Friday: Truth or fiction? Plus, Friday Fast.

The rumors that are being whispered by the media and the Obama surrogates these days are taking on the status of urban legends. Oh, sure, the stories may have changed somewhat but once upon a time, they really happened. Like the babysitter that got a phone call from the serial killer who was calling from upstairs. {{shivver}} Or the kid who died from eating a Halloween apple with a razor blade in it. (I think this one was put out there by the Mars candy company)

Are the rumors real or merely self serving? Let’s go inside the mystery and find out if they are truth or fiction:

1.) Hillary has been in discussions with Obama’s campaign, begging to become his VP. “A friend” of the Clintons has been spreading this rumor all over the place. Here we have the first evidence that this rumor is untrue. What kind of “friend” would spread a rumor that would make Clinton look desperate and stupid? It would make her supporters nervous and doubtful that she was sincere about winning the nomination. It might make them stop donating to her campaign or support her altogether. Besides, why would a person with Clinton’s qualifications want to make a lateral career move? Well, it turns out that Howard Wolfson put this rumor to bed yesterday. There have been no such discussions. He didn’t say, “I am not aware of such discussions”. He said there weren’t any. Period.

2.) Hillary has been horribly and inexcusably negative on her opponent. We see this trotted out during primary nights on the cable news channels. There is always some poll where voters are asked who has been more negative. It’s always Clinton. How do we understand this when our lying eyes tell us something different? Well, there was a recent column by John Judis in The New Republic recently where the following was actually written down for posterity:

Clinton’s second great political mistake lay in how she dealt with Obama’s challenge. Sometime in December, having realized that Obama was going to be a genuine rival for the nomination, she and her campaign decided to go negative on him. They did the usual thing politicians do to each other: They ran attack ads taking his words somewhat out of context (Obama calling Reagan a “transformative politician”); they somewhat distorted old votes (voting “present” in Illinois on abortion bills); and they questioned old associations (Obama’s connection with real estate developer Tony Rezko).

John McCain and Mitt Romney were doing similar things to each other—and Obama did some of it to Clinton, too. But there a was difference between her doing this to Obama and McCain’s doing it to Romney—a difference that eluded Clinton, her husband, and her campaign staff. My friend David Kusnet, Bill Clinton’s former speechwriter, explained the difference to me by citing what ex-heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson had once said about Muhammad Ali. “I was just a fighter,” Patterson had said, “but he was history.” Obama, too, was, and is, history—the first viable African-American presidential candidate. Yes, Hillary Clinton was the first viable female candidate, but it is still different. Race is the deepest and oldest and most bitter conflict in American history—the cause of our great Civil War and of the upheavals of the 1950s and ’60s. And if some voters didn’t appreciate the potential breakthrough that Obama’s candidacy represented, many in the Democratic primaries and caucuses did—and so did the members of the media and Obama’s fellow politicians. And as Clinton began treating Obama as just another politician, they recoiled and threw their support to him.

Is this true? Did Clinton go unfairly negative on Obama? The answer to this is unfortunately yes. See, while we weren’t watching, standards were recalibrated to adjust for the African-American candidate. There is no need to do this for the female candidate because it is expected that if she wants to play in the big boyz game, she will have to demonstrate that she can be beaten to a bloody pulp and still remain standing. This is a universal truth. It’s like gravity. The African-American male got the right to vote before females did. We are only following precedent. Plus, we must acknowledge the collective guilt that we Democrats share regarding the status of African-Americans in America. If it weren’t for Republicans pushing through all that civil rights legislation back in the 60’s, we would still be living with segregation. We must atone for our sins, therefore, Hillary is absolutely forbidden from saying anything negative about Obama. This includes saying something about him that is true because that might make him look like just an average politician and that would be negative.

She must also not compare herself to him as this may reveal him to be wanting in some capacity and that would be mean and prejudicial. Some people would say that this gives Obama an advantage that Hillary doesn’t have, that he starts off with a handicap of sorts. But this comes too close to saying that he is benefitting from affirmative action and that just shows that you are a bigot.

3.) It is unfair to Obama to not get all of the uncommitted votes from Michigan and some of Clinton’s votes as well. If we were to follow up on the preceding urban legend, we would see that this is probably true. Since Obama is starting off with a handicap, it only follows that he would receive all of the uncommitted votes and some of Clinton’s as well. To genuinely correct for the historical inequity, Clinton should give him all of her votes and a note of apology for being a member of the slave owning class even though her ancestors weren’t slaveowners and some of them were impoverished themselves while Obama’s ancestors were never slaves. Obama is a symbol and a conduit through the color of his skin for the African-American community. He is their redeemer. So, she should just hand over her votes without complaint, get out of the race, beg him for forgiveness and “follow him wherever he may go”, sort of like the song.

But it turns out that “uncommitted” is an official designation under DNC RULZ. The change of these RULZ to accomodate Obama was not finished in time for the primary season so this is an unfair condition under which he must operate this year. There is no reason why the Rules and Bylaws committee has to give him the uncommitted delegates but they probably will anyway as a way to compensate him for Hillary running against him in the first place, his candidacy being historic and all. This may not be fair to the voters but with sensitivity and diversity training, they will come around.

4.) After those of us who have a visceral dislike of Obama have been reeducated, we will fall in line and vote for him in November. We don’t really mean it. This is probably true but it is uncertain whether they will be able to make enough orange jumpsuits and build the detention camps in time.

For those of you following the Friday Fast, here are the recommendations. Save your breakfast, lunch and dinner money today and send $10 to Hillary’s campaign and a second $10 to America’s Second Harvest.