Another thing that really pisses me off about this jihad against Rahm Emanuel is that the message it implicitly sends is that Obama is not calling the shots- he’s just Rahm’s puppet. That is explicitly a Republican frame- that Obama is weak and an empty suit.I'll go a step further. It's more than that, the "Obama is an empty suit meme" has always smacked of implied racism, the same "soft bigotry of low expectations"/"The Bell Curve" bullshit that Obama's just not quite bright enough to be Commander-In-Chief because he's...well...you know. Naturally, the theory goes, he needs a politically smart white guy to run the show for him while just smiles and nods and teaches him the ropes. Obama's attitude is laissaze faire and all because he has no choice: he's the just black guy on the outside of the cereal box, the real decisions are made by other, smarter, not_black folks.
That's the stuff that really burns me. You really can distill much of the whisper campaign against him to racism, and the Right then finds a way to build on it, capturing the impatience of those on the Left to then serve to destroy the progressives altogether.
Now I'm no Annenberg School graduate, but even I can see this crap for what it is.
I bow to no one in my loathing for Rahm, but it is always leavened by the obvious recognition that he's doing Obama's bidding. That Rahm is Obama's yes-man on pro-corporate, anti-liberal policies rather than someone who would challenge Obama's moderate instincts is a shame, but no surprise.
ReplyDeleteI had failed, however, to see the racist meme behind the anti-Rahm criticism. Thanks for calling it out.
Read Al Giordano's blog, the field (no linky on iPhone), over the last four or five posts and he takes that line of thought through the thorough trashing that Jane and her delusional supporters need. They are so busy trying to win the best progressive prize they go onto FOX to accept it. Pretty sick.
ReplyDelete