Ta-Nehisi Coates

I have to say I love hearing this:

"If we cannot have an honest dialogue about how do we achieve these goals, then we're not going to make progress," he said.

He also criticized the notion that anyone who asks tough questions about advancing the peace process or tries to secure Israel by anyway other than "just crushing the opposition" is being "soft or anti-Israel."

Obama made the comments in a closed-door meeting with several members of Cleveland's Jewish community, who will be participating in the crucial Ohio primary to be held next Tuesday.

The thing about Obama, is that he is just young enough, just untainted enough to speak obvious truths. That he does this in the face of that turban nonsense as well as an endorsement from Farrakahan (are all the high priests of 80s ID politics rising from the dead or what?) impresses me even more. Anyway more on the possible gulf between Obama and Jewish voters here. I gotta say, an notions of "black anti-semitism" always strike me as laughable--as if Farrakhan and Crown Heights somehow rep for all of black America. It's not that I don't think it happens, it's just that, while I've heard my share of venom directed toward whites in general, and venom toward Asians (sad as that is), black anti-semitism just hasn't been as prevalent. And now I defer to James Baldwin. Oh who am I kidding. Come and talk to 'em Chris:

Interesting piece from Mike Allen and John Harris over at Politico, detailing the last stages of the Clinton campaign. Complaining about the media to the media is the surest sign of a looser:

Communications chief Howard Wolfson — echoing a strong belief of the Clintons themselves — blamed the news media Monday for allegedly tossing bouquets to Obama whenever he criticizes Clinton but writing that she is throwing low blows whenever she draws contrasts with him.

Hmm, I guess. But dude, do your job. You were hired to handle the press, if Clinton is catching more negative coverage than Obama, than, by definition, it's your fault. It's not that I think Wolfson is wrong--I think Hillary does get harder than Obama. But for much of the campaign she's been the front-runner. The front-runner ALWAYS gets hit harder, as I suspect Obama is about to find out. Plus the Clinton attempts at spin were always lazy--I mean really, the only state's that matter are the ones you win? What a joke.

Furthermore, it isn't that the media is bias as much as they're lazy. They're looking for cheap narratives. Obama has, at almost every turn, altered whatever narrative box the pundits put him in. Before SC, they said he couldn't black voters. He did it. Then they said he couldn't get white votes. Check, he did it.
They said he couldn't get working class votes. He did that too. Now it's down to blue-collar white women who are over 60. The message is simple. WInning makes everything go away. These fools need to go out, stop crying and win something. Winning spins itself.

She's just shameless. I didn't link this before because it was on Drudge and hadnt been confirmed. But as TPM makes clear the "Obama is a Muslim" campaign is chugging along.

Reverse that I guess, since I've never had the pleasure of working with those guys. TNR takes a lot of heat, and perhaps deservedly so, for its Mideast politics. But every once in a while you see something like this, something you know simply would not be published virtually anywhere else that matters. Here's TNR's frank assessment of Bush's over-lauded Africa policy:

Consumed by the war on terror, Bush has taken a far different approach. Rather than supporting democratic institutions and criticizing a new generation of African authoritarians, the Bush administration has backed whatever African leader claims to be battling militant Islam. For example, the White House has developed a close relationship with Ethiopia's thuggish leader Meles Zenawi, supposedly an ally in the war on terror and a partner in battling militancy in neighboring Somalia. The administration has provided military aid to Ethiopia with virtually no conditions on the assistance. It has also offered advisers to support Ethiopia's invasion of neighboring Somalia, an invasion which only led to more chaos in that benighted nation. Meanwhile, in recent years Zenawi's government has overseen a massive crackdown on opposition activists and a brutal offensive in the country's Ogaden region; in 2005, after disputed elections, the Ethiopian government arrested over 30,000 of its own people.

Imagine a comedian coming out on stage and heckling the entire audience. I don't mean in the tradition of black comics who snap on particular people in the audience, but a comic who literally insults the ENTIRE audience. This is what Hillary did with her sarcasm bit in Rhode Island. Barack Obama frequently uses humor to defend himself against negative attacks, but he never uses his humor to make fun of Hillary or the people who vote for her. Know why? Because he wants her votes. It'd be suicide for him to mock the very people he's trying to bring to his side. The one time he did mock her ("You're likeable enough Hillary") it didn't turn out well.

There's another problem. Hillary isn't funny. It really is that simple. She can't hold a riff the way Obama can, and furthermore even when she attempts to do it, she shoots at the wrong target. Compare the following if you will:

Man maybe I should speak for myself, but screw the speechfiying, the thing about Obama is that he just isn't afraid. Peep how he responds to Tapper's question on Republican questions on patriotism:

As far as the American flag pin, I mean when we start getting into those definitions of patriotism that’s a debate I’m happy to have, because I will come right after them. This is a party that presided over a war in which our troops did not get the body armor that they needed, or sending troops over who were untrained because of poor planning, or are not fulfilling the veterans benefits that these troops need when they come home, or undermining our constitution with warrantless wiretaps that are unnecessary

I WILL COME RIGHT AFTER THEM. Not I'm going to triangulate them, not I'm going to capitulate, not I'm going to try look tough in the general. I love that. The whackest thing about the Clintons was how they just would fold before the conservatives in an attempt to look tough. Everytime I see Hillary I think of that old great Churchill quote--"You accepted shame to avoid war, now you have both." Since these jokers came on the scene, their whole campaign has wreaked of political cowardice. I can't wait for the dagger.

Oh come now Andrew, tell us how you really feel:

How did they come this close to losing this? They had all the money, all the contacts, all the machine levers, the entire establishment, the biggest Democratic name in decades, and they've been forced into a humiliating death-match by a first-term black liberal with a funny name. It seems obvious to me that the Clintons blew this because they never for a second imagined they could. So they never planned to fight it. Once put in a fair contest, they turned out to be terrible campaigners, terrible politicians, bad managers, useless executives, wooden public speakers. If you're a Democrat, that's good to know, isn't it? All that bullshit about Day One and experience? In retrospect: laughable.

It's a great post. And basically true. I'd like to add one thing--this is a monumental failure of the press. It was media that bought into Hillary as the Inevitable One. Much of what went wrong in her campaign--her reliance on big doners especially--was observable. They got none of it.

Nice analysis in the Chicago Tribune of whether Obama's speeches and this hogwash claim that Obama speeches don't contain any specifics:

For a speaker who is best known for his lofty and airy rhetoric, it's an ironic reality that Obama's public appearances very often turn into drawn-out dissertations.

In fact, read side-by-side with the other candidates' current stump speeches, the Obama script makes at least as many references to policy proposals as do theirs.

So, I just heard that, basically, these mailers that hillary got so pissed about have been out for weeks. She basically staged this angry--Shame on you--moment. I stand by what I said about Obama. But in this case, it looks like Hill was the more deceptive.

What a yawner. Why this was ever put under lock and key, I have no idea. Anyway Politico got it--from the Obama campaign, it's worth noting. Among the many racist bombshells to be found amongst 22-year old MIchelle Obama's anti-white, anti-American, anti-Apple Pie diatribe:

"My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'blackness' than ever before," the future Mrs. Obama wrote in her thesis introduction. "I have found that at Princeton, no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my white professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don't belong. Regardless of the circumstances underwhich I interact with whites at Princeton, it often seems as if, to them, I will always be black first and a student second."

I'm sure the GOP will find some way to twist this. I guess. Though I have no idea how. This sound like every black kid I ever knew who went to an Ivy. Shoulda picked The Mecca, hun.

One of harder things to accept about democracy, and it's the reason why up until 2006 I had never voted, is lying. Politicians will lie, and there is basically nothing you can do about it. They will lie willfully about huge matters. It's important to note, while a lot of us get self-righteous about the lies of Bush, the same man that brought us the voting rights act, also brought us the Gulf of Tonkin.

