Here we go all the coded racist comments about Obama are now coming out of the woodwork.

The caller who, if she does not know it is racist, a subtle one but she is using it as an excuse to frame Obama.

The statement that Obama does not have enough experience to be President or to keep the country safe is code for he’s a black man and we don’t trust him. He’s uppity as well.

I’m not happy with Obama but McCain is scary and would bring this country to its knees.

If the people of the South don’t like taxes and the Government ‘telling them what’s good for them’ I have a question for ya all, where have you been for the last eight years?

If your a woman and you vote for McCain your voting away your right to chose.

We have had over 8 years of conservative leadership in this country between the President and Congress and what has it brought us?

We are in the worse recession since the 1970’s.
This is the Bush administrations fault, it is their policies that have created this mess.

We are engaged in a war that is bankrupting us and wa started on lies.
We have a President that has eroded our Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

The link below is from the Financial Times. Clive Crook gives a scathing view of the US under Bush.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/08667a1a-6176-11dd-af94-000077b07658.html

I am sadly surprised that Jack Beaty gave such false information about Barrack Obama receiving more money from big oil than McCain is. The Globe article he must have been referencing clearly states that while small donars at a few oil companies gave a bit more money to Obama, overall, from the whole industry itself, it is a well over 3 to 1 favoring McCain: 1.3 million to $394,000! This is a startling number. Even when looking at small donors who are oil employees, McCain wins overall by a very wide margin. These kind of false factys are a dreadful thing, especially since we leftists believe everything Jack Beaty normally says! A public correction is needed.

Here is one progressive that does not believe everything Jack Beaty states. While I like what he has to say he is often sound to much like a oped page.

I don’t know but it seems to me that On Point is starting to lose ground, not staying on point so to speak.

While I realize that 2 hours is a long time in radio land, I think the Friday show can spend the entire 2 hours on issues and really unpack some of them. The second hour was a waste of time to me, who cares about reality TV and real estate agents training to crab fisherman? Why is this being covered?

Right now for me the best informative program on issues is Bill Moyers Journal.

“The statement that Obama does not have enough experience to be President or to keep the country safe is code for he’s a black man and we don’t trust him. He’s uppity as well”

I’m an Obama supporter, but really, I think the above comment is off-base.

Obama’s halfway through his first term as US Senator, so concerns about his experience level are perfectly legitimate, even if you and I are not so worried about that experience level.

So how SHOULD someone raise that, or any other concern about Obama, without people like you labelling them a racist?

“While I realize that 2 hours is a long time in radio land, I think the Friday show can spend the entire 2 hours on issues and really unpack some of them. The second hour was a waste of time to me, who cares about reality TV and real estate agents training to crab fisherman? Why is this being covered?”

On-Point is a one-hour show and there are two of them every day.

The radio dial is utterly festooned with call-in talk radio shows where people talk about the news, or as you say, “the issues”. If you want more of that sort of thing you don’t need to look far.

But an entire hour devoted to interviewing one individual – an author, director, scientist, historian, etc – about a particular topic is RARE. Most Fresh Air interviews seldom run over a half-hour. Wisconsin Public Radio has a show called Here on Earth that’s sort of like On Point, but not as good.

WRT “Sweat TV”, I seldom even watch TV (and I’ve never seen any of the shows mentioned in that segment) but I think that understanding what motivates the people who do, and what the appeal is of certain formats and subjects, can tell us a lot about our culture.

It seems to me as if the discussion on On Point is never allowed to stray into the “no-go zone,” when it comes to criticizing government and industry or comparative government. I enjoy this show very much and I listen three to five times a week, but I believe that the roots of certain issues are sometimes not pulled from the ground.

Peter,
How is it off base? Are you an African American?
I’m not but I have had this discussion with a few friends who are and they have opened my eyes to what is going on in the media and the sub-text of what is being said and how Obama is being defined by language.

This has been brought up by David Gergen as well.
The way Obama is framed in conversation is not the same as McCain.

For instance, they say Obama is elite. Elite? he was brought up in a single parent home and used his brains to get into college and law school.

McCain came out the Navy top gun school, you don’t get anymore elite than that.

McCain is married to the heir of the Anheuser Bush corporation, you don’t get more elite than that.

