They All Lost: Senators Clinton, Obama & ABC

Last night in Philadelphia there wasn’t much love in this city of Brotherly Love.
Two things struck me:

The way the media keeps the Rev. Wright comments alive as if these folks expect that Senator Obama to explain more, to denounce more--again and again; and;
The way Senator Clinton is never asked to denounce Geraldine Ferraro’s comments, again and again and again.

Now, the media is questioning Obama about a 40-year old Weatherman Radical’s sitting on a charitable organization board where Obama also sat. Yet, the Clintons and others are forever busy harping on the media’s favoring Obama. The media did not question Clinton about the pardoning of two criminals of the Weatherman Radical group.

True, the media may favor Obama in the overall general reporting, but the truth is that the media does not have much negative to report on him, whereas the basket of bad apples of Clinton’s past is filled to the brim. However, where the “gut” issues—or hot-button issues—are concerned, there is no doubt that Hillary gets a pass. The only exception has been the media’s treatment of the Bosnia landing-under fire issue.

What did we learn from the 21st Debate between these two?

First, despite the hounding that both the George Stephanopoulos, a former employee of the Clinton Whitehouse, and Senator Clinton subjecting Barack to, it was Clinton, who I believe committed the major gaffes. Consider this:

1) Clinton committed grave political error by saying “yes, yes, yes,” Obama can win in the Fall against Senator McCain. This will undercut her “secret” argument to the super delegates that he can’t win. Gone now is her chief argument that she is more electable than Obama. (After all, she’s lost to him on the number of pledged delegates that have been won in the primaries, she’s lost twice as many states and she’s lost in the number of popular votes.) Polls now show her trailing almost two-to-one in such important areas as trustworthiness, truthfulness and electability. Her refusal to bite the bullet and be honest about what she has been telling the super delegates is still another example her lack of truthfulness.

2) The second gaffe was her apparent tone deftness when it comes to withdrawing from Iraq. She actually stated that she would totally ignore the generals’ advice on tactics—even if her withdrawal schedule created chaos and placed in greater danger the lives of Americans.

There is no doubt why she took the apparent foolhearted position of stating she’d totally ignore the advice of the generals: she was trying to outflank Obama. She has been outflanked by Obama on this issue since the campaign began and she thought, apparently, “I’ll be damned if I will be outflanked now before the whole nation.”
This was a big mistake. Obama immediately recognized it and took the opportunity—despite Clinton’s vaulted experience—to show her up.

Senator Obama stated that he would listen to the generals (as he must and as Clinton would have to were she elected) regarding tactics of withdrawal, but made it clear that it is up to the president to define the mission and up to the generals to execute it.

If positions were reversed, the press would have had a field day lamenting how naïve and inexperienced Obama was.

Yet, the Monday Morning Quarterbacking (pundits) said not a word about this serious gaffe of Senator Clinton. So, why do we hear this ongoing cacophony about the press’s being anti-Clinton? This is the real power of Clintonion Speak—Freud had a label for it: reaction formation.

This was a debate that nobody won: Obama lost because he permitted ABC and Clinton to keep him on the defensive; Clinton lost because she keep dishing the negative; and, ABC lost because it did not ask any questions but stooped to the sensational tidbits.
MSNBC and CNN never looked so good!
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Lenton Aikins, Ph.D., J.D.
Dr. Aikins has traveled widely, lived abroad in Europe and Latin America, recently spending three years in Costa Rica as Director of a Spanish Language school. He holds a Ph. D. in Political Science from University of Southern California, a Juris Doctor in Law from Western State University, College of Law. He is the author of many articles and of While African Americans Slept: Leadership by Parasites, now available at: http://lentonaikins.com, and available in all bookstores July 1, 2008. You can read his daily blog: Go to: http://lentonaikins.com and click on blog.