Last night on Hardball, this outrage:
MATTHEWS: We’re back with the round table for more of the politics fix. I want to go to Tucker for, you know, what might be the Kentucky Derby tomorrow night. If tomorrow night, the Barack people announce that on their tote board, and Tim Russert and Chuck Todd and everybody else comes out, objectively, and points out that now we have reached an end of part of this process; the elected delegates, the pledged delegates, have now given a majority of their support to Barack Obama. Henceforth, nothing can happen, really, to stop him from winning the most elected delegates. The only thing that can give this now to Hillary Clinton or someone else is the decision of the unelected delegates, the super delegates.
***MATTHEWS: Spring those elected delegates, even, that they’ll switch even if something horrendous happens. So, she stays in it how long, based on that theory?
CARLSON: Why not till South Dakota, June 3? It doesn’t hurt her.
MATTHEWS: Jim, three months of opportunity for something to go hellaciously wrong for Barack Obama and she’s sitting there as the default.
CARROLL: I think it’s a bad strategy. Other campaigns have been built on pretty thin gruel like that.MATTHEWS: Take the vice presidential nomination and hope that some time between now and November something goes wrong.
CARROLL: I don’t want to go near that.
BERNARD: Hillary Clinton is going to become the Ron Paul of the Democratic party. There’s no way the super delegates can take this away from Barack Obama. There will be race riots in the streets if he wins enough super delegates —
And then they all laugh, except for Tucker, who was as shocked as I was when I saw it. It was kind of disgusting, but what I have grown used to this primary, which has turned into little more than identity politics at its worst.
Look- it is inconceivable to me that the super delegates would overturn the pledged delegates and the popular vote (as always, spare me the Michigan and Florida bullshit, Hillary supporters) at this point, but the implied threat of race riots is nauseating. Not only does it ignore the fact that African-Americans initially supported Hillary, but it suggests that the African-American community is not sophisticated enough to deal with political disappointment other than to riot in the streets. I have stated in the past I would not be surprised if a significant portion of the black electorate would be turned off so much by the supers handing this to Hillary that it would suppress the vote (and hurt Democrats for years in the future), but those are political choices and political consequences. Implying the threat of race riots is taking things to a whole new level of ugly. It was a shameful, unhelpful comment, and just as bad (I would argue worse) as the current threats by some women to not vote or to vote for McCain simply because the woman lost.
Screw the lawyers. First, kill all the pundits.
Doug H. (Fausto no more)
Ohhhhhhhhh, you’re really asking for it now.
Jim/The Velvet Blog
What, the latte-swilling yuppies won’t riot, too?
Slackers.
DrDave
Yeah, that’s not a bad idea. But the fact is that if the supers took the nomination away from Obama, the majority of voters who cast ballots for him would be outraged–and I’m a 50-ish, white, professional, latte and brie Liberal, thank you–and would abandon the Democratic Party forever, destroying the party for years to come.
Z
Pundits are pretty useless. They won’t be missed.
Tax Analyst
Well, you have to remember, John, that what happens to REAL PEOPLE doesn’t really matter to “Tweety” Matthews, because everything is really about him, and if it isn’t, well, it just really doesn’t matter.
So it’s perfectly normal and permissible on “Hardball” to toss out off-the-cuff remarks speculating about race riots and perfectly normal and permissible chuckle it off after basically speaking the unspeakable.
I mean, no matter who becomes President Chris Matthews is still gonna want it to be about him.
You know, it’s really hard to imagine someone being so off-key that TUCKER FUCKING CARLSON is taken aback.
Micheline
As a black person I was shocked and insulted after hearing Michelle Bernard’s comment. Especially since she said it with glee. And what makes it even worse is that she is a Republican consultant.
Justin
Yeah, I saw this too. And the first thing I thought was, “Good thing she’s black. Or else Glenn Greenwald would be all over this.”
DrDave
Yeah, that’s not a bad idea.
But the fact is that if the supers took the nomination away from Obama, the majority of voters who cast ballots for him would be outraged–and I’m a 50-ish, white, professional, latte and brie Liberal, thank you–and would abandon the Democratic Party forever, destroying the party for years to come.
I also find it inconceivable but this is the Clintons we are talking about and there are no depths to which they won’t descend to accomplish their objectives.
