MOLDY CITY

Worse yet, after what President Clinton said during the South Carolina primary, comparing the Obama and Jesse Jackson campaigns, a disturbing but only border line remark, after what some in the black community have perceived as a racial undertone to the 3:00 a.m. ad, a disturbing but only borderline interpretation, and after the moments hesitation in her own answer on “60 Minutes” about Obama‘s religion, a disturbing but only borderline vagueness—
Keith Olbermann

Less than one second. That's how long it took Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to answer, "Of course not," to Steve Kroft's question on 60 Minutes about whether she thought Sen. Barack Obama was a Muslim.
Media Matters

More on this tomorrow, and then a return to local matters -- I promise. However, I've noticed that the boys at MSNBC have taken to peddling the tale that Bill Clinton introduced race into election in South Carolina. First off, I'd argue that it was a knee-jerk reaction, that may or may not have been correct, to label Bill Clinton's statement about Jesse Jackson "race-baiting." However, it's selective amnesia to pretend that race was introduced into the election at that point. Had Obama supporters not already demonstrated an unscrupulous eagerness to accuse the Clinton campaign of race-baiting, the reaction to Bill Clinton's South Carolina statements wouldn't have been so predictable.

Though I think the last link (from the New Republic) overstates the case, I've got a feeling that it gives a glimpse of what we'll see in a viral email if Obama gets the nomination:

Meanwhile, the press generally ignored a report, confirmed by all involved, that Representative Jesse Jackson Jr., had warned one of Clinton's unshakable black supporters, Representative Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, that he'd better line up behind Obama. Jackson, once again playing the role of the Obama campaign's "race man" enforcer, posed a leading question: "Do you want to go down in history as the one to prevent a black from winning the White House?" Black congressmen were threatened to fall or line or face primary challenges. "So you wake up without the carpet under your feet. You might find some young primary challenger placing you in a difficult position," Jackson said.

Actually, the TNR writer makes the matter sound far worse than the AP report cited, but I'd rather see it discussed now than in September.

Labels: Clinton, Keith Olbermann: Douchebag, Obama

Keith Olbermann began Wednesday's Countdown by criticizing Clinton:

Our fifth story on the COUNTDOWN: And after negative campaigning earned her that reprieve, itself a subset of the 12 weeks until the caucus in Puerto Rico, how many of that dozen will be dirty?

He continued with much more Clinton bashing, including more crying about how terribly negative the "phone call" commercial was (it was pretty tame), but ended by calling O'Reilly the "worst person in the world" for saying that MSNBC has been biased in favor of Obama.

I still, barely still, prefer Obama to Clinton, but Olbermann should just start dressing like Emmett Kelly or something.

Labels: Clinton, Keith Olermann: brain-washed cultist, Obama

With the exception of Dan Abrams, the conduct of every "analyst" at MSNBC has been appalling this primary season. When I'm in a contrary, "the media can't tell me who to vote for" mood, the conduct of MSNBC is almost enough to turn me into a Clinton supporter. Chris Matthews just informed us that it was Hillary Clinton who twisted the meaning of John Kerry's joke about getting stuck in Iraq into an insult of the troops, referring to it as a Nixonian tactic to force Kerry out of the race. Howard Fineman concurred, adding that her "Sixty Minutes" interview was "Machiavellian*." And I've lost all respect for Keith Olbermann, but I'll finish later.

Finished version:

Frankly, Keith Olbermann often makes me cringe when he talks about conservatives. When I hear somebody go out of his way to be judgmental, I don't think, "Wow, listen to him speak truth to power. He really has the courage of his convictions," even if I agree with most of he says. But in this election, he's played by the Clinton rules every bit as much as any of MSNBC colleagues. He's not the warped misogynist that Chris Matthews is, but he's equally unfair in his criticisms of "the Clintons" -- a pet phrase of both Olbermann and Matthews.

I won't bother searching MSNBC transcripts for examples, instead, I'll challenge anybody to explain the January 29th edition of Countdown. If anyone can justify Olbermann's criticism of Bill Clinton for mentioning Jesse Jackson instead of John Edwards, I'll plead guilty to being the judgmental one.

First off, it was just plain stupid for Bill Clinton to downplay the importance of South Carolina by saying that Jesse Jackson won it twice. It's understandable that one's initial reaction would be that Clinton was trying to equate Jackson and Obama. Even if you knew that Jesse Jackson and John Edwards were the only two Democrats to win the South Carolina primary without winning the nomination, you could argue that Clinton was engaging in race baiting rather than spin. However, only a fool or a knave, would suggest that Clinton should have downplayed the significance of South Carolina by reminding voters that even John Edwards carried South Carolina. At least, I've never heard anybody suggest that the best way to win elections is to alienate supporters of the third place finisher. But how did Olbermann begin the Jan. 29th Countdown?

If that wasn't marginalizing Senator Obama or there wasn't a racial undertone to it, why did Mr. Clinton invoke Jesse Jackson, instead of another, perhaps more obvious choice?

I was going to ask, rhetorically, if anybody really believes that the Cornell-educated Olbermann is a fool, but maybe he is. After making it clear, on Jan. 29th, that he thought it totally out-of-bounds for Bill Clinton to mention Jesse Jackson and Barack Obama in the same conservation, who does Olbermann bring on to discuss Obama on Feb. 25th? Jesse Jackson.

I no longer respect Keith Olbermann.

Also of note:

More than any other maneuver, this one has brought Clinton into disrepute with important portions of the Democratic Party. A review of what actually happened shows that the charges that the Clintons played the "race card" were not simply false; they were deliberately manufactured by the Obama camp and trumpeted by a credulous and/or compliant press corps in order to strip away her once formidable majority among black voters and to outrage affluent, college-educated white liberals as well as college students. The Clinton campaign, in fact, has not racialized the campaign, and never had any reason to do so. Rather the Obama campaign and its supporters, well-prepared to play the "race-baiter card" before the primaries began, launched it with a vengeance when Obama ran into dire straits after his losses in New Hampshire and Nevada--and thereby created a campaign myth that has turned into an incontrovertible truth among political pundits, reporters, and various Obama supporters. This development is the latest sad commentary on the malign power of the press, hyping its own favorites and tearing down those it dislikes, to create pseudo-scandals of the sort that hounded Al Gore during the 2000 campaign. It is also a commentary on how race can make American politics go haywire. Above all, it is a commentary on the cutthroat, fraudulent politics that lie at the foundation of Obama's supposedly uplifting campaign.

I agree with the sentence that I've put in bold, but question the italicized sentence. Though the quoted passage sounds similar to some thoughts that I've expressed recently, I don't believe that Obama manipulated the press corps -- the "Clinton rules" were in effect long before this election began. However, it is interesting that the TNR piece quoted above was published on the same day as this YRHT post. I think Oyster was a little too sanguine.

*My personal view, hardly mine alone, is that the transcript reads that way, but the tape doesn't play that way.

Labels: Clinton, Obama, Soulmates: Olbermann/Matthews

Read the following passage from TPM:

First of all, some have criticized Greg Sargent's reporting. But let me make this crystal clear. I personally signed off on the post and I wrote the front page headline myself.

Some have said that Clinton's letter to NBC wasn't written clearly or that she was saying that suspensions and apologies were not enough, that what was needed was a broader reevaluation on the network's part of its attitude to women and Hillary Clinton in particular.

Simply read the key passage ...

Nothing justifies the kind of debasing language that David Shuster used and no temporary suspension or half-hearted apology is sufficient.

I would urge you to look at the pattern of behavior on your network that seems to repeatedly lead to this sort of degrading language.

Some readers seem to believe that Clinton is saying that it's not about suspensions or apologies. It's about MSNBC's need to reevaluate its pattern of behavior.

But there's a fatal flaw with this strained interpretation. Look at the actual words. If that's the case, why does she qualify 'suspension' with the adjective 'temporary'? That tells the tale right there. The alternative to a temporary suspension is a permanent one, which is clear English we call 'firing'.

I give the Clinton campaign the respect of knowing that they're no slouches with the written word. And the words in this letter were clearly chosen with great care. The point of that passage was that merely suspending Shuster was insufficient -- that he needs to be fired. That's what they meant. And I have little doubt that Shuster and the MSNBC execs understood the meaning the moment they read it. I think it would be wrong to shy away from making that clear.

Greg Sargent's report can be found here.

All I can say to that is, WTF? Whet the F***ing F***? A single word -- "temporary" -- is fraught with dire implication, but the entire sentence that follows is meaningless? What does Marshall use to support his thesis? He falls back on the tired canard that "the Clintons" calculate every thing they say and do. It's funny how disciplined "the Clintons" are, except when they're not.

Marshall says "read the key passage," yet he ignores the clear meaning of the second half of the "key passage." I'd give Marshall credit for being fair enough to include the entire passage, but he didn't even seem to consider the meaning of the second sentence. Clinton was clearly calling for an end to a pattern of behavior that's been obvious for years. The Clinton campaign may have also been calling for Shuster's dismissal, but that clearly wasn't the primary objective. Of course, to believe that Clinton was calling for Shuster's dismissal, you'd have to believe that the incredibly disciplined (except when they're not) "Clintons" were totally unaware of the backlash that Shuster's dismissal would produce.

I'll offer my counter to Marshall's thesis. Marshall and Greg Sargent are brilliant and talented writers, but they're also partisan hacks. I give Marshall and Sargent of knowing that they're no slouches with the written word. They're also aware of the ability of the internet to influence the Sunday morning talk show debate. And I have little doubt that Marshall and Sargent understood that they were giving Clinton-haters in the MSM an opportunity to put her on the defensive. I think it would be wrong to shy away from making that clear.

Labels: Clinton, Greg Sargent, Hackery, Josh Marshall, MSNBC