Multimedia Delights From The Atlantic

A smorgasbord of video and audio content to tide you over as I hopefully stick a lighter posting schedule.

First, Ross Douthat and Matt Yglesias discuss Sen. Obama's speech in an audio podcast.

And the latest installment of the page, where Megan McArdle, Yglesias and I discuss race... gender, Geraldine Ferraro and our own Andrew Sullivan.

Comments

Is it the table or the page???

Posted by John Cohen | March 19, 2008 7:06 PM

Marc,

I've really got to side with McArdle here. Yes, there are a number of ways that Ferraro's statement could be read, and there's no empirical way to know exactly what she was thinking when she said it.

That said, you'd have to be monumentally stupid to make that sort of comment to the national media and not understand how it would be received. So our options are:

1) Ferraro is playing dumb in order to stir up resentment among whites about an "uppity" black who's getting more than he deserves.

2) Ferraro is criminally stupid and really had no idea that saying what she said could be seen as a racial ploy.

Either way, it's not exactly a plus for Clinton, is it? I don't know that it's productive or even necessary to speculate as to whether having an utter moron sling mud for you is worse than having a racist sling mud for you.

Posted by Statler | March 19, 2008 8:32 PM

"Mrs. Clinton’s advisers said they had spent recent days making the case to wavering superdelegates that Mr. Obama’s association with Pastor Wright would doom their party in the general election."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/us/politics/20memo.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1205978784-DYODfocUf+PREVvCwoyFsg


What a shame to see my Senator reduced to that sort of campaign strategy. The superdelegates need to put Hillary out of her misery, soon.

Posted by lord windemere IV | March 20, 2008 12:24 AM

Obama and democrats need to change the terms of the debate so that we aren't fighting it on the terms of the republicans: Race and patriotism.

It needs to be left v. right.

http://www.politicalinaction.com

Posted by brian | March 20, 2008 2:27 AM

Ambinder, you mentioned those Drug Damaged Retro 60s Freaks who haunt that Mouldering Mound of Dung over at Huffin'Compost, as well as the Miniscule Mediterranean "Mighty Mouth", Moulitas, why not a word about the OBVIOUS FACT THAT DUMPSTER DIVER DRUDGE IS BEING PAID BY THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN?

No matter how bitter and twisted that PASTY GEEK was about the Clintons, HE STILL HAS TO BE GETTING A KICKBACK FROM THE SOUTH SIDE CHICAGO MOB in order to go on and on with the BLATANTLY BIASED BULLSHIT he dishes out, day after day, after dreary day.

Posted by robert ethan | March 20, 2008 2:30 AM

As one who vastly prefers Obama to Clinton, I think Megan (and virtually eveyone else) gave Ferraro a raw deal here. I took her to be saying "look, everyone is understandably excited about Obama because of his race, but that's not a reason to make him president. Take it away, and his resume as just another pol is far less impressive than Hillary's." The evidence that this is what she means is also what undermines her point--that is, she freely admits that she was chosen for VP by Mondale because she was a woman. But was it wrong for people to be excited about that? No. Nor is it wrong for them to be excited about Obama.

And of course, once it was clear she was not succeeding in communicating, she stupidly kept it up. So she made her own mess here, largely, but Marc was right to press on what was going on, and the idea that "well, as a politician you must have known that I, Megan McCardle, would assume that some racists would hear this as a dog whistle, and therefore you are responsible for creating a dog whistle" is just an instance of the unbearable condescension, pomposity, and overly self-referential nature of punditry these days.

Posted by Bill | March 20, 2008 10:15 AM

I have to admit to a bit of disappointment in the podcast; it seems like Matt and Ross spent more time going over the reactions to the speech, instead of its content itself.

(I can't help but feel that that does both Obama a disservice, and Matt and Ross themselves. It's more appropriate to some FoxNewsDrone, not the Atlantic Monthly.)

I don't quite get why there's so much discussion of the "conservative reaction". Obviously the reactions of social conservative pundits is going to be weak. They're paid to do that. They're meaningless, unless you spend so much time talking about their reaction that you elevate them over the original speaker himself.

That seems to be the direction this went, and, yeah, it's disappointing.

Posted by Demosthenes | March 21, 2008 12:03 AM