More .... Just Words

“I have been an imperfect public servant but there has never been a time when I wasn’t proud of my country”. There it is. Michelle Obama screwed up and John McCain crafted the final sentence of his victory speech around it.

Then there are the very stupid people who think that her statement “This is the first time in my adult life that I have been really proud of my country” is proof that the Obamas are Muslims and additionally, they are terrorists who are going to take over the country.

Let’s be honest. She did make a mistake. The fact that all the talking heads who are speculating about what she meant by what she said, is proof of that. But if the screw up wasn’t what she said, it was certainly a screw up because it distracted from the campaign on a primary day and on the same day that there was controversy about “just words”. So were Michelle’s words just words? Did she mean that she has spent a lifetime being embarrassed about the country. Or did she mean that she was proud of the country’s response to her husband. Oh we could go on and on and on and on... but we are sure that no one wants that to happen.

Michelle can speak for 35 minutes or more without notes. Aye then, there’s the rub. Maybe she should use notes so that she doesn’t say something that can be interpreted and misinterpreted by millions of people. Luckily, the Clinton protests about what the Obamas said or didn’t say, appeared to be desperate moves by a losing campaign. I have no opinion about whether the Clinton campaign is desperate or losing, but I do think that Wolfson’s attacks on the Obama’s rhetoric seem a bit disingenuous. Where is Maggie Williams when they need someone credible to be the public face of the campaign. I don’t get it.

Tonight there is much discussion about whether the Clinton’s should just have skipped Wisconsin and gone on to Ohio and Texas as originally planned. If the Clintons had done that and Obama was victorious at least they could have said, “Well, we didn’t campaign, what did you expect?” But how do you dismiss Wisconsin. Doesn’t that appear to play into the perceived Clinton arrogance. And further, if we are playing a delegate game, how do you relinquish 74 delegates without a fight. Senator Clinton cannot be considered a contender if she won’t fight the good fight. (I know it’s a lot of fights but the word battle doesn’t work within the context of this blob). It’s for sure that I wouldn’t want to be sitting at the Clinton strategy table in that campaign meeting tomorrow.

The campaigns are moving on. Clinton is in Ohio and Obama is in Texas. Tonight I listened to the speeches, which were not about wins or losses but rather about hope and change. Hillary asked people to go to her website to see how she is going to change the country. Obama talked about a young soldier who lost his life in Iraq. The soldier’s mother gave Barack a bracelet that said “ All give some, he gave all”. Sounds good. I don’t know exactly what that means. What is the ‘all give some?’ I get the part about he gave his life. But people in the audience cheered like they understood so maybe they know more than me. It wouldn’t be the first time. That’s not my point. I know Hillary is tired, who wouldn’t be. But “I want you to go to my website” is simply not inspirational. And it isn’t about great rhetoric. It’s about the appearance of wanting everyone to work together to make a difference. What if I’m not online and I don’t even have a computer. I don’t know about everyone else but I hate to feel left out. Obama says “change doesn’t happen from the top. It takes a village”. Maybe it wasn’t Obama who said that – or who said only part of it. Why doesn’t the person who said the other part, live what she wrote... Or maybe she didn’t write it. There’s that ‘words’ thing again.

I don’t want to appear to be piling on. It’s just that I’m so disappointed about the way the Clinton campaign is conducting business on the campaign trail. David refuses to call it the ‘campaign trail’ because he says it sounds sophomoric. “What is it, a little path through the woods like Red Riding Hood traveled.” He goes to great lengths to avoid characterizing it as some kind of virtual road. It’s unclear why the language irritates him. But words are not just for the lofty or the candidates. Even a lowly photographer can pick and choose the words he uses to describe a concept...no a lane ... no a corridor...maybe a path. Never mind, the next thing I’ll be doing is sending them all down an alley where they’ll get mugged and no one will be around for the convention. We’re just sayin...Iris