False Hopes and Fairy tale redux: “If you have a social need, you’re with Hillary. If you want Obama to be your imaginary hip black friend and you’re young and you have no social needs, then he’s cool.” And the Clinton camp sinks even lower. A Clinton adviser denigrates Barack Obama as little more than a “Bagger Vance“-ish figment of devil-may-care young people’s imagination to The Guardian‘s Daniel Freedland, insulting Sen. Obama and the political activism of young voters in the process. What was Margaret Carlson’s line about Al Gore in 2000? “[W]hen Gore descends to the politics he disdains, he can’t find the level beneath which he will not sink.” Looks like it applies here as well.
Well, “Clinton adviser,” You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. And if you “imagine” all Obama voters are just going to flock back to Sen. Clinton’s candidacy in droves — should she even win the nomination, which is a very open question — if this type of garbage keeps up, it might be time for a reality check.
Update: Senator Clinton is now referring to Obama as a “part-time state senator.” Uh, what the hell? From the NYT, June 2007: “[As State Senator,] Mr. Obama helped deliver what is said to have been the first significant campaign finance reform law in Illinois in 25 years. He brought law enforcement groups around to back legislation requiring that homicide interrogations be taped and helped bring about passage of the state’s first racial-profiling law. He was a chief sponsor of a law enhancing tax credits for the working poor, played a central role in negotiations over welfare reform and successfully pushed for increasing child care subsidies.“
Wow, I must say, that’s quite a lot for an “imaginary hip black friend” and “part-time state senator” to get done (and considerably more than Clinton — my Senator from New York — has to show for her own legislative career.) So where is she getting “part-time” from? Or has she just decided to glom on to Karl Rove’s recent “lazy” motif? (And speaking of that anti-Obama Rove piece, consider the source. Why would Rove be backing Clinton’s play these days anyway? Perhaps it’s because she’s good for thousands of GOP votes coming out of the woodwork in the general election, and everyone knows it.) Update: Now Newt’s doing it, too.
My disgust deepens.