It’s no secret that Barack Obama fared poorly among white-working class voters in the Indiana primary. Why did he not win them over? Thomas M. DeFrank of The New York Daily News knows — Joe Six-Pack is a religious bigot:
While the case for Hillary Clinton to stay in the race is shakier than ever, one ugly reason for staying in could be found Tuesday amid the ruddy, sun-kissed Hoosiers who cheered her on to victory at the Indianapolis Speedway.
With Clinton posing alongside pioneering Indy speedster Sarah Fisher, there were almost no African-Americans to be seen. Many in the white, working-class crowd were simply not ready to back Barack Obama - for reasons that are disturbing.
“I’m kind of still up in the air between McCain and Hillary,” said Jason Jenkins, 32, who cited information from a hoax e-mail as a reason to spurn Obama.
“I’ll be honest with you. Barack scares the hell out of me,”he said. “He swore on the Koran.”
Obama did manage to pull in many white voters, but still encountered similar sentiments from a man who refused to shake his hand at a diner in Greenwood, Ind.
“I can’t stand him,” the man said. “He’s a Muslim. He’s not even pro-American as far as I’m concerned.”
Give DeFrank some credit. He talked to ordinary voters, and he got revealing quotes from them about religion. Neither is an easy task.
Yet it is outrageous for DeFrank to assert that the two men represent the sentiments of all white-working class voters. It’s nothing more than a smear. (DeFrank’s alternative explanations — that Joe Six Pack was mortified by the Rev. Wright or is a racist — are no less assuring).
DeFrank gives his readers no evidence that the two voters’ views are widespread. He offers no statistical or survey data. He did not talk to a representative sample of white-working class voters or even a small sample. He simply implies that the part stands for the whole.
This journalism is beneath a man of DeFrank’s prestige.
His story also inspires speculation about whether national-class reporters give, as one Hoosier Democrat sang, a damn about the Jackie Browns of this world.
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Comments (59) |
May 10, 2008, at 9:02 pm
Wow, just… wow.
May 10, 2008, at 9:34 pm
If I was Obama’s campaign manager, I’m not sure what I’d fear most: whether a good percentage of whites think his candidate is a Muslim, or whether they knew he was a Christian, but the rather angry Leftist kind that rarely has anything nice to say about America, it’s history, or white people.
Either way, not good for Obama.
On Friday, someone whom I thought knew better (and who is quite educated, unlike the rubes above in the photo) called to tell me in no uncertain terms that Obama is not only a Muslim but someone who would destroy America from within. There was no convincing him otherwise.
May 10, 2008, at 10:18 pm
I’m sure that DeFrank’s insights were the product of minutes of in-depth “research” and “analysis”.
May 10, 2008, at 10:32 pm
The Indianapolis Speedway can accommodate something over a quarter of a million people. I’ll bet you could find “many” people who believe all sorts of things. My cynical side always wonders how many people they had to talk to to find someone who said what they needed to hear. (end of cynicism)
OF COURSE there are “many” people who opposed Sen. Obama for racist or religious reasons. There are also “many” people who oppose him because they think he lacks the experience to be president. There are “many” people who simply disagree with his politics.
So what?
May 11, 2008, at 2:02 am
Sadly, we have some people here to are almost as mis-informed as those who think he’s Muslim. I don’t know whether or not it’s ignorance or malice, but God grant knowledge and charity fill all our hearts so that Truth and Godly Love prevail.
May 11, 2008, at 6:13 am
To me, one of the astonishing things about this and similar stories is that the (completely ludicrous) accusation that Obama is a Muslim is stopping people voting for him. Why is this going unchallenged? Since when is being a Muslim a reasonable reason in itself not to vote for a candidate? It’s just not being discussed, especially in comparison with thenumber of column inches devoted to the storm in Mitt Romney’s Mormon teacup.
