I think you're absolutely correct, and it's typical of the success Republicans have enjoyed framing the conversation, no matter what the issue.

Stick to the issues.

Thank you for expressing so well what I was thinking.

Talking about Palin's inexperience is a trap. The focus should be on her lack of judgment and extreme views.

And the real focus should be relentlessly on McCain.

Thank you for expressing so well what I was thinking.

Talking about Palin's inexperience is a trap. The focus should be on her lack of judgment and extreme views.

And the real focus should be relentlessly on McCain.

R. Dean,

I agree pretty much. My only point about Enron is that it is an example of what happens when you fetishize deregulation -- just as true under Clinton as under Bush. But you're right that it should be distinguished from what is directly at Bush's feet.

We could debate whether Sarbanes-Oxley is an adequate fix, but to the extent that it is, the point remains -- insufficient regulation causes problems and sensible regulation is necessary because markets on their own go off the rails.

But on your main point (I think) dealing with truth as best we understand it is the strongest way to go, IMO.

Chris, I think you're right, and I think the Obama camp's wise to the trap. So far, their response has been standard boilerplate: "Palin's personal life is a compelling story, but it doesn't change the fact that she's backing all of McCain/Bush's failed policies."

If they've taken the bait, I haven't seen it.

As for surrogates, I think it's a good strategy to talk about Palin's apparent corruption. That's smart because it bolsters the change argument (GOP corruption is so endemic it infects even Alaska) without falling for the trap.

Bellybutton Lint Or maybe you'd rather nationalize the oil riches, and put Nancy Pelosi and Co. in charge of getting it out of the ground. That's the ticket!

As is typical for a right wing moron, you've completely missed the point. The "oil revenue riches" are already "nationalized" - or more accurately - "state held". Alaska is the only state in the nation where a single entity - the oil industry - not only pays all the taxes, they pay so much that every one else gets a rebate.

Now I have no problem with this, since they're stripping the land bare of its natural resources for pennies on the dollar, but it's pretty damned ironic for free-marketeers to be worshiping at the feet of Palin given that the very nature of her job makes her the most Socialist Governor in the entire nation. (And she even raised taxes on the oil industry to give all the other Alaskans more!)

Meanwhile, Uncle Remus is suing for plagiarism.

Got it backward, Jack. Uncle Remus was Joel Chandler Harris' somewhat tendentious (in terms for representations of black dialect & some other things) rendition of black folklore in the U.S. that derived from the African cultural heritage. Br'er Rabbit, for instance, along with his descendant Bugs Bunny, is rooted in African traditions of a trickster rabbit -- in Swaziland, where I lived for a time, and nearby Zulu-speaking areas of South Africa, he was called Cakijana (the 'c' is click sound made by pulling your tongue away from your front teeth where they meet the palate, like "tsk tsk"). In the Anglo-Caribbean countries and maybe a few places in the U.S. South, Anansi got transmuted into Aunt Nancy.

Actually in the Akan version of the story it was a gum baby, as in sticky stuff from gum trees, but tar baby is more recognizable in a U.S. context thanks to Mr. Harris.

Anyway, since when is allusion and metaphor plagiarism?

Chris, Politico reports:

Instead, Obama has decided to largely avoid directly engaging her and will instead keep his focus largely on John McCain and on linking the Republican ticket to President Bush. The Obama campaign will leave Palin to navigate the same cycle of celebrity that Obama has weathered, and the same peril that her nascent image will be defined by questions and contradictions from her Alaska past.

Excellent news, Jeff. Doesn't surprise me.

Now, the question is can we here and our confreres around the 'net do likewise? We weren't doing so well yesterday.

I'm not sure that linking McCain to Bush is enough, though I also suppose that in fact the acceptance speech also sets him up to put forward a positive vision.

It will be good thing if we can back that up.

Chris, I was kidding about the plagiarism. It was my way of reminding people that the tar baby most of us have heard of was from the Uncle Remus story, and like engineer I have also heard people say that the term is offensive (presumably because the Uncle Remus stories do portray what from our current perspective is seen as a demeaning picture of African Americans).

I do think its an apt metaphor in many cases and hate to see it banished from our cultural heritage out of an excess of political correctness.

