Patterico's Pontifications

1/9/2010

What top Dems really think about Obama

Filed under: General — Karl @ 1:40 pm



[Posted by Karl]

John Heilemann and Mark Halperin have written Game Change, a book on the 2008 campaign chock full ‘o’ tasty tidbits, including two top Democrats expressing their private views on President Obama.  For example, Sen. Maj. Ldr. Harry Reid:

He was wowed by Obama’s oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama — a “light-skinned” African American “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,” as he said privately.

On Twitter, John Hawkins channels his inner Kanye: “Hey Trent Lott, I’m gonna let you finish, but Reid had the best racist comments by a Senate Majority Leader of all-time!”  Reid and Obama are now desperately trying to make that story go away, though — as Allahpundit notes — Obama was a lot less forgiving of Don Imus on this score. 

The book also exposes Bill Clinton, during the Clintons’ efforts to secure an endorsement from the Kennedys:

[A]s Hillary bungled Caroline, Bill’s handling of Ted was even worse. The day after Iowa, he phoned Kennedy and pressed for an endorsement, making the case for his wife. But Bill then went on, belittling Obama in a manner that deeply offended Kennedy. Recounting the conversation later to a friend, Teddy fumed that Clinton had said, A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee.

Bill may have been referring to Obama’s career of non-accomplishments, but Nathan Wurtzel reminds us Bill has a record here.

–Karl

Update: As Patterico himself is covering this material nearby, I’ll toss in a link to a lengthy excerpt from the book — covering the craziness that is John and Elizabeth Edwards.

16 Responses to “What top Dems really think about Obama”

  1. I love Reid’s apology in which he states that he used a “poor choice of words.” Given a second chance, I wonder what words Reid would instead use to convey that Obama would be ok because he didn’t look or speak too “black.”

    the wolf (7cffb6)

  2. How mad could Barry really be at Dingy Harry? After all, he is at most half-black…alright I condemn myself

    Gazzer (313216)

  3. Sorry, man. Hadn’t seen your post when I did mine.

    Patterico (2b3377)

  4. The Atlantic story is very interesting. It also drops the tidbit that Bill Clinton has been having an ongoing romantic relationship with a women other than Hillary. According to this book, the HRC campaign put together a war room to deal with it during the primary, though it never became an issue.

    JVW (ec5e37)

  5. Just how many “women” has Bubba been having an ongoing romantic relationship with?

    AD - RtR/OS! (946807)

  6. Well Reid could have said that Obama has
    a “Leave it to Beaver” back ground and
    has a fairer complexion.

    I guess this means that Col. Allen West
    can’t be a Democrat.

    Jack (e383ed)

  7. Dingy Harry should have said, “Yo! Yo! What up? Check this out. You see the brutha Barack, he got da crackas fooled. See, he got da soul of a brutha but he can tho it out like a peckerwood. See, can can blend. See what I’m sayin’? In day worl’ he eat da Wagu but he be a chitlin boy fo’ sho’. Word.

    PatriotRider (1729de)

  8. The John and Elizabeth Edwards link from Karl is like the quintessential train wreck: bizarrely fascinating while simultaneously horrific. Can’t look, can’t look away.

    Funniest thing said about the possibility of Edwards being a philanderer: That was one thing the people in Edwards’s orbit never stressed over when it came to John, who they believed had long ago made the decision not to fall into that trap. And, anyway, he had always seemed … well, sorta asexual, at least to his staff.

    Dana (f64b7d)

  9. […] promotional release, a few bombshells have leaked out: The Harry Reid quote discussed earlier by Karl and Patterico that Obama is a “light-skinned” African American “with no Negro dialect, unless […]

    Patterico's Pontifications » The Scandals of Game Change (e4ab32)

  10. I smell msm highjack of the narrative. It’s more convenient for their purposes not to have the Senate Majority Leader voted out due to his championing of socialism.

    papertiger (3a3033)

  11. @papertiger: funny, I was almost thinking the opposite. Reid might actually think that he can spin the fact he’s said questionable things about the big-Oh as evidence he’s not an unflinching extreme left-wing socialist, and thus think it increases his popularity at home for re-election?

    Nah, just kidding. This is all knee-jerk reactionary on the part of Reid, and the MSM just jumps on the largest, shiniest glob of spittle floating atop the spitoon that our political class are wallowing in.

    rtrski (47b90a)

  12. Money quote from the linked Edwards article.

    “Confronted then with the Enquirer photo of her husband cuddling Hunter’s baby, she (Elizabeth Edwards) insisted to Palmieri that she still believed he was not the father. “I have to believe it,” Elizabeth said. “Because if I don’t, it means I’m married to a monster.”

    Fascinating story, Dana’s train wreck description in #8 nailed it. It a long read, you already know most of it, but you can’t look away, I couldn’t.

    As for being married to a monster, as the article makes clear, that pretty much sums up the mutual relationship between John and Elizabeth.

    ropelight (574175)

  13. That book sounds so interesting I ordered it. I notice that no one has yet linked this Reid story to Reid’s comments about Clarence Thomas. I think the two stories are more important together than this one alone. As George Will said, Reid’s comments in this case were true, no matter how inappropriate. In the Thomas quotes, they were not true and were pretty good evidence of a racist mind set about blacks’ accomplishments.

    MR. RUSSERT: Why couldn’t you accept Clarence Thomas?

    SEN. REID: I think that he has been an embarrassment to the Supreme Court. I think that his opinions are poorly written. I don’t–I just don’t think that he’s done a good job as a Supreme Court justice.

    No one at the time asked Reid which opinion of Thomas’ he objected to. Reid later mentioned a case in which he said he agreed with Scalia’s opinion. The problem with that excuse is that Scalia had not written an opinion in that case.

    There is pretty good evidence that Reid’s statement about Thomas was based on no facts at all.

    Mike K (2cf494)

  14. Once again, we see that the race card is a partisan tool for Democrats and that they actually have no principles.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  15. “…with no Negro dialect…”

    I’m not exactly sure what the hell that is supposed to mean, but I’ve always found the O!ne vapid and painful to listen to because of the intellectually deficient content of his speech.

    EW1(SG) (edc268)


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