Locked and Loaded — But Obama May Want to Upgrade to the (Rhetorical) Howitzer
(posted by Mona)
Barack Obama appears to understand the Right-wing Noise Machine, and rather than getting all defensive and mewling whiney protests, he declares he is going to take it on:
Barack Obama is warning supporters that the general election fight between him and John McCain may get ugly, but the Illinois senator is vowing not to back down.
“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” Obama said at a fundraiser in Philadelphia Friday, according to pool reports.
Absolutely. The right has been: declaring or strongly insinuating that he is a Marxist, a Muslim mole, attacking his wife with spurious rumors about her allegedly ranting against “whitey,” and questioning the authenticity of his birth certificate and/or that he was born in America (Hawaii) — and it is only going to get nuttier and uglier. As TPM Cafe posts, my emphasis:
Obama has to strike a careful balance between his promises of hope and optimism, against the pitfall of allowing himself to become a political doormat. One benefit of the long primary season is that he learned how to pull that trick off against Hillary Clinton — and now he can do it against John McCain.
The McCain camp was quick to object: “Barack Obama’s call for ‘new politics’ is officially over.”
Oh, sniffle, sniffle. You can’t be a wussy in the face of the modern right’s attack machine, and it well past time a Democrat drew a line in the sand. Obama already has a blog added to his arsenal — Fight the Smears. Good on him, but he’s gonna have to pull out the rhetorical gun and bear in mind that when you use that weapon, you only shoot to kill. The right internalized that lesson long ago.
June 15th, 2008 at 10:15 am
Sadly, I fear that the right-wing accusations of secret Allah worship on Obama’s part have had their impact. This is a country with a history of xenophobia, and I’ve seen it at work in my own family.
My grandfather speculated that the Muslims were behind the forest fires in Northern California.
*Sigh* that was an accusation out of Fox News! And it’s just unbelievable that people can talk about an alleged collective campaign among Muslims, because there may have been 19 Arab hijackers involved in a terrorist attack.
I mean, this is the kind of destructive tribalism that can lead to mass slaughters of other people. It really shouldn’t be that hard for people to conceptualize the existence of an Islamic world/Muslim religion that has billions of believers who don’t all take the same actions or always agree with each other.
Ayn Rand is rolling in her grave right now.
You know, the danger she saw in collectivism and all.
June 15th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Mona, you can accuse them of conspiracy-mongering all you want, but we all know that the real person in the alleged R. Kelly sex tape was Kenyan citizen Barack Mohammed Obama.
June 15th, 2008 at 11:51 am
“Sadly, I fear that the right-wing accusations of secret Allah worship on Obama’s part have had their impact. This is a country with a history of xenophobia, and I’ve seen it at work in my own family.
My grandfather speculated that the Muslims were behind the forest fires in Northern California.”
Maybe they’re responsible for Teddy Kennedy’s brain tumor and the recent wave of poison tomatoes as well. And don’t forget the recent earthquakes in China and Japan.
June 16th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Natasha:
Sadly, many of the worst attackers of Islam the religion are self-described Objectivists. So either Rand is turning over the grave at what her movement/philosophy has become, or the collectivism inherent in Objectivism is becoming apparent, or both. I offer no opinion as to which of the three it is, although I certainly hope it is the first.
June 16th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
I hope the Obama campaign follows through on this.
But to put it in perspective, I recall a statement from Kerry’s campaign chief in early 2004, to the effect that if Rove & Co. started digging up (or making up) stuff about Kerry, they wouldn’t just lie down for it. Everything about Bush would then be “on the table,” he said–”and I mean *everything*.”
I remember pumping my fist at the time (you know, that terroristic code-gesture), and saying “Yeah, damn straight! Break it off in the mofos!”
And guess what Kerry wound up doing?
June 16th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Senator Obama is NOT a Dirty Muslim!
“What you won’t hear from this campaign or this party is the kind of politics that uses religion as a wedge,” says Mr. Obama, while denouncing statements of him being a Muslim as a smear. Why is the presidential candidate who claims to be religiously inclusive is treating the word “Muslim” as an insult? Apparently, it is OK for Mr. Obama to be associated with terrorists like William Ayers or racists like Jeremiah Wright, but God forbid somebody would call him a Muslim! No, he won’t stand for that kind of smear! We admit that most terrorists are Muslims, but most Muslims are not terrorists and the statement on Mr. Obama’s website is insulting to hundreds of millions of people.
How could a man who discards his family heritage in favor of political expediency be even considered for presidency of the United States? Where are all the so-called “Islamic civil rights groups” like CAIR, MPAC, ISNA, MAS, etc. who are quick to defend every Islamic terrorist, but are silent when Muslims in general are being denigrated? Would Mr. Obama have the same reaction if someone claimed that he was raised as a Jew? We sincerely doubt that.
Muslims Against Sharia demand immediate removal of “SMEAR: Barack Obama is a Muslim” statement from the official Barack Obama’s website as well as an apology for giving the word “Muslim” a negative connotation.
http://muslimsagainstsharia.blogspot.com/2008/06/senator-obama-is-not-dirty-muslim.html
June 16th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Muslims Against Sharia: Your point is very well taken. However, the political reality in the U.S. is that it is unlikely a Muslim could be elected president at this juncture, which is why the Right Wing Noise Machine had tried to label Obama a Muslim before they settled into Marxist and extreme, far-left Xian smears.
“Smear” is a bad way to describe being falsely labeled as a Muslim, but how else does one conveniently categorize a falsehood meant to cause the electorate to fear Obama? I don’t mean that rhetorically — I honestly do not know the answer.
I like your web site.
June 17th, 2008 at 11:27 am
Obama didn’t give it a negative connotation, the wingers calling him one did. Though I understand the anger at the association.
After all, he could’ve just said “I’m not one, but why does it matter anyway?” and criticized the ridiculous assumption that being a muslim means you’re somehow automatically UnAmerican.
July 5th, 2008 at 11:16 am
Muslims Against Sharia is a blog collective that includes Pamela Geller, the (non-Muslim) owner of the anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hate site “Atlas Shrugs.” She has in the past posted about wanting to ban Islam in the United States and has argued for the killing of innocent civilians in war.
It would be wise to consider this group’s outrage with a truckload of salt.