is a mistake.”
- November 2007: Obama mocks and minimizes Clinton’s experience as First Lady - a standard right-wing attack.
- November/December 2007: Obama campaign uncritically pushes baseless smear story by right-wing fraudster Bob Novak alleging that the Clinton campaign was about to peddle some below-the-belt story about Sen. Obama.
- November 2007/ January/February 2008: Sen. Obama paints Sen. Clinton as being unprincipled, poll-driven and calculating (very effective lines of attack used by the GOP) while he himself out-spent Clinton on polling and demonstrated enough "calculation" and "lack of principle" to keep us busy.
- December 2007: Obama campaign mimics the media’s (and GOP’s) fraudulent attacks on Al Gore (in 2000) - in order to attack Sen. Clinton.
- December 2007 onwards: Obama campaign launches false attacks on Sen. Clinton’s healthcare plan using the worst kind of Republican talking points - and by borrowing Harry and Louise type ads from the 1990s. This is another one of the many classic examples of "providing ammunition to the opposition party that can be used to destroy your party’s nominee". In using this tactic yet again, the Obama campaign effectively borrowed the tactics used by the GOP that helped defeat the Clinton healthcare plan and partly led to the defeat of Democrats in Congress in 1994.
- December 2007: Obama surrogate once again raises Bill Clinton’s sex life and ties it to Sen. Clinton’s electability.
- December 2007: Sen. Obama explicitly questions Sen. Clinton’s electability using approval ratings and her negatives (he’s of course done this on many occasions).
- December 2007: Sen. Obama unfavorably compares Clinton and Bush eras.
- January 2008: Sen. Obama accumulates an extensive record of using often false, right-wing/GOP talking points to criticize progressives and fellow Democrats including Sen. Clinton.
- January 2008: Sen. Obama paints Sen. Clinton as divisive and questions whether people who vote for him will vote for her in the general election. This is another one of the many classic examples of "providing ammunition to the opposition party that can be used to destroy your party’s nominee". In using this tactic yet again, Sen. Obama effectively adopted a longtime Republican talking point used against Sen. Clinton by the GOP - one that would be particularly damaging to her in a general election setting, coming from a fellow Democrat.
- January/February 2008: Obama campaign and surrogates participate in one of the ugliest smear campaigns against a fellow Democrat ever - by falsely painting the Clintons as race-baiters or racists (NOTE: Also see this post about whether Sen. Obama’s advisors and surrogates speak for him).
- January / February 2008: Obama campaign paints Sen. Clinton as someone who would say or do anything to get elected - another one of the many classic examples of "providing ammunition to the opposition party that can be used to destroy your party’s nominee". Indeed, Sen. Obama’s positions and claims (some of which are linked to here) have made it clear he was very much guilty of exactly what he accused Sen. Clinton of.
- February 2008: Sen. Obama talks up Sen. Clinton’s negatives by falsely caricaturing her as a person whose "natural inclination is to draw a picture of Republicans as people who need to be crushed and defeated" and then adds about himself "I’m not a person who believes any one party has a monopoly on wisdom".
- February 2008: Obama campaign repeatedly attacks Clinton Presidency and paints Clintons as harbingers of Congressional losses in elections (The latter was a particularly deceptive and amusing attack - almost like they were asking for George Bush to remain in office since Bush was instrumental in Democrats taking over Congress in 2006).
- March 2008: Sen. Obama claims that although he does not measure experience using longevity, if longevity is the metric to judge experience McCain would win on experience (undermining Sen. Clinton’s statements about her years of experience). Obama campaign also puts out a memo in which they refer to McCain’s history of "straight talk and independent thinking", which, along with Obama’s character attacks on Clinton, would no doubt be used by McCain and the GOP against Clinton if she became the nominee.
- March 2008: An Obama advisor refers to Sen. Clinton as a "monster" and is forced to resign.
12 Responses to “If you vote for Obama, this is what you’re voting for (Reminder #6)”
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Alwaysthinking says:
Wow! We saw these things happening as we went along, yet when it’s put all together (and does not even address the pinpricks of constant misogyny and sexism), it’s overwhelming. Truly amazing that Hillary Clinton did as well as she did against this evil onslaught. No wonder the media became an echo chamber and so many people were brainwashed.
October 27th, 2008 at 1:40 pm EST -
Kiuku says:
Wow thank you for this comprehensive list
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Kiuku says:
I am impressed of course with the stature displayed by both female candidates this year, in the face of such relentless hate and death threats. They are truly strong, strong women, and within who the hope for America lies. Women have always had to be strong like this. I just hope they realize that some of us do see it, and thank them for it. As Hillary once said “Keep going”
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Bud White says:
This is great, maddening collection. I will never forgive or forget.
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Violet says:
Wow thank you for this comprehensive list
But it’s not comprehensive. That’s all from a single post by eriposte, and s/he didn’t include a bunch of stuff.
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sister of ye says:
Great list.
But you’re right, there’s a lot left off. Besides the misogyny examples, there’s the anti-gay examples. Obama has twice used anti-gay activists in his campaign, “cured” preacher Donnie McClurkin and the nut in CA trying to turn back gay marriage rights, Douglas Kmiec.
