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After the Future

Obama’s So-Called Gaffe

Common sense doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what I think or you think.  It matters how it plays in the media. The folks at CNN can sometimes surprise you. This…

Common sense doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what I think or you think.  It matters how it plays in the media. The folks at CNN can sometimes surprise you. This time they get it right:

Here’s Obama’s defense of comments.  Again I think he handles it in exactly the right way.  He refuses to let Clinton and McCain to frame him, and he does an effective job of turning the tables:

h/t Balloon Juice

I really like the way Obama refuses to be put on defense and pushes back.  He refuses to let the idiots have their way.

Comments

14 responses

  1. Mike McG... Avatar
    Mike McG…

    Perhaps the small town folks in flyover country will be better judges of whether they’ve been condescended to in being described as bitter than either the presidential candidates or the CNN panelists.
    I’m resolute in my support of Obama, in part because of the very different messages he has sent to middle America in venues other than closed San Francisco fundraisers. But ‘inartful’ is a generous description and ‘bitter’ is a harsh (and in my estimation, often inaccurate) characterization.
    “Can you believe the price of arugula at Whole Foods?”, a comment Obama made in Iowa (where there are no Whole Foods and few trendy markets of any sort), comes to mind. I hope we don’t hear any complaints about tuition at the University of Chicago Lab School.
    Lots of stereotypes have more than a grain of truth, but employing them says as much about the speaker as the group so categorized. There *is* a pretty disdainful narrative shared by many well-educated professionals about people like those who live in Pennsylvania and Indiana small towns. Clinton and McCain hypocrisy aside, Obama does well to distance himself from such sentiments and evoke his ‘better angels’ as he invites such people to vote for him.

    Reply
  2. Matt Zemek Avatar
    Matt Zemek

    Mike:
    Mindful of how Obama had to recently tell some tough truths about race, it would seem–at least from a certain perspective, the perspective of a lofty purist or a soaring idealist–that more courageous, tell-it-like-it-is bluntness is precisely what would be able to evoke the better angels of our nature.
    Pennsylvania, like Ohio and Michigan, is a suffering state, at least/especially in its older industrial/manufacturing-based sectors. For a politician to say that the hard-hit, struggling voters in such an area are “bitter” is, empirically, one of the least controversial things a politician could ever say.
    It’s only, of course, in the realms of imagecraft and emotional reptilian-brain instinctiveness that this comment pushes buttons and creates an uproar.
    Given “The Way The Game Is Played,” of course it’s lacking in artfulness.
    But the searing irony is that Obama is supposed to be standing for an uprooting of The Game as it currently exists. Obama is supposed to be the barrier-busting, precedent-shattering candidate who leads us on a new course, with Hillary being the dinosaur who predictably and pathetically slams this comment as though it was some kind of mistake.
    When we talk about bringing about meaningful change and healing our country, we have to keep going back to this fundamental underlying tension: ought candidates break the mold, and should we allow/expect/demand that they do so with the candor necessary to create a new forward direction, or should we insist that change come slowly and incrementally, meaning that candidates should be reserved and cautious in their oratory and save their real boldness for actions and policy alone?
    I always have been a proponent of allowing candidates–and the debates they partake of–to speak their minds and not be constrained by these artificial and often petty conventions which smother a vigorous and adult exchange of ideas.
    In short, if we want a better America, the kind of America we’ve lost but need to find again, it is my opinion that we need to view Obama’s remarks as courageous and, more importantly (and relevantly), as accurate.

    Reply
  3. Mike McG... Avatar
    Mike McG…

    Matt:
    Courageous is in the eyes of the beholder. Courageous might be telling some tough truths about class to affluent Democratic donors in San Francisco, challenging progressive disdain for cultural conservatives. I submit that Obama would do well to ‘break the mold,’ as you say, with upscale voters first, before he seems to take on the downscale ones.
    Sensibilities are delicate, subject to ‘whose ox is gored’ analysis. All I’m saying is that we well-educated progressives might want to defer to those targeted by the original comments in forming a judgment as to whether they were courageous or dismissive.
    Obama will get through this and his follow-up comments were well conceived. But let’s stipulate that these follow-up comments concede that the original comments were indelicate. This guy doesn’t walk on water and, I suspect, can handle criticism better than many of his most ardent supporters.