McCain has been a senator for over 26 years, that’s pretty elite in my book. You don’t here about this being an issue with McCain.

As far as your comments on the segment about reality TV, your opinions are not making any sense. My point is just regarding the Friday show. There is a lot going on, this show was created after 9/11 to address issues facing our country.

I also don’t think a show on reality TV is in the same league as an interview with Bill Moyers or Michelle Goldberg.

Doing a show on why this phenomenon is so popular would have been more interesting and in keeping with the idea of On Point, that’s my critique for what it’s worth.

where is the podcast?!

“I’m not but I have had this discussion with a few friends who are and they have opened my eyes to what is going on in the media and the sub-text of what is being said and how Obama is being defined by language.”

ALL politicians are defined by the language, we will use whatever levers are available – race, religion, age, gender, personal or political associations, etc. Everything is in play. And OF COURSE there’s a subtext – ALL advertising, and especially political advertising, along with TV news, is carefully designed with the language, the music, the lighting, the images, and all the other elements, to reinforce narrative and emotion.

But I’m surprised your friends needed to explain this to you – you sound ’shocked, shocked’. I just assumed that those of us living in a media-saturated society know how the game she is played. Do you ever listen to NPR’s OTM?

So of course the fact that Obama is black is in play, both on his side and on McCain’s. McCain will try to find ways to make it work to McCain’s advantage and Obama will try to find ways to make it work to Obama’s advantage.

But you still haven’t answered my question – if any criticism of Obama’s lack of experience is to be construed as racism then are you saying that any discussion of Obama’s lack of experience is simply off-limits?

How quickly we allow ourselves to be distracted from OUR issues.

Oil (and therefore gasoline, heating oil, etc.) prices are already moving to some resolution, but will probably not fall much below $3.00/gal and remain there for some time. The economy has had numerous negative influences for a decade and the bursting of the housing bubble only brought it down dramatically.

The things that have shaped American history and future in the last several decades are mostly related to a wrong-headed, determined effort by conservatives to lock progressive thought from the political marketplace. For more than 20 years, American workers have declined in spending power despite amazing growth in individual productivity. That is an ongoing issue. Our understanding of our Constitution and rights have been redefined by the Supreme Court and an over-ambitious executive branch. That is an ongoing issue. We were led into a destructive (physically and emotionally) war by deception and mis-direction for reasons we still do not understand. That is an ongoing issue.

We must decide whether Barack Obama or John McCain has the ideas to begin to rectify these ongoing issues. Fixing the economy and getting oil prices under control are subordinate to these fundamental concerns. Election coverage should focus on the real issues, not the paper ones.

On the matter of experience: why is age the determinant of experience in this election?

We are engaged in what seems a personal conflict in Iraq, led there by a President and vice-president who supposedly had sufficient experience to run the country. Sen. McCain voted to approve an attack on Iraq. Sen. Clinton voted to approve an attack on Iraq. Sen. Obama saw 6 years ago that Iraq and Saddam Hussein were wrong targets. Who shows the wisdom that experience is supposed to impart?

The engagement of our forces in Iraq has more shaped post-9/11 America than any other action we have taken. It may well be that our involvement in the middle-east have allowed or made worse the decline in our economic stability and our place in the world.

What is the question of “experience” really trying to summon up? If it’s about being right on the right issues, I can’t see that it redounds to Sen. McCain’s favor. Obama will be over 50 at the end of the next Presidential term. Pres. Bush had never held any national office before becoming President. So again, what standards determine experience, and more especially, who is setting the standard “experienced enough”?

All those who are basing their choice in the upcoming election on relative “experience” of the candidates should take a very close look at what the term is supposed to mean. Frankly, I think we’re being used when an Obama opponent questions his experience. We happily parrot the expression without stopping to reason what signs we normally take to evaluate appropriate experience. Obama is running a successful campaign for the Presidency and he has been doing it with his own voice. He is setting a challenge that knocked the presumptive favorite off the pedestal. He is eye to eye with a candidate who’s been on the scene for decades without any huge distinction.

What character do you want in a true leader? One who speaks with his own mind and voice? Or do you prefer one whose ideas are those of a virtually failed administration. (Okay, Bush hasn’t been brought up for impeachment, but can you say why?) Sen. “Experience” asks for our vote, but what new path does he set for us? None that anyone can tell. The experience argument is a red herring. We shouldn’t take the bait.

