OBAMA IS RIGHT: WORDS MATTER WHEN YOU WANT YOUR OPPONENT TO LEAVE THE RACE
AOL News reports this:
Despite calls for his rival to drop out of their tight race for the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama said Saturday, “My attitude is that Senator Clinton can run as long as she wants.”
Note the tepid and dismissive “Senator Clinton can run as long as she wants.” In one carefully chosen short phrase, Barack Obama uses a verb form that bestows his permission, as if she needs it, while at the same time subtly belittling her because she is staying in the race. Both of these rhetorical techniques aim to diminish one’s opponent while seeming to be gallant and awarding oneself the cloak of the putative front runner who can afford to be generous.
But is he the front runner?
Within the same AOL news article is a straw poll asking who readers would vote for. Click on the map and you see that Clinton wins over Obama 52%-48%. To be sure it is an unreliable self-selected poll. Possibly Hillary’s numbers are inflated by other people like me who never before voted in those straw polls but who are so insulted by the Obama-supporting pundits and politicians hammering their “she should quit” nail that we have taken to clicking for Clinton every chance we get. Even the Wall Street Journal has acknowledged the blatant sexism and rampant bias.
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On the other hand, the facts are that national polls show the two candidates still volleying back and forth. It made sense for the other candidates to end their campaigns–Dodd and Biden at low double digits in the polls, and even John Edwards whose contributions were drying up after too many third-place showings in the early primaries and caucuses. But remind me again, why is it that Clinton should quit but Obama should stay in the race when their delegate count is separated by just 133 and Clinton keeps winning the big states the Democrats must have in November to capture the White House?
Perhaps Obama should live up to his gallantry, throw down his cloak Sir Walter Raleigh-esque so the lady can walk over the latest mud slung against her, and into the nomination gracefully. After all, she is the elder, she is the senior of the two senators, she was in this race first, and she has an enormous constituency. In all other aspects of life, the etiquette would be to let her go first.
Or perhaps Obama’s statement was merely words after all.
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Gallantry? My attitude is, if a woman really wants to box, she should respect the man who punches back. There are only two criteria by which the superdelegates should choose the nominee – delegates and popular vote. If Hillary gets neither, her tenure is irrelevant.
Clearly this nomination is becoming destructive for the Democratic party, but Obama recognizes that he can’t afford to alienate the Clinton feminists. So could you have chosen better words for him, or have we simply entered “Hell hath no fury” territory?
Of course the two criteria you cite, Seth, are the ones that count and every candidate has to respect that. That’s the point, and we aren’t yet at a clear win for either candidate.
You could just as easily say that the Obama candidacy is destructive to the party and should end. But in either case, yes, there is better language he could use, such as: “I value a spirited contest and will continue to put myself out to the voters to judge.” Or perhaps “Sen. Clinton is a worthy opponent. Get off her back and let the democratic process run its course.”
It’s going to be very important for whoever loses to lose with honor, or the Dems are going to be the losers again.
You make a point about Obama I have sensed from the beginning — his use of seemingly innocuous vocabulary to diminish his main opponent. This shouldn’t be surprising in light of the recent article on Michelle Obama and the Obama family in The New Republic. Shall we say it was less than flattering in portraying Barack Obama as someone who has just presumed his wife would give up her career and take care of the children to allow him to pursue his political goals.
I think your parsing for a supposed insult really amounts to the same thing you are accusing Sen. Obama of. I’m sorry, but thats my honest interpretation. I just don’t feel in his words that he intends an insult, or to be dismissive. Your article seems overly defensive and creates the very division which you claim to be a champion against.
Thankfully, I rather doubt that anyone that isn’t already a partisan with blinders on will take it very seriously.
And really, I respect both the feminist movement and the cause a great deal. A lot.
At some point though you have to draw a line in the sand between agitating for the cause and manufacturing it.
With a passive aggresive stance like that, I don’t think we’ll see gallantry from any Democrats anytime soon. I do, however, like the image of Senator Clinton stepping over the mud that’s been slung her way.
How can you seriously isolate Obama’s casual language here and parse it so finely (and, in my view, wrongly) while giving Senator Clinton a pass on the Rovian whoppers she’s told about her role in northern Ireland, her greeting in Bosnia, her NAFTA position, her about-face concerning Michigan and Florida voters, and all the other heartbreaking lies, obfuscations and deflections that have caused former supporters like myself to defect in droves from the Clinton camp?
