Posted on 04/21/2008 11:41:24 AM PDT by Nony
Every presidential campaign has to produce a stream of appropriate statements for religious holidays, patriotic commemorations, and the like. Campaigns don’t expect to win votes with these messages. They produce them because there’s a risk of giving offense to some group or other if they don’t.
And candidates do it because it looks presidential. After all, a substantial portion of any White House’s output consists of official messages recognizing various national milestones, group anniversaries and dignitaries’ birthdays.
So, last week, in the midst of the excitement over the pope’s visit, the Clinton, Obama and McCain campaigns found time to issue Passover greetings. They were of course staff-produced, and somewhat formulaic. Still, differences among formulaic statements can be revealing.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
After all, as Obama says, “American Jews have always played a vital role in our national conversation.” So, Obama urges, “let us continue to engage in dialogue, and to ask ourselves and each other how the Passover story challenges us to question the world as it is, and to seek a future that is more just and more peaceful for all.” ... Obama’s message has the feel of a slightly New Age, somewhat hip, multicultural, dialogue-friendly, college-town pulpit.This guy doesn't get it at all. It's coded "blame the Jews for Palestine". What other "dialogue" could be pertinent? Why even mention a dualistic "dialogue" and "the world." Whenever failures of "dialogue" are thrown at Jews that I've seen, there is a tacit lefty assumption that Jews are blocking peace--it's not some New Age code word despite the writer's thinking. Also, dialogue betrays a sense of oppositions - here, Jews on one side, Obama and his fellow travellers on the other. He's a divider, not a uniter, again.
“American Jews have always played a vital role in our national conversation”
The more I look at this the more patronizing, and divisive it is. “National conversation” is, in my experience, liberal code words for the tension between enshrined American ideals and the liberal urge to censor speech or their true disgust with people not like themselves. As for “vital role”, this sounds like a qualified, uncomfortable concession. Liberal politicians do not identify with America, but a conversation about America, a discourse about America, which they think they have a better ability to manage, censor and control.
Like my version of the Crusades, here is a pithy summary of our Dialogue or Conversation on Race.
I will leave it you to figure out the nature of the two parties below - P1 and P2.
P1 - It’s about time, let’s have a national conversation on race.
p2- Uh, do we have to? UnHum....
p1 - Oh yes, it’s imperative, we need communication to ensure mutual understanding...
p2 - Well, Ok if you insist.
p1 - go ahead
p2- well, there’s this one thing....yadayadayada, blah blah blah
p1 - Hm, yes, good point, I hadn’t looked at it that way before...please continue....
p2 - And then there’s blah blah blah yadayadayada..
p1 - YOU CAN’T SAY THAT! HOW DARE YOU!
HeHeHe.
g1. You understand the tacit boundaries of this supposed “free” “national conversation.”
Yeah, let’s open it up beyond white urban liberal strictures. How about a conversation about anxiety over Native Americans opening casinos on the wastelands they were so generously exiled to? Or the elite bias against Rachel Ray because of her suburban Italian hustle? ;-)
We just saw it exemplified.
Remember Ferraro’s line and Bob Johnson’s validation of it.
>>>suburban Italian hustle
Now you give me visions of Rachel doing the “Hustle”!
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