It's 10:15 EST and the final Democratic debate just broke for commercial. I've been watching on and off. Each candidate has had good and bad moments but Clinton just made a huge unforced error.
Tim Russert asked a question tying Obama to Louis Farrakhan and Farrakhan's antisemitic comments. Obama denounced Farrakhan's antisemitism and spoke of how the Jewish community has supported Obama and his campaign. Obama took no shots at Clinton, and Russert's continual demand that Obama reject Farrakhan's endorsement left Obama just a little weaker. Nevertheless, Clinton took the opportunity to respond, highlighting how she's better at denouncing antisemitism than Obama and insist he reject Farrakhan's statement.
This enabled Obama to end the segment with a witty quip that if Clinton insisted that reject is stronger than renounce then he would concede the point and agree to reject Farrakhan's statement. Here Clinton managed to turn a strength into a weakness. The more this campaign continues the more she looks like she is political tone deaf and not nearly the quality of candidate that many thought she would be. I really think the story of this debate is not how effective Obama's message has been (it has been successful) but how poorly a campaign Clinton has run. She has lost this campaign far more than Obama has won.
A few quick comments regarding Russert's question:
It's nice that Russert asks tough questions, but his smug gotcha style is emblematic of one of the problems with today's media. On to the question - I'm no Obama fan, but the question, and Russert's continuous pushing were unfair. Obama's prior public statements and his choices in policy advisers run totally counter to his statement tonight, and do not indicate he is a strong supporter of Israel. That said, there is no evidence that Obama is antisemitic and Russert's attempt at guilt by association does not provide clarity to the primary race, it just plays on prejudice.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment