Cokie Roberts on Obama's vacation: "I know his grandmother lives in Hawaii and I know Hawaii is a state," but it looks "foreign, exotic"
On the August 10 edition of ABC's This Week, ABC News political analyst Cokie Roberts criticized Sen. Barack Obama -- who was born in Hawaii -- for "going off this week to a vacation in Hawaii," which she said "does not make any sense whatsoever." Roberts stated: "I know his grandmother lives in Hawaii and I know Hawaii is a state, but it has the look of him going off to some sort of foreign, exotic place." Roberts continued: "He should be in Myrtle Beach, and, you know, if he's going to take a vacation at this time."
The Honolulu Star-Bulletin reported on August 9 that "[a]fter delivering a campaign speech, Sen. Barack Obama's first stop on his Hawaii vacation was a visit to his grandmother's Makiki apartment, where he also lived during his youth."
From the August 10 edition of ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos:
JAKE TAPPER (ABC News senior national political correspondent): A lot of Democrats on Capitol Hill wringing their hands about Obama. He's not hitting back hard enough. Do you agree?
WILL: I don't. Part of his charm, such as it is for those who feel it, is his aristocratic languor, his sort of relaxed, laid-back attitude, and as a result, he gives the impression sometimes as a candidate, not with an instinct for the jugular, but for the capillaries, that he goes for small responses. You pointed one out one this morning, talking about a war going on in Europe and he's worried about some lobbyist working for McCain. But I don't think this is his main problem.
TAPPER: What is his main problem?
GEORGE WILL (Washington Post columnist): His main problem is that people have not yet decided that he ought to be the one sitting across the table from -- to pick a name out of the ether -- Putin.
ROBERTS: Yeah, that he has certainly come nowhere near closing the deal. As we've talked about before, in this year that should be such a Democratic year given all the other indices, he is tied in the polls and stage-sided in the polls and going off this week to a vacation in Hawaii --
VICTORIA CLARKE (former Pentagon spokeswoman): Right.
ROBERTS: -- does not make any sense whatsoever. I know his grandmother lives in Hawaii and I know Hawaii is a state, but it has the look of him going off to some sort of foreign, exotic place. He should be in Myrtle Beach, and, you know, if he's going to take a vacation at this time.
CLARKE: Well, and --
ROBERTS: And I just think that, you know, this is not the time to do that.
CLARKE: And there's plenty of time left. I mean, let's not forget, Barack Obama and his campaign beat the Clintons, which is no easy feat in any year. They beat them, and they beat by being pretty tough on Hillary Clinton sometimes when they felt they needed to. I think they realize that most people right now aren't paying attention. They don't need to do it quite yet. There is plenty of time after the conventions to do that, and I think you'll see the surrogates coming out of the woodwork just ready to redefine McCain. Buried in some of these stories in the last few days, one of the Obama advisers, of course on background, saying, just wait, by the time November comes around, people are going to have a different picture of John McCain.
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Or...
Senator Obama goes to HAWAII for vacation? Where is that? We've checked our map and we can't find that anywhere in the Continental United States. What does it say about Senator Obama that he can't go somewhere that even sounds American?
"I've never heard foolishness from you until now."
Apparently you haven't been listening. This isn't the first instance of Cokie nonsense. A search of Media Matters will demonstrate Cokie's steady descent into partisan absurdity.
There was a comment I read recently that said that only in America could the media convince the voting public that George Bush was a regular guy while ignoring the fact that he was about as far away from being an every-day guy as he could be!
The media is determined to believe and pass along the rightwing talking point that Obama is some kind of elite guy. He is unusual. He rose to excellence despite some heavy odds - his skin color, his mom's marriage and divorce history, his dad's questionable behavior - all those things could have put Obama in a hole that he couldn't have dug himself out of.
But he did. He's smart and charismatic and has done very well for someone who's not yet 50 years old. Compare that to our last President and the current Republican running. They both have little to recommend them before they entered public life and they both had the best of circumstances to come from while growing up.
I don't think that the voting public would think that it was inappropriate for Obama to go to Hawaii to visit his grandmother and go on a vacation unless the press led the public to believe that it was an exotic place that somehow reflected badly on the choices he makes.
Thanks, Cokie, for furthering that conservative misinformation. (Sarcasm off)
A fair-minded reporter would say "Obama's gone to Hawaii. His grandmother still lives there, and while seeing her, he and his family are taking a vacation in one of our favorite tourist destinations here in the US to visit. He's lucky that he's got a relative in Hawaii so he has a built-in excuse to vacation there."
You have GOT to be kidding me. It's like they read Foser's Friday article in preparation for This Week.
To paraphrase George Will: "Obama seems like an aristocrat." Which, to a republican, is much worse than actually being one. It's OK to be the son of an admiral and wear your $520 loafers to one of your six homes, just don't go to Hawaii. It'll make you look like a jet-setter.
These people are incredible.
The media, in it's quest to bring about the demise of news as we know it in favor of "infotainment," must create characters out of the candidates. So we have McCain "the maverick" and Obama "the aristocrat." Only in the warped media of today can the black guy be the elitist and the old white guy who's been in congress for 26 years be the supposed "straight-talker." Cokie Roberts should be ashamed of herself. Can it be that Hawaii, even though clearly a member of the United States of America, can actually be a foreign country? Perhaps a Nightline investigation is in order. Perhaps Obama will be asked during the presidential debates if he is indeed a citizen of the country of Hawaii, and if so, has he declared war on Myrtle Beach? This is what happens when talking heads have too much time to talk...
I am a native Hawaiian citizen of the State of Hawaii. The history of the Republican party in Hawaii is very telling in why we, as a state, do not usually vote Republican. Read a book about politics in Hawaii before you make such ignorant statements. Barrack Obama, no matter where he is or what he's doing, is a son of Hawaii. We are proud of him as he is proud of us. We may be over 3,000 miles away from the continent, but the soul of Hawaii never leaves a person born of Hawaii and that is pono (righteous).
Myrtle Beach sounds exotic to me. Maybe Cokie is being a tad bit subjective?
Or elitist?
Hawaii=== Drugs, getting laid and no Christians to chastise anyone...I'm taking the next train to Hawaii.
Does anyone know if the McCains' have a home there?
I might be just showing everyone my lower class origins but isn't Myrtle Beach primarily a golf destination? Isn't that rather elitist?
Wouldn't one of the common people be vacationing on the Jersey Shore rather than going to the upper class SC beaches?
"Wouldn't one of the common people be vacationing on the Jersey Shore rather than going to the upper class SC beaches?"
This is just like when David Brooks was prattling on about how Obama would look "out of place" at an "Applebee's salad bar". The mainstream pundits try to sound like they know "regular people" but instead they just sound like the elites they are in the process.
LOL. And don't forget, his housecat still refuses to wear a flag pin.
What a well balanced group, analyzing Obama's vacation plans. One would NEVER think that there's any bias in there opinions, there just reporting facts. <sarcasm>
Wonder which of these "exotic" or "foreign" places will McCain visit on HIS vacation?
John & Cindy McCain Own At Least Ten Houses In Arizona, California, and Virginia Worth an Estimated $13,823,269. John and Cindy McCain own a plethora of houses spread throughout the United States, including: two beachfront condos in Coronado, California, condo in La Jolla, California, a two-unit condominium complex in Phoenix, Arizona, three ranch houses located outside of Sedona, Arizona, a high-rise condo in Arlington, Virginia, a rental loft, and, according to GQ, a loft they bought for their daughter, Meghan. The value of their houses is an estimated $13,823,269. [San Diego County Property Records; Maricopa County Property Records; Yavapai County Property Records; Arlington County Property Records; GQ, 3/18/08]
Kookie Roberts thinks Myrtle Beach would be a better place, 'cause it's in the east coast and in her own comfort zone. She has lost a few screws somewhere along the way from her NPR days.
