This editorial endorsement of Obama really says it all:
Contrary to Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign slogan, we believe Barack Obama is more likely to be “ready on Day One” to lead us in a new direction. Because of his experience.
Sure, Clinton has more “experience” of a sort. For one thing, she has 14 more years on earth. How much of this experience is directly applicable to the job of president is, at best, debatable.
We are frankly troubled by her assumption that her husband’s administration and accomplishments were her own. And if her equation holds, that the first spouse is an equal partner in the administration, then the reappearance of Bill Clinton in the White House is a prospect we have a hard time reconciling with the work that needs to be done.
THERE IS a way to match Clinton’s and Obama’s performances on a relatively equal playing field: their campaigns.
A candidate’s campaign may be the best indicator of how she or he will govern. If so, an Obama administration would be well-managed, inclusive and astonishingly broad-based. It would make good use of technology and communicate a message of unity and, yes, hope.
It would not be content with eking out slim victories by playing to the narrow interests of the swing voters of the moment while leaving the rest of the country as deeply divided as ever. Instead, an Obama administration would seek to expand the number of Americans who believe that they have a personal stake in our collective future – and that they have the power to change things.
It would motivate them to hold their representatives accountable for making it happen. That is, after all, the only way to get us out of Iraq, to address global warming, to make us energy-independent. It’s the only way to resist the forces arrayed against providing universal health care, rebuilding our infrastructure and returning our schools to world-class status. It’s the only way to give our children the means to compete with children in other parts of the world who are healthier, better-educated and have more opportunities than many of our own.
Yes. This. Accountability. I am willing to put aside the many differences I have with Clinton and Obama for that alone. Accountability. Responsibility. I simply can not take four more years of “No one could have predicted” bullshit. I can not take four more years of debating the merits of abstinence only or stem cell bullshit while Baghdad burns and the housing market melts down.
Accountability. Priorities. Responsibility. I don’t agree with Obama or Hillary on a lot of things, but they are issues about which I don’t agree with most Democrats (and yes, I am aware this sentence sucks but I am too lazy to rewrite it). But when I look at the two campaigns, only one looks like it will end the crap we have endured for the past eight years, while the other looks content to keep serving it up to us.
Reverend Spooner
Bush really was a Uniter, not a Divider. He’s put every sane American into the Big Tent of the Democratic Party. We’re all voting against insanity now. Except for the crazies and the fools, of course.
Billy K
And the Marshies. Oh, wait…
Incertus
Now–will their news coverage reflect their editorial position, or will it be more of the same old bullshit?
Jamey
This is what I tells my Republican-voting in-laws, I sez: “Barack Obama is unique among the remaining candidates in that he won’t make voters who cast their lot with the other guy feel like chumps. He won’t make Repubs into Dems, nor make lions lie down with lambs, but neither will Obama make voters who backed the other guy feel like they have no stake in his success as this country’s chief executive.
We need elected officials who are competent and dedicated to making government do better–and, if necessary, do more. But possibly more important is that we have a president who is aware of the symbolic role that office holds.
Shorter Jamey: “Obama seems least likely of the three candidates to drop a steamer on America.”
Notorious P.A.T.
Yes. I like the observation that candidates govern like they campaign. That has been my observation as well. George W campaigned with deceit and division, his utter lack of experience and qualification screaming forth at every turn. Bill Clinton ran as a centrist “third way” Democrat who felt people’s pain with the occasional distraction of adulterous affairs. George H W Bush campaigned like someone with experience and competence but a lack of vision. Reagan campaigned as someone who would put a warm, smiley face on ultra-right-wing policies. And so on.
I’ve said it before: why shouldn’t I believe Hillary Clinton would govern the way she is campaigning?
ed
Sen. Clinton has been in charge of two national level projects-heath care reform in the Clinton administration and her own current presidential campaign. Ready on Day One? I think not.
Although I am one of the aging baby boomers, it is time to put the devisiveness of the 60’s (which has morphed into mindless liberal vs. conservative nonsense) to rest. A new generation deserves a chance to forge a new national dialogue that goes beyond the current accomplish nothing choice between the Limbaughs and the Move-On.orgs. Two baby boomer presidents are quite enough. Next, please.
Zifnab
That’s the real rub. These wouldn’t even be issues if the GOP hadn’t dregged them up to win votes. Who would have honestly been against stem cell research ten years ago? Who would have honestly been against even mentioning birth control or for openly lying about condom failure rates to high schoolers?
These aren’t non-issues because they are less important. They’re non-issues because your options are between “using common sense” and “embracing hysterical bullshit”.
My god, I can’t wait till Nov ’08.
Dennis - SGMM
It would also not blame setbacks and reverses on ephemera nor would it say that those setbacks don’t count.
Phoenix Woman
Read the transcript of last night’s travesty and compare it to the questions asked at YearlyKos last year. The Kossacks put the “journalists” to shame.
smiley
Keep me out of this. And anyway, how do know if my face is warm?