Being predisposed to someone because of their religion (even their ‘accused’ religion, in this case) is just plain old dumb BIGOTRY. It’s out of order! That’s the big religion ghost in these stories, in my opinion. It’s got to be talked about and dealt with, not just reported.
May 11, 2008, at 10:35 am
I think the story is fairly sensationalistic, but I wonder what the reaction would have been if he’d strung together a few quotes from Catholics saying they won’t vote for Obama because of abortion or gay marriage? Would the story have been considered as bad?
The uncomfortable reality that the Reagan coalition was formed, in part, because of race continues to permeate our politics. So if Indiana voters—blue collar white NASCAR fans—voice skepticism because of race, is that such a shocking discovery? Are stories that point out this truth verboten?
The truth is we don’t know much about working class white voters and why they don’t support Obama. So we are forced to speculate. Some would speculate it’s based on abortion because they attend Mass, some would speculate it’s based on race because, well, of Obama’s race.
May 11, 2008, at 12:35 pm
Yes, far better to speculate, in print no less, than to do actual research. Research difficult. Speculation easy. Wage the same.
May 11, 2008, at 1:04 pm
Michael wrote:
What are we, some kind of alien species, some sort of inexplicable group with whom you have no contact?
Sorry to jump on Michael, but his comment really angers me. Who are the “we” who don’t know much about working class white voters? To that “we” who don’t know us — and I’ll assume here that Michael’s “we” is actually “I” — are working class white voters somehow invisible, the faceless automatons who hand you your coffee at Starbucks in the morning or deliver the food to the grocery stores?
I’ve got news for you, bub: we are the people who make America function. If all the doctors and all the garbagemen went on strike at the same time, which of the two do you believe that you apparently non-working class people would miss more, and miss first?
May 11, 2008, at 1:31 pm
#7 -
There’s a difference between Obama being a Muslim (he’s not) and his being pro-choice and pro-gay marriage (he is). There is no story in the latter case, unless you string together some quotes from Catholics who do support him.
Dana’s comment has me wondering, though: am I a working class white boy? or just a very poorly paid professional class white boy?
May 11, 2008, at 2:14 pm
Yet it is outrageous for DeFrank to assert that the two men represent the sentiments of all white-working class voters.
When did this happen? ‘Assert’? ‘All’?
May 11, 2008, at 2:39 pm
We, being the press. The phenomenon that white, working-class voters favor one candidate over another—when their positions are almost indistinguishable—in a Democratic primary is something the press and the politicos don’t understand. There hasn’t been any polling that fleshes out what is it about Obama that fails to attract a majority of these voters and what is it about Clinton that attracts them.
This is a fair question. But in terms of the media, the issue is understanding the Obama/Clinton gap and how it will play out in the Fall election.
I’d love to see the unbiased research. We just don’t have it, which means we end up with lots of speculating talking heads.
May 11, 2008, at 4:48 pm
Let us note that this is a contest between two liberals. If you vote for Hillary, you’re a liberal, and if you vote for her because Obama is black, you’re a liberal racist.
May 11, 2008, at 5:10 pm
Steven A (post #2) said:
How can one tell anything about the educational level of the “rubes” in that photo? I’m a pastor that often has people sitting in the pews dressed as these are … and some of the people I know who dress like that are quite educated, even by the standards of Ivy League elites. I suggest that Steven allowed a bit of prejudicial stereotyping to occur in this instance.
Should I use this as an example of how reporters and politicians “get Bubba” about as well as they get religion?
May 11, 2008, at 5:10 pm
FW Ken wrote:
OK, I’m college educated, raher well read, and I manage a concrete plant. My salary makes me solidly middle-class, and our family income puts us — just barely — in the top ten percent of income tax filers by AGI; my wife is a registered nurse.
You look at my title and my income, and you’re going to think “middle class.” But I wear jeans and work boots and wrkshirts, I shovel out from under conveyor belts, I clean cement baghouses, I run the front-end loader and forklift and I grease the plant. You look at what I do, and you’d think “working class.”