I raise this because of Hillary's recent tirade against Barack Obama for a deceptive mailer which Obama sent out regarding Clinton's health care policy. Essentially, Obama's mailer raises the specter of working people being forced to pay for health care they can't afford. Clinton's plan does have some mandates, but Obama takes that grain of truth and turns it into a loaf of bread. Clinton's plan may indeed, in some cases force people to pony up, but in others it offers a batch of government subsidies to close the gap. I'm not taking Clinton's side, her "Shame on you Barack Obama" line is laughable. This from the camp that tried to turn Obama into Jesse Jackson, and from the family that brought us Sista Souljah.

My point is that they both would lie to you if they thought it would help them politically. This is not cynical, it's just true. I guess that's my problem with that mindless "Yes We Can" Will.I.Am. video. I don't buy most of the scribblings about Obama as cult-figure--except in the case of that video. It's good to be optimistic. It's good to be idealistic, even. But please stay clear on this one point: Barack Obama, as exciting as he is, as intelligent as he is, is a politician. Don't ever forget that.

Think he'll get booed? Like I said hopefully video soon.

...I think people who are dissing this as a Tavis ego trip, or a talk-a-thon are wrong. Now, as you guys have likely read, I thought Tavis was wrong to air Barack out for not coming. But that said, it's good to hear folks from all walks of life speaking on black folks and where they think we should go. I just listened to Donna Brazile give a really impassioned speech, it almost sounded like she was about to run. We should be careful about dissing talking, obviously talk without action is bad news. But you still have to communicate before you can act. Hopefully I'll have some video for you guys soon...

Nice write-up from AP. I think one of the most amazing things about Obama is his ability to draw from demographic groups that either seem to be, or actually are, in opposition. Consider this:

In the 22 contested Democratic primaries so far, independents made up 22 percent of the vote and they supported Obama by an overwhelming margin of 64 percent to 33 percent. Crossover Republicans, a far smaller percentage in the Democratic primaries, backed him 55-33.

Yet Obama has had the left flank covered, too: a 52-44 advantage over the New York senator among those who consider themselves very liberal.

That is what you call cornering the market. Essentially Obama is competitive or dominant in every single political demographic that's voting in the Democratic primaries. Obama's best quality is that he plays on his opponents side of the field. He is the fulfillment of Howard Dean, in that Dean had the left locked--though he really wasn't a leftie--and really wanted to grab the indies and some Republicans. This is what he meant by his over-critiqued confederate flags and pickup trucks line. This makes you reconsider the whole Blacks v Hispanics idea that some Dems and pundits have pushed. I doubt that Hispanics don't like Obama because he's black. More likely, Hispanics follow the pattern of other voters, in that, the more they see, the more they like. They are supporting Hillary, at the moment, because they know her best. Quiet as its kept, we saw the exact phenomenon with black folks only a year ago.

Continuing with the theme, straight from Hillary:

I’d love to carry Texas, but it’s usually not in the electoral calculation for the Democratic nominee.

Last night the word was that Hillary's moment of graciousness at the end indicated a chance that she might be winding her campaign down. Right. Anyway in the Texas Monthly--which I really need to subscribe to--Hillary shows that there is exactly zero chance that she's backing down. Instead, she claims she'll be pushing to have the Michigan and Florida delegates seated. The Essence:

There’s been a lot of talk about what your campaign would do should it get to the convention. Would you commit today to honoring the agreement made earlier not to seat the Michigan and Florida delegations?

Let’s talk about the agreement. The only agreement I entered into was not to campaign in Michigan and Florida. It had nothing to do with not seating the delegates. I think that’s an important distinction. I did not campaign--

The press seems to have missed the distinction if that’s the case. The talk is that you agreed not to seat the delegation.

That’s not the case at all. I signed an agreement not to campaign in Michigan and Florida. Now, the DNC made the determination that they would not seat the delegates, but I was not party to that. I think it’s important for the DNC to ask itself, Is this really in the best interest of our eventual nominee? We do not want to be disenfranchising Michigan and Florida. We have to try to carry both of those states. I’d love to carry Texas, but it’s usually not in the electoral calculation for the Democratic nominee. Florida and Michigan are. Therefore, the people of those two states disregarded adamantly the DNC’s decision that they would not seat the delegates. They came out and voted. If they had been influenced by the DNC, despite the fact that there was very little campaigning, if any, they would have stayed home. But they wanted their voices heard. More than 2 million people came out. I mean, it was record turnout for a primary. Florida, in particular, is sensitive to being disenfranchised because of what happened to them in the last elections. I have said that I would ask my delegates to vote to seat.