Yes, but Pearline, all them homes are in the USA of Amerika, instead of that foreign exotic place called Hawaii, doncha know.
LOL
Mary, there's not enough wine to drown my rage at their sheer stupidity so I'm reduced to simply laughing. I cannot believe THIS is what passes for intelligent political discussion and analysis.
Since McCain has a California home, I suggest he hang with his peeps at Venice Beach. That's a true American vacation.
Obama was born in Hawaii, his Grandmother still lives there, he & his family are taking a much deserved vacation there...hey I'd go to Hawaii rather than Chicago too.
That anyone would even raise this as an issue/problem is just damn weird. I truly doubt voters out there even gave Obama's vacation plans a second thought.
Now keep drinking that wine Pearlene I've got more for you:
Clinton told to portray Obama as foreign
By MIKE ALLEN | 8/10/08 12:47 AM ESTMark Penn, the top campaign strategist for Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign, advised her to portray Barack Obama as having a “limited” connection “to basic American values and culture,” according to a forthcoming article in The Atlantic.
The magazine reports Penn suggested getting much rougher with Obama in a memo on March 30, after her crucial wins in Texas and Ohio: “Does anyone believe that it is possible to win the nomination without, over these next two months, raising all these issues on him? ... Won’t a single tape of [the Reverend Jeremiah] Wright going off on America with Obama sitting there be a game ender?”
Atlantic Senior Editor Joshua Green writes that major decisions during her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination would be put off for weeks until suddenly Clinton “would erupt, driving her staff to panic and misfire.”
Green reports that on a staff conference call in January where Clinton received “little response” or “silence” to several of her suggestions for how to recover from the Iowa loss and do better in New Hampshire, “Clinton began to grow angry, according to a participant’s notes,” Green recounts. “‘This has been a very instructive call, talking to myself,’ she snapped, and hung up.”
The eight-page blockbuster, “The Front-Runner’s Fall,” draws on internal memos, e-mails and meeting notes to reveal what the magazine’s September issue calls “the backstabbing and conflicting strategies that produced an epic meltdown.”
Read the rest here:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0808/12420.html
Now keep drinking that wine Pearlene I've got more for you:
Jeter, I'm to old for a hangover. :-)
I've always thought that part of the reason Hillary lost was she ran a lousy campaign. Hillary and her campaign assumed that being a US Senator, wife of a former president with cash and name recognition would be enough. She looked toward the general election, assuming she had the primary won. I'm sure you know that old saying about "assume"
As far as “I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values.” and Every speech should contain the line you were born in the middle of America American to the middle class in the middle of the last century. And talk about the basic bargain as about the deeply American values you grew up with, learned as a child and that drive you today. or Let’s explicitly own ‘American’ in our programs, the speeches and the values. He doesn’t. It appears that the McCain campaign is taking pointers from the Clinton campaign. I shouldn't be surprised, after all Bill Clinton says Hillary and John McCain are "really close".
When I initially decided to support Obama I had always believed that I would support Hillary if Obama wasn't the nominee. Unfortunately there became a point where supporting Hillary was not an option, the tone of her campaign had changed. And I, in turn, had totally changed my opinion about both Clintons.
I know the difference between an actual racist and playing the race card and Bill and Hillary are NOT racist. However I do believe they're weren't above using race to help her campaign. The went too far. In their desire to win they crossed the line and I lost all respect for them both.
And their current actions just serve to reinforced my feelings.
Mary, there's not enough wine to drown my rage at their sheer stupidity...
That's quitter talk, Pearlene!
I guess if Obama spent his vacation in a cornfield in Iowa, that would have been sufficiently "regular American " for Cokie.
