8 Comments so far (Add 1 more)

1. I for one thought you’d made that perfectly clear in the original post. Read carefully before criticising, sheesh.

   As a sidenote, I’m rather curious to hear your Canadian-Israeli view on the democratic primaries. I am smack dab in the middle of the fence between the two after seeing the debate on CNN.

   

   1. Noam
   on February 7th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
   

2. I’m totally on the fence, too.

   I’m simultaneously turned off and impressed by Obama’s campaign. The positive energy is great, but on the other hand I’m very wary of group emotion ’cause it too easily leads to the suspension of critical thought. Also, the cynic in me wonders what he means by “change” and “yes, we can.” What kind of change? And yes, we can…what?

   Re. Hillary: smart, experienced, Washington insider and a woman. Sounds good to me, too.

   Why do we call the Dem candidates by their first names and the Republicans by their surnames? This is the really important question, dammit!

   

   2. lisagoldman
   on February 7th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
   

3. I agree with you about the mob mentality about Obama, but I think you have latched onto a common-knowledge fallacy about Clinton. This is my personal favorite anecdote about Hillary Clinton’s “experience” as first lady:
   Hillary Clinton was traveling in Pakistan and talking to women on the street. They asked her about her career, and she explained that she used to be a practicing lawyer until her husband became President and she gave up her practice to focus on being first lady. “But in the US, we can wear whatever clothes we want!” she added.
   Meanwhile:
   Benazir Bhutto was in the US meeting with members of Congress and the Clinton administration regarding a law which forbade the selling of military armaments to Pakistan. She was supposed to be interviewed on Larry King Live on this subject, but she was preempted so Larry could spend the full hour interviewing Kato Kaelin about the OJ Simpson case.
   …
   For much of her campaign, Clinton’s biggest concern has been being likable. She started calling Obama by his given name, because he would then either call her “Hillary” and humanize her or “Senator Clinton” and elevate her. I’m relieved that Ron Paul has no chance of winning; that means I can vote for him with a clear conscience.

   

   3. Aaron
   on February 7th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
   

4. As for the mob mentality, I guess I can see how it might be deemed dangerous to critical thought.. but I would venture to say the charisma which attracts these masses has not been seen in a public figure since MLK. True, it’s not human dignity itself that’s at stake here, but after two terms of Bush debauchery, I think we may need that Obama charisma to wash clean the infuriating corruption of the Bush administration et al.

   Ahem. I guess I may be sliding off the fence on this issue

   As for the first name thing, I think the “Hillary” phenomenon is primarily to emphasize her independence from the last president. If she went primarily by Clinton, she would a) remind us all of Bill’s iniquities (past and present) and b) sound a bit too deja vu to represent /change/ (Bush=>Clinton=>Bush=>Clinton).

   If we hear Obama being referred to as Barack, I think it’s more for parallelism between the democratic candidates than anything else. I for one hear him referred to as Obama more often then Barack, so I don’t think it’s so specifically a party-related phenomenon.

   

   4. Noam
   on February 8th, 2008 at 12:19 am
   

5. Brian Ulrich just wrote a very interesting post about Hillaryhere.

   I’ve never really seen a huge difference between Republican and Democrat presidents in terms of US foreign policy, to be honest. GWB was, I think, just unusually corrupt.

   

   5. lisagoldman
   on February 8th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
   

6. I haven’t noticed that Obama is usually referred to by his first name. Even in your post you refer to him as Obama. Hillary is the first presidential candidate to run on her first name that I can remember. And she IS running on her first name. See her website and her campaign material, As opposed to Obama. And she is doing it to emphasize her gender.

   

   6. amir
   on February 9th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
   

7. “Why do we call the Dem candidates by their first names and the Republicans by their surnames? This is the really important question, dammit!”

   I suspect it has to do with the culture of the tw0 parties.

   Republicans strive to present themselves as the party of sober restraint–fiscal and emotional. Hence we are encourage to think of them as we would think of elders with a degree of decorum.

   The Democrats are more touchy-feely, foot loose, let it all hang out. Hence the talk about the good old days with “Jack” and “Bobby”–as if the Kennedy brothers were those fun guys next door who threw the best parties.

   

   7. Peter Shea
   on February 10th, 2008 at 4:55 am
   

8. There was no need to clarify. The original post stated clearly the obvious lack of sense and decency on the part of the media.

   Lisa, thank you for being so generous in such difficult circumstances. It encourages me to know that individuals like you exist, plowing forward in a world that largely seems to have lost its moral soul.

   

   8. Filumena
   on February 10th, 2008 at 11:11 am