He’s No MLK
Mar 19th, 2008 at 6:04 am by Susie
Oh please, enough with the Martin Luther King Jr. comparisons. Black man? Check. Eloquent? Check. Well then, he must be just like Martin Luther King! (I don’t think the media minions know of any other black orators. But then, they do live in a perpetual knowledge vacuum.)
Martin Luther King Jr. risked his freedom, his very life for the cause of unconditional love. He spoke out against the Vietnam war not because he thought it was a “bad move,” he didn’t say, “I’m not against all wars, just this one.” No, he called out the war in Vietnam as what it was: vastly immoral.
A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
Barack Obama, on the other hand, is a politician who took a calculated rhetorical risk to save his floundering campaign.
King gave up the possibility of a comfortable private life and instead went to jail, was hounded by the FBI, and eventually killed for standing up for his moral and spiritual values.
See the difference?
I see the biggest difference being vantage point of viewing: looking at one in the panorama of historical context, the other in the snapshot of yesterday’s news.
Somehow, I knew you’d find a way to try to marginalize Obama’s performance. It was a good one, even if it was “given by a politician” trying “to save his floundering campaign.” You’re a good enough writer to have made your point about the MLK comparisons without it.
Honestly, I’m just too stupid and naive to have noticed the difference.
So now I’m not even allowed to write about the media without the oh-so-sensitive Obama supporters taking exception. My, my blog space gets smaller every day!
Honey, I shrunk MLK!
Seriously. Nice speech, but hardly MLK.
i thought he was worse than hitler.
Sorry Susie. I’m just too sleepy to make a proper joke. I didn’t mean it as harsh as it came out and there should have been another bit in there somewhere.
yeah, the guy with the lead in delegates, states, and votes is the one with the “floundering campaign.”
when will hrc’s tax returns come out again?
The guy with the rapid drop in the polls who had to make a major speech to pull out of the nosedive is, yes, the one with the floundering campaign.
Or was that some kind of victory speech yesterday, and I misinterpreted?
BTW, Clinton’s tax returns are probably in the same forgotten storage unit as Obama’s mysteriously missing state legislative records.
Susie, I’ve been looking, but her returns don’t seem to be on here. Honestly, I wince every time somebody brings up the tax crap. As attacks go, it’s as about as effective as mentioning that you keep your dead cat in the freezer when trying to impress your blind date*. Are tax records seriously anything anybody voting in a Democratic primary gives a fuck about when choosing a candidate?
*Possibly the worst metaphor ever.
Regardless of anything else, I gotta say it’s amazing to see Susie and Michael Nutter agree on ANYTHING.
The problem with the speech is that it was totally hypocritical. He talks the talk but doesn’t walk the walk–either on race (see his Malcolm X rant about the Clintons–he’s been playing a double game on race, using it when it suits his purpose) or on economic justice (see his voting record, his relationship with slumlord Rezko, and his corporate campaign contributors). Not to mention it was cheap to repeat Geraldine Ferraro three times just to remind us not to forget about that racist witch Hillary, it’s all her fault.
It’s the audacity of words inconsistent with action. A hundred million light years from Martin Luther King.
well gee,
I kind of care about where the money in politics comes from.
I kind of care about knowing who is contributing to a campaign.
And of course, Obama released his returns, Clinton has not and neither has McCain.
And, when called on it, HRC spews a bunch of double talk.
She came up with $5 MILLION to loan herself–in the midst of getting her ass kicked all over the USofA when her campaign really did founder, where did that cash come from?
Funny, I recall some liberal concern about such things, but I guess when you are a historically poor, downtrodden, and oppressed class like white rich former first ladies you are exempt from such mundane issues.
And if you want to beef about records from when Obama was actually serving in legislative office–an office he was elected to several times before becoming a Senator, then you better start advocating for HRC to release all of her White House records from back in the day.
You know, when she was garnering all of her foreign policy bona-fides by engaging in high-level diplomacy with Sinbad and Sheryl Crow.
Amelia, not to pick nits, but I do wonder if you run a search of the text of the speech, how many times the name Ferraro comes up? I also wonder if the value of one is more than, less than, or equal to three. Integers were never my strong suit.
You’re right Chris, I’m wrong–somebody else somewhere else said it was three times but I checked and you’re right. It was still a cheap shot. He still the audacity of no courage when it comes to walking the walk not just talking the talk. And if all anyone can say is “tax returns” it misses the point. Mr. Obama especially in his speech is identifying himself with the most glorious elevated pure moral righteousness, and it’s not consistent with how he himself has acted.
I don’t have a problem with wealthy candidates. If it didn’t bother me with John Edwards, why would it bother me about Clinton?