And isn't "Florida" a Spanish word? Seems a little exotic and aristocratic to me. Didn't the Spanish elect a lefty to appease terrorists? So many questions.
As if anyone is worried about people who think "Hawaii? That seems vaguely foreign to me". Anyone who thinks like that isn't going to vote for Barack Hussein Obama anyway.
And if Obama visited Myrtle Beach, this same pack of idiots would be wondering why he wasn't displaying his sense of family loyalty by going to visit his grandmother in Hawaii.
Yeah I thought that too! His ranch was such a political ploy. I wouldn't be surprised if it was Karl Rove's idea from start to finish. He never raised any animals there so it wasn't really a ranch anyway. It was just a big plot of land in Texas.
Laura's insisting that they move to Dallas after the White House - she's done with the facade.
Just to words can describe my thoughts: "so What?!"
Who gives a damn about where obama is vacationing. but the funny part is how they would still want it both ways. he goes and visit his grandmother in hawaii, he's going to a "foreign and exotic"place, he goes to somewhere mainland, he doesn't care about his family and will be resting in a hilton or another elitist 5 star hotel. it's just retarded.
When did Cokie Roberts turn into a creepy old lady?
I used to like her on NPR, but I can't remember why now. Maybe she should stick to the facts and keep her opinions to herself.
Myrle Beach indeed! Talk about a lousy place for a vacation in August. Has Cokie Roberts ever been anywhere?
Has Cokie Roberts ever been anywhere?
Sure....Cokie Roberts has probably been everywhere. Her father was House Majority Leader, Hale Boggs (D-LA). Her mother, Lindy Boggs (D-LA), was a U.S. Representative and Ambassador to the Vatican. Her brother is high-powered Washington lobbyist Tommy Boggs. I'll bet Cokie has been everywhere...she just hasn't learned anything. For an educated, pedigreed woman with a good command of the English language she has struck me for a number of years as...well, an idiot. Totally lacking in insight...
Cokie, tell us some other things you know, you idiot.
And this from the same lady who got all wet and weak legged on Rumsfeld when the Iraq war was going so swell.
I realize every one has to make their living but do they also have to sell their souls?
Bush the "Texas oilman" visits his family home in Kennebunkport several times a year.
Which according to Wikipedia the modest manision holds:
"The estate is situated on the strip of land called Walker's Point which juts out into the Atlantic Ocean. The large central house, built in the New England shingle style, has nine bedrooms, four sitting rooms, an office, a den, a library, a dining room, a kitchen, and various patios and decks. Next to the main house are a four-car garage, a pool, tennis court, dock, boathouse, and guesthouse. There are spacious lawns on either side of the house, on which there is a small sportsfield."
Yes a far cry from the apartment living aristocracy that is the Obama family. What an a$$ Cokie has become and the media in general.
I know Cokie Roberts is talking through her mouth, and technically that's how humans speak, but it just seems like she's talking through her anus.
I've been to Hawaii, and I've been to Myrtle Beach. Cokie is dead-on. Myrtle Beach wins hands down. Obama and McCain should both go to Myrtle Beach, SC and relax before their conventions (but McCain definitely needs to apply the sunscreen). Hey, how can you go wrong at a place known as America's Beach Playground.?
www.VisitMyrtleBeach.com
OK I think I figured this out. Media "pundints" are jockeying for position as MMfA headliners!
This was for the scrapbook! Like the Olympics but different! News-as-entertainment ... Entertainment-as-news ... It's like getting the bronze on Olberman's Worst Person in the World. But different. Kind of.
I know Hawaii is a state, but it has the look of him going off to some sort of foreign, exotic place."
I won't even address that THIS kind of comment is exactly the reason why Americans have a pea size brain concerning anything outside of the continental U.S. and why native Hawaiians have a negative attitude toward visitors to their island.
