Clinton Derangement Among the Democrats

At the risk of alienating myself from the entire civilized liberal blogosphere, let me state a concern about Obama's candidacy. As against the Clintons, Obama has by-and-large been the beneficiary of prevailing media narratives. E.g., The Clintons Are Playing The Race Card. E.g., The Clintons Are Twisting Obama's Words. E.g., The Clintons Are A Dynasty. Etc.*

And even with regard to those noxious narratives in which Obama has been the ostensible target (e.g., Rumors Suggest Obama May Be Muslim), the Clintons have been tagged by an equally damaging accompaniment (e.g., The Clintons Are Pushing False Rumors About Obama's Religion).

Now, we've seen that the Clintons have, or at least Bill has, a nigh preternatural ability to withstand this kind of ambient media- and GOP-driven distortion. What concerns me, then, is what happens if it works this time. Obama has not been at all effective in countering the Clintons' attacks, attacks that (whatever those I most respect in the blogosphere might maintain) are remarkably mild in historical terms, besides in terms of what the GOP slime machine will wreak). And the Clintons are seemingly the only ones who have brought the fight to Obama and put him to the test. So what happens when those hideous Clintons are gone? What happens when the media narratives no longer redound to Obama's benefit? And what happens when the GOP slime machine puts the middling offenses of the Clintons into some apparently much-needed context?

_____________

NOTES

* I just want to go on the record here as saying these narratives are all pretty much bogus: Jesse Jackson himself doesn't think Bill Clinton was playing the "race card" when Clinton compared Jackson's electoral successes in South Carolina to Obama's;  Obama arguably was courting conservatives with his ode to "the party of ideas"; and very few seemed as concerned about "dynasty" back when George II was running for president -- that is, when the problem of dynasty (such as it is) first attached.

Now, this is not to say that establishment types like Kerry or Kennedy don't have good reasons to favor Obama over Hillary Clinton. Clearly they do. But the current crop of stories strikes me as a bizarre pretext for the emancipation of such preexisting resentments.