Didn't President Obama's three immediate predecessors also go to Ivy League colleges?

[Empowerer]

Yes, that's what I thought . . .

So why is only Obama criticized for being an educational "elitist" - or as Howard Fineman said tonight on Countdown:


"Barack Obama came in with a wave of Rhodes scholars and meritocracy and 'we've got the best and the brightest of the new generation' and 'I'm Barack Obama and I went to Columbia and Harvard, etc.' And out in the country where people are afraid, where they're worried about unemployment, where they're looking for some power that be, to attack whether it's Wall Street or the government or the education or meritocracy, they're going to go after them. That's what's happening right now. Barack Obama sort of gave credentials a bad name in the eyes of these people."

Excuse me?

I have a couple of questions for you, Howard . . .

1. George H.W. Bush went to Yale and was about as "elite" as you can get. Bill Clinton went to Yale and Georgetown and was a Rhodes Scholar. George W. Bush attended Yale and Harvard. So why is it that when Barack Obama became president, all of a sudden, it became a BAD thing to have a good education? What makes him so different than the others?

2. You claim that President Obama "gave credentials a bad name" but failed to offer any explanation of how he managed to do that. How exactly did the President "give credentials a bad name?"

3. When did Barack Obama ever say "I'm Barack Obama and I went to Columbia and Harvard" or anything even comparable?

4. Since when is a "meritocracy" a bad thing? Isn't that, in fact, what the people "out there in the country" on whose pulse you apparently think you have your finger are always claiming they want this country to be - instead of some kind of their affirmative action quotaland nightmare in which unqualified black people get ahead of deserving white people?

And one final question

5. Why don't you just save a lot of words and a lot of breath and just say, "He's uppity" since that is the sum total of your comment?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. I haven't been so upset....

Since I found out that a disproportionate number of supreme court justices went to some of the best law schools in the country.

Where's the representation? Where's the high school drop out? Where's the guy who quit his sophomore year to bum around Europe? Where are the pottery majors?

[Empowerer]

8. A white man can be a screw-up like Bush and become president. A black man has to be Barack Obama to

make it to te Oval Office - and even then, he's treated as if he has no right to be there.

[SeattleGirl]

2. Those were pretty much the questions I had when I listened to Howard.

Or, in the shortened version, "WTF, Howard?"

That really pissed me off when I was listening to him.

And I think you're right in your assessment. He should have just said, "He's uppity" because that is what he seemed to be implying.

[Empowerer]

3. Exactly

The "I'm Barack Obama and I went to Harvard and Columbia" pretty much summed that up, didn't it? In other words, "Who in the hell does this guy think he is?"

[babylonsister]

4. I think Howard was talking about the perception of the teabaggers,

don't think this was criticism. And maybe it never came up before because there were no teabaggers before.

[Empowerer]

6. That's not what he said.

He clearly was suggesting that Barack Obama is or is doing something different than his predecessors.

And if by some broad stretch he was actually talking about the teabaggers - which he did not say at all - his uncritical channelling of what they are supposedly thinking was irresponsible at best.

[babylonsister]

9. That is what he said...from your quote...

And out in the country where people are afraid, where they're worried about unemployment, where they're looking for some power that be, to attack whether it's Wall Street or the government or the education or meritocracy, they're going to go after them. That's what's happening right now. Barack Obama sort of gave credentials a bad name in the eyes of these people."

Those people out in the country are, for the most part, teabaggers.

[Empowerer]

13. You skipped the first part of the quote

He criticized Obama for coming in with a wave of Rhodes scholars and saying "I'm Barack Obama and I went to Harvard and Columbia,' etc." - he is clearly blaming Obama for behaving in a way that has led those folks to attack him.

No matter how it's parsed, Fineman is doing exactly what he's been doing for awhile and what a number of other commentators are doing. He and they are not only holding the President to a very different standard, they are treating him as if he somehow thinks he's better than everyone else - which, as you know, is a common attitude that many people have about educated, accomplished blacks.

[babylonsister]

15. No, I didn't miss a thing. He was setting up the mindset of

the teabaggers.

That wasn't criticism, that is the baggers' perception. "Barack Obama sort of gave credentials a bad name in the eyes of these people." His credentials are that he and his staff are educated, and they are not, and they don't like it.

Sorry, I disagree with what you took away from this, though I do agree he is usually consistent in his snarkiness where Obama is concerned.

[EffieBlack]

29. If he is just parroting their perspective, he's doing it with no analysis or criticism

I don't need a commentator to tell me what the tea baggers think. I know what they think and so does everyone else. By presenting it in this way, Fineman is not just commenting, he is advancing and promoting and giving credence to it. Barack Obama's credentials are the same as his predecessors' yet THEY didn't give credentials a bad name nor did their elite educations prompt a political movement among uneducated white people.

Yet Fineman offers no perspective on this - he just repeats what they're thinking as if their point of view is rational and valid - and not blatantly racist. And he also suggests in his presentation that he actually agrees with them to some extent - at least to the degree that Barack Obama has brought this on himself with a supposedly superior attitude. And, as I noted earlier, this mindset is a very common one among some white folks who think that educated, accomplished black people are somehow "showing off." Fineman exudes that attitude to Barack Obama in much of his commentary.

[Mimosa]

27. "holding the President to a very different standard"

Empowerer, I agree.

The professional yammerers talk so much that the more they say, the more they reveal about themselves.

[Hissyspit]

7. He was. nt

[Empowerer]

12. No, he was not . . .

Here's the leadup to the comment:

Olbermann: How did stupid get to be a badge of honor are we kidding ourselves in suggesting that this is new?

