OK, I think that's about enough from
Hillary Clinton already. Don't you?
Her remarks about how RFK was bumped off as late as June and that her own hubby (busy covering up his affair with Gen Flowers, executing Ricky Ray Rector and dissing Sista Soulja) had not yet wrapped up the nomination by that same month in 1992 were great reasons for her to prolong her losing campaign are, in fact, even better reasons to finally yank her off the stage.
Now, do I think that Hillary somehow intended to suggest that Obama would, should or might be assassinated? Um....well....probably not. This is, however, the second time she's made the same reference.
What we do know for certain is that Hillary and Bill Clinton have converted themselves into some sort of grotesque public spectacle in the last few months. They have elevated self-pity into a friggin' art form.
Shall we list the ways? Or at least some of them:
Hillary is losing because everyone who opposes her is a
mysoginist.
Hillary is losing because
the press hates her.
Hillary is losing because
the debate moderators ask her the first questions.
Hillary is losing because
Nevada hotel workers were suppressing the vote.
Hillary is losing because the
activist base of her own party flooded the caucuses.
Hillary is losing because
too many southern Blacks vote for Obama because he is Black.
Hillary is losing because there aren't enough
hard-working, white people to support her.
Hillary is losing because the
the Florida and Michigan primaries were disqualified (with her approval at the time because she was pandering to Iowa and New Hampshire).
Hillary is losing because her victory in the popular vote isn't being recognized (even though
she isn't really wining the popular vote and even if the popular vote has nothing to do with the nomination).
Hillary is losing because her advantage in
winning electoral college votes hasn't been counted (even if there is no such thing in the primaries).
And now Hillary is losing because
Obama is, well, still alive.
Did I miss something?
Or is Hillary just a loser?
The last few days has seen
renewed chatter about Clinton being named candidate for Veep. Far from a dream, this would be a veritable nightmare. I'm not mushy-headed about Obama (though I support him) and I'm not sure in how many ways he might wind up disappointing us.
But Hillary Clinton has revealed herself to be a decaying political carcass. And today the stench became just a bit too overwhelming. I can't think of anything worse on Obama's part than to saddle himself with this remnant of the past (not to speak of her plainly insufferable husband).
Till now, folks have been rather overly polite -- treating her like a beloved but sort of a daft auntie. Her campaign was over a long time ago. All of this gingerly language about "the math" is faintly ridiculous. All elections are about the math, my friends, and the equation is always quite simple. Whoever is ahead wins.
As of now, some 97% of the states and territories have already voted and Clinton has lost. She should have bowed out some time ago. Now time has come to go get the hook and pull her off the stage before she further soils herslf.
A few dozen superdelegates can stand up and put her --and us-- out of our misery.
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May 24th, 2008 at 5:35 am
Balter’s Blog sez:
I think it’s a good sign if Hillary Clinton subliminally realizes that the only way she is going to get the nomination is if Barack Obama is assassinated. Let’s just hope there are no moles in the Secret Service.
May 24th, 2008 at 7:02 am
Rsamussen:
**As Barack Obama inches closer to formally wrapping up the Democratic Presidential Nomination, the number of Democrats who want Hillary Clinton to drop out of the race has declined. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 32% of Democrats now think Clinton should withdraw from the race. That’s down from 38% who wanted her to exit the race just ten days ago. **
Of course, that was before she revealed herself for the murdering tyrant we all know she is.
May 24th, 2008 at 7:34 am
“Let’s just hope there are no moles in the Secret Service.”
Hillary screws up by making another stupid gaffe.
Michael ups her stupid by making one on purpose.
May 24th, 2008 at 7:56 am
In/re disapointing us, Obama regaled the terrorists at the CANF the other day.
May 24th, 2008 at 7:59 am
OMG! OMFG!
When I was checking out this site yesterday, I saw that Woody had some link about Hill the Shrill and the “A” word and I skipped over it because, well, I thought Woody was just referencing some obscure link in the netherlands of the VRWC…
She actually raises the specter of…
Seriously, what’s the proper reaction: disgust or fear?
Forget her as a potential presidential candidate. Forget the Veep slot. Should this creep even be in the Senate?
May 24th, 2008 at 8:00 am
“In/re disapointing us, Obama regaled the terrorists at the CANF the other day.”
Har!
What’s more, he slandered The Revolution!
May 24th, 2008 at 8:18 am
The press failed to pick this up. But now it makes perfect sense why Hillary seemed to be so selflessly and generously organizing an Obama fundraiser for June 5 at the site of what used to be the Ambassador Hotel. I get it now.
May 24th, 2008 at 8:20 am
Hmm, well, although I’ve been flabbergasted by many a Hillary remark these past few months, and while my bullshit detector was incessantly flashing during the entire time I watched this clip, when I heard her bring up Robert Kennedy getting shot in June (right after the June mention of hubby Billy’s ’92 campaign) I simply heard this as another example of a campaign that hadn’t been decided by June of the election year. Bad taste? I suppose, but I’m a scientist and I tend to use analogies quite a bit without emotional attachment; for me, the Bobby Kennedy example was just that: an example of a race not ending before June.
That said, I’m still looking forward to when she voluntarily steps out of the race.
May 24th, 2008 at 8:38 am
Well I wouldn’t expect him to be supportive of Cuban policy, but he bent over backwards to distance himself from his position, as opnely stated not a few months ago, that he would open relations with Cuba, not to mention the requisite (btu soft) jab at Chavez. I add that the CANF are hardly the only Cuban American group that opposes Castro. They are the most extreme, and celebrate Luis Posada Carriles and other terrorists.
I’ve been saying that Obama could win without Florida. Looks like he doesn’t agree.
May 24th, 2008 at 8:39 am
http://counterpunch.com/cockburn05242008.html
sample:”There is no other way to construe these sentences, not thrown over her shoulder on a campaign walk, but delivered in measured tones to the Argus-Leader editorial board, but to interpret them as Mrs Clinton’s more or less explicit statement that she is spending a million a day just to keep her hat in the ring because Obama might well get killed. Then, just like the scenario at the end of the Manchurian candidate, Hillary will straddle Obama’s bleeding body, make the speech of her life and become the assured nominee. In fact, right now she’s probably sitting down with some numbed vet and whispering coyly in her best Angela Lansbury mode to the Lawrence Harvey stand-in, “How about passing the time by playing a little solitaire?” I pass on whether Hillary reprises Angela Lansbury’s famous incestuous kiss on her son’s lips. Perhaps Sid Blumenthal is the stand-in, though I doubt he’s a very good shot.”
