Beg your pardon?

I hope this doesn't spawn more silly season diaries that NEED to be deleted.

Where's your concern over the "semingly bottomless pit of slander emails spreading about HILLARY out there?"

But in the event that Barack Obama is the nominee there's something else we're going to have to confront: the seemingly bottomless pit of slander e-mails spreading about him out there.

actually I can speculate on a number of posters here that would forward that email without a seconds hesitation.

If the same standard had been applied to Hillary Clinton from the start of the campaign until know maybe you would get a sympathetic response from me.

Obama has enough folks falling over themselves to defend him in the media and the blogs , I don't think he is lacking in that aspect.

By the way I don't think he has been entirely respectful in his criticism of Clinton ,to me his criticism have often gone over the line to immature territory .

His brushing off his shoulders at the same video doesn't help in alleviating doubts that he could have done the immature thing of flipping her the finger which I don't think he did.

If there was the same reaction if Hillary clinton was in his position then it would be more of an urgent point.

Is that this isn't a defense of Obama, Obama tactics, or fairness.  This is about looking into the facts of an accusation before posting/forwarding and about the fact that Democrats are turning into the biggest poo throwers against other Democrats.

It doesn't matter whose name(s) you use as the recipient of the poo, it is the fact the Democrats are slinging it at their own.

I agree completely.  I have watched with growing dismay as both sides feel like they can pile on to the latest stupid "gotcha".

A few things -

1. Totally agree in the sense that this is another non-issue for me as well.

2. I think the reason it is an issue for some people is something you flatly deny - the idea that Obama would be that crass, immature, arrogant, dismissive.

I think that, for many who oppose him, they have this gut feeling that he actually is that way.  And so this fits the picture in their mind.

It's not totally unreasonable - laughing at the world outside Obamaville while brushing off his shoulders isn't exactly an example in maturity.

He flipped the bird as part of a performance miming Jay-Z's song. I don't see why anyone is denying it. It was actually quite clever, a gesture of humor and defiance. This, which he said on the campaign trail today, however, makes me queasy: "You have a real choice in this election. Either Democrat would be better than John McCain," Obama said to cheers from a rowdy crowd in central Pennsylvania. Then he said: "And all three of us would be better than George Bush." Barack Obama

off, I wouldn't have watched the video.

Dave Winer:

Barack flips off Hillary!

Okay my inner-8-year-old really likes this one! ;->

Here's a YouTube video of Obama speaking yesterday.

At 1 minute 20 seconds in, while he's talking about Hillary Clinton, he scratches his cheek, and instead of using his index finger, he flips her off.

And his passive-aggressive history isn't good either. That his own campaign put the video up on YouTube is....odd.

"having said that he'd like to replace the national anthem with `I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing."

I mean that's just funny.

I'm the biggest Obama supporter you'll find, but I get a kick out of some of these smear emails.

stop bringing up the flip off.

I don't think Obama shot Hillary the bird, but there is a factual basis for the argument that he did.  To say, as some have including a front-pager, that there is "proof" that he didn't is a fantasy.  

I found sluggojd's diary to be rational and mostly fact-based.  It had some logical flaws that could've been dealt with, primarily in that it jumped from the well-supported conclusion that some audience members thought Obama had flipped Clinton off straight to another conclusion that Obama had indeed done so without explaining, or at least without much explanation, of how the second conclusion derived from the first.  

But instead of pointing out the flaws in his/her argument, the reaction was more along the lines of "burn the book, then burn the witch, then maybe the idea will go away."  I find that kind of thinking disturbing.

sluggojd is no troll.

Really?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=UoOFp-RDpvM

Seriously, so many of the diarists on this site do such a disservice to the hard work and reasonable analysis of you and Jonathan. I wish that the discourse was reasonable on all sides, and I know Obama supporters often fall short of that - but I appreciate you attempting to tackle the vitriol and have an eye on the ''bigger picture''.  This diary is a credit to Hillary supporters and to members of the blogosphere in general. Thank you.

I heard from my aunts that Obama has a flag of Cuba hanging in his office.

WTF????

Just because you can't conceive that a U.S. Senator running for president would do something immature, crass and politically retarded does not mean he didn't do it. I am sick and tired of the denial surrounding the immature, arrogant, and angry personality of this man.

And now, once again, all you can think of is the slander against Obama. Clinton has lived through years and years of being called every name in the book. Still, you only focus on protecting Obama. It has become pathological among you bloggers.

I am sorry that the Republicans do things the way they do. But that is the card that we have been dealt, and he evidently does not handle the attacks very well, does he? I am afraid the tender treatment that Senator Obama has thus far received from Fan Boiz Everywhere has not toughened him up for what the Republicans have in store. In fact, I would suggest that his provocative behavior (and yes, I did think he flipped the bird at her), is going to draw even more fire from the Republicans.

So please, no lecture about how we are all imagining things. We saw it, we heard it. But I am quite prepared to put the issue to rest. Perhaps it would be wise if you stopped writing about it. Again, spare us the lectures.

Feel free to stay in denial about Senator Obama's associations and behavior, though, Mr. Beeton. It's the new, cool thing to do.

I respectfully (to you) disagree.  

You say:

 I simply don't believe it was intended as a flip off in any way shape or form because, quite frankly, I don't believe Barack Obama would do something so immature, crass and politically retarded at all let alone in plain view.

What makes you such a believer in Obama's judgement??

There is a famous video of Goerge Bush quickly flipping the bird in 2000 election.  Do you really think guys running for President get there by being saints??

So far, Obama has said he is a uniter; his campaign tactics has been the opposite.  

His campaign has used race baiting, calling Hillary and Bill racists.

His campaign sent the famous "D-Punjab" memo, then Obama blamed the staff, but note that no staff got fired for it.

The list goes on, and the similarity of his campaign to Bush 2000 has frightened me.  

Just yesterday, Helen Thomas , whom I am sure you respect as a couragous voice of sanity in the Bush years, came out and blasted press for their coverage of this campaign.  Helen says, "what has he done to be president?"  She wrote another essay in which she counted what MLK Jr. had done for the movement before his famous speech, and basically said, the press and Obama's supporters have NO RIGHT to compare him to MLK.  I guess Chris Matthews and airheads like him in the press didn't hear that bit.

Anyone, to summarize my point, I am certain, conservative also would have never believed that George Bush was anything except a compassionate conservative.  Didn't George say that every day?  

Well, please don't tell us that we didn't warn you.  I know this comment makes you upset, but it's the reality.  You know nothing concrete about Obama except that he delivers his borrowed speech lines pretty well, and he has run a good campaign, with the enormous help of the press (so did Bush).  

Let me add (this is not about the itch) that the coverage of this campaign had been the height of irresponsibility and sheer moral bankruptcy in blogs and the media.  We are only 5 years aways from the time press handed us the Iraq War.  When there was no critism of George Bush. Now American and World are in a deep, multifaceted crisis, the like of which many of us have not seen before, and what do the press and blogs do? They continue with their shameless, pointless, juvenile, crappy coverage of this campaign.  The "Al Gore sighed" all over again.  They fawn over the word "change", without ONCE asking what the heck it means.  They express outrage that a man who is very close to being POTUS and about whom very little is known, has been asked about his assoications.

Good Luck with the next few years. Please don't twist yourselves in a pretzel to defend your actions during this campaign season.

(note: Todd, this post started with your comment, but ended with my critism of blogs and media.  Please note that I am not singling out your writings (for one thing, it won't be fair, since I haven't followed your writings closely enough.)  But I stand by my opinion of blogs and media.  

Yeah, well, appreciate your sentiment wholeheartedly but maybe you should give a little bit of thought for how much MyDD has been a platform for the kind of 'immature, crass and politically retarded' messages you are rightly critical of in your diary.  I realise the moderators have been more active on the most egregious examples of this recently but I wouldn't be surprised to see some MyDD user generated diaries cited as sources for exactly the kind of thing you are complaining about.

If you expect this kind of editorialising to bring a halt to the apparently unbounded enthusiasm for thinly premised 'hit' diaries on our candidates I think you have underestimated the motives and intentions of some of our intrepid diarists in using the high profile MyDD affords them for their own ends.

I think it is high time MyDD administrators consider a 'spring cleaning' of their own house and bring to a conclusion the potentially destructive game of 'truth or dare' which has become the normative behaviour on the diary list here.  The progressive community respects MyDD and it holds a special place in the pantheon of blogsites which should be upheld and protected for the considerable work which still lays ahead of us.  There would be a palpable sigh of relief here and elsewhere, I'm guessing.

I am surprised MSNBC ran "fingergate" but this clip is pretty cool:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=UoOFp-RDpvM.

It was a flip off and the audience got. My 50 year old husband (who's a lawyer) does the same thing when he wants to talk code about his clients to his partners. He also pushes his glasses up with his finger subtly indicating the gesture.

Obama's just a slicker version of Rev. Wright and his crude antics

I understand that this site is not a site for discussion of all things at all times; that instead, it's a site for the promotion of Democratic candidates.  And I can see the legitimacy of an argument that this "issue" doesn't add to the discourse, that it could hurt Obama and that it could only help Clinton if her followers' fingerprints are far away from it, and therefore there's really nothing to gain for either candidate by having it discussed here by either side.

That's a slippery slope, of course, and if such an argument is made it might be best to couple it with some discussion about the standards that have to be met to justify suppression of discussion of a concept.  But done right, that's a principle I could buy into.

But I think what I'm hearing now is that it's "absolute truth" that Obama didn't flip her off and therefore it's a cardinal sin or a heresy or something to discuss it.  That's just not so, and to maintain such a thing makes us look stupid, petty, and reactionary, not to mention that word nobody likes that starts with a c-u-l-t and ends with an i-s-h.

