Posted by
Andrews on Tuesday, August 26, 2008 10:46:00 AM
I have been arguing
since February that Obama's
particular approach to the election, avoiding any specifics and allowing his vague statements to be interpreted
as agreeing with any listener was destined to defeat him. Of course, I didn't expect anyone to believe me back then, as the media was hyping Obama's successes, and so long as he was preaching to the choir and didn't have to take any stands, it was hard to believe that he would get anything less than 75% of the vote. Now that he has had to change position repeatedly as he makes his way between appeals to the independents and suppressing rebellions among his far left base,
many conservatives are starting to see that
the Obama approach is failing, and that
his defeat is likely. However, until recently it seemed Democrats, whether part of the Obama cult or not, were not ready to admit that Obama could lose.
However, I now have the first sign that Democrats, other than those
crossing over in disgust at the way Hillary was driven from the race, have recognized that Obama is likely to lose. Of course, they cannot admit that their man will lose, they must continue to publicly repeat the party line that Obama is a sure thing, but I have unmistakable signs that at least some Democrats are expecting Obama to lose.
And what is this sign? They are preparing excuses.
For example, look at
Jacob Weisberg's article in Slate. While he does not come out and say that he expects Obama to lose, he definitely expects it, and he has prepared the official excuse for such failure.
As I predicted the excuse is racism. Weisberg, not content with justt hrowing about unfounded charges of racism, has come up with an elaborate story wherein every criticism of Obama is just a cover for racism. "Inexperience", it means "he's black". "Far left", that means "black" too. "Racist pastor", well clearly that means "black". In short, he has taken every valid argument against Obama and dismissed them, attributing all of them to racism.
While it is a good to see that there are some Democrats that aren't so besotted with Obama that they can recognize he might lose, this article is a bit disturbing. I can't recall an election in my lifetime where the excuse for loss was prepared ahead of time. It is as if in 1999 Gore sent out a memo saying "If we lose, it was because of the Florida ballot" or Kerry wrote in October "guess those Swift Boat fellows got me after all."
Still, I suppose it is a good thing, overall. At least it means there are some sane Democrats left. And more importantly, it means that even Democrats can see the momentum and have recognized that they missed their golden opportunity.
POSTSCRIPT
As I have mentioned before, certain ideas seem to pop up all over the web at the same time. Oddly enough, this essay provides a perfect example. I was checking out
an old article on Obama when I decided to see what the author, Jennifer Rubin, had written recently. Amusingly enough, she has
written an essay on almost the exact same topic today.