Historian Sean Wilentz: "Obama was the first to play the race card."

[Maddy McCall]

Obama was the first to play the race card

By Sean Wilentz

(Wilenz is the Sidney and Ruth Lapidus professor of history at Princeton University, and the author of the article "Worst President in History?" which appeared in Rolling Stone magazine in 2006.)

Quietly, the storm over the hateful views expressed by Sen. Barack Obama's pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, has blown away the most insidious myth of the Democratic primary campaign. Obama and his surrogates have charged that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has deliberately and cleverly played the race card in order to label Obama the "black" candidate.

Having injected racial posturing into the contest, Obama's "post-racial" campaign finally seems to be all about race and sensational charges about white racism. But the mean-spirited strategy started even before the primaries began, when Obama's operatives began playing the race card - and blamed Hillary Clinton.

Had she truly conspired to inflame racial animosities in January and February, her campaign would have brought up the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his incendiary sermons. But the Clinton campaign did not. And when the Wright stories and videos finally did break through in the mass media, they came not from Clinton's supporters but from Fox News Network.

Although Wright had until recently been obscure to the American public, political insiders and reporters have long known about him. On March 6, 2007, the New York Times reported that Obama had disinvited Wright from speaking at his announcement because, as Wright said Obama told him, "You can get kind of rough in the sermons." By then, conservative commentators had widely denounced Wright. His performances in the pulpit were easily accessible on DVD, direct from his church. But Clinton, despite her travails, elected to remain silent.

Instead, she had to fight back against a deliberately contrived strategy to make her and her husband look like race-baiters. Obama's supporters and operatives, including his chief campaign strategist David Axelrod, seized on accurate and historically noncontroversial statements and supplied a supposedly covert racist subtext that they then claimed the calculating Clinton campaign had inserted.

snip/

One pro-Obama television pundit, Keith Olbermann of MSNBC, fulminated that the Clinton campaign had descended into the vocabulary of David Duke, former grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan.

(In his Philadelphia speech on race, Obama pressed the attack by three times likening Ferraro to Rev. Wright.)

Since the Philadelphia speech, the candidate and his surrogates have sounded tone-deaf on the subject of race. On March 20, Obama described his Kansas grandmother to a Philadelphia radio interviewer as "a typical white person." The same day, Sen. John Kerry said that Obama would help U.S. relations with Muslim nations "because he's a black man." Another Obama supporter, Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, called him the first black leader "to come to the American people not as a victim but as a leader." Her history excluded and conceivably denigrated countless black leaders, from Frederick Douglass to Rep. John Lewis. Obama remained silent, refusing to take Kerry and McCaskill to task for their racially charged remarks.

Neither candidate can win sufficient elected delegates in the remaining primaries to secure the nomination, and so the battle has moved to winning over the superdelegates. Obama's bogus "race-baiter" strategy is one of the main reasons he has come this far, and it is affecting the process now. But by deliberately inflaming the most destructive passions in American politics, the strategy has badly divided and confused Democrats, at least for the moment. And having done so, it may well doom the Democrats in the general election.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/currents/20080330_Obama_was_the_first_to_play_the_race_card.html

[Skittles]

1. I tend to believe neither Obama nor Hillary started a race card thing

but the corporate media surely did inflame the race AND sex issues

[susankh4]

58. This may be very close to the truth....

And, you know, the less experienced voters this cycle do not see the MSM with the same eyes that old timers do. So... the race thing is "bigger." Simply because it can incite the young and inexperienced.

Anyone who lived through the first Clinton administration knows the MSM is a bunch of whackjobs who go from one feeding frenzy to another, when it comes to Democrats.

[Skittles]

60. it shocks me how many DUers fail to understand how the media plays them

what was done to the Clintons, DUers THEMSELVES are now being enlisted to do to Hillary or Obama - it is sickening to witness

[merh]

102. How do you feel about her "bonding", for lack of a better term,

with the likes of Scaife?

Do you think he has had a "come to Jesus" moment and reformed?

[Skittles]

114. I don't like it any more than Obama pandering to homophobes

but that's what POLITICIANS DO

[Arkansas Granny]

116. Yes. I think it was mainly a media invention. It gave their "bubble-headed bleach blondes"

something to breathlessly report on their 24/7 news cycle. They have blown many innocuous remarks totally out of proportion to make it sound like they have an exclusive story. It's just another example of media manipulation.

[dkf]

2. Everytime I read some article like this, I wonder why people are so deluded.

It is sad.

And for a historian to believe this...forgive me if I question his judgment. He blew all credibility with me with his silly accusations.

[Maddy McCall]

3. Sean Wilentz is at the top of his field...a world-renown historian.

I doubt he could be described as deluded.

[dkf]

5. That is a joke...like I say, a historian not grounded in reality is in trouble.

[Maddy McCall]

11. Well, as a student of Wilentz's work...

I can assure you that he's much more grounded in reality than you are.

[NDambi]

82. At times you seem awfully ungrounded though

[anigbrowl]

106. Being a good historian doesn't make you wise in current events

I know a history prof at UCLA who's an expert on the American civil war (or 'the war between the states', as he's constantly admonishing me). He's all about academic rigor and extremely knowledgeable. Unfortunately, he's also one step away from being a freeper when it comes to discussing current events.

Personally I don't agree with Wilentz' reading of the situation. He's a smart guy, but when you get down to it this is a matter of opinion. He's not speaking as a historian because if he were, he'd go back to primary sources and look for evidence that the Obama campaign knowingly and deliberately adopted the strategy he describes before drawing conclusions about it.

[dkf]

121. Cass Sunstein, a Professor at the U of Chicago, doesn't know what got into Wilentz.

A Mere Smear by Cass R. Sunstein
Sean Wilentz's unfair attack on Barack Obama and his supporters.
Post Date Thursday, December 27, 2007

"But having failed to show that the pundits who support Obama are deluded, Wilentz offers no reason to reject the arguments that they actually offer. And it is not so reasonable to manufacture, evidently for the occasion, something called a "delusional style" in American political history, and to accuse supporters of Barack Obama of having taken leave of their senses. Wilentz is a distinguished historian. I can't imagine what got into him."

