Strained Relations On The Left

Many liberal pundits keep claiming that Senator Obama can repair the rift caused by his bitter fight for the nomination against Senator Clinton. ABC News received an inside glance to the Congressional Black Caucus meeting yesterday, and it was anything peaches and cream:

A Thursday afternoon meeting between Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus grew tense and emotional for a moment -- perhaps illustrating that weeks after Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., suspended her presidential campaign, some nerves remain frayed.

Most of the meeting was cordial, and after a presentation by Obama's pollster, many members of the CBC had nothing but pleasant exchanges with the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

But not everyone.

Sources at the meeting said that Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, a Clinton supporter, expressed the desire that Obama and his campaign would reach out the millions of women still aggrieved about what happened in the campaign and still disappointed that Clinton lost.

Obama agreed that a lot of work needs to be done to heal the Democratic Party, and that he hoped the Clinton supporters in the room would help as much as possible.

According to Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., Obama then said, "However, I need to make a decision in the next few months as to how I manage that since I'm running against John McCain, which takes a lot of time. If women take a moment to realize that on every issue important to women, John McCain is not in their corner, that would help them get over it."

Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif., a longtime Clinton supporter, did not like those last three words -- "Get over it." She found them dismissive, off-putting.

"Don't use that terminology," Watson told Obama.

Clarke did not react the same way.

"I, personally, as a Hillary supporter, did not take that as something distasteful," Clarke said. "Nothing like that."

But, Clarke said, Watson "latched on to those three words."

In Clarke's view, Watson thought Obama had just told her to "get over it." She didn't appreciate that, and she told him so and emphasized that it was a heated campaign and lot of healing remains to be done.

"I agree," Obama said. "There's healing on both sides."

Obviously Senator Obama did not direct "get over it" at anyone in the meeting, but the reaction was to be expected. Clinton supporters still do not like him, and they do not trust him. Furthermore, the grudge they bear is not just directed at the prospective candidate. It is also directed at the media, in general, for the slights they perceived in how Senator Clinton was treated during the primary fight.

Can we blame them? After all, for eight years we saw a willing media shilling for her and her husband. They continued to do it after her election to the Senate. Now, all of a sudden, she was kicked to the curb in favor of the new flavor of the month. And that new flavor has little to offer this nation except rhetoric and insane ideas that will do more damage to the country than many posit.

His economic ideas are nuts. Windfall profits taxes on oil companies? Does he understand who will be paying those taxes? We will, at the pump, everytime we fill up our gas tanks. His proposed hike in capital gains will virtually kill the financial markets as people pull their money out of them. His payroll taxes will harm the small businessman out there trying to make ends meet in an already weakened economy.

His foreign policy views are nonsensical. I will not go into the "Winne the Pooh" diplomacy that Richard Danziger proposed earlier this week. But his continued insistence that we should give relevance to the worst thugs in the world that have always stood against the notion of freedom and liberty will not endear him to voters.

Yes, there is healing that needs to occur, and we are not sure he has the ability to do that.

Marcie