On Friday, David Frum, the former GWB speechwriter who invented the phrase “axis of evil” to sell his boss’s pointless war, published a piece in The Atlantic chiding Hillary Clinton for playing the victim card. He cites as evidence quotes cherry-picked from a recent interview Clinton did with Christiane Amanpour and also HRC’s supposed obsession with the non-existent “whitey tape,” as reported by rancid horserace hacks Mark Halperin and John Heilemann in “Game Change.”
The day after Frum’s piece ran, the NY Post released an excerpt of Edward Klein’s “Blood Feud: The Clintons vs. The Obamas,” a title from wingnut screed factory Regnery Publishing, which publishes titles like “The Roots of Obama’s Rage,” by Dinesh D’Souza, “The Case Against Barack Obama,” by David Freddoso and “Crimes Against Liberty,” by David Limbaugh.
In its inimitable style, the NY Post titled its sneak-peek “The feud between the Obamas and ‘Hildebeest.’” It contains stunning insights into the enmity between the first couples, such as that Bill Clinton hates President Obama “more than any man I’ve ever met, more than any man who ever lived” and that when President Obama and Mrs. Obama had the Clintons over for dinner at the White House, the president ignored his guests to play with his BlackBerry instead.
Steve M at No More Mr. Nice Blog reviewed the NY Post preview of “Blood Feud” yesterday and noted that “[w]hat Klein seems to have written is a bad pulp novel, disguised as non-fiction, made up exclusively of right-wing gossip, right-wing talking points, and right-wing punch lines.” He’s right; it’s a steaming load of anonymously sourced horseshit, just like everything Regnery publishes.
I’m not someone who wants to coronate Hillary Clinton as the Democratic presidential nominee for 2016. I want to see a vigorous debate in the primary that brings liberal issues to the fore, and I’m hoping a viable candidate whose platform more closely matches my views emerges — just as Obama did in 2007 to capture my support. I would prefer that this happens after we retain the Senate and make gains in the House in the upcoming midterm elections.
But damned if we Democrats should allow wingnut concern trolls like Frum, Klein and Halperin to shape our views on any candidate — or anything at all. They are cynical, lying hacks, so why should we believe anything they say? What this recent emergence of high-profile wingnut concern trollery tells me is they think they’ve found a wedge to exploit. We shouldn’t let them.
Like many Obama supporters, I was pissed off at some of the Clintons’ tactics during the endless 2008 primary. But the Clintons and Obamas sure seemed to bury the hatchet and work together after that. Even if they despise one another (and there’s no credible evidence of that that I’ve seen), they made the calculation that working together was the best thing for the party because a feud would play into the Republicans’ hands. It was true in 2008 and 2012, and it’s still true today.
The piece by Frum and the latest Regnery Publishing bilge are cynical attempts to divide Obama supporters from a possible Democratic nominee, just as John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin was a cynical attempt to peel off HRC-supporting Democrats in 2008. It should fail just as hard.
GregB
Frum, Halperin and Heilmann. The axis of shitheels.
DaveinMaine
They can troll 24/7 and it won’t change a damn thing. HRC isn’t my favorite person, but I’d rather chew on tinfoil for a solid week than vote for a Republican. HRC could kill a puppy on live television and I’d still vote for her over the half-witted, half-assed candidate the Republican will roll out for 2016.
Felonius Monk
Amen.
Paul in KY
@DaveinMaine: She could vivisect the poor puppy & then eat it & I’d still vote for her over any Repub nominee.
Morzer
@DaveinMaine:
If HRC killed a Republican puppy, would that change your view of her? Please answer Yes, No or Undecided.
DaveinMaine
@Morzer: Puppies can’t be Republicans. They’re too sweet and innocent.
Belafon
If Bill hates Obama that much, he sure has a strange way of showing it, actively campaigning for Obama and all.
Am I the only one annoyed at ‘Hildebeest’?
schrodinger's cat
@Paul in KY: What if she did unspeakable things to a kitten?
WereBear
Yeah, right. Even the President & First Lady’s teenagers wouldn’t do a petulant thing like that.
All projection, all the time.
CONGRATULATIONS!
What happens when the Post becomes a full-time outlet for Regnery propaganda? What happens when ALL the papers become full-time outlets for the same?
I’m less concerned about the trolling than I am about the silent takeover of the press by the right. We’re living their dream here in San Diego: every single local paper, no matter how small, has been purchased by one guy with a hard-right agenda. Without the Internet, if I wanted a different slant on the news I’d literally have to drive to Los Angeles.
Morzer
@Belafon:
The NY Post using a degrading name for a Democratic woman? Sadly predictable, I fear, although reprehensible in the usual NY Post mode.
Patricia Kayden
President Bill Clinton campaigned for President Obama (both in 2008 and in 2012) vigorously and enthusiastically. I loved President Clinton’s speech at the 2012 Democratic convention, which was stirring and sincere.
Whether or not the Obamas and the Clintons love each other is neither here nor there. I am positive that President Obama and Mrs. Obama will have no problem whatsoever in fully supporting Secretary Clinton when she decides to run, as will most Democrats.
This is a dumb attempt by the media to stir up division between Clinton supporters and Obama supporters. I doubt there is any real division which would lead to Democrats not supporting Mrs. Clinton and thus allowing Rand Paul/Ted Cruz/Chris Christie, etc. to get into the White House. We’re not all stupid.
Roger Moore
Because it justifies our existing beliefs. People who want to hate Hillary- and we all know there are plenty among the liberal set, if not quite so many as among conservatives- will seize on this stuff as justification for what they already believe. That’s the only point of it, and it’s always been the only point of it.
gvg
I didn’t realize the source if this gossip but found the idea Hillary Clinton found the idea of a whitey tape to be unbelievable, not to mention the idea that one special bit of evidence was going to miraculously blow up a campaign to be silly. Hillary isn’t that silly. Neither are most Democratic voters. the explanation of the source makes better sense. The right wing doesn’t live in the real world.
Actually this can work against us sometimes. I didn’t think much of the stories about Edwards affairs or Clinton at first. assumed it was rightwing silliness at first.
If it was proven that Hillary actually thought that tape was worth pursuing, I’d question her judgement.
feebog
They are running scared. Even though the polls are next to meaningless at this point, they see how HRC runs against any of their candidates and they sense a stomping. It is going to get much worse as Christie and Walker sink into the morass of their political corruption. That leaves them with a flock of Congress Critters, Jeb, Santorum, and Mittens. It will be the 2012 Klown Kar nominating nightmare all over again, but with more venom and bloodshed. Maybe they can convince Cheney to run.
gogol's wife
@feebog:
Dick or Liz?
gelfling545
I guess people are using “coronate” in place of “crown” these days. Sigh.
Botsplainer
I’m never going to get this woman home from this hospital. Her heart rate and BP have always bordered on vampiric – when diving, she uses about a third of the air that I do. Her heart rate has been coasting from 38-40 beats for about two hours post surgery.
the Conster
I’m no Hillary fan, but will also crawl over glass to vote for her if she’s the candidate. I’m watching carefully though to see what she does with her time between now and November. Pimping her book isn’t the best use of her time if she wants to be president – getting herself a Democratic House and Senate should be her priority. And really, what role will Bill have in the White House? I just can’t stand all the potential for panty sniffing drama, as much as I’d like to pretend it doesn’t matter. But, yeah, let’s not talk about it.
ETA: I got a robocall yesterday from someone who wanted to talk about Rick Santorum. Yeah. No.
flukebucket
The choice will be between a Democrat and a Republican. Right now I have no idea what their names will be but I know which one I will be voting for.
boatboy_srq
That sounds like a strategy that would work just long enough to allow QEotP to step up to the mike and open her mouth – at which point anyone who thought of her as a meaningful HRC alternative would be immediately and painfully disillusioned.
Gary
So where’s the PUMAs, I wonder? The ones who went full birther after Hilary lost the primaries? Are they going to come back into the fold?
different-church-lady
Yup — those two camps hate each other so much that Obama gave Hillary one of the most important positions in his cabinet, and Bill burned down several large barns on Obama’s behalf during the 2012 convention.
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
What is this “paper” thing you refer to? [/iroinic_voice_of_someone_30_years_younger_than_me]
Violet
I hope there’s lots of pushback against the Post for their anti-woman nickname for Hillary. No matter what your politics, that’s offensive.
As for some supposed “feud” between the Clintons and Obamas–who the hell cares? So long as they work together and keep enacting better policies, that’s all that matters.
BillinGlendaleCA
@feebog: Yes, but with fewer debates, all broadcast on Faux.
low-tech cyclist
@DaveinMaine:
Seconded.