Fineman: I think we're kidding ourselves to some extent. I hate to keep bringing up Kentucky where I began as a reporter, but we used to cover a congressman who went by the name 'Bull Pumpkinhead' and he was not really one of the sharpest knives in the drawer in the Congress. Of course this is not new. But what is happening right now is that Barack Obama came in with a wave of Rhodes Scholars and meritocracy . . .

Nowhwere did he indicate he was referring only to Tea Party members, or even that he was supposedly speaking for anyone. He was clearly saying that President Obama behaved a certain way and set himself up as a target for "those people out there."

[babylonsister]

16. Who do you think KO was referring to when he said

'how did stupid get to be a badge of honor'? The BAGGERS!

[Hissyspit]

18. I've watched it twice. Within the context of the entire conversation, it read to me that he was

referring to the mindset of the teabaggers.

Your criticism that he was not clear enough about it, I would consider valid.

[FrenchieCat]

20. Why is what Teabaggers perceive so important?

The media made them, and they keep talking about them endlessly....
them and Sarah Palin. What's up with that? Why do we care that
teabaggers don't like anything about Barack Obama to the point
where it has to be discussed almost everyday? I don't get that
at all......: shrug:

[EffieBlack]

24. We'll have to disagree on this one

I have no doubt that the first part of his comment was his own opinion about the president - Fineman believes that he came in with a certain attitude that set him up to be attacked by certain elements. And he uncritically presents the perspective of those elements as if they are per se valid. But he didn't point out that numerous presidents came in with similar credentials and weren't subjected to such treatment - instead, he acted as if there was something unique about President Obama that has led to this.

Of course, there IS something unique about this President that has led to this - and it sure ain't his Ivy League education.

[rury]

19. Howard Fineman is one of the many jerks in this

country who feel a certain level of, say we say "discomfort" about an educated black man leading the country.
You know, one who does not "know his place."
The racism is palpable and I'm about to reach a boiling point over it.

[EffieBlack]

22. Exactly

The fact that these people sit around hour after hour discussing what ignorant people think about Barack Obama as if those opinions are more valid than anyone else's is sickening.

Can you imagine them commenting ad nauseum about small groups of black people who think that all whites are racist - and uncritically repeating those opinions as if they have merit? Of course, that would never happen. Even if they bothered to mention that point of view, they would dissect it and dispose of it immediately, not use it as a prism through which to view white people and then blame white folks for behaving in a manner that attracts such impressions from blacks.

[Pirate Smile]

5. Howard Fineman has been one big bag of suckage since the 2008 election.

I don't know why but I've notice it. :shrug:

[Political Tiger]

11. I've noticed it too and he's really starting to get on my nerves! n/t

[Warren Stupidity]

10. Well in all fairness, Bush the murderous idiot son only

got to Yale through the Yale WASP Affirmative Action Program that has been in place for the last 300 years or so.

[Empowerer]

14. Which makes the Fineman's attitude even more obnoxious

Barack Obama earned his place at every table he's graced through hard work, perserverence, and intelligence.

[Jennicut]

17. LOL. Bush was born...in Connecticut! But I am personally happy he left here and went to

Texas. The state was better off without the Bushes. Now if only we could get rid of Glenn Beck...

[impik]

21. Barack Obama is black. It's simple as this.

[CBR]

23. Yup. A good number of his critics on all sides fault him for

not identifying with or acting like a white working class person. It is that simple.

[EffieBlack]

25. Because, as we know, working class white people are the only constituency that matters

[CBR]

26. Yup. It drives me crazy!!! That is what we hear about all the time.

If it is a rural/small town person, that is bonus points.

[Mass]

28. Fineman is just struck with groupthink and has always been.

I remember his coverage of Kerry and Gore as out of touch elitists against Bush the plainspoken. BTW, the same argument about Ivy League schools that were offending regular people was already in the picture (Even if * went to Yale and Harvard).

In 2008, when Obama seemed very popular, he was all positive about Obama and how great he was.

Now that Obama seems less popular (at least in the media), he reverse to his old groupthink that Democrats are out of touch.

[tanyev]

30. Oh, you and your elitist facts.

:P

[Canuckistanian]

31. Just about every president went to an "elite college"

The notable exception being of course - Ronald Reagan.

[Igel]

32. I have no idea what you're talking about.

Like that matters in the least when it comes to commenting. ;-)

The gist of what you object to seems to be the same old objections and points of outrage: Obama's been called an elitist and has, it's been claimed, given elite Ivy-League credentials a bad name while previous presidents weren't elitists and didn't.

Much of it stems from a lot of people merging "elite" and "elitist." If people are using them with different meanings, it's up to them either to understand that their audience has merged the words or for the audience to work out that the words are different. Otherwise it's obvious that the audience isn't understanding what the speaker is saying.

Similarly for "uppity" and "condescending."

Meritocracies are good. Well, except when those not meritorious don't get the jobs. And when the meritocrats have goals and objectives at odds with those of the people they allegedly represent. In that case, the meritocracy is best termed an oligarchy and democratic principles have been abandoned.

That's the crux of the objections: That Obama does not have the same goals and share the same values. That while a good, elite education can produce an able thinker able to implement goals that are consonant with widely held values, and such credentials have typically been taken to represent the ability to do this, Obama is not such a thinker or doer. There's also the claims that much of what he got was inflated or obtained on the cheap. Most of the last set of claims has been decried but it's hard to refute that kind of thing; the same was said about *.

Consider *, with his elite education; he, I don't think, was much of an elitist. Bush I was more of an elitist, but seemed to avoid showing it. Clinton was not an elitist; Hillary tried, and can't pull it off, for all her education. The Clinton's were flat-footed in many respects and still remembered--even if they didn't like--their roots.

These are not objections that can easily be answered. And there's no hope of answering them without understanding what the words used in the objections mean.