Billy K
I give up. How do we know if your face is warm?
AkaDad
This is basically why I originally supported the MUP.
Original Lee
You go, John. That is exactly right. I tried to explain to my GOP-leaning parents last night, but not as well as you did here. Obama has taught the Constitution and appears to believe we should be paying attention to it. He owns up to his mistakes. He treats us like adults. Plus, Michelle rocks. I caught a clip of her speaking to a townhall group over the weekend, and wow!
Cris
And I thought Bruce Springsteen’s endorsement would be the best one of the day.
The Philly editorial is one of those great pieces where the author says exactly what I’ve been thinking, only phrases it better than I’ve been able to.
Martin
I don’t think that’s a two-way street, to be honest. I great campaigner can be a horrific executive. Anyone with any experience working for a boss can probably appreciate this.
But I think it’s fair to say that anyone who can’t manage a campaign is unlikely to be able to manage the executive branch. So failure here tells us something, but success doesn’t really.
Fuck the Kossacks. Go back to the YouTube debates. Retards with webcams put the journalists to shame. Shit, my 10 year old son quit his classroom newspaper because the two girls who were editors stacked the front page with pro-Clinton propaganda – one on Wright and one on whether it was fair that some people were asking Hillary to drop out. He was smart enough to see through the shit. He wanted to see one article on where each candidate stood on education, seeing as it as a school exercise.
Punchy
Honestly, I’ve just settled into the mindset that we’ll have strong majorities in both houses and a Preznit McCane. This way, if we do win the Preznitcy, it’s all gravy. But at this point, I don’t see it, and I’m tired of kidding myself by thinking that Clinton will somehow drop out to let HUESSIEN OSAMA win.
TR
Nice editorial.
Has Obama now swept the newspaper endorsements? I know he’s taken the main papers in Philly, Pittsburgh, Scranton, Allentown….
Hillary has what? The Scaife rag?
AkaDad
I’m a Kossack. What do you have against DailyKos? Their sole purpose is to elect progressive Democrats. That’s not a radical agenda.
Zifnab
I’m a retard with a webcam. What do you have against YouTube?
Rick Taylor
As for Democrats versus Republicans, I want a party in power that is reality based. People can have different views about how we address the problems were facing, but when they start spinning fantasies about what the circumstances actually are, it’s a recipe for disaster. There are three points where the Republican party is frighteningly out of touch with reality.
(1) You cannot continually reduce taxes while spending money on the government performing the services both parties expect it to without it eventually leading to fiscal meltdown. Decreasing taxes will decrease, not increase revenues (it is incredible I have to write these words, as McCain has said otherwise) McCain is promising to eliminate the AMT, make the Bush tax cuts permanent, continue the war in Iraq, pursue other tax cuts, and to balance the budget. He might as well promise to flap his arms really hard on election day and fly.
It is stunning to me that with few exceptions, Republicans have taken flight from reality as far as federal budgetary issues are concerned. Growing up, I remember when conservatism was synonymous with hard nosed economic realism. This one issue alone ought to disqualify McCain as a serious candidate for the highest office in the country.
2) The Iraq war was fought under false pretenses, the causus beli was utterly discredited, and the result has been millions of refugees, hundreds of thousands of deaths, a new haven for terrorists, the potential for further war, and the blackening of our reputation throughout the Middle East. Reasonable people might disagree how the hell we should best extricate ourself from this clusterfuck of our own making. But at the very minimum, the people in charge should at least acknowledge reality, that this really is a clusterfuck that should never have been undertaken in the first place. Putting our troops in Iraq indefinitely with no clear goal spelled out in the vague hope that eventually things will get better and the people who originally pushed for this mess will be vindicated should not be on the table.
This reason alone ought to utterly disqualify McCain from consideration for the Presidency.
(3) Global warming is real, we don’t know what the consequences of it are uncertain but they look to be worse than we originally expected rather than better, and the scientific community is screaming we have to start doing something about this now.
Of these three issues, this is the only one where McCain is at least acknowledging reality (with much wailing and gnashing of teeth by the right wing). I’m still waiting to hear what what he proposes to do about it, but at least on one of the three most important issues facing this nation, McCain is not living in a fantasy-land.
So that sums it up. None of this should be controversial, the three above points ought to be the starting point for debate, and the fact that they’re being eclipsed by issues of who one candidates minister was or whether he wore a lapel pin just shows how shockingly frighteningly out of touch this country is.
Evinfuilt
I think he’s more saying that the Kossacks don’t need to be compared to journalism to see how far journalist have fallen. You can go straight to youtube and see how bad journalism is.
Its not an insult to DailyKos readers/diarists, its just saying that thats not a fair comparison (it makes Dailykos look worse off.)
DailyKos readers are well informed, so you can expect well informed questions. But could you have expected the quality of questions that we got from YouTube in comparison to last nights travesty.
The Other Steve
It’s more complicated then just being for or against, but you are right on the common-sense thing.