No matter how much corporate bullshit and neocon bullshit Hillary buys into, the fact remains that Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare will all emerge basically intact from a Hillary Clinton presidency.
If anyone thinks the same will be true if the GOP holds the White House and Congress in 2017, I’ve got a bridge or three that I’d like to sell them.
Morzer
@Violet:
I don’t know whether this commonsense thing is viable long-term, but it sure looks like a plan for Four More Years! Hell, let’s make that Eight More Years!
JPL
@Botsplainer: Has the noise level lowered? If it has, that might help.
Mnemosyne
@Belafon:
And Obama hates Hillary so much that he made her his Secretary of State.
I realize that the Villagers’ emotional development was arrested in high school, but in the real world, you can work very effectively with people who will never be your best friends in private life. Shocking, but true.
Amir Khalid
If you will forgive a moment of vocabulary Nazism, the verb is not “coronate” but “crown”.
I guess these people have decided that their least-bad bet for now is to gin up talk of (and, they hope, revive) the “feud” in 2008 between Obama and the Clintons. It seems the best way to divide Democrats, given that that party’s base is fairly unified on policy (there wasn’t much of a gap between Hillary and Obama back in 2008, after all).
Besides, any and all Democratic positions, whether left of the Republicans’ own position, or even drawn up and formerly championed by Republicans, are BAD and WRONG. Republicans’ own orthodoxy doesn’t let them differentiate between Democrats on policy, so they must turn to gossip — even if there is only stale gossip from eight years before.
Elizabelle
WaPost website right now:
Clinton’s rarefied life could be a liability in campaign.
“Some Democrats”? Check.
This makes me laugh, since the 2012 Republican candidate was Mitt “Car Elevator” Romney.
Who is married to aspiring First Lady Anne “dancing horse Rafalca” Romney.
JPL
The Clintons and Obamas dined together because they are enemies. Was this a summit and did they share a beer? Does anyone really care if they are bosom buddies?
catclub
@Botsplainer: yeah, if you don’t have previous history of very low pulse, it will get flagged as unhealthy.
I remember the story of the Marine with a pulse of 34 put on bed rest until it went back up to normal range.
cleek
DNFTT ?
Anya
I don’t like Hillary Clinton and I hate the Clintons’ inner circle and sycophants with passion. IMO, HRC never atoned for using racism to further her political goals during the 08 primaries. And her recent interviews show that she hasn’t learned a thing. However, she’s way better than any republican nominee.
As for Forum, he’s a Canadian and he knows what happened to the Liberal Party of Canada because of the inviting between the Martin faction and the Chretien faction of the party. He’s hoping for a little bit of that here.
Bill Arnold
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Is making money on newspapers part of this guy’s agenda, or are they run at a loss, either in support of right wing politics or his other enterprises, or both? Also, how well does he pay? Is there a startup opportunity? Early success, buzz, a good pitch, get bought out for “big” bucks (“big” for news people is smaller than in tech).
Botsplainer
@JPL:
Yeah, noise level decreased, because they’re gone.
Bastards.
I can’t help but think that being neckbeards, they all showed up for granny’s minor procedure done under a local, since you can leave a meth lab to sit and react a while in a car trunk, giving them extra time to kill.
Fair Economist
All the Republican attacks on Hillary show she’s the one they’re really afraid of running against. The Republican solid South is actually kind of fragile and I think they’re afraid she can reassemble her husband’s 90’s coalition, which could make the Democrats competitive in the South and thus obliterate the Republicans on a national scale. Hillary seems to be aiming at the voters she’d need for that with her focus on bread-and-butter working class issues like minimum wage and gender pay equity, and talking up her religion.
Uncle Cosmo
@feebog: FTM, fer cripesake–Follow The Money. Even if the MSM weren’t in the GOP’s pocket it would have the same concern: They need a horse race in order to sell ads. Unless they have a compelling narrative to keep eyes glued to the screen, they lose revenue–viewers will turn off the coverage in favor of sport, old movies & Gilligan’s Island reruns. And the most compelling narrative (as well as the easiest to fabricate & sell) is the horse race going down to the wire. So they will (individually & collectively) do & say anything to hobble the front-runner & flog the also-rans back into contention. Including every form of dishonesty, from trumpeting the results of slanted surveys to selective reporting to out&out lying.
SiubhanDuinne
@gelfling545:
You (EDIT: and Amir Khalid) got there first. Using “coronate” as a verb is one of my pet peeves. Ugly and unnecessary back-formation from “coronation.”
Morzer
@Amir Khalid:
I hate to tell you this, because I find “coronate” a strikingly ugly verb, but it is a legitimate usage:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/coronate
I blame the Romans (and Obama).
It probably isn’t a back-formation as much as a Latinism from corono, coronare.
Steeplejack
@Betty Cracker:
Jesus, can we just say “crown”?! Coronate is a weird back-formation from coronation and the French coroner that was last trendy in the 17th century.
Belafon
@gelfling545: I prefer “people being idiots because they can’t remember her ‘coronation’ in 2008” myself.
catclub
@Fair Economist: Does anyone think that if Hillary had won the nomination in 2008, that the election would have been a Hillary wipeout of McCain? i.e Even larger than Obama’s electoral colleg victory? Cause I am not seeing that.
The GOP was looking forward to running against her and was wrong footed more by Obama, in my view. So they might be pretty well prepared for having her run in 2016. They could be the ones asking us not to throw them in that briar patch.
Morzer
@Steeplejack:
I am not so sure it is a back-formation, as much as a somewhat pretentious Latinism deriving from corono, coronare. Either way, it still seems ugly and unnecessary to me.
rikyrah
I find this humorous. I know all about Frum’s background. But, nobody says that Frum is lying. If we’re getting to the point where folks will continue to maintain that Obots like me just IMAGINED everything in 2007.
Sure, ok, that’s going to work out well for you.
Plouffe already came out that the Hillary-stans on tv, talking about how much the Obama campaign wanted the Clintons to talk about Sarah Palin were full of shyt. I have no reason to doubt The Consigliore of the Obama Campaign.
Hillary has nothing going for her other than she’s ‘inevitable’.
She and her camp are NOT seriously working for the 2014 Elections, because it doesn’t fit into the plan.
Because, if the Democrats are successful in 2014, the President’s agenda goes forward.
If the President’s agenda goes forward, then we don’t need Hillary – The Savior
We only need A DEMOCRAT that will continue down the President’s path.
Barack Obama won the Presidency TWICE proving the following:
1. You don’t remotely need a majority of White voters
2. You don’t need one fucking Southern State
It was nice that he won the Southern States that he did, but he would have been President – TWICE – without them.
Then, we have Greenberg writing that post in Washington Monthly about how the Democrats have to reach out Working Class Whites, to which I say FUCK THAT.
If working class Blacks can get it
If working class Latinos can get it
If working class Asians can get it
If working class Native Americans can get it
Then working class Whites can either get with the fucking program, or continue to cling to the Whiteness.
Never forget that Willard Romney won SIXTY PERCENT OF THE WHITE VOTE
and, it didn’t even fucking matter. Barack Obama stomped his ass in the popular vote AND electoral college vote.
The thought that we’d waste any time trying to court mofos who vote against their own economic interest and voted for 2 sociopaths who vowed to destroy the American Social Safety net, then vote for the Black man who gave a shyt about them…
they wanna cling to the Whiteness – fuck ’em.
And, if the problem was Barack Obama’s BLACKNESS
then, once again…
we don’t need Hillary the Savior……we only need a WHITE Democrat.
Amir Khalid
@Morzer:
The verb “crown” has exactly the same root, and if you want to make it a noun there’s “crowning” — which, granted, is not the word to use for the formal ceremony. Like you, I find “coronate” an ugly word; I also find it an unnecessary one.
Steeplejack
@Morzer:
It didn’t appear in English until the 1620s, about 300 years after coronation, which suggests its origin as a back-formation, and it has no other definition except as a synonym for crown. Let it die.
It is reappearing on the Internet thanks to people who could probably be convinced to use shenanigate as a verb.
Belafon
@catclub: What would they have had against her that 1) we hadn’t already seen (and yes, I know that’s hard to prove) and 2) could have been worse than “whitey tape”, “I’m finally proud of my country”, “he’s a Muslim who will only listen to his radical Christian preacher” or the other dog whistles?
What I think really through them for a loop on Obama is he ran a nearly flawless campaign. As Christ Rock said, though, in 2008 we were either going to have the first black president or the first woman president.
lukeallen1
The drive by hit pieces will only get more fast and furious as we get closer to 2016. Nothing to see here.
