Today marks the end of anniversary week for Skeptical Brotha and two years is a long time to blog consistently.I don’t know how others have done it and I don’t know how I have, but it was and is worth it. I would like to thank all of you for 750,000 site views and for sticking with me through thick and thin.Your words of encouragement mean a great deal to me and the dialogs we’ve shared are deeply treasured.
In the last few weeks I have considered shutting down this blog, but y’all helped me come to my senses and realize that the most significant presidential election in American history ain’t no time to throw in the towel.
Burnout is a bear, but I have gone through the worst of it and was sufficiently inspired by a word from the Lord today to continue.
Rather than go into a long-winded dissection of this brotha’s life and work, it should be sufficient to show ya rather than tell ya.
By the rightful Democratic Nominee for President of the United States of America:
A Proclamation.
Whereas, on the seventh day of June, in the year of our Lord two thousand and eight, a proclamation was issued by the rightful Democratic Nominee for President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:
That on the seventh day of June, in the year of our Lord two thousand and eight, all Negro congresspersons, lesser Negro politicians, sycophants and political hangers on held as slaves by my galactic ambition and arrogant sense of white entitlement in any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof in rebellion against the Clinton dynastic control of the Democratic Party, shall be then, thenceforward, conditionally free; and the Democratic Party of the United States, including every elected official and party officer, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such Negroes, unless Barack Hussein Obama loses the General Election.
Now, therefore I, Hillary Rodham Clinton, The rightful Democratic Nominee for President of the United States, by virtue of the power vested in me as wife of the 42nd President of the United States, in a time of actual rebellion against permanent Clinton dynastic authority over the Democratic Party of the United States, do, on this seventh day of June, in the year of our Lord two thousand and eight, and in accordance with my purpose to publicly order a cessation of hostilities and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the notion of a black President of the United States, the following, to wit:
Arkansas, California, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia,
And by virtue of the same illegitimate power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all Negro congresspersons, lesser Negro politicians, sycophants and hangers on held as slaves to my galactic ambition and sense of arrogant white entitlement within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Democratic Party of the United States, including every elected official and party officer thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said Negro persons unless Barack Obama loses the General Election.
And I hereby enjoin upon the Negroes so declared to be free to abstain from any strenuous effort on behalf of Barack Hussein Obama, and I recommend to them that they be ready to be re-enslaved on Plantation Clinton should he lose .
And upon this act of political expedience, warranted by a begrudging recognition of political reality, I invoke the considerate judgment of party leaders, superdelegates and the punditocracy, and beseech the gracious favor of Almighty God that Barack Hussein Obama loses the General Election.
Done at the City of Washington, this seventh day of June, in the year of our Lord two thousand and eight.
Anne Kornblut wrote an interesting piece for the Washington Post’s Trail blog. I quote some of it below, but for me, what was more illuminating was what came after it. The comment section was filled with the bitterest Hillarycrat and GOP trolls ever. These people make it seem as if Obama supporters are delusional in believing that the brotha has a shot in the General Election.
Four days after Obama secured the delegates to win the Democratic nomination, Clinton gave him her unqualified endorsement, finally putting to rest questions about whether she would help unite the party for the general election. In generous and at times soaring terms, Clinton described her cause as united with Obama’s, saying that only electing him would achieve the goals of universal health care, a strong economy and the end of the war in Iraq.
“We may have started on separate journeys, but today our paths have merged,” Clinton said. She discouraged rehashing the long and divisive Democratic primary campaign, instead asking her supporters — some of whom, still resentful, booed when she mentioned her former rival during the speech — to “take our energy, our passion, our strength and to do all we can to help elect Barack Obama the next president of the United States.”
“When you hear people saying, or think to yourself, ‘if only’ or ‘what if,’ I say — please don’t go there,” Clinton said. “Every moment wasted looking back keeps us from moving forward.”
She continued: “Life is too short, time is too precious, and the stakes are too high to dwell on what might have been. We have to work together for what still can be. And that is why I will work my heart out to make sure that Sen. Obama is our next president, and I hope and pray that all of you will join me in that effort.”
The trolls were in rare form today on this blog post:
“Sorry Mrs. Clinton, this life long democrat will vote Republican for the first time ever. After your speech today, I gave a donation to John McCain. He has my vote as well.