Cass R. Sunstein is a contributing editor at The New Republic and teaches at the University of Chicago.

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=129d0545-4db1-4dfd-988c-2c6e1c807934

Mr. Sunstein is a member of the Department of Political Science as well as the Law School. He is author of many articles and a number of books, including After the Rights Revolution: Reconceiving the Regulatory State (1990), Constitutional Law (co-authored with Geoffrey Stone, Louis M. Seidman, and Mark Tushnet) (1995), The Partial Constitution (1993), Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech (1993), Legal Reasoning and Political Conflict (1996), Free Markets and Social Justice (1997), Administrative Law and Regulatory Policy (1998) (with Justice Stephen Breyer and Professor Richard Stewart and Matthew Spitzer), One Case At A Time (1999), Behavioral Law and Economics (editor, 2000), Designing Democracy: What Constitutions Do (2001), Republic.com (2001), Risk and Reason (2002), The Cost-Benefit State (2002), Punitive Damages: How Juries Decide (2002), Why Societies Need Dissent (2003), The Second Bill of Rights (2004), and Laws of Fear: Beyond the Precautionary Principle (2005). He is now working on various projects involving the relationship between law and human behavior.

http://www.law.uchicago.edu/faculty/sunstein

[merh]

103. Like he endorsed Clinton in Nov of 2007

http://chronicle.com/blogs/election/1091/sean-wilentz-endorses-clinton

And he fails to comment on how Hillary decided to seize upon that race card, played by whomever, and publicly chided Obama for continuing to attend his church (which, by the way, this entire church thing bothers me because of the separation of church & state thingie and the US Constitution). She tried to revive what was becoming a none issue, she wouldn't let the hand pass, she used what she considered a trump card, but it bit her on the ass.

[polpilot]

97. ...and I bet his wall is full of plaques...like Bush's Yale plaque

articles...speeches...college degrees...MUST BE SMART!!!

[Emit]

117. I recall reading about him and how critical others were of his support of HRC

He's the one who went before the Judiciary Committee and argued against the Clinton impeachment, isn't he? I read somewhere he enjoys a personal relationship with Bill. He's certainly biased, regardless of his world-renown historian status.

[knight_of_the_star]

10. You Fail

Take off your blinders plz and cut it with the tactics of elimination:

[dkf]

17. Obama was the first to play the race card?

I remember EXACTLY when it happened. It was Jeanne Shaheen's husband that dropped the whole drug dealer bomb into this mess. That was the first time the race card was played. When it happened I was pissed beyond anything because I truly believed we could rise above it all. It was a singularly disillusioning event for me and it opened my eyes as to how race gets played not only by racists, but by opportunists.

So please do not tell me about my lying eyes.

Thank you.

And lastly, when a historian is willing to use his reputation to further his own political ends and deliberately tries to misstate things, I find that beyond cynical. It leads to a complete collapse of credibility to me.

[knight_of_the_star]

How about you take off your blinders first

Before you make your judgment, sounds like you have biases you aren't admitting to yourself or anyone else in this thread.

[dkf]

22. I saw absolutely no race card up to that point.

I explained to you my first incidence seeing the race card. The second huge race card was Bill Clinton and his Jesse Jackson comment. I'll give him a slide on the fairy tale comment, but that comment after SC was another huge moment of absolute rage for me.

Both of the incidences I recite came directly from the Clinton camp.

After that I finally began to see.

[knight_of_the_star]

24. First you could see

Big emphasis there on see, doesn't mean it wasn't played on the table before, just wasn't dropped with a big fanfare which is what the article is talking about.

And take off your blinders, calling a respected historian deluded because they have an analysis that they likely did in more depth than your own personal experience is VERY low in my book.

[dkf]

30. Race cards are meant to divide people...Obama absolutely did not

deliberately alienate whites or any of the other races ever.

And I find this man self-serving. Sorry if that hurts your feelings.

[knight_of_the_star]

44. It isn't that it hurts my feelings

Just shows to me the content of your character and your intellectual depth.



Good day.

[dkf]

53. You made no cogent argument only ad-hominem attacks on me.

I fail to see how you think you in any way made your case.

You didn't even try, so really, you are the failure.

[WinkyDink]

70. Kind of like calling Wilentz "deluded"?

[dkf]

123. You know I kind of like this analysis...from the comment section

"Wow, this is paper thin. There's actually a debate about the content of the mailer. An honest article about the subject, especially at this late stage in the game, would acknowledge and respond to those arguments. For you merely to claim deliberate, GOPesque deception by Obama, without providing any supporting argument, is journalism at it's least professional. I'm still reading. But thus far my impression is that this is a long exercise in intellectual dishonesty."

[WinkyDink]

71. HAHA! Like he didn't want to divide HRC from the heretofore supportive A-A's?

Not to mention Liberal whites?

[Orsino]

79. Heh. How diabolical of him, allowing himself to be captured on videotape...

...while wearing dark skin, subtly introducing the subject of race. :eyes:

[JoFerret]

55. Absolutely

Neither candidate can win sufficient elected delegates in the remaining primaries to secure the nomination, and so the battle has moved to winning over the superdelegates. Obama's bogus "race-baiter" strategy is one of the main reasons he has come this far, and it is affecting the process now. But by deliberately inflaming the most destructive passions in American politics, the strategy has badly divided and confused Democrats, at least for the moment. And having done so, it may well doom the Democrats in the general election.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/currents/20080330_Obama_...

[WinkyDink]

69. You're joking. Questioning an esteemed HISTORIAN, who does, you know, actual RESEARCH? Please.

But then, it is true that America is anti-intellectual.

[anigbrowl]

107. Wilentz is offering an opinion piece here

If he had done research to back this up, he would have cited it.

[QC]

81. Why can't it be that you just disagree with him?

Why the need to trash him personally?

Wilentz is not only one of the most respected historians in American academe, but also one of her most prominent progressives, right up there with Mark Crispin Miller, Todd Gitlin, and yes, Noam Chomsky. He has been speaking truth to right wing power for decades. None of that means anything now, though, since he has dared express doubts about Barack Obama.

