Some perspective on the "arrogance" outcry here

[PurityOfEssence]

Look, even though many conservatives are racist hogs, along with their other faults, bellyaching about arrogance at the summit isn't necessarily coded racism. Lest we forget, crying "racism" at every criticism of the President HURTS our cause and feeds the fire of leftist excuse-making.

Obama's performance at the summit was really good, given the basic premise that we're only going to try for watered-down corporatism and insurance enabling. That's another argument, and my views are well recorded on the subject. Given the impasse of the moment, he stood his ground and worked them over good and proper without being demeaning or professorial or anything of the sort.

I personally think it was a completely unintended dynamic of his endearing folksiness to have the seeming disrespect of calling them by their first names and having them properly address him as "Mr. President". It's one of those things that one doesn't really realize the effect of until it occurs in the open for a prolonged period of time. This was that time, and I'll bet that next time around, he won't do the same thing. Sadly, it can be construed as rubbing their noses in their obviously lower rung on the ladder, and that, coupled with the command performance flavor of the thing, gave the reactionaries ammunition they needed: they need ANYTHING to distract from the true subject matter of our health care crisis, and this gives them another bit of grist for their self-pity mill.

Here's something people on this board need to accept: when one is in an enviable position of great power, one is going to take lots of crap from many quarters. It's human nature. Shrieking with outrage and claiming coded "uppitiness" at every turn just makes us seem juvenile and silly.

It was an unfortunate bit of theatre in what was otherwise a fine--if still rather timid--confrontation, and ANYTHING that allows the trogs to deflect attention from their blinkered, selfish corporate greed is a mistake on our part. Hopefully we'll learn, but for us to stamp our little feet and throw a tantrum about how unfair it all is just throws more fuel onto the fire that WE CREATED BY MAKING A TACTICAL BLUNDER OF SHOWMANSHIP.

We hold our elected officials to high standards and we should. If we're going to take on entrenched interest, we'd damned well be pretty nigh perfect. Instead of sniveling about it, we should learn and accept the mistake for what it was.

Once again, we should use the acid test of the "unfairness" argument: how would we have responded had George W. Bush done the same thing? (Okay, he probably would have had nicknames for the Senators and Representatives, but I think you get my point: people here would have been frothing with dudgeon and playing to the cheap seats.) Let's learn from this and move on.

Even with this bit of a blot, this was a rather successful event, and Obama did quite well.

[Bitwit1234]

1. I think no matter who was the democratic president the

republicans would go after them. They are the party of callousness, greed, liars and crooks. And they will always be that.

[PurityOfEssence]

6. Bill Clinton had a great line about the White House

He said that the vehement nastiness from the right stems from the fact that Democrats are grateful and honored by having the presidency at any one time, while the Republicans consider that they own it.

There's a deep philosophical difference between liberalism and conservatism, and in rough terms, it's this: liberals accept that people are different and that other opinions and lifestyles exist and should be accommodated, whereas conservatives are firmly convinced that not only are they right, but that any other opinions or beliefs are not only wrong, but a danger to civilization itself that should not only not be tolerated, but should be destroyed.

Of course, there are extremists on the left and party-unity bullies who demand that there be no dissent of any sort, but this is far less prevalent than the EXTREME righteousness and intolerance of the right.

America also has a deep anti-intellectual strain in its politics, and this will always be an Achilles' Heel for Obama; he's very down-to-earth, but his intelligence and knowledge simply can't be hidden.

I still feel that the mere protocol of being called "Mr. President" while addressing the others by first name is the source of this bullshit, and there's an easy remedy for it: simply address others by their titles in the future. I'll bet this is what we'll see; I certainly hope so. This was an attempt on Obama's part to be calm, decent and friendly, but he still doesn't seem to realize that he's not dealing with reasonable people.

Liberals will also always have the problem of needing to show their decorum creds when dealing with the reactionaries. Listen carefully to the icky ire at Clinton for wearing sweats in the Oval Office, and Junior's grandstanding about always having himself and others in shirts and ties when there. It seems silly, but they have set themselves up as the guardians of civilization, and we have to be doubly careful as a result.

We should learn from things like this, and that should be one of the functions of forums like this.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. Barack Obama has done nothing to deserve the insult "arrogant."

It's just plain racism.

[Bobbie Jo]

9. +1000

[Uzybone]

3. more foolishness

why some so called liberals love to give GOP nonsense extra legs is beyond me.

