Hillary still issuing releases about Obama's Reagan comment

Hillary's recent release:


Not sure what the point of that is!

Hillary's previous release:



Edited to add:



more

What's the big deal? Why wouldn't she run with it?

If she continues it means she has no integrity.

he gives Republic "ideas" credibility when they are nothing less than completely destructive. There is no defending Republic "ideas". Republic "ideas" are nothing but scams and schemes to defraud America.

Once the "all the good ideas" mis-quote was debunked, I started seeing all over DU, "well he said ALL the ideas, so that would include the good ideas too".

Um, no, as seen from the transcript, he did NOT say "ALL the ideas" either.

"Asked and answered, move on counselor!"

...is that the Clinton camp doesn't need to distort what Obama said by slipping the word "good" in there. The actual quotes by Obama would likely turn-off a number of Democratic primary voters without being distorted. It strikes me that their strategy could backfire. I suppose it must be working, because they're sticking with it.

Politics is an ugly, ugly business.

they believe that was the shortest and most effective sound bite they could harvest from that interview to use against Obama, and they believe that Obama's contunuing flirtation with Republicans is a valid campaign issue with a legitimate down side for Obama. But this snippet is guilty of taking Obama's words out of the immediate context that he uttered them inside of, and thereby twisting them. As they say; I disapprove of this ad.

When I look at Obama's full interview I found ample stuff to be upset about without needing a distortion caused by quoting him out of context. I actually agree with Obama in what he intended to say about Republican ideas driving the political agenda for a period, and I agreed with him that Reagan was an "agent of change". The problem for Hillary is coming up with a snappy 30 second way to highlight what WAS disturbing in that interview. I gave my own hit on what does disturb me about Obama's comments in a post I made several days ago, but it doesn't lend itself easily to a 30 second sound bite, lol:

"I have no problem with Reagan being called "an agent of change"

Clearly he was. I know that "change" is a political value neutral term, not always a progressive one (despite all the hoopla about Democrats being for "change" this year - with Obama positioning himself at the head of that pack). Once the dismantling of the social safety net got packaged as a series of "reforms", I knew enough to stop expecting words like that to convey any specific ideology.

Reagan did bring about a sea change in American politics, and to do so he needed to find some means to connect with deeply felt emotions in a lot of people. I have no problem with Obama pointing that out either.

But this sentence contains the seeds of my unease:

"I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating."

I lived through the white backlash. I lived through the religious right backlash. I lived through the Right wing blaming Benjamin Spock for mentoring a generation of "permissive parents" who were to blame for the loss of respect felt for traditional conventions in America, like "States Rights" and "Male bread winners" and "chastity" and "subservience" to church leaders. I remember when the Supreme Court ordering police to respect the constitutional rights of those being arrested was called "coddling criminals". I remember the backlash against affirmative action. I remember when O.S.H.A. and E.P.A. regulations to protect workers and the environment all got trashed as "unnecessary government red tape". I remember when Unions were attacked for exploiting workers and taking away their freedom, and I watched good paying jobs get lost as Unions got broken. I remember the bitterness being fanned about how anti-war peaceniks hobbled America's proud military and caused us to lose a war for the first time in American history.

All of those charges were made by the Right to undermine progress made by the left in America. Those were the "excesses" that got attacked. The same type of progress that ended slavery, ended child labor, gave workers the right to organize and women the right to vote. It was a counter revolution. That was when Liberal was redefined to be a curse word. The right attacks everything positive done to promote social equity as "Big government", "socialism", and class warfare, and that is exactly what they did in the late 70's about what was accomplished in the 60's and early 70's, and Ronald Reagan rode that to power.

Obama did not challenge the Reagan framing of the 60's and 70's being predominantly a time of excesses, he reinforced it. That is my problem, not the fact that Obama correctly saw the role Reagan played in creating wide ranging changes in America, or Reagan's ability in winning support for them. Yes Obama may be right that many Americans bought into the backlash by the 80's. Many Americans bought into the endless war on terror last election also. That doesn't mean it can't be challenged.

I am not for an instant suggesting that Obama supports the changes Reagan made. I believe that he doesn't. I also believe that Democrats would do well to ponder what about Reagan made him so popular to so many Americans so as to better counter Right wing "populists" in the future. But I draw a line against echoing the Right wing script that made "Big government" and "Liberals" into curse words in the 80's."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=4104948#4105056

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http://mydd.com/story/2008/1/22/11049/2664



Gateway Pundit has the video.

In the best part of Obama's The Audacity of Hope, Obama, with some reservations, pours even more praise on our 40th president.


That Reagan's message found such a receptive audience spoke not only to his skills as a communicator; it also spoke to the failures of liberal government, during a

period of economic stagnation, to give middle-class voters any sense that it was fighting for them. For the fact was that government at every level had become too

cavalier about spending taxpayer money. Too often, bureacracies were oblivious to the cost of their mandates. A lot of liberal rhetoric did seem to value rights and

values over duties and responsibilities.

(Obama then veers off this brilliant thought pattern and digs a bit into Reagan's legacy.)

Audacity of Hope peaks early. The above passage appears on page 31.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/goebbelslie.html

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
-- Joseph Goebbels

I am on video and audio and I say to you HELLO....and you play it back, do you hear and see me saying hello or as in Obama case he wants you to hear GOODBYE...

Obama admires Reagan because he agrees with Reagan's basic frame that the 1960s and 1970s were full of 'excesses' and that government had grown large and unaccountable.Those excesses, of course, were feminism, the consumer rights movement, the civil rights movement, the environmental movement, and the antiwar movement. Oh yes all these were bad for the country...gee bho I guess now we will wait for you to say OOPS

In politics it's either better to shut up or say what you mean instead of saying you didn't mean what you say.