Faux Obama Supporter Mayhill Fowler Sets Up Smears on Obama

"What Barack Obama's remarks last night in San Francisco reveal," Mayhill Fowler asserts on the Huffington Post, "is his self-confidence--to the point of cockiness--right now."

I have close friends who attended the Obama donor event in Pacific Heights where Fowler claims she became so upset about his remarks. My friends, an interracial couple who are professors at two public universities in California, assured me that they did not hear any of the "cocky" tone that Fowler claims made her so "uncomfortable." The event was held for like-minded people who want to see Obama succeed. From her writings and her whirlwind media tour slamming Obama, Mayhill Fowler clearly does not share this sentiment. That's fair, but she shouldn't pretend to be an "Obama supporter."

Her charges of "cockiness" on the part of Senator Obama have had their desired effect. She has garnered publicity and has been given a free ride on this non-issue. She appeared on the Lou Dobbs show, and CNN and other news outlets are flogging her false and vituperative sentiments about Obama. Predictably, the Republican Party and the John McCain campaign seized upon Fowler's distortions and used them as talking points. And of course Hillary Clinton, needing some good news after Mark Penn ignominiously resigned when his ties to Columbian lobbying money were revealed, is milking Fowler's smears for all they're worth, (which isn't much).

Mayhill Fowler apparently took away a totally different feeling from the event than anyone else in the room and her spin on Obama's statements to what he thought was a sympathetic audience (save Ms. Fowler) is a sorry distortion. Fowler posed as a "citizen reporter," but she didn't seek responses from others who attended the event, nor did she check her own subjective and uniformly negative biases at the door.

"Even the Obama Campaign, I suppose, can never have too much money," Fowler sniffs. This is a curious dig coming from someone who claims to be sensitive and made to feel "uncomfortable" by the mere suggestion that some people in America after eight years of miserable misrule might be a tad "bitter."

Fowler writes: "The fact that so many middle class Californians are giving $2300 to Obama shows both the depth of prosperity in the state and the allure of the scent of victory." I guess Fowler believes the California economy has been just humming along during the Bush years? Maybe Fowler should do some of her "citizen reporting" and inform the governor and the state legislature, which are currently dealing with a $14 billion budget deficit and contemplating cutting $5 billion from education, about "the depth of prosperity" of the state. Fowler is the one who is out of touch with the plight of average working people, not Obama as she claims.

She even goes over Obama's use of the English language with the eye of a schoolmarm: "Note Obama's delicate sentence constructions. Never a gender pronoun--a he or a she--anywhere." I suppose she considers this kind of thing "political analysis."

According to her bio on the Huffington Post, Mayhill Fowler is a middle-aged Southern belle "born and bred in Tennessee" who moved to Houston, and later became a California resident.

But Mayhill Fowler does succeed in bringing up a powerful point relating to race relations in America: How must the first African American presidential candidate to make it this far behave? How much "confidence" in his own abilities can he show before people like Fowler label him "cocky?" And what are Fowler' credentials to make this kind of judgment? Do her white Southern roots allow her to really see a black candidate? Or is Obama to her Ralph Ellison's "invisible man?"

 

Follow Joseph A. Palermo on Twitter: www.twitter.com/N/A

Comments

[AnninCA]

That is just so cute. Two professors didn't agree. Imagine that. LOL*

[livesimply]

Do you have a thing about professors?

[AjicNYC]

DUDE were yu there? NO , If your friends were there then they should write this.

TIRED of people saying my and my friends and my family stop bulling people, PEOPLE need to speak for themselves!!!!!

and being black white green or a woman or a man or from PA or NY Does not validate your response!!!!!

USE your own words and facts to back up what you say!!