If you ever wonder where "the cult meme" comes from, well, mainly it's from precisely this kind of behavior.

[dkf]

124. This was a shoddy piece. It was argument by assertion

with no evidence to back it up and not up to the standards of a respected historian.

And I call him deluded because he doesn't see the harmfulness in what the Clinton's and their surrogates did. It looks like willful blindness to me, or just plain insensitivity.

How can a person that blind be a good historian?

I have to think he is compromising his integrity in order to try to help his friend, Hillary Clinton, out.

Either that or I really doubt his ability to understand what is going on.

[Bake]

129. Let's see ... he's in an endowed chair at Princeton ...

you're an anonymous internet poster ... who has more credibility?

You lose. Sorry about that. The professor said something you didn't like, so he must be deluded and have no cred.

Bake

[sandnsea]

4. Wright Was At The White House

On Lewinsky Day. I'm sure they didn't want to remind people.

Shaheen brought up the drug garbage in December. And it went on from there. Time after time, from all kinds of people in their campaign.

[americanstranger]

6. Wilentz? The guy who did this interview?

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/stumper/archive/2007/11/16/making-the-case-for-hillary-clinton-by-sean-wilentz.aspx

Not exactly a disinterested party if you ask me.

- as

[Maddy McCall]

8. He is a Hillary supporter.

He's a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat. And a scholar of American history.

He's brilliant. As a professional historian, I can assure you that he's at the top of his field, respected by all in the profession.

[americanstranger]

9. Not saying he's not any of those things, Maddy.

I'm just pointing out that he's got skin in the game, if you will.

- as

[NDambi]

83. Exactly.

[Tellurian]

86. What if he does...he can't rewrite history..caught on tape!

[mrreowwr_kittty]

95. That doesn't mean he can't ever be wrong.

He is wrong about this. He is, like many white people in America, rather oblivious to all the privileges accrued to his skin color.

[cliffordu]

7. Aw bullshit. N/T

[cali]

12. Wilentz is hardl.y impartial. He's a LONG time family friend of

the Clintons.

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/03/wilentz-and-sympathizers-insul.php

[MonkeyFunk]

13. good

glad to see a respected historian tell the truth about this matter.

[LoZoccolo]

14. Actually no he didn't.

That historian guy is wrong.

[Blue-Jay]

15. He can't be wrong. He's a respected historian.

RESPECTED, dammit!

[JVS]

16. He even wrote it in an article. It must be the truth.

[Blue-Jay]

25. Respected Hobo cedes "A No. 1" title to Barack Obama.

[Blue-Jay]

31. Respected Engineer begs to differ:

[JVS]

32. AHHHHH FUCK it's SHACK!

[Blue-Jay]

35. Shack disappoints me.

[JVS]

39. Your Emperor of the North Pole pictures remind me of the first time I saw that movie.

I was with my father and brother. I was 9 and my brother 12. My father was always willing to let us stay up watching TV with him, but only on the condition that we didn't question his choice in TV programing. EOTNP gets introduced and since trains are cool and staying up late is fun, my brother and I stay. Little did we expect the gratuitous violence that proceeded.

[Hissyspit]

126. I only first saw it eight or nine years ago. Just happened to come across it

on TCM late night. I loves that movie.

[Maddy McCall]

42. Hey! That's Wilentz.

You doof!

:rofl:

[Blue-Jay]

48. That's a great photo, ain't it?

As soon as I saw it, I knew that I liked the guy.

[Maddy McCall]

49. It's kind of a "what now?" photo.

lol.

I'm a fan of the guy. He's done some great scholarship on early American history.

Can't help it. Call me a history groupie. :D

[susankh4]

59. After this is all over....

Mr. Wilentz will be one of the experts on the subject of 2008. He'll be out there at poli sci departments across the country... telling us how the Dems lost the 2008 election, when it should have been ours for the taking.

He is cementing his "honorarium" salary for the rest of his career. I am imagining his next book as well.

Smart man!

[cliffordu]

94. I catered this movie - "Emperor of the north Pole"

[Maddy McCall]

20. I'd say that he has as much credibility as any writer posted at DU...

and certainly more than Mike Z.

:P

[Blue-Jay]

21. I'll withhold judgement until I see Sean Wilentz in a muscle shirt.

[sniffa]

73. *snort*

:rofl:

[Window]

76. LOL! That's exactly what it boils down to.

:rofl:

[Emit]

118. lol!

[LisaL]

18. It still boggles my mind as to what Kerry said.

I never liked the guy but I did vote for him.
Well, I like him even less now.

[Levgreee]

19. oh, he's a historian?? Then what he talks about is history, and history is fact?

Gosh, this is a powerful source

[JoFerret]

26. It is

...actually.
Does not mean you can't disagree.

[Levgreee]

38. it's not fact. in fact, much of history is not fact, as it is constantly revised.

[Maddy McCall]

40. That is correct. The fluidity of historiography is what makes the profession...

viable for new historians.

So what does that have to do with Wilentz's article?

[JoFerret]

54. Interesting article anyway

Did you read it?

[QC]

84. Hate to be the one to break it to you, but all knowledge is provisional.

Even knowledge regarding Barack Obama!

[doyourealize1]

50. you have no idea about the profession then

[LiberalAndProud]

23. Senator Clinton did state a historically correct fact.

And I don't believe there was an intentional subtext, but it couldn't be understood any differently than it was by the AA community. Senator Clinton intended no malice, but unintentional harm is harm nonetheless. Senator Obama made political hay of it, that is true. It would have put an end to his candidacy if he hadn't, because he would have solidified the perception of being "not black enough". Sometimes you just have to play the hand you're dealt.

edit:spelling

[JVS]

29. Thought experiment. If you're discussing women's suffrage and someone...

steers the conversation to the critical role of Woodrow Wilson and all the men in congress getting things done as opposed to the visionary but politically unviable activists, how would that make you feel?

Anyone who doesn't understand why AAs were insulted by Hillary's words might benefit by thinking about this.