There are moral arguments with regards to stem cell research that need to be addressed.
The problem with Bush’s way of responding, is he took the moral arguments out of the public debate. He said the public doesn’t even get a say. They’re all in the corporate hands now.
I think it’s sad how the public has been bamboozled by this.
D0n Camillo
This editorial does a very nice job of distilling the essence of the different camapaigning styles of the two candidates. Back in January, I was still saying that it didn’t matter who won the Democratic nomination as I would be thrilled to have any of the candidates as President. They all made such a refreshing contrast to the cranky, crazy white bread Republican lineup. My only two concerns with Clinton were her AUMF vote and the fact that we have only had presidents named Bush and Clinton since 1988. Neither of those concerns were deal killers, however.
After the past two months I have a completely different view of her. I can’t stand her now. I really see no objective difference between her campaigning methods and those of W in 2000 and 2004. I’d vote for her if she were to pull off a miracle and get the no,mination, but Lord knows I sure as hell wouldn’t like it.
Martin
Exactly. I’m a Kossack as well.
The Other Steve
The Laugher curve proves otherwise!
Chubbs
It just seems so hopeless. Over and over again, the kind of tripe that gets played incessantly on cable news and now, NATIONAL TV when it comes to politics is so depressing.
To have people in the news, who probably make three to four times what the average American salary to act like they speak for the “average” American is so pathetic. To continually be bogged down in the inconsequential, while people are struggling with real world issues is so mind numbing that I can’t even express my dissatisfaction anymore.
I have come to believe that while Republicans certainly have screwed this nation the last eight years, the far bigger danger and/or problem is the media’s actions.
I am so through someone like Maureen Dowd, who epitomizes the “elite”, get the pages of a national newspaper to complain about how Obama doesn’t relate to salt of the earth people like her. How can anybody take these people seriously?
When Hillary and other people say that Obama has more to answer about Rev. Wright, what the F are they talking about? The guy has answered those questions for a month. What else does he need to answer?
May GOD have mercy on this country because we are in a hand basket and about to be Fedex’d straight to hell and all anyone cares about is who will be wearing an American flag lapel pin when we reach the gate. Unbelievable.
Billy K
Dammit. I was about to pop some corn.
zzyzx
Once again we can see the effect of these attacks on the favorable/unfavorable ratings. Clinton is successfully lowering Obama’s slightly. He’s at 48/50. The only problem is that she’s shredding her own to do so, down now to 42/56.
A 14 point net negative on that is pretty hard to overcome.
Martin
Reagan’s economists that proposed the cuts were clear on that point. Their hope was that for every $3 that they lost in tax revenue, that they might get $1 back due to economic expansion – and that was at a time when the economy was really in the shitter. But they had no disillusions that they were losing at least $2 and possibly $3. As it turned out, they did get the $1 back, after all.
So, there is an expectation that revenues will go up *from the reduced level guaranteed by the cuts* but there is no chance in hell that they will go up to the level before the cuts.
And the lower the tax rate you start from, the less of a rebound you get. So when the top marginal rate was over 50%, this worked better than when it’s around 30%.
The GOP tax notions are simply to bankrupt the country. Once bankrupt, they finally get to turn off the shit they don’t like because we have no choice – and everything gets privatized. We turn into AnnRyndistan.
Martin
She’s counting on 4 years to overcome it at this point, I’m afraid.
zzyzx
If she doesn’t drop out soon and Obama loses, there will be way too much anger at her for her to get the 2008 nomination.
AkaDad
I’m in a cranky mood today, and I think you’re right that I missed his point. I blame it on sleep deprivation.
Jen
I have a techie question. I was at TPM. There’s an Obama ad up about early voting in North Carolina, click to find your early voting location.
Is that ad running for everyone? Or just me because I’m in NC? I KNOW I’m a tech moron and will do myself the favor of pointing and laughing, just skip to the answer, kthxbye.
D0n Camillo
Jen,
I’ve noticed ads that are geared toward where I live (San Francisco Bay Are) too. They can tell roughly by your IP address where in the US you are accessing them from.
ThymeZone
Well, that editorial pretty well expresses the very thought processes that many of us here have followed and come to the same conclusion.
{ my lapel pin beats your lapel pin }
zzyzx
2012, not 2008, but you knew what I meant.
Jen
Get your $8,000/month apartment with FREE anal plugs now while supplies last…
I’m totally kidding. The envy seethes inside me and bubbles over. It’s slightly bitter, kind of an endive-flavored envy.
I would very very much like to be there, although it’s pretty here today and Obama is speaking about 5 miles away..
Thanks very much for answering!
ThymeZone
We call them Freshness Seals.
Dennis - SGMM
Accountability is so pre-9/11.
Conservatively Liberal
What does a guy do when he drops his keys in San Francisco?
He kicks them to Oakland. ;)
PanAmerican
I’m now thinking she’s going all in for 2008 with a third party run. She has a stack of general election money and the odds of her winning a three way split are low but better than being yesteryears news in 2012.
