Obama: "Debate Me, Not Her"
Barack Obama tells Glamour magazine's editor during a sit-down interview (?!) that he resents the conservative media's criticism of his wife, Michelle Obama:
GLAMOUR: An AP poll shows that while the positive ratings on Michelle are higher than those of Cindy McCain, her negative ratings are higher as well. I'm curious about how as a husband that makes you feel. Does it mystify you? And what do you want to say to those Americans who don't know the woman that you know?
SENATOR OBAMA: It's infuriating, but it's not surprising, because let's face it: What happened was that the conservative press—Fox News and the National Review and columnists of every ilk—went fairly deliberately at her in a pretty systematic way...and treated her as the candidate in a way that you just rarely see the Democrats try to do against Republicans. And I've said this before: I would never have my campaign engage in a concerted effort to make Cindy McCain an issue, and I would not expect the Democratic National Committee or people who were allied with me to do it. Because essentially, spouses are civilians. They didn't sign up for this. They're supporting their spouse. So it took a toll. If you start being subjected to rants by Sean Hannity and the like, day in day out, that'll drive up your negatives.
Everybody who knows Michelle knows how extraordinary she is. She's ironically the most quintessentially American woman I know. She grew up in a "Leave it to Beaver" family. She is the best mother I know. And our kids are a testimony to that, because she's really had to raise them, oftentimes without me being there. She's the most honest person I know, she's smart, she's funny, so yeah, it infuriates me. And I think that it is an example of the erosion of civility in our political culture that she's been subjected to these attacks, and my attitude is that the people who have attacked her in the ways that they have...if they've got a difference with me on policy, they should debate me. Not her.
GLAMOUR: You said before that your campaign would never take aim at Cindy McCain. Do you believe that the McCain campaign has had a hand in these attacks on Michelle?
SENATOR OBAMA: I wouldn't say the McCain campaign itself, but I would say that the apparatus of conservative columnists, blogs and the like. Talk shows, talk radio....When you see in the span of two or three or four weeks essentially the same talking points being used on a whole variety of shows or a whole variety of columns, over and over again....Hillary Clinton was subject to this, others have been subject to this in the past...It is part of our political environment that I'd like to change.
This is insane. Michelle, the "american hater, socialist" that she is, put herself up for repute when she opened her mouth at her first campaign speech. Obama is an idiot. Shame on you for lifting him up to be some kind of good man.
Chris Hahn
"""it is an example of the erosion of civility in our political culture that she's been subjected to these attacks"""
Bingo.
It will be so so so so nice to have an intellectual and not a FRIGGIN PEA BRAIN for President.
Hey Chris Hahn. Um... Eat it.
What civility? So Michlle knows how to do a "hand bump" on the View and this makes everything ok? She's being attached for her own hateful comments, not because she is married to obama.....Get the story straight.
Oh, wow! Ethan complaining about an erosion of civility in our political culture??!!
The same Ethan who calls people who disagree with him "cowards," and "liars" and "chickensh*t" (his term, not mine)? Not to mention anyone who disagrees with him is a Republican "shill"? The guy who can't figure out that his off-topic attacks on Cindy McCain ("ooooh, she says the only way to get around Arizona is by private plane, and she doesn't even flinch when she says that.") are the exact thing that Obama is complaining about when directed at Michelle?
Obama, if you think it bad now, just wait until your elected. Every hate mongering TV and Radio personality of the right will be after you and your family. Their filth spew will become legendary in its attach on the littlest incidents on the White House family from where your children go to school to the pets you have. Michelle Obama said she was ashamed of her country, she is right, from Americans with out medical insurance, a war that need not to be fought, torture of “civilian combatants”, doing nothing about global warming, Katrina, ignoring what was happening to home mortgage loans, Carl Rove’s deceit of the CIA leak, etc, etc, etc. I too am ashamed!
>>>The same Ethan who calls people who disagree with him "cowards," and "liars" and "chickensh*t" (his term, not mine)?
Except you ARE a chickensh*t coward and a shill, you have proven it again and again. And Cindy McCain DID say that and it IS terrible.
You have balls to blame me for calling you out on a truly deplorable comment, comparing a GREAT human being who died in a plane crash -- Paul Wellstone -- to an obnoxious spoiled rich woman who thinks snicker snicker that buying a plane is the "only way to get around."
The key is that Michelle Obama has been UNFAIRLY and INACCURATELY criticized by the Right Wing Ditto-chamber for things she did not do ("terrorist fist jab? "whitey"? militant black woman, etc etc etc). Cindy McCain showed unadulterated unspeakable classlessness on national television right in front of America and the world. She deserves what she gets for that.