May 24th, 2008 at 8:40 am
Sheesh. Trying to think of some sort of analogy, I don’t recall Gov. Huckabee troopering on against the steep reality of the GOP math for the nomination, where he said or implied some like, “well you know, McCain is old, he could croak at any minute…” But then Huckabee is not conflicted as to whether he’s an opportunist or a carpetbagger.
But you gotta hand it to the Clinton camp — as long as its not loaded. She really parses, teases, infers, and tortures the rhetoric (and any sense of common decency) in bringing up assassination as a rationale to prolong her run. Some talent.
May 24th, 2008 at 8:51 am
Man, Olberman goes to town on her with a list of just about every sleazy or questionable thing she has trotted out in this campaign.
Cummings you have got to stop reading that truculent wind-bag Cockburn. He’s going to wear off on you, and you’ll be much the worse for it. He’s got more mouth than he has talent, which is ok if you’re running as a Republican for just about any office, but not so much for intelligent people.
May 24th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Hellllllooooo….who said Hillary is losing? Super delegates will decide who the nominee should be….and it should be someone who wins the popular vote (largest number of votes), who wins swinger states, who wins large states, and who appeals to the largest number of dems, from liberals to conservatives. Now tells me which candidate can achieve that?
May 24th, 2008 at 9:07 am
Alexander Cockburn is probably one of the best columnists working anywhere right now, and his brothers are two of the best war/defense reporters alive, particularly Patrick Cockburn. Given certain realities, Alex is not wht he used to be, but he is always worth reading. I’ve written for Counterpunch and have nothing but admiration for much of the material that they publish. I’ll add that they were (in the case of Jeffrey St. Clair) the first to point out what is now an agreed upon meme in/re HRC – that of the 2012 “I told you so”. .
I’ve had some issues with Counterpunch, in particular how they simply stopped publishing the pieces I sent them (there were quite a few between 2002-2004), and that they have published some very questionable material. But it is among my first stops when I go online.
May 24th, 2008 at 9:08 am
I defy anyone to find me a better radical non-fiction narrative than The Golden Age is in US.
May 24th, 2008 at 9:09 am
Except the work of Mark York.
May 24th, 2008 at 9:09 am
PS. …..and yes Obama is largely supported by Blacks, he won 91% of the black vote in North Carolina. Who can say there’s no race factor here????
May 24th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Democrats should bring back a candidate version of “The Gong Show” and hammer Hillary Clinton out of the contest.
May 24th, 2008 at 9:26 am
More good news for cummings, from The Associated Press:
**Nearly 400 others — mostly opposition politicians — have been barred from running for office in state and municipal elections in November by Venezuela’s top anti-corruption official, a close Chavez ally.
Comptroller General Clodosbaldo Russian made public what critics call a “blacklist” of candidates in February. Though none has been formally charged with a crime, Russian argues that law allows him to prohibit all 386 from running for office while he investigates charges ranging from nepotism to illegally awarding public contracts.
Opposition leaders say they have never seen such a bold attempt to block their candidacies since Chavez took office nearly a decade ago. But as soaring crime and double-digit inflation eat away at Chavez’s popularity, many say his allies may be having a harder time riding his coattails into office.
“Chavista candidates can no longer expect to win simply because they’re on the president’s bandwagon,” said Luis Vicente Leon, a political analyst at the Caracas-based polling firm Datanalisis. “The list takes opposition leaders who pose threats in some regions out of the way.”**
May 24th, 2008 at 9:50 am
I don’t believe that story offers proper context. That said, I oppose this type of move, though I don’t doubt that these candidates have taken money openly from US funded groups.
May 24th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Hey, many of you liberal commenters here, I hope you enjoyed your week in Atlanta. International Gay Bowling Organization’s annual tournament How embarrassing…letting everyone know that you’re a bowler.
May 24th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Did they roll on Shabbas?
May 24th, 2008 at 10:32 am
This video sums up the Clinton-Obama conflict. THE EMPIRE STRIKES BARACK Did Obama learn from Yoda?
(Remember when Clinton said that her dad taught her to shoot a gun as a little girl and that people enjoy shooting. Hmmm.)
May 24th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Gay bowling in Atlanta? Dude, maybe Atlanta isn’t so bad after all.
Are you going to the tournament Woody? It must be fun. C’mon, grab you’re balls and go bowling! Hey I’ll even sponsor you for as many white russians as you can drink.
May 24th, 2008 at 11:09 am
…as many white russians as you can drink.
Rob, that would be the cheapest sponsorship in history.
May 24th, 2008 at 11:29 am
Let’s applaud Mrs. Bill Clinton’s devotion to detail and preparedness. She’s once again proven herself capable of handling the worst news when she picks up the phone at 3 a.m. at the White House. Go Hillary.
May 24th, 2008 at 11:53 am
There is no way Mrs. Cliinton is going to win the nomination; despite what jcummings says, Alexander Cockburn is no longer anything but a curmudgeonly contrarian. I don’t know why anyone still employs him. Just look at his latest “environmental” pronouncements, and you will easily see why I don’t have any confidence whatever in what he claims.
May 24th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
ms. gilbert seems to imply that I think that Mrs. Clinton will get the nomination. Not at all.
As to Alex, well Counterpunch is read all over the world, and his books have built in audiences. I think he raises, like James Heartfield, some important issues about climate change and who stands to gain. Is he curmudgeonly? He’s probably worse than that. But at least he’s on the right side. What side are you on?
May 24th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Maybe someone should call the Secret Service to make sure they investigate Hillary for making a possible death threat against Obama.
May 24th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Only one question.
If,
Why haven’t they?
May 24th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Dumb, unthinking, ridiculous comment? Yes. But when people talk about her inciting assassination, they are sounding like the right-wing, lying lunatics who think the Clintons killed Vince Foster and moved the body out of the Oval Office. And if that’s what some of you are sounding like, you really should go support John McCain for president, because he is more your type. And you really should quit commenting on blogs written by people with brains and go hang out with the Fox News crowd.
May 24th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Michael Green: Are you seriously accusing Obama people of grandstanding and indulging in a silly fit of pretend indignation?
Me too.
