2008 Elections: Telling It Like It Is

Michael Moore does it. Wow.

He's just a guy, yaknow? He has his faults and flaws, but we here at La Casa de Los Gatos always admired him for having the courage to stand up during the start of the Bush misadministration, with hordes of rightwing attack dogs screaming for his blood, and proudly espouse progressive viewpoints. Back then, we joined with Ms. Manitoba and FoTPC in worrying that some rightwing loony would kill him. Does anyone remember 2003? When those of us who spoke out against the war were flat-out accused of being traitors, cowards, godless liberal scum, threatened? A truck tried to run a friend's car off the road because of a bumper sticker that said "No blood for oil."

We remember those days quite well. We remember being attacked at work for the heinous crime of not being 100% pro-Bush. We remember being terrified to open our mouths and reveal our true political opinions.

So yeah, Michael Moore gets major kudos from us for being unafraid.

And what he's saying today? It's good. He's come out in support of Obama, which &mdash no big deal, really. Everybody's espousing some candidate or the other, and most days we're downright sympathetic towards Hillary Clinton because the press is rejoicing in a misogynistic beating of her that really royally pisses us off.

But what Moore says, we agree with, mostly. Here's some snippets:

[...] the debate last week was the final straw. I've watched Senator Clinton and her husband play this game of appealing to the worst side of white people, but last Wednesday, when she hurled the name "Farrakhan" out of nowhere, well that's when the silly season came to an early end for me. She said the "F" word to scare white people, pure and simple. Of course, Obama has no connection to Farrakhan. But, according to Senator Clinton, Obama's pastor does -- AND the "church bulletin" once included a Los Angeles Times op-ed from some guy with Hamas!

[...]

This sleazy attempt to smear Obama was brilliantly explained the following night by Stephen Colbert. He pointed out that if Obama is supported by Ted Kennedy, who is Catholic, and the Catholic Church is led by a Pope who was in the Hitler Youth, that can mean only one thing: OBAMA LOVES HITLER!

Yes, Senator Clinton, that's how you sounded. Like you were nuts. Like you were a bigot stoking the fires of stupidity. How sad that I would ever have to write those words about you. You have devoted your life to good causes and good deeds. And now to throw it all away for an office you can't win unless you smear the black man so much that the superdelegates cry "Uncle (Tom)" and give it all to you.

[...]

How sad for a country that wanted to see the first woman elected to the White House. That day will come -- but it won't be you.

[...]

There are those who say Obama isn't ready, or he's voted wrong on this or that. But that's looking at the trees and not the forest. What we are witnessing is not just a candidate but a profound, massive public movement for change. My endorsement is more for Obama The Movement than it is for Obama the candidate.

[...]

Finally, I want to say a word about the basic decency I have seen in Mr. Obama. Mrs. Clinton continues to throw the Rev. Wright up in his face as part of her mission to keep stoking the fears of White America. Every time she does this I shout at the TV, "Say it, Obama! Say that when she and her husband were having marital difficulties regarding Monica Lewinsky, who did she and Bill bring to the White House for 'spiritual counseling?' THE REVEREND JEREMIAH WRIGHT!"

But no, Obama won't throw that at her. It wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be decent. She's been through enough hurt. And so he remains silent and takes the mud she throws in his face.

We've heard people say that Obama plays dirty, that he's unfair to Hillary Clinton, that he's passive-aggressive, that he plays the race card. That may be true, or it may not. We're really not terribly interested in looking for evidence of who did who wrong. But we will say this: Hillary Clinton has played an aggressive-aggressive game all along. We admire her for her toughness and her tenacity, but we don't like the fact that she keeps playing dirty games constantly and consistently.

And the one thing that really underscored how low she would go &mdash other than slapping the faces of those who lined up with MoveOn to defend her and her husband &mdash has been her ongoing attempt to play the racism card. She keeps trying to paint Obama as a "liberal" &mdash when did that become a bad thing? She keeps pointing out Jeremiah Wright, ooh, scary angry black man; Louis Farrakhan, ooh, scary angry anti-Jewish black man; Obama in Somali garb, ooh, scary angry Muslim black man; Bill Ayers, ooh, scary angry white radical commie pinko.

Throughout it all, Obama has remained silent about her association with fundie Christian elitist power brokers; and her turning to that selfsame Reverend Jeremiah "scary angry black man" Wright during the furor that her husband created when he got a blow job from a zaftig young woman.

Clinton referred to John McCain, the man who made a nasty misogynistic homophobic comment about her and her daughter, as "having passed the CinC test," and Obama as just having "a speech." He did not bring up the nasty comment. He has never brought up the Lewinsky affair. If this is passive-aggressive behaviour, we can live with it.

Go read the whole thing. He's a realist, not an Obamaniac, not a worshipper, not a loon.

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