Friday, February 22, 2008

On the Debate - Spin, Spin, Spin...

So, the debate was interesting last night. As always, Clinton seemed poised, in command, and articulated her positions well - when Campbell Brown actually let her finish her point. She interrupted her every time Clinton was getting to the end and the audience started applauding. Meanwhile, Obama was allowed to wind his way all over creation, beginning with copying EVERYTHING Clinton had just said. I was at a very cool site, talkleft.com, and one person said the reason he was always writing on his legal pad was to diagram his sentences. Someone else added that funny, that's what THEY were having to do to figure out what the HECK he was talking abt as he rambled! Naturally, te ONLY point in the headlines this morning is about the "Xerox" moment. EVERY time Clinton stands up for herself, EVERYONE freaks out about it. I swannee - if Obama had said anything comparable to her, everyone woul dhave laughed, and said how funny he is. But if Clinton calls him on something - plagarizing, representing a slumlord, she gets booed. Wow. That is SO telling. And what it says is that she has an impossible double standard to overcome. Men can; women can't - it's as simple as that. And it is WRONG.

OK, so then the spin began by the talking heads - since Obama didn't have any major gaffes, he won!! Someone said it reminded them of the media determining that Bush and Gore "tied" after their first debate because Bush didn't obviously shoot himself in the foot. In other words, the expectations for Obama were lower, and Clinton was challenged with hitting it out of the park. Well, if she had been allowed to address the attacks he made on her judgment and her ability to lead, that probably would have happened sooner. But, she did have total control and mastery of the entire debate. She was not struggling for responses, she did not copy everything Obama said, she was not scribbling all over her notepad, she took his attacks with good grace, and ended the debate in a stellar fashion. (Of course, the media are now calling this moment her "valedictory" moment - saying it is the end of her campaign, something they have tried to manufacture for some time now. I say enough already with trying to railroad her campaign!) Her last response did indeed knock it out of the park. She was asked to "describe the moment in your life when you were tested the most." She handled the question BEAUTIFULLY, I thought. But, don't take my word for it. Take a look for yourself: http://www.hillaryclinton.com/video/134.aspx

The Obama camp has had its supporters emailing delegates to get their support. The Clinton Campaign has added a link to do likewise. It couldn't hurt, and can only help. Here is the link: http://delegatehub.com/contact/

We cannot allow the media to continue its assault on Clinton and her campaign. Call for her, donate to her (every little bit helps), write the media. Their tactics are EXACTLY what got us George Bush, and I, for one, cannot take any more of a president like that. Just sayin'.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I saw the clip of Hillary answering that question -- it was beautiful! It's all I saw of the debate, and what I noticed was that Barack looked... well, I had to pull out a vocabulary word from jr. high... supercilious. To be honest, I've been much more pro-Hillary than anti-Obama, but something about the way he was carrying himself felt rather ominous to me.

I was talking with some people at work about the election (all Obama voters)... one of them explained his preference by saying "she just doesn't inspire me." I kept it simple, just said -- I don't need to be inspired, I just need someone to run the damn country. Jeez. It's not like you're going to have to hang out with this person. It's a *job*, people, not a cocktail party.

Honestly, if anyone could tell me why he'd be better at the job, I'd listen. But every time I ask people why they support him, I get things like, he inspires people, or it's time for someone who's not a Bush or Clinton, or I don't like Hillary's voice, or Republicans will vote for Obama (is this a *good* sign?).

Still waiting for someone to say something about what kind of president Obama would be and why that's good for us. I'm starting to think maybe that's not going to happen.

Rabble Rouser Reverend Amy said...

Thanks for the great post, M!

Did you see the clip this week of one of Obama's endorsers, a state rep from Texas? The one who couldn't name ONE legislative achievement of Obama's?? And that guy is one of the superdelegates the Obama camp is so freaked out about these days.

Obama copied almost everything Clinton said. He was arrogant, and patronizing. He brought up the whole unite/divide thing, which is a BIG code for all of the attacks on Clinton by the right.

I did see some really funny comments at talkleft.com about Obama's endless wandering around (he was allowed to talk willy nilly, while Campbell Brown cut Clinton off every time she was making her point and the audience started to cheer). People were saying that he kept writing on his pad of paper to diagram his sentences. Someone else said THEY ad to diagram his sentences to figure out what the HECK he was saying!

Anyway - her response to the last question moved me to tears. Wow.