BunnyBlinks

I couldn’t stomach it the first time through in real time, but I just finished watching the debate online. It was more of the same from Clinton, who benefited from the first 40 minutes of the debate being devoid of substance. ABC/Disney and the Clinton Clan have a lot to gain from each others’ success, but I didn’t think they’d be so obvious, launching scary-sounding but baseless non-issue after non-issue at Obama. I thought Charlie Gibson was an awful questioner. Stephanopoulos wasn’t as bad, but I still expected more from the man who helped propel the first (and at the time more Obama-like) Clinton into office in 1992. As I predicted in yesterday’s post, the establishment will surely tremble before they crumble.

I don’t feel like dignifying the non-issue-based attacks on Obama with a response. Frankly, it saddens more than disgusts me to watch the Clintons so quickly embrace the tactics of their former political rivals as they’ve assumed their prime placement on the establishment’s mantle. Josh Marshall (TPM) puts it well:

And seeing Hillary go on about how Obama has contempt for folks in small town America, how he’s elitist, well … no, it’s not because I think she’s either. I never have. But after seeing her hit unfairly with just the same stuff for years, it just encapsulates the last three-plus months of her campaign which I can only describe as a furious descent into nonsense and self-parody. Part of it makes me want to cry. But at this point all I can really do is laugh.

I don’t really want to speculate how this will be spun on the morning “news” shows. I will, however, leave you with a post-debate linkroll.

• Hillary regrettably followed this advice.

• Obama takes the high road on cookie baking.

• Hillary lied because she was tired? Let’s hope she’s not tired at 3am.

• The Weather Underground? Really? Please.

• “Editor & Publisher” sums up the ABC/Disney moderators’ performance here, mentioning the debate audience’s booing of Charles Gibson. Let’s hope the voters outside the auditorium do the same. Hey, I’m a Packer fan. We don’t boo the refs when we lose a round. We only boo them when they stand in the way of a good, fair, spirited game.

• From Sam Boyd at The American Prospect’s “Tapped”:

“THESE QUESTIONS ARE A DISGRACE.

A woman asks if Obama “believes in the American flag” because he doesn’t wear a flag pin.

Charlie Gibson says that questions about the flag are “all over the internet” — along with Pamela Anderson’s sex tape, cats with bad grammar, and Rick Astley. Journalism at it’s finest.”

Update: 4/17/08:

• Althouse, this morning, sees no reason to remove her tongue from its usual position in her cheek: summarizing the largest strand of complaints about the debate in the overnight blogosphere:

“It was bad of ABC to trouble Obama with questions about his attitudes and character instead of offering him opportunities to expound policy.”

I get her implied point. Politics can indeed be brutal. Still, “questions about his attitudes and character” are one thing, but questioning his patriotism? and name-dropping to imply guilt? In a follow-up question, Hillary herself all but admitted there was no substance to these attacks, but that she intended to play Swiftboat style, if only because that’s how the Republicans roll:

“I know Senator Obama’s a good man and I respect him greatly, but I think that this is an issue that certainly the Republicans will be raising.”

Well, fine. We’ll beat back their politics of character assassination after we triumph over hers. Her desperation can hardly be missed. She wasn’t like this when she was ahead:

“I’m not interested in attacking my opponents, I’m interested in attacking the problems of America,” Clinton said. “And I believe we should be turning up the heat on the Republicans. They deserve all the heat we can give them.”

That was then. Now she wants to serve them the Democratic party’s head on a platter. I can’t stop her if she wants to drag her own name into the gutter. Let’s just hope she doesn’t take the rest of us with her.

The night before Wisconsin’s primary election, Hillary Clinton chastised us, “We don’t need to have a beer with the next president. We had that president.” I, for one, am hoping that, unlike 2000 and 2004, we have the guts to choose the person who would make the best president. Apparently, Clinton has been changing her tune. Sorry, Hillary. This won’t work. Obama isn’t John Kerry. Anything but aloof, Obama knows you have to punch back. Like yesterday, when he said:

“Now, Senator McCain and the Republicans in Washington are already looking ahead to the fall and have decided that they plan on using these comments to argue that I’m out of touch with what’s going on in the lives of working Americans. I don’t blame them for this—that’s the nature of our political culture, and if I had to carry the banner for eight years of George Bush’s failures, I’d be looking for something else to talk about, too.”

I know I’m not alone in wanting to help fundamentally change the political culture in this country. We’re tired of having to choose between two carefully crafted (and supposedly oppositional) ideologies. We crave meaningful dialogue. Hillary, on the other hand, has regretfully shown she wants no more than the proof she can win the game she’s spent her life playing. I know it doesn’t seem possible they could pull it off (after 2000, all bets are off), but were she to win, the status quo would prevail. Those with power would get to keep it, precisely by reaping the rewards of perpetuating the illusion of the polarization of American politics. It’s not surprising, then, that Bill Kristol compared Obama to Marx in the New York Times. Nor was I shocked when the “liberal” newspaper hired this “conservative” in the first place. Bill Kristol was Chief of Staff to William Bennett during the Reagan administration, and his brand of divisive politics would become irrelevant were we to succeed at fundamentally rethinking traditional ideological battles. Kristol needs Hillary to win. He’s not the only one who recognizes what they have to gain from another Clinton presidency. Ask another recent Clinton surrogate who’s been rather cozy in the current White House.

I don’t mean to suggest Obama’s words couldn’t have been better chosen. George Packer, for one, has offered a substantive critique, which Obama (and all of us pulling for him) would be wise to digest before moving on to the general election. But let’s get over this distraction, already! Don’t we want a president who talks to us like we’re adults? Don’t we want a president who talks about our real shared values — like equality? Don’t we desire a president who will not allow the political establishment to keep us divided? I think we do, but this week has shown us once again how hard they’ll work to keep us pitted against each other, and how much they have to gain from doing so.

Speak the truth and you risk offending someone. Then again, what’s the alternative? Senator Clinton, your pandering is duly noted. Until you stop fighting for the status quo, we have every right to be bitter.

Update: 4/16/08. The hypocrisy made clearer.

Update: 4/17/08. I added this link on the word “conservative” above. I used to think McCain the more respectable type of “conservative,” largely due to his work with Feingold on campaign finance reform, and to his noble weathering of attacks from the religious right in 2000. Like Hillary, however, he’s now proven he’ll say anything to win. I hope that, with the Bushes and the Clintons exiting the national political stage, McCain feels safer returning to his maverick roots, and we can embark on the real debate this country so obviously needs.

Oh, Hillary. It didn’t have to end this way.