Tax Analyst
Well, you have to remember, John, that what happens to REAL PEOPLE doesn’t really matter to “Tweety” Matthews, because everything is really about him, and if it isn’t, well, it just really doesn’t matter.
So it’s perfectly normal and permissible on “Hardball” to toss out off-the-cuff remarks speculating about race riots and perfectly normal and permissible chuckle it off after basically speaking the unspeakable.
I mean, no matter who becomes President Chris Matthews is still gonna want it to be about him.
You know, it’s really hard to imagine someone being so off-key that TUCKER FUCKING CARLSON is taken aback.
jake
WordPress is rioting against this dumb crap.
Warren Terra
Thanks to a version of Balloon Juice that had the good fortune to fall through a time warp from a thousand years in the future, I am assured that the pundits of the early 21st century were a bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came.
demkat620
Anybody else notice how hard Tucker and Pat Buchanan are pushing this “Hillary won the popular vote” meme?
It is just disgusting. And its also a lie.
SamFromUtah
…the implied threat of race riots is nauseating.
I agree, but that wasn’t implied, it was stated as fact. That goes beyond nauseating to infuriating (once I’ve stopped being dizzy and cleaned the vomit up before my dog eats it).
ThePirate
It looked like she was trying to make a joke, and the other guys gave it a courtesy chuckle. You could see the awkwardness on her face.
Dave L
In the same vein, notice how the Tennessee Republican Party chose to stick up for its right to throw mud at Michelle Obama:
” -Are we in for a long, hot summer of temper tantrums from Tennessee Democrats and Barack Obama supporters?”
What a clever insertion of code words! – They must have taken (and passed!) a quickie, mail-order Introduction to Rovism.
Genine
All these comments about the AA vote and rioting in the streets are extremely annoying to me. I’m AA AND a woman and I am sick and tired of being told of what I will do if Hillary isn’t chosen or if Barack isn’t chosen.
The AA vote was Hillary’s to lose. And, may I say, she did a damn fine job of it, too. But to say AA’s will be rioting in the street is insulting when it’s mostly been Hillbot women that have lost their freakin’ minds! (This is NOT to say Hillbots will be rioting in the streets.)
But this “If Obama loses, blacks will riot” message has been bleated quite a bit and its STUPID. I know of no AA’s planning or even speaking of rioting. I’m even inclined to say its a bit racist (because I am pissed at the moment). But I don’t like using that word unless absolutely warranted.
nightjar
If gas prices don’t stop going up, I might start rioting in the streets.
les
Second idea, fine. If the first notion is a personal offer, may I please be excused? If on the other hand the sentence will be carried out by delightful proxies of the female persuasion, okay. Reluctantly, of course.
Zifnab
No. It’s called projectionism, and its been going on for decades. What Matthews, Carroll, Bernard, et al are really saying is that they hope we get to see some race riots because A) that would make for some great TV and B) if their candidate lost that’s the first reaction that would pop into their heads.
All that said, there have been a number of instances in which Ron Paul supporters have gotten a bit physical, the most amusing of which was when they went after Sean Hannity. In that sense, if Hillary really does become the “Ron Paul of the Democratic Party” (??? – whatever that means – ???), it’ll be the Hillagers marching through main street with pitch forks and torches.
nightjar
Whether or not AA’s riot or not, one thing for sure, the wingnuts will be grinning ear to ear, if the SD’s were to give the nom to Hills.
Patrick
Wait…I thought the Emmmm-Esssss-Emmmmm was too busy slathering Hillary with misogyny to be racist!
I am so confused.
The latte-swilling yuppies won’t riot. We’ll just stick another bumper sticker on the back of the Volvo station wagon.
Should Know Better
Meanwhile, I had literally no idea that Tucker Carlson was still allowed on ‘news’ shows.
Michael D.
Shorter Michelle Bernard: “All we need is a reason to riot, whitey!”
pseudonymous in nc
Michelle Bernard = stealth wingnut.
She’s firmly established herself as MSNBC’s go-to black woman for commentary on a contest between a black man and a white woman. That she’s in the employ of a wingnut welfare org ($170k+bens on the 2006 Form 990) is no longer mentioned.
Cyrus
I can totally see how it’s pretty racist to say that black people definitely will riot if Obama merely isn’t nominated, but to be fair, something sort of related has been planned.
Should Know Better
Aaah… still my favorite bit of internet ever. I return to it whenever I’m blue.
Along with Dogs in Elk.