May 24th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
“Are you seriously accusing Obama people of grandstanding and indulging in a silly fit of pretend indignation?”
“Obama people”? Uh, what about Obama himself?
“”I have learned that when you are campaigning for as many months as Senator Clinton and I have been campaigning, sometimes you get careless in terms of the statements that you make and I think that is what happened here,” Obama said in an interview with Radio Isla Puerto Rico during a campaign visit to the Caribbean Island and U.S. territory.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080525/pl_nm/usa_politics_dc
Nice try, bobby.
May 24th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Rob G., I am with you there….I too read the little Woody blurb from the previous thread, and didn’t think much of it until going onto the Huffington Post early this morning. And your question does indeed beg: SHOULD Hillary be allowed to remain in the Senate? Look, I don’t think that Hillary is trying to incite an assassination, but, her willingness to be as sleazy as possible to win (i.e., yes, I do believe that she was suggesting the possibility of such an event to make herself look viable) makes her unfit as a US Senator. In the short term, she should be censured at the very least.
May 24th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
And by the way, although it might appear that I am biased because of my support for Obama, my above position would be the same if the Democratic nominee was stating the same scenario about a Republican nominee. Just not cool.
May 24th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
“Alexander Cockburn is probably one of the best columnists working anywhere right now”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
May 25th, 2008 at 2:51 am
Hillary isn’t inciting assassination, she is unconsciously hoping for it. That’s Dr. Balter’s analysis of the situation.
And sorry if Jim R thinks it is in bad taste to think about how an Obama assassination might go down, but in fact that is what anyone concerned about his security should be thinking about–all the ways it could happen. Does the Secret Service not vet its recruits to make sure a potential assassin does not get in? Of course they do. Join the real world, man.
May 25th, 2008 at 4:06 am
The hysteria over the assassination comment is a little overwrought. The comment reveals Hillary’s increasingly elaborate delusion about this race more than any malign intent. It demonstrates that there is nothing there except naked ambition. But if you’re only just discovering this you might also like to know that there are 50 states in the US. 51 if you count Canada.
May 25th, 2008 at 8:09 am
Kevin…
Do you prefer Maureen Dowd or Peggy Noonan? How about Nick (State Department) Kristoff? Or could it be that you have a hankering for the nondescript tones of Bob Herbert?
May 25th, 2008 at 8:11 am
Dan O, so to contradict Obama, there really aren’t 57 states? (Of course, that’s not as serious as Dan Quayle misspelling potato.)
- – -
Remember how the pro-Hillay fanatics took over one of Marc’s posts? I found this interesting. For hillaryis44: “The 100,000 posts were written by 310 users.”
- – -
Believe it or not, I agree with Dr. Balter. While she may dream of Obama’s death when she in unconscious, Clinton is subconsciously hoping for it. What would you expect from someone who kills cats?
However, I’m surprised at the outrage over the suggestion that a Presidential candidate might be assassinated while most of the commenters here have been wishing for a double assassination of Bush and Cheney.
May 25th, 2008 at 8:42 am
“Alexander Cockburn is probably one of the best columnists working anywhere right nowâ€
Keep sending love-notes, and he might start publishing your stuff again.
May 25th, 2008 at 8:53 am
I don’t care to, since my ouevre is far more theoretical as it stands, and I don’t care for writing for certain aspects of CP’s audience.
Cockburn’s columns are consistently enjoyable. I don’t think there are many others about whom I could say the same.
May 25th, 2008 at 10:57 am
jcummings: “I don’t think there are many others about whom I could say the same.”
And yet, you are incessantly here! So, Marc is better than Cockburn? Most of us think so!
May 25th, 2008 at 11:50 am
Well Marc, thank you – your post is most welcome and so similar to Keith O’s broadcast of reality the other evening.
For anyone who for one non-cogent moment thought Shit Hills remarks were anything other than a less than subliminal wish full reality and dream for her that Barack would be blow off the planet, as the only way for her to become the nominee does not fully understand the insanity of the Clintons and their true feelings.
Me? — well after this election I am switching my registration to Independant as the Dem Party I now see is so totally ill, as ill as Hillary.
What do I mean by the above paragraph? The Dem Party has not supported Barack in fact have let his ass hang in the wind, rather endlessly — and now just shy of 50 or so delegates, still can’t get their ass of the fence to end this sick drama – and will wait till after the 3rd of June.
No matter any persons beliefs, in the Dem Party, how incredible that Barack has come this far, so far and has remained viable, against the OLD guard of his party. Quite remarkable in and of itself —–
I am exhausted and hanging tough for 10 more days, though this miasma should so totally have ended when Barack won 12 straight a couple of months ago……
May 25th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
“What do I mean by the above paragraph? The Dem Party has not supported Barack in fact have let his ass hang in the wind, rather endlessly — and now just shy of 50 or so delegates, still can’t get their ass of the fence to end this sick drama – and will wait till after the 3rd of June.”
Damn voters.
May 25th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
“Me? — well after this election I am switching my registration to Independant as the Dem Party I now see is so totally ill, as ill as Hillary.”
Jeezus – we’ve actually made a dent in the Beltway appartus, have non-coastal “moderates” like McCaskill, Napolitano and Sibelius throwing support behind the progressive, grass-roots candidate, have built an alternative small-donor fundraising base, have even seen a wedge evolve between old-school Senate Dems like Kennedy, Kerry, Leahy, etc. and the Clinton cult – and you think this is the time to bolt the party ? Please. The Democratic party is a fluid organism – sclerotic but it’s proven moveable. This isn’t the time to leave. It’s a time to look at the congressional races that need support in red and purple regions and up the ante against the Dem status quo. This isn’t about emotional gratification – it’s about nudging apparently immoveable objects within a stagnant political system. To paraphrase Michelle, for the first time in my life I’m not more than a bit embarrassed to call myself a Democrat and consider it simply a default position as opposed to seeing a party that has some significant signs of life in it.
May 25th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Something interesting about Hillary’s comment is how totally clueless and deceptive it was – leaving the RFK assassination reference out of it entirely. The only reason RFK was in the Ambassador Hotel the night he was killed in June of 1968 was because the California primary – which he’d just won – was in June rather than early February. Also, Bill Clinton had pretty much wound up the nomination before June of 1992. So, like Bill’s “Jesse Jackson” remark, it’s not just offensive in it’s implications, it’s based on false history (Jackson didn’t face steep competition in North Carolina when he ran – the eventual nominees ceded the state to him.)
