Obama is reinforcing some right-wing slurs of the Democratic party

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

This section of Obama's interview with Atlantic columnist and long-time Democrat-hater Andrew Sullivan contains some troubling reinforcement of lines of attack we have taken from Republicans for years. (The parts in blue are my comments on the text.)
_____________________________

"The battles between Gingrich and Clinton were battles that took place in dorm rooms between young Republicans and young Democrats 20, 30 years ago. And that’s part of what we have to transcend. We’re re-litigating sex, drugs, rock-and-roll, Vietnam. And that’s part of why I think it’s so important to use this election to finally settle some of those arguments."

Why does he trivialize the strugles for feminism, civil rights, reproductive rights, environmentalism, gay rights and expressive freedoms as dorm-room arguments, and "sex, drugs, rock-and-roll, Vietnam." No Democrat thought the conflicts between Gingrich and Clinton were about "sex, drugs, rock-and-roll, Vietnam." They were about rolling back reproductive rights, civil rights, expressive freedoms, the separation of church and state and about the destruction of the social safety net.

"Because—here’s the interesting thing, Andrew—I think that the American people, in their own lives, have actually moved beyond these arguments. I think the American people recognize that, listen, it is both a good thing that women are liberated and gays and lesbians are treated with dignity and respect, and there’s nothing wrong with the virtues of monogamy as an aspirational goal."

This is a slander against liberal ideals. Why does Obama suggest here that the traditional Democratic party is hostile to monogamy? (He also has a strange idea of the unanimity of the "American people" in favor of gay rights. Even civil unions are supported by only the barest majority, and opposed with great fervor by at least 42%... hardly what I'd call having 'moved beyond')

Or, that it was a mistake for us to, after Vietnam, think that America could do no right and that there was never appropriate times for military action. But on the other hand, it still makes sense for us to be measured and thoughtful when we use our military and understand that the most important tool in ensuring our safety is the tools of diplomacy and our political and cultural power, and economic power.

If our reluctance to use military force after Vietnam was an error, which he plainly says it was, which wars does Obama think we should have fought, but didn't? I think we've fought plenty of wars, thank you.

http://www.theatlantic.com/audio/200712/obama.mhtml

[polichick]

1. Thank you for posting this...

Hopefully more posters will see why some of us find his remarks disturbing.

[CyberPieHole]

2. Kick and recommend...

Andrew Sullivan is a RW hack...what is Obama doing interviews with him for?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

6. Sullivan said liberals were likely to assist the terrorists after 9/11

And now he LOOOOVES Obama, because he thinks Obama is down on the dirty hippies.

[StClone]

3. Yeah and it's pissing me off

The bullshit 60's crap. Everyone of a certain age lived through the 60's, some the 50's, others only the 70's (me), the shitty 80's and the 90's. So what the hell explains Bush (50's), Cheney (Neolithic) and those other Neotards that have got us in a sluice way to Armageddon?

[cuke]

4. I don't know

why your 1st thread was locked. People say much worse every day about Clinton and others and at least your thread includes facts, quotes and analysis. It's was very thoughtful aside from the subject line

[Bongo Prophet]

5. Ahh yes, the great monogamy/polygamy wars of the sixties!

Oh those hippie Mormons. no wait...
Oh those Republican morals, with highest divorce rates don't count. That's not right either. Start again.
Oh those GOP values of HIV positive top, putting out ads requesting unsafe sex...oh wait, NOW he wants to be married and considered normal...damn, I got nothin'...


Obama is conceding issues to GOP that aren't even being raised, to make points that mean..what, exactly?...to a bareback riding late-comer Sullivan, who now scolds Dems on how to handle cultural issues, global warming and on and on.

All in such a condescending tone, we have got to concede a new middle ground and come together (Beatles reference?) after being thoroughly abused by the rightward pull since Reagan. the GOPs ultimate top.

No no no.
I still have no candidate, but it is becoming clearer who I will NOT vote for.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

7. Okay, got it. Obama can't do anything right by you.

To your first comment: While it may be true that the real agenda of Gingrich, Norquist, et. al. was to undermine, and eventually destroy, democratic stuctures, Obama is absolutely right that they used the recognized symbols of the 60s (sex, drug, rock and roll) to sell it to the public. I don't know where you were in the 90s but I heard a nonstop litany from the Right about liberals were pot smoking, draft dodging, promiscuous hippies, NOT how we were for preserving civil liberties and the social safety net.