But has KFM come up with the promised shirts yet?? Noooooo.
::sulk::
gex
You are quite generous. I think I must see these things differently than everyone else here so far. I don’t think they say there will be riots because they think really think that little of black people. It is all designed to make their base scared of black people.
carsick
I’m a white, forty something parent. I’m reserving my rioting impulse in case the November elections look fishy and McCain comes out with a stinkin’ win.
Billy K
I was just thinking the other day how I’d react if someone shot Obama, and I kept coming back to rioting (I know – I’m a bad person). I guess I wouldn’t mind rioting also if the party apparatus took away his nomination – and I’m white. So…
I’m confused…
David Hunt
Yeah, I’m still trying to figure out how to get off that list. I thought buying the T-shirts might help…
jake
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard about the threat of the Rioting Negro during this election cycle but I think the others were from Brown Squirt Blaggers looking for a new reason to crap their pants.
This is what the GOPers will say on Nov. 5th when Obama hands McCane a platter, removes the cover and McCane is looking at his ass:
“Waaah! Of course people voted for the scary negro! He would have unleashed all of the other scary negroes on the country!”
If you follow the fRight Wing prepare for lots of talk about how the entire nation is being HELD HOSTAGE by the president!1
Rick Massimo
You know, I don’t hear a whole lot of people making noises about who would be the Republican nominee if “something went horribly wrong” with, or “we found out something horrible” about, McCain. I also don’t remember any such talk about Kerry, Gore, Bush, Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, Dukakis, etc., etc., etc.
90% of the cable news I watch is on Web sites like this one, so maybe I have a skewed view. But the casual ease with which these people (and it’s not only them) can sit around and say a) “What happens if someone shoots Obama” and/or b) “What happens if Obama’s mask is pulled off and he turns out to be a scary, spittle-flecked whitey-hater” without ever actually coming out and saying it, is mind-boggling to me.
D0n Camillo
He’s hardly likely to be allowed on dance shows any more, so where else can he go?
nightjar
She just admitted on HB her family is hard core gooper and believes the govmint can’t do anyhing good. I still kind of like her though. She’s smart and makes some effort to give her honest opinion, which is better than most.
Conservatively Liberal
Damn straight. This slacker will be too busy popping popcorn. ;)
The Grand Panjandrum
And you guys are paying cable and satellite companies to watch this shit. I’d rather wipe my ass with a Franklin once a month and flush it.
Conservatively Liberal
Well, with the current value of our dollar you would probably save money wiping with a Franklin. The best part is that since money is made out of cloth, Franklin toilet paper is washable and reusable!
:)
Cyrus
In none of those cases was there someone in the race whose only path to victory was if something went horribly wrong for McCain/Kerry/Gore/etc. I hope this doesn’t spawn hundreds of comments of whining about Clinton vs. Obama, but if you can think of any other reason for Clinton to still be in the primary race, I’d like to hear about it. For what it’s worth, I usually phrase the hypothetical horrible event as a “dead girl or live boy situation”.
SamFromUtah
And you guys are paying cable and satellite companies to watch this shit. I’d rather wipe my ass with a Franklin once a month and flush it.
Well said! I haven’t watched much TV, especially cable news, in forever – like, since 1990 or so. I saw a bit today and it’s really deteriorated. Just a bunch of loudmouths speculating and trying to drown each other out.
Brachiator
This reminds me of a quote attributed to Kitty Muggeridge, wife of Malcolm, when Malcolm read that tv host David Frost was going to interview former president Richard Nixon.
Malcolm: I see that Frost is going to be on television again. I thought that he had sank without a trace.
Kitty: Don’t worry. He rises without a trace as well.
Tucker Carlson is similarly inconsequential, though I agree that to see him as a voice of reason compared with these other idiots is startling.
Velvet Elvis
I expect there would be minor multi-ethnic rioting in a few places but the media would only show the same clip of a black guy breaking a window over and over.
Zifnab
If I could route my dollars solely to ESPN, Comedy Central, Sci-Fi, and The Anime Network, believe me when I say I would. All the “news” I can handle comes from blogs and NPR/PBS.
As it stands, cable news has been slowly tanking across the board. Even FOX News’s GIANT FLASHY SUPER SPECIAL EPILEPSY INDUCING REPORT numbers have sunk in the last two years.