My previous response was a bit of a rant, but it was meant to point out something: if you work for a living, you are working class. I’m seeing too many things out there from people who somehow see some sort of difference between someone who picks up the garbage and someone who sells insurance: both are working people as far as I am concerned.
Implicit in the “working class” stories is the whiff of elitism: I’m a professional, don’t you know, somehow more educated and just a little bit better than those guys who work with their hands. But many of us who do working class jobs make more money than some of our white-collar brethren.
Ken, if you have a job, you are working class as far as I am concerned. And since I hold licenses to do what I do, and am paid for what I do, I’d say that I’m a “professional,” even though I don’t wear a suit and tie to work.
It seems to me that much of what Michael responded, that “white, working-class voters favor one candidate over another—when their positions are almost indistinguishable—in a Democratic primary is something the press and the politicos don’t understand,” is predicated on the strange notion that the media aren’t working class themselves. Yet most reporters, at least once you get outside of the major cities, aren’t all that well-paid, and don’t really earn any more than — if even as much — as a skilled craftsman.
I feel another rant coming on, and I have to lawn the mow (a Picoism, not a typo) anyway; I’ll mull over a better way to conclude this while doing that chore.
May 11, 2008, at 7:47 pm
Aboslutely, Dana. Arguably, you are a member of the elite compared to most reporters in the mainstream media.
But journalists aren’t supposed to write about themselves. They are expected to be objective observers. So while most journalists are working class—especially compared to you—they are oblgated to view working class voters as studied as they are viewed by politicos. As a group, the thinking of working-class, white voters is the obsession of the moment.
This obsession does upset many in the Democratic movement. Notice Donna Brazille’s recent rant about the focus on white, working-class workers over the people who have been the core of the party: African Americans, high-income (Starbucks lattes) educated whites. Like the focus on Evangelicals earlier, African Americans and high-income whites are asking why they bothered being the core of the party if they are just going to be dismissed and ignored.
May 11, 2008, at 8:06 pm
I’d like to go further with Michael’s point that the media don’t understand why “white, working-class voters favor one candidate over another—when their positions are almost indistinguishable—in a Democratic primary.” I’d like to suggest a few reasons:
1- The media that get national exposure — and therefore the segment of the media on which all of the stereotypes are based — are the media based in the major cities. The stories concerning Hillary Clinton’s appeal to rural Pennsylvanians were reported from Wilkes-Barre, but they were primarily reported by people based in New York and Washington; the local reporters, the ones who know the local people, don’t get the beyond-local ink. there may be a few exceptions in the print media, but when it comes to television, the reporters who file the stiries and get the air-time are exclusively the travelling national correspondants.
2- There is a real cultural and perceptual difference between urban/suburban and small-town/rural people. Not only don’t the national reporters know the local people, they have completely different cultural frames of reference.
3- Identity politics. It’s been noted above that a decent sized piece of Senator Obama’s base consists of college educated white urbanites. But some of the comments in this thread alone make it clear that the educated white urbanites see themselves as somehow different, set apart from the white working class voters. This, by itself, sets up a competition: what is seen as advantageous by one group might well be seen as a disadvantage by the other. If the city-people see Mr Obama as their candidate, there will be a natural tendency amongst more rural dwellers to see Mr Obama as the candidate supporting the interests of the urban dwelers, to the disadvantage of those in smaller towns. You might argue that such is a false perception, but it doesn’t matter: perception is reality in the mind of the voter.
And, of course, the big one:
4- Race. You probably won’t like this one, but it’s true. Rural/small-town Pennsylvania is white Pennsylvania, and when we read or hear stories about blacks, the vast majority of the time they are stories about black men in Philadelphia killing other black men in Philadelphia. Given a choice between a white candidate and a black one, who are very similar in every other regard, the white candidate wins. I don’t know why that ought to surprise anyone: Mr Obama has won over 90% of the votes of black Democrats, despite the fact that his positions and Hillary Clinton’s are not very different. If black voters can see it as an advantage to themselves to favor a black candidate, why ought anyone to be surprised that some white voters might look at things the same way?