To the second: Obama is talking about the American people, NOT the Democratic Party, in that statement. He's saying that people are pleased with women's equality and are more accepting of their GLBT family members and neighbors. And that most Americans think monogamy is the optimal situation for them. Where you are getting that he's dissing Democrats for that, I don't know.

To the third: Huh?!? I read Obama's statement as saying we should use diplomacy first and economic and cultural leverage first, and military action as a last resort. It appears that he's giving a nod to the hawkish proclivities of Sullivan, but he's surely not the first politician on the planet to suck up to an interviewer.

In short, I think you are extrapolating wildly from this interview.

[jefferson_dem]

8. Ridiculous out-of-context, cut-and-paste mumbo jumbo.

BillO'Reillyesque.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

10. out of context? That's an odd thing to say.

Three full paragraphs, unedited in any way, with link provided. Not one letter of the man's words is changed in any way. Nothing added or omitted or rearranged.

If it was much more in context it would violate DU copyright rules.

Cut-and-paste? Ummmm... yes. I cut-and-pasted the excerpt. It's more accurate and a lot faster than typing it all out.

(Mumbo-Jumbo is subjective, so no beef there)

[incapsulated]

9. Hey.. sex, drugs, rock-and-roll...

Is why I joined this Party!

[Colobo]

11. This reinforces my support for Obama. Thanks for posting it.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

12. Gobama!

[kelligesq]

13. I dont think we know who Obama is and if we find out, we wont like it. I

haven't liked him or trusted him from the git go.

How dare he speak about Vietnam and what it did to this
country.  He wasn't there. It was the growing up of America
and we havent trusted our governments since, only we never had
a govt THIS BAD before

If it wasn't for the boomers,rioting and getting shot and
getting their heads cracked open for his freedom, he'd still
be riding in the back of a bus today, not being a presidential
candidate. that jackass.

And if he thinks the matters of gay and lesbians and
racism are settled and the past - I'd like to know what planet
he's living on.

Out of touch, young, arrogant jackass.

[Colobo]

14. Obama is our best hope for the future. What a great human being he is.

[kelligesq]

15. He's an inexperienced arrogant bag of hot air . Haven't you had enuf inexperience

and arrogance?

I have.

I wont vote Hillary, but I wouldn't even cross the street for
Obama and his arrogant know it nothing.

[Colobo]

18. How in the world a man with a professional resume like Obama's

is a bag of hot air?

[More Than A Feeling]

29. Barack Obama is the kindest, bravest, gentlest, warmest, most selfless human being

you've ever known, right? :P

[NMMNG]

31. ....

:spray:

[Colobo]

35. No, he's just the best candidate in the field by far.

[HuckleB]

36. Talk about a contradictory statement.

"We don't know him, but we won't like him if we do." How do you know that, if we don't know him?

Sheesh.

Then you say you haven't like him from the "git go." In other words, you decided to dismiss him without actually looking into the man. That's pitiful.

Get some shame. Then open your mind. Your country needs you to do that much.

[calteacherguy]

16. You're missing the entire point. There were many negative aspects to the 60s

as well as positive ones. Obama is not trivializing the positive aspects, merely pointing it's the negative aspects that have contributed most to the cultural divide.

He's right.

[emilyg]

17. Thank you.

[maximusveritas]

19. I see you reposted your BS smear. I'll just ask people to read Obama's actual words

and not the misleading comments that really don't reflect what Obama is saying at all. I think it's shameful that this has got as many recs as it has. This is even worse than the anti-Hillary tip story.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

20. Obama's words are presented without any editing. Your gripe is that I comment on them unfavorably

I don't doubt that we would all like to have people read something we approve of without any criticism or disputation, but that would kind of miss the point of an internet discussion forum.

We all offer opinions of things. I offer my opinion of Obama's words, and you offer your opinion of my opinion.

You are free to post the same text with approving commentary, or with no commentary at all.