Roger Moore
@catclub:
And the GOP also thought that running Sarah Palin as VP was a good idea. Just because they think they can hurt Hillary by recycling their calumnies from the 1990s doesn’t mean they’re right. If anything, doing that will further alienate younger voters, who don’t really care that much about what Hillary was doing when they were growing up.
Morzer
@Amir Khalid:
Right, but at the period when coronate was introduced (1623, first known usage), writers frequently used Latin for formal occasions (orations and poems when a monarch came to town etc) as well as in their correspondence with friends and their own poetry. I think it’s more likely that the word came out of a desire to Latinize English than it is that someone decided that coronation needed a verb to go with it, especially since, as you point out, the goode olde Englishe “crown” was readily available.
catclub
@rikyrah:
The only part of Nixonland that I really remember is that Nixon campaigned for lots of GOP congressional candidates. But he did it very carefully, primarily in those district they were likely to win back after lucky Democrats had taken seats in the wave of 1964. So he looked like more of a winner.
Morzer
@Steeplejack:
I would have to disagree with your analysis of it as a back-formation, but would happily let it die. I think it’s interesting though that it’s being used today as much with an eye to how it sounds (rather grandiose) than for its meaning, which “crown” would supply just as easily.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@gelfling545: According to Merriam-Webster, “coronate” was first used as a verb in 1623. Fucking innovators.
Tommy
@Roger Moore: I am not a huge Hillary fan. But she knows what will come. She will fight. I’d kind of like to see that.
Botsplainer
@catclub:
Every time she’s had pulse and BP run, there’s raised eyebrows. Cardiac issues are never a thing in her family, but cancer is.
It’s so prevalent that she’s obsessed with it.
Colon cancer killed her mother in her mid 60s. Her sister got aggressive breast cancer at 52. Her aunt was killed by a brain tumor, her grandmother breast cancer.
Hell, her zero body fat, Everest summiting cousin got breast cancer.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah:
I implied Frum is misleading, if not outright lying, in the original post when I said he cherry-picked quotes from the Amanpour interview, which he did. He’s a wingnut hack whose entire career has consisted of packaging GOP lies for public consumption.
catclub
@Steeplejack: Everybody knows it is shenanigatize.
FlipYrWhig
Re: “coronate,” I feel like it was only quite recently that people started using “surveil” as a verb.
catclub
@Betty Cracker: Although he was thrown out of his perch at some right-wing think tank for NOT following the party line. So not the typical wing nut hack.
artem1s
@catclub:
sorry, but no, the right wing hate radio fest in 2008 was all about why, oh why, wouldn’t Hillary give up in the face of the overwhelming onslaught of the unknown Chicago anti-war progressive. Pretty much GOPers were encouraged here in OH to declare themselves independent so they could screw up the primary for Hillary (McCain was already a lock by that time). They were terrified of another Clinton in the White House and confident they could get the wingnut base to turn out in droves to vote against the black guy. It was pretty clear they thought they were going to ride the southern strategy all the way to the White House once again.
Sir Laffs-a-Lot
for Betty:
http://cheezburger.com/8225729024
Morzer
@FlipYrWhig:
First known use 1914, perhaps not wholly coincidentally.
catclub
Three days after calling health-care reform a debacle for Republicans, David Frum was forced out of his job at the American Enterprise Institute on Wednesday.
The ouster also came one day after a harsh Wall Street Journal editorial ripped the former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, saying he “now makes his living as the media’s go-to basher of fellow Republicans” and accusing him of “peddling bad revisionist history.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/25/AR2010032502336.html
Sir Laffs-a-Lot
@FlipYrWhig
They can surveil by coronating on their signage.
FlipYrWhig
@Morzer: Those weren’t the best days for the coronated heads of Europe, either.
Frankensteinbeck
Here we have the state of the MSM in miniature. Their attempts to smear Hillary Clinton are if anything making people who hated HIllary view her in a better light. Their refusal to talk about 2014 is pushing 2014 out of the limelight, when it’s actually the most important story around. They’re so convinced that they are America’s wise old men that I don’t think they know any of this, or are deliberately trying for the one power they do have.
Morzer
@Sir Laffs-a-Lot:
In pursuit of truthiness.
FlipYrWhig
@Sir Laffs-a-Lot: That would be impactful!
Morzer
Cuts no ice with me!
Morzer
@FlipYrWhig:
I am, as you know, a moderate on most things, but I feel that the use* of impact as a transitive verb and the adjective impactful should both be punished by the immediate impalement of the user.
*Excluding ironic employment and grammatical discussions of these words.
FlipYrWhig
@Morzer: The use of “impactful” should be destructed.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Bill Arnold: I assume run at a loss. He doesn’t care, he’s got several billion in the bank.
Took the largest newspaper in town, cleared out the newsroom and put his vintage car collection in there, so I think he really doesn’t give a fuck about anything save the politics of the venture.
Morzer
@FlipYrWhig:
Also too.
cokane
I think Frum scored some brownie points on the left during Obama’s tenure because he suggested that Republicans shouldn’t be all super duper crazy and has taken some stances against the religious right elements of his party. But frankly Frum is worse than any true believer. His analyses on issues are nakedly partisan. His willingness to attack just to score points is shameless. He has achieved true hack status imo.
catclub
@Morzer: So you don’t think it is a perfectly cromulent word?
Betty Cracker
@Frankensteinbeck: My guess is the Village and its wingnut meme generators will find a small audience who will lap it all up because it confirms their preexisting biases, just as a vanishingly small portion of the 2008 electorate will go to their graves believing the Obama campaign theme song was “99 Problems” and that Obama used the word “periodically” as a misogynist slur.
Hob
@CONGRATULATIONS!: “What happens when the Post becomes a full-time outlet for Regnery propaganda? What happens when ALL the papers become full-time outlets for the same?”
I know your point was mainly about all the other papers, but that first part makes no sense– the NY Post has been a right-wing propaganda rag for more than 30 years.
Morzer
@catclub:
Can’t say as I grok it, no.
Amir Khalid
@catclub:
I can’t speak for Morzer, but to me “coronate” is a thoroughly uncromulent word.
askew
Considering Hillary already lied about the Obama campaign asking her to attack Palin since she was a woman in her new book and got called out on it by David Plouffe, I think the idea that everything is rosy between the two camps is silly. But, then Hillary has a long history of lying about petty stuff to make herself look better, so I can’t say I am surprised.
Personally, I’d rather be talking about O’Malley’s excellent speech this weekend in Iowa that got a great reception and Tom Harkin’s glowing words of praise for O’Malley. And that he is meeting with Obama organizers in Iowa. That matters more for 2016 than any of this Hillary nonsense.
Iowa Old Lady
Who hates whom? Who’s feuding with whom? What is this? Junior High?
There’s a country to be governed here. Stop with the crap.
Morzer
@Amir Khalid:
“Coronate” should be refudiated.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@catclub:
It isn’t so much that they’re prepared for her, it’s that they likely feel that she’ll depress Dem turnout in ’16. She’s a poor campaigner and a lackluster speaker. Those two things combined with some Dem voters’ unease about her may make that Republican wish come true. Low Democratic turnout means fewer votes for Democrats in down-ticket races and ballot initiatives and that’s golden for the Republicans even if they fail to gain the White House.
pamelabrown53
@cokane: I always confuse David Frum with John Fund. Of the 2, isn’t Fund even worse? Although it’s probably a distinction without a difference.
FlipYrWhig
@Betty Cracker: Oh, man, I had forgotten that “periodically” craziness. I’m all for “overreading,” you know, but that was just gonzo.
SharonL
@rikyrah:
PREACH!!!!!
Woodrowfan
keep in mind that Regnery started as a white supremacist press. Its roots show.
Bobby Thomson
@Botsplainer: The thing at the drug store generally measures my bpm at about 45.
Morzer
@Woodrowfan:
The crapple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Betty Cracker
@Sir Laffs-a-Lot: Now that is CUTE!
FlipYrWhig
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: IMHO Clinton is less compelling but has a deeper reservoir of support — just not a galvanic sort of support. I don’t think that would dampen turnout. Whether you’re fired up about the candidate or just fine with him or her, your vote still counts as one. Mark Warner is about as exciting as store-brand ginger ale in a wax cup on a card table on your cousin’s patio on a warm day, and he still stomps all opponents.
schrodinger's cat
The book about the Obama-Clinton feud sounds silly but I could not find anything wrong with what Frum said about Hillary’s 2008 campaign.
Morzer
@schrodinger’s cat:
Frum’s basically recycling the same old malicious gossip, but doing it in what sounds like a moderate and reasonable way.
