Caddell and Schoen: the "Democratic" farce continues
July 28, 2010 2:55 pm ET by Eric Boehlert
Y'know the shtick, the two Obama-haters lash out at the president and the Left in the pages of the WSJ but do so under the guise of being "Democrats" so readers are supposed to take their cheap shots to heart because it really, really pains Caddell and Schoen to write these nasty things about Obama. Just like it really, really pains them to go on Fox News and trash Obama.
Today's effort by the duo is particularly rancid: Obama constantly divides America by playing the race card.
I'll let TNR's Jonathan Chait and Time's Joe Klein do the honors in terms of dismantling Caddell/Schoen's lazy fearmongering:
From Chait:
Okay, so we have three pieces of evidence here to support the claim that Obama is deliberately dividing people by race. First, when asked at a a press conference about the arrest of Skip Gates, Obama opined that the police made a mistake. (They do not mention Obama's subsequent, very high profile and successful effort to reconcile Gates and the arresting officer.) Second, Obama wants to seal the border with Mexico only as part of a comprehensive immigration reform plan, in keeping with the beliefs of most immigration experts that the two things can only work in conjunction. And third, his Department of Justice -- whose decisions he does not control -- has decided to ignore the right-wing crackpot obsession with the notion that two black racists may have intimidated voters at an almost all-black polling station. (Even conservatives like Abigail Thernstrom have dismissed this issue.)
And from Klein:
One wonders why Caddell and Schoen have taken this cheesy route. One doesn't wonder too hard, however. The words "free" and "publicity" come to mind. Dick Morris has made a late-in-life living off of this sort of swill. But it's sad: I've enjoyed and learned a lot from conversations with both Caddell and Schoen. Their op-ed does far more damage to the authors than to the President.
UPDATED: The pile-on continues. From Ed Kilgore at The Democratic Strategist:
[I]f they are going to simply ape what their friends at Fox are saying, they need to stop calling themselves Democrats and trotting out their connection to the increasingly distant Democratic candidacies of the past. There's nothing principled or honorable about posing as paper donkeys representing no one but themselves.
My first exposure to it was back in the 90s, when "Democrats" would call Rush Limbaugh and praise him for opening their eyes.
Occasionally, we'll see a troll on this forum claiming to be a Democrat who has been so turned off by Liberals that they're changing parties.
I guess it happens. After all, most of the racists who called themselves Democrats back in the 60s have migrated to the Republican Party. I think a lot of it is fakery, though.
One of the worst, in my opinion, is S.E. Cupp. This pretty little thing claims to be an atheist, but wrote a book whining about the mistreatment of American Christians at the hands of the Liberal elite. She also shows up on FOX occasionally, spouting Republican talking points. Sounds phony to me.
I watched about ten minutes of Republicans lying, chuckling and demonizing everybody on the left.
That was followed by a couple of minutes of Pat Caddell or Susan Estrich, lit really badly, and sheepishly apologizing for how awful Democrats were, sort of half-heartedly saying " Ooohhhh, we're not all bad, we mean well.", but generally conceding everything the Fox team was selling.
It was funny, until I started to meet people who were actually falling for it.
Funny side note regarding the "reformed Democrat" posters/ concern trolls: Regular failure at this site Fairliberal, if I remember correctly, started out with that tactic, but has never bothered to change her screen name, even after giving up the charade to pursue straight-up wingnuttery.
It still makes me laugh that, with every post under that screen name, she's including a reminder of her dishonesty, and her debut failure here.
The act didn't fool anyone, of course, and she went right to just being an openly wingnut poster.
I don't think there's been any attempt at concern trolling for a while.
My point was that, with every post, her screen name reminds me that she's been a bloody liar from square one, and a failure just as long.
As you've said, the fact that fairliberal no longer even tries to maintain the act is basically an continuous admission that her handle is bull5hit. It's hilarious that she doesn't seem to understand of the awkwardness of her situation; if I was caught using a fake name at a party, I'd want to leave immediately, but she just stays. Obviously, I'm preaching to the choir, so I won't go on further.
These people are crazy for their constant references to race and then to racism and racism, and they give as their reasons for this obsession of theirs, that "Obama is starting it, we're only responding in kind, he and his administration keep injecting race into the public forum and into public or national policy... we're just returning their serve is all."