May 25th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Jucmmings:
I’ll put in a good word with my old friend Alex to see if he can deign to start publishing you again once again for free on his site. I’m sure your theoretical oeuvre (sp?) will be a welcome counter punch (no pun intended) to his more earthly fare which celebrates Mumia Abu Jamal as a revolutionary, denies the existence of global warming, gives warm support to the NRA and all the other “entertaining” opinions of someone –some time ago–w e used to be able to take seriously.
May 25th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
That was South, not North Carolina…
May 25th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
“The Dem Party has not supported Barack in fact have let his ass hang in the wind, rather endlessly — and now just shy of 50 or so delegates, still can’t get their ass of the fence to end this sick drama”
It ain’t easy having to choose between two party priorities, a tan or a vagina.
Damn. Why do I say these things…….and I just got out of church. Forgive me Lord. Reg made me do it.
May 25th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
If Obama shuns Clinton as VP he creates the problem of how to address the Clinton legacy.
If he cannot tell voters that Democrats make good presidents, he can he expect them to vote for a Democrat for president?
And then there’s the fact the Hillary has won close to half the popular vote so far. The comparisons of her situation to Huckabee’s or even Romney’s is absurd. If Huckabee had pulled half the GOP primary voters, he’d be a shoo-in for the VP nomination.
May 25th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
To Jim R and Reg
Ah but you see Jim, I am not voting on tan or genitalia…nor do I believe Reg made you say that!,,,,,,though I am an Atheist trust me the Lord does not forgive you…LOL!
Reg – naw the Dems suck, just have been too lazy to change the past couple of decades, as I can vote for anyone in the primary or the general the way NV is set up, but as a protest, after Barack becomes the Prez I will change – the party does entirely disgust me, said the real old lady who no longer has an illusions.
May 25th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Yeah, Jim, it’s tough – must be comforting to know that with the GOP you’re going to be voting for a dick.
May 25th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Good news for Obama.
A co-chair of Clinton’s Hispanic council endorses Obama
Libertarians pick Bob Barr as their presidential candidate
Good news for America:
Phoenix Lands on Mars!
May 25th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
This rich:
“If Obama shuns Clinton as VP he creates the problem of how to address the Clinton legacy.”
It’s pretty obvious how Sen. Obama wants to address the Clinton: Let’s move on. It’s part of his basic stump speech that the nation get beyond all the tired old squabbling of the ’90′s and address the problems we have in front of us. No problem at all. And it certainly isn’t Obama’s problem that he’s creating. No. It’s a false sense of entitlement that Camp Clinton is trying morph onto Obama’s candidancy.
Seriously, why would Obama want hyper-ambitious Hillary Clinton as a running mate with all the baggage she’d bring along? Not to mention having Bill looking over his shoulder? That would be crazy.
However, having HRC as Veep, assuming Obama wins — made tougher, I’d argue with her on the ticket — does take the NY Senate seat away from her. Helluva silver lining to risk blowing an election Obama should ace.
May 25th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Thats quite alright…yeah I wrote for free, out of political commitment. Theoretically speaking, I don’t do the type of writing I did when I wrote for CP, so again, its quite alright.
Further, you are hitting on what I referred to as “questionable material.”
May 25th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Questionable material a CounterPunch?
Damn.
Does this mean Mumia is guilty?
May 25th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
I could write a 60 page book about the scum I encountered in that part of the so-called Left. AntiSemites, holocaust deniers, etc. Its too bad, because I really think a good 50 percent of what goes up on CP and Dissident Voice, etc. is quite good. The other is terrible.
May 25th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
Mumia is probably innocent but I think there are better people for which Anti-Death Penalty forces can congregate around.
May 25th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
Better than an innocent man? Wow.
Actually, I would read that 60-page book if you wrote it. That’s a little longer than I’m accustomed to, but sure, I’d put aside my Luois L’Amour for a Jcummings.
May 25th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
reg: “Yeah, Jim, it’s tough – must be comforting to know that with the GOP you’re going to be voting for a dick.”
Is Cheney running AGAIN? Damn…
May 26th, 2008 at 12:09 am
Dick would consider dick a compliment
May 26th, 2008 at 12:15 am
We need the little would be hitlers and napoleons in the world to think our next president is one too.
May 26th, 2008 at 5:55 am
“get beyond all the tired old squabbling of the ’90’s and address the problems we have in front of us. ”
Indeed. The squabbling of the ’90s is of two parts: one is the right-wing noise machine calling Clinton a rank liar because he tried to cover up a blow job and a cheat, even a murderer, because he invested in Whitewater and Vincent Foster died.
Two is the Hitchens faction of liberals who see Clinton as an apostate/failed Messaiah who, because he had the audacity to cut deals with Republicans who controlled congress, should be condemned as a traitor to the cause.
We certainly agree that Obama needs to move beyond that particular political tragedy.
But how? By validating the contrived grievances of factions one and two and thereby denying Hillary the VP nomination she very clearly deserves by virtue of having one almost half the Democratic primary votes?
What kind of message does it send that the Democratic nominee is unwilling to share the ticket with the wife of the most successful Democrat in our lifetimes?
Can Obama really make a credible claim that he’s going to rebuild the Democratic party from the ground up without really changing its fundamental princples? If he can’t, how can he skirt the plain fact that that almost exactly half the party is Hillbillary territory and not just by inertia, but by virtue of having chosen Hillary over Obama.
It won’t be enough to argue the Bush’s leadership was a disaster.
Obama will have to make the case that the Democrats could have done better. The only credible, factual, rational way he can do that is by citing Clinton’s successes and contrasting them with Bush’s performance, from the economy to national security to jurisprudence, the environment, health care and crime. If he refuses to nominate Hillary, it will be much, much harder, almost impossible, in fact, to make that case to the swing voters who matter.
Moreover, if Obama really wants to move the national dialog about race to a higher, more thoughtful, realistic plane, what better start that to acknowledge that all the “gotcha” barbs thrown at Hillary and Bill over comments that amounted to nothing more than demographic/political analysis, were just that and that Obama is big-minded enough to look beyond that to see what the Clinton’s as leaders have done throughout their lives to improve ethnic relations.
May 26th, 2008 at 6:56 am
“the most successful Democrat in our lifetimes”
This depends much on how you define success. You would think someone who built a legacy, someone who rebuilt the Democratic coalition, would have something to show for it–like, by getting other Democrats elected in subsequent elections. But instead it’s taken the incredible debacle of Bush to swing voters back around.
And you might want to go back and see what “cut deals” really meant.
This is all a tired old hash, and it bores me. you can’t see the Clintons for the venal hucksters they are. OK fine. Neither evidently, can, nearly–but not quite–half of the Democratic primary voters. Still, enough of them do see through it, and enough of the rest are inspired by Obama so that something other than the same old warmed over tripe might be on the menu when he becomes president.
And by the way, she doesn’t deserve shit. Since when did #2 become a reservation for the VP slot?
Lastly, the message it sends by not including her on the ticket, is manifold, including 1) what your spouse did is irrelevant, 2) we don’t need four to eight more years of shady semi-crooks in office, 3) that running and not persuading a majority of voters (an important yardstick you might agree) does not entitle you to a consolation prize and 4) that Obama, when the nominee, gets to make decisions for himself and not be saddled with an incredibly divisive figure, almost sure to hurt more than help.
May 26th, 2008 at 7:02 am
“This is all a tired old hash, and it bores me. you can’t see the Clintons for the venal hucksters they are.”
Is this great or what?
May 26th, 2008 at 7:23 am
The squabbling of the ’90s also includes a third group like me, who have never demonized the Clintons but see Bill, Hillary and the DLC that they have consistently represented as a a major part of the problem with the Democratic party. I have never succumbed to the right-wing Woody spin on the Clinton presidency, nor am I a “Hitchens liberal.” (I don’t actually consider Hitchens having been a liberal, ever. I don’t think he does either, which is why his pushing “regime change internationalism” allied with neoconservatives isn’t as far from his days as a Trotskyist as it might appear.)
Sure the Clinton presidency was preferable to Bush and included a reasonably competent cabinet, but the Clintons themselves were not paragons of liberal political leadership – or even competence – and still aren’t. As for “all they’ve done to improve ethnic relations,” screw that. A bit of idealism out of college, then on to corporate law ? What have they done politically that wasn’t minimal requirement to secure the black vote ? Their condecension to black people was palpable in Hillary’s Selma speech, complete with a fake black dialect. And as soon as Hillary lost the black vote to Obama she and Bill became the embodiment of racialized politics. She’s also become the candidate of gender identity, “Sharptonizing” the issue out of sheer opportunism.
“Liberal Conscience” Paul Krugman can assert that mandates for folks to buy health insurance, included in a string of campaign promises, is some keystone to “progressivism” (mainly because he’s too chickenshit to simply state his opinion boldly that a black guiy can’t get elected) but the fact is Hillary is a staunch AIPAC-DLC “liberal” and therefore should be avoided at all costs. Her Iraq vote, if not unforgiveable, was telling and she reinforced that one by siding with Kyl-Lieberman (the bill’s name says it all.)
Their personal drama and narcissism alone is enough to make me cheer as Hillary exits the national political stage. Let’s remember who brought Dick Morris to national prominence, to be followed with Mark Penn. Not to mention the foriegn policy hacks like Dick Holbrooke who populate her entourage of advisors. The Clintons have NO political courage – it’s all personal ambition and “electability.” Hillary brings NOTHING to the Democratic ticket among the broad electorate. The notion that white guys in West Virginia who allegedly voted for Hillary in the Dem primary because they don’t want to vote for a black guy are going to turn and embrace an Obama/HIllary ticket is nuts. Frankly, I doubt that many of them would have voted for Hillary in a McCain/Hillary matchup. I think Jim Webb would have a better shot at bringing them on board in November than Hillary as Veep. (Unfortunately, Webb is going to be crucified for remarks he made nearly thirty years ago dissing women in combat units – so that most compelling of Democratic “unity” tickets, between a black guy with a complex family history and an Ivy League education, who learned his political skills on the south side of Chicago and a white guy from a military family who openly articulates the class and ethnic resentments of the Appalachian corridor – ain’t gonna happen.) As for Gloria Steinem, Ferraro, et. al. they’ll come back into the fold (and the rest of us will hold our noses) but, the truth is, they represent a tiny faction of Hillary’s female supporters. This intensity is on the surface among blowhards and hacks who see Hillary’s candidacy as their feminist “Sharpton moment.”
May 26th, 2008 at 7:34 am
I wouldn’t conflate the DLC with AIPAC normally. Clinton angered AIPAC at some points (Hilary with Suha, etc.) and AIPAC’s biggest enforcers are nominally progressive, like Waxman and Frank.
May 26th, 2008 at 7:48 am
Everybody who isn’t an insane fanatic is in danger of angering AIPAC at some point. That’s the essence of their political strategy.
May 26th, 2008 at 10:27 am
Bunkster,
I thought I had decent rejoinder ready to go against to your last counter, but Dan O and reg pretty much have it summed up, and then some.
“This intensity is on the surface among blowhards and hacks who see Hillary’s candidacy as their feminist “Sharpton moment.â€
LOL
May 26th, 2008 at 11:01 am
And by the way, the fundamental principles of the Democratic party were changed first when they largely abandoned labor to the vagaries of race-to-the-bottom international wage competition, and second when the DLC adopted a cozy corporate love-in stance, much like a cat sidles up against your leg, except not as cute.
More than a few of us think that the Democratic party needs desperately to have its fundamental principles changed, and Hillary is absolutely, positively, never was and never will be, that person.
I think the lessons of politics are cyclical. The lessons of the Depression are learned and then 70 years later they are unlearned only to be stuffed back in our faces in an unpleasant manner. The lessons that led to the Progressive movement are learned and then unlearned as a whole stinky culture of war-profiteering, tort reform, lobbying corruption and generally accepted legal corruption in government and business leads us to the most disgusting political landscape in generations. My point in this little diatribe is that Hillary is on the wrong side of this cycle. That’s why people like me don’t like her, or the DLC.
May 26th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
The fundamental principles of the Democratic party changed when they didn’t fight Taft Hartley.
May 26th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
The Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy:
May 26th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Damn. Why do I say these things…….and I just got out of church. Forgive me Lord.
Please see this.
May 26th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
It’s easy and even fun to slag the Clintons. I have done it aplenty myself right here on this blog.
Please remember as well that before reg became an obama fan, he expended thousands of words defending Hillary as a viable candidate who would make an effective, if imperfect, president. I get a sense that he’s let the campaign circus clowns throw him off his game.
Reg writes: “Bill, Hillary and the DLC that they have consistently represented as a major part of the problem with the Democratic party.”
The problem isn’t with the Democratic party, per se, but with the American left, which has a cultural preference for self-destructive moral narcissism. Ironically, the pinnacle of that proclivity is the purist, holier-than-thou Clinton bashing that blames Bill for being the only re-electable Democrat since FDR.
Where reg and Rob and Dan O give away their game is in their transparent omission of historical comparisons. Who do they measure Clinton against? FDR? Carter? Johnson? Of course not. The only worthy comparison in their mind is with some imagined Christ of Liberalism who instantly vanquishes America’s 30 percent or so of identity conservatives with the wave of his hand at no cost and moves on to expand welfare infinitely, provide free health care for all, banish money in politics and maintain a color-blind stance for white people and a color-emphatic one for everyone else.
To be fair, reg does allow that Clinton was better than Bush, but he still leaves other comparisons out.
Liberal Clinton bashers real gripe is with America’s left and its failure to build a viable political and mass media base. As both Bill and Hillary have demonstrated beyond doubt, they surf America’s mass media and politics, they don’t make the waves themselves.
The Clinton antipathy might have a shred of credibility if Bill’s fevered Democratic critics could answer one simple question: Which president since FDR has done more for the left and, indeed, has been a better president?
Bottom line: Clinton was deeply flawed both as an individual and as a president, but, alas, the BEST we’ve ever known. Grow up and accept that and when you do, it will be obvious what Hillary brings to the party.
May 26th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
BB, defending ponscum: “Which president since FDR has done more for the left?
Clinton did jack shit for the left, except on cultural issues.
Eisenhower’s CIA helped Castro for a while, before Dulles et. al pegged him as a communist. Eisenhower also gave the “military industrial complex” speech.
LBJ, flawed international thug that he was, did very much increase the scope of the Welfare State and did much progressive work in domestic policy.
Nixon did more for the left, with his expansion of environmental protection and cracking down on discrimination in the civil service, not to mention detente and relations with China.
If there’s a bigger thug faux lib idol than Bill Clinton, its the thug JFK, who tried to kill Castro twice a day, killed Lumumba, etc, escalated Vietnam, and was the original DLC centrist, beating out the progressive forces in his partyand outflanking Nixon from the right on foreign policy.
May 26th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Oh what incredibly low standards you bring to the party. Only a masochist could say “Which president since FDR has done more for the left and, indeed, has been a better president?” and conclude that because none was better we should be exultant in what we got no matter how weak the sauce. You survey the landscape, claim to find a giant amongst mice, and then berate us for distortion when we point out that the giant you claim to see is only a mouse after all. If you were a professor of college courses everyone would get an A, that’s the scale of your inflation.
To get to your point, it is precisely FDR who I measure him against, and frankly who I measure all Democrats against. That’s my personal inclination. Doesn’t have to be anyone else’s.
And to answer your question directly, LBJ (I admit the Viet Nam war was a serious fucking mother of a problem), on domestic issues was truly a giant next to the squeaking Clinton, who could never fill his shoes.
It’s you, really, tilting at straw men, who lacks the historical context, since you seem bereft of the history that happen a little more than 10 years ago, and which is most relevant to your errant claim of relative greatness. I just can’t get my head around how utterly small your ambition for this party is.
May 26th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
I just can’t get my head around how utterly small your ambition for this party is.
Give jcummings a break, for crying out loud. He has no ambitions for the Democratic Party. He views it with ironic detatchment and contempt. And how can you you say he has a shaky grasp of context? He studies the Scientist of History! Plus, the stuff he writes is too theoretical for CounterPunch!
May 26th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
I don’t think I’m “too theoretical for CounterPunch”, I think that I don’t write advocacy journalism at this point in my political trajectory. If Counterpunch is in the habit of publishing long disquisitions on the controversy surrounding human agency and issues of conciousness and the revolutionary implications of cognitive science, then I’d send them my work. I’d rather wait for at least a chapter in some obscure journal.
It takes all kinds.
May 26th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
To our friend BB:
Again, I’ll defer to Dan O — and also jc (seriously, excellent points about JFK) — on the historical perspective.
However, I think this ‘historical perspective’ question you insist on asking is itself an over wrought distraction. We’re not having an election with history, it’s 2008 and only one of these three humans — Clinton, Obama, or McCain — will be our next president. Neither FDR, DDE, JFK, LBJ, RMN, nor the TVA is on the ballot. Besides, don’t all the candidates, including Clinton, say “… this election is about the future?”
Circling back to HRC, please take another read at the top of the post by Marc. From “Shall we list the ways…down through “…And now Hillary is losing because Obama is, well, still alive.” Now which, exactly, do you fail to see? Which is so inaccurate that it must be crossed off? This ensemble of craziness is convincing enough. But hey, just looking at the list, one is almost tempted to play a sort of Nostradamus game and predict what the next glib hysterical bit of nonsense Clinton might engage in. Wasn’t Clinton the first woman to survey Mars? Oh, never mind. How can you not concede that Sen Clinton is nothing but a walking set of bulls-eye targets that the Republicans would only be way too happy to campaign against?
It’s just a matter of time, but she ‘is history.’
May 27th, 2008 at 4:38 am
Dan O asserts: “Oh what incredibly low standards you bring to the party.”
Actually, my point has been to invoke standards, period. Desires are not standards. Visions of what American liberals could be or should be are not standards. And the kind of Alice-in-Wonderland jcummings inanities that have Nixon as a friend of the American left are definitely not standards.
Specifically, we need a historical standard for comparison. Even Dan O admits that he’s got to go back to FDR to find someone that even compares to Clinton.
FDR would be pilloried today as a lying, sexist, racist, elitist warmonger and, in the context of today’s politics, the charges would be true, (assuming we’d be talking about the same FDR that was president in an utterly different age in America.)
If we want to speak about “standards” then we need to compare Clinton’s performance to that of the presidents just before him and just after him.
When we look at what Clinton did for the environment, organized labor and the poor, there is simply no comparison with the track records of Reagan, Bush I and Bush II on those issues.
Just one tiny example: the EPA’s agreement to test for health hazards from BPAs (a type of plastic). The Clinton administration fought hard and won an agreement to start testing in 2001. Prior to the Clinton administration, the plastics industry had steadfastly refused to do so and no one in government could make them do it. Of course, by 2001 Gore had lost the presidency in no small part by distancing himself from Clinton. Bush took over and the EPA never performed the tests and still hasn’t.
There are THOUSANDS of stories like this, but, ironically, the moral narcissist faction of the American left would rather dwell on the sensational faux scandals spun up by the right wing noise machine than on the thousands of small ways Clinton leadership helped this country.
Dan O has at least one thing dead right:
My ambitions for the Democratic party are small. Indeed, my ambitions for democracy itself are small.
As Americans we’re taught to worship democracy and indeed it is a wonderful thing, but only in relation to the alternatives. But the biggest mistake is to assume that democracy is an effective way to solve social, geopolitical or economic or environmental problems.
Objectively speaking, democracy is to leadership what McDonald’s is to hamburgers. Even when democracy does what it’s supposed to, or especially when it does, our leaders are no less selfish, undereducated and careless than the average voter.
As Molly Ivins quipped: If the Texas legislature were not full of liars, thieves and misanthropes, it would no longer be a representative body. (She could have been talking about any legislature in the country, for that matter.)
Democracy promises only to deliver a government that won’t kill all of us or steal everything from us, but surely we can’t expect them to solve the more difficult problems we confront as a people.
Obama is a spectacular leader, apparently, far superior to what we can see in Hillary and on par with Bill’s talents. Who knows, he may even do better than Bill and, given the historical moment, there is some reason to believe he’ll get the chance.
But know this, he can only do what he has full political support to do. About 30 percent of the country comprises people like Woody or Jim R who are conservative as a matter of identity. No fact and no logic will dissuade them ever and they are vocal, vehement and not without willing sponsors. Obama, like Clinton, will face a very well financed, unprincipled opposition and a hostile news media.
At the moment, there is some willingness by the media to give him a fair shake–much as there was with Bill Clinton early on. But at the first sign of scandal or blood of any other kind, they will pounce, as will the howling moral narcissist jackals of high-dudgeon journalism commentary.
At that moment, Obama will probably gain a whole new respect for the Clinton worldview.
What do I put my have “higher ambitions” for? Education, grass roots organizing and political action that aims to win hearts and minds, then lets elections take care of themselves.
May 27th, 2008 at 5:23 am
Obama: “On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes — and I see many of them in the audience here today – our sense of patriotism is particularly strong.”
And you want this guy for president? He makes more gaffes in a week than Dan Quayle did in a fortnight! Hillary and McCain aren’t any better, just different! Oh what a jolly mess we have with all the believers in the Obamessia
May 27th, 2008 at 5:42 am
GM Roper, friend of George W. Bush, worries that a president who misspeaks might make a mess of the country.
Umm, GM, I’m sure even you would agree that no matter what you think of Obama, he will be far, far less likely to mangle words than W, who still has yet to master the art of speaking in sentences.
And you call yourself a wingnut? At the very minimum, you need to remember that the RNC talking point is that “speaking pretty” is a reason for suspicion, not support.
Now go to bed and say three hail Reagans and two our father who art in bankruptcies…
May 27th, 2008 at 6:15 am
I don’t want to turn Marc’s blog into our personal debating society, bunker, so I’ll only abuse it one more time.
“he’s got to go back to FDR to find someone that even compares to Clinton.” You rather get that backwards, and thus miss the whole point.
I have to agree with Cummings on this one, and I’ve been saying it for years, in many substantive ways, Nixon was more liberal than Clinton. I won’t try to make the case now, but you would be surprised. And the Republicans have moved far to the right since then. The problem is the Clintons insist on chasing them.
In the end, your problem is that you compare Clinton to Bush. That’s fine, but you’ve stacked the deck. Of course he looks like a giant next to that turd. But could you set the bar any lower?
That seems to be the difference here, I expect all the bullshit that Republicans get up to, but I expect more from my Democratic representatives. You don’t; you just want them to be a little tiny bit better than their counterparts. I find that to be a bit sad.
May 27th, 2008 at 6:26 am
G.M., so Obama sees dead people, but wasn’t Dan Quayle’s misspelling of “potato” more deserving of being beaten to death by the press? I see dead potatoes.
May 27th, 2008 at 7:49 am
BB: “Umm, GM, I’m sure even you would agree that no matter what you think of Obama, he will be far, far less likely to mangle words than W, who still has yet to master the art of speaking in sentences.”
So, mangling IDEAS is better than mangling words? Actually, I’ve been pissed at a lot of things GWB has done (and has not done). As a conservative, he is far to liberal in some areas. McCain even moreso. But just because GWB is not my cup of tea all the time doesn’t mean he hasn’t done some good things. Even Clinton I did some good things, change welfare rules, NAFTA… you know, those things that we knuckle dragging neandertholic conservatives/devils/neo-cons/evil ones like. [/sarcasm]
May 27th, 2008 at 8:11 am
Nixon: “We’re all Keynesians now”
Clinton: “The era of big government is over”
May 27th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Well then, jcummings and Dan O can at least know they have their very own niche as curators of the Liberals for Nixon corner in the Whittier 7-Eleven at Fourth and Main.
Or better yet, maybe they can set up shop in some San Clemente Starbucks. The atmosphere there would be far more conducive to fingerpainting. And how much better to make this shrine close to where the Bomber of Cambodia sunned his himself in his waning years as a pardoned war criminal.
What drives Dan O and JC to make such absurdist claims is their notion that electoral politics directly shapes society. Really, the two are interactive but by far the more powerful, lasting effect is that of society on electoral politics.
Clinton didn’t chase the right, it chased him and no one doubts that. Thus “triangulation.” Granted, the strategy left Democrats with some problems they’re still working through. But that doesn’t mean it was a failure at the time, under the circumstances.
Whether or not Obama picks Hillary as his VP, he will still be presiding over a country where almost half of the people who bothered to vote very recently cast ballots for George W. Bush not once on a lark, but TWICE.
The GM Ropers are only a minority, but they are loud and persistent and have an almost unimaginable sense of ideological entitlement. And in the past decade especially, corporate America has seen them as ready and willing dupes for their agenda. That’s a formula for power that Obamanationists can’t just wish away.