And one other thing . . . I am, and white Americans – even the best intentioned I know – have no idea. You cannot imagine what it is like to live a day behind the mask of a dark-skinned face. You cannot know the subtle but unmistakable facial expressions, eye movements, body positionings that are probably the experience of every minority person of color in this society. Well I have lived long enough to have clearly seen both sides of segregation. When you can see clearly enough to see Sen. Obama as a man, as a human being, as every inch and fibre your equal, you will have arrived.

Glad to hear mention of Solzhenitsyn’s Harvard Commencement address, which has received paltry and misleading coverage all week. I’ve been suffering the same bewilderment I felt thirty years ago, wondering if any of the dismissive detractors of the speech had actually read it. When he gave the address in 1978, I was a recent college graduate and found its message life-changing. Solzhenitsyn began by referencing the school’s motto: “Veritas”, assuring that he would be offering a “measure of bitter truth” as “a friend not an adversary.” But the perspective of an outsider with nothing to gain or lose was met with the reactionary huffing and puffing of an arrogant host.
This week, I revisited my dog-eared and underlined copy of the speech ( “A World Split Apart”: Harper Collins, 1978) — partly to honor Solzhenitisyn, but more to test the accuracy of the one line monikers continuously regurgitated from the same search engines, categorizing the speech as an attack on America. It’s not. It is an urgent appeal to Western civilization to reclaim its spiritual values.
“We cannot avoid reassessing the fundamental definitions of human life and human society,” he exhorted. “Is it true that man is above everything? Is there no Superior Spirit above him? Is it right that man’s life and society’s activities should be ruled by material expansion above all? Is it permissible to promote such expansion to the detriment of our spiritual life?”
Who can argue with Solzhenitsyn’s claims that “hastiness and superficiality” are “the psychic diseases of the twentieth century”? Or that an obsession with legalities and the letter of the law, versus self-restraint, eat away the soul.
His observations of the West’s “persisting blindness of superiority”and “incomprehension of the essence of other worlds” carry the weight of prophesy in a post-9/11 world.
Sadly, nowhere is the prophetic nature of Solzhenitsyn’s speech more evident than in his assessment of the media which covered it and continue to cover it:
“What sort of responsibility does a journalist or a newspaper have to the readership or to history?” he asked. ‘How many hasty, immature, superficial, and misleading judgments are expressed every day, confusing readers, and are then left hanging?…none of them will ever be refuted. They settle into the reader’s memory.”
In the spirit of “veritas” and with gratitude for a speech which helped shape my life, I invite you to read “A World Split Apart”. May you find, as I did, that what “settles into memory” is not a bitter diatribe but the heartfelt conviction of Solzhenitsyn’s conclusion: “No one on earth – has any other way left but –upward.”

Peter your real quick to misinterpret what people are saying. In this case I never said I was shocked.
If you read my statements they are talking about the sub-text. I don’t need people to explain racism to me.
I have been on the receiving end of hatred for my ethnicity, in my case antisemitism.

I also resent you trying to frame me as ignorant when you seem have no idea what I am talking about in context to how language is being used in this context.
I was not talking about dumb ads McCain is using, which tells me more about his contempt of the American people than anything else. Does he really think we are that stupid?

I was saying that there is a subtle sub-text of language being used to frame Obama in the media and in how it comes up in conversation. That your not able to see this or at least that if you are it does not bother you speaks a lot about you and your perceptions.

Instead of trying to look into this idea you come out defensive, as all white people do because this makes them very uncomfortable. Your doing it, you might not know it but you are.

If I was to tell you that my 18 year old daughter found your photographs of young women offensive because she felt they objectified her a young woman, how would you respond to that critique?

Language in the case of Obama if you listen close enough is being used to define him as ‘the other’. That is he is different, not one of us and so on. this does not mean that talking about his experience is off limits.
I never said that, I did say that some people are using this terminology to suggest his difference.

Obama is clearly being framed as ‘other’ by the right and the Republican party, if you don’t see this I don’t know what to say. You said you are a Obama supporter?
Interesting, you support him but doubt his level of experience is good enough to be the President of the United States.