I also think you're right in applying it to Sarah Palin and the "experience" issue. This election will not be decided on either Obama's or Palin's perceived "experience." Voters have consistently demonstrated they don't really care about that.

tar baby is more recognizable in a U.S. context thanks to Mr. Harris.

Not to mention the late Tony Snow.

I don't think we should expect Jack Roberts to understand the history of the Uncle Remus stories. I mean, just look at the guy's hair.

Okay, I have to admit I don't get that one.

Now, the question is can we here and our confreres around the 'net do likewise? We weren't doing so well yesterday.

I think even more than not participating, we must be pretty vigilent about pushing back against the idea that "we" are attacking her. I believe it's totally legit for news and bloggers to question her ethics--did she fire people for personal and political reasons? Did she try to dictate what could be housed in the local library. These are legitimate--central, actually--lines of inquiry. After that, I think it's really about getting back to basics: it's a change election, and it's incumbent on McCain/Palin to offer specifics about what kind of change is on offer and how they'll accomplish it.

(By the way, I meant to mention that I was unaware of the African origins of the Remus material. I feel much more edified having learned about. Thanks.)

Darrel, Obama and Clinton foreign policy advisor Tony Lake wrote a book in 1976 on Nixon's southern Africa policy, particularly toward white-ruled Southern Rhodesia, called The Tar Baby Option (it may have been a revision of his dissertation; he started out as an Africanist). The title came from the Nixon admin's own code name for their policy. Basically an early version of what Reagan called "constructive engagement," following Henry Kissinger's NSSM: 39, which held that in southern Africa, white supremacy was in place for the forseeable future. I have to confess that I don't understand or recall how the Nixonians were using the metaphor.

O.k. Jack, I get it now. As must be apparent, I agree with you about the term. Harris himself is a complicated figure in his historical context, which is specifically late 19th c. U.S. Southeast in the era of post-Reconstruction "Redemption" and the most vicious period of lynching, but also that of folklore collecting when all folklore in that period was tinged by racialist nationalism, including in European contexts.

There's a lot more to say about this, but having written a bunch, I'm going to do something different with it. Let me just say this:

We shouldn't let political correctness deprive us of rich ideas like that of a tar baby or gum baby out of ignorance. But we also should not let anti-political-correctness (actually in itself a form of political correctness) obstruct us from examining the cultural history of racialism and racial imagery, even if it leads to uncomfortable judgments about our predecessors and ancestors and uncomfortable questions about ourselves.

IMO these are both forms of anti-intellectualism that deprive us of aspects of history and understanding that we need.

Chris Lowe, I'm commenting not on your article, but your choice of title words. I'm sure a storm of shit will come flying my way, but the use of "Tar Baby" in your title is considered uncool to some, like Toni Morrison:

"In an interview, Toni Morrison said the following of its use in her book, in an acting of reclaiming: "Tar Baby is also a name, like 'nigger,' that white people call black children, black girls, as I recall….'"

Yes, I agree Jeff. I don't have the ref to hand now, it may have been on the Alaska-based blog Mudflat, but apparently Governor Palin has filed an ethics complaint against herself with an ethics commission in Alaska over the firing of the public safety commissioner, as a form of venue shopping & to forestall or divert or obstruct a different inquiry. Given her self-portrayal as a reformer & the way that works with McCain's own narrative on that subject (which also needs scrutiny) it's a legitimate issue.

Actually the relationship that interests me most is that between the rhetoric of "standing up to the big oil companies" and promoting approaches to energy that focus on increasing production by removing obstructions to producer/extractor profits, regardless of other costs.

(You're welcome on the African background. If you have an interest, Lawrence Levine's Black Culture and Black Consciousness (1977) remains an insightful book & a decent read.)

Karol,

Some people may use it that way, I didn't. The tar or gum in this case is the "experience" issue and it has no color. I'm not using ironically either.

The idea comes from African trickster tales, as discussed in the intro to my piece & further discussed in subsequent comments. It's a description of a certain kind of trap that works in certain kind of way, driven by someone's false perception of power in a situation evoking actions that leave them twisted around and stuck, and I think it's a good metaphor for a trap that we may put ourselves about what the defining issues are for the campaign.