[LiberalAndProud]

36. Ok I'll bite.

I'd be PISSED OFF! There was no good way to interpret what Clinton said in that interview. I will maintain though that she didn't mean to say what she said. Know what I mean?

As far as the article in the OP, it is factually correct. If we call reacting to a bone-head statement "playing the race card" then so be it. There was no other way to play it. None.

[flor de jasmim]

27. I also noted the article cited by Wilenz in one of the later posts is from NOV 2007...

A lot has happened since then--his characterization of Obama is essentially that of the idealist without a solid knowledge of politics or the way the world "works"... that may have been the prevalent thinking at the time, but this is a new day.

[Johnny__Motown]

28. I don't see a specific example of Obama playing the race card.,. only vague innuendo

about Hillary not using Wright earlier.


How the hell is this proof of anything?



I need a specific example prior to Bill's Jesse Jackson comment in NC to seriously consider this opinion.


I don't care if he is a noted historian, he may still be a racist. How the hell do I know?




Oh, and he is a New Yorker who argued against Bill's impeachment.. maybe he supports Hillary???


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Wilentz

[DerekJ]

33. He does support her.

[damndude]

34. though i am tired of this topic i will say

that i was reading this snippet with interest since in do consider only on one occurrence so far where the Clinton's were unfairly accused of race baiting by obama supporter, namely when president clinton referred not to obama's candidacy as a fairy tale but his position on iraq as a fairy tale but was interpreted as implying that him being a viable candidate was a fairy tale just because he is black. that is the only time i can say that i know the obama campaign was wrong with certainty if you listen to the entire quote.
toward the end of this article i will say that the historian is going to extra length to support his point of view. what kerry and mccaskill said happens to be true fundamentally. the fact that barack obama is black and worldly traveled will send a message to the entire world that has been a changing of the guard in washington and thus the policy that affects their countries may change as well. rather that view america as the enemy because a endless line of the same mold of leader they will have to reconfigure their impressions and maybe step back from a combative stance to more of a lets see what america is about now posture which gives diplomacy a greater chance of success.
and he is the first black leader to emerge that is not running as a victim, and by this i am not referring to the claims racism during this primary season but as a whole person prodding white guilt and building a solitary base of black support speaking primarily on issues distinct to the black community rather than the broader nation as a whole. he has not fallen into the expected stereotype raising the issues of slavery, reparations, the confederate flag, and the civil rights abuses of the last century. he has run as a benefiter of the work of marting luther king not a disciple. there's a difference.
as well i would not label keith olbermann as a pro-obama commentator. for the longest time he gave very positive coverage to the clintons and defended them against what he saw as the unfair attacks on their marriage and his presidency. he got his start at msnbc after all covering the impeachment. even now you can hear his disdain for the political atrocity that event was. he only here recently began calling the clinton's on their shtick when the campaign began the negative ads, the wobbly claims of more experience and the hyperbole surrounding the 3am phone calls, the praising of mccain, the bush war resolution, geraldine ferraro, and the bosnia trip. he even did a spacial when in denouncing her campaign tactics he would not even hold her personally responsible but only those representing her name.
i would not put him the pro-obama camp but i would label him a 'can you all get your crap together so we can take this government back form th neocons!' type of liberal. that my kind of news there. i would say he is in the vein of murrow in being the little guy trying to speak truth to power and those who have it who would abuse it.
and though Sean Wilentz wrote that spectacular article in rolling stone eviscerating bush, i read this with a grain of salt as i do all material concerning democrats in election cycles. everyone has agendas, we as voters must be more discerning.

[doyourealize1]

62. nice post nt

[Shakespeare]

92. Excellent assessment.

Thanks. :thumbsup:

[MadBadger]

37. This guy is from Princeton? I give this paper an F

One of the biggest components of any paper is once you put up your thesis, proving it with evidence. He states that Obama played the race card first but doenst give any evidence to back up his assertion. Sounds to me like he should be teaching 4th grade History, not at the best school in the nation.

[Maddy McCall]

41. I'm sure he's troubled by your assessment.

[fujiyama]

43. He's hardly impartial

but even beyond that, I see no basis on which to accuse Obama of playing the race card. Based on the time line, it was a Hillary surrogate, Shaheen that accused Obama of dealing drugs (talk about nasty). Soon after, it was Bob Kerey on TV repeatedly using his middle name.

Most people want to believe this whole division started at SC. That's just where it became more obvious what the Clintons were doing. The Johnson/MLK Jr. and "fairy tale" comments, by themselves were silly. The latter was not referring to Obama's race at all. And I don't think Hillary meant any malice with her statement either. However, I think coupled together, a few black activists did question the comments but Obama himself simply said "I am not sure what she meant by the comment" or something along those lines. It sounded pretty honest. It wasn't his job to interpret Hillary's comments about MLK Jr. needing Johnson (she had a point but sometimes delivery matters and context was lost in the media's constant replaying).

But Bill's tone after Obama's win in SC was arrogant. Dismissing Obama as another Jesse Jackson was completely idiotic and ridiculous. Why the hell bring up Jackson in particular? What about Edwards? He won the state in '04 but didn't win the nomination. I'm sure if we look back there were several times a white candidate won the SC primary but lost the nomination. Why bring up the one African American that did so? Just because Jackson and Obama are black? Nobody understood it.

Since then, Hillary (and more so her supporters) have made it worse for her. Let's see... After losing the Potomac Primaries and Louisiana, she simply said that Obama won due to a "proud African American electorate"? WTF? Did Obama win Wisconsin and Iowa due to "Proud White electorates"? We don't even need to get started about Ferraro. Nastiest comments thrown by anyone this entire campaign season.

No, Hillary and Bill are not racist. But they are VERY opportunistic and selfish. The race card at first may not have even been conscious or on purpose but intent rarely matters in politics. It has tarnished her greatly with a loyal base of her and her husband's. It's very unfortunate, and while I saw a few incidents where Obama supporters and some black radio hosts exaggerated the Clinton's comments, most of the fault lies with them and the disgusting campaign she has run.

