Word: souljah
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...when Bill Clinton, then Governor of Arkansas, went before the Rev. Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition to denounce a controversial black rapper--and to prove he was not beholden to traditional Democratic interests. But Obama rejects that comparison. "I'm not interested in engaging in a bunch of Sister Souljah moments just for the sake of it," he says. "If I do that, it's not for effect but because it's what I really believe...
Obama knows he is not the first to compete in a Democratic primary as the self-styled truth teller against the party's Establishment and entrenched interests. Gary Hart tried it against Walter Mondale in 1984, and in the pre--Sister Souljah months of 1992, Paul Tsongas famously branded Clinton a "pander bear." Bill Bradley and Howard Dean took their turns in 2000 and 2004. Obama says he is well aware of how the approach turned out for his predecessors in the role: "They lost...
...Slim, the development of cheap digital printing smashed one barrier to entry. And the advent of Amazon, which diminished the need for display space in bookstores, smashed another. So street-lit authors had a route around mainstream publishing houses. Following the success of The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah in 2000--it sold 475,000 copies--a flood of gritty, self-published crime novels hit the market. What street-lit authors may have lacked in wordsmithing, they made up for in cold business savvy...
...unwillingness to speak truth to anger ever since the civil rights movement turned militant after the death of Martin Luther King Jr. The party has come to seem craven, weak and untrustworthy in the process. The only exception to this pathetic tradition was Bill Clinton's criticism of Sister Souljah's racist rap lyrics during the 1992 presidential campaign, a carefully planned gesture that was compromised by its transparency as a political tactic...
...Obviously the Gore team has decided that running against Hollywood sleaze is a winner, as evidenced by the Democrats' sudden, Sister Souljah-esque turning against longtime supporter Hugh Hefner. But what's really dangerous is a national political figure endorsing the notion that certain messages need to be controlled for the good of society. That technology and media have made it too hard to inculcate your own values in your children and that, therefore, we simply have too much freedom in society. That it's not good enough that I be able to turn off a sleazy program...