If anyone does send shit your way, they are anti-intellectual shitheads. You're raising a legitimate issue IMO. You can see what I think about this case, I'm not sure if you'll find it persuasive. But this is just a corner of a whole lot of stuff about culture and race and racial thought and imagery that needs critical thinking & connection to our ethics of action, which is how I understand your comment.

Anyone who gives you shit for making your comment is not my friend or ally or standing for anything I believe in, and I will criticize any such person. They will be trying to shut down discussion that I have been engaged in in other contexts for a long time (academic history scholarship, teaching and debate), that I value, and that I am trying to figure out how it works in this context.

It is not discussion that can be quickly, easily or permanently "resolved" and "moved on" from, IMO. Rather it is persistent due to deep history, and protean due to the social and cultural rather than permanently empirical nature of "race" as a phenomenon. So thanks for making your comment & any further response you might have would be welcome.

Chris:

I certainly didn't mean to impair your usage of the term -- I as familiar with my Uncle Remus stories as anyone weaned in the early '60s would be, and I've used it myself in long-ago discussions, although I tend now to limit my references to the canon to cases where "briar patch" is more appropriate. And I figured you probably remembered the flap over Snow's comment, I just wanted to throw it out as a more recent point of reference for others.

I did my Nixon imitation for some folks (including Bruce Miroff, who wrote a book on the '72 campaign) at the McGovern Conference last fall and got some laughs. I'm going to have to work up some lines including "Tar Baby Option" in the repertoire. Although, I have to say, mine's not nearly as good as that of Billy West, who did Nixon for the Futurama series.

Harry,

Recently I have been wondering about the figure of 190,000 mercenaries. I think it may be 190,000 contractors, many of whom may not be mercenaries in the sense of armed forces. Some of that may be sort of gray area, in terms of logistical contractors, who, if their jobs were performed by military service members, would be counted as part of U.S. troop numbers. Anyway, my point is whether you have sources on that to which you can point me? Jeremy Scahill's Blackwater book is not easily accessible help.

You left out expanding the war in Afghanistan.

I know what you refer to about Iran. I don't know about Russia nor Pakistan.

I know what you mean about 4, 5 & 6.

On the others, I am not sure whether you are transmuting "not advocate" or "ignore the possibility of" into "oppose," or if you have in mind specific examples of opposition votes or other opposition actions, or statements in one public form or another.

Since the securities tax and repeal of Taft-Hartley seem to me possibly to be things that have actually been proposed in the Senate, maybe he has opposed such proposals. I have a vague idea that I've read about a securities tax proposal, don't think I've read of an actual attempt to repeal Taft-Hartley.

"Corporate welfare" is a vague omnibus term that will be defined differently by different persons. I would not be surprised to find that Obama supported some legislation that would end some forms of corporate welfare as defined by some persons and opposed other legislation of that sort.

Again, I am not aware of specific actual efforts to end corporate personhood.

Although I ought to do my own research on these matters, again any pointers would be welcome.

Darrel, thanks, I took your comment as you meant it. Maybe I'll get to hear your Nixon sometime. What was the McGovern conference?

The McGovern Center at Dakota Wesleyan University where Mcovern went to school and taught (and across the street from the house he lives in) holds an annual conference in November on issues he has promoted. This year's conference is on "Feeding the World Sustainably," getting back to his work in food programs for foreign countries, but last year, as it was the 35th anniversary of the 1972 election, they brought in people to talk about the McGovern political legacy. It being a conference in the McGovern style, of course, one of the speakers was someone who basically said that he'd been wrong from the beginning and had ruined the Democratic party, another said that he just wasn't really electable, and the third historian was invited because he had a decent oral history of the Black Panther Party.

Thanks for doing the work on that term, "tar baby", as it was niggling at me too.

Oh, man, Rebecca, you just opened up another (and hopefully I can say this without offending anyone) "can of worms" with that reference.

BTW Rebecca, "lockstep" isn't the same things as "goose step". A lockstep march is a march that's done with as little room as possible between the participants, requiring everyone to quickly respond to changes in movement and stay in close sync.

