wow.

The media elite's favoritism of Obama by and large helped him, but it also hurt him in Appalachia and among the white working class generally, especially when it as a matter of course categorized Hillary's support as coming from backward racists.

I hope he realizes it's the main thing he needs to repair, and he didn't really cause it (except for those remarks he made out in San Fran), the media did.

Spot on!  This diary divides, not unites.

Did I get your attention? More on this in a moment.

For me personally, right now it IS about Hillary because she is the lightning rod attracting discussion on the subject. Without her, would anyone even be talking about sexism? In the media and outside of it? It is not an attempt to keep the divide open, but to seize the opportunity for conversation about the subject.

Beyond that, what has troubled me a lot in this primary campaign cycle is the "hate Hillary" crowd, which has been so venomous that it stunned me. It goes beyond sexism into a very personal loathing and I don't understand it at all.

But until "respected" writers such as Salon.com's Camille Paglia (an Obama supporter) can no longer get away with writing vile screeds such as this-- against both Hillary and her supporters-- we've got a long long way to go to heal the rift:

Hillary for veep? Are you mad? What party nominee worth his salt would chain himself to a traveling circus like the Bill and Hillary Show? If the sulky bearded lady wasn't biting the new president's leg, the oafish carnival barker would be sending in the clowns to lure all the young ladies into back-of-the-tent sword-swallowing. It would be a seamy orgy of scheming and screwing. Hillary could never be content with second place. But neither could an alpha male like Obama. The vice-president should be an accomplished but subordinate personality. An Obama-Hillary ticket might tickle party regulars, but it would be a big fat minus in the general election. Republicans have shrewdly stockpiled a mammoth arsenal of past scandals to strafe Hillary with. Only a sentimental masochist would want to relive the tawdry 1990s.

I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised at the ecstatic media lockstep praising Hillary's so-called concession speech last weekend. This is the same herd of sheep who bleated to Bush's beat and brought us the Iraq fiasco. I first heard the speech on the radio as I was driving back to Philadelphia from a family event in upstate New York. I was shocked and appalled at Hillary's inflammatory demagoguery, which was obviously intended to keep her candidacy alive through the August convention and beyond. The echo in the museum's marble entry hall gave the event an eerily retro quality, as if it were a 1930s fascist rally. Hillary's turgid, preachy rhythms were condescending and manipulative, and her climaxes were ear-splittingly strident. It was pure Evita, a cult of personality masquerading as populism. When I later saw the speech on TV, I was disgusted by how Hillary undercut her insultingly brief endorsement of Obama with a flat expression and cold, dead eyes. The only thing that got her blood racing was the blatantly stoked hysteria of her screeching worshipers.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008 06/11/hillary

Just sayin'...

(PS: I will vote for Obama without batting an eye in November)

Because the shite you're selling, with its dripping condescension, grow the fuck ups, and accusations of wallowing in filth is going be very appealing to disaffected Hillary supporters everywhere (of which I am not among, although I do consider myself a bit wiser about certain individuals and issues in our party).

I wish we could go back to February so that I could make all these kinds of accusations against Obama supporters who not only felt that racism was an issue in this campaign, but actually directly accused Senator Clinton of being a racist.  Nowhere have I said that Senator Obama is a sexist, ever.  He had many campaign surrogates, however, who amply demonstrated that they (as individuals) suffer this flaw.

Some of us around here are deeply committed to causes, such as gender equality, and perhaps even moreso than we are committed to party unity.  That's the way it's always been, and I'm not going to get in lockstep just because you happen to think it wasn't an issue or because the same people who have been giving me shit all primary season are still giving me shit for believing that our society needs to be aware of its sexist failings.

Just because we aired out our race issues during the primary doesn't mean we're prohibited on airing out our gender issues, just because the contest is over and now is the time for "unity." If the election were today, I'd vote for Barack, but the unity schtick doesn't (and more importantly, SHOULDN'T) trump right and wrong for me and many others.

Due respect, but what is a campaign if not strategy and organization?

I'll give you this, the first could be offensive but frankly if that's all you got then really you got nothing.

At worst the first one was ilchosen but the second is just ridiculous.

What's next? Can he can no longer use the words 'often' 'occassionally' 'every now and then' I mean seriously what the fuck? Are we going to have be such a PC society that we have to watch every thing we say for the least bit of offense?

Let's add some context to your second quote (I'll deal with the first one last) at the time that was said Sen Clinton was peroidically attacking Obama especially when she was down in the polls. Thus given that Obama has no history of being the slightlest bit sexist for you to twist that statement into an attack on Clinton's gender is just inane.

The fact is that when Clinton looked to be losing she attacked Obama, that's the substance of both teh question and the answer.

The first quote I've heard before but I'd like the context and at least the paragraph surrounding it. Because the odds are he was talking about more then just Clinton, I'm sure it's conveint to forget but Obama was an insurgent candidate and as such faced alot of opposition.

Further while I'm aware that there the statement has a connection to cats and 'catty behavior' and therefore females (or at least in terms of culture, I frankly don't completely agree) there's another perfectly reasonable way to see that.

Have you ever played with a cat? Male or female it doesn't matter, because for a while everything is fine and you can even wrestle, play with mice whatever. But eventually the cat gets serious and then the claws come out.

Granted as I said it's illchosen as a metaphore but again if this is the best you can come up with then you are really trying too hard.

You really shouldn't, you can be angry all you want, but frankly you're approaching the point where your anger shuts down your thinking.

I'm not wagging anything at you.

And Jesse Jackson IS NOT an offical surogate (unless you can show other wise?) and thus Obama has nothing to do with him or what he says.

Finally, frankly the onus of evidence on you but okay because I can back up what I say and am feeling nice:

Let's start with Bill Clinton trying to margianlize Obama's SC win by comparing him to Jesse Jackson and implying Obama only won cause he was black.

Then there was the BET person (another Clinton surogate) that tried to turn Obama into some scary black drug dealer.

Then there was Gerodean Ford (again I'm mispelling apologies) and her racist rant which Clinton defended.

And finally there was Clinton saying that only she can win 'hard working white middle class' because of the last couple elections. Which again is clear the race card.

I apologize for lumping you in with others who are doing exactly what I described at certain websites.

One of the central issues for me in this campaign is how the candidates embraced their identities, something I really think is indicative of their generations and the generations of their supporters. As I mentioned upthread, Hillary, especially in the last few months of the campaign, had no compunction about throwing around gender-loaded language like "herstory" and framing her candidacy as a fight by women, for women - ignoring the fact that every non-Boomer demographic of women supported the other guy. Obama could have easily embraced his blackness in a similar manner, but didn't. No, he wasn't "post-racial", but he and his campaign simply didn't buy into the culture-war frames of the 1960's-1990's.

Anyway, my point in all that is just to say that if you're going to make gender a central issue of your campaign, you might also expect a little sexism to come of that. Doesn't excuse it, but as a tactical consideration this should've been thought of by the Hillary campaign long before it came to fruition.

great attitude.