In my last diary, I discussed some of the unreasonable attacks on Barack Obama that came from Jerome Armstrong over at MyDD. Unfortunately, it seems that Markos has decided to take up the banner of irrational behavior and attack Obama. The source of the displeasure stems from Obama's comment about trial lawyers and his comments about divisive elections. Instead of paying attention to the liberties taken by the journalists who wrote these stories - along with the comments themselves - Markos (along with others in the blogosphere) quickly jumped on Obama for reinforcing right-wing frames.
This is simply false, and I'm quite disappointed that Markos has made a couple of posts in this vein.
The 'Trial Lawyer' Comment
The first item I'd like to address is Obama's comment about trial lawyers, which was first reported on the Washington Post blog The Trail. While it mostly focuses on Obama's pitch to the middle class, it ends with this tidbit:
In one of his standard riffs, Obama asserts that his career choices -- community organizer, civil rights lawyer, elected official -- underscores his commitment to public service and to bringing about political and social change. He always mentions the lucrative job offers he turned down, but today he added a new line.
"That's why I didn't become a trial lawyer," Obama told the Newton audience -- a clear dig at Edwards, who made millions in the courtroom.
Many in the blogosphere, such as Markos, Atrios, and Todd Beeton at MyDD, automatically interpreted this to be a full-out attack on Edwards and his past as a trial lawyer.
But I'd first like to take a look at the problems inherent within this little section. Perhaps the first point I should emphasize is that this is a blog, not a formal article, so the biases of news reports may be somewhat more inherent. That being said, this article is written by Shailagh Murray. In perusing the archives of the blog, it doesn't seem that Murray has written many articles, or has even been the only one who has written about Obama's events (other writers include Alec MacGillis and Perry Bacon, Jr.). So her claim that Obama 'always mentions' a particular point in his stump speech isn't too far off. What may be, though, is her claim that his comment about trial lawyers is a 'new line'. Has she been regularly attending Obama's townhall meetings, or was this a writer taking liberties with what has been happening?
Furthermore, the claim that Obama is rushing to embrace a right-wing frame is completely ludricrous. Kossack pontificator made this point best in Markos' post on the matter.
Obama's statement (20+ / 0-)
is NOT the right wing attack on trial lawyers. The right wing attack on trial lawyers is that they hurt the economy, raise health care premiums, etc etc. Obama is saying that Edwards pursued a career that made him rich, while he pursued a career of community organizing.
This is not an embrace of a right wing talking point. You are just wrong.
Obama was never alluding to any of the common complaints the right wing has about trial lawyers - namely, that they create a drag on the economy and are to fully blame for problems with the health care system. Instead, he was pointing out that Edwards' career in law - as a trial lawyer - is the one that is most likely to make you rich the quickest. To be fair, the way Obama framed it comes off badly; people don't become trial lawyers solely for the money. But I think what he wanted to emphasize is that he chose a career that didn't pay well and solely contributed to the betterment of society. However, it is far from the right-wing talking points that Markos and the rest of the blogosphere made it out to be.
The last point is this: who said it was a 'clear' reference to Edwards? If this reporter hasn't been following Obama on the campaign trail this whole time, it's hard for them to make the assertion that Obama's line is 'new' and thus a 'clear' reference to Edwards. It could have been an innocent bad choice of words; after campaigning for nearly 10 months before a single election has taken place, it's fathomable to think that someone's going to slip up by accident. However, the netroots has taken what they perceive to be Obama's referencing of right-wing frames on other matters (Social Security, health care) and automatically applied the same template to the junior senator of Illinois. That's hardly fair.
The 'Electability' Comments
The latest screed from Markos over Obama comes this morning over the senator's comments about the past two presidential elections. Blogged (again, blogged, not reported) at Newsday, Obama had this to say:
Making an argument for his electability, Obama said, "I don't want to go into the next election starting off with half the country already not wanting to vote for Democrats -- we've done that in 2004, 2000," according to a person at the event (rush transcript).
Markos' take?
Funny, that. Last time I checked, Gore won his election. And really, is Obama going to argue now that the nation was divide because of the Democrats' fault? Is that the latest right-wing talking point he wants to peddle?
Good God, Markos, read the piece before making assertions like that. The first problem is the title of the blog entry: "Obama: Gore, Kerry alienated 'half the country'". That's patently false; in that tidbit, nowhere does Obama mention either Gore or Kerry by name. What the writer is doing is connecting Obama's comments automatically to the Democratic candidates from those years. Furthermore, who said that Obama is criticizing either Gore or Kerry? A big part of the problem was the campaigns that backed those candidates: they were standard, conventional campaigns that fought for the 'elusive center' and therefore made the candidates at the time seem wishy-washy. No matter how much any of us like Gore or Kerry (and I'm a huge Gore fan), it is hard to call their campaigns during 2000 and 2004, respectively, inspiring. To make a rash implied assumption that Obama was directly criticizing Gore or Kerry is ridiculous and fails to look for any nuance in the statement.
Obama - for all the shortcomings that his campaign has - is clearly running a different kind of campaign. It's one based off of turning out people who had become disillusioned with the political process. It's drawing amazing support from across the spectrum when it comes to race, age, ethnicity, and so forth. The number of donors and donations made to the Obama campaign is a testament to that strength. No other campaign has the kind of grassroots/netroots infrastructure that the My.BarackObama.com tool has allowed individuals to set up. So while there may be complaints about Obama's rhetoric, I think it's fairly clear that the balance struck between top-down and bottom-up organizing is revolutionary in terms of campaign strategy. Regardless of how Obama ends up doing, the innovative tools that have been implemented will likely be a part of grassroots campaigns to come.
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In short, Markos is way off-base in his criticisms of Obama. I don't understand why, but it seems that the leading bloggers in the netroots have been quick to harp on anything they interpret to be a mistake by Obama. It's partially the fault of the blogosphere as well; it seems that the one initial report on Obama's comments about trial lawyers (from Talking Points Memo) simply filtered out to the rest of the blogosphere. I have no doubt the same will now happen with these misconstrued comments about past elections.
If you're going to make criticisms of a candidate, make sure that they are valid. Don't fall into the trap of making the same slipshod assumptions that reporters are doing.