Balconesfault
I grudgingly give Tweety credit – he appropriately mocked her comment with his “YouTube” remark.
But it’s definitely code-wording. And I agree that the whole thing about Hillary hanging in “just in case something happens to Obama” is also, as if there’s just a much greater chance for a skeleton to fall out of the closet of a black candidate than a white.
Expect to see a lot more of it from here out. You can’t get away with jumping up and screaming “look at the scary black man” all the way from here to November (although that’s essentially what the whole Wright controversy was) … so we’ll get snide coded comments instead.
r€nato
hooray!
let’s start with Jonah Goldberg and Bill Kristol.
KRK
Two thoughts:
1. Riots maybe, “race” riots not so much. If the superdelegates did override the pledged delegates and give the nomination to Clinton (not going to happen), I can certainly imagine that some people would take to the streets in protest. Some of those people would be black. That doesn’t make it a “race” riot. (Unless they’re referring to a riot whose basis is anger about the conduct of the race for the presidency.)
So just a stupid comment all around. And just another sign that pundits can’t talk about current events without trying to contort them into some version of the past.
2. My super-paranoid vision is that something does happen to send angry people onto the streets, either a Clinton nomination debacle (not going to happen) or a violent act against Obama. People hit the streets, Bush calls out the troops (those few still stateside) to “restore order” and then (depending on the timing) muses aloud about whether it would be too risky to hold the general election on schedule. Rather fanciful, I admit, but I wouldn’t put it past him.
Davis X. Machina
Not only does it ignore the fact that African-Americans initially supported Hillary,
I’m so old, I remember when there was lively discussion over whether Obama was black enough for black people to vote for.
That was, of course, before he named Amiri Baraka as his running mate….
Cain
hahaha!!
If there is a riot, I’m going to riot with em!
cain
Genine
I see it more as feeding or tapping into racism.
Anyway, I am calmer now and it’s just douchbaggery to me.
croatoan
If any super delegates were actually going to support Clinton, why have they been declaring 4-1 for Obama since the beginning of May? If they were open to persuasion, why wouldn’t they wait until after the primaries?
These people aren’t heroes, they’re self-serving politicians. They wouldn’t declare for Obama now and risk pissing her off if they thought she had any chance of winning.
Seems to me that Clinton’s whole argument for staying in the race–that she’ll persuade the super delegates that she’s the better candidate–has already failed. She’s been making that argument for weeks as more and more of them commit to Obama.
folkbum
Why can’t we bludgeon the lawyers to death using the pundits?
Tax Analyst
Hey, a “Rainbow Riot”.
Personally, I think we should be more worried about all those armed and bitter dunderheads in WV & KY who are still voting for Hillary because???
No, I don’t really believe that, but it makes at least as much sense as Michelle Bernard’s moronic meandering.
But really, what exactly has Senator Clinton said or done recently to inspire much more than sneering indifference? “Gas Tax Holiday”? “Nuke Iran”? Knockin’ down shooter’s? Well, yee-haw, get the little lady some bib-overalls or a Davey Crockett cap. I can hardly wait for her to hunker down and pop a big wad of chewin’ tobacco into her cheek, spit on her hands, grab a pickaxe and start bustin’ up the old campaign trail.
Yes, she’s entitled to continue onward, and yes, Primary voters in KY are entitled to vote as they choose.
And yes, we’re entitled to grow wearier and “leerier” (Yes, I know that’s not a real word, so sue me) with each new parsing of which votes in which states count and why they didn’t count before, but surely must count now, lest those poor Floridians & Michiganer’s or meshugenah’s or whatever feel disenfranchised or less-beloved or whatever Bill & Hill think they ought to feel. Hell, I care what they think, but they didn’t follow the agreed upon PARTY RULES and I don’t remember HRC protesting all that much about how unjust this all was…until she found herself BEHIND in the delegate count.
But anyway, let the voter’s vote…cast their ballots for Hillary or cast them into the sea. And then let’s move on and start talking about John McCain. What I’ve gathered from Senator McCain’s campaign so far is that he’s not going to do much between 2009 and 2012, but after we re-elect him, well, 2013 is gonna be an absolute watershed year…Iraq will achieve stability…the good type this time around…he’s gonna get rid of that nasty old pork and firm up our economy, gonna be tough, but flexible. Stern but reasonable. Determined but prudent. Like a lion and a lamb. Harsh and cruel yet kind and fair…blah, blah, blah. But none of this is gonna happen until his SECOND term – we just gotta trust the old fart. Riiiiggghhhtttt…
What a bunch of bulllllshiiiittt. And the more exposure his “agenda” gets the clearer that will become.