Obama is wrong for this country and I won’t be part of that choice. He will lose. He deserves to lose. He’s an empty suit.”
Posted by: Pansycritter | June 7, 2008 7:32 PM
“Well, there’s one thing for sure: NO MORE RACE CARDS!!!! If/when the U.S. elects a black President, then thankfully no more cries of discrimination. Nominating and/or electing a black President speaks volumes - that effectively, there is no more discrimination against blacks. Finally, an end to the whining.”
Posted by: tellthetruthnow | June 7, 2008 7:32 PM
“Hopefully, some time soon, people will recognize Obama for what he is. They’ll look back and see his trail of crooked, biggoted friends; the nuance that leaves us wondering what his hope for us is; his socialists [sic] friends.”
“His 20 year comfort in isolation with all of the above should give answer to why he is spiritually devoted to Africa? (A continent of perpetual revolution, starvation, disease, and murder.) We should see now, before it’s too late, that what he prays to be liberated from is the nation our forefathers built to provide us with the opportunities that initiative and hard work provide. Even worse is that he prays for our liberation from the fruits of our labor in order for him to provide the desires of his brethren.”
Posted by: rpatoh | June 7, 2008 7:31 PM
“I supported Hillary. There is no way in jell [sic] am going to vote for Barrack. He’s a liar and closet racist. No way!!”
Posted by: Lou | June 7, 2008 7:29 PM
What are your thoughts about the speech and these posters reactions to it?
A senior Obama campaign official confirmed to NBC News that Obama delayed his departure from Washington Thursday night to meet with Clinton at her home here.
Earlier, Clinton had disavowed efforts by some supporters who have urged Obama to choose her as his running mate.
“She is not seeking the vice presidency, and no one speaks for her but her,” communications director Howard Wolfson said. “The choice here is Senator Obama’s and his alone.”
Clinton was planning an event in Washington Saturday to thank supporters and urge them to back Obama’s candidacy. But as she was bowing out of the race, supporters in Congress and elsewhere were ramping up a campaign to pressure him to put her on the ticket in the No. 2 spot.
Bob Johnson, the billionaire founder of Black Entertainment Television and a Clinton supporter, sent a letter to the Congressional Black Caucus Wednesday urging the group to encourage Obama to choose Clinton as his vice presidential pick. He said he was doing so with her blessing.
Obama is seeking to become the first black president.
Clinton has told other friends and supporters she would be willing to be Obama’s running mate. But her immediate task is bringing her own presidential bid to a close.
High stakes
In an e-mail to supporters, the New York senator said she “will be speaking on Saturday about how together we can rally the party behind Senator Obama. The stakes are too high and the task before us too important to do otherwise.”
Clinton expressed the same sentiment in a conference call with 40 members of her national finance committee, whom she urged to begin raising money for Obama and for the Democratic National Committee.
“She was in good spirits and totally supportive, without qualification, of Senator Obama and his campaign,” finance co-chairman Alan Patricof said of the call.
It was a shift in tone by the former first lady, who announced 17 months ago that she was “in it to win it.” Many of her supporters want her as the vice presidential candidate, in their minds a “dream ticket” that would bring Obama her enthusiastic legions and broaden his appeal to white and working-class voters.
But Obama indicated he intends to take his time making a decision.
“We’re not going to be rushed into it. I don’t think Senator Clinton expects a quick decision and I don’t even know that she’s necessarily interested in that,” Obama told NBC in an interview.
Clinton’s move to formally declare that she is backing the Illinois senator came after Democratic congressional colleagues made clear they had no stomach for a protracted intraparty battle. Now that Obama has secured the 2,118 delegates necessary to clinch the nomination, Clinton had little choice but to end her quest, and sooner rather than later.
Some of Clinton’s closest supporters — the nearly two dozen House Democrats from her home state of New York — switched their endorsements to Obama Thursday.
The public announcement from the 23 New York followed two days of private phone calls weighing her options.
“She was just as spunky as ever,” Rep. Charlie Rangel said of Clinton’s mood on the calls, as her friends and supporters urged her to come to a decision “sooner rather than later.”