[Cha]

5. It's creepy..like they need to teach us something.

that only they got out of it..no matter how tone deaf they are.

[Warren Stupidity]

4. 'arrogant' applied to african americans is simply code words

for 'uppity n*'. Sorry.

If it were Clinton the words would be coded to frame her as emotional, shrill, bitchy, etc. the general attack on women in power.

That shithead bush had pet names for everyone. But he was white. He in fact was a pigheaded arrogant asshole, but that was framed as 'strong'.

And no, every time the coordinated bullshit offensive from the corporate media starts dog whistling we need to speak up about it.

[EffieBlack]

7. It sounds like you've missed the whole point of "coded language"

Code language is coded so that it can easily be explained away with an alternative, innocuous explanation. That's the whole point. It's designed to obfuscate and confuse . . . and to provide cover for those who use it. Exactly the kind of cover that you and others here seem all to willing to give them.

[PurityOfEssence]

8. It seems like you've missed the point about giving them the opportunity

I don't dispute the premise that much of the use of this word from the opposition stems from flat-out racism, although I do contend that some of the right's hatred of any assaults on their privilege and superiority transcends race: they hate anyone who challenges their comfy rigged world and will use ANY tactic at their disposal to crush opponents.

Do conservatives hate Obama more for his race or his politics? Well, it depends on the particular reactionary we're talking about, but challenging entrenched power and economic choke-holds will get a lot of flak regardless of the ethnicity of the perceived threat.

Somewhere in the outcry here it's lost that we should also do post-mortems on events like this and try too avoid tactical opportunities given to our opponents.

His demeanor was rather respectful and his rebuttals were measured, polite and done with a pretense that the person being responded to wasn't an asshole. Really, the only thing that could be seized upon to justify this pre-planned line of complaint was the protocol of how they were addressed. Hell, that's an easy fix, and I suggest we make it for the future. Then, the only thing that can be used for waving the bloody shirt of being talked down to (which seems to be the cardinal sin in American politics over our history) would be the substance of the replies or the tone of voice. Obama gave them no ammunition there, so this is a convenient little accident for them.

What's more important, soberly critiquing incidents with an eye to avoiding pitfalls in the future, or going off on emotional benders about racism that OBVIOUSLY exists and is being channeled through many euphemisms?

Please be a bit respectful when accusing fellow pluralists of extreme moral ugliness. I'm not giving ANYONE any cover, and that kind of rejoinder betrays a bit of retaliatory unpleasantness itself.

[backscatter712]

10. There's far more history here than the summit itself.

Every week, we hear yet more racist dog-whistling.

And I have no problem calling the racists out on their behavior. Do they think us naive?

[PurityOfEssence]

11. No argument here

I just think we should be as careful as possible about giving them ammunition.

The hardcore reactionaries will never be won over. Virtually none of the garden-variety conservatives will either. That leaves the middle and some of the right that's somewhat open, and we should do what we can to give ourselves every advantage.

Getting kudos from our fellow lefties on the board by out-outraging each other is a tactically pointless endeavor. Analyzing events to learn from them is a VERY valuable one, and I simply thought that this particular structural issue of protocol crimped the effectiveness of the summit a bit and deserved addressing.

Calling them out on their behavior is good; they need to know that we're not cowed. Not seeing other contributing factors, though, is not wise. Never forget the nasty stripe of anti-intellectualism in American Culture, and this cuts many ways: we fancy ourselves to be pluralists, even many conservatives do; they will tell you to your face that this is a classless society, and they LIKE that concept, so being told that they're racist in every circumstance will embitter them. They may be having their buttons pushed for other reasons and feel that the President is talking down to others and not realize that their own somewhat-dormant racism is taking sway, but if the cry of "racism" is brought in a situation like that, they may simply shut off and feel offended.

Racism is a VERY sore point for most people, and accusing others of it basically completely slams the door shut. I have no interest in calling a skunk a skunk and losing the war; I'd rather redirect the conversation and say that it was a bit of a misstep to be casual with their titles while enjoying the deference to his own and talk about the substance of the event. The substance showed great respect for the cockamamie blather and repetition of brain-dead talking points and buzz phrases. Often conceding a procedural point opens up the conversation to the substance.

Basically, I simply saw that the echo-chamber here had not addressed a regrettable minor mistake on our part, and felt it was valuable to trot it out for debate.