    Reply
  4. Jack Whelan Avatar
    Jack Whelan

    Mike–
    My point is that it shouldn’t be an issue if John Kerry windsurfs or skis or George Bush eats grits or if Obama shops at Whole Foods. It shouldn’t be an issue whether he’s a regular guy or not. This is not how we should decide who is to be our president. That the media focus on this is what is so ridiculous, and the candidates know this and so jump on these so-called gaffes as if they really mattered when they just don’t. So my surprise at the CNN commentators was that they refused to play that game–I have come not to expect that, so I found it refreshing. And I think that they are right on the substance of the “condescension” issue.
    We have a long-running disagreement of sorts on this, MIke. And here’s where I think the nub of it is. I think it’s ok to make negative judgments about cultural attitudes or groupthinks. I think that the NRA groupthink around guns is insane. I think that the fundamentalism of the Fallwels, Dobsons, Robertsons, and Hagees is insane. Does that make me an arrogant, condescending jerk? Or am I just stating the obvious along the lines that my 5’5” 400 pound neighbor really should lose weight if he expects to live into his seventies. His feelings may be hurt to be told that, but it’s simply the truth.
    Now, if I were dealing with Jerry Fallwel one on one, I would try to engage in a conversation with him without making such judgments about him–I would give him the benefit of the doubt and try to find some place where there was common ground and see if some kind of trust could be built. And I would enter into such a conversation in the hope that he would not just be the groupthink speaking, but a thoughtful person aware of the ambiguities in everything that is human. And I would enter into such a conversation, I hope, with an openness to learning something and even perhaps having my own thinking changed by it.
    But here’s the problem that I encounter time and again. When I engage Fallwel types in this way I find more often than not that such conversations are not possible because they are too deeply in the grip of the groupthink. The most important thing for them to learn is whether you’re on their side or not, and as soon as they learn that you’re not, there’s no hope. Youre branded and demonized as a liberal, and they simply haven’t the interest to discuss the nuances.
    You know what I’m talking about because you have encountered from people on the intellectual left who are just as crazy in their identification with whatever the intellectually trendy groupthink of the moment is. The problem is not the condescension, but the craziness of identification with the groupthink. Condescension and resentment are part of the same system. It doesn’t matter which side of the system you’re on each is a from of craziness.
    So the question then is how do you deal with people who participate in this kind of collective craziness? To me it’s like dealing with a family member or a friend who has joined a cult or is in denial about his or her substance abuse. We have large groups of people in this culture who are truly crazy by virtue of their deep identification with attitudes that are truly crazy. It seems to me that all you can do is name it for what it is and fight it.
    So I agree with everything you have said over the years about respecting the opponent, and I have written myself about the central importance of loving the enemy in one on one encounters. But it only works in the political sphere when you are dealing with relatively sane people, and the whole thrust of what I’ve been writing here is that we have lost our collective minds. Any my guess is that the relatively sane blue collar types who heard what Obama had to say, probably saw that it was right on the money.