Here's the thing...what's the difference between Hyannis Port, Kennebunkport, Dubya's or Dutch's ranch & this exotic place called Hawaii......NOTHING. They are all places to relax for a politician....so what is Cokie's point? Much ado about nothing
Since when does the Senator need Cokie's permission to go to Hawaii? And why are they sitting around discussing where they think he should've gone? Who the hell do they think they are?
Is Cokie an American name? What is that? Can she tell us where that name comes from? Cokie doesnt sound American. I think she should be called Pam. Or Sue. Maybe Mary. All those names sound much better, and I can picture red white and blue colors swirling around the letters. Did her mother mean Cookie? Maybe her mom actually meant Cookie, but in a fit of unpatriotic contractions decided to take remove an 'o' while she was in labor. Hmmmm. I'm gonna need some of you to sit around a table with me and discuss this.
KOOKIE Roberts has lost all semblance of credibility with that inane comment.
Probably she thinks that Russia is about to invade Atlanta, Georgia.
ROBERTS: And I just think that, you know, this is not the time to do that.
Let's see ... the conventions are in a few weeks, most people will have their attention focused on the Olympics for the next two weeks, the Senate is in recess, Bush will be cutting brust on the Crawford pig farm, Cheney will be hiding in an undisclosed location - sounds like the PERFECT time for a candidate to take a vacation.
Media experts are painful.
Is Hawaii a state that is too "exotically" diverse?
Well, that's it exactly. She's picked up the "Obama is different" meme. Hawai`i is a state and all that, but it's not "really" American.
What has happened to these people!?!?! Apologists keep saying that the extremely long election cycle this time around is responsible for the junk journalism we're experienceing, but this is getting stupid.
She says she knows that he was raised there, that his grandmother lives there still, but Hawaii is just too exotic for him to be there. That's like saying Crawford is way too desolate, inhospitable and ugly for the President of the United States to vacation there. Twenty times a year.
Come to think of it, Crawford is a perfect place for the Uniter In Chief. He wasn't even born or raised there. He has no real connection to the place, like everything else he's touched in 7 years.
Some other numnut journalism poser was wondering if the John Edwards fiasco is in any way possible, ANY WAY IMAGINABLE, going to cause Obama problems! C'mon!
Can't we find a connection, somehow, some way?
This has got to more of the dumber statements uttered by one of these talking heads(in the past day anyway)!!!
So now Barack can't visit his Grandmother? Cokie - hang it up and retire already......maybe you can retire to New Jersey - (not to exotic for you is it)?
When I heard that Obama was coming home to Hawaii for a vacation, I immediately thought of his kids and what a gift it was for them to be able to hang out with their dad for a week of swimming and seeing family. Before he was a candidate, he came home to Hawaii almost every year to see his grandmother and school friends. How great that Obama has chosen the RIGHT thing to do for himself and his family, rather than what 'looks good' (vacationing in Myrtle Beach???). Barack Obama is a relatively normal American. I went to High School with him. He is smart, sane, and has great family values. I wish him the best (and let him enjoy his vacation in peace, crazy media!)...
I have always admired & respected Cokie as a journalist & an accomplished fellow female. But tha "exotic" Hawaii comment was not only offensive but, (sorry) downright STUPID! It' refreshing to know Cokie , that you recognize Hawaii's statehood (over half a century) but it happens to be the candidate's HOME! Of his 1st 18 yrs of life 16 were spent in his hometown, including the 1st 6 of those. As you know those first several years are the formative and most important in one's development. I'm afraid, Cokie, that your southern roots (read bigoted) are showing, and you need to touch 'em up!! His grandma was fulltime parent for @ least 10 yrs & probably more during his 3-6 yr old period, while his Mom was pursuing her undergrad degree fulltime. My best friend was born in Hawaii as were her parents. They are neither of Hawaii nor Asian ancestry. You would look at them and see "Real, regular Americans". They, as well as several other Hawaiian friends are insulted and outraged. I think you owe the great State of Hawaii, and all of its' natives an apology. And probably one to Sen. Obama as well!