A little background, to let you know from what perspective I write: I live in a small town in the southern Poconos, but spent most of my adult life in urban areas in Virginia and Kentucky.
May 11, 2008, at 8:11 pm
Michael wrote (as I was composing my last):
The only truly objective observer would be God; we all have our biases, and we all have cultural and educational and experiential limitations on how we observe things. In many regards, journalists have set up for themselevs an impossible standard: total objectivity, when total objectivity is impossible.
May 11, 2008, at 8:23 pm
Michael raises another interesting perceptual question. He noted that I am “a member of the elite compared to most reporters in the mainstream media,” based on my income.
But if most reporters saw me, they’d see a guy in blue jeans and work boots, who drives an eight year olf F-150, with dirt and grease under my fingernails — one of which is black now, due to a bruise created at work — and who lives in a modest home, on which I have to do more work. Unless I handed them my Form 1040, odds are that a good many reporters would see themselves higher up the status ladder than me. No one would look at me and think, “There goes one of the elites!”
May 11, 2008, at 8:38 pm
I don’t know about Hill Billy religion and what people in those fundamentalist Protestant area churches are talking about. But earlier this evening I was at a large Catholic urban working class parish meeting where politics kept coming up (a natural here in Mass.) And I was surprised how often the issue of Obama and infanticide kept coming up (and also surprised at how many realized that somwhere along the line in his career Obama had defended infanticide). Possibly this is because many Catholic publications and media outlets (ignored by much of the MSM) have at least mentioned the issue. Also the major Catholic civil rights group has been bringing this issue up.
Could this be why so many Catholics have spurned Obama?? The MSM seems to be fastidiously avoiding polling how working class white Catholics feel on this issue. They seem to prefer to hint slanderously that it is probably just some form of racist bigotry that is behind so many Democrat Catholics voting for Hillary. (Although it would be interesting to find out how Hillary feels on this issue and see if she is just gaining Castholic votes by being silent on the issue.)
May 11, 2008, at 8:47 pm
Dana, my rueful comment (note the smiley face) would have worked better had it been: am I a blue collar white boy? or just a very poorly paid white collar white boy?
In fact, I have a master’s degree and work in a law enforcement support profession. It’s not a licensed position, and I make less than line workers at an auto plant, some carpenters, and most mechanics. That’s not a complaint: I often say that I have the best job in the world, or would if if just payed money.
(note the smiley face).
May 11, 2008, at 8:51 pm
From where does this objectivity come, if it is not based on unbiased research? And how are reporters to serve as “objective observers” of Flyover Country when they spend 99% of their time cloistered in the D.C. or NYC areas and then swoop into Flyover Country during primaries or the general election?
If they want to cover things on a national scale, then newspapers and other media outlets need to rethink how they do business. Their current approach simply isn’t working. They may be able to fool the elites in the big cities where they are based, but they ain’t foolin’ the rest of us, including the Joe Six-Packs whom they disdain. Besides, Joe knows better than to read the stuff they’re shoveling.
May 11, 2008, at 9:18 pm
On the PBS News Hour the other night, an African-American talking head challenged the moderator and a couple of white talking heads as to why there are so many terms in the press for white people — blue collar, Joe Six-Pack, soccer moms, NASCAR dads — while black people are lumped together as African-Americans.
The answer, methinks, is that African-Americans overwhelmingly vote Democratic and, in the contest still unfolding, overwhelmingly back Obama. There’s no point in parsing a constituency that doesn’t show interesting differential behaviors.
My concern is that journalists are just racist enough to unconsciously regard this as essential rather than circumstantial and aren’t alert to any distant early warning signs of differential behavior among black voters.