OH…and his VP choice? I got the perfect guy…if he’s still alive, that is. Remember Ross Perot’s running mate? Stockdale, I think. perfect.
MDee
I can understand Clinton hanging in if her own closet were pristine and skeleton-free. Excuse me while I laugh hysterically at the thought of that possibility.
Clinton has NOT yet been vetted. She’s been given a virtual free ride minus Tuzla. Clinton’s “gates” were a shitshower compared to Obama’s shitstorms. The media got gunshy about vetting her so they stopped. As the runnerup she got the same honeymoon that Obama got when she was inevitable. The thing is Clinton is not a teflon candidate. No one with unfavorables as consistently high as hers could ever be.
The sexist shit from Tweety and the media had immediate blowback (NH win) which is possibly why Clinton’s campaign is trotting it out again, probably hoping lightning will strike twice. Problem is, there is no media overreaction that equaled the tears response. I haven’t heard the list of sexist complaints.
Most of the media is too busy kissing her ass and repeating her ridiculous talking points (popular vote with asterisk does not equal popular vote you fucking lazy assholes) in fear of being called sexist or whatever “ist” is the current talking point du jour.
I love how everyone in the media pretends that she is untouchable. Clean. Pristine. No nasty oppo-research surprises on her. Yeah, right. I’m sure she and Bill spent the last eight years living the life of the good and pious. No questionable alliances or deals made. And let’s not forget the wonderful scandals that occurred during the previous eight years. Sixteen years of accumulated Clinton skeletons. No wonder the fucking media wants to keep her afloat.
Obama didn’t go there. At least not in any meaningful way. The Republicans will. With glee. Clinton waiting for a scandal to sink Obama is one of the more ironic and delusional events in a primary filled with a plethora of ironic and delusional events.
TenguPhule
And then the Propaganda Reporters.
And then the Lawyers.
After that there’s only the rank and file Republicans to mop up.
Phoebe
I don’t see it as so very racist. There have been race riots in the past. Why not for this? I’m not saying I’d like it. I didn’t like it when it happened after the Rodney King verdict, and I won’t like if if it happens after Clinton gets the nom – for reasons that you all know would be partly racial. And it wasn’t a “threat” – she didn’t say she’d set a car on fire – it was a prediction. And I think the laugh was more like “c’mon guys, this is NEVER going to happen, they wouldn’t dare.”
That said, it was a stupid thing to say, because of course everyone was going to jump on it. Not suave. Also partly because it reduces him again to “the candidate for the black people” – if this causes riots I’d expect a lot of white people, who make up the majority of his support. But, once again, if he were denied the nom because then we Dems wouldn’t get the racist vote [and we don’t care about the black vote because it’s always ours, ha ha] – then, yeah, I can see this rankling more with black voters than with white voters. By and large. What – you don’t?
Jim Pharo
Race Riots? I guess she means white, black, Asian, Latinos, Native Americans, etc., all coming together to riot.
Color me “psyched!” If super-dels steal the nomination, i look forward to stealing me a tee vee.
Sheesh.
Let me also note that I have been laying off the MS-CNN-NBC the last couple of go-rounds. (Too stupid.) One thing that pops out to me is that these people have decided that only African Americans can really represent BHO or have opinions on race. (I guess it’s time to lay off of MS-CNN-NBC again.)
jake
There’s a long road between being upset or disappointed and tearing down a city. However, if you can’t see the difference between what happened in LA and the results of a political process I’m not sure I can help you.
I have yet to hear any suggestion that there will be “sex riots” if Hillary doesn’t get the nomination or even white riots when the candidate for hard working white Americans doesn’t get the nom. Nope, it’s always and only the brown people who use violence as a first resort. Their little brains overheat so easily don’tyewknow.
Tax Analyst
Amen, Jake. I LIVE in the LA area and have lived here almost 50 years now, and I WATCHED a good portion of MY CITY get torched and trashed and I have to tell you it was NOT a good feeling.
Frankly, I believe the people that would be most upset if Obama got jobbed out of the nomination would be those who believe in doing things properly – and thus would not be particularly interested in pointless violence.