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You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2008 / Another Judas

Another Judas

by John Cole|  April 18, 20088:10 am| 36 Comments

This post is in: Election 2008

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This time, Robert Reich:

So what’s changed? I asked Reich.

“I saw the ads” — the negative man-on-street commercials that the Clinton campaign put up in Pennsylvania in the wake of Obama’s bitter/cling comments a week ago — “and I was appalled, frankly. I thought it represented the nadir of mean-spirited, negative politics. And also of the politics of distraction, of gotcha politics. It’s the worst of all worlds. We have three terrible traditions that we’ve developed in American campaigns. One is outright meanness and negativity. The second is taking out of context something your opponent said, maybe inartfully, and blowing it up into something your opponent doesn’t possibly believe and doesn’t possibly represent. And third is a kind of tradition of distraction, of getting off the big subject with sideshows that have nothing to do with what matters. And these three aspects of the old politics I’ve seen growing in Hillary’s campaign. And I’ve come to the point, after seeing those ads, where I can’t in good conscience not say out loud what I believe about who should be president. Those ads are nothing but Republicanism. They’re lending legitimacy to a Republican message that’s wrong to begin with, and they harken back to the past 20 years of demagoguery on guns and religion. It’s old politics at its worst — and old Republican politics, not even old Democratic politics. It’s just so deeply cynical.”

The Clinton campaign will, no doubt, shrug off the Reich endorsement of Obama.

Traitor.

*** Update ***

The endorsement is up.

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Reader Interactions

36Comments

  1. 1.

    Jen

    April 18, 2008 at 8:16 am

    I’ve liked that man ever since I saw him on Conan, playing short cop-tall cop.

    In other news, that lady from the debate who asked about the flag? That lady has totally been tasting electricity. Via TPM:

    How can I vote for a president who won’t wear a flag pin?” Mrs. McCabe, a recently unemployed clerk typist,

    Emphasis mine, because clearly she has other things to emphasize…

  2. 2.

    Soylent Green

    April 18, 2008 at 8:18 am

    Well said by Sec. Reich.

    What is taking Gore so long?

  3. 3.

    Jen

    April 18, 2008 at 8:19 am

    I promise I won’t be here all day, but this is funny and short. If Hillary really is a monster, I say we sic this girl on her.

  4. 4.

    dr. bloor

    April 18, 2008 at 8:21 am

    I think you mean irrelevant traitor, John.

  5. 5.

    The Grand Panjandrum

    April 18, 2008 at 8:28 am

    Quisling! Benedict Arnold!

    /snark

    Good on him. Reich always seemed like a decent guy, and this really speaks volumes that a second prominent Clinton cabinet officer would endorse Obama and use similar language in his criticism of the HRC cabinet.

    What is taking Gore so long?

    I don’t know about Gore, but Howard Dean says its time for SD’s to end the the race and commit to a candidate.

  6. 6.

    Billy K

    April 18, 2008 at 8:52 am

    I’ve always liked Reich. And his crime-fighting stint on Conan gave him extra cool points. He has a great blog (Google is your friend). I seem to recall he wrote something really smart about the subprime mess.

  7. 7.

    infoshaman

    April 18, 2008 at 9:01 am

    I saw Reich crossing the Harvard Commons 10+ years ago. My first reaction: he’s very short. Then I noticed the energy in the dialog between his 4 colleagues and himself. I wanted to join them and inhale some of those good thoughts.

    Reich’s blog is here.

  8. 8.

    norbizness

    April 18, 2008 at 9:13 am

    Will “Robert Reich is SHORT!” become the “Michael Moore is FAT!” of 2008?

  9. 9.

    Zifnab

    April 18, 2008 at 9:15 am

    What is taking Gore so long?

    Dude. He’s the Clinton Veep and he’s trying like hell to distance himself from partisan politics. Clinton will still be in the Senate come 2009, and it pays not to piss off the woman who could be the next Majority Leader. Obama has all the momentum and Hillary has been tanking for a while now. There’s no hurry.