The American right will be in hot pursuit of Obama who, while elected as a liberal scourge of all that is Bushism, will nonetheless be president of all the people.
I’d bet he’ll do an even better job than Clinton did of navigating past the torpedoes Fox News Channel, the wingnutosphere and its sponsors send his way. But I’d bet even more that when he does start maneuvering, the moral narcissist liberal faction will declare him a failure and Dan O and JC will get to add an Obama shelf to their Liberals for Nixon cartoon library, wherever it may be.
May 27th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
BB…
I think they are all crooks and war criminals. My point is specifically on economic issues, Nixon was to the left of every president since him.
May 27th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
There is a notion that I believe that “notion that electoral politics directly shapes society. Really, the two are interactive but by far the more powerful, lasting effect is that of society on electoral politics.”
I actually agree with BB. But he misses out on the real universal, which is, as Marx puts it, the “relationship between ruler and ruled” being the corresponding form and its inner secret being that of the economy, and its current form with the naked antagonism of labour and capital.
On the question of that relationship, Clinton was a horror show.
May 27th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
And your notion of “president of all the people” is just such ideological fetishism of formal electoral politics that your statement is beyond hypocritical. In any populist model of electoral politics, a politician is the voice of his supporters, not “president of all society.”
May 27th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
I kind of actually agree, too, with the assertion that the left is most to blame for presidents like Clinton governing from the center/right. Very true. When FDR began campaigning in late 1931, his policy positions were remarkably similar to Herbert Hoover. No “New Deal” here; and in fact FDR didn’t really advocate very much of what became the New Deal in his campaign at all. It was only after labor unions, self-help groups, farmer co-ops/organizations leaned on him – and the possibility of a domestic uprising similar to that against the British in 1776 – that the wealthy FDR backed down and allowed some incomplete, but important, social safety nets to be created. Difference between now and then? People don’t seem to organize anymore. Perhaps they would if things continue to get worse in this country. I can tell you this: The march on Washington in the sixties to end the Vietnam will look like a picnic gathering if a mandatory draft is enacted to spread around “the sacrifice.” This war in Iraq would have been done three years ago.
May 27th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Vietnam “War”, I meant.
May 27th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
BB, you are too much!
Obama now claims his Uncle helped liberate Auschwitz in 1945. Only problem is that in Jan 1945 we were just digging out of the Battle of the Bulge and had not crossed the Rhine yet. It was the Russians that liberated Auschwitz.
And this bumbling idiot is who you are proclaiming the bright one. Laughing my ass off.
May 27th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
GM Roper, since when did “fallen” mean “dead?” At least to the exclusion of paralyzed or brain-injured or missing a limb? You believe Obama is a “bumbling idiot?” Good. The more rightists who write him off, whether due to perceived problems with his name, his race, his experience or, in your case, his intelligence, the better. Because when mid-October rolls around, you are all going to be thinking, “well, I don’t care what the polls say, Americans aren’t going to vote for this dumb, inexperienced, black Muslim.” You will still be laughing your asses off. And Obama–with all his “faults:–is going to win the election.
May 27th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Obama’s great-uncle – who is still alive – was a member of the 89th infantry that liberated Buchenwald, not Auschwitz. Obama confused the two camps.
Presumably GM considers Ronald Reagan, who “remembered” visiting and filming Nazi concentration camps at the close of WWII – which of course he’d never done at all – a total idiot and spent 8 years laughing his ass off at the old fabulist.
May 27th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
I find it amazing these candidates are able to remember as many of the thousands of details they are expected to, and under the lights of thousands of reporters just waiting for their f—king chance in the headlines. Leaches.
Obama’s simple slip is a petty non-story. And the more time reporters waste sucking on binkies like this, as apposed to spending some time in the Chicago’s far left wing incubator Obama was nurtured in for example, the more they look like air headed political paparazzi.
One obvious question would be “Senator Obama, given you were part of the political system in Chicago as a community organizer, and it is one of the most dysfunctional cities in our country, what do you think you could do differently as President you and your political friend’s liberal approach was not able to accomplish in Chicago? Senator Obama, what is a ‘community organizer’ exactly in Chicago?”
May 27th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Another important and relevant question: “Senator Obama. Where you aware the educational system in Chicago was hiring radicals, with unrepentant terrorist backbrounds, to teach the innocent children and young adults in your city? Were you aware, that even after being exposed by rare competent reporters, the dysfunctional and unprofessional educational administration in your city has still done nothing to correct this appalling problem?”
May 27th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Questions about the Chicago educational system might be relevant had Obama served on the school board or was an alderman. But he held state office. Of course, the state university system hired Bill Ayers, but do you really think that the legisture should be investigating the politics of university hires ? The truth about Bill Ayers and his wife’s post-”revolutionary” success in the upper echelons of the educational and foundation world has more to do with his father – Tom Ayers’ – position at the pinnacle of Chicago’s corporate and philanthropic elite (CEO of Commonwealth Edison, trustee of the Tribune Corp. and chairman of the board of Northwestern University) than any left-wing cabal.
May 27th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
GM, Obama’s verbal slip was unfortunate; but compare that to his general election opponent who does not know at all what the hell is going on *presently* in Iraq, and has to have Lieberman fill him in on basic facts that even bright middle schoolers could have filled him in on. To me, the the Phil Gramm/John McCain conflict of interest shenanigans unveiled today was a far bigger story than this little blip about not getting the right concentration camp name correct….or maybe Bush’s former Press Secretary (!) making fun of the notion of a “liberal media.”
May 28th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
David is correct that the most interesting info r released in excerpts of the McClellan book is his analysis of the slavish surrender of the supposedly liberal media. We get already that the Bush administration lied. We tend to forget how Field Marshall Blitzer and the crew nodded sagely at every contradictory explanation for our entry into war.
May 28th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Interesting indeed. McClellan’s very candid statements about the media rank with Weekly Standard editor William Kristol’s own ridicule of the notion of a liberal media in an interview a few years ago, when he said that Republicans fan these imaginary flames to “play the refs.”
Still, I am not at all impressed with McClellan coming out long after the fact, in time to cash in on a big book deal, ala Richard Clarke. So now we have to pay our thirty dollars on Amazon or Barnes and Noble to get an accurate telling of events. We deserve the truth about corruption at the time that it happens, for free.