Many of the lawmakers said it was important for them, as New Yorkers who are close to Clinton and helped launch her presidential bid, to work together to repair some of the rifts in the party.
“We’re Democrats. Dammit to hell we fight. When it’s over, we come together and go out there to win,” said Rangel, the dean of the New York delegation.
The New Yorkers, said Rep. Gregory Meeks, have a duty “to lead this transition” to full party support of Obama.
Another of Clinton’s most prominent supporters, Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, also announced his “wholehearted and enthusiastic support” for Obama Thursday.
Exit strategy
The move to end her campaign came Tuesday, when Clinton told House Democrats during a private conference call that she would get behind Obama’s candidacy and congratulate him for gathering the necessary delegates to be the party’s nominee.
The only degree of uncertainty was how. Clinton is exploring options to retain her delegates and promote her issues, including a signature call for universal health care.
The announcement closed an epic five-month nominating battle pitting the first serious female candidate against the most viable black contender ever.
Obama on Tuesday night secured the delegates needed to clinch the Democratic nomination. But Clinton stopped short of acknowledging that milestone, defiantly insisting she was better positioned to defeat McCain in November.
“What does Hillary want? What does she want?” Clinton asked, hours after telling supporters she’d be open to joining Obama as his vice presidential running mate.
June 3, 2008
The Honorable James Clyburn
U. S. House of Representatives
H-329, The Capitol
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Jim:
Now that you have endorsed Senator Obama as the Presidential Nominee of the Democratic Party; I, as a long-time supporter of Senator Clinton and of the Democratic Party, urge you to do everything possible to unify this party to win the Presidential election in November. For me and millions of other Democrats, I believe that the most important step that you can take now is to encourage the Congressional Black Caucus to urge Senator Obama to select Senator Hillary Clinton as his Vice Presidential running mate.
As a businessman I understand the vitally important role that a Democratic President can play in establishing programs and policies throughout the government that stimulate and support economic opportunities for African Americans. As African Americans we agree that the stakes in this election are far too high to take any chances that this party will not be unified from the top to the bottom in our effort to gain control of The White House.
You know as well as I the deep affection that millions of African Americans hold for both Senator Clinton and President Clinton. You also know that Hillary Clinton has been a long-term advocate for racial and gender equality, from her early days as a lawyer with the Children Defense Fund to her prominent leadership roles on these issues as First Lady and as Senator from New York. But most important, we need to have the certainty of winning; and, I believe, without question, that Barack Obama as President and Hillary Clinton as Vice President bring that certainty to the ticket.
Jim, as the highest ranking African American in Congress, I encourage you to follow your commitment to build a unified party by helping to make this a historic election of Senators Obama and Clinton who both have demonstrated that they have the courage and the ability to inspire and lead this nation to greatness today and for years in the future.
A federal grand jury indicted New Orleans tax assessor Betty Jefferson, her brother, Mose Jefferson, and her daughter, Angela Coleman, on charges that include federal program fraud, identity theft and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said the family members used several non-profit and for-profit companies to obtain grants designed to help pregnant teens, at-risk youths and others in need of assistance. They allegedly deposited some of the grant money into personal checking accounts and used it for personal expenses.
With Wednesday’s indictment, four members of the politically prominent Jefferson family now face federal criminal charges.
Mose Jefferson, 66, pleaded not guilty in April to separate charges that he paid bribes to a former New Orleans school board president.
Wednesday’s indictment also charges Betty Jefferson, 70, with four counts of tax evasion. She faces up to 279 years in prison. The grand jury also charged Mose Jefferson with making false statements to federal investigators. He faces up to 250 years in prison, while Coleman faces a maximum of 257 years behind bars.
Today is a time for supporters and skeptics alike to savor this seminal moment in American history and take a vacation from cynicism. I don’t have many elegant thoughts or well-turned phrases to bedazzle you with this evening.I have many irons in the fire and none are appropriate or ready for unveiling at this time. Today marks the fulfillment of the 25 year-old dream that I have been patiently waiting and hoping for and I feel numb.
It is much like the feeling I experienced when my grandmother informed Mom and I last week that she would have to put down her beloved dog, Homer.Homer, a pure bred Shar-pei, was her faithful companion of nearly 12 years.Mama cried some bitter tears over his inevitable decline in health and the decision was made to humanely put him down.
