It's his supporters I can't stand. Well, that's not completely true -- some of my best friends are Obama supporters. And most certainly are decent, rational people committed to an extraordinary candidate. Not without flaws, a little untested and with some questions to answer, but a remarkable man by any measure. So I was wondering the other day why I was becoming more and more resistant to his winning the nomination? It's because I have been reading too many diaries and comments on this website. First, the doe-eyed analysis in favor of Obama is so ubiquitous and the unhinged screeds against Clinton so relentless, it is no wonder that a person becomes more contrarian. I understand just how those women who have been Clinton's lifeline feel. That it is so typical here reveals, sadly for me who thought otherwise, the taint of this site. It really is little different from other sites (albeit usually with a different bias , which is usually easier for me to ignore, or harder to see, because I agree with the target) in the diarists and commenters' selection (or distortion) of facts and manipulation of language (using words like coup, overruling, or stealing in discussing the possibility of unpledged delegates voting for Clinton, notwithstanding the rules) to advance an outcome or storyline.
I am surprised at how hypocritically ingenuous so many writers are. How subjective.
Second, there is abounding a certain self-importance (bordering on self-reverence), smugness, intellectual dishonesty, condescension, I don't know what, that simply offends. A person could spend each day pointing out the falseness, illogic, idiocy of so many of these Obama uber alles arguments but for want of the time. Stuff about Rendell's call to shoot Howard Dean. Calls to strip Clinton of her delegate status for favorable comments about John McCain. An endless litany of Clinton mendacity and Obama wonderfulness (all just part of some great self-enhancing, self-perpetuating, ultimately false, narrative). Written apparently with a straight face, unless I am in some Onion world that I lack the sophistication to recognize.
Just today, more much ado about some comment Clinton made about pledged delegates or that Penn made about independent and Republican voters starting to appreciate (in a bad way) how liberal Obama is. Does no one who writes here understand nuance? Take the Clinton comment:
I have a very close race with Senator Obama. There are elected delegates, caucus delegates and superdelegates, all for different reasons, and they're all equal in their ability to cast their vote for whomever they choose. Even elected and caucus delegates are not required to stay with whomever they are pledged to. This is a very carefully constructed process that goes back years, and we're going to follow the process.
That is an accurate statement of the rules, at least as I understand them. And this just in: Clinton is trying to win the nomination!! (This is, I understand, the ultimate affront.) Whatever the first ballot rules for a particular state delegation, or whether delegates are even required to vote for a particular candidate on the first ballot, so far as I know, all elected delegates are not required to stay committed to a candidate in subsequent ballots. Remember people: those are the rules, and we can't change them mid-game. And the Penn remark that was the prompt for kos' point on the home page? A non sequiter. Both things can be true: Obama can be too liberal for most independents and Republicans (which they are now discovering, as suggested), and Clinton could be getting a majority of Democratic votes in the election so far (thus, be the "real" Democrat), as many states have open primaries. The last analysis I read indicated that if the election to select the Democratic nominee were limited to Democrats, Clinton would be ahead (that was a while ago, so don't get your shorts in a bunch if it's not true now: the essential point is still true that this would be a very different election).
Not to mention all of the hand wringing about all of the bad names Clinton is calling Obama. My goodness. Imitating (wait for it) Ken Starr. The 3:00 a.m. ad? Whatever its merits (and the Obama response was swift and certain), the ad asks one of the essential questions we should ask of someone seeking to be President. Hard to see how that can be unfair. This hypersensitivity reminds me of the kid who is always running to tell his Mom about all of the "not nice" things the other kids are doing: Billy said a bad word. Tommy didn't wash his hands after using the bathroom. Emily threw her peas in the garbage. Or the rabid basketball fans who are outraged that the referees refuse, refuse to call every ticky-tack foul committed by the other team, while seeing not one single foul committed by their own. Nothing is more maddening than a referee (or the opponent, in a pick-up game) who calls every touch foul.
Anyway, from what people I have talked to (anecdotal), and from what I've been hearing and reading in the larger context (likewise anecdotal), I am not alone in feeling this way. We almost never root for the arrogant guy or the team with obnoxious fans. And to be honest, mock it all you want (telling in itself, like the proud ignorance of some Christianist, home-school types), there is something cult-like about it ("salvational fervor" always makes me nervous, but that's my bias). Too bad, really, as this Obama thing is transformational.