May 11, 2008, at 9:32 pm
#20: I really think Hillary Clinton’s generally been trying to run to Obama’s left on abortion, though she didn’t play this up in Penna., of course. I don’t see how there would be any difference between them, ultimately, as to abortion, though the perception in some quarters might be that Clinton is somehow less pro-choice.
May 11, 2008, at 10:55 pm
To Pastor K (post 14 above) re: the “rubes” comment, I was being facetious. Apparently, the photo was selected because they aren’t elitists, and are seen as rubes by the elitists. I should have noted the sarcasm by expanding my point. I certainly don’t believe that people can be categorized by race or by where they live, etc.
As for Michael’s comment above (post #7):
So the Reagan Coalition was an “anti-minority” one, formed exclusively by whites? That’s just bizarre, and re-writes history.
Or maybe Michael didn’t mean that. Given my own mistyping, I’ll give him a chance to revise and extend, just as I’ve done.
May 11, 2008, at 11:05 pm
“in part.” Race played a role in the creation of the Reagan coalition. Even Reagan disciples acknowledge this. The Reagan coalition was also ovewhelmingly white. Again, a point not disputed.
May 11, 2008, at 11:31 pm
Michael, let me get your thinking straight: “The Coalition was overwhelmingly white, therefore race played a role in the creation of the Coalition.”
Whaaa?
“Overwhelmingly white” doesn’t mean racist. Any more than an all-black church is automatically racist.
May 11, 2008, at 11:32 pm
Pastor K: It just dawned on me that the title of this post might be offensive to you, too, and it came long before my response to this posting. I’m sure Mark meant his headline sarcastically, too.
May 11, 2008, at 11:41 pm
Stephen, you’ve made a logic error that I never articulated. The fact that race played a role in the creation of the Reagan coalition is independent of the overwhelmingly white nature of the coalition. There are many overwhelmingly white groups that are not racist and I’m not even saying the coalition was racist.
May 12, 2008, at 12:28 am
In that case, Michael, let me be very clear: The Reagan Coalition was not set up, in part or in whole, “because of race,” which was your original contention. There is simply no evidence to support such a statement, and to imply any role implies racISM being involved.
To my knowledge, no one voted against either Carter in 1980 or Mondale in 1984 because they were black.
The Reagain Coalition appealed to ALL Americans, and it won over Americans in very large numbers in nearly every socio-economic, political and ethnic group. It wasn’t in any way exclusionary, it was INclusionary.
May 12, 2008, at 11:02 am
Since blacks give upwards of 90% of their votes to Democrats, you could make a coincidental case that any coalition which favored a Republican was somehow lily-white. The real question to be asked is: why are blacks simply unwilling to consider voting Republican?
May 12, 2008, at 3:00 pm
The Republican Southern Strategy was to take advantage of resentment of white Southerners against the Democratic Party over the civil right legislation of the 1960s. It first kicked in in the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Giving Reagan’s name to this is a bit confusing because “Reagan Democrats” generally denotes voters who should have been pocketbook Democrats but came over to the GOP over social issues, primarily abortion.
The Southern Strategy has continued to operate in presidential elections and began working in congressional elections in 1994 when many “yellow dog” Southern Democrats — left enough of the GOP to keep the black vote, right enough of the national Democratic Party to keep the white vote — lost to Republicans.
The Reagan Democrats have gone back and forth.
The two political phenomena should imho not be confused.
May 12, 2008, at 3:11 pm
The question is whether they are separate phenomena or intertwined phenomena. Pocketbook Democrats who went to the GOP over social issues, primarily abortion, also had views that made them susceptible to the Southern Strategy built on white resentment. White resentment in Ohio and Pennsylvania is not all that different from white resentment in Alabama or Tennessee.
May 12, 2008, at 3:14 pm
Dave,
I first read of the “Southern Strategy” in An American Melodrama: The Presidential Campaign of 1968 (1969) by Lewis Chester, Godgrey Hodgson, and Bruce Page. The authors said that the strategy referred to Nixon’s strategy in the Republican primaries against Rockefeller. So your history and description of the strategy are false.
