{"id":2145,"date":"2008-05-08T03:50:57","date_gmt":"2008-05-08T08:50:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=2145"},"modified":"2008-05-08T08:46:55","modified_gmt":"2008-05-08T13:46:55","slug":"more-novak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2008\/05\/08\/more-novak\/","title":{"rendered":"more Novak…"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Tests Ahead for Obama<\/strong><\/a>
Robert D. Novak
May 8, 2008 <\/div>\n

Buyer’s remorse was beginning to afflict supporters of Barack Obama before Tuesday’s primary election returns showed he had delivered a knockout punch against Hillary Clinton. The young orator who had seemed so fantastic, beginning with his 2007 Jefferson-Jackson dinner speech in Iowa, disappointed even his own advisers over the past two weeks, and old party hands mourned that they were stuck with a flawed candidate. <\/p>\n

The whipping Obama gave Clinton in North Carolina and his near miss in Indiana transformed that impression. The candidate who delivered the victory speech in Raleigh, N.C., was the Obama of Des Moines, bearing no resemblance to the gloomy, uneasy candidate who had seemed unable to deal with bumps in the campaign road…<\/p>\n

Clinton’s failure Tuesday was a product of demographics rather than Obama’s campaign skill. Consistently winning more than 90 percent of the African American vote, Obama is unbeatable in a primary where the black electorate is as large as it is in North Carolina (half the registered Democratic vote there)…<\/div>\n

The test of Obama’s strategy may be his friendship with and support from William Ayers, an unrepentant member of the Weathermen terrorist underground of the 1960s and ’70s. Instead of totally disavowing Ayers as he belatedly did his former pastor, Obama potentially deepened his problem by referring to Ayers as just a college professor — "a guy who lives in my neighborhood"… <\/p>\n

Democrats abhor bringing up what Obama calls Ayers’s "detestable acts 40 years ago," but they will be brought into the public arena even if that is not McCain’s style of politics. A photo of Ayers stomping on the American flag in 2001 has been all over the Internet this week. That was the year Obama accepted a $200 political contribution from Ayers and the year in which the former Weatherman said: "I don’t regret setting bombs; I feel we didn’t do enough"…<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
These highlights don’t do justice to the full effect of Novak’s technique. In my recent post, King of Spin<\/strong><\/a>, I claimed Robert Novak was not a political analyst, but rather a "a coward and a Republican Whore<\/strong><\/font>" – and suggested his technique was indirect using implication. My post was about an op-ed in which Novak was implying Obama’s inauthenticity in [mis] handling the Reverend Wright saga. In Robert Novak’s world, there is no authenticity or truth, only spin and political strategy.<\/div>\n

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In todays column, Novak implies:<\/div>\n
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    Democrats were down on Obama, but he rallied after Tuesday’s big win<\/strong>.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
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    Tuesday’s big win was really only because of the African American Vote<\/strong> – he’s a black candidate<\/strong>.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
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    Obama has misplayed his relationship with William Ayes, former Weatherman, a 60’s SDS bomber who is a modern flag stomper<\/strong>.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
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    John McCain is a good guy, who won’t attack Obama about Ayers [but someone else will]<\/strong>.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
    Novak’s method: He doesn’t admit being wrong about Obama’s handling of the Wright issue in his last column. He discounts Obama’s win Tuesday as only because of the black vote. And he reintroduces Obama’s relationship with William Ayers for another round – keeping the Ayers issue on the front burner for future use. It’s one thing to be a partisan critic. Most columnists are. It’s another thing to be Robert Novak – a guy who keeps specific Republican Talking Points on the front burner. I hold my point. Robert Novak is not a journalist. He’s a political operative…<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Tests Ahead for Obama Robert D. Novak May 8, 2008 Buyer’s remorse was beginning to afflict supporters of Barack Obama before Tuesday’s primary election returns showed he had delivered a knockout punch against Hillary Clinton. The young orator who had seemed so fantastic, beginning with his 2007 Jefferson-Jackson dinner speech in Iowa, disappointed even his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}