BooMan,

No apologies needed. That's little people pulling the gender card because they're out of straws.

It has always been about character.

Examples are a mile long.

Well, "You can't vote for war and disown the results"

Booman, your tame compared to Hillary supporters. Below is a link to one of the works. But thanks for the heads-up about Hillary not paying her health Ins. for her employees.

http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/03/29/the-wrong-nigga-to-fuck-wit-dilemma-for-barack/#more-1982

Let it go Boo.

There's a certain pointlessness in being a white male and criticizing either Dem candidate. If you're against Clinton, it's because you're a sexist. If you're against Obama, it's because you're racist. (Or perhaps worse, if you're for either one, you're just trying to shake off your white male guilt or sucking up to someone.)

You could argue that white men as a class deserve being in that uncomfortable position, but that's missing the point altogether. "White men" is just a collective label for a diverse group of individuals, just like "women" or "African Americans".

There is a fundamental intellectual dishonesty in trying to discredit a position by conflating it with some generally-despised other position. Whether it's labeling Obama supporters as sexists or Clinton supporters as racists or critics of Israel as anti-semites, it's all bullshit, and it should raise red flags. It's a sign that the person or group doing the criticizing has run out of rational arguments and feels obliged to resort to smears to hide that fact.

Individuals -- as opposed to the carefully calculated propaganda of political organizations -- can be forgiven the occasional lapse when they become upset and say things that they will later regret -- if they do in fact later regret them. Better still, unless we have a compelling reason to do otherwise, we can give our fellows the benefit of the doubt and not escalate things when someone loses their cool, and also accept that there is room for reasonable people to disagree. It is far more important that we the people get along with each other in an atmosphere of mutual respect and cooperation than that any particular candidate win an election. A democracy is, after all, about us, not about politicians.

---Cthulhu for President: Why vote for the lesser evil?

Nothing will ever make me disrespect the women's movement or the civil rights movement.
Hillary is not the spokeswoman for the women's movement nor is Barack the spokesman for civil rights.
We the People are the spokesmen & women.

The spirit of both movements gives all of us the freedom and the responsibility to seek out the best for this country, plain and simple.

It's time to respect the issues.


No Hillary, you were outspent by the people not the Obama campaign.

As a woman and a feminist, I share your bewilderment about progressive women seeing Clintonism as some sort of positive phenomenon.  Just as Margaret Thatcher did nothing to advance feminist values, Hillary Clinton, the DLC, pro-war, corporationist candidate does not either.  What are feminist values if not honesty, peace and respect for others?  It seems to me that Clinton's Machiavellian political campaign directly contradicts all of these.  
There are progressive women that I would be thrilled to see in the white house.  Hillary Clinton, with her overweening ambition, dysfunctional marriage and Rovian political strategies is hardly inspiring.  
Obama is running a more ethical campaign, making the case for his own candidacy, instead of tearing down his opponent with lies and smears.  He is a candidate I can respect and be proud to support.  The contrast between the two campaigns is the contrast between the politics of personal destruction and the politics of true community.  As a progressive, I'll take community any time.

I keep reading that the division in the Democratic Party is between Clinton and Obama. Race and Gender. But (as BooMan has discussed previously), this contest highlights an underlying struggle to redistribute political power. I think the best response to a president who has increased executive power is people-powered politics. Only one candidate fully embraces this strategy. IMHO, the moment that any presidential candidate is elected to office with a fifty state strategy... that is change.

It says here

Crashing the Gate is a shot across the bow at the political establishment in Washington, DC and a call to re-democratize politics in America

It's nice to crash the glass ceiling, but I don't think that's the real motivator here (maybe it's just a nice big fat cherry on top a mountain of people-powered whipped cream), nor does it describe what is really happening. Because if we're dealing with a crashing the gate scenario then I guess BooMan needs to start explaining what happens next.

I guess I am one of those people who have been angry with the Clinton candidacy before day one. And I have but one reason for that.

W Jefferson Clinton strongly supported a sanctions policy that resulted in the death of 500,000 Iraqi children under the age of five. H Rodham Clinton never opposed that policy of genocide.

How can one support a candidate who was so close to the levers of power, her claim, and did nothing to stop the policy of sanctions? I know plenty of others might have been in a similar position. They are not running for the office of President of the United States of America.

I will continue to bring this issue to the eyes of those that may have forgotten or not known. I will continue to oppose H Rodham Clinton and her husband at every opportunity.

Malcolm

Peace to all on earth.

It may have something to do with Hillary's gender for some people, but for most I believe it's her vicious campaigning style and her DLC connections.