And his “compliment” of a college professor who “didn’t proselytize,” dog-whistling the scare story that gays try to recruit others, especially children. That smear that has cost gays, especially teachers, their jobs, and led to us being beaten and killed.
Another example of how he doesn’t care who he hurts as long as he finds his way to power.
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RealChange says:
And who can forget? I couldn’t believe I was watching this one with my own two eyes on main stream television. And then I listened in disbelief and outrage as that same main stream media defended,excused and then renamed this display of flagrant disrespect:
April 2008- On national television, after a debate with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton…Sen. Barack Obama addressed his supporters, saying Sen. Clinton had been pretty tough on him, but he could take it,
AND THEN…
HE GAVE HER THE FINGER, a knife jab (or was that another obscene gesture?) and wiped imaginary shit off his shoulders and shoes, per a popular Jay-Z song, right there in front of us, on television!
How classy!
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Janis says:
Know what?
No sympathy for women. Not anymore, even though I’m unfortunate enough to wear the same genitals as they do. And after a lifetime of being careful to use the inclusive plural pronoun, I’m perfectly content to say THEY.
You know what? If after a million years of existence on this tired old world, women are still GARBAGE, it’s because they want to be. It reminds me of those old studies about giving wrapped candy to monkey and how if the mamma monkeys got some, they taught everyone else to unwrap it.
I bet they gave it to everyone else, too. And took none themselves. And bit and smacked any female monkey who did, and ripped it out of her paws and handed it to the biggest meanest male they could find while showing him their ass and hoping they got a favor out of it.
Hand a woman power, and she’ll stumble forward, vacant-eyed and cowlike, and look for some man to hand it to. And I’m sick and tired of being so quick to blame “men” or “the patriarchy” for this state of affairs. Quite simply, if we wanted to stop this, if it were even a possibility for our species, it would have happened by now.
Women are garbage, women have always been garbage, women will always be garbage. Because for the past million years, we’ve consistently refused to be anything else, and thus we deserve nothing better. Die with a knitting needle up you, girls. I don’t care anymore. I don’t care for sex, I don’t want kids. Yallz are on your OWN. I just want to keep me and mine alive. I won’t turn you in, but I’ll be DAMNED if I’ll waste my time hiding your sad asses in my attic, either.
God, I have SO HAD IT with this garbage, with the endless whining, with the millennia of inexorable history demonstrating nothing so thoroughly as that women get nothing more nor less than exactly what we deserve, repeatedly. Stop blaming “the patriarchy” or “men.” If women really wanted to stop this nonsense, we could bring it to a halt in days. No, it’s not Stockholm Syndrome and it’s not patriarchal brainwashing, and it’s not Pore Feminine Suffering, and it’s not this and it’s not that. It’s WOMEN. We’re adults. If yall are so loathe to excuse men for gang-rape because of peer pressure, then stop making the same damned excuses for the other half of the species. Take some goddamned responsibility and stop WHINING. If after a million years, you all haven’t managed to be anything other than barely tolerated fecund pack animals, that’s all you deserve.
Unfortunately, I don’t, but I wear the same chromosomes you do, much to my dissatisfaction.
Just bite me. I’ve got third wave feminists on the verge of claiming the rape of conservative women as a feminist act, and I’ve got equally craven second wavers telling me I’m duty bound to vote for Mr. Sir or else he’ll get angwy wif us. You can all bite me. I’m not a third wave feminist, I’m not a second wave feminist, I’m not any kind of feminist. The word feminist means nothing anymore. I’m a working stiff who wants to miss the rocks when they sail at her head, and that’s ALL I am. I’ll duck, and best of luck to the rest of you chumps.
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Janis says:
Like that one’s ever getting out of moderation.
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DancingOpossum says:
One of the best chroniclers of the Obamanation’s fury and insanity has been Cannonfire, who regularly wades into the slime that is the Obama fan base. Some of the stuff he’s found is almost breathtaking in its woman-hatred and violence. Whenever I feel my resolve lagging I just go to his site and am reminded over and over what we went through. Gird your loins (and your stomach) and go visit there if you want a refresher course.
Melissa over at Shakesville used to do the same thing but since she drank the Obama Kool-Aid she seems to have dropped her vigilance.
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Jack Cassidy says:
Obama and Norman Hsu.
Take note! When Obama learned about Hsu he went to the press not the law enforcement authorities with the news. I am for a free press but the correct action should have been to contact the FBI.
Jack Cassidy Irvine Businessman
Google Team Clinton Jack Cassidy -
Kali says:
Janis, I often feel the same way as you. But then I remember the attitude of most Indians under the British Raj. It was exactly the same - the same ignoble snivelling attitude. I think this attitude is a function of oppression, not of genes. Very unfortunate. Very few people of either gender have the self-respect, vision and courage to stand up to injustice and oppression. Most just try to make the best of a very bad situation, which sometimes means sucking up to the oppressors. But even with very few people of courage and self-respect it is possible to bring about change - as was evidenced by the fall of the British Raj and the monumental gains women have made in many parts of the world in the past 150 years.