You also leave the impression that any Southern Democrat who votes Republican is a bigot or racist. Surely your description should be more precise.
May 12, 2008, at 3:26 pm
Nope. The Southern Strategy originates from the 1968 election, and actually did involve a lot of resentment from whites based on the Civil Rights movement and the radicalism being exhibited in some quarters of society.
You can argue that the Solid South existed from that time through the 80s, but it surely didn’t originate with Reagan, and took on an entirely different form with Reagan (although Democrats like to make it seem as if racism played a role with support for Reagan. As noted before, it did not.)
The Reagan Coalition was/is something quite different, and was based on UNITING disparate groups - hardhats, working people, youth, military, etc. Michael comes closer to describing it, noting the pro-life and “pocketbook” Democrats and eventually the Blue Dog Democrats who came over to vote Republican.
Since blacks do tend to vote as a solid bloc reflexively for Demcorats, maybe we should ask why the Democrats are preying on BLACK resentment, since whites have been willing to cross back and forth rather fluidly throughout the decades.
May 12, 2008, at 3:43 pm
Well, that’s certainly one spin.
It does point out how difficult it is to write about race and how race impacts voters. That 28 years later, people are still disagreeing over the role of race in the Reagan revolution points out how hard it is to analyze these issues in the 2008 Democratic primary.
May 12, 2008, at 4:10 pm
Stephen A. wrote:
May 12, 2008, at 4:12 pm
Oops, hit the wrong key.
Stephen, please read my words when you cite them. I said the Southern Strategy kicked in in 1980. The 1968 and 1972 elections were lost to the Democrats because of their ongoing disarray. The 1976 election was lost to the GOP because of Watergate. 1980 was when the strategy began to work.
May 12, 2008, at 4:17 pm
Stephen A. writes:
I don’t subscribe to this, which is why I don’t think the Southern Strategy should be conflated with the Reagan Democrats.
Michael, I do agree with Stephen that the Reagan phenomenon was in part one of uniting people. This doesn’t obscure the fact that Reagan was an essentially divisive politician; he picked issues that divided people and took the side that he thought would prevail, and he was pretty good at guessing the latter. But he did build a coalition.
May 12, 2008, at 4:24 pm
Well, uniting certain segments of people. But what were they uniting around? If we are going to argue that one of the issues they united around was abortion and social issues as defined by the religious right, isn’t it also fair to say that one of the issues that united them was racial resentment and anxiety?
May 12, 2008, at 4:30 pm
Michael:
Reagan did use what are commonly (at least on the left) seen as racial code words — the welfare mother in the Cadillac, eg. But iirc his main message was about patriotism and optimism about America, and scorn for those (like hippies and war protesters) who did not agree.
When I talk about uniters and dividers, it’s more along the following lines: the Libertarian Party unites people who want FDA-banned treatments legalized and those who want marijuana legalized. Ralph Nader’s candidacies divided left from more moderate Democrats who would otherwise have been united behind the Dem candidate.
May 12, 2008, at 4:51 pm
Another assessment based on years of first-hand research in the four states and painstaking, objective analysis by an expert who lives in D.C.
May 12, 2008, at 4:53 pm
Dave writes,
You ought to specify which states and constituencies were affected by the strategy. After all, Carter had some problems of his own —- stagflation, the Iran hostage crisis, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, etc.
Your assertions about white racism strike me, and many other readers, as a club that you wave indiscriminately.
May 12, 2008, at 5:04 pm
Steven A (#25):
Thanks, Stephen for clearing that up. And btw, I wasn’t offended by your post, nor by this post’s title. I am concerned that rural communities are often misunderstood, ignored, and ridiculed by their suburban cousins. Unfortunately, I see it happening all to often even within the denomination to which I belong, as well as society writ large.
And before I was appointed to this “redneck of the woods” I was as guilty as the rest in that. Serving here has totally changed my understanding of poverty, social and economic justice, and suburban/big-city elitism.
