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Bittergate: It's Not About Mayhill Fowler
Let me say this up front: This is personal. In more ways than one.
I'm an unabashed, unadulterated supporter of Barack Obama. Read my Huffington bio. Truth to tell, I look to this young man to be the kind of '60s-style visionary this nation needs now every bit as much as we did when Jim Crow, Strom Thurmond, George Wallace and the Klan reigned supreme in the South and we were bogged down in a bloody, ill-conceived, tragic war in Vietnam.
He had me from "Hello? This is a dumb, rash rush to war..." way back in 2002.
I want Change I Can Believe In. I want our stop-loss, back-door-draft, used and abused military off the neocon hook. I want our troops out of Iraq. I want a president who's strong enough to know that communicating fully with other world leaders--whether we like them or not--is not some kind of political heresy. If the pen is mightier than the sword, then ideas are better than bombs. I want universal healthcare. I want poverty back on the political table. I want an end to corporate greed and shady trade deals that leave hardworking Americans wondering where the jobs went--and why. I want a tax policy that isn't an ass-backward tax cut for the folks who need a break least. I want better schools for my grandchildren. I want civility in political discourse and an end to the "Everybody Who Disagrees With Me Is My Enemy" gridlock in D.C. I want all that baggage GONE.
I want Barack Obama in the White House sooner rather than later. So. I bristle when some journalist writes a piece that might set us back, might cost us some votes and prolong what I feel is a Democratic Party bloodletting.
Mayhill Fowler is catching holy hell for her post about the San Francisco fundraiser and "Bittergate": The Huffington Post is anti-Obama. She enjoys an "above the fold" space only because she's willing to go after Obama. She must be on somebody's payroll. She's a Clinton operative. An Obama-basher.
This is not about Mayhill Fowler. When you don't like the message, killing the messenger does no good whatsoever. She's a journalist, she's ambitious, she did her job. She called it as she saw it.
Let me tell you what it IS about: I live in bitter poverty-land. It's real--and Barack Obama spoke the truth in defining the bitterness factor. I've lived, for over 30 years, in one of the poorest counties in South Carolina. We are a rural county. There are just over 43,000 of us spread over 800 square miles. Once there were mills here. They're gone now. So are the jobs. Our towns are dying for want of work. We can't support our own small businesses. In 2000, over a third of our kids dropped out of high school. I doubt that figure has done anything but increase in the last eight years. Our kids start kindergarten behind the eight ball and nothing improves. Only 65.2% of us, over the age of 25, are high school graduates. How many of us have bachelor's degrees? 9.7%. Nearly 20% of us lived below poverty level in 2004. I'll bet the farm there are more of us in 2008. Our per capita income hovers at about $15,000.
Are we bitter? Hell, yes. We've been hung out to dry for so long we've come to feel like somebody's ragged, abandoned laundry. All those election year promises? We're worse off now than we were eight years ago-- and we didn't do all that well during the Clinton years. We thought we had a chance then, but attention to poverty-detail was diverted to extra-marital Scandalgate. Even a president with self-control and honesty issues has to survive, ya know. In the heat of the GOP/Ken Starr/Clinton Impeachment wars, we were left hanging on the line.
So we're easily led to acting out. To acting out in rage. And, since we've figured out we can't win the battle to improve our lot in American life, we latch on to any Gotcha! War we feel we can win. The GOP has been masterful at identifying that need of ours and feeding it. If they can redirect our rage (Don't pay any attention to that poverty behind the curtain!), make us focus on pseudo-morality wars, we'll direct all that rage against the candidate they tell us is the root of all evil. We vote for the guy who tells us "All Muslims are evil terrorists and we gotta fight 'em there so we don't have to fight 'em here!", "Homosexual unions will destroy the American Family!", "They're going to take away all your guns!", "God wants you to vote for me--He loathes liberals (and, by the way, they've even declared war on Christmas)!", "Women who want reproductive rights left to themselves, their partners, their doctors and their God are all baby killers!", and "Illegal immigrants are getting all those (factory and tech?) jobs you used to have--and some of them are terrorists!" If we don't vote the Right way, the "other guy", that anti-American, troop-hatin', anti-Christian liberal, will take away what little we've got left. Damned if we'll lose that battle.
We're desperate. We need to believe we can win something. If we can't hope for even a small version of the American Dream, then we'll buy into any fight that makes us feel we have some power left.
And that's what Barack Obama was talking about. Since his statement was an impromptu answer to an unexpected question at a private fundraiser, maybe he wasn't as eloquent in responding as we've come to expect him to be. But his heart was in the right place. And his intent? He's talking empathy for the disenfranchised, both white and black. He is validating our feelings of isolation and our anger.
It's not about Mayhill Fowler. She's only a citizen journalist calling it as she sees it.
It's about Hillary Clinton and John McCain, multi-millionaires both, neither of whom have walked the walk with poverty-stricken Americans in inner-city Chicago (or anywhere else), gang-banging Obama and using the word "elitist" to do it.
Elitist--n.--The belief that certain persons of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority--as in intellect, social status, or financial resources. - American Heritage Dictionary.
Does that sound like Barack Obama to you? He's the least wealthy of the three candidates left standing--and by a wide margin. Nothing in his life, in his career choices, accomplishments or goals for the future, fits the definition. And that's what it's about, folks. For Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain to join hands and play a nasty little game of ring-around-the-elitist is the ultimate hypocrisy. They're not playing that game for our sakes. They're playing it for the sake of raw, naked ambition: Let's take the front runner down, even if there is no honor in it and we know we're lying through our clenched teeth to do it.
As for Mayhill Fowler and Barack Obama, she tells me "I like the guy."
What she didn't tell me was this: She's donated nearly the maximum allowed by law to the Obama campaign. I can't find any record of a similarly sizable donation to any other candidate. That she's covered Campaign 2008 in such a way as to cast doubt among Democrats as to whom she supports for the nomination, well, that might be a credit to a journalist's effort to see things from the other side of the fence.
But it's not about Mayhill Fowler.
It's about us. It's about how willing we are to kill the messenger rather than to think for ourselves or speak rationally on behalf of our candidate. As my favorite presidential candidate likes to say, "We are better than this." I sure hope he's right. If he's not, we don't deserve him.
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Look, I know all you Obama-ites are too personally invested at this point to admit that Obama is less than the Messiah. No problem.....to admit you are wrong would be to betray part of yourself and at this point that could cause an aneurysm.
To address tired old cliches such as "the pen is mightier than the sword" and "ideas are better than bombs", the goal for these terrorists is not to come to peace or a compromise....it's T-O D-E-S-T-R-O-Y the infidels.....that's us by the way! So take a pen and we'll all watch as they stab you in the neck with it.
Regarding the Universal healthcare: "The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more." Michelle Obama---April 10, 2008 That's Socialism people!!!
If you think our tax policy is backward, I must ask how you arrive at that notion. Suffice it to say if you make less than $85k you comprise the 50% of Americans who pay .4% of the total tax bill. People who make $85k a year and up pay 99.6% of the tax burden. By definition, then, it is impossible to cut taxes without the so-called rich receiving a share of the benefits.
Oi, sunshine, you ain't commenting on the article. You're spamming up this comments page with your pet views. You're welcome to them, but post them somewhere more appropriate.
But this is about Fowler. She would like to think of herself as a journalist, but in journalism, time is of the essence. Had she reported the story the same day, perhaps she could claim that mantel. On the other hand, if a journalist delays a story, she then has time to contact the subject and get his point of view, to put the comments in context. Obama used a shorthand that day. He has discussed that topic before in ways that were completely unobjectionable. Had he been asked before the firestorm of the 24 hour news cycle he could have responded and had his reponse included in her story.
Shame on Fowler. About her I am bitter.
Thanks to "journalists" like Mayhill Fowler politicians learn not to speak candidly, even to a small group of politically sophisticated supporters. The Obama's have been a breath of fresh air, but I guess when the "journalists" get done with them, they'll have learned to be more guarded.
I don't believe the public interest was served here, and many of us would like to know if this woman is secretly working for the Clinton Campaign. If so, she is no "journalist".
Hear hear! I want to take a moment to note that I've been THRILLED with Mayhill Fowler's posts on Obama - giving a up-close, honest look at the candidate that has been genuinely wonderful. Gone is the sheer perfection of the sex symbol Obama, replaced by the wonderfully human, flawed, and yet, capable, hopeful, and honest Obama.
Would we have known THIS Obama if it weren't for Mayhill? I mean - the one who flirts with the ladies in the quaint old-fashioned way, and who shrinks like a wallflower from junk on the road (thanks for being a good example, Obama), and who can't bowl a lick, but has the good humor to hang out and give it a try just for the fun of it, and to mingle with folks he otherwise wouldn't meet? I mean - a guy who happily bowls a 37 should be recognized as a guy who is ok with being less than perfect, but is counting on us to know where his heart is... Anyone reading Mayhill's posts following Obama's bus tour would come away with a clear understanding of how well she understands and respects the man - DESPITE his flaws (or maybe because of them!).
I've enjoyed every post, even the sometimes critical ones. I've laughed and chuckled at her wry observations, and been tremendously grateful to be "on the bus" along with her.
I hope she stays on the trail!
QT
WAKE UP AMERICA. Your moment in history is fading. While "American Idol" and "Dancing with the Stars" keeps you numb, and CNN and Fox drone on with their propaganda "us vrs them" crap, the society is dying. How 'bout that Katrina recovery? How 'bout that "Mission Accomplished"? How 'bout that "the economy is strong"? How 'bout that "Americans don't torture"? The world looks on as America slowly sinks beneath the waves of history. How sad.
Mayhill Flower has been chomping at the bit to get her 15 minutes off Barack Obama and trying to make my disgust with her, a matter of killing the messenger because I don't like the message is pure unmitigated Bull. This so-called reporter who has been reporting for sometime on the road, but does not know that fundraisers are closed to the press? Yet she doesn't get an invite like she has gotten at other fundraisers? So she asks a friend...not Obama's press people for an invite ?and are we too assume she told the friend that she is an Obama supporter and has given him money to get that friend to give her access? So what about Ms. Fowler's story sounds so foul? I cannot believe that anybody believes this woman. Not only is she now being interviewed by the NYT, but they are now saying that the Obama campaign allowed her to come because they thought she would write something nice about him. How does that jibe with her getting a friend give her an invite? And she's not giving out the friend's name Why? If Ms. Fowler intent was on the up and up ...why shouldn't we have the name of the friend?
It is this kind of shoddy behavior that stinks and I hope that the Obama campaign now gives this woman the coldest of shoulders. Her conniving behavior turns on her going to her friend rather than Obama's press people.
You are kidding right? Hillary has never walked the walk? Obama has? Do you think that Hillary Clinton was a first lady her whole life? You act like she is British Royalty or something. Just because Obama took credit for other peoples community service (and he did) doesn't mean that he is a man of the people. I applaud you standing up for Ms. Mayhill but come on, don't slam Hillary with connotations that your own candidate can be labeled with as well. Obama is Hawaiian Born Harvard educated and lives in a upscale neighborhood in Chicago. He knows nothing of small town America. He might have got a glimpse of it at his grandmothers house (the one that is a racist in his eyes) but really, he has lived about a charmed life so far. He always talks about how his grandparents had to go to school on the GI bill and how his mother had to live on food stamps and we are suppose to give HIM credit for that when he actually hasn't had to go through anything? I would have said that Hillary and Obama both are people of means but after his demeaning attitude toward people of small towns (and they were demeaning) I now see him as an "elitist" and not just because the media says so (god knows I never listen to the media) Its because THEY WERE. Spin it if you want but u know I am right.
You're right. She wasn't first lady her whole life. Before that she was on the board of union-busting, women-worker-demoralising Walmart. She was also the defense attorney for an accused child-rapist, during the trial of whom she attacked a 13 year old girl by saying she asked for sex with a 30+ year old man who jumped in the van by the side of the road and yanked her panties off...
No, she wasn't always first lady.
"Spin it if you want but u know I am right"
Think again.
She's a journalist, she did her job (I paraphrase)...
Baloney.
She went to a fundraiser that was closed to the press and "did her job"? What job was that? Undermine the credibility of bloggers and would-be citizen journalists?
Sounds like it was an entirely off-the-record event. Does that mean anything anymore? Off the record? As in, don't quote me, this is informal, and by your presence here you agree not to report on this meeting?
She's been giving donations as a means of getting access, from what I see and hear. And that's just not right.
“Where we’ve had the "biggest problem" is assuming that untrained citizen reporters can quickly and adequately replace professional and trained reporters,” said Marc Cooper, editorial coordinator of Off the Bus, and a lecturer at USC’s Annenberg School of Communications. “We do ourselves a lot of damage if we underestimate the training and professional rigors of journalism. I’m talking about the standards and training that go into building a journalist. Journalists don’t just come off the shelf.” {Marc Cooper editorial coordinator Huffpost Off the Bus quoted: March 18, 2008, MediaShift) Emphasis added: http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2008/03/digging_deepersemipro_journali.html
THEN THIS ON APRIL 14, 2008: Inside the Obama-Guns-God-Bitterness Storm [Updated]
"As the editorial coordinator of HuffPost’s OffTheBus project, I had the privilege and responsibility of doing the final edit and ultimately approving for publication the web story Friday that has set off a firestorm over Barack Obama’s remarks about a “bitter” attitude that sometimes plagues economically-pressed small towns. Specifically those in Pennsylvania.
Writer Mayhill Fowler’s story -- now with more than 5,000 comments on it -- was picked up by The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, CNN.com, the Associated Press, Fox News, Reuters, Politico, the Lou Dobbs Show, Hardball, Olbermann’s Countdown, The Atlantic.com, The DailyKos, TalkingPointsMemo and myriad other outlets....
Seems like someone bypassed the "biggest problem" issue and opted instead for the 5000 comments, and media credits, recognition and distinction of writing the big story.
Unfortunately it is about Mayhill because she made it about her. Her feelings, her own lack of understanding about what Senator Obama was saying, and her own bias. She probably was surprised but I'm sure she's not suffering that much. She has more attention than she probably knows what to do with. Too bad, it came with the price of the press and political opponents skewering a guy she "likes".
I care less about Mayhill becuase she has been in the system so long she has lost objectivity. Basically Senator Obama (I am a fan by the way) struck a cord, and received such an evisceral reaction because his comments were true.
Maryhill, the majority of the press, the entire politcal system on both sides of the aisle, and most of the voting public are so acccustomed to a sanitized politispeak that when the occasional uncomfortable truism slips out we attack it.
Some attack it out of fear, his opposition attacks it out of perceived opportunity. The old adage that the truth hurts applies here. The reality is that what he describes is true. For everyone no, but for a significant number of people yes. Like Maryhill I have spent the majority of my adult life living and working in small rural communities, and what Senator Obama said rang true.
I believe his willingness to take the simple risk of speaking the truth about a difficult reality is what makes him so attractive as a candidate. I only hope that he can find a way to capitalize on that just as his opposition has attempted to capitalize on this perceived blunder.
Flower was definitely a female political plant sent to find something/anything for Hillary to use. More disgusting "Rove style" politics!
Good lord. When Obama calls Hillary a racist for saying that LBJ helped move the civil rights act forward, where was your outrage? Why weren't you calling Obama "Karl Rove" for implying that "The first Black President" Bill Clinton was racist because he said that Obama won just like Jesse Jackson won South Carolina. Jesse Jackson is a respected member of the black community. Why was that so offensive? People took there own meanings out of the Clinton's words and basically destroyed there image in the black community. Now Obama ACTUALLY said something that was offensive (meaning we didn't have to imply there was a "hidden" meaning in his words) and you say stupid crap like this and see nothing wrong with what Obama and his campaign has done to anyone who has talked about race in this campaign? Obama is playing 52 race card pickup but this is "Karl Rovian"? Give me a fucking break. I hope Obama does complain about this were Bill and Hillary can throw what his campaign has done to them. Fuck Obama and everyone that see's nothing wrong with his race baiting ass.
Obama didn't call anyone a racist... it was never in his best interest to bring race into the campaign... the Clintons did that. These kinds of tactics are nothing new, but as I said, it did not benefit Obama to bring race into the picture. You are simply biased for your candidate, and you don't want to see the ugliness and sleaze of the Clinton team.
The Clintons have used a variety of tactics in this campaign that have angered Obama supporters... many feel that the Clintons don't care whether they hurt the Democratic party in the pursuit of personal goals. We shall see what happens, but a lot of Democrats are seeing the Clintons in a new light.
Agreed. I listened to Mayhill in a phone interview with CNN, and she didn't sound deceptive in the least. I don't really like the way she reported the speech--the word "cocky" went just a bit too far--but she was simply noting that Obama's word choices were slightly "uncomfortable." He was just stating the truth, though. When we go through rough patches, we're more likely to develop nouveau-phobia and become more susceptible to baseless explanations/assertions that Bush is all too happy to feed us. Meanwhile, we turn to things from the past, and some of us become a bit stubborn along the way. It's not just religion and clinging to guns. There are technology misconceptions too--genetically modified foods will turn you into Spiderman, taking stem cells means killing newborns, etc. This isn't a blue-collar/white-collar thing ... it's psychology.
thanks Linda but this media we have today will not investigate they only sensationalize. Think of all the stories they don't cover. Tired of it.
I understand what you are saying, however I would urge anyone who considers themself a journalist, or even a blogger for that matter to weigh with great caution going to a private fundraiser and commenting on it for the public at large. I feel this would be uncalled for regardless of the candidate, even if the dem. nominee went to a private fundraiser for McCain...to go there and then to report on it is wrong.
We have gotten to the point that we expect that we as a public demand 24/7 access. What we are doing is only narrowing the field untill we will only get the most sanitized person running for office who will never make a commitment to anything. This is truly a disservice to Americans.
Let's stop reporting on a candidates private life, private fundraisers, and private phone calls. Did we not learn anything from the Bill Clinton intrusion into his private life? Enough already. Mayhill Fowler is a hack who made a story out of something only to push her own carrer. If that is not an elitist then I don't know what is.
Anyone attending a $1000 per plate event is an honorary member of the elite, myself among them. But I will tell you what, I am a bitter white man who is a member of the elite, I am mad as hell and I am not going to take it any more.
You are mistaken.
Fowler is ALL about Fowler....
she is not interested in being fair..
she has her own agenda.
But now we know how and what she is...so I hope the Huffington Post will treat her with the contempt she deserves.
She should NOT have a forum for her insidious propaganda here.
It is ALL about Fowler. This unethical person misused her position to tape a private conversation. We can only speculate about her motives. My guess is that she was out to get Obama as either a Clinton or a McCain supporter. A reading of her biography is very telling. Talk about an elitist! All of her reports have been extremely snarky. What we know for sure is that this person is not in any sense a journalist -- citizen or otherwise.
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