Raven
My excitement about getting such quick appointments at the VA have now been tempered by the wait time .
Raven
My excitement about getting such quick appointments at the VA have now been tempered by the wait time .
schrodinger's cat
@Morzer: Gossip? I don’t need Frum to remind me of how Hillary conducted herself in the 2008 primaries. I remember her behavior very well.
SatanicPanic
@cokane: He is a total hack, but sometimes he writes a decent column. His columns about guns are pretty solid.
Morzer
@schrodinger’s cat:
Let us not, for all love, re-litigate the events of 2008, when neither side was perfect. My point is that Frum is hardly giving you a neutral or honest viewpoint on any of it.
SatanicPanic
Oh great, now we get to rerun 2008.
Paul in KY
@schrodinger’s cat: She’s still got my vote!
Anya
Why don’t we focus on other possible 2016 candidates beside Hillary. I like Gov O’Malley and I am very impressed with his recent speech.
Morzer
@SatanicPanic:
It’s going to be a long, long next two years. I am starting to consider cryogenic freezing as an alternative.
Ahasuerus
Apropos of wingnuttery in general and Peak Wingnuttery in particular, here is a KOS article on the impossibility of achieving Peak Wingnut.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@askew:
Anyone who body-checks Bobby Jindal away from a live mic is already aces in my book.
the Conster
@askew:
This is very good news about organizing in Iowa. These are the kinds of stories I want to hear about HIllary but I won’t hold my breath. Can you summarize the speech?
cleek
@Anya:
nope. can’t do that.
Clinton has been Chosen. it is Her Turn.
Just One More Canuck
@Elizabelle: And then there was John McCain (rumour has it he was a POW). Not knowing how many houses you own is a sure sign that you’re just one of the regular folk, the common clay of the new west
schrodinger's cat
@cleek: Wait, haven’t I heard that before?
Steeplejack
@Morzer:
For you? Or the pundits?
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
rikyrah:
There’s the difference between us. I know exactly who Frum is, and just because it’s Frum, doesn’t mean he’s not telling the truth.
Bump
In the U.S. we ‘crown’ eg. boxers and racehorses, it usually connotes that one has earned something.
‘Coronation’ evokes the opposite, the process of awarding unearned or perfunctorily contested title or spoils. ‘Crown’ might be evocative of what Betty is *saying* the U.K. in a way that it wouldn’t be here, however ugly and ‘made-up’ coronate sounds.
1s
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: O’Malley did that?
Belafon
@Anya:
1) It’s too early
2) We don’t know, other than Clinton, who has even indicated they might run.
Morzer
@Steeplejack:
For me. I’d really like to have a week when we don’t have to waste time on Democratic civil war threads about how evil/grudgingly acceptable HRC might or might not be.
SatanicPanic
@Steeplejack: I suggest we freeze the pundits as part of a deep space mission to colonize black holes.
TG Chicago
OT but here’s another example of an American getting trapped in a quagmire on foreign soil (possibly NSFW):
http://gawker.com/american-exchanged-student-pulled-out-of-giant-german-v-1594635938
Steeplejack
@TG Chicago:
When I hovered over your link, I saw the last part was “american-exchanged-student-pulled-out-of-giant-german-v-1594635938” and immediately thought “vagina.”
“Oh, Steep, your dirty subconscious mind,” I chuckled as I clicked the link. Holy shnikeys.
Frankensteinbeck
@FlipYrWhig:
If there is an argument about whether the GOP is attacking her because she is or is not the candidate they’re afraid of, I propose a third interpretation. There is no strategy. They’re just hateful assholes.
Morzer
@Frankensteinbeck:
I agree that the GOP are hateful, but it’s pretty obvious that their strategy is to drive up HRC’s negatives and generally make people sick of hearing about her.
I’d rather we spent all the energy we waste on back and forth over HRC to achieve something positive – maybe helping candidates in the midterms of 2014, rather than obsessing over possible candidates for 2016.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@SatanicPanic:
Golgafrincham Ark B
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Morzer:
She doesn’t need the GOP’s help to do that.
Frankensteinbeck
@Morzer:
We definitely should talk about 2014. I need to see how McConnell is doing against Grimes. It has seemed awfully quiet here in Kentucky, but I don’t watch TV.
Bill Arnold
@Morzer:
What about “impactor”, as in (wikipedia):
– A large meteoroid, asteroid, comet, or other celestial object which causes an impact event
– Impactor (spacecraft), a craft designed for high velocity landing
Morzer
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
If you want to follow David Frum along that particular yellow brick road, that’s your choice.
Morzer
@Bill Arnold:
Not impeach.. I mean impaleable offenses. Tempting though it might be.
Morzer
@Frankensteinbeck:
I’d be curious to hear more from Iowa and see what is happening with Lady Hog-Castrater and her quite bizarre husband.
Dupe70
@Belafon: No. It is textbook sexism and misogyny. I would expct nothing less from the Post.
SiubhanDuinne
@FlipYrWhig:
I need to commit that to memory.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Morzer:
I don’t need Frum’s help to find Clinton execrable.
Rhoda
Hillary Clinton is a liar. When Sinbad can call you out; there are fundamental problems with your campaign that go beyond a bad campaign team. I don’t trust her and would likely trust Jeb Bush on foreign policy more than her.
I have no idea what shakes out for 2016; but there was a reason Hillary lost in ’08. It wasn’t Clinton fatigue; it’s recognizing the Clinton’s lie more than your average politicos. They also know how to cause havoc for their political enemies; which is likely why the president worked to bring them in to the team.
askew
@Anya:
I’ve tried to bring him up multiple times but crickets. He gave a phenomenal progressive speech this weekend in Iowa. He’s clearly running but Hillary is sucking up all the oxygen on the blogs unfortunately.
SatanicPanic
@Rhoda:
woah woah woah
that’s a bit much
henqiguai
@Belafon (#7):
That’s like being annoyed at your (putative) pet parrot for sh!ttin’ on the floor; it’s innate and done without thought. And I’m probably denigrating parrots’ intelligence by seemingly equating them with the wingnuts under discussion.
askew
@the Conster:
Here’s the link to the transcript of the speech. Here are the parts I really liked:
askew
@Belafon:
O’Malley is running. He was in Iowa meeting with Obama organizers.
gelfling545
@Morzer: Perhaps “legitimate” currently but certainly not in common usage as far as I can see until people began speculating about HRC. I suspect that someone, somewhere did not realize that coronation meant crowning. Has anyone ever said “Elizabeth II was coronated queen of England”; or “Miss America was coronated”?
Betty Cracker
@schrodinger’s cat: How about when Frum claims HRC’s 2008 concession speech was all about her own victimhood and gave short shrift to Obama’s accomplishment in winning the nomination? That’s just factually false.
I thought the Clinton campaign engaged in some shitty tactics during the primary race that pissed me off at the time, but after Obama wrapped up the nomination, everyone was able to suck it up and move on.
As a GOP hack, Frum is invested in picking at those scabs for the profit of the Republicans. If someone else picks up steam as a possible Democratic nominee, he’ll pull the same shit on that person too.
Chris T.
@Steeplejack: Nah, everyone knows that’s a noun! Shenani-gate, Benghazi-gate!
askew
@Rhoda:
Hillary is clearly a compulsive liar and she is almost a neocon on foreign policy, but she would have Bill to pull her back from the edge. There is no one on Jeb’s team that moderate his hawkishness.
And if any man lied about dodging sniper fire like Hillary did, they’d be done as a national politician. Andrea Mitchell was on that plane with her and knew there was no sniper fire and never called her out for the lie until Sinbad started making noise about Hillary’s crazy lies.
askew
@Betty Cracker:
Her concession speech was small and more about her than Obama. But, she did a better job than that nutso speech she gave in the underground bunker after Obama sealed the nomination.
FlipYrWhig
@SiubhanDuinne: I was pretty happy with it… :D
Paul in KY
@Anya: Am fine with him (from what I’ve seen). If he’s the nominee, he can BBQ a kitten on live TV & I’d still vote for him.
SatanicPanic
@askew: I like it. Let’s nominate him instead.
Paul in KY
@Frankensteinbeck: This year’s Fancy Farm picnic should be epic.
Paul in KY
@Rhoda: You are a retard, if you would trust Jeb more on foreign policy than her.
Jeb wins, we are in a war against Iran & probably a few others.
canned yass
@schrodinger’s cat:
Oh, please. They’ve been accusing Hills of eating… kittens… since Bill were in office.
WaterGirl
@askew: BooMan had a thread yesterday where he asked what’s next for Martin O’Malley. My initial thought was that he would be given a position in the administration in order to keep his name out there until he can start running in 2016, otherwise he’s just a former governor without a gig.