Ever read any Barthes, Derrida or Foucault?

However I never heard this kind of language used to define G.W. Bush when he was running for president as Diego Gonzalez mentioned, about his lack of experience in relation to running the country.

JFK did not have much experience, and even though he did not live long enough to leave a legacy, his tenure in the White House did show that a man of inelegance and vision can lead.

If you go back to the campaign of 1960 you will find language that is very similar being used to define Kennedy as ‘other’ because he was a Catholic.

I am talking about awareness, the power of language and how we define people, gender and race.

For what it’s worth I think Obama is a brilliant moderate Democrat who if given the chance might turn out to be a good president and boy do we need one now.

“I also resent you trying to frame me as ignorant when you seem have no idea what I am talking about in context to how language is being used in this context.”

YOU are the one who said that you needed to have your friends explain it to you. I’m saying that the semantic and contextual levers used by the media are obvious and need no explaining.

“I was saying that there is a subtle sub-text of language being used to frame Obama in the media and in how it comes up in conversation.”

Again: that is OBVIOUS. You seem to think that’s it’s a big discovery or relevation.

“If I was to tell you that my 18 year old daughter found your photographs of young women offensive because she felt they objectified her a young woman, how would you respond to that critique?”

Most of the complaints I get about my photography are from religious wacko’s. I can’t please everybody. But if she’s 18 y.o. she probably doesn’t know what “objectify” means. Ask her if she thinks we objectify NFL players or soldiers or undocumented aliens. Personally, I would LOVE to be objectified in the manner my models are.

“Language in the case of Obama if you listen close enough is being used to define him as ‘the other’.”

No kidding, but what’s your point? As I said, in a political contest people will use any levers they can get their fingers on, and race is a good lever. In American society we have become much more sophisiticated about how we make racial, ethnic, or religious references. So the fact that the McCain campaign will try to tap that, or that the Obama campaign will try to tap it in reverse for black voters is not surprising, or very interesting; it’s simply how the game is played.

“Interesting, you support him but doubt his level of experience is good enough to be the President of the United States.”

What I said is that his level of experience is a legitimate concern, so people need to be free to discuss it without being accused of using “experience” as a subtle signifier of race. Hillary ran on the basis of her experience, and McCain is doing so now, but one need only look at the votes their experience produced to realize why maybe that’s not a good strategy for them. LACK of experience may be an asset, if their voting records are any indication.

“On the matter of experience: why is age the determinant of experience in this election?”

Who said it had anything to do with age?

Clearly “experience” is not a panacea – both Hillary and McCain tried to point to their experience, but their voting records do not suggest that all the experience made them any wiser.

But that doesn’t change the fact that Obama, as a first term Senator with no prior federal government experience and no executive (gubernatorial or corporate) experience, would be one of the least experienced Presidents in modern history, so we need to be able to discuss it freely.

GW Bush was Governor of Texas which nothing more than a title as the power in that state is the legislator.

Bill Clinton did not have a huge amount of experience before his tenure at the White House other than being governor of Arkansas.

History is filled with presidents such as Grant, with a lot of experience running an army, being a war hero and such. He was one of the worst presidents in history.

By contrast FDR served one term as a New York State Senator, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, 1913 – 1920.
Governor of New York, 1929–1932.

People said he did not have the experience to be President, and that he was elite and all.

I dare say what would history have been like if a lesser man was in the White House during the years he was President. He was also able to adapt to situations and listened to his advisers. He originally wanted to let the market play out after the crash of 29, very much as Hoover wanted to do. The idea for the WPA and Social Security came from members of his cabinet and his wife Eleanor. (One of the greatest first ladies in history, she would have been a great president, we need someone like her now)

JFK and very little experience, he did not live long enough to leave a legacy, but he did keep us from having a nuclear war with the USSR, not an easy feat in those troubled times. He also made mistakes, very costly ones.

Nixon had a years of experience, including being Eisenhower’s VP. Look what that brought our country.

Reagen was a popular but not a very good president in terms of running the country. His one saving grace was he was pretty honest, what you saw is what you got.

History is filled with presidents who had a lot of experience and some with little and in both cases you can find them to be both good and bad at leading.