It's not because she's a woman, it's because of the kind of person she is.  I get embarrassed when people say criticism of her is gender based.  If you want to play on the A Team, then don't pull the "Poor Pitiful Pearl" act and don't be a crybaby.

Women have suffered and do suffer inequities in this society.  Hillary is not one of them.

Once there is enough distance for a realistic postmortem on the Clinton campaign the progressives for Clinton phenomenon needs to be figured out.  I get the "centrist"  Democrats since Clinton's been their woman from the start.  I understand the low information voters who have made the connection of Clinton=Good times Bush=bad times and want to turn the clock back to good.  I also understand older women (my Grandmother comes to mind) who see this as the only chance they will have in their lifetime to see a woman as president.  Movement progressives for Clinton though?  That I don't understand at all.

Hillary Clinton or any other DLCer is the kind of candidate we settle for as a last resort against the Republicans.  She's not just a part of the DLC problem that so many of us have been fighting against, she's one of it's freaking leaders.  I've seen way too many people who were involved in the Dean campaign, support the 50 state strategy, helped oust Lieberman, etc, etc who got behind Clinton early and stayed there.  It's  just odd.

I understand not seeing Obama as the ideal candidate.  He was far from my first choice as well.  Still, he isn't hostile to progressive ideas.  For me it's the difference between Obama allowing the movement to grow vs. Clinton killing it in the crib.  

Did ... whoever these mysterious e-mail critics are ... demand public groveling?  Sackcloth and ashes?  Walking around the town square with some kind of sign admitting your guilt?

Because if they didn't ... why didn't you just respond to them by e-mail?  

Help me raise money for Jay Nixon, the next Democratic governor of Missouri

BooMan, If those e-mailers weren't reading and understanding your previous well-reasoned posts, it's unlikely that they will do so here.  You need not give them more.  

Fear will keep the local systems in line. -Grand Moff Tarkin Survivor Left Blogistan

Since this is a blog, it seems to me counterproductive to respond to, or maybe even read, emails from people who choose the closed path to making editorial comments. If they can't make their points in public they have no standing to even be acknowledged, seems to me.

I agree with the previous poster in suspecting these emails are more about trying to manipulate this site than honest feelings. To anyone who has spent any time here, the idea that you are a closet misogynist is as absurd as it is dishonest.

Bush is "the first President to admit to an impeachable offense." --Former Nixon counsel John Dean

Why briefly?

Because my recent piece here BLOGSTRIKE!!! (Why not? It's now just the media writ small.) just about sums up what I am seeing and I have resolved not to waste much time on the tidal wave of anti-Hillary hysteria that I see building not just on the leftiness blogs but in the media as well.

But a small addendum or two. I can do no better (nor waste less time) regarding the "misogyny" thing than reprint my recent response to a close friend of yours here, Booman,

CabinGirl writes:

It has been stunning to see the collective loss of brain power and concomitant infantile middle school style sniping that is going on in the blogosphere in the past few weeks.  I really like it a lot better when we have asshole republicans in our sights, not each other.  Rachel Maddow had it right the other night when she was talking about how little she hears either Dem candidate going after McCain on his positions.  Seems the blogosphere is doing the same.

"...the collective loss of brain power and concomitant infantile middle school style sniping..."

You've got that right!!!

And...

I hate to harp on this, but the amount of sheer misogyny...often from women...that has been directed at Hillary Clinton is awe inspiring.

I don't mean opposition...I mean flat out "Who does that uppity bitch think she is!!!' and "She was just Bil'ls fuckpillow and camp follower' kinds of shit.

Hell, folks...she MADE that man.

SAnd then after doing that....when the time was finally ripe (or so she thought) for a woman of power, she made HERSELF.

As if she is not the flat-out embodiment of the success of  females' attempts to break the glass ceiling.

Hard to deal with, this personal anti-Hillary bullshit.

Hard to deal with.

She's wrong if she lets her emotions show..."Ahhh, that's just fake tears" and wrong if she tries...perhaps too hard,  but that's what she MUST do if she is to appear "as strong as a man"...if she tries to support the military in their endeavours or if she gets a little strident in her tough-guy stance as a candidate.

She can't win with these people. Everything she does is already pre-judged as being abolutely, positively, hatefully wrong.

Is this a GBCW post?

No.

It is a "What the fuck am I doing spending so much time trying to convince assholes not to shit all over themselves" post. And I will...as I have been doing he last couple of weeks...be spending less time paying attention to the blogs.

bet on it.