Then I saw the speech he gave in Iowa over the weekend and I concluded that I was completely wrong. He’s not just running in 2016; he’s going to work to get democrats elected in 2014 and he’s going to get better at campaigning while he’s at it.
Clinton should take a page from his book if she wants to see how it’s done.
Steeplejack
@Chris T.:
We’ll never know what really happened at Shenani.
schrodinger's cat
@Betty Cracker: I have no love lost for Frum. As I said earlier my opinion of Hillary is not based on what Frum says.
I do remember her concession speech at the National Building Museum, some gibberish about a million cracks in the glass ceiling. As a woman that felt patronizing. You lost damn it, there are no prizes for a second place, ask Gore. She gave a better speech at the actual nominating convention.
If I remember correctly, the idiot from Alaska referenced that line at her national debut.
rikyrah
@pamelabrown53:
Fund has never met a Black voter that isn’t committing voter fraud.
schrodinger's cat
@Paul in KY: Heh kitties are our friends, not food.
StringOnAStick
@Botsplainer: I share your wife’s vampiric tendencies; I rarely crack 65/100 with a low pulse. The last time I was recovering in a facility, they finally disarmed the alarm for low pulse and BP.
Try to get your wife to do some deep breathing here and there; it will get the numbers up and help her more rapidly metabolize the anesthesia that is keeping her numbers even lower than usual. It’s the only way I can get out of those places in a reasonable time period.
dollared
@Betty Cracker: Hey Betty, Bruce Bartlett, my favorite apostate and Facebook Friend, just posted you to his wall: https://www.facebook.com/bruce.bartlett?fref=nf
You have a not so secret admirer!
aimai
@WereBear: I know, right? For fuck’s sake these republican goons will peddle any crap. The President and First Lady are known around the world for their grace and class. Its impossible to believe this crap. But as SteveM points out the epistemic closure over on the far right is so great that I’ve seen right wingers assure each other that the President and First Lady “don’t even greet members of the white house staff who are in uniform!” Or that they “know” that Michelle was rude to some soldier somewhere sometime.
aimai
@Amir Khalid: Yes, I actually logged on to ask people to stop saying Coronate. Its vile. The word is Crowned, Crowned, Crowned.
StringOnAStick
Hmm, the sky here on the west side of Denver looks very monsoon-y, about 2 weeks too early. It seems like a different pattern set up last fall, which resulted in the very serious floods of September. Then we just came out of a winter with over 200% of the normal snowpack in the basins that were most affected by those floods, and now I’ve got the feeling that this pattern not only never left after last fall, it is ready to get seriously busy again. Time to go install my hail protection system on my small but sturdy container garden of veggies. Lots of hail around here already this summer.
D58826
Well this explains a lot
Hayden being Bush’s CIA director. Are we really to believe that al-Maliki who survived the political infighting in a very tough neighborhood and managed to outlive Sadaam, really needed coaching from Bush. I’m not sure what is more arrogant that Bush really did it or that someone claim’s he did to make Bush look good. Why any one would take advice from Bush on leadership after watching him as president is beyond me
Emma
I am going to wait until other Democrats throw their hats into the ring. I am going to stop trying to (1)repudiate or (crown) Hillary Clinton. I am going to stay sane until the actual presidential race.
Trollhattan
@aimai:
Coronate is what happens after one overindulges at a Cinco de Mayo party. e.g.,
Higgs Boson's Mate
@aimai:
And The Liberal Media will help them every way it can. Why the fuck are the people who got it wrong on Iraq getting air time and press anyway? Dick Cheney? WTF? They’re even quoting Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. What’s next, an op-ed from Doug Feith? Why aren’t we seeing more pushback from the legions of those who were right about that war at the time?
Glocksman
@Emma:
Indeed.
Though I will say that if HRC learned anything from 2008, she should be getting into the trenches and earning chits from Democratic candidates by campaigning and raising cash for them now.
Nixon did a lot of this between his loss of the CA governor’s race and 1968.
My big fear is that she’s learned little and she’ll hire Mark Penn, who’ll insure that we have President Scott Walker come January 2017.
aimai
I’m really depressed by how easily people who want to see Democrats get in are willing to slang off on HRC as some kind of arch villainess. Its like she comes in for all the hatred that should be reserved for the very large number of Democratic men (in the Senate, in the Governorships) who have a history with the Black community no better and substantially worse than hers and Bill Clintons. There’s also some weird acceptance of Right wing talking points about her that make her some kind of super-evil politician–more calculating, more prone to lying, more deceptive, more corporate than any politician who has ever lived or ever run on the democratic ticket.
She is a perfectly ordinary political actor with the same or better credentials for running than many other men who have chosen to run. She has more name recognition, a higher profile, and higher favorabilities than many men who have thrown their hat into the ring before. She is no less progressive than many others–including everybody’s favorite Biden who has so many skeletons in his closet that he can’t close the door. The idea that she has to prove herself to be a good soldier for the Obama legacy is intriuging but she already has by agreeing to serve –very faithfully, I might add–as his Secretary of State. The idea that she is betryaing him in advance by failing to campaign for something something something in the 2014 elections is just bizarre, to me. Obama HIMSELF may find himself sidelined in some of these races–politicians aren’t universally liked and in some races may prove a liability for the democrats running. Meanwhile her job as a Presidential candidate (if she runs) is to win her own fucking race for the democratic party. Long coattails are good, shoring up the President’s legacy is very important but none of that means squat if she were to run and lose against a Republican.
I get that some people here don’t like her for reasons stemming from their own experience of the 2008 campaign but constantly attacking her is not doing the party any good–it won’t prevent her from running but it does give aid and comfort to the Republicans. If we lose the Presidency its not going to be possible to protect Barack Obama’s legacy and he’d be the first to tell people to put this shit aside and rally around the party and its eventual nominee if that is what she turns out to be. As for telling white working class men to piss off–that, too, does no one any good. I don’t think any campaign should cater to their racism but I also don’t see any need to attack any candidate who tries to get their votes as long as that is done without throwing the rest of the coalition and BO’s legacy out the window.
Morzer
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/epa-claims-victory-supreme-court-climate-change
Belafon
@Glocksman: She’s learned a few things. One obvious one is that she’s already working on the ground game, getting organizations set up in some states already.
Morzer
@aimai:
There’s an amazing amount of hypocrisy going on here, when we see supposed Democrats (and some liberalier than thou Democrats at that) lazily repeating right-wing talking points against HRC.
Paul in KY
@schrodinger’s cat: I would hope he wouldn’t do that :-)
Glocksman
@Belafon:
Good to hear.
While I’m not enthusiastic about HRC, the only way I’d vote Republican is if the ghost of Dwight D. Eisenhower or Teddy Roosevelt was the Republican running against her.
drkrick
@D58826:
al-Maliki has a tough job. I’m sure the sessions provided much needed comic relief.
Morzer
@drkrick:
Flying Shoe Evasion 101 isn’t a class that can be taught by just anyone, you know.
Kay
@Glocksman:
Her problem in 2008 was never Democratic candidates. She started with institutional support (overwhelming, really) in the Democratic Party. The Clintons are good Democrats. They understand how that works and they have decades-long relationships and that matters.
I think her problem will be working OUTSIDE a traditional Party structure in a campaign, and she has to do that because Obama did it and it isn’t going back to the 1990’s approach.
Glocksman
@Morzer:
If GWB had that same smarmy look he has now when he was growing up, he probably had hundreds of hours training in grade school gym dodgeball sessions.
Not the mention the practicals dodging thrown heels from his dates.
Older
@Botsplainer: Are they checking her blood oxygenation? Little rubber clamp thingy goes on a finger, read-out should be in the high 90s. If they aren’t checking it, they should.
I expect they are suspecting her of all kinds of cardiac issues*, but they should be less concerned if she’s getting enough oxygen.
But those folks next door must go! Can you get her moved? Can you complain to her doctor? To the hospitalist?
*Don’t knock cardiac issues. In a lot of hospitals they have a special ward for cardiac patients, whatever they are in for, where everything is much much nicer. And quieter, I might add. I know this because I am a cardiac case. My heart does not behave as it “should”, although it’s never done me any harm. And, as I said, it gets me better accommodations, which is important now that I spend so much time in the hospital for non-heart-related reasons.
schrodinger's cat
I will support Hillary when she wins the nomination. Before jumping on her bandwagon I want to see who her competition is and how she conducts this campaign. She is not the Crown Princess, her courtiers should stop acting like she is.
Glocksman
@Kay:
True.