As for you. John McCain, George Bush, etc, have RUINED this country. And you constantly defy all of the facts and common sense to tote the GOP luggage on issue after screw-up after disaster after issue. THAT is why you are a shill. And when someone on your side screws up, or to justify the horrendous DISASTER that you are your disgusting ilk have perpetrated on the United States and the Constitution, you blameblameblame the Democrats and "Liberals" and Barack Obama! And THAT is why you are a coward.
It's obvious that you wouldn't know political civility if it bit you in the face. Just like you wouldn't know a FACT from a hole in the wall.
Grow up and learn to deal with the real world or go "watch the internet" somewhere else.
thinking obama is an intellectual show's how smart you are. what has he ever accomplished? what is he going to accomplish? absolutely nothing. O'carter has no feasible plan for anything except to try and say what's popular to get elected. i pay for my own health care. i don't need the government. look at the reaction of the people involved in the iowa flood vs. the katrina flood. which group do you think was more dependent on the government? global warming is a scam cooked up by al gore. did carbon exhausts end the ice age? temperature change is cyclical. plus this guy has the nerve to fly around in a private jet and power his huge mansion. what a hypocrite. we're fighting terrorist in iraq which is a lot better than fighting them here.
Daniel, bud. You're trying too hard. You lost me at "thinking"
But here's another tip (you get 3 free, this is #2) don't attempt to argue against the intellectual capacity of a former president of the Harvard Law Review and Constitutional scholar when you don't know the proper use of an apostrophe.
The DNC chairman has been attacking Cindy McCain for months, as have liberal bloggers, and Snobama now is bitching about his wife getting the same treatment! If you want to change politics, Barry, start by cleaning up your own crew, ya hypocrite.
It's Hill-arious to watch these dumba-- n----rs trying to convince America they're not racists.
Osamaobama has used race througout the primaries and he'll try to use it against McCain, but this is the BIG-TIME babble-rack and US INDEPENDANTS aren't buying your lies and your pandering.
ethan, is an apostrohpe really the issue here? is that all you have. let me ask you this? WHAT IS OBAMA GOING TO DO TO INCREASE ENERGY AND DECREASE OUR OIL PRICES? i bet you have no answer for that. liberals are all about pipe dreams. i know that you think you have to act like some kind of intellect and belittle me because that's what liberals are all about. insults but no answers. you get no free bitch.
to bswalker - you are way out of line. until we can view each other as equal humans, we're getting nowhere. don't go down that road man. this isn't an election about race but issues and more importantly AMERICA. as soon as you start talking like that, you lose all credibility. kinda like ethan has lost with me.
come on ethan, tell us why you really want obama to win. i bet it's because you want gay marrage to be legal and you can finally marry you sweetheart.
hahah, i crack myself up.
suck it ethan.
Sigh, Ethan, I told myself I'd just let you be when you rant and swear at people. But . . . You said "You have balls to blame me for calling you out on a truly deplorable comment, comparing a GREAT human being who died in a plane crash -- Paul Wellstone -- to an obnoxious spoiled rich woman who thinks snicker snicker that buying a plane is the 'only way to get around.'"
In the earlier post (which was off-topic, as you admitted), you posted a link to Cindy McCain explaining why she learned to fly, and called this an elitist comment. I pointed out that non-elitists also use planes to "get around." I pointed to Paul Wellstone.
My guess is that you didn't actually know Paul Wellstone, Ethan. Senator Wellstone was, in fact, a great human being. Before being elected to the Senate, he was a professor at small, but high-powered Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, whose motto is "Cows, Colleges and Contentment." (It's also the home of Malt-o-Meal, which means something to people of a certain age.) He had muscular dystrophy, but didn't let it stop him. Even your hated Republicans, Ethan, thought he was a great guy. In 2002, he, his wife Sheila and his daughter took off in a snowy rain, but crashed less than two miles from the airport. His legacy, however, lives on, especially in a popular program which teaches activism to college students through the Wellstone Center.
Politicians use small planes because they need to go from place to place quickly. Small planes are more risky than commercial flights. Politicians know the risks. A few years ago, the U.S. House Majority Leader (a DEMOCRATIC Majority Leader, Ethan, you sad little man) told me as I arranged his flight, "I don't care what kind of plane it is, so long as it has two pilots and two engines." That didn't save Paul Wellstone, whose plane had two engines. But he was trying to get to a funeral, and then a campaign event in Duluth. And an airplane, a private airplane, was "the only way to get around" to both places in time.
It is a fact of modern political life. We use planes all the time. Is it elitist? Yes, perhaps, in the sense that not everyone can do it.
But what you fail to understand, Ethan, is the one reason politicians do it, especially federal politicians, is that the Federal Election Commission rules not only favor using private planes, but in effect encourage them. The rules, for example, have much more favorable treatment for private planes owned and used by family members. Such as, say, John McCain.
I have worked within these campaign finance rules since they went into effect in 1976, when I was working for the first Presidential campaign (a DEMOCRATIC campaign, Ethan, put there by the DEMOCRATIC National Committee) to be subject to them. As I have said many times, I think these rules, promoted and fostered by John McCain, are wrong and unconstitutional, I have opposed them several times in court (winning in most cases), and I dislike McCain a great deal for his efforts on this. I strongly support Obama's position on this.
In a way, modern technology has eased the transportation burden on candidates. We can now appear at an event without flying there, but it's an imperfect substitute. Candidates would much rather be there; witness Obama's expressions of regret by telephone when his jet recently popped an evacuation slide and had to stop short.
But back to your point: you said "Cindy McCain showed unadulterated unspeakable classlessness on national television right in front of America and the world. She deserves what she gets for that." I watched that highly-cropped clip. Don't really know the context, but it appeared to me she was explaining why she started piloting (that could be wrong, as I don't actually know whether she's a pilot or not). And maybe it is my extensive background with this issue that led me to think that she was speaking as a candidate's wife about campaigning.
I know nothing about Cindy McCain other than what I read about her. I am not on John McCain's good side, and he has cussed me out many times publicly and privately. So I haven't met her. But what I have read about her is that she is an intelligent, hard-working woman, who greatly expanded her family business. She will, it appears, make millions off the upcoming Belgian beer buyout. I do not think that she is a "Barbie Doll."
And I find your distorted criticism of her to be EXACTLY the same as your view of the criticism of Michelle Obama.
I worked in an era when political civility was pretty widespread, and I have worked in the modern era when the type of "civility" you portray, Ethan, is widespread. Your type of "civility" seems to be that you applaud those who agree with you and curse at those who do not. Obama seems to agree with me on this. And, thus, I find it is your kind of raw, unadulterated, unthinking hate to be the "unadulterated unspeakable classlessness" you deplore. You think you know the "facts," Ethan. As you grow older and wiser, you might find that there are other, important "facts" which you should consider before swearing at people.
Obama is not only a Socialist, who wants Americans to hand over their hard earned cash, in a grandiose scheme to redistribute America's wealth ... he spent 20 years listening to the anti-American, racist sermons of black liberation pastor Jeremiah Wright, which were based upon Marxist ideology ... along with his wife and two children ... and they still attend the same church, listening to the same anti-American trash!
Honestly Pining. Why don't you take a good long look at what you wrote and apply it to the worst government in the history of modern society and its policies brought on by the Right and applauded by you. Why don't you do that? Ok?
You won't b/c you are intellectually dishonest and a partisan propagandist. You support cowardly, anti-American policies, and you blame others (Dems, Obama) for it. That makes you a coward. I stand by all of my comments. Don't like it? Too bad. Either change your way of thinking or be prepared to answer for your public comments on a public blog. But, give me a break, don't blame me for pointing out your consistently inadequate, irresponsible, and intellectually dishonest rhetoric.
Again, that's the pattern here. It is a clear pattern. Just look at McCain's new ad. BLAME the Dems, BLAME Obama, BLAME people on the left. America is sick and tired of you Republicans CAUSING problems and then BLAMING Democrats. It's pathetic.
Republicans create problems, profit off it as much as possible, then blame, twist, and spin.
Democrats are problem solvers.
That's pretty much the bottom line. Everyone in the country knows it by now.
I'm just ready for the brainwashed people on the Right to quit whining about everything -- and blaming anyone except themselves for all they've done that's wrong -- so the rest of us can move on and FIX all of your disasters. It's just getting sad.
This comment is for Chris Hahn, does your friends know that you are a racists, I bet you didn't even know that you were one.
Ms Gina, you heard a 10 min sound bite that was part of a sermon 7 yrs ago, dug up by those pigs at Fox news, and you say that this was what was preached every sunday for 20 yrs. I hope you're not someones parent because if this is how narrow minded you are, I pity for children. People like you are part of whats wrong in this country.
Ms Gina, you heard a 10 min sound bite that was part of a sermon 7 yrs ago, dug up by those pigs at Fox news, and you say that this was what was preached every Sunday for 20 yrs. Were you a member of that church, do you know anyone that was a member of that church, do you even go to church. Narrow minded people like you that are not interested in finding out the truth is why there is so much racism and bigotry in this country. By the way you wouldn't happen to be prejudice would you.