They have run their course, CabinGirl, and are now part of the new orthodoxy.

Beware the orthodoxy, always and everywhere.

Lewis Carroll knew.

Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

  The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

  The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

  Long time the manxome foe he sought --

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

  And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

  The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

  And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

  The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

  He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?

  Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'

  He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

  And the mome raths outgrabe.

Pure nonsense, as the uffish leftiness bloggers galumph proudly through the tulgey woods of the internet, vorpal blade in one hand and the head of the JabberBillary in the other.

Pure nonsense.

And not worth the time it takes to oppose it.

Things will happen as they must WITHOUT the leftiness bloggers' input. It is sheer ego that makes them think that it  is they who power the movements of the spheres.

Sheer hubris.

And I am bored with it.

Later...

AG

And regarding the so-called "racism" of Ms. Clinton and her campaign...

I know it is an unlikely scenario, but just say that she was running against John Edwards now or some other white candidate, and the pastor of that candidate had made EXACTLY the same references in his sermons as did Rev. Wright. (The "unlikely part isn't that a white candidate might be attending a church whose pastor was saying those thiung, by the way. Even if it was a white pastor. I am white and I wholeheartedly agree with what was said By Rev. Wright. Every goddamned word.)

Would you expect her campaign to NOT call out the candidate AND the pastor?

How "racist" would that be, Booman?

"Politicist"?

YTou bet your ass.

That's how it's played.

But racist?

I think not.

There go TWO of your arguments.

As Ol' Blue Eyes was wont to sing:

WHOOPS!!!

There goes

Another

Rubber tree plant.

Later...

AG

Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie.-Mae West

It really seems odd to me that claim "misogynist" at every turn, are themselves downplaying Hillary's skills and abilities.

She is a brilliant, powerful, opinionated woman, therefore she has done a lot of things for people to like, and also dislike.

My reasons for supporting Obama are different than Booman's. In fact, some of the reasons Booman dislikes her are some reasons I was considering voting for her. But that doesn't invalidate his opinion, it validates it. There are issues other than Hillary's gender involved here, and grown people can disagree about them.

What broke it for me, was an issue that I've never seen addressed by either Booman or any of Hillary's supporters, and that is the Clinton's close relationship with Monsanto, their efforts to push GMO food on other countries and on their own people who don't want them. This is an extremely important issue to me, no matter what the gender of the candidate, so I would be very interested in hearing how a Hillary supporter can twist that issue around to being one of gender.

Much of it, I think, is a matter of the Clinton campaign pushing the narrative of "Big Mean Negro and His Big White Friends Pushing Little Woman Out".  Many of her supporters see this, and, whether because they agree with it or because of their own opportunistic tendencies, carry it forward.

My biggest problem with the charges of sexism against those who oppose Clinton is with what I see as Hillary Clinton attempting to exploit feminism and some of the sexist tendencies among women -- it's not a Males-Only club, after all -- that can go along with it.  The repeated crying that just happens to come before crucial primaries, the narrative I mentioned above, the constant reminder that Having a woman president would mean real change!, and so on.  (I appreciate that the Obama campaign doesn't constantly remind me that he's black.  Being, you know, not an idiot, I know he's black, and he doesn't need to guilt me into voting for him.  So leave it at that.  The historic nature of it is just icing on an already pretty damned good cake to me.)

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to you country.

Here's what I don't get - why do you think Obama is the more progressive candidate?  He's not.  I am not the most well-read voter out there but I have watched all the Dem debates.  His positions are virtually indistinguishable from hers.  How many times did he say "what she said?" A little bit of difference on health care (no mandates) and he was not in the Senate at the time to vote for or against granting the president authorization to use force  in the War on Terra.  So what is it that makes him the anti-DLC candidate?  Republicans in the cabinet?  That can't be it...

My spouse is a died-in-the-wool Clinton supporter.  I think it is going to be tough to bring them along if Clinton is seen as having been "pushed out" by the Democratic party establishment.  Politics is sometimes pretty ugly.  Democracy is messy (you should have seen the chaos at the caucuses here where I live).  You have to detatch yourself a little bit or the whole thing starts looking rotten.  

I have no problem voting for whoever the Dems nominate.  They are both flawed, but they are both better than McCain.  But Senator Clinton represents about 50% of the dems, and those dems need to be granted some respect.  We are not all low-information, 90s = good voters.  I think Obama himself recognizes this but I do not think his campaign or his supporters on the net do.

Booman I enjoy your blog from time to time, and I appreciate this post.  But I do think there is something beyond Senator Clinton's politics that is getting people riled up.

Regards.