Nixon’s example popped to mind because I recently reread Nixonland, and building up chits was one of his primary means of climbing back up the ladder after his losses.
That said, the only way I hope to see Mark Penn’s named mentioned during the next few years is as ‘Fox News Contributor’.
Morzer
@schrodinger’s cat:
Which specific courtiers are we talking about here? The true believers who are running the I’m Ready For Hillary campaign? The media types who like to hype this stuff up?
I am honestly not seeing anything like a mass-movement of courtiers for Hillary. I see fairly small groups two years out and a media that is making a big deal out of every small thing it can find.
Morzer
@Glocksman:
I prefer convicted felon Mark Penn.
Kay
I think Obama was hurt by not having long relationships within the Party.
I don’t mean this in a negative way toward Clinton. The fact is she does have those and he didn’t.
Our former county chair said it when O won the primary. He said “he will have bad patches and he won’t have defenders who have known him for 30 years” and I think that turned out to be true.
schrodinger's cat
@Morzer: By courtiers I mean people who are behaving like she has already won the nomination and any criticism of her highness is apostasy
Paul in KY
@Glocksman: I wouldn’t even vote for Dwight. Probably might vote for TR, but he’d be a Democrat now.
Morzer
@Kay:
The same thing happened to the Clintons during the Clinton presidency. A lot of old-timer Dems were not especially happy to see a pair of pretentious hicks from Arkansaw in the White House. The Clintons got screwed by their own party long before Monica Lewinsky came along.
FlipYrWhig
@D58826: Bush could give him pointers about how not to give a shit after a disputed election.
Paul in KY
@drkrick: I’ll bet that’s the truth! Once the session had ended, I bet al Maliki was yucking it up.
FlipYrWhig
@Morzer: That’s what Democrats do: explain that other Democrats are Democrat-ing all wrong.
Roger Moore
@askew:
I wouldn’t mind if Hillary sucking up all the energy were a gambit. It would be kind of cool if the Republicans spent all their time and energy worrying about her, only for her to decide not to run and leave them without having done anything about the actual candidates. As long as the real candidates are using this time to build up their campaign infrastructure, they should gain more from the Republicans being distracted than they lose by the media being distracted.
Paul in KY
@Morzer: I would prefer the late Mark Penn.
Kay
@Glocksman:
They’ll be great at the State Party stuff. That’s what they know. They had the OH state party pretty much sewn up before Iowa in 2008.
They’re already doing it.
aimai
@askew: Please stop peddling right wing lies about HRC. The “compulsive liar” charge dates back to William Safire’s column. You should be ashamed of yourself for this crap.
Morzer
@schrodinger’s cat:
But who are these supposed people? I see plenty of people on here saying that now isn’t the time for yet another round of Democratic Mutual Destruction, but I don’t know of anyone who argues that the Clintons are perfect or should not be subject to the usual primary examination by the party. As for all the talk of inevitability – that seems to come mostly from people who hate HRC for whatever reason and are just using it as a means of bashing her. They’ve formed themselves a dinky little Any Club Will Do Club and are swinging away merrily at their own fantasy version of what HRC is supposedly saying or doing.
kc
Amen. Thanks, Betty.
Morzer
@FlipYrWhig:
We are indeed the self-trolling party, heaven help us.
Kay
@Morzer:
There was definitely a class element there.
I liked that about Bill Clinton. I’m comfortable with straight-up salespeople and I was amused by tge snobbiness.
FlipYrWhig
@Morzer: “Meh on Hillary” is the new “surveillance state.” It’s related to genuine concerns, but it’s functioning in blogosphere circles as a way for people to signal to one another that they’re thoughtful and critical and discerning, not bandwagon-jumping mainstream sellouts.
Botsplainer
@Older:
Got her out, finally. Her oxygenation was constantly good – I was watching numbers. She’s just got this awesome heartrate, the thing that lets her barely sip air when diving. I’ve surmised that she could easily get an hour and a half at 50-80 feet, and with a little advance profile planning, 2 hours.
Morzer
@FlipYrWhig:
The irony being that so much of their thoughtful, critical discernment is made up of not very heavily re-purposed same old same old right-wing horseshit.
Glocksman
@Kay:
With me it wasn’t so much a class (I’m very much poor and lower class) element, but a visceral reaction to his combination of a southern accent and rhythmic manner of speaking that reminded me of Robert Tilton, Jimmy Swaggart, and other assorted swine.
Once I managed to overcome that reaction, I didn’t have a visceral problem with Bill.
My problems after that came from the NAFTA stab in the back.
If I wanted NAFTA, I would have voted for Bush the Elder, though I am grateful that Bill signed FMLA, which Bush never would have done.
schrodinger's cat
@Morzer: I am criticizing her for her own actions and utterances. I am also curious to know her thoughts on macroeconomics. That’s the one area I have found Obama to be not as good I as I had thought he would be.
Bill Clinton and his economic team share a large part of the blame for the financial crisis (at least 50%) of 2008. While I don’t blame Hillary for this. I would like to know her economic agenda and her economic team before I decide that she is the best candidate the Democrats have.
*Clinton’s self appointed courtiers are the ones penning huge essays in the comment sections of blogs like this one and calling anyone who dares question her, names.
Morzer
@schrodinger’s cat:
I seem to have missed Hillary declaring herself Crown Princess, not to mention all the courtiers announcing the same. Could you help me out with some links here?
FlipYrWhig
@Morzer: Natch.
Morzer
@schrodinger’s cat:
Which huge essays are you referring to? What names have they been calling you? Again, some links would be nice.
Kay
@askew:
If he’s running Clinton won’t shut him out. There’s the whole state Party delegate pledging caucus thing that happens.
I was the only O delegate from this CD because it was way early and I like primaries so it was fun to shake it up a little.
I didn’t think he had a chance in hell but it’s risk free at that level. You’re just keeping him alive to fight another day.
WaterGirl
@aimai: What’s your take on the “taking sniper fire” incident? She flat out lied, in my opinion.
FlipYrWhig
@Morzer: Schrod is probably referring to the long-ish piece above by aimai.
Morzer
@FlipYrWhig:
So “they” turns out to be a singular aimai? And the huge essay turns out to be a longish comment?
Aiya! Vast internet conspiracies should be made of sterner stuff!
Kay
@Glocksman:
Right, me too, but there was this whole undertone that he was a salesman “Slick Willy” etc. that was comical to me.
No shit he’s a salesman. He never pretended to be anything else.
Like they’re all noble principled statesman.
Morzer
@WaterGirl:
I think it’s just as likely that she conflated incidents without realizing it. It’s not a praiseworthy thing to have done and it made her look remarkably silly, but I don’t know that she deliberately lied about it.
Morzer
@Kay:
A politician trying to sell people something.
Whatever is the world coming to?
askew
@aimai:
It’s not a rightwing charge. It’s fact based. She made up a lunatic lie about dodging sniper fire and went all over Iowa and NH telling that story until Sinbad called her out on it. She lied about being partially responsible for FMLA until Dodd called her out for it. She lied about being involved in getting the Irish Peace Treaty done until almost all the major players involved called her out on it. She lied about the Obama campaign in her latest book and David Plouffe called her out on it.
I’ve never seen another major candidate lie with such ease as Hillary does with the possible exception of Mitt Romney.
FlipYrWhig
@Morzer: Perhaps reminiscent of the Gore mis-memory of riding with FEMA’s James Lee Witt on a certain occasion rather than another. For which he was pilloried, of course.
I really think Hillary C is going to get the Gore treatment, taking fire (get it? get it?) from both left and right.
askew
@Morzer:
There was no incident of her dodging sniper fire ever. It never happened. She got greeted on the tarmac by a child giving her flowers. Hillary’s excuse for the lie was that she was tired. Apparently, she was tired a lot since she told the story over and over again throughout 2007-08.
Death Panel Truck
@Belafon:
I’d rather see her work the ground game on behalf of 2014 Democratic congressional candidates, but that’s not going to happen. She’s too busy running for president.
askew
@Kay:
I am talking about the blogs and the media ignoring everyone else in 2016 because it is all Hillary all the time. It does our party no good to have the media and blogs act like we only have 1 viable candidate.
Morzer
@askew:
Simple solutions please simple minds.
Please proceed.
schrodinger's cat
@Morzer: Your own comments:
Paul in KY
@WaterGirl: If one person on ground fires at your plane, then you are ‘taking sniper fire’.
Morzer
@FlipYrWhig:
I don’t think there’s any doubt that Clinton Derangement Syndrome has driven the GOP mad(der) and is now driving small sections of the Democrats into their own particular frenzy.
