Sunday, April 13, 2008

The Nation feels Obama's "bitter" hurt

The Nation is an opinion journal whose editors worry the NY Times is drifting right.

Nation
editor Katrina Vanden Heuvel doesn't see good coming from America's sacrifices in Iraq. And President Bush? Don't even ask.

Vanden Heuvel, it won't surprise you, is a member of the Obama's Come to Save Us MSM Choir.

So with the lede - OBAMA IS RIGHT. PEOPLE ARE ANGRY - Vanden Heuvel is telling Nation readers some things you'll read below in italics with my interlinear commentary in plain.

Editor Vanden Heuvel begins - - -

Right-wing ABC radio talkshow host John Batchelor has filled my in box in these last 18 hours with e-mails dissecting and skewering what Obama meant when he said at a private April 6 fundraiser that small-town voters in economically distressed areas of Pennsylvania are "bitter."

Batchelor and Laura Ingraham and Monica Crowley and Sean Hannity and Rush and O'Reilly are ready and rearing to go, quick to their guns to paint Obama as an elitist. {Read the excerpt from Nation columnist Eric Alterman's "Why We're Liberals" in the April 14th issue of The Nation to understand the cynicism and hypocrisy at the root of the conservative cabal's forty-year campaign.}


O dear, Vanden Heuvel's in box is filled "with e-mails dissecting and skewering what Obama meant[.]"

Why isn't the Justice Department doing anything about that?

Isn't there some government program somewhere to protect liberals and leftists from exposure to facts they don't like?

And Obama's remarks were made, Vanden Heuvel points out, at a private fundraiser.

Yet they became public!!

How did that happen?

We've all been told by NPR how important it is for the liberal/leftist MSM to disclose national security secrets.

Sure, but if wealthy liberals and leftists can't get together with their preferred presidential candidate to talk disparagingly about the "unter-menchen," what's this country coming to?

I think that's Vanden Heuvel's point.

Ah, but enough from me. Back to Vanden Heuvel - - -

The Right has its reasons to play this cynical card. It is the Clinton campaign's rapid-fire, right-wing populist response to Obama's remarks that I find so troubling and cynical, and sure to hurt the party and the country in the general election....

In truth, the Right isn't playing "this cynical card."

It's offering readers and viewers links to transcripts and videos of Obama's remarks, so they can judge them for themselves.

Not only are bloggers on the right doing that, bloggers like myself are also doing that. See this post I published yesterday with links to both an audio and video of Obama's remarks.

Why does Vanden Heuvel tell Nation readers:

"In Muncie, Indiana Saturday morning, Obama was counterpunching, as he should be-- explaining and expanding on his remarks" and then link to a video of those remarks, but fail to link to an audio or video of Obama's "bitter" San Francisco remarks?

Why didn't Vanden Heuvel provide her trusting Nation readers at least a transcript of Obama's "bitter" San Francisco remarks?

I think I know why. I bet almost all of you do, too.

Vanden Heuvel's entire article is here.

3 comments:

mac said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

John:

What's interesting here is the the lack of any adult Democrat politician stepping in to denounce Obama's remarks (Hillary and Bill don't count.)

You'd have to be from a different planet not to understand the damage that has been done. Each day the impact spreads. Each day it becomes more permanent. Someone in charge needs to tell Obama to come up with a real apology or the party will disassociate itself from him.

I have never seen more self destructive behavior from a political party in all the years I have followed politics.

Ken
Dallas

mac said...
This comment has been removed by the author.