The Other Steve
I was thinking.
Is anybody planning to host a debate with John McCain 2000 and John McCain 2008?
Conservatively Liberal
Kos is freaking out. I hit the front page, and instead I get articles from two years ago and I can’t get to the front page. The Rec list keeps disappearing, and the page formatting goes nuts. I wonder if it the load they are getting. Right now, I load the front page and I get a diary by ePluribus Media called “Research, David Horowitz, and Control of Our Public Universities”, dated Mon Mar 20, 2006 at 06:00:21 AM PDT.
WTF?! This has been going on for the last two days now.
The Other Steve
Well, they will go up to the level before the cuts eventually when you factor in growth and inflation. But with inflation tax revenues go up even if you don’t lower taxes.
The question gets into one of growth. Are you creating growth? When you look at the job numbers since 2000 though, it is interesting that GW Bush tax cuts have not generated growth. That to me indicates there is something wrong with his reasoning.
Dennis - SGMM
We were visiting some friends in the Castro district a few years ago. One day, driving across town to get lunch we passed a hetero couple madly snogging, she bent backwards over the fender of a parked car, he nearly dryhumping her. One of our friends sniffed and said with hauteur, “How dare they perform a natural act in this town?”
Billy K
Soooo inappropriate…. I LOL’d.
TR
Great piece in Time about last night’s trainwreck of stupidity.
Jen
Interesting. I get a diary from Mar. 26 of this year.
Now I get the front page.
Wow, when you’ve flooded Kos…
John Cole
I was just talking to him- they brought some new servers online and they are screwing up. They are working on it.
Billy K
.
I’ve had no problems. Clear your cache/cookies.
D0n Camillo
I can’t believe the Clinton team hasn’t thought of distributing American flag butt plugs with “She’s not bitter” written on the side. They’ve done everything else I could think of to milk Obama’s San Francisco speech.
Billy K
Wow. When you switch sides, YOU SWITCH SIDES.
Elitist!
Incertus
Oh please. Clinton’s a lot of things, but she’s still a Democrat. She’s not even Lieberman-esque.
Personally, I’m letting Clark Griswold do my complaining about the media.
Jen
He switched so he could name drop. Don Surber just doesn’t have the cache.
AkaDad
Michael Savage says that Hillary would be better than Obama. Most of the right-wing radio hosts also support Hillary. Can’t Hillary supporters see what’s happening here?
Billy K
No.
SA2SQ
ct
We’re having bizarre network driver issues that are just hosing everything and all around “causing problems”. Hopefully they’ve somewhat cleared up though, but I’m still working on it.
Dennis - SGMM
How is it that no one, including ABC, saw no conflict of interest in having Stephanopoulos, who spent four years working for the first Clinton administration, moderate the debate?
myiq2xu
I keep telling y’all, real ponies don’t oink.
Why do you want to force another Dukakis on us as the nominee?
McCain and Rove are laughing at you.
Martin
caché
If you’re gonna do the elite french thing, get it right. 7 bit ASCII is soooo pre-9/11.
PaulB
We don’t, dear; that’s why Obama is winning.
Just like they laughed in 2006, dear? In any case, since Clinton is playing right into their hands, I don’t think you’ve correctly identified the target of their laughter.
Billy K
No shit. That’s the very first thing I thought of. It’s like he’s interviewing his old boss/possibly a new boss.
But I always thought it was sketchy having him host This Week anyway.
Incertus
Conflicts of interest are so pre 9/11 thinking.
PaulB
On this issue, I’m with the Clinton supporters. You simply cannot make decisions on the basis of what your opponents say. We’ve heard various Republican operatives say they want Obama to win; we’ve heard various others say they want Clinton to win. Occasionally, the same operative has made both statements. I refuse to let people like Rove and Limbaugh influence my vote, even negatively.
Dug Jay
You guys are really into a new level of silliness over last night’s debate. Hell, Obama couldn’t articulate a coherent excuse for his long history of hanging with ever America-hating creep in Chicago. How on earth can you defend this fellow, who often appears to be a little less bright than a 25 watt bulb? If he can’t intelligently dialogue with pussies such as the ABC duo, how on earth could he ever handle real tough guys, such as Hillary or Shirley Temple?
ThymeZone
Actually, she meant cachet. But spelling lames are so pre-911.
cachet
p.lukasiak
gotta love how, after a year of debates in which Clinton was treated to the same kind of stuff that Obama was last night, that people are suddenly outraged.
You can’t blame the moderators for this. Clinton has dealt with it consistently, and come out standing — and not whining abou the questions. Obama got the same treatment, and completely failed to measure up.
And all the complaining about unfair treatment doesn’t change that fact. Politics isn’t fair. Its never been “fair” to Clinton. But now that its being unfair to Mr Empty Suit, people are upset?
Puh-leez. I mean, if there was really a chance that what happened to poor widdle Bawway last night would actual result in good issue oriented coverage from now on, I’d be jumping for joy. Because as bad as Obama is on most issues, McCain is infinitely worse — and Obama can win an issue oriented campaign by default. A bowl of oatmeal could beat McCain on the issues — so Obama would be just fine it the coverage was going to be issue oriented.
So, please, stop bitching and moaning about stuff that isn’t going to change, and start thinking of some way that poor widdle Bawwy can win in November in a world where he is no longer afforded special treatment because he’s “not Hillary”.
John Cole
WTF, Over?
Hillary’s whole electability spiel is all based on the assertion that ZOMG I AM MORE ELECTABLE THAN HIM BECAUSE THEY WILL SAY NASTY THINGS ABOUT HIM.
You aren’t with her at all.
Rick Taylor
Akadad
Nope, they are embarrassingly clueless. Here’s a link I posted before to Taylor Marsh where she plays a clip of Joe Scarbarough fawning over Hillary, and conclude that while he’s conservative he respects her for her toughness. The comments are even funnier.
PaulB
You’re correct; I’m not. I was simply responding to the claim that I should care about who Michael Savage and the rest of the right-wing radio hosts are saying they support in the Democratic primary. Clinton’s supporters are (correctly, in my opinion), ignoring what those gas-bags are saying.
Rick Taylor
PaulB wrote:
If Hillary were in first place and Obama was persevering in the election with little chance of winning but slinging lots of mud, I’m sure the right wing would be fawning over him right now. I don’t think it’s a matter of them preferring to run against one candidate or the other, but having a prolonged nasty Democratic primary while McCain sets about campaigning on his terms certainly helps them.
p.lukasiak
more from the balloon juice rubber room, I see.
I mean, anyone who thinks that is her whole electability argument is nuts to begin with — but it doesn’t even get to what THAT argument is.
To wit:
I’ve been through the shitstorm. I’ve been vilified and lied about for almost as long as I’ve been in public life — and here I am, still standing tall. This other guy has lived a charmed life — with some help from tactics straight out of Karl Rove’s playbook, of course. He’s never come close to dealing with what is going to get thrown at him is he is the nominee. So why take a risk on a potential disaster, when you’ve got a sure thing with me?
And last night, we say her REAL argument come to life. We saw a general election disaster waiting to happen in Obama, and someone who had been through it all, and could come out with victory in November in Clinton.
Just admit it Cole. Life ain’t fair. Politics ain’t fair. And last night, life wasn’t fair to Obama, and he wound up looking like shit, and complaining about it won’t help, because life isn’t fair.
PaulB
Gotta love how some Clinton supporters have managed to convince themselves that Obama has never been treated unfairly and that Clinton always has. Or that no Obama supporter has ever complained about “gotcha” politics and inane debates prior to last night. The level of self-delusion is really quite extraordinary.
Yes, actually we can, and should. What they did was disgraceful.
ROFL…. Like I said….
So says the totally unbiased observer. We’ll see what the voters and the polls say. My money is on a bet that nothing will change.
Like I said….
Like I said….
Rick Taylor
Well no they aren’t ignoring it (or at least some of them aren’t). That’s the point; see the link in my previous post for an example.
PaulB
And if any of that were actually true, Clinton might have a point. Since it’s flatly delusional, I’m afraid that she does not.
rawshark
We’re choosing the president here, not the dem nominee. Either of these two will beat McCain. The right knows it. They’re trying to have some influence is an election they are shut out of.
Notorious P.A.T.
We’ll see. 8 years ago Lieberman was where Hillary is now: second place in the primary. They both still think Iraq is a good idea and that if the voters have the gall to choose someone else, they get to do whatever they can to end-run around that decision. I can totally see Hillary losing the rest of the primaries, then narcissistically claiming it’s not her fault because “the left” has hijacked the party and she has to become an independent to fight the good fight. Not saying it will happen but I can see it happening.
Svensker
The thing I REALLY hate about last night’s debate is that it brought P.Luk. back here. AND he brought the extra big jars of spittle.
Martin
You guys are retards, you know that. Once again, the outrage isn’t over how Obama was treated, it’s over how we were – just as we’re not pissed at Hillary for attacking Obama, we’re pissed at her treating us with contempt.
From Obama’s book:
That’s what we are pissed about. I’m just as pissed about the Tuzla question as I am about the flag pin question. And since you fuckers can’t seem to think straight, here’s what Hillary got beat up on what is considered her worst debate (courtesy of the Kossacks):
From last night’s:
It’s clear that Russert pushed Clinton harder than Obama in that debate, but nearly every question is a policy question. No bullshit on her comments on MLK or any crap like that. The one that probably didn’t need to be asked is:
“Would you allow the National Archives to release the documents about your communications with the president, the advice you gave?”
