The year of giving offense

The Associated Press

Not on good terms?

Featured Topic | Posted 35 weeks 5 days ago

Barack Obama's campaign is outraged that Hillary Rodham Clinton's husband supposedly questioned the Illinois senator's patriotism. Clinton's campaign is insulted that an Obama surrogate would compare the supposed attack to McCarthyism. The Obama campaign is shocked that a top Clinton supporter would compare an Obama supporter to Judas Iscariot. The Clinton campaign is beside itself that an Obama state worker would mention Monica Lewinsky's infamous blue dress. And all of that just in the past 48 hours or so. Call it the Year of Taking Offense.

Ben likes: Richardson as Judas

Jim Geraghty/The Campaign Spot

An interesting lesson coming out of this elongated Democratic primary is how Democrats aren't just nasty, unfair, no-holds-barred artists of the politics of personal destruction when fighting across the aisle; they can't keep their claws sheathed and their bile repressed when fighting within the party, folks who were their closest allies not too long ago.

Were there tempers flaring and bad blood on the Republican side?Sure. But I don't know if there were surrogates calling each other monsters, or bringing up the equivalent of Monica's dress, or "while you were working for that slumlord", or accusing each other of trying to disenfranchise voters, etc. And day by day, those fights seem further away.

Joel likes: Offense taken

Michael Kinsley/Washington Post

Let me be absolutely clear where I stand on all of this. There is no room for sexism in a modern political campaign. There is no room for racism either. There is no room for remarks that could reasonably be interpreted as sexist or racist. In fact, given the history of sexism and racism in this country, there is no room for remarks that could even be willfully misinterpreted as sexist or racist. There is no room for rudeness, or for the appearance of rudeness. There is no room for comments of any sort by anybody a candidate might have met under any circumstances in the course of his or her life, unless they have been vetted for sexism, racism, rudeness, or the appearance of these qualities by the campaign's senior staff.

Basically, in the modern political campaign, there is no room for remarks of any sort on any subject which could be interpreted as giving offense to anyone, and that covers just about every subject there is. Therefore, my campaign will enter a cone of silence from now until I am sworn in as president next January. And I call upon my distinguished opponent and her campaign to do the same. The stakes in this election are much too high for anyone to say anything.