[LiberalAndProud]

52. Well argued, fujiyama.

You have enlightened me on early elements of this primary campaign (I wasn't paying attention). This is a ground-breaking election year on so many fronts. These two are trail-blazers and the world is watching. It is no wonder that so many want to take part in this.

[BzaDem]

45. WAAAAAAAAA! It can't be true! Obama's a uniter, not a divider! You are all deluded!

[joshcryer]

46. This is the most accurate portrayal of the situation that I have ever seen.

And it shows how politically astute Obama is. He's good. Brilliant, even.

[Maddy McCall]

47. I thought so, too.

I think your judgment on both are correct...that Wilentz' article is spot on, and that Obama has played this brilliantly.

[anamandujano]

51. This is what winning at any cost looks like.

I tend to doubt the long term effects of this will be brilliant.

[sampsonblk]

56. This "race card" stuff is beyond dumb. Someone help me think of a better term for this garbage-nt

[Political Heretic]

57. No.

[tishaLA]

61. sorry but the use of the term "race card"

immediately makes me lose respect, as if "race" isn't always a factor in American politics, and as if it were a card one played. Race is always-already (to coin Derrida's phraseology) a part of American politics and something one never needs to "play" as it is always on the table (in the same way gender is, one might say). So I don't think Sen Obama "played" the "race card" "first," but only because the "race card" had been played "first" by the framers and has been successfully played since, consciously or unconsciously, by everyone entering the American political sphere.

Anyhow, I'm also supposedly a scholar of early America and, like others in this thread, I'm unfamiliar with Wilentz. I guess my familiarity is more with scholars like Appleby, Pocock, Woods, Bailyn, Bloch, Miller, Morgan, et al. I don't doubt he's respected, nor do I doubt I disagree with him, as I have disagreed with other scholars throughout my career.

[moobu2]

63. No truer words written.

[mmonk]

64. I think such an idea is preposterous.

His popularity was and has been as an unifying candidate.

[QC]

85. Reagan is still popular as "The Great Communicator"

but most of my memories of him involve a man in the early stages of dementia struggling to answer simple questions.

[Perry Logan]

65. No doubt about it. The Obama people play the race card every five seconds.

[dailykoff]

66. So now the racist TNR hack is a world famous historian.

No doubt he dodged sniper bullets in Bosnia too. Guess what? He's still a lying hack who might as well work for Fox or CNN and no doubt will.

:nopity:

[BeyondGeography]

67. Jesse Jackson won South Carolina twice

:thumbsup:

[sendero]

68. Obama's black..

... he gets to play the race card. Just like HRC gets to play the gender card. Sorry this moron doesn't understand how it all works.

[UALRBSofL]

72. Maddy though it may be true, let's not post this kind of stuff on DU

It doesn't serve a purpose. However, let's just save it for when we need it in real life. :)

[indimuse]

74. It makes you feel justified in your own ignorance... That's America. - Michelle Obama

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8E3uB6lAhg&eurl=http://rezkowatch.blogspot.comFUnny,

I believe many people of all color and race have been told 'they can't', It
is a NO NO world...One of the first words your parents teach you is NO! No, don't touch that...you can't have...She IS playing the race/GUILT card! Very obvious and
disgusting! puke.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtIHTFuMnWI&eurl=http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/03/oops-she-did-it-again-michelle-obama.html


"We don't like being pushed outside of our comfort zones. You know it right here on this campus. You know people sitting at different tables- you all living in different

dorms. I was there. You're not talking to each other, taking advantage that you're in this diverse community. Because sometimes it's easier to hold on to your own

stereotypes and misconceptions. It makes you feel justified in your own ignorance... That's America. So the challenge for us is are we ready for change?" - Michelle Obama

[indimuse]

75. K&

R!! thanks for the post

[OzarkDem]

77. Yes, and it will help McCain win

Was Obama's campaign not smart enough to realize that or does he hope to be part of McCain's administration when he wins?

[Sensitivity]

