Friday, December 21, 2007

Political correctness gone way too far

Those watching the U.S. presidential race over the course of the last week or so have seen a lot of coverage of the "negative personal attack" launched by the Clinton campaign on Barack Obama.

For those that aren't watching, the general reportage has been as follows: Bill Shaheen, then the co-chair of the Clinton campaign in New Hampshire and the husband of former governor and former and current U.S. Senate candidate Jeanne Shaheen, stated that a question that will come up is that, if Barack Obama has admitted to using cocaine, then did he also sell it?

On the face, this does sound a bit nasty. But, as often happens, the comment has been taken totally out of context. There has been a media frenzy about it, Mr. Shaheen has stepped down from his role on the campaign, Hillary Clinton has personally apologized to Obama and Obama and his campaign have been milking it for all its worth.

However, here is the fullness of the quote:

Barack Obama's youthful drug use would be used against him by Republicans, if the Illinois senator captured the Democratic presidential nomination.

"It'll be, 'When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?" noted Shaheen. "There's so many openings for Republican dirty tricks. It's hard to overcome."
In 2004, Republican groups accused John Kerry, a well decorated war hero, of being "dishonest, unreliable, unfit to lead, and had dishonored his country". Does anyone honestly believe that the Republicans wouldn't do just as Shaheen suggested? Shaheen never suggested, contrary to how the Obama campaign has spun this and the press has bought hook-line-and-sinker, that Obama may have sold drugs. He said that as a "dirty trick" the Republicans would make this claim. No intelligent person could possibly say that some Republican group wouldn't do it. Shaheen stated the obvious.

Political correctness has really gone awry when a man is punished and sidelined for predicting, almost certainly accurately, that someone is eventually going to do something mean and nasty.

What a joke.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Political correctness has really gone awry when a man is punished and sidelined for predicting, almost certainly accurately, that someone is eventually going to do something mean and nasty.

Political correctiness ALWAYS goes awry because it imposes an arbitrary "feel-good" solution to a real world situation based solely on left-wing ideology. The reason you see it this time is because you don't agree with the arbitrary solution. In the past you probably agreed with the solution so gave no thought to those being imposed upon by the ideology. Merry Christmas -- yeh, I know - totally Politically incorrect

nbpolitico said...

I don't see Merry Christmas as politically incorrect and I think that those who do are a very small minority.

Anonymous said...

"I don't see Merry Christmas as politically incorrect and I think that those who do are a very small minority." -- Actually I am glad to hear that --- I saw about 5 or 6 Members' of Parliment (from all 4 parties) Christmas Cards on a TV clip and not one of them includes the word Christmas. Here in Ottawa we actually had a group of Teaches remove the word Christmas from the song Silver Bells. You may not see the political incorrectness of Merry Christmas but, unfortunately, it is very apparent in society.

Spinks said...

It is a minority but it's a mighty loud minority.

Wal-Mart learned that last yera when they brought the word Christmas back to their marketing after turfing it for several years. They went out and actually asked people instead of listening to media that had them convinced Christmas was offensive. They found that less than 1% of people found Merry Christmas offensive yet more than 85% found the effort to remove Christmas offensive.

The far-left hasn't given up their ridiculous campaign and as ron pointed out even politicians are so ultra-sensitive they can't see the forest for the trees but people are fighting back and saying enough is enough.

Anonymous said...

It's pretty mild as there were similar attacks on Bush for his past cocaine use (and they didn't stick).

Anyway, I think Americans appreciate a candidate that has a few flaws, not to mention, an individual that has demonstrated the ability to overcome a few setbacks. Although, I'm sure Shaheen, in a pure strategical sense, was willing to expose Hilary's campaign to a few initial hits if it were to ultimately scare a few "values voters" when they cast their votes in Iowa.

Who knows, it may sway a few over to Clinton from Obama, but not enough to make a difference as many in the church pews know they and the rest of the congregation have sins as well. In other words, it could backfire as well.

Anonymous said...

On the other hand, I just got finished reading Warren Kinsella's book Kicking Ass. And as he would say, when hit by personal attacks from the other guys, hit back twice as hard on their record. I guess Obama read his book as he seems to be ratcheting up the attacks lately. In other words, he's Kickin' Ass. Good for him.