Can someone explain why it is controversial that Obama hugged Derrick Bell?

Politics & Elections
121

I want to zero in on this because I keep hearing complaints about inflation, especially from Ron Paul supporters. Do you realise that you can’t find a three and a half year period during the previous (Bush) administration with lower inflation than has occurred during the Obama presidency?

And I don’t buy your line that this is why you’re not voting to re-elect Obama. I don’t believe you voted for him in 2008, or that he ever really had a chance to earn your vote. Which is fine, by the way: I voted in my first presidential election in 1988, and I have yet to vote any way but Democratic and can’t imagine that will ever change, even if there’s a Republican president running for reelection in a booming economy or whatever. But just own it, and don’t try to play that disingenuous game, please.

I would actually agree with that, though I will never understand why so many people are so resistant to the idea of being “socialized” that we do have to take those baby steps. If I thought it was politically feasible, I’d be all for going straight to a system like Sweden’s or Norway’s, ASAP, no hesitation whatsoever. But you’re right: too many Americans are ridiculously suspicious of going in that direction, so we have to be careful not to get them riled up. We’ll get there eventually though!

Ha–as Gyrate noted, it’s pretty ironic to accuse him of being “elitist” because his speeches use simpler vocabulary. The guy can’t win with you no matter which way he goes.

Sure, from a journalistic POV, I agree. But getting to the truth about the president should be more important than The Trial of Dan Rather in the Court of Public Opinion or whatever. And that’s what I mean: once conservatives had blood in the water, they managed to get all the focus on those documents. The fact that you never heard about what the secretary said is exactly the point: the GOP got really lucky that Rather and the fake documents became the story, instead of Bush’s Guard service. I mean, I hope you’d agree that if Bush is actually guilty of what he is charged with in those documents, any malfeasance by Rather or CBS doesn’t actually make Bush magically innocent!

Yet I’m the only one I’ve ever met who remembers this important aspect of the story.

Anyway, here’s an article about it:

122

I would agree with that. Those documents aren’t proof though, they’re forgeries. You seem to be forgetting that important aspect of the story.

123

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion were forgeries. The Piltdown Man was a forgery. These were more similar to facsimiles. Assuming, and I am so assuming, that these were created in the interests of record-keeping, rather than in the interest of political deception.

The word “forgery”, in this instance, implies a malefic intent it cannot prove. The secretary who typed them, did she type them the week before she talked to Dan Rather? Or were they typed as part of a routine bureaucratic exercise some time previous? Are we offered to believe that she played a “deep game”, typing this all up well in advance so as to be ready as needed? Back when GeeDubya was such an obviouis shoo-in for the Republican nomination?

Some here would prefer that we not examine that word too closely, “forgery”. They are content with the scant comfort it provides. it allows them to pretend that all those stories about what a mediocrity GeeDubya has always been are all made up out of whole cloth. But if GeeDubya was the competent and intelligent man they wish he were, then these would be forgeries, they would be lies. And his story would be different.

More importantly, so would ours. Very different.

124

The forgery was not meant with a malefic intent towards Bush the Younger? Really?

The secretary did not type the forgeries, according to her own statement. Grow up, elucidator, even if every single fact alleged in the forgeries was accurate (as I believe they were), they were still forgeries, and thus not proof.

125

For the record, I’ve checked and that is true, in the same interview in which she asserts the essential facts are correct. I misunderstood her meaning, she was referring to other memos she had typed and her presumption that it was those memos which had been copied and forged.

So long as the term “forgeries” is not used to suggest that the essential facts reflected are not true, then I have no problem with it. But it is, loudly, and often. And that, in and of itself, is a lie.

Surely there is someone who both wants and needs your advice? Somewhere?

126

This is not a technicality here. The documents that were supposed to prove the story had merit. They were forged, which means there’s no evidence other than somebody’s say-so and the person who was vouching for the story went so far as to forge documents to incriminate Bush.

127

Which story are you speaking of? Because that’s where it gets all hinky. Do you mean the story about a son of privilege, how he managed to evade unpleasant service, how he was inducted into the TANG despite a waiting list of eager and better qualified applicants? That one?

128

This is what is so confusing about the whole thing. Professor Bell seems like a great guy, I’m glad Obama is praising him. Why shouldn’t he have done so?

129

No, that’s not the story under discussion. The story under discussion is the one about Bush evading his National Guard obligations once he was in.

130

Oh, OK. So, is it fair to say that the only evidence that he might have been privileged to regard his obligations as somewhat less restrictive than usual, the only evidence that was ever presented was in these forged documents? And if these documents were forged, then it is proven that such a story is utterly false, there being no other evidence, anywhere?

These documents were forged, therefore he did, in fact, show up for his obligated medical exam? These documents were forged, therefore he did not scamper off to help out in a political campaign? These documents were forged, therefore that little old lady was lying when she says she worked on memos very similar in content? These documents were forged, therefore the commanding officer in question held the young Lt. Bush in the highest regard, peppering his reports with “outstanding”?

131

I’m not forgetting that at all, and nothing I’ve said suggests that. Please quote the post where I said the forged documents were proof of anything at all. What I’ve said, in fact, is that their being forgeries does not prove his innocence, much as his partisans would like to spin it that way. There is plenty of other evidence calling Bush’s service into question, including quite prominently the statement from the secretary.

I’m not really following your logic. What Dan Rather did in the 21st century somehow changes the facts that occurred on the ground three decades earlier? Maybe Tricky Dick Nixon wasn’t quite tricky enough: he should have had one of his Plumbers give journalists some fake documents linking him to Watergate, then had the documents exposed as forgeries, which by this kind of logic would clear his name.

My point is that I’m not interested in the media angle, or in defending Dan Rather or CBS News. I’m interested in getting at the historical truth of what Bush did or did not do.

Or, what **elucidator **said:

132

Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear above: I absolutely believe that the accusations against Bush are true and accurate. I also absolutely believe that the documents proving that are forged, and thus prove nothing.

I don’t understand your attitude of, “If the accusations are true, what does it matter if the proof was forged?” It does matter.

133

But no one’s saying those documents are proof. At least I don’t see anyone here saying it.

134

No, it doesn’t. But as I remember it, the documentation was supposed to be contemporary proof of his guilt- as opposed to recent statements by people whose motivations could be called into question.

135

What I thought was interesting is that he never seemed to be able to find anyone to vouch for his being there, not even people whose motivations could be called into question in the other direction (due to their being Republicans). Or if he did, it wasn’t very many people at all.

136

Perhaps they simply didn’t pay any attention? A small note in the secretary’s statement:

So, just for a guess, perhaps they didn’t pay any more attention to their fellow Guardsmen because they simply didn’t care, one way or the other.

137

It matters only as far as a case to be made that Rather and co. failed in their journalistic duties. And they did. But I forgot Dan Rather almost the very instant he disappeared from my TV. Bush is taking a bit longer. But I take your point, and we have no serious disagreement.

138

You know the funny thing is that most of the academic sorts who like to talk about things like critical race theory and the abolition of whiteness (which does not, by the way, mean white people) and only white people can be racist and all of that … they’re about as dangerous to my or anyone else’s white ass as a creampuff. You know? They’re professors in sweater-vests, mostly, even if a few of them were involved with the Black Panthers back in the day or some such. And the right-wing dickwads like to hold them up as OMG the black man is coming to kill you and rape your wife. I can’t quite figure out whether they actually believe what they’re saying.

139

Anyone else getting the impression that JQPublic won’t be returning to this thread?

140

Why bother Jimmy Boy? Are you running out of ways to agree with each other?