Do you care about the $250K Rezko raised for Obama, where it came from and what he expected for his money?
Nah. Didn’t think so.
But since you asked about the $5 million:
http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/02/it_was_my_money_hillary_says.html
Hillary Rodham Clinton, speaking to reporters at her campaign HQ in Virginia, claims that no Bubba bucks were used for the $5 million loan she made to her campaign in January — the check came from her piece of the family fortune.
“I loaned the campaign $5 million from my money.. I believe very strongly in this campaign,” said Clinton, who earned a reported $8 million advance for her autobiography Living History a few years back. “The results last night proved my investment was correct.”
Now, it’s so hard for me to keep up with the latest Obama Rules. Is she allowed to make money from her book, too?
Amelia, I don’t see it the same way you do. He said:
” We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.”
I read that as don’t dismiss Ferraro as someone who harbors deep-seated racial bias. Not exactly a cheap shot.
I think more importantly, and this goes beyond Ferraro, he said:
” We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change. “
I read that as being fairly polite, but explicit, way of asking his supporters to back the eff off on the endless dog whistle accusations that have made this campaign such a joy lately. Tell me why I’m wrong.
Because mentioning Ferraro at all was an effort to say see, they do it too. And in the next paragraph, “pounce on some gaffe” by a Hillary supporter–see she’s guilty too. That’s cheap. That’s running away from your own responsibility. That’s like what my kids used to say when they were younger–don’t punish me, my sister did it too.
It’s not his supporters who have make accusations of race it’s Obama himself. Not to repeat myself, but he’s playing a double game with race. He connected the Clintons with a long history of racial injustice, implying that they were responsible for all the wrongs suffered by blacks. That’s despicable. It’s the same hate speech he so eloquently described as increasing the racial divisions. The fact that he knows exactly what’s wrong with it but did it himself makes it even worse. He never acknowledged his own responsibility. His actions are inconsistent with his words. That’s what makes it just words–beautiful words, but totally hypocritical and therefore meaningless.
And while he was careful to give a shoutout to the Jewish community (and their white evangelical allies) as part of his pandering-for-votes campaign by disavowing the Pastor’s comments about Israel (the Jews were behind 9/11) he’s pandered to the homophobic community with the Donny McClurkin thing. How is that consistent with his glorious words?
If you want to talk about how bad torture is in every circumstance and how hideous this war in Iraq has been you have to not be associated with hate yourself, of any kind, in order to have any moral authority.
It’s not his supporters who have make accusations of race it’s Obama himself. Not to repeat myself, but he’s playing a double game with race. He connected the Clintons with a long history of racial injustice, implying that they were responsible for all the wrongs suffered by blacks.
Huh? What? When? Where? Work with me here. Give me a quote. Give me something.
Also, yes, some Clinton supporters have made comments that were not particularly politically astute given the dynamics of the race and Obama supporters have jumped on them as evidence that the Clinton campaign is race baiting. This has become a fairly regular and generally annoying exercise recently. Is there a universe where this hasn’t happened and, if so, where is it? I’d like to move there.
Barry, are you calling me milquetoast?
O.K. In the movie “Malcolm X” the protaganist played by Denzel Washington gives a long rant about how white people have done a whole list of terrible things to black people, throughout history and continuing into the present. And he ends his rant with it’s the same ole okie doke. We’ve been bamboozled again. We’ve been hoodwinked again. Meaning, that the white man is doing to the black man what the white man has always done to the black man.
In South Carolina, and again in Mississipppi, but repeatedly in South Carolina, Barak Obama talked to black audiences about what Hillary Clinton was saying, about what Bill Clinton was saying, and then he would say, you know, it’s the same ole okie doke. You know about the ole okie doke, don’t you. You’ve been hoodwinked again. O.K., I’m having too much fun here. The Clintons have been bamboozling you again. You y’all know what I mean.
Well if he meant what Malcolm X meant (at least as scripted in the movie) he meant that the white man in the form of the Clintons were giving the black man the same ole racism, no different from slavery and reconstruction and Jim Crow and etc. They are part of the white power structure that has caused blacks to be powerless.
That’s racial trash talk. And he’s never been called on it, and he’s never admitted it.
Amelia, full quotes are your friends.
“With all due respect, I’ve won twice as many states as Sen. Clinton. I’ve won more of the popular vote than Sen. Clinton. I have more delegates than Sen. Clinton. So, I don’t know how somebody who’s in second place is offering the vice presidency to the person who’s in first place. [Long applause.]…
But there’s a second point. This is an interesting point — I want you guys to follow me on this. You know Pres. Bill Clinton, back in 1992, when he was being asked about his selection for vice president, he said, “The only criteria, the most important criteria for vice president, is that that person is ready, if I fell out in the first week, that he or she would be ready to be the commander-in-chief.” That was his criteria.