    Reply
  5. Matt Zemek Avatar
    Matt Zemek

    Mike,
    Everything you say is true and wise.
    Yet, I feel strangely unsettled in spite of your logic and wisdom.
    As I think about things, I arrive at the notion that while Obama is still a slight favorite in the general election, the larger calculus seems to be increasingly trending toward a tighter general election. Part of the reason for this is that the media will manufacture controversies out of non-controversial actions & statements, while also giving McCain more favorable coverage.
    But while one does need to account for the current climate and, moreover, for the current condition of the media-industrial complex in the Beltway, I think that there’s one way for a Democrat to (potentially) break an election wide open and create some serious coattails and filibuster-proof Congressional numbers.
    The cautionary note is that, as a high-reward strategy, it is also a high-risk strategy.
    The strategy, in short, is to RAMP UP the aggressivenes in talking to voters, not dialing it down. The key lies in building up and, even more importantly, demonstrating that Obama, as the standard-bearer of the party (this would apply to any Democratic nominee in an equivalent position), is going to personally sacrifice and offer far more than what he’d ask of voters.
    But if/when that personal offering is made, Obama should then be very aggressive in talking to voters: challenging them, calling them to be their best selves, and asking them to look honestly at the world around them.
    This might seem like talking down to voters. No–if calibrated right and done enough on a RETAIL level (not wholesale; this is not compatible for wholesale/TV ad politics), I can see this as being hugely positive.
    Think of this strategy as masculinizing the feminine (i.e., putting a muscular face on nurturing, sane policies) as opposed to what Gore and Kerry did, which was to advance masculine policies (Kerry never distanced himself much from the war, for example, not enough to make a difference, at any rate) with feminine mushiness.
    This is all a longer way of saying that while Obama can’t offend or condescend, he also needs to avoid doing what Democrats (even Bill Clinton in ’96) have become chronically addicted to: namely, playing it safe and trying to win an election 51-49 percent.
    I’d much rather Obama be his best self on the campaign trail than conform to what the media and various conventional wisdom narratives, even if it makes the election closer.

    Reply
  6. Mike McG... Avatar
    Mike McG…

    Hey guys:
    We need to agree to disagree on this one. The paradox is that I think Obama’s take on this flap is much closer to mine than to yours. I could site chapter and verse of Audacity of Hope in which he ‘gets’ and ‘nails’ condescension of people who don’t conform to the dominant progressive discourse. I think he really regrets the words he used and not just because he is being hammered by them. Rather he regrets them because he knows that words matter and that these particular words are inconsistent with his core message.
    I think he recognizes that ‘bitter’ and ‘cling’ have connotations that are unnecessarily harsh, that don’t evoke respect and that distort the worldviews and value systems of the people so described. I think he sees that these words and the associated constellation of issues (guns, religion and intolerance) feed into a class narrative that is red meat in venues like San Francisco fundraisers, but contradict the core narrative at the base of his candidacy.
    Matt is right about another Obama theme, the very important “uprooting the game” theme. But before people are open to being challenged they insist that the critic meet a ‘he gets me’ threshold. Let’s compare Obama’s critique of the African American family with that of Dan Moynihan years ago. The enormous difference in reception of these two critiques wasn’t at its core about the veracity of the observations. Rather it had to do whether the community believed that the critic ‘gets’ them and ‘respects’ them since, of course, every community wants to drive its own narrative.
    Finally, I think we may have a critical difference in perception. I don’t think that the small town voters trying to size up Obama are essentially ‘Fallwel types,’ even if they ultimately vote against him, and I don’t think their sensibilities are crazy. And we *really* differ on where Obama ought to start if he’s inclined toward cultural critique. I think he should start with the “advanced white folks” demographic that doesn’t own guns, is way beyond religion (at least those involving Jesus), and prides itself on its tolerance (well, with the possible exception of those to the right of us.) Hey, I can weild caricatures with the best of them!
    Maybe we can continue the ‘battle of the dueling stereotyes’ over a beer if you guys ever change planes at O’Hare! Somehow I think that this medium doesn’t facilitate identification of common beliefs and values as much as distinctions.