TARDS

[WAstateliberal]

This article brings up something that irritates me as well: On this site, the bloggers and the reporters are often blurred. Sam Stein is a political reporter. But Mayhill Fowler is an opinion writer and a Clinton supporter who inexplicably tries to hide it and appears to bill herself as a reporter, rather than an opinion writer. To that extent, she does a poor job. Why will she not just admit her bias? It seems she thinks it will damage her credibility, while failing to appreciate that the only thing damaging her credibility is her unwillingness to just play her cards. Perhaps she thinks that by revealing herself as a Clinton supporter Obama supporters (who far outnumber Hillary supporters) won't read her pieces? Whatever, her reason, I don't think I will waste time reading her pieces anymore. Believe it or not, her support of Clinton hasn't bothered me until recently. And as for the point made about her disdain for Obama's "cockiness," this is the narrative the MSM has been desperately pushing for months. The uppity narrative. Bigoted whites just can't stand uppity, can they?

[Sloane7]

Agreed. In my view, Fowler played a sort of final hand for herself here. No one will look at her writings with any objectivity whatsoever from here on out. It's like reading a Taylor Marsh post - if you bother reading it all, it's with complete skepticism.

[meileen]

So now it's her fault?

It was his words, not hers. Jeez, the guy has to take responsibility for this one. Had he used the word "we" rather than "they", he could slip out of this one. But he was condescending about small town folk.

It will come back to haunt him in November, and we'll have McCain as the winner because of this and his other mis-steps. No amount of adulation will change that reality.

[shep1900]

He also probably could have gotten away with blunt honesty (something which, in other circumstances, would be a breath of fresh political air), if he'd given the speech in Pennsylvania, instead of in front of a bunch of wealthy California donors. It smacks of sniggering about the misfortunes of others--which, surely, was not the Senator's intent, but it _does_ come across that way--and inevitably works to split the Democratic Party more than it already is.

If such a thing is possible.

[mojaveblue]

Errr, Again, they weren't all wealthy donors. Why do some keep repeating that. Fowler even admitted as much. Newsflash, many in attendence at the fundraiser were MIDDLECLASS.

OK I feel better now.

[AntonioMaceo]

I agree with you that his statements are now fair game. In the world of the 24 hr media cycle, which is primed by the bloggosphere in many regards, a candidate has to be measured in every exchange or risk being taken out of context. However, in acting as she did Mayhill has violated the code of journalistic integrity and as such will likely have little access to any subject in the future.

[qwr]

Fowler's post originally left out the audio, judging from the reactions. But including it later did not do her any favors. In fact, I read the outrage in her post, and then looked for what could have caused it in Obama's remarks. I did not find anything objectionable. The post said more about Fowler than it did Obama. I just can't see why O's comments were so scandalous. Political scientists have been saying the same thing for years.

[nton]

Obama the renegade standing up for truthiness no matter what...Her­e's a link to an excellent article summarizing his willingness to challenge http://www.thestar.com/om/USElection/article/413964

[Gma11]

Excellent link, nton.

[jsinclair]

From Fowler's self-description in her bio here, she seems to have no journalistic training, credentials or reputation.

Why is her little undercover misrepresentation being given so much air time? You'd think she was a real reporter, the way its being repeated, unquestioned, over and over.

She's lucky that blogs + tv don't have the rigorous standards of major newspapers--with sources, and balanced comments, etc. Now we have non-journalists given credibility where none should exist.

And I'd still like to know more about WHY she decided to do this. For Hillary? For the attention? Something doesn't quite add up for me.

[jsinclair]

As a Californian who's donated to Obama despite being financially strapped, I resented Fowler's snide and dismissive explanation, "($2300 donations) show both the depth of prosperity in the state and the allure of the scent of victory".

Actually, it's not "prosperity" or the "allure of the scent of victory" that makes many of us try to give as much as we can, even if it has to be monthly rather than a lump su. The fact is--as Montana superdelegate Margaret Campbell put it---that Obama "reminds me why I'm a Democrat". And its worth a few financial sacrifices to try to help get someone elected who can pull this country back together again.

As for her donation of $1000 to access this event....c­learly from her articles she is not and never has been an Obama supporter. Never. So...why the determination? Why the subterfuge?

I think, if you're misrepresenting yourself as a supporter of a candidate to gain access to his events--you need to be clear that (at a minimum) you're not being PAID by a rival campaign or PAC to do it.

With Hillary's newfound similarity to everyone from "Paulette Revere" to Richard Nixon, I'd like to know that Fowler is not on the payroll of anyone's campaign AND that there are no campaign-o­chestrated "dirty tricks" financing Fowler's clearly pre-meditated hit piece in ANY way.. I think its a fair question.

[POINT84]

A black man raised in a single household can NEVER be elite...al­l this stupidness is just excuses...­.America just needs to tell him to get back in his place and play his position

[ReneR]

He was not raised in a single household. His mother remarried and he lived with her and his stepfather, and then he was sent to his white grandparents in Hawaii. He went to an elite private school. Of course one can be elite in any household. It is an attitude not a family configuration.

[kevenseven]

Define the attitude.

[AntonioMaceo]

His school was hardly elite. In fact while in Indonesia his mother would wake him up early before she went to work so that she could give him additional lessons, so that he would not fall behind his American counterparts. Moreover, part of the reason for bringing him back to the states was so that he could have the superior education of an American public school.

See, when you don't read his book but just quote the internets you sound dumb.

[patriotscholar]

Joe, interesting post. My wife and I are a "working class" couple and heard Obama's remarks, but were definitely not offended, nor did we view the remarks as "elitist". His remarks sounded to us like he had his finger on the pulse of hard-working middle and lower class Americans. There is nothing wrong with speaking the truth.

[mojaveblue]

Interesting that everyone keeps harping on the audience in attendance in Marin. I have been disgusted by the "Elitist" bashing going on here on Huffpo. Yet as everyone is caught up in attacking the "Elitist" out of touch Californa crowd, I found an excerpt from Fowlers gig on Lou Dobbs on Fri.

PILGRIM: Mayhill, please set the scene for us. What kind of a crowd was assembled here, first of all to set the scene, the context of these remarks.

FOWLER: This is a fundraiser, the fourth in the day. This last Sunday in San Francisco and Marin and the South Bay in California. And it was at a house in Pacific Heights. There were maybe 350 to 400 people there. Quite a crush. Quite a crowd. These were people that had maxed out their donations to Senator Obama and among that group is myself.

PILGRIM: How would you characterize them, prosperous, middle class, wealthy, what category?

FOWLER: That's a very good question. You shouldn't have the impression these were very wealthy donors. These were mostly middle class and upper middle class who, I'm guessing, like myself, had slowly given money over time to Senator Obama until they reached the $2,300 cap.

There was the wife of an army surgeon. There were Safeway grocery store union workers. There were professors, there were house wives, it was quite a cross-section of prosperous California

Interesting isn't it.

[Joseph A. Palermo - Huffpost Blogger]

I guess my citation of Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man" was an attempt to point to the nuances of racism in America -- the "invisibility" of the person behind what WEB DuBois called the "veil." Black intellectuals have been dealing with this forever -- the standards to which white society holds them and their words are not reflective of the African American experience (note the response to Rev. Wright and now this "cocky" charge). White candidates have displayed "cockiness" without suffering the opprobrium of the mass media. George W. Bush was pretty "cocky" with his "bring 'em on" and strutting around on an aircraft carrier. Bill Clinton was pretty "cocky" being orally pleasured under his desk by an intern while smoking a cigar and chatting on the phone with a member of Congress. The white man can be as "cocky" as he wishes, but a brilliant black person has to apologize for being confident with his or her own abilities. I guess Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou and James Baldwin all fit that "cocky" mold where Tom Wolfe and William Buckley and etc. are never "cocky." DuBois called it the "social wage" the feeling of superiority race bestows on white people in this society.

[snowcat]

another insightful post, thank you. Their ( Clinton campaign) perverse need to try and force Obama toapologize as if to "shame" him every time they think they can get away with it, sickens me!

[FogCityJohn]

Dear Mr. Palermo,

Thank you, thank you, thank you. It is so rare to see a white man who really seems to "get" the subtle and pernicious ways race influences how African-Americans (including Obama) are viewed. I've read comments on this site from white women supporting Clinton who are angry at Obama for running "premature­ly." They seem to think a black man has to wait his turn to run for president until after a white woman is elected. Their unspoken sense of racial entitlement is incredible.

In the end, Hillary Clinton's attempt to push this supposed controvery will hurt her. She's basically making the typical Republican charge that liberals are out-of-touch elitists. Trouble is, liberals like me form a key part of the Democratic base, and we don't appreciate being insulted, particularly not by multimillionaire Yale Law School grads whose husbands charge $300,000 per speech. In addition, her attempt to turn Jeremiah Wright into a black bogeyman is correctly seen as racist by African-American voters like my partner. Attacking your party's base is never a wise strategy, but it's especially foolish for someone like Clinton, whose sky-high negatives mean she will need every Democratic base voter to turn out for her if she gets the nomination. With this last tactic, she's lost my vote for good.

[Gma11]

Love the reference to DuBois. Thank you.

[nunzia]

Oh - puh-leeze.
If we going to go tdown that road,
I refer you to
the Broverman study.

Look it up.

[kravitz]

Love it. Same site... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/13/bill-clinton-flashback-al_n_96433.html

Similar thought, better delivery http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJut4-dHuV8

And white women prefer Obama. Even in Pennsylvania. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/33411.html

And I say to myself....

Is it December yet?

[YenNguyen]

Thank you so much for the Charlie Rose interview. It's so nice to hear someone talk to us like an Adult. Clearly, if Ms. Fowler had done a thorough "analysis" of the comments at the fundraiser, she could have elevated our discourse about our society. However, with "reporters" like Ms. Fowler, no wonder we have President Bush II.

[interestedinpolitics]

I was happy to see that HuffPo has on the homepage similar comments Bill Clinton made in 1991. Of course, I doubt the Clintons want to remember back that far, since there has been no significant improvement in the lives of the "insecure white men" Bill Clinton referred to in his speech. What made Bill Clinton so irritated recently was that Barack Obama pointed out the fact that the Clinton administration knew about the unfairness of the economic situtation in the Rust Belt, and did nothing about it. I will be waiting to hear the follow-up news reports on CNN, MSNBC, et al. I won't be holding my breath, though.

[sd4peace]

HAHAHAH follow up reports... HAHAHAAH that'll be the day. They are still talking about him approaching the Canadiens aabout NAFTA

[Susan1968]

Some voters reactions:

In local small towns like Oakdale, many people say they were just hearing about Obama's comments and the reaction was mixed.

"It's a right to own a gun. You have every right in the world to own a gun," said Oakdale resident Mike Smith. "He's got no right to take that away from anybody."

Local teacher, Joe Welch, of South Fayette Township, says he is an undecided Democratic voter, but adds that Obama's remarks may sway him now to vote for Senator Hillary Clinton.

"I don't want to make an instant reaction here, but this is something I'll take into consideration," said Welch. "Religion and personal freedoms, that's something that should be taken into considerat­ion."

Meanwhile, the gun lobby had their own reaction to the remarks.

"Outrage… people are very concerned that this man is distant, doesn't understand his responsibilities, said Kim Stolfer, of the Allegheny County Sportmen's League. "He doesn't understand what the people need."

http://kdka.com/politics/Obama.controversy.reaction.2.698510.html

------------------

[pghdem]

Also from the KDKA site:

"Word can get twisted," said Allen. "I think people are taking the bitter thing a little too seriously, actually."

But I guess you're gonna discount that sentiment because it's identified as coming from an Obama supporter while I'm sure all the others quoted had no preference prior to be asked. Pfffftt.

[peacehappens]

It is odd how we see and hear what suits our view regardless of what is actually said. I'm struck by the man whose response is that Obama doesn't have the right to take away somebody's guns.