From reading the transcript and the purple headlines on Drudge and Fox News, it appears that the right wing media is grossly distorting Obama’s words in multiple ways.
For instance Drudge has the following headline in 40 foot font at the top of his page:
[quote]
2001 OBAMA: TRAGEDY THAT ‘REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH’ NOT PURSUED BY SUPREME COURT
Now let’s look at what Obama actually said – starting with Drudge’s first, all-caps headline:
Did he say that it was a “tragedy that redistribution of the wealth was no pursued by the Supreme Court?” No. He said the tragedy was that the Civil Rights movement became too dependant on the courts and lost track of the ground up, grass roots movements to combat socoal and economic inequities. The first Drudge headline is a flat lie. It’s not even a distortion, it’s completely false.
Let’s look at Drudge’s second headline.
The link goes to this youtube video.
Here is the transcription of that audio clip:
Now, the youtube video is shorn of any context, so we can only guess what “blind spot” Obama was saying was reflected in the Constitution, and what “contradiction” he saw, but Ialso don’t think we have to sprain our brains very hard to figure it out. Obviously, it is a factually true and indisputable statement that the US Constitution reflected some racist and hypocritical cultural assumptions. I don’t know what’s outrageous about a Constututional law professor observing that. I guess we’re just suppose to see the words “fundamental flaw” and “Constitution” and think that he’s trashing the Constitution. I’m sure that will work on 99% of Fox News watchers, but the rest of the electorate seems to be tuning out the right wing noise machine these days, so I don’t expect this stuff to get any traction in the polls.
This is beyond silly. How can anyone believe this shite?
I can respect someone who holds right leaning political beliefs and doesn’t support Obama, but anyone who buys this bollocks is an idiot plain and simple.
The McCain campaign is using the interview, and lying about it shameless, but he hasn’t put the “slavery reparations” spin on it, except, perhaps, subliminally.
So, he’s parakeeting Drudge’s fabricated headline, and he’s continuing with wild and absurd inventions about Obama’s economic policy in general, but he hasn’t openly gone to the “reparations” card.
B) McCain’s aides went on record stating that McCain would use this. Drudge has hyped specifically the spread-the-wealth/reparations angle. Whether McCain presses with it or not, the fact that aides working for the campaign are making hay out of it … makes it a legitimate issue to discuss.
It sounds like it plays into their message, but falls apart upon closer inspection. But the words do sound “bad”. It keys on the liberal interpretation of “redistributive policies” as “redistribution of wealth”. To me, they look like different ideas, but I have to imagine that many will accept the conflation.
I just don’t know how far this “secret agenda” thing can go. Is he a terrorist socialist? Usually those guys are fascist, right? I mean they made up that whole word that has fascist right in it.
Nowhere did it say that McCain would use the reparations angle, nor does it appear that he is. A WAG by the OP is hardly a “legitimate issue to discuss” excdept to tell him he’s full of it, and that his WAG seems to be wrong.
I admit, I misunderstood just how deeply, if at all, that the reparations angle was being flogged … but the fact that this is being flogged at all (it seems more of a general “Obama is a Socialist” dipshittery) still makes this legitimate to discuss as a campaign issue.
So it’s only fair to discuss things that are direct quotes from the candidate himself? Anything that the Drudge report says, or McCain aides says, or anyone else says is out of bounds for discussion. And when McCain aides say that McCain is going to use something to smear Obama, that’s out of bounds until he actually says it. Okay then.
We’ll be good little posters and just sit here until you let us know when it’s appropriate to speak.
That being said … the OP isn’t the only one mentioning reparations. In that link that **Diogenes **floated it was mentioned in the comments section at least once that I saw.
The old fuck is on TV right now, raving at some mob, trying to make hay out of the interview. He seized on Obama’s phrase “redistributive change” and is try to extropolate socialism from it.
McCain has become such a pathetic demagogue, man. He didn’t used to be that way. Next tuesday night is going to be magnificent simply to revel in the agony of the right wing media and the kind of assholes that go to these McKlan rallies.
But you see McCains aides didn’t say anything about “reparations” either. And I don’t think the Drdge report did either. So, all you’re discussing is a WAG from the OP which appears to be wrong.
McCain’s support is very deep, and he keeps digging the lakebed deeper. The problem is that while his support is about a mile deep, it’s now roughly six inches wide. And McCain can’t do anything BUT dig the bed deeper.
Whereas Obama’s support is like a REAL lakebed…it’s a couple miles wide, and ranges from shallow at the banks to really damn deep in the middle.
McCain hasn’t figured out yet that digging the bed deeper doesn’t make your support broader, it just concentrates all the energy into that six-inch-diameter hole.
What is your evidence for the proposition that McCain is saying that Obama wants reparations for slavery? I think McCain is saying that Obama wants to redistribute wealthan which isn’t the same thing.
A man who wants to buy troubled mortgages at face value, using taxpayer money to do it, shouldn’t be talking about redistribution of wealth. Between his announcement two weeks ago that he would push for $52.5 billion in new welfare and his proclamation that he would freeze spending except for almost everything — he’s a fucking economic Looney Toon. And anyone who supports him is either uniformed, evil, or just plain stupid.
Didn’t you know that middle-class tax cuts are the same thing as stealing food right out of the mouths of billionaires’ children? Do you realize how hard it is to feed a brood of baby Mellon-Scaifes on less than $300 million a year?! They can strip Sally Struthers to the bone in 30 seconds! You have to keep them fed!
If those middle class taxpayers are part of the industrial proletariat, such a case could be made, if you squint a bit. Later Marxist thinkers held that identifying with the cause of the industrial proletariat was sufficient for membership in that class, though the strict economic determinism of classical Marxism would deny any such fantasy. If I go to my bank and identify myself as a member of the ruling class, the merest glance at my available balance will convince them otherwise.
You have a cite for the proposition that the bailout bill involves buying troubled mortgages “at face value”? You don’t because it doesn’t. Most of the assets purchased won’t be the actual mortgages anyway but mortgage-backes decurities.
Also, you can’t support Obama and then complain about McCain increasiong welfare because Obama would inrease it more.