  10. 10.

    horatius

    April 18, 2008 at 9:29 am

    He’s a true working class hero. Comes from humble origins and he’s still in touch with where he came from.

  11. 11.

    w vincentz

    April 18, 2008 at 9:38 am

    Geesh! More ammunition for Carville.

  12. 12.

    Tiparillo

    April 18, 2008 at 9:59 am

    Judas!!!!

    I wonder if Stephanopoulos not wanting to be called a Judas explains his Hannity questions in the debate. He didn’t want Carville adn Clinton calling him bad words….

  13. 13.

    Tiparillo

    April 18, 2008 at 9:59 am

    Judas!!!!

    I wonder if Stephanopoulos not wanting to be called a Judas explains his Hannity questions in the debate. He didn’t want Carville and Clinton calling him bad words….

  14. 14.

    empty

    April 18, 2008 at 10:44 am

    “and I was appalled, frankly. I thought it represented the nadir of mean-spirited, negative politics.

    Nadir: the lowest point

    Compared to the ad conflating Howard Dean with Osama which was produced by former Kerry employee and funded by a Kerry fundraiser Reich finds these ads to be the nadir of negative politics? Either Reich has been asleep for the last decade or so or this statement can be used as a prime example of faux-outrage.

  15. 15.

    nightjar

    April 18, 2008 at 10:53 am

    From My DD on Reich and Obama.

    The “ads” are the negative on-street commercials that Clinton ran about ‘bitter and cling’ against Obama. He’s basically saying that Democrats who use certain tough techniques against each other, because they offend people like himself, are emulating Republicans. So the bar has been set such that certain campaign techniques against Democrats are reserved only for Republicans.

    As a political operative, it blows my mind that people like Reich are now trying to define tactics as being either Republican or Democrat. And worse, that the measure is whether it offends the style of people like Reich. This kind of advice that leads to the wilderness.

    Jerome might be catching on, at least a little.

  16. 16.

    Martin

    April 18, 2008 at 11:17 am

    Jerome might be catching on

    Nope. They guy needs to go read ‘Crashing the Gate’ because Clinton is exactly the type of politician that the book was pushing against.

    Beyond Chron: Crashing the Gate could have degenerated into a rambling, insular, self-congratulatory testimonial about how liberal blogs have changed politics. Instead, Moulitsas and Armstrong have written a lucid, concise, and deeply insightful book that exposes the Democratic Party as a moribund Beltway-centered apparatus stuck in neutral with greedy consultants, old campaigning tactics that no longer work, and party elites who grasp their ever-shrinking fiefdom and resist anyone who dares to challenge their authority.

    (Yes, I know Jerome co-wrote it, but if you needed evidence that he’s not catching on…)

  17. 17.

    nightjar

    April 18, 2008 at 11:31 am

    I said a little. He’s at least mildly aware of what our real complaint is with using Clinton style GOP tactics on Obama. That’s more than most of the psychotic ravings from Hillbots.

  18. 18.

    PaulB

    April 18, 2008 at 11:41 am

    I would argue that it’s less about GOP tactics and more about GOP frames. Clinton has been buying into, and further propagating, GOP memes about Democratic candidates: out-of-touch, elitist, weak on security, cannot be trusted with that “3 a.m. call”, and so on.

    I think that the people who are genuinely outraged at Clinton’s behavior are not outraged because she’s attacking, even attacking viciously; they’re outraged at the nature of the attacks. As Reich says: “They’re lending legitimacy to a Republican message that’s wrong to begin with….“

  19. 19.

    Conservatively Liberal

    April 18, 2008 at 11:44 am

    The Queen of the Reich! Luv that Queensryche, rockin’ band! Reich (and those like him who are) stepping up like this is something that the super delegates are going to take notice of. When one of the two Democratic candidates is running what is referred to as a Republican campaign, things are coming to a head. You can bet the Hillbots are going to fly in to a tizzy over this, but they will shortly agree that it does not matter because their girl will win anyway.