May 12, 2008, at 7:47 pm
Mark Stricherz writes:
Nobody else in this discussion has been challenged to back up his or her memories or opinions with this kind of analysis. And it would really get outside the writ of GR.
Eh? I haven’t accused anyone of racism, white or black. You may note the careful description I use about Reagan’s language — considered […] to be code words.
May 12, 2008, at 8:28 pm
#24—The issue the MSM is NOT covering is not abortion but infanticide (the killing of a live baby after it has been born) And that is the ignored issue as far as the Catholic civil rights league and many Catholic publications are concerned.
In Illinois nurses discovered some doctors who had been hired to do abortions had not succeeded in killing the child in the womb—so they killed —by purposeful neglect already born healthy babies.
The issue was brought before the Illinois Senate and Barack Obama became the point man defending killing already born babies as just “delayed abortions.” Maybe that is the excuse the MSM has for not asking questions on the issue—they accept infanticide as just a “delayed abortion.”—a rather major Orwellian change in our language.But many “abortion rights” supporters do not support partial-birth abortion. One can only wonder if—because they seem to be in a swoon over Obama—they would now be willing to support the killing of already born infants because their hero does.
May 12, 2008, at 11:43 pm
I’ve found all this talk of “white working class” and “white ethnics” to be rather offensive and annoying. [Call me sensitive, I guess.] I even heard the term “downscale” voters. That sounds like a term we’d use in economics to discuss the cheap product markets. I am an educated professional, who is now home w/kiddies and shops at the Superwalmart—NO ONE can beat their prices on food! Am I now downscale?
And who says all “working class” or “ethnic” whites are Roman Catholic? Aren’t any protestants “working class” any more? Doesn’t the press know that Catholics may and do obtain college degrees these days? And with so many American Catholics leaving the Church, or just not practicing, why is a Catholic identity of any import to political voting? Especially in the Dem party, where the party bows to abortion, the single most offensive practice here in the US, as far as the Church is concerned. [I say that since it remains THE defining issue for (practicing) Catholic voters, I’d say.] Catholic Dem voters don’t care about abortion that much, or they rationalize it away with “seamless garments”; otherwise, they would not be Dems.
May 13, 2008, at 12:16 pm
Deacon John wrote:
Eh? Anti-abortion propagandists have been calling abortion child murder — the defintion of infanticide — for 35 years. Pot, meet kettle.
May 13, 2008, at 9:33 pm
Dave, if what’s alleged here is true - babies being actually born outside the womb, and then left to die, or are actually killed by the doctor - then that really is, by definition, infanticide, and has always been called such (or “exposure.”)
MOST people, even pro-choice people, would define that as child murder, even if they refuse to call an abortion inside the womb a murder. Remember that more than 80% of people think “partial birth abortion” is outrageous and morally wrong, and that includes pro-choice people. I expect they would find out-of-womb exposure or infanticide far worse.
So I see no kettles here, only the correct application of the word Orwellian to describe this procedure.
May 14, 2008, at 10:11 am
Stephen, you’re missing the point. Deacon John, an anti-abortionist, calls the pro-choice conflation of infanticide and abortion Orwellian. Anti-abortionists have committed this conflation at least since Roe v Wade. Thus, pot and kettle.
Have a clear day
.
May 14, 2008, at 1:08 pm
Dave, we’ll let Deacon John settle it, but his last line implies that the MSM is now doing something different.
May 14, 2008, at 2:55 pm
Stephen, the only thing the MSM could do different on this story is give extensive coverage to Obama’s position when he was an IL state senator. This would be a huge departure from its coverage of the Democratic race, in which there is no past and no future, only the clash of the moment. I would welcome such a change because it would entail Obama explaining his own actions. So far I have only Deacon John’s assertions on this.