Now, they have been spending the last two, three weeks — you remember that advertisement with the phone call, telling everybody, getting all the generals to say well we’re not sure he’s ready, “I’m ready on day one, he may not be ready yet.”
But I don’t understand. If I’m not ready, how is it that you think I should be such a great vice president? Do you understand that?
See, I was trying to explain to someone the “okey-doke.” Y’all know the okey-doke? It’s when someone’s trying to bamboozle you, when they’re trying to hoodwink you. They are trying to hoodwink you. You can’t say that he’s not ready on day one, unless he’s willing to be your vice president and then he’s ready on day one.
I want everybody to be absolutely clear — I’m not running for vice president, I’m running for president of the United States of America.
I’m running for president of the United States of America. I’m running to be commander-in-chief. And the reason I’m running to be commander-in-chief is because I believe that the most important thing when you answer that phone call at 3 in the morning is: What kind of judgment you have?”
It seems fairly clear here that he was saying that two themes coming out of the Clinton campaign at the time could not exist together without one of them being untrue. If he meant what the fictional version of Malcolm X meant in the movie, then sure, I could see your point. If he meant what he actually said, then I really can’t.
Great Post! Please Please give me permission to copy and post on some of the Huffington Posts blogs! I am so sick of these Obama worshipers. I would love to burst their stupid bubble about “his greatness”. And BTW MLK didn’t use a telepromter either!
He spoke to black audiences in South Carolina long before the 3 a.m. advertisement. But even with the quote you have above he’s playing with fire–he’s not explicitly tying the words to white racism but the words themselves still have that implicaton, or at least they sure did in the movie, and especially if he made those comments to a black audience who would certainly “get” the reference.
Go watch the videos from South Carolina and tell me if you think that’s o.k.
The cynicism here just leaves me cold.
Maybe he’s no MLK, but if he did indeed write this himself, he’s damn smart and soulful, even if he used a teleprompter. .
Handed the hellish mess he’ll inherit and a media full of shrieking right wing liars, he won’t magically transform America, and he’ll make compromises like Bill Clinton did. Still, I like the idea of his national pulpit as president and his skills to use that to good purpose.
Amelia, are you referring to this video from South Carolina? Have you watched it? He’s talking about what he considers lies and half truths about his positions and his typical schtick about the “same old politics.” He’s talking about the emails being sent around about him be a Muslim Manchurian candidate. I can’t find a transcript for it, but if you’d like one, I’ll make it later. I don’t think he’s saying what you’re hearing.
Wow.
I guess if Obama gets assassinated he’ll have paid his dues. And the concept of a black dude running for POTUS is…what? Not courageous all by itself, in terms of facing the ultimate sacrifice?
As Reverend Wright and Pastor Hagee have illustrated pretty clearly, comparing speaking from the pulpit to trying to win an election for Most Powerful Person in The World is, in my judgment, a bit of a stretch. Ya gots a little more leeway on the pulpit, when you’re not running for anything. It’s a different job application, I’m sorry to need to point out.
I stopped reading Taylor Marsh, I’ve stopped reading any Kos diaries trashing either, I’ve stopped reading any Obama-as-God bloggers. I just don’t get it.
Either will be better than McCain, and the cannibalism is depressing. Both have baggage, both have strengths, both have weaknesses. But I think Obama represents a greater degree of change than does Hillary, NOT because Hillary doesn’t want transformational change, but because I live in the real world and the Republicans and their allies in the Media are not going to let her govern in anything remotely resembling a sensible way. Again, I don’t think this is Hillary’s fault, at least not for most of it.
Both are human. But Obama sold me with that speech. I can’t remember the last time a politician spoke to me on a tough issue like I was an intelligent adult. It was refreshing. And it was risky, and brave, and it was real.
And I’ll be proud to vote for Hillary even if she steals it.
What John O said. Obama isn’t MLK, but it was a damn good speech, and it is brave in and of itself for a black man in this country to make a serious run at the presidency. And for a woman to make a serious run at the presidency, as well. But I think the real risk of physical harm is greater for a black man, and is significant.
It’s certainly something that’s occurred to me as his candidacy has emerged … I’ve wondered if he’ll actually be allowed to take office, given our nation’s history. The MLK comparisons bring those concerns back to the surface. Not something I like to bring up much, don’t want to give such thoughts a push in the public sphere.
Obama’s not under the kind of threat Dr. King was, and he’s nowhere near as radical - in that sense they are surely different. But Obama’s speech most defintitely brought MLK to mind for me, immediately.
