Sirota's diary on Obama
It is one thing to have the hatchet job that is the MSM do hit and run pieces on elected Dems -- it is quite another to see the normally sane Mr. Sirota do a seriously shoddy job on Senator Obama. But (it is) the comments in that thread that necessitate my second-ever diary on DailyKos.
First of all, even if Mr. Sirota's article on the HuffingtonPost had been a decently good job of press critique for their recent bandwaggoning of Senator Obama (as someone in the comments of that diary claimed), the title is just too incendiary and utterly unfair to Senator Obama. Whatever he may or may not have achieved (and I will address this below the fold), Senator Obama's candidacy does not pose any danger to anyone whatsoever; it certainly is not ridiculous either -- as should have been realized by Mr. Sirota, Senator Obama has as much experience and achievements under his belt as JFK and Clinton did, at the times of their imminent candidacies of President.
Follow me over the fold for more on Mr. Sirota's knee-jerk reaction to Lynn Sweet's article in the Chicago SunTimes...
First off, the title ridiculousness of Mr. Sirota. Just what is the ridiculousness of Obama '08? And just where is the danger in that? Mr. Sirota needs to explain this hyperventilation.
Secondly, his article. Rather than address his article point by point and lose sight of the forest, I will talk to some of my pet beefs with so-called Democrats and their short-sightedness in bad-mouthing, without cause, other Democrats, using some of the "issues" he raises.
- Media swooning on Obama: Many, including Sirota, seem to think that the media are the ones hyping Senator Obama. Perish the thought. Obama became a rock star everywhere that he went during the last 3 years and the Obama-fever among the people reached its pinnacle this election season. Only then, and even then, grudgingly and with numerous snickers and wink/wink cynicism, did the media start talking about him. Senator Obama should have been a media darling from the day he addressed the Democratic National Convention in 2004 -- he wasn't, only because he is a Democrat; and Democrats cannot be noble, inspiring and exciting, according to the media narrative (not an accident, this narrative, mind you -- it is now in their DNA to abhor Democrats). I know first hand about Senator Obama's star power, back when he was not being mentioned in a curmudgeonly acknowledgement by the MSM: he turned out a thousand+ strong crowd on a hot summer day in Dallas. And according to local news that I started trakcing from then on, has been repeating that performance whereever he went. So perish this notion that the media propped him up -- on the contrary, he got there with absolutely no help from them, with all the power that the people accorded him for something genuine that they saw in him.
- The unstated fear of cult-based popularity: Given the experience with Bush, I am quite sympathetic to this fear (and even some mild revulsion) among Democrats for charisma-based politics. We do not have to be so afraid. As a tradition, Democrats have not been cultish for insubstantive candidates -- we only need to look at JFK and WJC to understand this phenomenon. If that is not convincing, just to go Wikipedia or some other resource and check out the life and achievements of Senator Obama -- despite his popularity, he is neither a light-weight nor a non-achiever. Republicans fall for a Bush, we do not -- so why are we so scared of his genuine appeal?
- The issue of "no core convictions": There are too many angles from which this issue can be addressed -- I will just address a couple of those here. From an ideological perspective, it is a no-brainer to me: we loathe Bush partly because of his rigid adherence to ideological "convictions" and then we are upset that our own candidates exhibit no such tendencies. That Senator Obama is willing to give every point of view a hearing should be his strength and ours. From the perspective of life's goals, he seems to have a very strong concern for the poor and the forgotten -- read about his taking a $13k job with a charity (?) one year after a law degree from Harvard -- this is not just a passing concern, adopted for political convenience. How much more of a Democrat can he be? If this is not the core concern that binds us all together (along with saying no to unnecessary/unjust wars, which he did) as Democrats, what does? Just how boxed in are we expecting our candidates to be?
All this said, my candidate is really Al Gore -- not because I do not think the others are not either qualified or would not be good as Presidents, but because I think Gore has the best preparation, rational approach to problems and above all nearly impeccable judgement. However, I do not feel the need to trash other (potential) Democratic candidates because I think Gore is the current best choice...