Was Jesse Jackson Jr's attack on Hillary "offensive garbage" and "dog-whistle politics"?

[rodeodance]

Forum Name General Discussion: Politics
Topic subject Was Jesse Jackson Jr's attack on Hillary "offensive garbage" and "dog-whistle politics"?
Topic URL http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4028192#4028192
4028192, Was Jesse Jackson Jr's attack on Hillary "offensive garbage" and "dog-whistle politics"?
Posted by Karmadillo on Thu Jan-10-08 07:59 PM

You can find a video of Jackson's comments here

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/011703.php

Thursday :: Jan 10, 2008
Jesse Jackson Jr. Could Use Some Kleenex

by eriposte

Given how African-Americans in this country have been devastated year after year for centuries, he must be crying every minute of every day for them. He should move permanently to Nevada if he's not already there - he might be able to turn the arid desert into a sea with his tears.

Turkana posted the video below and I'm trying hard to be polite by not following the textbook of the Politics of Hope, Change, Optimism, Politeness and CourteousnessTM, but this is offensive garbage from Jesse Jackson, Jr., Sen. Obama's☼ national campaign co-chair. Todd Beeton at MyDD rightly refers to it as "Obama's Dog Whistle Politics" (emphasis mine):

....Her appearance brought her to tears but not Hurricane Katrina.

<...>

The more I think about this, the more I get what's at work here. They know exactly what they're doing. Notice the repeated reference to Hurricane Katrina. He's using some odious dog-whistle politics here, trying to send the message to African Americans (in other words: South Carolina) that, to borrow a phrase, Hillary Clinton doesn't care about black people.

I understand this is a political campaign but this is pretty egregious nonetheless. I had assumed that Sen. Obama does not condone the beliefs of the fever swamps and that he has only been exploiting their irrational hatred for Clinton in his campaign - as politicians are often inclined to do - but this is the kind of stuff that makes me question giving him the benefit of the doubt. (Remember this, Sen. Obama?"...I told my staff that if I catch you guys doing any kind of stuff like this you're fired. Period."... "And I think what we need to do -- and I told this to senator yesterday -- is that we need to send a strong message to all of our surrogates and all of our staffs, that we don't play that.")

There are two obvious reasons I can think of to explain why they trotted out Jesse Jackson Jr. to make a case for why he deserves a user account in the Free Republic or deserves to write a Recommended Diary at Daily Kos. One has to do with money and the other has to do with race.

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