I just don't know what she thinks she has to gain here. Does she really believe the DNC can be strong-armed here? She must know that a straight-seating of the delegates would rip the Dems in half. Further, according to the math, Hillary still can't win, even with those delegates seated. There are those amongst us who believe that we need more of the other sides "Win at all costs" mentality. I think what we're seeing is where that mentality ultimately leads. This is disgusting, and it won't work.

I'm listening to Kathleen Bogle on WNYC this morning discussing her new book Hooking Up. I'll post audio later. To her credit, she's not as foolish as Tom Wolfe or some of the other idiots who've taken this issue on. But I have to say, this has the whiff of BS all over it. One thing that immediately catches my eye--no one seems to be able to quantify this alleged phenomenon. Maybe we're dealing in the limits of sociology here, but when I hear young men and women are more promiscuous today than in the past, alarm bells start to ring. Of course the first question is, are people just more likely to self-report now than they were in the past? Not that it matters, since I haven't seen much evidence to prove the first claim.

Another problem--maybe I'm just missing this. Allegedly, hook up culture (I can't believe I'm even using that term, it just wreaks of adult condescension) originated in the 80s. By the time I got to college in the 90s, it seemed like people would find their way into sex in all sorts of ways. Some would date. Some would study together. Some would spark an El. Others would just be drunk at the club. Usually there some combo of them all. But it's hard for me to sum all of that up into something resembling a culture. Call me daft, but I'd need to see hard evidence that what I saw in 19795 at Howard University, was not the case in 1975. But then I guess I wouldn't know--Bogle limited mostly all of her study to white people.

I think John Dickerson basically nails it over at Slate. Obama basically proved he could dance last night and held his own with Clinton over policy. I think the following point is particularly intersting:

In the end, the attack on Obama as a substance-free orator may backfire. It lowers the bar for him, so that when he offers detailed plans and speaks of his accomplishments, he sounds commanding. The attack also gives him an opening to take umbrage on behalf of his supporters, one of the easiest and effective political postures to take. Obama flamboyantly exploited this opportunity. Noting that Clinton lately had been urging voters to turn from him by saying, "Let's get real," Obama said, "The implication is that the people who've been voting for me or are involved in my campaign are somehow delusional."

I remember this happening to Al Gore in his run at Bush. Basically everyone said Gore was this incredible debater, thus all Bush had to do was look not-stupid and he wins. Obama is superior to Bush, but Dickerson is right. Her own campaign basically lowered the bar for Barack and he exploited the opening.

This is what I suspect. He's in an interesting position. Basically, it's the ninth round and he's up on points. But she's a ferocious brawler--think Ricardo Mayorga in his prime--who really could take him out. Thing is he doesn't know how she'll come out, and Obama, I believe, is basically an inferior debater. He doesn't speak in soundbites. He rarely throws the killer right hook. I don't think he can just dance away from her. He's gonna have to fight. He can't just defensive. Tonight we learn if the boy can throw down.

So I'm sitting here writing with Bjork's live Vespertine album playing in the background. My seven year old son son, whose drawing super-heroes with colored pencils, looks up and asks "What's this song about?" That would be Pagan Poetry, one of my all-time favs. At any rate, I'm on some new, highly-educated isht, so we went to the dictionary and looked up "pagan." After pushing through words like polytheistic, and irreligious, I think he got it. So I played the song again and told him to tell me what it means at the end. I figured it'd be fun, because, hell, I don't even fully know what the song's about. Anyway at the end, I asked him and he says, "It's about someone whose irreligious." Heh, can't win em all, I guess. Or maybe I did. At any rate, in honor of the boy, here's Bjork live from Harlem/Morningside Heights.

Oh screw it let's make it a two-fer. Here's All Is Full Of Love