Many of us have come to enjoy MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann’s ‘Special Comments,” not only because they tend to highlight the outrages of the Bush administration in stark and powerful terms, but also because Olbermann has a tendency to say things no one else in television news is willing to say. When Olbermann gets into high dudgeon about torture, Iraq, or telecom immunity, it gives voice to a perspective that broadcast audiences simply never hear.
But last night, Olbermann went in a slightly different direction — he challenged Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in a surprisingly forceful way.
The impetus for Olbermann’s outrage was Geraldine Ferraro’s racially-charged criticism of Barack Obama, not just published in one small California newspaper, but repeated on far-right talk-radio shows and Fox News, both before and after the report in the Daily Breeze. Speaking to Clinton, Olbermann said:
Senator, as it has reached its apex in their tone-deaf, arrogant and insensitive reaction to the remarks of Geraldine Ferraro, your own advisers are slowly killing your chances to become president.
Senator, their words, and your own, are now slowly killing the chances for any Democrat to become president. In your tepid response to this Ferraro disaster, you may sincerely think you are disenthralling an enchanted media and righting an unfair advance bestowed on Sen. Obama. You may think the matter has closed with Rep. Ferraro’s bitter, almost threatening resignation.
But in fact, Senator, you are now campaigning as if Barack Obama were the Democrat and you were the Republican. As Shakespeare wrote, Senator, that way madness lies.
Now, as it turns out, Olbermann’s timing may have been off slightly. The underlying point of his commentary was to implore Clinton to distance herself more forcefully from Ferraro’s transparently ugly remarks, after initially declining to do so (Olbermann said, “You have missed a critical opportunity to do what was right”). Of course, around the same time, Clinton was, in fact, doing just that.
But the “Special Comment” was not exclusively about Ferraro.
It was also about what Olbermann suggested might be a pattern.
To Sen. Clinton’s supporters, to her admirers, to her friends for whom she is first choice, and to her friends for whom she is second choice, she is still letting herself be perceived as standing next to, and standing by, racial divisiveness and blindness.
And worst yet, after what President Clinton said during the South Carolina primary, comparing the Obama and Jesse Jackson campaigns; a disturbing, but only borderline remark.
After what some in the black community have perceived as a racial undertone to the “3 A.M.” ad, a disturbing but only borderline interpretation …
And after that moment’s hesitation in her own answer on 60 Minutes about Obama’s religion; a disturbing, but only borderline vagueness …
After those precedents, there are those who see a pattern, false or true. After those precedents, there are those who see an intent, false or true. After those precedents, there are those who see the Clinton campaign’s anything-but-benign neglect of this Ferraro catastrophe, falsely or truly, as a desire to hear the kind of casual prejudice that still haunts this society voiced and to not distance the campaign from it.
There are those “see an intent,” I’m just not sure if it’s there or not. The problem, at least for me, is that genuinely offensive examples have been juxtaposed with unpersuasive examples, and both have been treated with nearly equal weight.
I found Ferraro’s comments repugnant, but I found talk about the Clinton campaign “darkening” Obama in an ad unpersuasive. I found the racially-charged comments around the South Carolina primary to be insulting and odious, but I found the racial analysis of the “3 a.m.” ad unconvincing. Some of the controversies have been real and unworthy of a fine senator’s campaign, and some of the controversies feel manufactured and exaggerated. Given this, it’s difficult to automatically make the leap that Clinton has a real desire to “hear the kind of casual prejudice that still haunts this society voiced,” presumably for electoral gain. Not impossible, but difficult.
That said, Olbermann’s charge from the outset — that Clinton is now “campaigning as if Barack Obama were the Democrat and you were the Republican” — strikes me as far more persuasive. Towards the end of his commentary, Olbermann said, “This, Sen. Clinton, is your campaign, and it is your name. Grab the reins back from whoever has led you to this precipice, before it is too late.”
Putting aside Ferraro and whether the racial component of the race is intentional or not, that may be sound advice. I frequently get the sense that there’s a growing number of Democrats who admire and respect Clinton far more than they admire and respect the Clinton campaign. That’s not a healthy development, but it is one that can still be remedied.