In the days leading up to the Congressional Black Caucus-sponsored Martin Luther King Jr. Day debate on CNN tonight, a lot of people — including me — were talking about identity politics, the race card, the gender card, but the card that really got played was the personal animosity card. . . . It didn’t take long for the sparks to fly between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, which made this debate far more vicious than in any of the previous debates or any other candidates. Hillary Clinton actually got booed, and it is already being reported around the world. . . .
In an almost schoolyard manner, they taunted each other over who was doing the most good while the other was engaged in the worst sleaze.
Obama said that when he was fighting the evils of Reaganomics, Hillary was sitting on the board of Wal-Mart:Because while I was working on those streets watching those folks see their jobs shift overseas, you were a corporate lawyer sitting on the board at Wal-Mart.
And when she got her turn, Hillary returned fire and brought up the Rezko matter.
I was fighting against those ideas when you were practicing law and representing your contributor, [Tony] Rezko, in his slum landlord business in inner-city Chicago.
Frankly, I think Obama missed an opportunity there. Not that I’m advocating schoolyard fighting between candidates in a debate, but since sleazy campaign contributors were all of a sudden fair game, this would have been a perfect moment for Obama to “drop the Hsu” (as in Norman….) Perfect opening, and Hillary was asking for it.
Hillary also slammed Obama for his “present” votes, and got booed for that too. I’m not convinced that Obama did the greatest job in explaining why that’s such great tactic in the Illinois legislature, but he seems to think it was. At least he said so. Again, the nastiness seemed out of proportion to the issue, and it showed how personal this has gotten.
For the first time, John Edwards was looking almost reasonable as he gently shamed the combatants by reminding them that none of this squabbling would help the poor. . . . On the issue of health care, Hillary and Edwards both championed state mandates, and ganged up on Obama, who for allowing that he might not use government force to imprison deadbeat patients, came close to being castigated as a “capitalist roader.” It was almost surreal.
Here I have to say that while I’d never vote for Obama, he does at least resemble a human being in terms of style. Style does matter, and I think one of the things people forget is that there’s a huge gulf between “Obama the Kind” and “Hillary the Cruel.”
It really came through in the health care debate. Hillary nearly shrieked when she said “I am not running for president to put bandaids on our problems! I want UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE!”Shrill, braying, and grating. At least Obama sounds reassuring, even if his policies aren’t.
This may be irrational, but if I am going to have to endure socialism, canÂ’t I at least get it with a more calming and soothing voice? . . .