[Dawgs]

23. Yeah, but your commentary is not based on his actual words.

He isn't saying any of the things you claim he is saying.

[HuckleB]

34. My gripe is that you interpret them without basis in order to bash Obama.

It's that simple.

Stop acting like a talk radio smeer monger.

[Sparkly]

21. It's an interesting strategy but I think it's risky.

It looks like they're courting young voters. Is there "boomer fatigue" among them? Or anti-establishment (anti-parent?) rebellion?

It does sound like what the rightwing has said for a long time, and maybe the Obama camp wants to leverage that somehow; or maybe they think coming at this same set of rhetoric from the other side (from a younger perspective rather than a 1950s one) will resonate. It is definitely a resentment the rightwing had for the Clintons, and it's picking up on that.

I think it's risky for Obama for a few reasons. First, it's divisive. Second, emphasizing generations could point up his youth in a way that reinforces it negatively for people who are concerned about inexperience. But it may tap into something that excites young voters, and they must have tested it somehow -- so, time will tell, I guess!

[NMMNG]

22. He gets scarier and scarier by the day

:scared:

[DrFunkenstein]

24. Let Me Give You The Same Treatment

Why does he trivialize the strugles for feminism, civil rights, reproductive rights, environmentalism, gay rights and expressive freedoms as dorm-room arguments, and "sex, drugs, rock-and-roll, Vietnam." No Democrat thought the conflicts between Gingrich and Clinton were about "sex, drugs, rock-and-roll, Vietnam." They were about rolling back reproductive rights, civil rights, expressive freedoms, the separation of church and state and about the destruction of the social safety net.

As much as I appreciate your faux indignation, no one really believes that Obama would ever "trivialize" these struggles. He is talking about how ideas about policy got sucked up into arguments about pleasure and expressiveness against order and self-discipline, when actual policy about, say, reproductive rights doesn't really belong in an argument about pleasure. It is to the detriment of such rights that the arguments have been muddled by conservatives and permitted by liberals.

But if you prefer to feign outrage, go right ahead.

This is a slander against liberal ideals. Why does Obama suggest here that the traditional Democratic party is hostile to monogamy? (He also has a strange idea of the unanimity of the "American people" in favor of gay rights. Even civil unions are supported by only the barest majority, and opposed with great fervor by at least 42%... hardly what I'd call having 'moved beyond')

A slander? C'mon. He is not suggesting that Democrats hate monogamy (oh, the indignation!). He is debunking a conservative talking point (as you would easily understand, as if by magic, if your candidate had said it).

Secondly, he is only asserting that everyone thinks gays and lesbians should be "treated with dignity and respect." By framing the issue this way, he takes the upper hand for a more tolerant view, which Americans are open to when it is framed properly. By creating such a mindset, he diffuses the opposition and opens the road for future victories of tolerance.

By the way, these are all reasons why I think he is an amazing fighter against conservatism. It's like the old adage about telling someone to go to hell in such a way as to make them look forward to the ride. Nothing so sinister as all that, but he has a real knack for disarming conservative talking points.

If our reluctance to use military force after Vietnam was an error, which he plainly says it was, which wars does Obama think we should have fought, but didn't? I think we've fought plenty of wars, thank you.

This moves beyond faux outrage into plain deceitfulness. Nowhere in his quote does he even remotely suggest that we should have fought other wars. He is speaking to a well-documented Congressional reluctance to engage in combat after the executive lies and betrayals of Vietnam, but only hardcore pacifists would detour from the established progressive view that military action could be used in humanitarian crises and imminent threats to our country.

I thank you for bringing out "some troubling" statements by Obama. You clearly seem "troubled" by them, but I think you just "reinforce" the right-wing tactic of faking that you are "troubled" at all.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

25. Your response is all too typical of its genre

You seem to feel that others are incapable of real thoughts or reactions... all disagreement with you is "feigned" or "deceitful," and must be motivated by fealty to some other candidate. (As if someone preferring another candidate to Obama is itself a sinister or deceitful act of some sort.)