Just to illustrate what I was saying, known fringe-leftist John Cole points out the inevitable, and she doesn’t even have the nomination yet.
I, too, do not want to go back there, and our Media will not leave me a choice. She’d be a great President in the world we wished we inhabited.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=9930
Great Susie, thank YOU very much for your insight . I see you have now drawn some of the HAKA boyzs ..
- it’s to be expected . 
The Hillary Haters on the libbrul Obama blogs are all doing the “Haka” …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Zvs4T4RU30&eurl=http://www.correntewire.com/i_learned_a_new_word_today
courtesy of Riverdaughter
http://riverdaughter.wordpress.com/2008/03/18/back-off-boyz/
My take is much like yours, Susie. Obama to Philly: “Honey, I’ve changed!”:
Just sayin.
the HRC kool-aid on this site is barely tolerable.
Remeber - the expectations have been set:
HRC was up 19 pointsin PA after Wyoming. That is the goal post. Most know the polls will close some but also most expect a big HRC win. If it is less than 19 points she CANNOT claim momentum - but of course will…
FLA and MICH say no re-do’s. Two more silver bullets go in the chamber. But for one day at least, she gained a superD in Murtha. Old man and old money and he knows who votes for him…racist white trash…
I come to this site less and less frequently because of the constant anti-Obama crusade. I also started as an Edwards supporter and had no special antagonism toward Clinton. But I am increasingly incensed by the “poor loser” rhetoric and tactics of the Clinton campaign, which risk tearing the party apart. Frankly, I find the pro-Clinton forces to be every bit as manic as the supposed Obamaniacs. I would respect this site more if you could at least occasionally admit that there are some positive aspects to Obama and his campaign.
Hi Chris, I hope a late reply is better than none at all.
As you suggested above, it all turns on what racial implications you think the “ole okie doke” has. It’s not about whether Obama is entitled to attack whatever he attacked that either Clinton said, it’s about whether by attacking it with that language, which certainly did mean a history of racism when used by the movie character of Malcolm X, Obama is intending to trigger that association in the minds of his listeners. And that depends whether you want to give him the benefit of the doubt.
THANK YOU!
Personally, I admire Malcolm X for his spiritual integrity, and I don’t have a problem with the reference per se. However, I think it’s beyond careless to use something that will be linked by Republicans to a man uninformed people remember as nothing more than a racist.
Yeah, I would tend to agree with that. It probably does provide unneeded fodder and, pretty clearly, it’s easy to get a meme going with it that’s not reflective of what Obama was actually saying, but rather on the rhetoric of a figure that many people are uncomfortable with.
Amelia, obviously I do give him the benefit of the doubt, but I understand that results may vary. Anyway, thanks for the chat.
Just wondering about the “Floundering Campaign” thing.
Last time I checked:
Obama won twice as many states as Clinton
Obama leads in pledged delegates by 150+
Obama leads in total popular vote by 600,000
Those are numbers that can be verified by a 6 year-old.
And those numbers tell a story that some people DON”T
want to hear.
Regarding Texas and Michigan:
Yesterday HRC declared that the situation in those states
was “UN-AMERICAN”. Really? If that is so, they why did she
agree, in writing, to accept those rules?
My problem with the speech is that it’s self-serving crap.
Yeah, you caught me, but it’s not my fault I’ve spent 20 years going to a racist preacher. It’s YOUR fault, it’s America’s fault, it’s the Clintons’ fault, it might be my preacher’s fault and even maybe the black community’s fault — but what it is NOT in any way is my fault. Me, I’m above it all.
This is a man who has had no problems serving the Clintons up as race-baiters, calling press conferences over every perceived slight, especially before the elections in heavily black populated states like SC and Miss.
Sean - so are you saying it is OB’s fault for what his preacher said? Or his fault for attending a historically black church? Because lots of talk like that goes on in those churches - just like lots of catholic-hate talk goes on in “Christian” churches…So eveyone who attends church where hate-talk happens occasionally is responsible for what gets discussed there? Huckabee seems to be the only white person over 45 who “gets it”…
I really am amussed at the level of thin-skinness of some hrc supporters. Don’t bash hillary, don’t call press conferences, etc when those tactics are SOP of politics and routinely and proudly used by hrc and co. hell, she even said “now is the fun part” when the campaign was starting to get hard. We are supposed to admire her use of hard campaigning but cry me a river when someone is mean to her! OB (like hrc in many ways as a woman) has lived a life of people being mean to him and his speech on monday and clear winning record in this campaign shows that he can handle people being mean without tearing-up or complaining everyone is “mean” to me. HRC has yet to find that “voice” and is incapable imo of finding it.