I was greatly distressed to watch CNN’s coverage of the Pennsylvania Democratic primary election returns. I tuned in when the polls closed, and listened until nearly 11 p.m. when I got disgusted and turned the TV off.
Not a single commentator mentioned the most glaringly obvious outcome, that Barack Obama, a virtual unknown a year ago, had used his time in Pennsylvania to gain from ten to fifteen percentage points on well-known local girl and party-insider Hillary Clinton, an eight-year first lady to a popular president—and thus added to his chances of winning the presidency. As in every other state Obama has campaigned in, people who get to know him, like him, vote for him, and go on to campaign for him. Not a soul on CNN’s political panel mentioned how, truly, in the general election in November, only the math will count.
No one brought up the important point that Hillary has played every card the Republicans will use against Obama later—except the overt hate-and-fear-of-black-people racist card—while principled Obama hasn’t even begun to untie the huge and readily-available bag of old Clinton family footage, quotes, votes, indiscretions, innuendo, mistakes, and general nastiness (think Kenneth Starr’s report, for starters) which anonymously-funded demagogues have no doubt already begun pawing through and honing, with anticipatory glee, to disgusting effect. Bill Clinton survived his campaigns because he was wildly appealing and charismatic. Hillary is neither, and her negative campaigning against her widely-liked and respected opponent only makes her seem smaller, meaner, scareder. Why didn’t CNN’s commentators point out how Barack has survived Hillary’s worst, while she hasn’t even begun to reckon with the evil that will come at her when the Republicans strike up their band?
Several other astonishingly clueless comments were voiced by the CNN bobbleheads-of-the-night. One callous voice commented in passing that, if super-delegates coldly overrule the will of the American people in November, “Sure, the Black people will be disappointed, but…”
“The Black people?” “Disappointed?” If representative government itself, the most sacred and fundamental premise of democracy, the promise of one-person-one-vote, is arbitrarily overturned…?
And only black people? What about Barack’s white multitudes? His youthful supporters? His devoted older ones? Rich and poor, women and men, party regulars and otherwise, Obama’s passionate followers are rapidly increasing in number, putting aside their long-held political cynicism and warming themselves at his bonfire of hope, a hope grounded in cherished American ideals and in trust in his character, vision and leadership.
CNN’s team did somehow manage to mention Hillary’s promise to “obliterate Iran” if Iran attacks Israel with a nuclear weapon. That’s just great; now two of three presidential candidates have casually threatened instant global thermonuclear war (see McCain’s earlier “bomb bomb bomb Iran”) in the Middle East. Not a single mouse-like CNN voice squeaked a word of protest. No one pointed out that Iran (unlike Israel) has no nuclear weapons, or that such an action would automatically condemn millions of innocent men, women and children to instant death, or how Hillary’s knee-jerk reactions automatically elevated Israel’s interests over America’s.
Hillary later would expound on her plan to return to the long-discredited cold war era. But why not bomb Iran all the way back to the stone age right now, as Rush Limbaugh has already argued? Obama’s thoughtful comment was, “One of the things that we've seen over the last several years is a bunch of talk using words like 'obliterate…. It doesn't actually produce good results. And so I'm not interested in saber rattling.”
Hillary’s appalling threats demonstrate only that she shares George Bush’s cowboy approaches to diplomacy, and we've seen where that will take us. Such foolishness has become increasingly evident in her other equally-rash and polarizing comments, such as her offhand public description of President Putin, Russia’s popular leader, as, “a KGB agent—by definition he doesn’t have a soul,” which offended Russians everywhere while certainly dashing any hopes Hillary might have harbored of successfully negotiating with Putin during any future presidency.
Hillary also thoughtlessly insulted China recently by advising President Bush to break his promise to China’s premiere to not boycott the Beijing Olympics. In these few careless words, Hillary Clinton managed to alienate one-fifth of the world’s people along with all their leaders, by cruelly dismissing the single project dearest to their hearts. She also displayed an astonishing lack of integrity, shocking in a Senator and inconceivable in a presidential candidate. This is the person we want representing us and running our country?
Marilyn Ferguson (The Aquarian Conspiracy) convinced me years ago that when a nation's cultural and intellectual leaders take hold of an idea (as American leaders have embraced Obama's hopeful message) then soon enough, the rest of the people will follow. Barack may be in a tough race against time, but it is clearly on his side.
Today's Democratic race can be characterized as a long-overdue contest between Obama’s mission to change the destructive game of American politics—a goal we can all only benefit from—and Hillary’s unprincipled insistence upon playing that old same old cynical game oh-so-cleverly. Hillary is in it to win it, and if she does—which is the most she can hope for at such an unprincipled price—then for the American people, her winning may well mean losing—our ideals, our hopes, our freedoms and maybe even our way of life. CNN could have at least hinted at these baneful implications of her supercilious campaign.
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