    The rise of the DLC was the fall of my wife and I being Democrats. The fall of the DLC may see us become Democrats once again. Nothing would make me happier.

  20. 20.

    Fledermaus

    April 18, 2008 at 11:53 am

    He’s got a blog too. Blogofacism strikes again!

  21. 21.

    Martin

    April 18, 2008 at 12:08 pm

    I would argue that it’s less about GOP tactics and more about GOP frames.

    Good point. Watching Clinton emphasize ‘San Francisco’ as if everyone in the city was a communist tranny is depressing beyond words. That’s O’Reilly shit. Has nothing to do with tactics.

  22. 22.

    PeterJ

    April 18, 2008 at 12:11 pm

    Obama got Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich?

    That man is one mean guy. It’s all over for Clinton now…

    “You got the right to be my… Bitch!”

  23. 23.

    Martin

    April 18, 2008 at 12:21 pm

    Reich and Hillary went on at least one date in college and he and Bill knew each other in college as well.

    When he says he’s friends with the Clintons, he really is. He’s known them forever.

  24. 24.

    sean

    April 18, 2008 at 1:11 pm

    Reich is awesome. I loved him in “The Station Agent”

  25. 25.

    D-Chance.

    April 18, 2008 at 1:44 pm

    Bill Richardson plunged the knife in her back; Reich could only knee-cap her… because that’s the highest he could reach.

  26. 26.

    Brachiator

    April 18, 2008 at 3:27 pm

    Martin Says:

    Reich and Hillary went on at least one date in college and he and Bill knew each other in college as well.

    When he says he’s friends with the Clintons, he really is. He’s known them forever.

    A personal AND a political rebuke. That’s gotta sting.

  27. 27.

    tess

    April 18, 2008 at 5:43 pm

    As a Democrat, I see it this way:
    The Mainstream Press did a poor job of investigating
    Barack Obama. Their praise of him gave us a very wrong
    idea of what he was and how he had acted in the past.

    No he was not a young Democrat leader who came out of
    college and immediately tried to uplift his community.
    Instead we find that he had an agenda..”..get as much
    power as possible, anyway possible…”!!

    He worked for a law firm that got him in touch with
    (Criminal) Rezko. Rezko got him what we will call
    grants to work out among the community. This brought
    him into the preying hands of Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
    But, don’t forget that in the meantime his lovely but
    bitter wife teamed him up with William Ayers. Yes, the
    lousy bomber that bomed the Capitol, the Pentagon and
    a bunch of other government buildings. Michelle Obama
    had them appear together on panels playing up to young
    people (influencing them) in this community. He brags
    about the cooking skills of the wife of another
    criminal MUslim who was returning to the Middle East.
    (Yes, he loved her cooking when he went to her home.)

    Now we learn that he went to Pakistan because someone
    he was in school with was from that area. But, he
    never told us this before. In fact he gave us to
    understand that his life was very “clear cut”. He
    told us about his mother, his father leaving, his new
    father and his grand parents. Sounded great until you
    start hearing all the rest of the story.

    He told us a lot of lies. He never told us that he took
    part in the Million Man March which Farrakan organized and
    spoke.
    He never told us that he campaigned for his cousin in Africa, a cousin that is a criminal Muslim.
    He told us he never heard the ‘disgusting language against
    our country” that Rev. Wright spewed. Yet he knew enough
    to tell him to stay away from the campaign..???

    WHERE WERE ALL THE MAINSTREAM REPORTERS THAT ALLOWED THIS
    DISPICABLE MAN TO GET AS FAR AS HE HAS WITHOUT US KNOWNING
    ANY OF THIS.

