Questions Answered

[alcibiades_mystery]

1) Is this Sherrod business a monumental fuck-up and embarrassment?

Yes.

2) Should Vilsack be shitcanned behind it?

No. Despite what some folks seem to believe, there actually is a government being run, with, like, agencies and stuff. I don't think this issue rises to the level of causing a major disruption at USDA.

3) So what should happen to that Monsanto loving mof*cker?

Well, A), even though I dislike Monsanto as much as you do, that seems an unrelated matter. B) At the very least, he should be publicly rebuked for failing to investigate the matter before taking the drastic action of forcing Ms. Sherrod's resignation. He should, with the President, publicly apologize.

4) Hey man, the buck stops with the President, no? Don't make me pull out my picture of Truman, cuz I got it right here on my interwebs, son! JPEG link, what?!

Yes. If Obama does not correct this unjust decision by the end of the week my admiration of the man will be greatly diminished.

5) You're gonna put it on Vilsack? Isn't this just a pattern of caving, caving, caving - Van Jones, ACORN, now this?

Yes, there has been a pattern of caving, and that's been pretty well communicated through the ranks. Obama fucked up on the Henry Louis Gates thing and now his whole administration is gun shy on anything having to do with race, because if people are talking race, then nothing else gets done. It's an unfortunate reaction, and should be corrected. At the same time, it is a telling and predictable reaction for many minorities, who know that they can talk about other things only when race is set aside. Obama is of a generation that has had to grit they teeth and play along on the colorblind nonsense if they want to talk about anything else. That comes with an often severe cost - the very root of the problem has to be sidestepped. It's a dilemma.

6) Shouldn't he do another "More Perfect Union" speech?

Yes. Lines like "Lies, phony outrage, and swiftboat politics" come to mind. DUer wndycty has made the case more forcefully and eloquently than I can, so I'll just suggest that thread. Go read it. It's good. But expect that to be all you can get out of the news for the rest of the summer if he does, since anything even faintly related to race dominates the news cycles and the American imagination to the exclusion of almost anything else. And by anything else, I mean blowjobs. So a response akin to the damn near perfectly timed "More Perfect Union" speech would be fantastic, but it won't be free.

7)Why doesn't he fight?

Two million people just got their unemployment insurance extended through November over 40 no votes. One woman was unjustly fired. I think he fights plenty. Should there be more fight? Yes, of course, always.

[alcibiades_mystery]

1. More Questions Answered

8) Isn't this all cable news' fault?

No. The roots of this latest tempest can be located in the approach the Administration has decided to take on race, which is a gross overcompensation for the disaster of the H.L. Gates problem. What we should notice is that all these little dramas are rooted in racist attacks, and the Administration seeks to shunt off questions of race immediately rather than deal with them, largely because they seem to believe that the Gates issue threw their health care reform off kilter and blunted any momentum for the first year. They are in some sense right about this, but they have tilted the scales way too far to the other side. The Administration deserves a good deal of blame - up to and including Obama - for the way they've accomodated racist rhetoric by seeking to defuse it at the earliest possible moment.

9) What's the biggest problem with the cable news?

As is very clear on this board and throughout the infosphere, the biggest problem with cable news is that it seems to destroy in its frequent viewers all sense of proportion. It's like a Proportion Killing Machine.