For someone so attuned to language, it’s puzzling that you’re more inclined to draw unwarranted comclusions from Obama’s casual words than you are to acknowlege the plainspoken lies of your candidate. Worse than that is your post on Arianna Huffington’s site, intended only to get the “Obamabots,” as you call us, riled up. How childish, how simple-minded, and how typical of a die-hard Clinton supporter.
I’m curious… did you also painstakingly parse out Senator Clinton’s “as far as I know” codicil to her denial that Senator Obama is a Muslim? Did you point out to your readers the subtle nuance, the rhetorical technique Senator Clinton employed that was meant to leave them in doubt of that facts of Senator Obama’s religious persuasion while appearing to stand up for him?
Yes, you are correct – Senator Obama does use a verb form that bestows his permission. And that’s about it. Whatever light is at the end of that rhetorical tunnel is entirely in Senator Obama’s head. And unless you’re psychic, the remainder of your assessment is merely your opinion, albeit a cleverly-worded and -suggested one.
I’m curious as to why this opinion of yours is meticulously constructed.
You don’t come out and say that’s what Senator Obama was doing. But you leave little doubt on the matter in the mind of the easily-manipulated reader. Do you genuinely believe Senator Obama was tepidly, dismissively belittling Senator Clinton? If so, why not come out and say as much? If not, why use such a carefully-worded construct that is likely to leave a reader concluding that that’s what Senator Obama was doing? Do you want me to do the dirty work of inferring that’s what he was doing? Does that let you off the hook for your analysis of Senator Obama’s language that left that thought in my head?
Don’t you find it ironic to carefully and cunningly construct a piece persuading the reader of your conclusion while asserting nothing (besides the style of language used in a sentence of nine words)? And then to dismiss your subject’s statement with the suggestion that it is “merely words after all”?
Mark, as a woman, I’ve been on the receiving end of these kinds of minimizing comments often enough that I can assure you they have both substance and consequence. Some injustices are simply so pervasive in our society that we don’t see them until they are pointed out to us. Sorry to make this one uncomfortable for you to think about, but it is real.
Again I ask you: For someone so attuned to language, why are you unwilling to acknowledge the plainspoken lies of your candidate? Even if Obama was dismissive of Senator Clinton, even if he did strain courtesy, even if your disquisition concerning his words is accurate in every particular, how do you reconcile yourself to Hillary’s tall tales about Bosnia and Northern Ireland?
It’s arguments like yours that have caused Hillary’s approval ratings to plummet in recent weeks. You do more harm than good.
Stout House, just as Barack did a brilliant leadership leapfrog over the issues by making a speech on race that rode into the controversy rather than back away from it, I’d like to see Hillary do the same about sexism. The issues you raise are valid ones to probe separately, but are completely different from the one I am raising and do not diminish the points I am making in this post about Barack’s words and intent.
In the same way you dismissed Mark’s post by opening your response with the phrase “as a woman” (an opening meant to forestall thought, anticipate counterargument, and render what follows inviolable), I say to you that, as a man, I believe Senator Obama meant nothing so insidious as what you suggest in your original post. He’d likely have used the same sentence construction had Senator Edwards been the target of his remarks, or Senator McCain.
The issue was not Senator Clinton’s gender but her position in the race. Her second-place position. Remember, Obama was responding to a direct question in the context of Patrick Leahy’s wrong-headed call for Clinton’s withdrawal from the race and Clinton’s earlier suggestion of a VP slot for Obama, the party frontrunner. The media was buzzing about it. If Obama was denigrating anything, it was his opponent’s reckless sense of entitlement, not her gender. Of all the reasons to cite misogyny in this race — and there are legitimate reasons, though I would argue not provided by Obama himself — you’ve zeroed in on the weakest I’ve heard.
Besides, if what you say is true, if “some injustices are simply so pervasive in our society that we don’t see them until they are pointed out to us,” Obama was drawing from a kind of collective unconscious, which is a societal problem, not a character flaw in the well-meaning senator. Of the many manifestations of that unconscious, Obama’s remark was so mild as to be unworthy of serious debate.
That said, Mark makes an excellent point when he asks, “did you also painstakingly parse out Senator Clinton’s ‘as far as I know’ codicil to her denial that Senator Obama is a Muslim?” Or does your mean-spirited denigration of we “Obamabots,” as you call us, blind you to what is fair, and what is at stake in this race?
The plainspoken lies of Hillary Clinton require no microscopic deconstruction to reveal, and yet you parse Obama’s most casual remarks, casting about for evidence of sexism. Why?