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

[YenNguyen]

Thank you for the post. I also perused Bill Moyer's piece "On Journalism" and in light of Ms Fowler's "report" it highlights the need for a committment to ethical standards by our journalists. In the continuum of reporting, there's the National Enquirer, People magazine, gossip, yellow journalism, information, investigative reporting, and thoughtful analysis. And now, add to this, blogging. Given the newness of this medium (blogging), time will allow all of us to sift through the mulitudes of Bloggers to determine who provides truly thoughtful analysis and who are the unethical gossip columnists.

In the end, most consumers can usually distinguish between those with an agenda and an axe to grind from those whose thoughtful opinions are different from our own (Christopher Hitchens comes to mind for me in this case). I don't take Ms. Fowler's reporting credentials seriously and think that she's has a lot to learn from more seasoned and ethical journalists such as Mr Bill Moyers.

[RFI]

Thank you for this post. Obama was telling the truth, which unfortunately some people are most creatively distorting into a criticism of the rightfully bitter populous. It is a tragedy that someone like Ms. Fowler unleashes a huge outcry from the Clintons, et al, to distract the public from the really serious issues regarding Mr. Penn and Bill Clinton’s support of the Columbian trade deal, etc.

[Joseph A. Palermo - Huffpost Blogger]

I called Ms. Flowers an "Obama supporter" because the event she slipped into was for people who donated over $1000 to his campaign -- I guess people can give $1000 to a candidate they really loathe and wish to undermine in print and on TV, it's their free choice, it's a free country, but it seems a little hypocritical to me. Obama is energizing the grassroots of the party -- he's the first one to admit that raising money is no way to usher in a new politics, but until reforms are in place to take the money out of the politics, he'd be a fool to unilaterally disarm -- I hope the sons and daughters of the old line right-wingers look to their own futures and realize that the GOP will give them nothing at all, the Democrats might make it a little easier to see a doctor and go to college -- these are not monumental changes but badly needed. I think the younger generation, listening to hip hop and worshipping Michael Jordan as children, are not as racist as their parents or homophobic -- Hillary represents the Mark Penn/Blackwater/ Columbia/Philip Morris/Monica Lewinsky politics. We need something new. We can discuss "cockiness" too sometime -- two words: Bill Clinton.

[brueso]

she also apparentally described herself as an Obama supporter when she went on Lou Dobbs- and that goes in the "Fat Chance" file.

[kempis]

"My friends, an interracial couple who are professors....."

Let's stop right there. This is the problem: liberal academics WON'T see a problem with those remarks, just as they don't see a problem with Reverend Wright's remarks because they can "situate" them in a "sociohistoricultural" context. It's all in the deconstructing, dahling. Which is why Democrats lose elections.

This is why Democrats will lose in November. The Reagan Dems are going to defect to McCain and take the independents and a slice of "Obamacans" with them. And the liberal academics and the pundits will be as clueless as John Kerry windsurfing in a hurricane.

[pghdem]

Since you seem to see so clearly into the future, could you please let me know about Wednesday's Powerball numbers? Thanks.

[GrandmaSue]

Why don't you just go ahead and say there are a lot of stupid people out there.
I am so tired of politicians trying to dumb down Americans and those who have no faith in their fellow Americans. Any "Dem" voting for McCain should post where our men and women in Iraq are certain to read it, so they can know their lives will be on the line for a long time to come, and who's left can march right into Iran and kill Iranians or be killed.. People are just going to have to decide when they vote if they want to be part of breaking our military and leaving us defenseless, abandoning our men and women there or not. If that's what they are inclined to do I'm sure there is nothing I can say to change their minds.

[midtown]

Hunh? Makes no sense.

[qwr]

What exactly is "clueless" about Kerry windsurfing? Why should it have been an issue at all? We all agree that it was a non-issue, but many like yourself want us to act as if windsurfing is the MOST IMPORTANT issue. At that point it makes no difference whether you are ignorant or just acting ignorant.

[peacehappens]

I'm an independent and nobody is ever going to get me to vote for John McCain dahling.

[December7]

A republican in PA point of view
Obama the Elitist
13 April 2008
Written by: Mike Krauss Posted under Essay Index

Senator Barack Obama seems to have a penchant for honest thought. It was again on display in remarks he made this past week about some Pennsylvania voters.
Unlike the candidates for president who are in Pennsylvania for the primary election, my family has been in Pennsylvania for three hundred years. I was educated in its public schools and one of its very fine private colleges. As Director of the PA Bureau of Rural Affairs I was responsible for the rehabilitation of dilapidated houses throughout rural Pennsylvania. As Director of the Pennsylvania Republican State Committee I assisted candidates and campaigns in counties no candidate for president will set foot in this year, or ever.
As the old coal mines and steel mills were closed and shuttered, but the suburbs of the new economy boomed, that resentment deepened into bitterness. Now, as the economic prospects of the middle class worsen that bitterness is spreading.
And all things considered, I think I may actually prefer Obama’s evident intellectual remove to the contrived folksiness of many of the other elites who have campaigned for and governed as president in modern times. I name no names.
http://mikekrauss.com/obama-the-elitist/#comment-197

[JanetF]

I highly recommend that link! Thanks for pointing it out.

[deb813]

Thanks December, it was wonderful to get the point of view of someone who knows about Pennsylvania. Hopefully there are more fair minded people who will try to figure out what Obama was trying to say(oh my goodness they actually might have to think for that one) and give him a break and give him this nomination. The primary season has been way too long.

Thanks Joseph too for giving us a different perspective then ms Flowers. I will never read another one of her yellow journalistic essays.

[BonoX]

oh oh... its all "Mayhill Fowler" fault!

[AntonioMaceo]

The problem with Mayhill is that she showed no journalistic integrity. She did not consult additional sources or approach the candidate for background and worst of all she sneaked a tape recorder into a no media event.

Well she now has her 15 minutes. I hope she is proud of her work on this issue because it is all, if anything, that Americans will remember her for. I doubt if any candidate, or any subject for that matter, will grant her media access in the future.

[vickic]

I think she imagines herself some kind of Bob Woodard or Carl Bernstein having written the political story of the century.

[MariaHopeful]

The idea that this woman is or ever was an Obama supporter is laughable. Just take a cursory look at her articles and her obvious bias is there for the blind to see. In quite a few of her columns she described the Senator as "cocky." Much like Hillary Clinton, she assumed a condescending, superior tone when referring to him. She was an obvious Karl Rove or his cousin, Mark Penn plant. The idea that the chronology of events was that she became uncomfortable at his tone and so she began taping is a Bosnian mis-remembered mis-statement as it is clear that she taped the whole event. She has achieved what she has been working so hard to do and gotten the notoriety that she has been longing for.

[snowcat]

a wonderful link to another attendee of the fundraiser. Very telling about Ms. Fowler!

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/13/1392/81601/400/494873

[ac1]

You're missing the point. It's not about what those in the room, on the inside, think or took away. It's those on the outside who are growing tired of the facade.

[jjc4good]

I must have missed faux news this morning, which "facade" is that?

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A bitter white Christian midwesterner for Obama

[Lyria]

So iIt's not about the people who saw the whole event and are able to provide analysis of the words in full context; rather, according to the Clinto/McCain camps, it is once again about twisting snippets.

[viewfromiowa]

Thank you Joe! It would be great if others that were at the event could get the truth out. Cnn, MSNBC, etc. I was so upset to see this story come out from the supposed unpartison Fowler. Anyone who reads HuffPo on a regular basis knows she is in the Clinton camp. Interesting to me how, if she was so "concerned" about Obama's remarks , that she waited five day's to post her slimy blog. Very fishy. I guess it takes a little time to coordinate with the Hillary campaign

[tangolopez]

I said that few weeks ago that she is a Hillary supporter. it is so obvious when she wrote how pissed she was when not allow on the Obama's philly press bus. And after that every piece she wrote is acidic. Well,
and you wonder why Obama cut off over 800 of those supposed delegates, although he has since reinstated them. How many of THOSE are like Fowler? He is really too nice, American only want dirty, lying shameless people to be their President.

[ghd]

I spent most of my career as a Pastor in the South serving white congregations. I learned what members meant when they referred to an African American (they never used that expression) as "uppity." They meant he or she was conceited, cocky, and just "didn't know their place."

When I hear all this hand ringing and accusations that Obama is an elitist, condescending, ad naseum, I hear them really saying he is "uppity and doesn't know his place."

I bet if Obama were white and made these comments hardly an eye would be lifted.

What I see here is a not too camouflaged racism in Senator Clinton and John McCain's comments. Why don't they just come out and say what they mean, "Obama is an uppity (the "N" word implied) who doesn't know his place?"

It is about time for there to be some honesty on the Clinton and McCain side.

[jjc4good]

I have never been a preacher, but I beg to respectfully disagree. While McCain and Clinton may be ruthless politicians willing to say and do virtually anything to get to the white house, I think we should be very very careful about accusing them (or anyone else) of racism unless we have proof positive. This whole story is political opportunism on the part of Hillary, but to me Hillary and McCain shouldn't be accused of racism here.

While it's true that McCain opposed the MLK holiday and then the Civil rights act of 1990 (which didn't pass by one vote) along with most of the right-winngers in the senate, there is no evidence that he's actually a racist. Hillary, although, again, I think she's a ruthless politician who I once liked enough to send money to for her senate campaign but now see as putting her own winning ahead of any principles she may have had, does not strike me as a racist in any way. In fact, her campaign manager and close friend is an African American.

If we jump to call anyone a racist for any attack against Barack, we risk it becoming a "crying wolf" and furthermore bring the political discourse back into the gutter that Barack himself is trying to lift us out of. Let's "assume innocence" on this front.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A bitter white Christian midwesterner for Obama

[sef2121]

Once again Obama supporters are missing the point. Who cares if there was a mole in the room? If she paid for the plate, she can be there and take with it what she wants. Obama has not denied anything she has reported. Of course the latte crowd does not find anything wrong with Obama, he speaks their language. Therein lies the problem. These upper-class liberals will vote for the nominee whomever it is, it is the center that Obama needs to worry about. By painting Middle America as a swath of bible-toting bigots (this was in response to a question about why he wasn't doing well in PA), Obama has alienated the very base he must mobilize to win the election. He is such a moron! Maybe he did tell the truth about being bitter, but xenophobic, last I checked anti-immigrant sentiment exists in San Francisco as well! This is not what I call "unifying" the party. Last I checked there was 300 million people in this country. Perhaps Obama, being from a minority group himself, should avoid such reckless and suicidal generalization, even if he is talking to his prime, prissy demographic!

[NightRider]

Bill Clinton said the same thing. Is he a bigot?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYi_qNWdjgw&eurl=http://www.jedreport.com/2008/04/december-2007-b.html

Obama said the same thing on Charlie Rose.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=6oGF3cyHE7M&feature=bz301

[robXdion]

Ed Rendell even bragged about PA whites not voting for a black man. Sounds like you have a problem with the truth about whites when a black man says it.

[wm1066]

Bet Fowler gets a gig at Fox!
She fits right in.

[VOTER]

Exactly.