I’m not quite sure that’s relevant. It’s asking for transparency, but it’s totally one-sided. There’s no equivalent request to Obama. That’s not necessary, but it’s an odd question in my view. The other:
“Do you oppose the war in Iraq?”
is a softball to allow her for the zillionth time to clarify her position there. Didn’t need to be asked, but *should* help her.
The rest were clearly positions that Clinton has put forward as positive reasons why we should vote for her and would have an actual impact on people. There were too many at Clinton, but strong responses *should* be positives for her because they allow her to clarify and expand on her stated positions.
Last night was meta-character questions to both candidates that have no bearing on the lives of voters. It was also one-sided, but that’s not the outrage. The outrage is that ABC doesn’t think we care about the important stuff. Now, the GOP actually *doesn’t* care about the other stuff. They vote primarily on character as Jonas noted. But Dems don’t and we don’t want that shit in our debates.
Now, if Gibson had tossed policy question after policy question at Obama – meeting with foreign leaders, Carter/Hamas, economic recovery plans, and so on, and hammered Obama over it, there would be some complaining, but not like this.
You guys are desperate to be victims by proxy here. I don’t really give a shit if Clinton attacks Obama, so long as she doesn’t lie to *me* in the process, or treat me like an idiot.
Josh E.
I sure wish P. Luk would use the same research skills that he employed to assist in getting Dan Rather fired and Bush re-elected to “help” Hillary.
tBone
I think your tinfoil hat must have been interfering with your TV reception, because that’s not what I saw. What I saw was a series of increasingly asinine, irrelevant questions from a panel of nauseautingly pompous douchebags who would be out of their depth moderating a 7th-grade debate club contest.
Obama wasn’t on his A game, but the one time Hillary got hit with one of those stupid gotcha questions, she didn’t exactly shine either. Unless you thought that stumbling, strained response to the Tuzla question was somehow convincing to anyone not orbiting Planet Hillary.
I’ll pose the question again, pluk: If battle-hardened, Ready on Day One Hillary can’t beat a junior senator with a crazy ex-pastor and a fondness for arugula in a primay process that she should be intimately familiar with, how in the hell could she compete with McCain in the fall?
* crickets *
horatius
Yeah, that creep hated America so much, he joined the marines. Now go fuck yourself Dug Jay you bastard.
zzyzx
…with incredibly high negatives and an unparalleled ability to rally the Republicans to vote against her
A sure thing that even MyDD projects to be doing worse right now in head to head matchups than Obama.
Sure it can, because this isn’t a contest to see who gets declared a winner of a debate minutes after it happens. It’s an attempt to win over hearts and minds. One way that it can be done, and a way that seems to be having an effect, is for the reaction to the debate be that it was a colossal waste of time and just showed how ugly the media has become. The gang up on Clinton debate before NH helped Clinton; this one could help Obama in PA.
bernarda
A few threads ago, some of your posters quite rightly informed me of a Clinton-favorable blog Talk Left which tends to block Obama supporters.
Now, I have tried to post on this story, and others, at hyper-Obama Americablog to defend Clinton – and I am blocked. On both sides it is not very fair or useful.
As to this story, I think that, with Stephen Colbert’s phrase, that they have been toking on the Obama “hope” bong a bit too much.
Fe E
Holy shit Martin;
What you said.
P. Luk., I’ve been a devotee of Bob Somerby for a few years longer than I’ve been aware of Balloon Juice, and during that time I have been repeatedly active in privately calling for (essentially) a more competent and professional news media.
Personally I see this as a good time for us all to act; in this case it might be more effective to be one voice among 20,000 than one among five.
For the record, I lost my shit and bombarded MSNBC over Chris Matthews’ “messed around” comments too. So please save your condescension for another time.
Keep your goddmaned eye on the goddamned ball.
zzyzx
Agreed. If Obama didn’t have answers for those I’d be mad… at Obama. The fact that we’re talking about the questions that were asked instead of the answers given – and the majority of the post debate conversation is that – is proof that this debate failed. Clinton might have won it (I refused to subject myself to those questions to put up with watching it on the west coast play), but it will mainly go down as a waste of time.
If you disagree, what clip from this debate do you expect to be aired on a news program 2 weeks from now?
zzyzx
And p.luk, what you don’t understand is that some of us have been mad about this for decades. I’ve been bitching about what passes for political debates since Dukakis in 88. It’s not that we think that this debate is stupid because we support Obama, it’s that one of the reasons we support Obama is because he’s been attacking debates like this.
One of the few clips I saw yesterday was Obama given a free shot to go after Clinton for the Bosnia lie. What did he do? He said it wasn’t relevant to what faces us. He’s the first mainstream candidate that I’ve seen who tries to push back against the trivia and that’s a large part of the reason why many of us support him.
Dug Jay
I think Jen R. said it best:
Martin
Based on the general reaction, Obama wins the debate. Not because his responses were better then Hillary’s (they weren’t overall) but because the debate revealed absolutely nothing the viewing audience that they cared about and didn’t already know.
So the metric isn’t a comparison of the candidates in this case. A good debate would come down as such. Instead, for most people last night became a contest between the media and the public. The media lost. Because Obama was the greater target – but also because he pushed back harder *against the media* and because Clinton did not, Obama will be viewed as the winner. Clinton could have taken that by pushing back as well, even if she just did it on the Tuzla question, but she didn’t. But she didn’t recognize the nature of the debate shifted and had she and Obama teamed up against Gibson, she would have gotten a boost out of it. The content between Obama/Clinton is totally lost – I haven’t seen hardly any mention of it in the write-ups today. it’s all meta on the moderators and how they relate to the candidates.
But Obama is turning it into a point of attack (which he’s good at, which the Clinton supporters praise her for doing but will probably reject him for):
Had the debate been policy based, Clinton would likely be viewed as the clear winner – she did well in the 2nd half, but the first half changed the game.
firebrand
What I find personally fascinating is the Clintonbots coming here and trying to get us to embrace Rovian politics. You argue and argue the same shit over and over again, hoping it will somehow magically change all our minds and get us to embrace the monster you decided to back as a presidential candidate, hoping that your insane ramblings will prevail over our common sense, and the result is always the same: you fail – completely, totally, utterly.
And you have the gall to call yourselves Democrats. What a joke. I mean, seriously, haven’t you numbnuts figured out that you ceased to be Democrats the second you signed on for all this Clintonian/Republican bullshit? You may as well stamp “G.O.P. Bitch” on your foreheads, because that’s what you are now.
NR
Sorry, that dog won’t hunt. Hillary herself said last night that Obama can beat McCain. Try another scare tactic.
zzyzx
There’s video of that 45 minutes speech. That clip makes a better soundbyte than anything I’ve seen from last night.
AkaDad
Rarely do I award POTD’s, but that was chock full of win.
Dan
52 minutes into this “debate” before any substantive issue was addressed, but it’s OK for HRC supporters?
Figures.
Soylent Green
Hillary’s qualification to be president:
She weathered a major shitstorm, and she can rain down the shit on her opponents as well as she can weather it.
Great. Now you’ve won, it’s Day One, and shitstorms are irrelevant. What are you going to do?
“I’m going to Disneyland.”
Which is to say, she’s mostly faking her readiness for the job of administering the executive branch. She runs with all the phony earnestness and zeal of a college grad on her first job interview. “My greatest weakness? People say I work too hard.” All her posturing shows me only that she is good (apparently not good enough) at politics, and all her negative tactics show me that in her heart she knows she can’t get the job on merit and must finagle it instead.
Once in office, she will be triumphant over all those people who said all those terrible things for so long. I think she is running to even the score, and to achieve parity with her husband.
All my life I’ve reported to managers who got their jobs through persistence, positioning, and skill at office politics but don’t know how to do the actual work.
lilysmom
I dream of America electing a president who believes that he and his administration are not above the Rule of Law.
I dream of America electing a president who believes that the Constitution is sacred and should be adhered to and defended.
I dream of America electing a president who believes that the Judiciary and Congress are coequal branches and should be worked with, not suppressed, subverted or ignored.
And, I dream of America electing a president who can and will help restore the dignity and honor of my country.
God help us. We have fallen so far.
cleek
Obama gets a net gain of 7 supers this week, narrowing that gap to just 19.
Dan
I am SOO tired of the “HRC has been vetted” BS. Just within the last 2 weeks we found out that Bill took $800,000 from pro-Colombia free trade groups.
She (and the people she surrounds herself with and takes money from) hasn’t BEGUN to be vetted. The Repubs would have a field day with her.
Rick Taylor
Back to the topic of accountability, Lincoln Chafee, one of the last sane Republicans, was just interviewed on Fresh Air and talks about the last seven years.
Rick Taylor
Correction, he’s an independent now.
Beej
lilysmom,
Well said, and me too.
Now, for the rest of us: have you been reading Glenzilla’s posts and book excerpts lately? The performance of the so-called “moderators” last night is exactly what Greenwald is talking about. This is pure Republican character attack politics. It’s just about all the Repubs have to attack Obama. Unfortunately for them, every time they, or the Clinton campaign, or their surrogates in the media, have tried to use it, it has either lain there and died like a duck after flapping a little or proved to be a positive for Obama because he’s been able to throw it back so far that it ends up stinking in their yard instead of his. If this crap is the best they can do, they’re going to lose and lose big.
Martin
Agreed. If we’re running all the way back to when Obama was 8 to find stuff to attack him on, what makes anyone think that the GOP won’t run full-bore on Whitewater and Vince Foster again?
And the first out of the gate against her would be a variant on the following:
“Hillary Clinton said that she was ready for the 3AM phone call. But White House records show that she was in the building when her husband was having inappropriate sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky. If she can’t keep track of what her husband is doing in the same building, how will she be able to keep track of the many threats facing America?”
Both candidates are gonna get hammered by the GOP. So what? We learned with Kerry that they’re willing to lie through their teeth to win, so there’s really no sense focusing on where candidates are ‘weak’ since they’ll just make shit up anyway. The only thing we can worry about are who is going to do the job best and who will have the strongest positive connection with voters and run the best campaign. Anyone wanna argue over the last two? Seems to me that Clinton can’t be as good as Obama on the first one – she needs to be better to overcome some shortcomings on the last two.
John S.
p.luk isn’t a Republican – he justs plays one on TV.
PaulB
You’d have thought we’d have learned something from 2004, wouldn’t you? Where we picked the most “electable” candidate of the bunch? One that could go toe to toe with the Republicans on military and national security issues? How’d that work out again?
This nonsense about how one candidate is superior to the other when it comes to Republican attacks is just that: nonsense. Whoever is selected, the Republicans will hammer them. That’s just reality.
p.lukasiak
it really takes an incredible leap of logic to go from “the candidate has been vetted” to “the candidate’s husband got paid for speeches given by a Columbian free trade group.”
The extraordinary sexism of the Obot never ceases to amaze me. They simply cannot accept the fact that a woman can be her own person — they in fact DEMAND that she not be allowed to be her own person.
Hillary Clinton is opposed to the Columbian free trade pact. That should tell you exactly how much influence $800K paid to Bill Clinton buys with Hillary Clinton.
ZERO.
Just because you are stupid, doesn’t mean Hillary Clinton is stupid. And just because Obama obviously received financial benefits from his helping Rezko get government contracts, doesn’t mean that Hillary Clinton is just as corrupt as Barack Obama.
PaulB
The delusional ones are absolutely firmly convinced that:
1. Obama has never had to face tough questions, that he has always been in a “bubble”.
2. That Clinton has been unfairly picked on by everyone from day one.
3. That nobody, particularly not any Obama supporter, has ever complained about Clinton’s unfair treatment.
4. That Clinton ran a positive campaign until forced to turn negative by the relentless attacks on her.
5. That all of the attacks on Clinton are alike in their horrible inaccuracy and unfairness.
6. That anyone pointing out the abysmal performance by the debate’s moderators is really just an Obama supporter who’s just whining because their idol was given the same treatment that Clinton has been enduring from day one.
Therefore, this is just Obama’s just desserts and they are exploding in an orgy of schadenfreude.
PaulB
Um, Paul, that is precisely the kind of “leap of logic” that the Republican Party has previously carried out. It’s just politics as usual, remember? Nobody ever claimed that the attacks would be fair.
PaulB
LOL…. Um, Paul, I *really* don’t think you want to go there.
Pooh
JOHN COLE!
Have I told you lately that I love you?
(NTTAWT)
PeterJ
Then why is she running on the years that her husband was the president? Shouldn’t she be her own person and not latch on to her hubby?
p.lukasiak
wow. you are such a fucking idiot.
See, I happen to know this question. So I know you took it completely of out context.
And I know that Russert was lying. Clinton never said that “it made a lot of sense to give an illegal immigrant a drivers license”. And that’s where Clinton got tripped up. She’d been battered by bullshit questions for an hour by her opponents and russert, then they announce that its time for the 30 second round. Clinton was ready to defned what she’d said to the Nashua editorial board, which was that she “supported the idea behind” giving drivers licenses ot illegal immigrants, and that the “idea behind” Spitzers plan to give drivers licenses to illegal to “get them out of the shadows” and THAT made a lot of sense.
You read her actual quote and its obvious that she is trying to be supportive of spitzer, without actually taking a stand on drivers licenses.
So, Clinton is ready for that question, and she has a two minute answer, and Russerts starts out with “Last week you told the Nashua ??? editorial board”…and Clinton knows where he’s going with this, and that she has to boil down her response to 30 seconds.
RUSSERT DELIBERATELY LIED ABOUT WHAT SHE SAID, AND SHE WAS TRYING TO PUT HER ANSWER TOGETHER AND DIDN’T NOTICE THAT HE’D LIED.
Now, when a moderator goes out of his way to LIE about something you said, don’t tell me that the media wasn’t out to get her.
You LIED ABOUT THE QUESTION… and YOU got caught.
I know you’re used to dealing with idiots here on Balloon Juice who believe any crap you hand them about Clinton, but I’m not one of those idiots. Unlike you I KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT AND I DON’T HAVE TO LIE.
PeterJ
Fixed.
Also, what’s up with all that yelling?
LiberalTarian
Good post John. You are absolutely right.
I’m totally cool with you going back to the right aisle side of the debate, when that happens. But, if you don’t slap them cockroaches down (like you have been doing for some time now), they will never get back to being on the side of the US citizen.
Then again, maybe I am hopelessly idealistic. Maybe the GOP never ever gave a shit about us. But, I just can’t find it in my heart to believe that. I think they were overcome by corporatists, but the day of the liberal Republican (the one who believes that the public interest is just as valid as corporate interest) will come again.