Which has always seemed like nothing but the lame and crazy excuses of people who are using racism in their argument, and who keep injecting race into the dialogue, despite public and national policy, whether it's the Obama administration's of it or not, having little or nothing to do with race today.
Anyway, that's my take on it, that nobody's truly injecting race into the dialogue except the people, on Fox and on the radio, who again they're freaking obsessed with the subject, and paint their obsession (falsely I say) as just a reasonable response to what someone else is doing, "they or he Obama, they're starting this race thing, they're serving the ball, we're just hitting it back to them."
Bull.
But at least this reference here contains three supposed evidentiary examples of how Obama has initiated all of this, how he has injected first the subject of race into public and national policy...
OK, the second thing cited above, about immigration law and it's enforcement and immigration reform (whatever that means), I have no idea how that can be construed as being about race, seeing as it's about citizenship and immigration on it's surface, and so to scratch beneath the surface and find some racial thing behind it all, is something I'm not going to bother to do because I don't care, most Americans don't care, to be baited into talking about immigration in racial terms, is be baited into talking about immigration where I don't care about that, except it's bait held out on the specious grounds that race is involved... I don't care, it's crazy and lame and is noise not only xenophobic but painted strangely racist also.
The third reason listed above, the thing about the psychotic thugs who are calling themselves "new black panthers" or something like that, who cares about them, if they get into my face in any way anywhere, then it's a police matter between me and them, it's like anybody else that threatens or assaults you, it involves the cops, and this presupposes that the "new black panthers" have done such a thing, except who did they do it to? Where's the victim, it's not me so I don't care, it's more amplified noise is all, and so if the DOJ didn't concern itself with it, who cares that's their job to do or not do as they see fit, what's it got to do with me or anyone else, where's the victim?
It's more of nothing, more of a lame and crazy pretext to inject race into Fox television news programming, and into the noise on the radio, but the first thing listed above, the Gates comment the President made at a press conference...
BINGO, the instant I heard the President respond the way he did, respond to a question asked him about Gates (versus him bringing the matter up), I knew he was wrong, it was none of his business to comment at all on the matter, let alone to say the strange even foolish thing he said... and I'm pretty sure the President realized quickly the mistake he'd made (I'd like to think he learned what most Democrats need to learn, that their every thought and opinion is not necessary or worthy of expression, no matter who's asking them their opinion, they don't have to truly comment and give that opinion, if that matter is irrelevant to their Office or otherwise beneath them in some way), and so the President caught himself and invited the principals to have a beer with him and put the thing behind them (and I'd like to think he said to the Cambridge cop and Gates both "hey you ever say something in a public situation that you wish you didn't say, something that even if it is your thought and opinion, you can just keep your mouth shut anyway you don't necessarily have to shoot it of", and Gates might have said yeah I was in a situation like that recently, and the Cambridge cop would've said sure me too, as matter of my profession I'm required to speak carefully and keep my thoughts especially the stupid ones to myself), so sure the President is guilty of talking about race or something that seemed racial, when he was prompted to comment on the Gates thing...
But is that a real and sensible reason for the unbelievable and non-stop talk of race we've seen in response?
Was that the serve that has now begotten these millions of return-of-serves, about everyone and everything that's black and strange and maybe bad, and we need to highlight it all and talk non-stop about it and roll the videotape ad infinitum because the President started it?
Give me a break, it's just the crazy and lame excuses racists give, when they're just dying to talk about race, when in fact no one else has been talking about it, no one else has started it, no one has truly said or done anything to warrant all this talk...
Their reasons for talking about race are just as crazy and malicious as is that talk itself, their excuse is just more racism, it's delusional, it's crazy, I for one am sick of it, and I bet most Americans are too.
They weren't racist...
...until we had a Black President.
And hey: THAT'S not racist!
Becasue... since the President is Black, that must mean we've moved beyond race, and now we can say whatever we want about race! You know... because the President is Black.
So it's all OK now.
----------------------------
Right?
How many RINOs are running around claiming to be Republicans while espousing Marx & Mao?
Truth To Power