78. Some Historians are NOT HILLARY SUPPORTERS, AND THINK THIS ARTICLE IS CRAP == CHECK THIS LIST

Manan Ahmed, Leslie M. Alexander, Shawn Leigh Alexander, Catherine Allgor, Laura Anker, Joyce Appleby, Ray Arsenault, Robert Baker, Lewis V. Baldwin, Christopher Bates, Rosalyn Baxandall, Robert L. Beisner, Doron Ben-Atar, Jonathan P. Berkey, William C. Berman, David Blight, Ruth Bloch, Daniel Bluestone, Edward J. Blum, Kevin Boyle, John L. Brooke, Carolyn A. Brown, Mari Jo Buhle, Paul Buhle, Jodi Campbell, Randolph Campbell, Gregg Cantrell, Charles Capper, Clayborne Carson, Herrick Chapman, John Chavez, Lizabeth Cohen, William Cohen, Dennis Cordell, Mary F. Corey, George Cotkin, Edward Countryman, Daniel W. Crofts, Robert Dallek, Adam Davis, David Brion Davis, Jared N. Day, David De Leon, John d'Entremont, Dennis C. Dickerson, Jacob H. Dorn, David Doyle, Jr., David V. Du Fault, W. Marvin Dulaney, Gretchen Cassel Eick, Carolyn Eisenberg, J. Michael Farmer, Michael Fellman, Antonio Feros, Peter Filene, Kenneth Fones-Wolf, William E. Forbath, Shannon Frystak, Matthew Gabriele, Lloyd Gardner, Sheldon Garon, David Gellman, James Gilbert, Mark T. Gilderhus, Toni Gilpin, Rebecca A. Goetz, David Goldfrank, Warren Goldstein, Linda Gordon, Anthony T. Grafton, Will Gravely, George N. Green, James Green, Sara M. Gregg, Robert Griffith, Michael Grossberg, James Grossman, Carol S. Gruber, Joshua Guild, Roland L. Guyotte, David Hall, Kenneth Hamilton, J. William Harris, Paul Harvey, Sam W. Haynes, Nancy A. Hewitt, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Joan Hoff, Jonathan Holloway, Jeffrey Houghtby, Tera W. Hunter, Harold Hyman, Maurice Jackson, Thomas F. Jackson, Lisa Jacobson, Hasan Kwame Jeffries, Randal Jelks, John Jentz, Benjamin H. Johnson, David A. Johnson, Robert KC Johnson, Jennifer M. Jones, Patrick D. Jones, Peniel E. Joseph, Michael Kazin, Barry Keenan, Evelyn Fox Keller, Ari Kelman, Stephen Kern, Richard H. King, Sarah Knott, Gary Kornblith, Carol Lasser, Melinda Lawson, Steven Lawson, Jackson Lears, Alan Lessoff, James M. Lindgren, Edward T. Linenthal, William A. Link, James Livingston, Paul K. Longmore, Ralph E. Luker, J. Fred MacDonald, Chandra Manning, Norman Markowitz, Jill Massino, Kevin Mattson, Jaclyn Maxwell, Martha May, Timothy Patrick McCarthy, Joseph A. McCartin, Robert S. McElvaine, Marjorie McLellan, Sally G. McMillen, James McPherson, Edward D. Melillo, Tony Michels, Christopher Morris, Walter Moss, Todd Moye, Joan Neuberger, Serena L. Newman, Michelle Nickerson, David O'Brien, Leslie S. Offutt, William L. O'Neill, William A. Pencak, Claire Potter, Michael Punke, David Quigley, Stephen G. Rabe, Albert J. Raboteau, Monica A. Rankin, Marci Reaven, Jonathan Rees, Janice Reiff, Steven G. Reinhardt, Kimberly Reiter, Leo Ribuffo, Natalie J. Ring, Jerry Rodnitzky, Ruth Rosen, Peter Rothstein, Edward B. Rugemer, Douglas C. Sackman, Leonard J. Sadosky, Nick Salvatore, Brian Sandberg, John Savage, Martha Saxton, Ellen W. Schrecker, Daryl M. Scott, Rachel F. Seidman, Brett L. Shadle, Rebecca Sharpless, James Sidbury, Daniel J. Singal, Manisha Sinha, Harvard Sitkoff, Gene Allen Smith, Daniel Soyer, Paul Spickard, Brian Steele, James Brewer Stewart, Jeffrey Stewart, Mary Stroll, David Thelen, Jeffrey Trask, Stephenie Ambrose Tubbs, Elizabeth Hayes Turner, Bruce M. Tyler, Kevin Uhalde, Siva Vaidhyanathan, Kara Dixon Vuic, David J. Weber, Barbara Weinstein, Richard Weiss, Kathleen Wellman, Daniel Wickberg, Craig Steven Wilder, Margaret Williams, R. Hal Williams, David W. Wills, Charters Wynn, Susan Yohn, Eli Zaretsky

[MethuenProgressive]

89. What a great list of random names. So what? Who cares?

Do you have a link to each of their donations to BO's campaign?

[Maddy McCall]

104. LOL. And Paul Harvey's in the list.

:silly:

No one with Willentz' status there, that's for sure.

[ellisonz]

111. Actually, several of his peers...

Robert Dallek, Boston University http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Dallek
Lloyd Gardner, Rutgers University http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd_gardner
Anthony T. Grafton, Princeton University http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_grafton
James McPherson, Princeton University http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_M._McPherson

[libnnc]

113. Um...I happen to know a few of those "random names" LOL

Let's go down this list...

Ray Arsenault--Ray Arsenault is Professor of History at the University of South Florida in St. Petersburg. He is an expert on contemporary Southern politics, notably the phenomenon of the political demagogue. He was also a mentor to one of my dear, dear friends who is now a an Associate Professor at UNCG.

Lizabeth Cohen--Lizabeth Cohen is the Howard Mumford Jones Professor of American Studies in Harvard University's history department. Currently, she teaches courses in 20th century America, material and popular culture, and gender, urban, and working-class history. She has also served as the director of the undergraduate program in history. She has authored A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America. New York: Vintage Books, 2003 and
Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939 New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Both books I've had to read for my MA.

David Brion Davis--David Brion Davis (born February 16, 1927) is Sterling Professor of History Emeritus at Yale University. He is noted for his study of slavery and abolitionism. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University. He taught for 14 years at in the Department of History at Cornell University before moving to Yale in 1970. He was Director Emeritus of Yale's Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, which he founded in 1998 and directed until 2004. He was President of Organization of American Historians (1988-89) and won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1967 for his book The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture, as well as the National Book Award, and Bancroft Prize. In January 2007 Davis received the American Historical Association's Award for Scholarly Distinction. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Brion_Davis

Peter Filene--is currently the Bowman & Gray Distinguished Term Professor
and Head of Committee on Teaching At UNC Chapel Hill
He received his M.A. Harvard University, 1961
and earned his Ph.D. Harvard University, 1965
He teaches and writes primarily on 20th-century American history, with particular interest in gender, popular culture, and pedagogy. His most recent publication is The Joy of Teaching: A Practical Guidebook for New College Instructors (UNC, 2005). Two previous books are: Him/Her/Self: Gender Identities in Modern America, third edition, (Johns
Hopkins, 1998); and In the Arms of Others: A Cultural History of the Right-to-Die in America (Ivan Dee, 1998), which combines medical, legal, bioethical, political and cultural perspectives on death and dying in 20th-century America. http://history.unc.edu/faculty/filene.html

Linda Gordon--is currently Professor of History at NYU. B.A. History Swarthmore College, 1961. M.A. History and Russian Studies, Yale 1963. Ph.D. History "With Distinction" Yale, 1970. She has published numerous books but is most famous for Pitied But Not Entitled: Single Mothers and the Origins of Welfare, Harvard University Press, 1995. (I had to read that one this year too).