Hoover, what of his tenure. A lot of experience but his inability to take action led to the Great Depression.
I am not sure if he could have stopped it, but his inability to want to do anything was outrageous.

I think Obama has enough experience to be president due to his ability to inspire and understand complex issues.
He also has the ability to communicate to the opposition. He listens, he understands the importance of public speaking. Something I dare say the GW Bush laked in spades.

“Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans – born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage – and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world. Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin. Now the trumpet summons us again – not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need – not as a call to battle, though embattled we are – but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, “rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation”- a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country . My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”

- John F. Kennedy

“History is filled with presidents who had a lot of experience and some with little and in both cases you can find them to be both good and bad at leading.”

True, but none of them had as little experience as Obama, so it’s intellectually dishonest to suggest that his experience level is not a legitimate point to discuss.

When I interview job candidates (engineers and scientists) at my company I certainly focus on their experience. Advanced degrees from top universities are pretty common in my industry, but what we want to know in the interview process is the sorts of problems they’ve solved, and more importantly, how they went about it.

Your companies hiring practices have nothing to do with the presidential process and neither does any others for that matter. We are not hiring a president, we are electing one. Sounds as if your company hires people who have some work experience anyway.

However what if a person shows up to an interview, who is young has only had one job, graduated from MIT at the top of his class and is oozing with talent. Your other candidate has 10 years of work experience and an MIT degree as well, not as brilliant but more experience even though he might not be as smart.

You know for a guy who says he supports Obama you sound more like a McCain kind person.

However what if a person shows up to an interview, who is young has only had one job, graduated from MIT at the top of his class and is oozing with talent.

That describes most of our people! (could be MIT, CalTech, Stanford, etc)

We sometimes hire right out of school, but then it would not be for a very senior position, so we wouldn’t be taking a big risk. But if we’re hiring someone for a senior design position we’d like to know what he/she’s designed, how they went about it, what they learned from the experience, and how well they worked with others on it, do they have a portfolio or patents, etc

Poor products don’t just mean no profits – they also mean job losses, plant closings, interrupted careers, and other genuine hardships. Hiring decisions have real consequences because only the best people can create the best products. And an election IS a hiring process.

Unfortunately the choice between McCain and Obama is between one person who has lots of experience but did not learn well from it, so he made bad decisions, and someone with almost no experience so what he would do in office is anyone’s guess.

I’m guessing that Obama is smart enough to choose smart advisors (my experience is that highly intelligent people like to have other highly intelligent people around them), but as I said, it’s intellectually dishonest to pretend that his lack of experience is a non-issue.

Almost every politician with the amount of experience of McCain is going to have a record that is patchy. It goes with the territory.

I am not bothered by Obama’s lack of experience.
It’s not an issue for me, I am willing to give him a chance.

I want the smartest man in the White House as well as someone who is progressive. Obama is not a progressive he is a moderate but at least he is not a ideologue.

I disagree an election is a hiring process. To much is at stake. The difference is we cant fire the President like they can do in a parliamentary system.

If you hire someone and it does not work out they get fired. It’s more fluid as a process and the consequences are not the same. We have to wait 4 years.

I will say it’s anyones guess how a President will do, as events, which is an unknown factor are a huge part of how the person will perform in office.

Jeff–

I’m really disturbed by your posts.

Any criticism of Obama is racist, in your eyes. Any doubts about him are merely cover for racism.

Replace the word “racist” in my sentences above with “anti-patriotic” or “counter-revolutionary.” I will not allow myself to be bullied into voting for a candidate out of fear of being called a nasty name. I hope most Americans won’t either, and will decide based on issues and past-performance.

Finally, I agree with your final statement that a lot is at stake with elections. But then why would experience, which is something that we can measure, be LESS important, rather than more?! Rather, since elections are so important, we should focus more on candidates’ words?

By your logic, past experience should matter when a firm is hiring people to staff the mail room. But for the CEO position, a resume isn’t required.

I’m sorry, but I don’t see Obama as a moderate. I don’t think most of his supporters would, either. (Frankly, isn’t that what this “change we can believe in” is all about?!)

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To all disgruntled Republicans… In the immortal unifying words of Justice Scalia, “Get over it.”

all politicains are the same

sean kursawe