In the same vein, the indefatigable Clintons campaigned for America’s imperial throne with an air of white entitlement until all hope was gone and the last dog died.Now that her campaign has been euthanized, and they weep bitter crocodile tears, it is incumbent upon Senator Obama to put a stake through the heart of the Clintons permanent campaign and forever remove the possibility of a political resurrection through the lifeline of the Vice Presidency.
The specter of placing the Queen of triangulation and America’s most resilient corporate vampire on the same ticket with Obama is both repellent and counterproductive. I look forward to the coming days as Obama sets his sights on a running mate and shall continue to savor this moment for all its worth.
Y’all, I’ve been sick for the last week and exhausted for two. I will be back tomorrow with some thoughts on the state of the race, its inevitable end, and Obama finally leaving Trinity. I love you all.
The two rivals also collided in Oregon’s unique vote-by-mail contest, and Obama predicted he would finish the night with a majority of all delegates at stake in the 56 primaries and caucuses on the campaign calendar.
With votes counted from 41 percent of the Kentucky precincts, Clinton was gaining 57 percent support, compared with 40 percent for Obama.
Interviews with Kentucky voters leaving their polling places showed Clinton’s victory was roughly as sweeping as the rout she fashioned last week in West Virginia.
Almost nine in 10 ballots were cast by whites, and the former first lady was winning their support overwhelmingly. She defeated her rival among voters of all age groups and incomes, the college educated and non-college educated, self-described liberals, moderates and conservatives.
Though Clinton has had a strong run through the late primaries, Obama has steadily outpaced her where it counts, in the race for national convention delegates.
With her Kentucky victory, Clinton picked up at least 27 delegates, with an additional 24 to be awarded.
Overall, Obama had 1,917 delegates, little more than 100 shy of the 2,026 needed to become the first black presidential nominee of a major party. The former first lady had 1,749.
The numbers the networks are reporting are screwy. One minute they have her at over 268,000, the next minute they revise the number down to 230,000. What is the deal?
They said tests conducted after the seizure showed a tumor in Kennedy’s left parietal lobe. Preliminary results from a biopsy of the brain identified the cause of the seizure as a malignant glioma, they said.
His treatment will be decided after more tests but the usual course includes combinations of radiation and chemotherapy.
Kennedy has been hospitalized in Boston since Saturday, when he was airlifted from Cape Cod after a seizure at his home.
The tears are coming now and I am absolutely devastated. I have no words. Nothing. I can’t breathe and the room feels like its closing in on me. I feel physically sick. Please don’t take him now, Lord. His work is not done.
Former Tennessee Congressman Harold Ford, Chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council and America’s favorite Negro Corporate Whore, was on “Meet the Press” yesterday in his paid capacity as a “political analyst.” He announced that he and Snowflake, the white fiancé he hid better than Strom Thurmond’s black daughter, jumped the broom three weeks ago.How precious.
I’ve been trying to figure out the quadroon from Tennessee’s career plans, and I’m stumped. At first, I thought he was gearing up for another Senate run because his campaign website was up for more than a year after the last campaign.When it finally came down, I heard tell of a run for Governor.Then, the engagement to Snowflake was announced.Some of y’all speculated that Tennesseans weren’t gonna allow any miscegenation in the Governor’s mansion.
I just don’t know.If Obama is elected, it could go either way in Tennessee.Part of me believes that the rednecks will think that Negroes are taking over and they’ll reject him.The other part believes that Obama’s election will make it easier.Only time will tell.
Today, I think he’s angling for a cabinet spot and seeking to make himself a prominent Washington fixture and corporate tool.If he accepts anything lower than a cabinet spot, like Secretary of the Army, he’ll soon be running for something again. In any event, he’s just 38 and has nothing but time. Senator Alexander is over seventy, Senator Corker is up again in 2012 and the Governorship is term-limited. Ford is a political vulture and opportunist. He is clearly circling wounded Republicans in Tennessee waiting for an opportunity to strike.
