(September 19, 2016 at 9:17 am)Drich Wrote: Back in March of 2007, Hillary Clinton’s chief strategist Mark Penn wrote a campaign memo that proposed painting Barack Obama as un-American or “other”:
“His roots to basic American values and culture are at best limited. I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values ... Every speech should contain the line you were born in the middle of America to the middle class in the middle of the last century ... Let’s explicitly own ‘American’ in our programs, the speeches and the values. He doesn’t.“
In December of 2007, Billy Shaheen, the co-chair of Clinton’s New Hampshire campaign, raised the issue of Obama’s drug use as a young man, and the possibility that Obama could be attacked as a drug dealer. He said he was talking about how Republicans would attack Obama, but his statements had the effect of injecting racist stereotypes into the campaign: “It’ll be, ‘When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?’ There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks.” It is a tried and true tactic: floating an idea to which you claim to not personally ascribe, with the effect of getting the idea to circulate.
The next day, Clinton privately apologized to Obama for Shaheen’s comments and claimed she had nothing to do with them. Obama didn’t accept the apology because he believed Clinton’s campaign was circulating emails claiming he was a Muslim. According to Reggie Love, Obama’s personal assistant at the time: “The candidate [Obama] very respectfully told her the apology was kind, but largely meaningless, given the emails it was rumored her camp had been sending out labeling him as a Muslim.”
In February 2008, the Drudge Report posted a picture of Obama in traditional Kenyan/Somali clothes (including a turban, which helped reinforce the “secret Muslim” smear). Drudge said the picture was circulated by the Clinton campaign....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-ruck...12004.html
Playing devil's advocate for Clinton here.
1) "un-American" is not the same as "non-American". You can be an American citizen and not hold certain "American" values. It's called being an individual.
2) not being "fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values" is not the same as "non-American" either. See above.
3) "Let’s explicitly own ‘American’ in our programs, the speeches and the values. He doesn’t." - Being more nationalistic than a person doesn't mean that person is non-American. It means they are less nationalistic. Being nationalistic is a state of mind/thinking. You can be an immigrant to the USA and be more nationalistic about the US than a person who was born here.
4) "the possibility that Obama could be attacked as a drug dealer." - Nothing to do with being American/non-American. Plenty of drug dealers are American.
5) "In February 2008, the Drudge Report posted a picture of Obama in traditional Kenyan/Somali clothes (including a turban, which helped reinforce the “secret Muslim” smear). Drudge said the picture was circulated by the Clinton campaign...." - Nothing to do with being American/non-American. There are lots of Americans who are Muslim.