OTOH, sales of glass house repair kits and boxes of perfectly shaped stones for the purer of heart than thou are sure to enjoy a boom.
Kay
@Glocksman:
Trade is like foreign policy, though Because it IS foreign policy, probably ! :)
It has a long arc. Party divisions, R and D blur and it’s hard to turn it around.
Liberals are hurt on trade because they have short-term tactical goals, THIS agreement, THAT industry and conservatives present this sweeping vision that is better-suited to a long-arc policy environment.
Paul in KY
@askew: Uh….do you remember this guy named GW Bush? Sorta looked like Alfred E. Newman’s love child…
Morzer
@schrodinger’s cat:
Yes, my comments. I stand by them.
What was your point?
askew
@Death Panel Truck:
As usual, Hillary’s career is more important than the Democratic Party. Both Barack Obama and Martin O’Malley managed to work on GOTV and party building in the midterms prior to their presidential run. Hillary’s too busy selling books and giving speeches to Wall Street I guess.
WaterGirl
@Morzer: I have never bought the “she got mixed up” line. It was an embarrassment, and it still makes me question her character. The racial stuff during the campaign didn’t help, either. YMMV.
xian
@catclub: no, it was going to be a blowout either way. it was either old white guy against first woman preident or old white guy vs. first black president, with bush having utterly discredited the gop brand.
askew
@Paul in KY:
And she admitted that never happened after being called out on her lie. It was completely fabricated. It’s kind of crazy that people are trying to justify a lie that Hillary coped to.
Keith G
The stupid is running hot, fast and deep on this thread. Is there really going to be two years of this ahead of us?
Morzer
@WaterGirl:
Conflation is pretty well established as part of how our minds “remember” the past. It’s perfectly plausible that she did indeed believe that she had gone into Tuzla under sniper fire. Embarrassing to her, yes, but not quite the same thing as a deliberate lie.
I thought her remarks about Zimbabwe during the primary were remarkably foolish, but then the Obama campaign did itself no favors with the line about her being D-Punjab, which was arguably a fairly racist line of attack. YMMV.
WaterGirl
@Morzer: I don’t think that’s a fair attack on askew. I don’t see a single thing in comment # 209 or 211 that isn’t a statement of fact.
edit: I believe the final line in 209 was added as an edit, and that is stated as opinion. but the original paragraph was all factual.
Morzer
@Keith G:
I imagine some people will be re-litigating the Matter of Clinton in 2040. We should be so lucky as to get away with a two year sentence.
Morzer
@WaterGirl:
I see an enormous amount of interpretation by askew – interpretation based rather obviously on what askew wants to be the case. I stand by what I wrote.
askew
@Morzer:
She admitted she made up the entire incident. Why are you still trying to spin that she just “misremembered”? She lied. Own it.
And Hillary and Bill’s racist attacks were not limited to one offensive press release by a staffer like Obama’s Punjab was. And the difference being Obama owned the mistake, apologized for it and made sure it never happened again. Hillary’s team was pushing racist arguments against Obama even after she conceded the race. And she never owned most of her campaigns bad behavior.
Kay
@askew:
I don’t buy that it hurts the Party. If they’re engaged in watching Clinton they’re more likley to vote in the midterns than if they aren’t engaged at all.
The way she would skew the race would be shutting top tier candidates out from entering . If O’Malley is running then she isn’t doing that.
I don’t think Biden is viable. He has never polled well.
You’d have to show me a strong younger Dem who is PASSING on running because Clinton dominates the field.
Gator90
@askew: Obviously, HRC is a heavyweight political celebrity in a way that no other conceivable Dem presidential candidate comes close to matching. Of course she gets the most attention. If you want to counterbalance that, find an alternative candidate you believe in and work to help that person get more attention. But whoever that person is, you won’t help him or her by attacking HRC with personal smears reminiscent of ’90s-era Rush Limbaugh.
Morzer
@askew:
Clinton didn’t admit to lying, askew, as you know perfectly well when you aren’t inventing your own version of what she said. The rest of your adolescent howls of rage deserve no comment. Politics ain’t beanbag and the rest of us have no reason to pretend that it is just to soothe your latest tantrum.
Paul in KY
@askew: Would you happen to have a link to where she ‘admits’ she made the whole thing up?
WaterGirl
@Morzer: These look pretty factual to me. (except for the word lunatic)
askew
@Gator90:
Yes, pointing out Hillary’s numerous lies is a rightwing smear. It’s like 2007 all over again. Deflecting, attacking those who dare to criticize Hillary, etc. Nothing has been learned.
schrodinger's cat
@Morzer: I don’t know who you were specifically referring to but you are saying in both those comments that people questioning Hillary are repeating Republican talking points.
WaterGirl
@Morzer: You guys can forgive or excuse what Clinton said (that askew documents in 209 and 211, which I quoted in 235), but making personal attacks and saying askew’s comments are tantrums seem out of line to me.
Morzer
@WaterGirl:
You have a pretty odd definition of factual. It’s a ridiculously slanted presentation that assumes an awful lot of facts not in evidence. Askew seems to think that endlessly shrieking the accusation “She lied” must make it true. That might fly in kindergarten, but it’s a pathetic excuse for an argument when talking to adults. There’s no evidence of a deliberate lie and plenty of reason to believe that HRC, like everyone else, conflated past memories. If it comes down to it, Obama somewhat fictionalized his past in Dreams from my Father. Should we start screaming with outrage about that?
WaterGirl
@Paul in KY: I don’t have a link, but that’s how I recall it, too. When she was called on the sniper fire incident, she admitted it hadn’t happened and blamed it on being tired.
How does one explain, then, how she managed to repeat the same untrue account about the sniper fire, over and over again, if it wasn’t an outright lie?
askew
@Paul in KY:
She admitted she misspoke and that it didn’t happen. That counts as a lie to me. I guess you could spin that another way. Here is a link to the mess she and her campaign made of trying to explain why she made up that story. After reading that story, I am reminded one more time why she just doesn’t have the skill or character necessary to be a great president.
Glocksman
@Morzer:
Well, Hillary said she ‘misspoke’, but Politifact gave her a pants on fire rating.
It’s merely my opinion, but if you say something incorrect once or twice and then walk it back, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and believe you.
In this case, I don’t recall exactly how many times she made the statement, so I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt on this one.
Insomniac
Hillary on the “sniper fire” comment.
Morzer
@WaterGirl:
Well, we are just going to have to disagree on this. I’d say that shrieking “she lied” like a rabid parrot is a tantrum. Maybe you have a higher tolerance for childish behavior than I do.
Morzer
@schrodinger’s cat:
No, not quite. I said that “so much” of what they were saying was thinly recycled right-wing garbage, which, alas, it is. I have also said that the Clintons are not immune from either criticism or a party primary. You might like to note that.
xian
@Keith G: my thoughts too. iwas like uh oh balloon juice is going to become some sort of antimatter-PUMA hillary hate site.
geg6
@Rhoda:
After this sentence, there is no need to read another word you have to say. Anyone this stupid is not worth listening to.
WaterGirl
@Morzer: These look like facts to me.
There are family stories that we are told and don’t question. I was told that my grandmother had been hit by lightning and that’s why she was the way she was. I was repeating some family story about my grandmother at some point in my 20s or 30s and as I heard myself I instantly realized that she had never been hit by lightning, that was some story that was told to a 5-year old to explain her senility. I think stuff like that happens in every family. So if Obama goofed up the concentration camp his grandfather (?) liberated or whatever it was, or if Elizabeth Warren told some family story that isn’t absolutely precision, I don’t have a problem with it.
But I recall Hillary pretty much saying the sniper thing hadn’t happened, she was just tired. That, I think is in a different class.
Paul in KY
@Insomniac: Seems she was told some stuff on the plane that turned out to have been an exaggeration of how it actually was down on the ground.
geg6
@askew:
He’s really good. I have a friend whose judgment I trust who worked for him when he was mayor and he praises him to the skies.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@askew: I call bullshit on the crickets. At the moment, O’Malley is the person in whom I have the most interest. I have said this and things like it in several other threads, as have others. If you have made your pick already, keep promoting him. Perhaps explaining why he would be a best candidate on the issues, on character, on age/looks/regional appeal/etc. would do more good than calling HRC a compulsive liar. Anyway, it is the route I plan to take once I decide on a candidate. YMMV.
Glocksman
@Paul in KY:
And conflating it all together is why in retrospect I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt on the issue unless she did indeed go repeating it all over Iowa and NH.
The politifact story only indicates she repeated it a couple of times.
