March 27, 2008, 12:48 pm
By Matt Bai
Why do some political missteps haunt their candidates forever, while others are easily put to rest? John Kerry saying he voted for the war before he voted against it, or Howard Dean screeching on a stage in Iowa, instantly becomes the stuff of political history, but when George W. Bush admits that he was once arrested for driving under the influence, it immediately fades into obscurity. Some politicians, as they used to say of Ronald Reagan, seem coated in Teflon, while others seem covered in Krazy Glue, unable to shake the stickiness of what seem like minor embarrassments.
<...>
Then there’s Mr. Obama, who followed up his speech on race and his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, by asserting, in an interview, that his racist grandmother was a “typical white person.” Mr. Obama went on to clarify his meaning, suggesting that white Americans have been shaped by common experience with race, but the sound bite was ugly. Mr. Obama has presented himself to the electorate chiefly as a bridge between races and political cultures, a harbinger of the end of identity politics, but his struggle to explain the racial attitudes of his own family and friends has to complicate that message. In the wake of his Philadelphia speech, Mr. Obama seemed to right himself among Democrats in national tracking polls, but the controversy could continue to resonate with white, independent voters, revealing its effects in the months ahead.
Finally, we have the story of Hillary Clinton and her bullet-dodging landing in Bosnia in 1996, which turns out to have been, in fact, a perilous descent into untruth. Mrs. Clinton has used the words “strength” and “experience” so often during the course of her campaign that they might as well be tattooed onto her knuckles. Her essential argument is that, unlike Mr. Obama, she has the foreign policy credentials to go up against Mr. McCain and win — a claim that has been dismissed by critics who assert that being first lady isn’t remotely like being secretary of defense. Fair or not, those critics got a real boost when it was revealed that at least one of her claims from that period was, at best, misremembered.
The Bosnia flap undermined Mrs. Clinton’s case for experience at a moment when she is desperately trying to convince her party’s superdelegates that she is the only Democrat who can win. Perhaps worse, though, the controversy played perfectly into an anti-Clinton narrative that Mr. Obama has peddled — namely, that Clintons, both of them, will say or do anything to win. (Exit polls from the Mississippi primary showed that half the voters questioned Mrs. Clinton’s integrity.) Even should she manage to snatch the nomination away at this late date, she can expect to run up against that same indictment from Mr. McCain in the fall, along with ads repeating her statements about Bosnia and the non-existent snipers. In other words, that one could be
First of all, Kerry never said anything about voting for the war before voting against it. The flip-flop meme was spin.
Second, "typical white person"? More spin!
"Finally, we have the story of Hillary Clinton and her bullet-dodging landing in Bosnia in 1996..."?
What the hell do the two former misrepresentaions by the writer (Bai) have to do with Hillary's repeated lies?
This goes to her credibility, and her lies are extensively documented.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