May 14, 2008, at 6:42 pm
Dave—Don’t take my “assertion on it.” Google “Obama and infanticide.” There are 200,000 listed citations-mostly about his defense of infanticide in the Illinois Senate. According to one article Obama claimed it was this issue that gave him the biggest problem in running for the U.S. Senate. Yet now the biased (or blinded by ideology) liberal media isn’t even interested. Maybe because polls show that 80% of Americans are against partial-birth abortion. One can only wonder what effect on his candidacy a full venting of Obama’s defense of infanticide would cause if the MSM ever brought it to light.
May 14, 2008, at 7:56 pm
Deacon John:
I’ve told you before not to give me links or Google invitations in this matter. The years have taught me that someone will claim anything on the Internet; it has zero quality control.
If there is anything to this, some 527 will try to swiftboat Obama with it should he become the Democratic nominee, and then we can get his response.
As a matter of legislative prudence, had I been in his shoes I would have asked the question: How can one tell, after the fact, if an abortus has been terminated inside or outside the womb? Is this not in fact just another attempt to threaten abortion providers with criminalization?
May 14, 2008, at 11:07 pm
Dave, if the doctor has smothered a child (not an “abortus”) outside the womb, where 99.9% of people agree is has been ‘born’ then under current law in most states, I believe that’s called murder. Infanticide fits, too.
Why it isn’t already a crime in Illinois I don’t know.
If he legitimately voted against this bill then it’s not a swiftboat, it’s a fact and will legitimately be brought forward for us to judge whether it disqualifies him or not.
May 15, 2008, at 9:45 am
Stephen, I’m not arguing definitions, I’m talking about evidence. After the fact, how can it be proved that the death took place in utero or outside? The proposed law could become a tool for random harassment of late-term abortion providers.
If that seems like a pessimistic reading of the intent of the backers of the bill, it comes from the history of anti-choice salami tactics in state legislatures.
FWIW infanticide probably is already a crime in Illinois. If so that throws further doubt on the motives of the proponents, going to all the trouble of legislating a redundancy.
May 15, 2008, at 6:33 pm
Dave—new laws need to be written because most big city prosecutors are liberal Dem Party polls and will not prosecute for child murder if it follows a botched abortion (musn’t offend Planned Parenthood).
As for reading other sources than the liberal MSM listed on Google—talk about a closed mind giving total control of one’s thinking to the proven biased MSM. People who are conservative or of traditional morality cannot escape the pervasive propaganda that attacks their positions and have to look to other sources from books to computer research. Yet I know here (in Mass. anyway) many liberals read only the fanatically liberal Boston Globe (owned by the NY Times) and consider themselves well-read and well-informed even though, for the most part they have only read one side of just about every issue. What a farce! What a joke!
So you will only look at the infanticide issue, facts and evidence- when-and if- the MSM ever gives its seal of approval. No wonder this country is so morally sick.
May 15, 2008, at 7:34 pm
Deacon John writes:
A breathtaking indictment of an entire profession, based on no evidence whatsoever. Besides, what’s to keep them from ignoring new laws?
This might be a valid critique if I read only one newspaper or watched only network news. In fact I gather news from multiple sources, whose biases I know from experience, and get a rounded view. Going onto the Web is an invitation to either pick up a virus of the mind, or gravitate to a mirror of one’s own opinions. (Which is one reason I like GR so much despite being in the minority so often.)
May 16, 2008, at 3:34 am
Well, if the hillbillies are bigots, why don’t you send them all a copy of the teachings of the last prophet? It teaches that Jews and Christians must be fought until they be humbled, and they pay tribute
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/009.qmt.html#009.029 .
OR else quietly read “Saudi prof faces flogging for having coffee with woman” at:
http://www.religionnewsblog.com/21429/islamic-religious-insanity-8 .
Did you know that slavery and ransom is also part of that culture? Read up to find out why the US Marines song has a line “To the shores of Tripoli”. It was to stop Yanks being taken and enslaved by the Barbary Corsair pirates.
Wake up, America !