    Reply
  7. Matt Zemek Avatar
    Matt Zemek

    Mike,
    I don’t think this is a failure of the medium we’re using. The thing is that the three of us have talked about these kinds of tonal, political, and oratorical strategic considerations for a solid two to three years now.
    I completely agree that the “he gets me” threshold has to be crossed with voters before Obama can then adopt a more Jack-and-Matt-style program of tough talk. I don’t think there’s any disagreement about that. So I don’t think we’re disageeing as much as you might sense; we’re just three bored intelligent people waiting for April 22 so we don’t have to talk about Pennsylvania until the conventions, and so that this race can mercifully move on and hopefully find a conclusion before July.
    I just want you to be/remain conscious of the one point I made above, and which I think Jack shares:
    Let’s not have a Democrat play it safe in a general election, out of a mistaken sense that he has to appeal to a narrow set of middle-hugging, fence-sitting voters in an overly calculated way. Let’s have Obama transcend the fray with audacious personal sacrifices and proposals that win the confidence and trust of the people will also inspiring citizens (and perhaps even the media to a small extent) to find their better angels.
    The enormity of this point–namely, that Obama cannot play it safe in the general election (like any Democrat)–should be affirmed by one simple historical fact: when a presidential election is a contest of ideas and policies, the Democrats win. When it’s a nasty, ugly knife-fight in a back alley at 3 am, the Republicans win.
    Refusing to play it safe will enable Obama to engage in a lot more offense and reduce the amount of defense he’ll have to play. Obama does have to connect with voters, but this can’t be done too cerebrally or cautiously.
    In light of all that I’ve said, I think another thing the three of us can agree on is that Obama’s convention speech will be the most anticipated since Reagan in 1980. How he handles that one occasion–whether he chooses the soaring oratory, the bold proposals, or a hybrid of the two, or something entirely different–will tell us a lot about the intentions of the Obama campaign.
    I think we should begin to at least think about (if not discuss) what Obama’s convention speech should seek to do.
    Anyway, I’m much more in agreement with you than what you might think, Mike. Gaining trust is priority 1, 2 and 3.
    But then go get ’em, Barack! 🙂

    Reply
  8. Matt Zemek Avatar
    Matt Zemek

    There’s a typo in the above comment. At the end of line 4 of paragraph 4, the word “will” should be “while.”
    Sorry.

    Reply
  9. Jack Whelan Avatar
    Jack Whelan

    Didn’t check on this thread until this morning. No time to respond until later this afternoon.

    Reply
  10. forestwalker Avatar
    forestwalker

    Mike,
    Patrick Deneen makes a similar point regarding where cultural critique should start:
    “Someone should advise him to go to Latrobe and say the following instead:
    ‘You go to these big liberal cities in California, and like a lot of cosmopolitan centers of libertarian lifestyle individualism, they have benefited from the wrenching displacements you’ve experienced. They benefited immensely from free-trade and globalizing policies of previous Administrations – Democratic and Republican alike – and they’ve been told that they have earned their status and they owe nothing to anyone.
    ‘And it’s not surprising that they get optimistic, they believe that they can dispense with religion or borders or community as a way to remake the world in exactly their image.’”

    Reply
  11. forestwalker Avatar
    forestwalker

    Mike,
    You’re right that the word ‘cling’, especially, and the God/guns/racism stereotype really was a misstep. It was poorly stated and will be misheard. But Obama really should talk about this more and with greater clarity. He’s right for the most part, but you’re right, too, that the “he gets us” threshold must be met to be given a fair hearing among my folks.