Nancy A. Hewitt--is a personal friend of my pal and professor as well. Hewitt is a huge name in Women's History. She is currently Professor of History and Women's Studies Director, Institute for Research on Women
Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania
B.A. State University of New York, Brockport
She has been at Rutgers Since 1999.
Hewitt among other things has edited a collection of essays that is considered "standard" reading in Women's History.
Her Publications include:

* Editor, Companion to American Women's History (Blackwell's Publishers, 2002)
* Southern Discomfort: Women's Activism in Tampa, Florida, 1880s-1920s (University of Illinois Press, 2001)
* Co-author, Who Built America? Vol. 1 (Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000)
* "Re-rooting American Women's Activism: Global Perspectives on 1848," in Patricia Grimshaw, et al, eds., Woman's Rights as Human Rights (Palgrave, 2001)
* "Becoming Black: African Americans and Afro-Cubans in Tampa, Florida, 1880s-1920s," in Rosalyn Terborg-Penn and Janice Sumler Edmonds, eds., Black Women's History at the Intersection of Power and Knowledge (Tapestry Ltd, 2000)
* "The Emma Thread," in Nupur Chaudhuri and Eileen Boris, eds., Voices of Women Historians (Indiana University Press, 1999)

AWARDS

* Julia Cherry Spruill Prize for SOUTHERN DISCOMFORT, Southern Association of Women Historians, 2002
* John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship. 2000-2001
* Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Social and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, 1996-97
http://history.rutgers.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=162&Itemid=140

Thomas F. Jackson--One of my former professors here at UNC-Greensboro. A brilliant guy and a fantastic scholar of 20th century US History as well. Has just published his first book on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. titled From Civil Rights to Human Rights: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Struggle for Economic Justice, UPenn Press...I've been chomping at the bit to read it and I will after graduation. I was able to take one class under Jackson and LOVED it. He's freaky-smart. http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14280.html.
Education
Ph.D., Stanford University, 1994
M.A., Stanford University, 1987
B.A., Georgetown University, 1981
Teaching Experience
Associate Professor, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2006-
Assistant Professor, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2000-2006
Assistant Professor, Smith College, 1994-97
Instructor, Stanford University, 1990
Teaching Assistant, Stanford University, 1984, 1985, 198
http://www.uncg.edu/his/docs/Jackson_index.html...it's not often I get to link to the Department's webpage on DU...tee hee.

Michael Kazin--Michael Kazin is a Professor in the Department of History. He is an expert in U.S. politics and social movements, 19th and 20th centuries and is currently working on a history of the American left, to be published by Knopf. His most recent book is "A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan."

Prior to his position at Georgetown, Kazin served as Assistant Professor to Professor of History at the American University. In 1996, he served as John Adams Chair in American Studies at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. He also served as Visiting Assistant Professor of History at Stanford University and as adjunct professor at San Francisco State University, University of California at Santa Cruz, and San Francisco City College. http://explore.georgetown.edu/people/mk8/

Jackson Lears--T.J. Jackson Lears
is currently the Board of Governors Professor of History at Rutgers University
Editor-in-Chief, Raritan Quarterly Review

Ph. D., Yale
M.A., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
B.A, University of Virginia
PUBLICATIONS

* Something for Nothing: Luck in America (New York: Viking Penguin, 2003)
* Fables of Abundance: a Cultural History of Advertising in America (New York: Basic Books, 1994)
No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture, 1880-1920 (New York: Pantheon, 1981; reissued by University of Chicago Press, 1994; Japanese translation by Shohakusha Publishing, forthcoming)
* Essays and reviews in The New Republic, The Nation, and other magazines

AWARDS

* Los Angeles Times Book Award in History and NJ-NEH Book Award to Fables of Abundance, 1995
* National Book Critics Circle Award nomination to No Place of Grace,1981
* Fellowships from Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, National Endowment for the Humanities, Smithsonian Institution, Winterthur Museum, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholarship, Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Study (Princeton University).http://history.rutgers.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=187&Itemid=140


William A. Link--Up until two years ago was the head of our History Department here at UNCG. I did not have the privilege of taking any courses under him, however. Great guy. Has just finished publishing his political biography of Jesse Helms. Here's his wrap sheet. He is currently the Richard J. Milbauer Professor, History Department, University of Florida
Education
B.A., Davidson College;
Ph.D., University of Virginia

Research Areas

History of the American South; Progressive Era; history of education; slavery and the origins of the Civil War; Jesse Helms and the Emergence of American Conservativism. He has published four books -- all from the University of North Carolina Press. He wrote a book on William Friday that I'd love to read soon.

Ruth Rosen--Heavy, heavy hitter in terms of her place in Feminist History. She earned her Ph.D from UC Berkeley in 1976.
Among other things, she wrote the essential The World Split Open: How the Modern Women's Movement Changed America. This is the primer for Historians of the Modern Women's Movement. You can't call yourself an historian of the feminist movement if this book isn't dog-eared and well worn on your shelf.


Ellen W. Schreckeris a professor of American history at Yeshiva University She is currently on leave, having received the Frederick Ewen Academic Freedom Fellowship at the Tamiment Library at NYU. Schrecker is primarily known for her work in the history of McCarthyism. Schrecker says she is "a card-carrying member of the American Civil Liberties Union who undertook the study of McCarthyism precisely because of my opposition to its depredations against freedom of speech" Comments on Haynes' "The Cold War Debate Continues"

She graduated magna cum laude from Radcliffe College in 1960 and earned her M.A. in 1962 and her doctorate in 1974, both from Harvard University. She has taught at Harvard, Princeton, New York University, the New School for Social Research, and Columbia. From 1998 to 2002, Schrecker was the editor of Academe, the journal of the American Association of University Professors.

Schrecker's best known book is Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America, published in 1998. Kirkus Reviews wrote of this book, "It is no easy task bringing new life to an era already as dissected as the McCarthy era, yet this is what Schrecker accomplishes in a magnificent study of how and why McCarthyism happened and how its shadow still darkens our lives." In addition to McCarthyism, Schrecker has written on related topics such as political repression, academic freedom and Soviet espionage during the Cold War, as well as on Franco-American relations in the 1920s—the subject of her Ph.D. dissertation—and coauthoring a Chinese cookbook.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Schrecker...Reading Many Are the Crimes will change your life.

edit to try to fix these damned italics...didn't work.

[libnnc]

115. To those who think these are just "random names"

Please see my post
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=5313998&mesg_id=5320957

Hillary's endorsement by one historian does not a definitive statement make.