Anyway, the Whore, as I prefer to call him, was busy spouting a gusher of corporate propaganda.He suggested the following running mates for Obama:Colin Powell, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland and Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen, the corporate pedophile who balances state budgets on the backs of children he eliminated from Medicaid.
None of those corporate fossils is acceptable.He should choose somebody who adds something to the ticket and somebody he can work with.
The first people that come to mind are Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill and a Virginia Governor Tim Kaine. I would prefer either of them. They are mainstream pols, however, so we probably can look forward to nothing innovative, but they are decent people and they bent over backwards for Obama.Loyalty should not be a trait to be overlooked.Both possess the sharp political instincts to be good advisors to a President.
The second tier would be the Hillary people.Some of her peeps ain’t bad.Washington Senator Patty Murray comes to mind.With 16 years on the Hill, she is a senior member of the Senate and has the experience to aid and guide Obama like few others do.A solid progressive, she is also pragmatic and determined.She ain’t no great shakes in the speech-making department, but she can work on that.Her personal story is very interesting and inspirational and she would make a good addition.
Finally, the unaligned folks in the third tier.Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold comes to mind.Nobody would be better in the role of Vice President.His eloquence, experience, and progressive tenacity are unmatched by anybody.There is just one problem; the prickly progressive can’t keep a wife.The twice-divorced Senator ain’t got aspouse and that ruins the solid family man portrait party bosses like to paint for their tickets.
Whatever happens, I would sincerely hope that Obama’s pledge to keep lobbyists out of his White House is sincere and that one of the first names he crosses off his list of political appointees is that of the Whore.
The 76-year-old Democrat, the lone surviving son in a famed political family, was undergoing tests at Massachusetts GeneralHospital to determine the cause of the seizure, spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said.
“Senator Kennedy is resting comfortably, and it is unlikely we will know anything more for the next 48 hours,” she said.
Kennedy went to Cape CodHospital on Saturday morning “after feeling ill at his home,” Cutter said. After discussion with his doctors in Boston, Kennedy was taken to Massachusetts General.
An official who declined to be identified by name, citing the sensitivity of the events, had earlier said that Kennedy had stroke-like symptoms. The hospital declined to comment on his condition.
In October, Kennedy had surgery to repair a nearly complete blockage in a major neck artery. The discovery was made during a routine examination of a decades-old back injury.
The hourlong procedure on his left carotid artery — a main supplier of blood to the face and brain — was performed at Massachusetts General. This type of operation is performed on more than 180,000 people a year to prevent a stroke.
The doctor who operated on Kennedy said at the time that surgery is reserved for those with more than 70 percent blockage, and Kennedy had “a very high-grade blockage.”
On Saturday, Hyannis Fire Lt. Bill Rex said a 911 call came in from the Kennedy family compound at 8:19 a.m. A man was transported to Cape CodHospital and transferred by air at 10:10 a.m. from BarnstableMunicipalAirport to Boston.
David Reilly, a spokesman for Cape CodHospital, said that Kennedy was brought to the hospital around 9 a.m. and stayed for about an hour before being flown by helicopter to the Boston hospital.
Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts did not talk to reporters when he arrived at the hospital shortly after 1 p.m.
Kerry later issued a statement, saying that Kennedy “been a fighter who has overcome adversity again and again with courage, grit, and determination. Teresa and I are praying” for Kennedy’s family.
“We know that everyone in Massachusetts and people throughout the nation pray for a full and speedy recovery for a man whose life’s work has touched millions upon millions of lives,” the statement said.
Kennedy, 76, has been in the Senate since election in 1962, filling out the term won by his brother, John F. Kennedy.
Kennedy is the lone surviving son in a famed family. His eldest brother, Joseph, was killed in a World War II airplane crash. President John Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 and his brother Robert was assassinated in 1968.
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, beginning a tour of hospitals in Eugene, Ore., told reporters that he had been in touch with the senator’s family.
“Ted Kennedy is a giant in American political history. He’s done more for health care than just about anybody in history. We are going to be rooting for him. I insist on being optimistic about how it’s going to turn out,” he said.
Obama’s rival for the Democratic nomination, New York. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, also issued a statement.
“My thoughts and prayers are with Ted Kennedy and his family today,” she said. “We all wish him well and a quick recovery.”