    Reply
  12. Jack Whelan Avatar
    Jack Whelan

    I’m sure Obama regrets the specific phrasing, even if he doesn’t regret the fundamental point that he was trying to make, which was an honest, sympathetic attempt to understand typical attitudes that incline blue collars to resist his candidacy.
    My first argument is against the idea that you cannot talk about “typical” attitudes without falling into unfair “stereotyping.” I insist that it is possible and necessary to talk about typical or shared cultural attitudes and to evaluate their validity. You can correct me if I do not adequately understand those shared values, but you cannot fault me for making the attempt.
    Cultural or shared attitudes can be understood by those who do not share them, and they can be appreciated or criticized by those who do not share them. On the other hand it is harder to assess a particular individual’s relationship to those shared attitudes because in a complex, pluralistic society almost everyone is a mix of things, and the individual himself may not know what he really thinks or believes. One’s values at work, for instance, may be diametrically opposed to his values when with his family or at church, and the individual may be oblivious of the contradictions.
    Only the extreme type is completely identified with a group’s attitudes. And when the group attitude is crazy, as I would argue the groupthink of the NRA or NARAL is, then you can define a spectrum of crazy depending on how rigidly identified an individual is with the crazy groupthink. The argument isn’t that anyone who approves of a broad license to own guns or to have abortions is crazy—it is possible to have formed one’s own sane opinions about these issues–but I would argue that one is crazy to the degree that his thinking is subsumed by the groupthink.
    So my argument is not about people who have informed themselves and thought it through, but with the notion that most people behave that way. In fact I would argue that most people in fact are more influenced by one or another cultural groupthink than by their own working it out, and that to the degree that the groupthink is crazy, so are the people made crazy to the degree that they are influenced by it.
    This is to me incontrovertible, and it’s at the heart of all the cultural analysis I do here.
    My second argument is that the whole condescension/resentment system is a form of craziness by definition, and any individual is crazy to the degree that he participates in it on either side. There is no better or worse here, both sides are equally crazy, there is only better or worse determined by the degree to which one’s thinking and feeling is influenced by the system—either to feel condescension or to feel resentment. Nevertheless, one should be able to tell the truth without worrying about whether people will be offended by it. I am not advocating tactlessness, but if one insists on being offended by the truth, it only means that they refuse to face reality, which is by definition a way of being crazy. I’d rather have a candidate who speaks his mind than one who is always worried about stepping into a gaffe-trap, or slips up once in a while by using tactless phrasing.
    It’s obvious that Obama is not operating within the condescension/resentment system; his San Francisco remarks were an attempt to tell the truth. Nevertheless his opponents are trying to drag him into the system by insisting that he was condescending when the full context of his remarks shows that he was doing just the opposite. If Obama is at fault here, the fault is very minor; it lies far more with his opponents whose sole purpose is to provoke blue collar resentment, which is by my definition an attempt to make them crazy by feeding a crazy resentment groupthink.

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  13. Rob Melly Avatar
    Rob Melly

    Jack,
    Might I ask for a little more clarification on your notion of crazy here? You seem to use it in two ways, both as an evaluation of content and as an evaluation of form and I am curious as to what you primarily mean by it.
    In the first case, ‘crazy’ would apply directly to the beliefs or system of beliefs of a group or individual; a person would believe crazy things, like the moon was made of green cheese or that the US government purposely orchestrated 9/11. Used in this way, the term seems meaningful, but it can be imagined that the ‘crazy’ people think about us sane people in exactly the same manner. We might appear crazy for not believing things that seem so self-evident to them.
    In the latter case, ‘crazy’ would apply to the form of discourse promoted and engaged in. The notion of discourse implies an intention present in both parties to attempt for a common and mutual understanding. To be crazy in form would be to violate this sort of structure and approach discourse not as a forum for the revision of beliefs, including one’s own beliefs, but rather as war. Crazies would approach the field of discourse waving their assertions like battle standards and hoping to rally the troops. In this case, there would seem to be truly no talking with such people, being that they are not interested in talking, which perhaps explains the state of modern debate.
    I’m going to guess that it is the latter to which you are primarily referring. The craziness does not seem to reside in any particular crazy belief but rather in a certain cultural unwillingness (or even inability) to evaluate and revise beliefs. Moreover, there does not seem to be an immediate, necessary, personal culpability to being part of a crazy group. Being a cultural phenomenon, it’s where we all start out and we are only culpable insofar as we realize our state and do nothing to change it. Am I correct in this understanding?

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  14. Jack Whelan Avatar
    Jack Whelan

    Rob–
    I don’t have time right now for a more thoughtful response, but essentially crazy means not being in your right mind, and I’m particularly interested to better understand the ways in which groups reinforce mentalities that make crazy seem normal to everyone who feels at home in them.
    In the background to all the political stuff I write about are ideas about the relationship of this kind of craziness to original sin and also the idea of the Logos as the key to discovering what it means to be in one’s right mind. If I have time toward the end of the week, I’ll try to explicate that a little more in a post.

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