I'm open to hearing a better rationale for cutting off discussion, but I'm resisting the "it just didn't happen, so shut up" rationale.  And that's even though, for the umpteenth time, I really don't believe that he intentionally flipped her off and I really do believe even more strongly that he should get the benefit of the doubt.

I posted this above in a reply but no one bit, so I'll give it one more try...

I would argue that I have not seen any significant equivalent to these sort of smears coming from Obama supporters.  I define significant as (1) directly connected to e-mails/posts/etc from campaign supporters (2) being a recommended diary on a major liberal blog and/or (3) making it into the traditional media world.

If someone could share some (cited) examples of Obama supporters pressing diaries/smears of this caliber, I'd be willing to admit I'm wrong on this point...

First, I would say his demeanor in CA has changed to his current demeanor; one where he acknowledges that he needs to "fight" in politics to be successful, as you point out.
Second, I would point out that if in fact this gesture was inadvertant, how would that gesture be perceived in Russia, or in  any of the NATO countries, or even in Iran, where he is the only candidate stating he would hold direct dialogue?

McCain was really sounding like he wanted to dismantle and defund the government on This Week this morning. McCain even called both Clinton and Obama "out of touch" with the American people.

You can hear him say so here:
http://inewstube.com/smm/mccain_clinton_ and_obama_are_out_of_touch.html

I'm no fan of Obama's, but I agree that he didn't flip-off Hillary.

Todd, please answer one simple question:

Why did the crowd go wild if Obama simply scratched?

He did that with his pinky and there was no reaction.

Wasn't today supposed to be the deadline for release of the March financial reports for the campaigns?  Obama released his a few weeks ago, has she released hers?  I haven't seen anyting about it anywhere.

   accusation. It just proves how angry and how desperate some Clinton supporters are. Talk about paranoid.

... greeted George Allen's Macaca Moment.

It's not true because it simply can't be true?

It's unbelievable that we're even discussing any such thing?

Se no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil?

Senator Barack Obama very conspicuously flipped off Senator Hillary Clinton.

Unlike Todd, I find nothing in the backdrop of his previous treatment of either Clinton that would render this implausible. I find it perfectly in character.

I also know that many of his defenders are denying the unequivocally obvious in regard to particulars of his performance (as in Jonathan Singer's "Two-Fingers" post which definitively confirms a one-finger scratch, with the index finger retracted and elevated from the idle position it would take if it were a middle-finger scratch with the index finger "just going along for the ride". The gesture in question, in contrast, required counterposed fine-coordinate articulation. Rehearsed, and deliberate.

Is everyone losing perspective here?

Way, way up a poster equated believing the Vince Foster smear against HRC with the current finger smear against BO.

I think that is a pretty good test.  If you are willing to entertain either, then you're probably not thinking rationally about the candidate you don't support.  I doubt many of us are thinking objectively; it's been a long campaign and we're pretty deeply entrenched, but we should be able to maintain some rationality.

But if you're spending a lot of time trying to convince people that BO flipped off HRC, sheesh.  Maybe it is time to watch the NBA playoffs or something.  Now, THAT is a place full of consipiracies and fixes.

Please don't take this as a dig against HRC supporters.  We BO supporters are just as bad.

Can you imagine the holy hellfire that would rain down if a diary making a similar claim about Hillary made the rec list at DKos, OpenLeft or here?

The cognitive dissonance on this stuff is overwhelming.

Does anyone remember the phrase Obama used during the debate last week?
"Manufactured issue"

This is one of those issues.
Who cares if he did or he didn't?
You think Hillary cares? She's had worse crap thrown at her from the Republicans since 1992 and we're all outraged over an alleged gesture?

(yes, I've seen several different videos and no, I don't think he did it as a purposeful gesture, though it's clear even some of his supporters thought he did, judging from the reaction)

Mmm, my post is missing.

Anyhoo, it would be ignored anyway.

"Giving her the finger just doesn't fit into any pattern of behavior from him,"

Really, Todd? Obama has exhibited a puerile, mysoginistic pattern of behavior from the beginning of his campaign.  The flipping off (curious that the Jay-Z song makes specific reference to the gesture)is merely one more demonstration of a CONSISTENT pattern of denigrating and disrespecting Clinton in the most adolescent displays.  

Remember, this is a man who sees no problem sitting in a church along with his daughters watching a man who dry humped on stage and says, "God is sick of this shit." (No, maybe he didn't witness those things, but he knows he Wright did them, and he still went).  Public displays of profanity and profane gestures are not out of bounds for him.  The brushing off shoulders alone is unacceptable behavior in a presidential candidate, (on the order of McCain's tacit acceptance of the "bitch" remark. ) It is dismissive and arrogantAnd and of a piece with his relentless ad hominem drumbeat of criticisms of Clinton, among them:

"Who does she think she is, Annie Oakley?"

"You're likeable enough, Hillary."

"Sometimes the claws come out"

"Periodically , when she'd in a bad mood, she lashes out"

"She once asked whether she should be baking cookies"

"She is a calculating, poll-driven, politician"