With apologies to Martin Niemöller:
When the right wing hate-mongers of talk radio and the racist conservative talking heads on Tee Vee came after Barack Obama, I did not speak up because Obama was not my candidate.
When the right wing hate-mongers of talk radio and the talking heads came for me, I looked around and there was no one left to speak for me.
We have entered a new and more dangerous phase of the Democratic Primary race. At the present time the leader in that race, Barack Obama, is being savagely pummeled by Faux News, Rush Limbaugh, Pat Buchanan, and an army of radio talk show hosts and professional deceivers.
The Clinton campaign is reportedly now approaching superdelegates with the message that Barack Obama is unelectable due to controversial sermons by his pastor that have appeared on youtube and have since been blown all over the airwaves. They are seeking to profit from the destruction of a fine man and a leading Democrat by letting rightwing talk show hosts and Faux news do their dirty work for them.
The only hope left in the Clinton campaign is for Obama's campaign to be destroyed by this Rev. Wright flap and for the superdelegates to flee to her side as a result. This is the ultimate product of triangulation: let the far right attack the base of the party, then rush in as the party's savior by offering a 'reasonable' alternative to both the far right and the Democratic base. If Hillary Clinton were to be elected president, this would be a template for how she would govern.
But that template for misgovernment is nothing to fear, because the same template will be the pattern for her self-destruction as a candidate for President. The Rush Limbaugh loving voters who they relied on to put them over the top in Texas, and who they seem to be courting to kill off Obama's candidacy in Pennsylvania will laugh heartily when it's all over and they're piling into their cars to go vote for John McCain in November.
Relying upon a racist backlash against Rev. Wright to destroy Obama is playing with fire. First they came for Obama, and I said nothing because my candidate was Hillary Clinton.
As I said in a comment yesterday:
We have to stand up
for Obama, because Obama is standing up for US.
We are in a battle for the future of our party as well as the future of our country. Obama, whether he even intended to or not, has become the standard-bearer for the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, or as it has been said the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party.
Those party leaders who sit back and let this wound fester, who sit back and let the rightwingers fire off more arrows at Obama, who hope that the Hannitys and the Limbaughs will mortally wound Obama and that the Clinton machine can then sweep to victory are showing their true colors. Those who see an advantage in letting the Right take Obama down are no different from the Right. They are the TweedleDums and TweedleDees of America's Party of Incumbency.
They are the representatives of those folks in the corporate world who see great avantages in having TWO fairly like-minded parties battling it out over such things as Flag Burning Amendments and Gay Marriage while tax breaks and de-regulation cruise by unnoticed. They are the folks who believe the only problem with the "K Street Project" is that they didn't think of it first.
The time is now for all good men and women to come to the aid of their party. The time is now for the Superdelegates who are sitting on their hands to come out and end this thing and start the full-bore campaign against the Republicans.
And when they came for Hillary, I looked around and there was no one left to speak for her...