Fair is fair: Here’s a pro-Hillary rebuttal

Sandy Novelly of Las Vegas wrote this rebuttal to my Sunday column in the Review-Journal. It's too long to fit into the comments section at the bottom of my column. So, here it is with only minor editing for your edification. I think she's pretty much wrong-headed and revisionist ... but I am sure there are a few folks out there who say that's exactly what I am sometimes. So fair is fair ...

By Sandy Novelly
Las Vegas

In the Sunday, May 18, 2008 edition of the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Viewpoints section, you wrote a column decrying The New York Times ’tepid rebuke’ so far of Sen. Hillary Clinton’s disgusting politics of racism.’ I would like to dispute your assertions.

First, I don’t know where you got your information that Hillary and her surrogates admit she will lose the popular vote and lose the delegate count to Sen. Barack Obama. I challenge you to cite your sources.

Second, anyone who suggests Sen. Clinton’s quote taken from an Associated Press Article that ‘Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans is weakening again’ is somehow suggestive that white folks are hard-working and black people are not is using quite a stretch to make a point that is simply not there. Perhaps the writer of this column and others who come to this shaky conclusion should examine their own attitudes towards African-Americans if they ferret out this sort of negative from this innocuous comment. And did Sen. Clinton even make the original comment?

Ah, perhaps you mean to point out that Sen. Obama has a much larger black base than Sen. Clinton. This position has already been proven by exit polls taken in many states that have already voted, and in itself could be considered racist if one wanted to look at it that way. I contend many black folks have voted for Sen. Obama simply because of racial pride, just as I’m also certain some women have voted for Sen. Clinton because she’s a woman. I would bet none of these voters picked their candidate because they wholeheartedly felt he/she is the best candidate. In such a historic contest, I also contend some of this is inevitable.
http://time-blog.com/real_clear_politics/2007/12/obama_the_black_vote.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23571981/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/26/AR2008012602741.html

Let’s examine the racial overtone of this campaign. The Clintons enjoyed an extremely good relationship with the African-American community before Barack Obama became a candidate. Even afterwards, many black leaders and delegates backed Sen. Clinton. As the campaign continued, however, and more and more folks in the AA community voted for Obama, these leaders and delegates faced mounting pressures to switch allegiance to Obama and many felt forced to do so:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/29/obama.defections/index.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/02/AR2008030202434.html

Is this due to Sen. Clinton’s ‘tactics’? The following articles would suggest Sen. Obama played the ‘race card’ first. There are many others out there besides these.
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20080330_Obama_was_the_first_to_play_the_race_card.html
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=aa0cd21b-0ff2-4329-88a1-69c6c268b304
I presume Sen. Obama’s appeal to blacks isn’t racist, eh?

Just why is it you feel Sen. Clinton’s campaign has been so racist? Because she has courted ALL the voters even those in states ignored by Sen. Obama, who in his extreme arrogance has snubbed them because he has crowned himself the nominee and feels he has no use for them? Have you read/heard the many political blogs out there, not to mention the extremely biased MSM articles and news programs? I have, as have many others, and I assure you the outrageous remarks written in the blogs by Sen. Obama’s supporters about the voters in these states (West Virginia, Kentucky, etc) would take your breath away! Have you considered that Sen. Clinton’s backers might be just a little sick and tired of being called less educated, lower income, and old, as if those attributes are something to be ashamed of and somehow cause a loss of IQ? Sen. Clinton wants to represent ALL Americans, not just those who are politically expedient to her at a given time in life.

In addition, the majority of the time anyone disagrees with ANYTHING about Sen. Obama he/she is called racist by his rabid backers, as though the color of his skin is the only reason someone might not want to vote for him. No, let’s forget he became a state senator without really campaigning/working for the position, that he possesses a very thin resume and poor voting record in the short time he has been in national political office, was a virtual unknown to many people outside the state of Illinois, and surrounds himself with a string of ill-chosen advisors and seemingly corrupt acquaintances. According to any of his supporters, those who don’t want to vote for him simply ignore these facts and concentrate on his skin color. NOT!

And not only have the remarks in these blogs been racist, they are extremely misogynistic. Why has there been NO outcry in the MSM regarding the many slurs Sen. Clinton has endured simply because of her gender? To have a sitting Senator smeared with names ... to have her (be) told to go iron shirts, to have her likeness put on a nutcracker and sold in airports, to have ugly cartoons made of her—these things are totally unacceptable to say the least. But few in the MSM have spoken up in her defense.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/14/AR2008051403090.htmlrts.
I have read posts in blogs suggesting she be ‘cut’ or locked in a room with a man until only the man comes out or put in an automobile trunk and thrown in a lake—and worse. Even your own Erin Neff wrote a column titled ‘Hillary is ready for the glue factory’ using the tragedy of Eight Belles simply because Sen. Clinton backed the filly in the Kentucky Derby. For Shame!

In short, why blame Sen. Clinton for the way this campaign has been reported. Put the blame where it belongs, squarely on the shoulders of the twisted, biased MSM, and ask yourselves why.

Is it because the good ol’ boys are afraid a strong, decisive woman just might lead the country out of its mess and show them up?