I, on the other hand, accept that you probably actually believe what you have written. If so, you are incapable of an honest reading of even your own candidate's words. I don't think you are "faking" your confusion... I accept that you read "x" as "y"

That's your right, of course, but it is no basis for discussion.

Obama continually positions himself, rhetorically, as a middle course between the excesses of the left and right. To accomplish that, be reinforces the worst Republican lies about the nature of "the left." To many of us, that is a slander.

[Skip Intro]

26. He talks about getting our troops "out of Iraq" and onto "the right battlefields"

but Hillary's the hawk... :eyes:

[zulchzulu]

27. This pitiful attempt to try to turn Obama into a "Republican" brought to you by...

...people who want to paint Obama as someone against feminism, civil rights, reproductive rights, environmentalism, gay rights and expressive freedoms...

Also, it's a hoot seeing how if a Republican-like writer like Andrew Sullivan likes Obama, therefore we are to assume that the next obvious conclusion is that Obama must be a Republican.

Please don't read any further if you're convinced that Obama is a Republican or uses "right-wing" words and phrases.






But for any of you that think the OP is full of bull plop, read on. Here's a hint at Obama's record on those issues:

Senator Obama supported the interests of the NARAL Pro-Choice America 100 percent in 2006.

Senator Obama supported the interests of the Planned Parenthood 100 percent in 2006.

Senator Obama supported the interests of the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association 100 percent in 2005-2006.

Senator Obama supported the interests of the National Right to Life Committee 0 percent in 2005-2006.

Senator Obama supported the interests of the NARAL Pro-Choice America 100 percent in 2005.

Senator Obama supported the interests of the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council 100 percent in 2003.

Senator Obama supported the interests of the Illinois Federation for Right to Life 50 percent in 2002.

Senator Obama supported the interests of the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council 100 percent in 2001.

Senator Obama supported the interests of the Illinois Federation for Right to Life 0 percent in 1997-2000.

Senator Obama supported the interests of the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council 100 percent in 1997-1998.

Senator Obama supported the interests of the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State 100 percent in 2006.

Senator Obama supported the interests of the Association of Community Organization for Reform Now 100 percent in 2006.

Senator Obama supported the interests of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights 93 percent in 2006.

Senator Obama supported the interests of the American Civil Liberties Union 83 percent in 2005-2006.

Senator Obama supported the interests of the Human Rights Campaign 89 percent in 2005-2006.

Senator Obama supported the interests of the Iranian American Political Action Committee 100 percent in 2005-2006.

Senator Obama supported the interests of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People 100 percent in 2005-2006.

Senator Obama supported the interests of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights 94 percent in 2005.

Senator Obama supported the interests of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People 100 percent in 2005.

Senator Obama supported the interests of the National Council of La Raza 100 percent in 2005.

Senator Obama supported the interests of the American Wind Energy Association 100 percent in 2006.

Senator Obama supported the interests of the League of Conservation Voters 100 percent in 2006.

Senator Obama supported the interests of the PeacePAC 100 percent in 2005.

Senator Obama supported the interests of the National Organization for Women 100 percent in 2005.

http://votesmart.org/issue_rating_category.php?can_id=9490

[bowens43]

28. Wow.

Not only did you spin what he said, you put it in a blender and whipped it around for an hour or two, to the point that it no longer resembled the original in any way.

We got it, you don't like Obama so you're going to swift-boat him.

[SaveElmer]

30. Marilyn Quayle redux...

In a convention speech that opened this effort, Marilyn Quayle said: "Much has been said lately about the need in this country for a new generation of leadership; that the moment has come for a couple of baby boomers to take the helm of this great and complex nation; that the time has come for generational change."

She then said, with Mr. Clinton clearly in mind: "Not everyone joined the counterculture, not everyone demonstrated, dropped out, took drugs, joined in the sexual revolution or dodged the draft. Not everyone concluded that American society was so bad that it had to be radically remade by social revolution."

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CEFD7153DF933A0575BC0A964958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2

[yardwork]

32. Obama is reaching for the curmudgeon vote.

[HuckleB]

33. Basically, you've taken short, out-of-context quotes.

And then reinvented them in your own words in order to trash Obama.

Nice but worthless hit piece, in the tradition begun by Right Wing Talk Radio.