Kennedy gave Obama’s presidential campaign a big boost this year with his endorsement and has campaigned actively for the Illinois senator.
Democrat John Edwards is endorsing former rival Barack Obama, fresh signs of the party establishment embracing the likely nominee even as Hillary Rodham Clinton refuses to give up her increasingly long-shot candidacy.
Edwards was to appear with Obama in Grand Rapids, Mich., as Obama campaigns in a critical general election battleground state, the Obama campaign said Wednesday.
The endorsement comes the day after Clinton defeated Obama by more than 2-to-1 in West Virginia. The loss highlighted Obama’s work to win over the “Hillary Democrats” — white, working-class voters who also supported Edwards in large numbers before he exited the race.
Clinton campaign Chairman Terry McAuliffe said in a written statement, “We respect John Edwards, but as the voters of West Virginia showed last night, this thing is far from over.”
Edwards, a former North Carolina senator and the 2004 vice presidential nominee, dropped out of the race in late January.
Both Obama and Clinton immediately asked Edwards for his endorsement, but he stayed mum for more than four months, even as the campaign focused on his home state in recent weeks.
Edwards considered making an endorsement in the weeks after leaving the campaign. People who talked to Edwards privately at the time said he was concerned about Obama’s readiness for the presidency and his electability. Clinton worked harder to woo both Edwards and his wife and impressed them both, those Edwards confidants said, but Edwards would have had a hard time endorsing her after criticizing her so much during the primary.
A person close to Edwards, speaking on condition of anonymity because the individual wasn’t authorized to talk to the media, said the former lawmaker wanted to get involved now to begin unifying the party. Obama also signed on to Edwards’ anti-poverty initiative, which he launched Tuesday with the goal of reducing poverty in the United States by half within 10 years.
When he made his decision, Edwards didn’t even tell many of his former top advisers because he wanted to make sure that he personally talked to Clinton to give her the news, said the person close to him. Edwards’ wife, Elizabeth, who has said she thinks Clinton has the superior health care plan, did not travel with him to Michigan and is not part of the endorsement.
John Edwards, the real champion of working class voters, doesn’t want to be associated with the blatant racism of West Virginia Democrats and for whatever its worth, and it ain’t worth much anymore, he’d rather be associated with Obama. Friends of mine have breathlessly told me of Edwards desire to get back in the game and win the second spot on the ticket. I told them that its too little, too late. He should have done it back in February before Super Tuesday. It means nothing now because the fight is all but over. He will not be considered by Obama because he did nothing to merit consideration.
Riding on an unprecedented wave of ignorance and fear, Hillary Clinton claimed victory over Barack Obama in West Virginia’s Democratic Primary tonight.The specter of the Safe Negro scared the hell out of a great many of West Virginia’s working class white voters and that is all right by her.
She has won a pyrrhic victory and another reason to continue her futile quest for imperial power by pandering to fearful white voters in all 50 states.
Trailing in the popular vote, pledged delegates, super delegates, and in popular opinion, the only reason to continue at this point is to exacerbate Democratic Party divisions and doom Obama’s general election viability.
I have a confession to make. I am exhausted. Sadly, I’m too spent to muster any enthusiasm or energy to witness any of the history happening around me first hand. Nevertheless, it is happening and it has meaning that many too dependent on the misbegotten impressions of the establishment press corps fail to discern.
Hillary Clinton’s trail of crocodile tears into the bosom of blue collar, redneck America has been an interesting fall from the imperial heights from which this campaign began. Getting down and dirty with America’s great unwashed hoards was only supposed to be an indignity reserved for Iowa and New Hampshire before the coronation. Conventional wisdom told us that anything more would be unnecessary because it was obviously Hillary’s turn. Her claim to the throne as America’s Queen, ironclad.
Supposedly, the worldly celebrity sophisticates from Chappaqua now revel in having to come down from their $109 million dollar mountaintop to rub shoulders with ordinary farmers and shift workers, and enjoy being forced to engage in a morally bankrupt blood sport to deny Barack Obama the White House in order to preserve Hillary Clinton’s post 2008 Presidential viability. I don’t believe a word, baby.
As Hillary’s designated “Ambassador to rural America,” Bill Clinton has put on a good show of feigned sympathy and cornpone compassion for the plight of rural North Carolina’s put upon Jessecrats. “Who and what are Jessecrats,” you ask. To put it simply, they are rural white Democrats who rationalized Jesse Helms fealty to Segregation and White Supremacy as character.
During a stint as a security guard in a grocery store, a Jessecrat I’ll call Mr. Earl told me to my face that he respected and voted for Jesse Helms because he didn’t change what he believed. Mr. Earl shook my hand firmly and was a courtly, portly, older gentleman and native of the small town I live in now. Mr. Earl and Senator Helms personify the rural, closed social network and reactionary Bible belt values that I regard as commonplace and intuitively understand. In many ways, I am his younger black equivalent.
Anyhoo, Bill’s Hillbilly’s for Hillary road show shtick is damn interesting in what it reveals about the campaign and our politics. Race, as I’ve discussed umpteen times in the past, is undeniably a factor in this campaign. Moreover, it is the real reason for Bill’s bogus tour of rural seduction.
According to an account in the Dunn Daily Record about an appearance in Lillington, NC, a Harnett county town just a stonestrow from my home, “The political rhetoric got started before the former president even took the stage in Lillington, with former Sen. Robert Morgan introducing President Clinton, praising him and criticizing the current occupant of the White House, President George W. Bush. “He presided over the country when we had one of the largest budget surpluses in our history,” Sen. Morgan said of President Clinton. “The best I can tell he is the only president that has ever been in Harnett County, and I am proud to introduce him.”
The president said he was glad to have the opportunity to see Sen. Morgan again. “Bob Morgan has been a friend of mine for a lot of years and I am proud to be here with him today,” President Clinton said. I am sure that it would please you to know that Senator Morgan was the campaign manager for the last candidate for Governor of North Carolina to run on an avowedly segregationist platform.
Yes, children, the candidate’s name was I. Beverly Lake Sr. A law professor, lawyer and state supreme court justice. He participated in oral argument against Brown v. Board of Education as North Carolina’s Assistant Attorney General. By 1960, he was the unquestioned leader of the state’s segregationists and he became a candidate for Governor.
As he describes in an oral history interview, “Those men whom I taught, not only in that class but in all the others before it, those men became the nucleus of my political campaign when I ran for Governor in 1960 and again in 1964.” Robert Morgan was one of those men.
Judge Lake’s boys became the most powerful men in North Carolina. CEOs of corporations, state supreme court judges, federal judges, and members of congress, they were a closed fraternity and were undeniably influential members of the white power structure. This is the network, which the Clintons turn to put them over. It is also the network that controls Democratic politics in North Carolina and it’s the reason for Democratic dominance over the Governor’s mansion for 24 of the last 32 years.
Bill and Hillary are intimately acquainted with closed Good Ole Boy and Girl networks of power, having benefited from the one that controls Arkansas. When she first arrived in Arkansas, Bill arranged for Hillary to be given a teaching position in the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville School of Law, where he also taught. After his election as Arkansas Attorney General, Clinton biographer Roger Morris, author of Partners in Power, recalls how Bill called up Herbert Rule III, a partner in the Rose law firm and Clinton fundraiser.
Morris quoted Rule “I got the word from Bill Clinton that she was coming and I tracked her down,”Rule said later. At the time the firm had few women or even Ivy League law credentials, and Rose rarely recruited from law school faculties or legal aid clinics. “Hillary was just a law professor, that’s all,”remarked one partner. But the firm saw her obvious value, offering the twenty-nine-year-old attorney a salary just under $25,000—far higher than the pay in Arkansas for teaching or public interest law and well more than Clinton himself would make as attorney general.”
“…The decision had been made when she decided to marry, to go with his career as the engine for her own ambition and power,” said someone who had known them since Yale. “By the time Rose came across with the offer, she was going to do whatever was best for Bill, whatever would get them to the top—and I mean all the way to the top—as fast as possible.”
“…Both sides recognized the mutual compact in Rose’s employing the wife of an attorney general and politician on the rise…For the firm she was a natural hireling. Formed before statehood and named for a founder of the American Bar Association, Rose had numbered among its partners judges and state supreme court justices, mayors, legislators, a US Senator, and , above all, the intimates of those in power, figures who exerted their force more discreetly, without potentially awkward public visibility, without accountability. It was a matter of appearance and reality in an Arkansas when the two were frequently not the same.”
“For a century and a half Rose represented and wielded the influence of the most powerful forces in the state—in land, timber, retailing, insurance, investment banking, agriculture, financial services—and, with governments at all levels, virtually the entire enveloping grid of political privilege and consequent private profit from the Ozarks to the Delta.
“What Arkansas was the Rose Law Firm had been well paid to make it—and to protect and maintain the result. The discreet firm’s own fortunes were inseparable from the economic and social system it served. Beyond any considerations of gender, resume, or name, Hillary Rodham’s presence on the letterhead was in a long tradition.”
Operating as a preserve of racial exclusivity is apparently a long tradition as well because not even one of the current crop of 30 plus attorneys practicing law as associates or partners with Rose Law, a firm Hillary Rodham Clinton served as a partner and had a say in running, is African American.
For Billary to attempt masquerading as champions of the working class is funnier than Larry Craig explaining his wide stance. For the record, Bill and Hillary Clinton got to where they are by servicing the needs of white corporate power. Period. Anybody who says anything different is crazier than Brittney Spears.
It’s funny how the questionable associations of the Clintons are not being placed under the same microscope as Barack Obama’s. Associations like these could be ferreted out, discussed and disseminated widely by the media and Obama’s post-racial campaign. But, then, it wouldn’t be post-racial if he obsessed over the corporate and segregationist allies of Bill and Hillary. And it would reveal that the deliberate lies about race and power told in the supposedly post-racial 21st century are essentially the same as the ones told in the twentieth.
I ran across a beautifully written article in the Saturday Evening Post detailing the campaign, “A huge WALLACE FOR GOVERNOR sign hung behind speakers stand. It did not make a point of the fact that it was Mrs. Wallace who was the candidate. Along the sidewalls faded banners bore George Wallace’s old cry of defiance—STAND UP FOR ALABAMA. At the doors Wallace aides held out baskets into which the faithful dropped dollar bills. An elderly minister offered a long and fervent prayer. At the end of it he paused and said,“Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to present to you the First Lady of the State of Alabama.”
“Mrs. Wallace stood up and calmly began to read her little speech, “As you know,” she said, “I am a candidate for governor of Alabama. I am happy to offer to you a continuance of the honesty andefficiency so much in evidence during the administration of my husband,” In the back of the hall a man leaning against the wall muttered to a companion, “That’s enough of her—let’s get on to George,” Wallace could not possibly have heard this remark, but his political antenna were responding to the mood of the audience.
“He sensed its impatience. He rose and moved to his wife’s side,“My election,”she was saying,“will enable my husband to carry on his program for Alabama—we want to continue to serve you together.” This is the central argument of Hillary’s campaign and nothing symbolized it more than when they jointly eulogized Coretta Scott King from the pulpit.
“… He [Wallace] then went on to tell them that in his travels around the country he had not found any people anywhere who were “more intelligent or more cultured or more refined than the people of Alabama.” This is what I hear when I hear Bill and Hill tell folks that they matter more than the caucus states and when I hear tell of their shifting rationales for counting Michigan and Florida, contrary to the rules, and their proposed use of the so-called Nuclear Option to seat their people.
Bill seems to be consciously channeling Wallace as he panders his way through the country’s rural areas. Ecohoing Wallace’s infamous 1963 Inaugural, shortly before he stood in the schoolhouse door of the University of Alabama, can’t you just imagine Bill saying, “Today I have stood, where some segregationist once stood, and took an oath to my wife, the woman who single-handedly kept my presidency alive. It is very appropriate then, that from this Cradle of the Confederacy, this very Heart of the Great Anglo-Saxon Southland, that today we sound the drum for freedom in the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of Obama tyranny and I say Hillary today, Hillary tomorrow, Hillary forever.
“Sorry Mrs. Clinton, this life long democrat will vote Republican for the first time ever. After your speech today, I gave a donation to John McCain. He has my vote as well.
Obama is wrong for this country and I won’t be part of that choice. He will lose. He deserves to lose. He’s an empty suit.”