[izzybeans]

80. The fact that a historian is using a right wing meme such as the phrase "race card"

is troubling.

And then it all comes back to what the meaning of "is" is, with Shaheen.

Academics get sloppy when they start pandering.

[MethuenProgressive]

87. "Race card" is a RW meme? Tell that to the DUbamas.

They need to know where they learned to Hate the way they do.

[izzybeans]

88. uh huh right

[LostinVA]

90. Very interesting read -- and fairly even-handed -- thanks!

[moobu2]

91. This is why I’m finding the prospect of voting for Borrack very very very difficult

[IowaGirl]

119. I hear you, his campaign had to come up with a way to give the black community a reason to turn

against people who had always stood up for them and tried to bring their agenda forward. So it wouldn't look like the black community was just switching to Obama because he was black. After all, their policies are pretty close to the same. I just hope Obama does come through for them if he is the nominee.

[Name removed]

93. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DarienComp]

96. Yeah, I love these articles...

"Why Black People Play the Race Card" by Some White Guy.

[Cass]

98. Obama didn't deny playing the race card against the Clintons when questioned in the Nevada debate.

He didn't deny it. Russert asked him specifically if he regretted pushing that story and he said he did. He kind of blamed his staff for it but did go on to say it is his responsibility for the tone of the campaign.

RUSSERT: In terms of accountability, Senator Obama, Senator Clinton on Sunday told me that the Obama campaign had been pushing this storyline. And, true enough, your press secretary in South Carolina -- four pages of alleged comments made by the Clinton people about the issue of race.

In hindsight, do you regret pushing this story?

OBAMA: Well, not only in hindsight, but going forward. I think that, as Hillary said, our supporters, our staff get overzealous. They start saying things that I would not say. And it is my responsibility to make sure that we’re setting a clear tone in our campaign, and I take that responsibility very seriously, which is why I spoke yesterday and sent a message in case people were not clear that what we want to do is make sure that we focus on the issues.

Now, there are going to be significant issues that we debate, and some serious differences that we have. OBAMA: And I’m sure those will be on display today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/us/polit...PPg1RgmjYp5ZFTw

Good article, Maddy, thanks for posting. It is infuriating that the Clintons, of all people, were painted as racists and/or race baiters. I would not have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes.

[moobu2]

99. Thanks for posting that.

[Willo]

109. Page Not Found

[Cass]

112. Sorry about that, here you go. Try this link...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/us/politics/15demdebate-transcript.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Also, this wikipedia link has links to transcipts for pretty much all of the debates so far.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_presidential_debates,_2008#January_15.2C_2008_-_MSNBC_6:00pm_PST_-_Las_Vegas.2C_Nevada

[Willo]

120. Thx for the links. Hillary started it. Obama pushed it.

It starts with Hillary's camp and both sides respond:

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1207/Shaheen_Did_Obama_sell_drugs.html#comments


http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/jan/15/debate-transcript/

[Cass]

127. How is this a racist statement?

Shaheen said Obama's candor on the subject would "open the door" to further questions. "It'll be, 'When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?'" Shaheen said. "There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks. It's hard to overcome."

We all know the republicans will use anything if they think they will get traction from it. They seized on Bill Clinton's admission of pot smoking back in the 90's, too. How does Shaheen's comment equate to playing the race card?

[Willo]

128. Cass, I don't know you but I'm going to credit you as being intelligent.

I ask that you give me that same credit.

Don't comment please. I'm done with this thread.

[kid a]

100. We're moving past the he-said-she-said period maddy - Support HIllary, Don't ATTACK Obama

Thanks!
:hi:

[Bad Thoughts]

101. As a Historian, Wilentz is an outlier eom.

[Maddy McCall]

110. No he's not. No more than a plumber, an electrician, a teacher is an outlier.

:shrug:

[moobu2]

105. Since he wont be able to race bait in the GE

Wonder what his strategy for winning will be?

[Willo]

108. "...deliberately contrived strategy..." ???

"Instead, she had to fight back against a deliberately contrived strategy to make her and her husband look like race-baiters. Obama's supporters and operatives, including his chief campaign strategist David Axelrod, seized on accurate and historically noncontroversial statements and supplied a supposedly covert racist subtext that they then claimed the calculating Clinton campaign had inserted."


Sorry, I seriously question the research he did to make these statements.

Sounds like he's still "Making a Case for Hillary"
http://www.blog.newsweek.com/blogs/stumper/archive/2007/11/16/making-the-case-for-hillary-clinton-by-sean-wilentz.aspx

[DemBones DemBones]

122. Present. eom

:kick:

[Beacool]

125. Maddy, Mr. Wilentz's analysis is wasted here.

Some of us who have been around many campaigns knew this already, but on this board too many have blinders on and are voting based on emotion. The strategy was Axelrod's idea, he's a worthy disciple of Rove in so many ways, and quite efficient at this kind of low tactics because he's used them before with other minority candidates. Think of the "inspirational", but ineffective, governor of MA.

For moths I've been saying that Obama is all smoke and mirrors. I have seen many politicians who have a genuine desire to serve and have done so for years before deciding that they were ready to run for president. Obama, on the other hand, had a clear idea since entering the state senate (how he managed to get into the state senate is another interesting story) that his goal was the presidency and the fastest track to achieve that goal was not to make any waves because making waves also made enemies. Ergo, the many present votes. The jokes made by his then colleagues that if there was a difficult vote Barack was "in the bathroom" has a ring of truth. It's easier to get ahead on the fast track if you kiss up to the powerful, such as the top guy in Springfield: Emil Jones, the state's Democratic king maker. When Jones asked Barack who could they put up for the US senate after the established candidate had been sidelined by a sex scandal, Obama's one word response was "me".

Enter the Democratic biggest king makers, the Clintons. Obama befriended them, particularly Hillary. She campaigned and fundraised for him. Once elected, he said that he had modeled his first year after hers and sought her advice. After barely having completed two years in the senate Obama decide to announce his candidacy for president.

There's much more, but someone will probably write a book about it in the future.

[Scurrilous]

130. Kick

:kick: