Barack Obama uses a metaphor that's been, if anything, beaten into the ground:
He warned that the general election campaign could get ugly. “They’re going to try to scare people. They’re going to try to say that ‘that Obama is a scary guy,’” he said. A donor yelled out a deep accented “Don’t give in!”The RNC freaks out, probably because they heard a scary black man talking about guns:
“I won’t but that sounded pretty scary. You’re a tough guy,” Obama said.
“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” Obama said.
“Why is Barack Obama so negative? In the last 24 hours, he’s completely abandoned his campaign’s call for ‘new politics,’ equating the election to a ‘brawl’ and promising to ‘bring a gun,’ ” said the RNC’s Alex Conant.Steve Benen makes a good point:
“New politics” is apparently supposed to mean refraining from playing hardball or giving as good as he gets when it comes to the Republican Smear Machine. Obama has been promising for a year to be a tougher kind of Dem; maybe the GOP hasn’t been paying attention.To which I say: heck, it's a new kind of politics if Democrats bring a knife to a knife fight.
But that said, I have to wonder: if a Democrat brings a gun to knife fight, wouldn’t that necessarily be a “new” kind of politics?
Now, to be honest, I'm not a big "gun-to-a-knife-fight" or "bazooka-to-a-gun-fight" or "thermonuclear-bomb-to-a-grenade-fight" guy. Like Wolcott, I think it's a little too dripping with machismo for my taste. But if we take the metaphor as, well, metaphor, all Obama is promising to do is fight back against the GOP, hard. Democrats have been showing up with pointy sticks to machete fights for the better part of my lifetime. Too often, we've immediately ceded the terms of the fight, backing down in the face of Republican arguments that we're too weak/elitist/irreligious/pro-communist/pro-terrorist/pro-choice/pro-women/pro-gay/angry/placid. At our best, we've meekly aceded that "some" Democrats were like that, but not us; at our worst, we've tried to out-Republican the Republicans, showing that we can vote for war in Iraq just as recklessly and foolishly as any Bush-backer.
We need, metaphorically, to at least be willing to fight the Republicans as equals, unafraid that we're going to look weak or soft. Certainly, Obama has his faults, but at least he appears willing to defend himself from the charge that he's somehow frightening because his biological father was once a Muslim, or because he has an unusual name, or because his wife is outspoken, or because he's black. The Democrats may not need to bring guns to knife fights. But we need to bring our spines with us at all times. And it looks like Obama just might get that.
Guns and Knife Fights
Barack Obama uses a metaphor that's been, if anything, beaten into the ground:
Now, to be honest, I'm not a big "gun-to-a-knife-fight" or "bazooka-to-a-gun-fight" or "thermonuclear-bomb-to-a-grenade-fight" guy. Like Wolcott, I think it's a little too dripping with machismo for my taste. But if we take the metaphor as, well, metaphor, all Obama is promising to do is fight back against the GOP, hard. Democrats have been showing up with pointy sticks to machete fights for the better part of my lifetime. Too often, we've immediately ceded the terms of the fight, backing down in the face of Republican arguments that we're too weak/elitist/irreligious/pro-communist/pro-terrorist/pro-choice/pro-women/pro-gay/angry/placid. At our best, we've meekly aceded that "some" Democrats were like that, but not us; at our worst, we've tried to out-Republican the Republicans, showing that we can vote for war in Iraq just as recklessly and foolishly as any Bush-backer.
We need, metaphorically, to at least be willing to fight the Republicans as equals, unafraid that we're going to look weak or soft. Certainly, Obama has his faults, but at least he appears willing to defend himself from the charge that he's somehow frightening because his biological father was once a Muslim, or because he has an unusual name, or because his wife is outspoken, or because he's black. The Democrats may not need to bring guns to knife fights. But we need to bring our spines with us at all times. And it looks like Obama just might get that.
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He warned that the general election campaign could get ugly. “They’re going to try to scare people. They’re going to try to say that ‘that Obama is a scary guy,’” he said. A donor yelled out a deep accented “Don’t give in!”The RNC freaks out, probably because they heard a scary black man talking about guns:
“I won’t but that sounded pretty scary. You’re a tough guy,” Obama said.
“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” Obama said.
“Why is Barack Obama so negative? In the last 24 hours, he’s completely abandoned his campaign’s call for ‘new politics,’ equating the election to a ‘brawl’ and promising to ‘bring a gun,’ ” said the RNC’s Alex Conant.Steve Benen makes a good point:
“New politics” is apparently supposed to mean refraining from playing hardball or giving as good as he gets when it comes to the Republican Smear Machine. Obama has been promising for a year to be a tougher kind of Dem; maybe the GOP hasn’t been paying attention.To which I say: heck, it's a new kind of politics if Democrats bring a knife to a knife fight.
But that said, I have to wonder: if a Democrat brings a gun to knife fight, wouldn’t that necessarily be a “new” kind of politics?
Now, to be honest, I'm not a big "gun-to-a-knife-fight" or "bazooka-to-a-gun-fight" or "thermonuclear-bomb-to-a-grenade-fight" guy. Like Wolcott, I think it's a little too dripping with machismo for my taste. But if we take the metaphor as, well, metaphor, all Obama is promising to do is fight back against the GOP, hard. Democrats have been showing up with pointy sticks to machete fights for the better part of my lifetime. Too often, we've immediately ceded the terms of the fight, backing down in the face of Republican arguments that we're too weak/elitist/irreligious/pro-communist/pro-terrorist/pro-choice/pro-women/pro-gay/angry/placid. At our best, we've meekly aceded that "some" Democrats were like that, but not us; at our worst, we've tried to out-Republican the Republicans, showing that we can vote for war in Iraq just as recklessly and foolishly as any Bush-backer.
We need, metaphorically, to at least be willing to fight the Republicans as equals, unafraid that we're going to look weak or soft. Certainly, Obama has his faults, but at least he appears willing to defend himself from the charge that he's somehow frightening because his biological father was once a Muslim, or because he has an unusual name, or because his wife is outspoken, or because he's black. The Democrats may not need to bring guns to knife fights. But we need to bring our spines with us at all times. And it looks like Obama just might get that.
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