The goose step (stiff-legged marching style associated with the Nazis, other fascist regimes, and a lot of ceremonial marchers) tends to require a bit more room, because of the unbent knees, although the intent is certainly to present a similar precise, organized march.

There's certainly room for overlap between the two forms, but you can have a lockstep without a goose step and vice versa.

Rebecca (assuming RW is shorthand, if not, this is for RW),

Certainly I would agree with you that this "trap" would have been a secondary consideration. My picture is that they had a number of considerations. Probably foremost was somebody who would reassure the "base" for whom maverick was not a good thing. Probably the idea of a woman candidate was interesting but not set early. On the list of potential candidates raised elsewhere (Collins & Snowe of Maine, Whitman of New Jersey, Hutchison of Texas), three are Northeastern moderates who would make the "base" problem worse in all likelihood, and even Hutchison would not have helped that much. Huckabee's strong religious/ social conservatism might have been attractive, but his pragmatism about state government including willingness to raise taxes left him wounded after the primaries for the anti-tax purists. So someone floats Palin's name, she's got lots of appealing features (from within the worldview and purpose), but someone else asks, isn't her limited experience going to be a problem? And they talk it over and eventually decide its not, that if Dems decide to focus on that, it just gives us another reason to come back at Obama on experience, which is where we want the focus anyway. So I think it probably was conscious, but a secondary motive.

On the other hand, once the decision was made primarily on other grounds, I think that the metaphor works: If Democrats attack Palin for her inexperience, we get stuck in a debate that is disadvantageous for us.

On the other parts of what you are raising, I assume you are thanking Karol? That's fine, but just want to say that if you want to address criticisms to me directly that's fine too, I'm not someone who will blow up and come back with a lot of nastiness if someone suggests that something I do may be influenced by racism or may have racist effects.

If I ever use this idea again, I probably will use the original "gum baby" term from the West African Anansi version of the story, which is rather different in some respects relating to the questions you are raising (see original post). In my version Moatia the Fairy (who is the one who gets trapped) would be the Democrats; this would translate over into the Democrats being the rabbit in that version, i.e. the ones doing the hitting at Palin.

As for the rest of the potential allusions you raise and question based on the Br'er Rabbit version, I didn't have them in mind at all. All I was saying was that there is a trap for Democrats in hitting at Palin over experience, that is like the story in the sense that the character doing the hitting thinks she or he is doing something powerful, but actually is putting herself or himself into difficulty. I think attacking Palin on experience has that quality. That's the beginning and ending of my intended metaphor. Of course, writers have effects they don't intend, partly through reader response.

As I said, the "gum baby" piece slipped my mind when composing under some time pressure, so I conflated the story I had in mind with the term derived from the Br'er Rabbit version of the story, thereby importing a lot of problems for some readers.

I really don't find the supposed parallel to "Nazi" persuasive at all.

P.S. as another example of regionalism in language, where and when I grew up, "dork" was a synonym for "prick" as a noun in a literal sense, and rather like "asshole" when used as a name, not a synonym for something like nerd or geek (real geeks of course originally were men who bit the heads off of live chickens for show). I have been rather astonished as it has spread so widely and in media contexts aimed at children where the use of "prick" or "asshole" or equivalents would be prohibited. But of course that isn't what you meant, nor what those uses mean, and in actual usage it has taken on the nerd-like meaning.

The change of usage for "tar-baby" may run in the other direction, that it is its hostile connotations as a label epithet directed at actual persons that is what people increasingly recognize, rather than the story behind it.

But who pays for capitol investments in a free market?

I expect the people who would pay for investments in the seat of government would be the taxpayers.

Unless, of course, you meant "capital" investments, which is a whole other thing, but then you'd think that someone spouting off about the lack of economic understanding among Democrats (capitalized, unless you're talking about anyone who advocates "democracy," which would presumably include Republicans) would know the difference between "capital" and "capitol."

<h2>RW: doesn't "Hallmark card terminologies" fall into the same "quagmire" of hackneyed phrases for which you're fitting Chris up for a "high-tech lynching?" As for "niggling," I'm not trying to take it away from anyone, just pointing out that there are people who will complain about practically anything, whether there is a basis for it or not.</h2>