    THERE ARE A GREAT MANY WHITE MEN/WOMEN/CHILDREN IN OUR
    COUNTRY. WILL OBAMA COME OUT AND TELL THE LIKES OF
    LOUIS FARRAKAN, REV. JEREMIAH WRIGHT AND ALL THE OTHERS
    THAT HE WANTS NO PART OF THEM OR THEIR VIEWS?

    WILL HE STAND UP TO THE LIKES OF WILLIAM AYERS AND TELL
    HIM HE IS LUCKY HE IS NOT IN PRISON FOR LIFE FOR WHAT HE
    HAS DONE IN OUR COUNTRY?

    WILL HE TELL HIS WIFE THAT THIS IS THE GREATEST COUNTRY
    IN THE WORLD AND START APPRECIATING EVERYTHING ABOUT IT?

  28. 28.

    nightjar

    April 18, 2008 at 6:14 pm

    LOL Tess,

    You win the screaming Hillbot of the day reward.

  29. 29.

    bago

    April 18, 2008 at 6:46 pm

    Life, Satire inch closer.

  30. 30.

    zoe kentucky

    April 18, 2008 at 7:39 pm

    In all seriousness, what do Hillary supporters like Tess believe Obama is going to do if he becomes president? This is an an anonymous forum, tess, so tell us what you think this all adds up to if he gets to be POTUS.

    Seriously, I’d really love to hear it.

  31. 31.

    Lynne

    April 18, 2008 at 8:49 pm

    I’d love to see some rationality and perspective here concerning both Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama. She is not evil, she’s not going to boil and eat your bunny – she’s just a politician. As a politician, her goal (the same as all other politicians) is to win, no matter what it takes. He is not the second coming of Christ, we’re not all going to join hands and sing Kumbaya if he’s the nominee – he’s also just a politician and he also just wants to win and will do whatever it takes to reach his goal. They both have an enormous amount of ego, which is why each one thinks that they have what it takes to be the leader of the free world. In other words, she is not the Evil Queen and he is not St. Barak. I do not doubt that each of them truly believes that they would do the best job representing the interests of the American electorate. Please try to remember that their differences in policy are so small as to be almost inconsequetial. Whichever one of them winds up being the eventual nominee of the Democratic party, keep one thing in mind – either one will be better for the country than John McCain.

  32. 32.

    zoe kentucky

    April 18, 2008 at 9:13 pm

    Here, here, Lynne. Nicely put.

  33. 33.

    Soylent Green

    April 19, 2008 at 2:15 pm

    Whichever one of them winds up being the eventual nominee of the Democratic party, keep one thing in mind – either one will be better for the country than John McCain.

    Only if we close ranks as a party, put all this rancor behind us, and vote in large numbers for that nominee. That bears repeating until the polling places close on election day.

  34. 34.

    28 Percent

    April 19, 2008 at 11:37 pm

    of course Lynne if that is your real name that is what you DEMOCRATS always do is lock-step with each other and not think for yourselves never fear you will put the huge ideological differences between Hitlery and B. Hussein behind you when one is chosen and it will not be hard because they are both liberals and anti-american to a “T”! It is true 81% of the country thinks it is going in the wrong direction well is it any wonder considering who is nominated? Real American Conservatives are the True Majority but it is not represented in the candidates no wonder as they will let just anybody vote these days it is tragic i wonder what our founding Fathers (that is Fathers not Mothers you Feminazis!) would say?

  35. 35.

    Fran

    April 20, 2008 at 6:31 am

    I wonder where Obama is getting all his money…don’t the US presidents have to do what their contributors want? Was Saudi a contributor? They don’t give dollars for nothing.

  36. 36.

    priscianus jr

    April 20, 2008 at 10:28 am

    Uh, Fran — you’re right that the Saudis don’t give dollars for nothing. That’s why they own the Bush administration. So by your logic, Obama is a continuation of Bush? Funny, very few Obama supporters see it that way. I guess they’re just stupid. Thanks for the tip.

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