Gator90
@askew: You can criticize HRC with my blessing, but calling her a “compulsive liar” based on 3 or 4 statements (out of the thousands of statements she has made in her career) which may or may not have been lies is, well, the kind of crap right-wingers have been flinging at her since 1991 or so. Sorry if the comparison bothers you, but to me it seems apt.
WaterGirl
@Morzer: I think it’s interesting that you read askew’s statements as “shrieking ‘she lied’ like a rabid parrot”.
I think Hillary Clinton sets off buttons for some people. In some cases those buttons are pushed in her supporters as they see anything negative about Hillary as an attack, or as a sign of Hillary Hate. In other cases, those buttons re pushed in people who don’t like the “inevitable candidate” meme that’s being pushed for the second time.
In my case, I don’t hate Hillary. I think she was an okay secretary of state, and I think it showed a lot of class that she accepted the cabinet position from President Obama. I believe she lied about some things in the campaign, some of which askew noted in 209 and 211. I have a big problem with the racial elements pursued by her campaign in 2008. I don’t particularly trust her, but I will vote for her in the general if she is the democratic nominee. It’s not hate. I just do not want her as my president. But she’s better than any republican, that’s for sure.
And the most important thing is to win in 2014 so we can get some stuff done.
askew
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
I’ve done that multiple times. What I am talking about is the frontpagers at this blog, other blogs and the media ignoring O’Malley. He gave an incredible speech this weekend in Iowa that got a prolonged standing ovation from Iowa Dems, met with Obama organizers in Iowa and had Senator Harkin who is one of the most influential people in the Iowa caucus and a major progressive voice in the party heap praise all over him for his progressive works. Yet, all of that is ignored so we can have yet another conversation about how people are being mean to Hillary. It gets old.
Kay
@Glocksman:
I love Sherrod Brown and trade is really his area but there’s just no contest between him talking about some specific concession he got on tire makers and this big bold Free Trade Theory.
Liberals need a comprehensive alternative to the R and D long-arc trade policy. Obama is getting there with his trajectory but we have to have some answer that is not tactical but strategic.
It turned right after Carter. Where are we going with liberal trade policy? If we want to turn it around we need a destination.
Glocksman
To be blunt ‘I was under sniper fire’ pales in comparison to ‘there are WMD in Iraq’.
If HRC deliberately lied, the part that upsets me is that she would have been either stupid or arrogant enough to tell such an easily disproven story.
askew
@Gator90:
The thing is it is not 3 or 4 statements. I gave a few examples but there were plenty of other examples I could have used. She has a problem with lying and these aren’t little lies. Saying that she dodged sniper fire and ran with her head down off the tarmac instead of accepting flowers from a child is a pretty lie. If a Republican made up lies like that, we would never let it slide. Hell, Biden gets more crap for his plagiarism charge than Hillary has ever gotten for her serial lying. It is bordering on sexism here. People are treating Hillary with kid gloves and giving her benefits of the doubt that no male candidate would ever get.
Glocksman
@Kay:
I’m not really familiar with his work, but hasn’t Robert Reich done a lot in this area?
askew
@Paul in KY:
Actually, this is what she said – “I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia,” she said, in remarks that aides described Monday as not being part of her prepared speech. “I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”
Can’t blame that on getting bad information from someone on the plane. She said she ran with her heads down to the vehicles, when there is footage of her accepting flowers from a child on that tarmac.
I can’t believe people are excusing away this lie. Seriously, it’s an insane story she made up that had no basis in fact and there was no reason to make up the lie in the first place. It was just a dumb, unforced error on her part. And it makes her look crazy.
askew
@geg6:
Yeah, I have heard nothing but good things about him. I was hoping we’d get some news from the activists on the ground in Iowa who saw him this weekend. I am curious to see how he plays in Iowa.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@askew: But you also jump in with the HRC sucks and is a compulsive liar comments every time there is a people being mean to Hillary post. I am just saying, these threads might be better spent by anti-Hillary folks somewhat derailing the conversation by talking up alternative candidates. Otherwise I think you risk looking like an anti-Hillary crank rather than someone who supports a different (and, in your opinion, better) candidate. There are probably a lot of people who are rather meh on a Hillary candidacy who could get pushed into her camp by a perception that she is being unfairly attacked by people who don’t offer an alternative. OTOH those people might well be intrigued by hearing good things about O’Malley and then want to subscribe to your newsletter.
Maybe it is personality and stylistic differences coming into play, but the way some of the anti-Clinton comments from my side of the fence are phrased sometimes make me want to pick up my cudgel to defend her.
Kay
@Glocksman:
They need more than “green jobs, worker protections and training”
They need a trade policy. What does “fair trade” look like 20 years out, if we were to adopt it? What does it mean for all the other countries? If NAFTA screws the rust belt and benefits Texas can the rust belt fairly oppose all trade agreements that harm their regiobal economy?
schrodinger's cat
@Kay: Currently globalization favors those countries that have lower wages and protections for their workers. If you take your manufacturing operations to another country immediately you improve the bottom line because you are paying much less in payroll and benefits.
Interesting factoid: The free trade people are all for the free flow of capital but not the free flow of labor.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Kay: No trade deals that don’t address workers’ rights on both sides and environment impact.
Kay
@askew: @askew:
I was interested in O’Malley for his comments on public ed. I think it’s an area of growing division in the Democratic Party and he seems to know that.
But if he makes that a top-tier issue that doesn’t benefit Obama’s legacy. Obama has been, IMO, a near-complete disaster on public schools.
If O’Malley commits to public education I’ll back him on that afainst Clinton alone. That would be enough for me.
But recognize that O’Malley would not just be to the Left of Clinton, he would be to the Left of Obama.
askew
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
I am sure that is part of it. I definitely rise to the bait on these poor Hillary diaries. There are some posters here who worship the ground Hillary walks on and can’t handle the slightest criticism to her.
I need to just state my opinion and move on. The Bosnia Sniper lie is so fucking crazy that it made me right Hillary off as a viable presidential candidate permanently. I think there has to be something wrong with someone who goes around telling a lie like that and I don’t want that person in charge of the country. So, I have a hard time letting it slide when I read comments about how Hillary being a liar is a rightwing smear and not based in fact.
askew
@Kay:
Not sure why you are bringing in Obama except to try to create a division between Obama and O’Malley. Yes, O’Malley is to the left of Obama on some issues. But, he aligns with Obama on most issues. I think O’Malley might be more to the right of Obama on law and order issues, which I don’t think will be a dealbreaker with the party base.
What I like is that instead of trying to create distance between Obama and himself and adding to the never-ending list of people bitching about Obama, he is embracing what Obama has accomplished and giving him credit for it. He is aligning himself to inherit the Obama coalition with his campaign so far. That is smart politics. I already see signs that he knows what he is doing for 2016.
Hillary is doing herself no favors with coming out against Obama already. She is running the Gore 2000 campaign and is clearly trying to win the beltway primary instead of the Democratic primary. The base of the party likes Obama and isn’t going to want to go through 2016 with the Democratic nominee taking potshots at Obama.
Kay
@askew:
So broadly, if O’Malley is nit just an alternative to Clinton but ALSO an alternative to wgat I don’t like about Obama, does THAT “hurt the Party”?
I don’t think it does, I’m all for it (O’Malley took a veiled shot at Arne Duncan in that speech) but my sense is you’re seeing this as O’Malley v Clinton and that is not how a primary will play out. The Democrat will also break from Obama. They all will, on various issues.
Gator90
@askew: Do you not see the difference between “I think she lied about X” and “she is a compulsive liar”? The former may be a reasonable opinion; the latter is character assassination based on (so far, anyway) a very small sample of statements that you have not even proven were lies.
Kay
@askew:
Obama will get bloodied up.a little in any Democratic primary, because he’s the incumbent and he’s polling at 40%.
It won’t be just Clinton. Do they have to be ham-handed about it? No. Will they all draw distinctions? Yes.
askew
@Kay:
I think the primary is going to play out exactly as O’Malley vs. Clinton. O’Malley will be the future of the party and an embrace of the Obama coalition. Hillary will be going back to the 1990s model and the hard-working white voters that she has been wooing.
The Democrat will break from Obama on some issues, but tone matters. O’Malley has been playing it smart. You don’t go to a room full of Dem activists and take a shit on the president they got elected twice. You praise him for what he’s done and talk about what you’ll do to continue to move the country forward and yes, talk about what hasn’t worked and what they’d do differently.
Hillary’s shots at Obama have been ill-timed and can undercut him on foreign policy issues. Plus, there is the issue with her lying about the Obama campaign already.
I think it hurts the party when the Republicans are bringing fresh, younger faces to represent the party and we are running a retread from the 1990s who is a symbol of that divisive time and doesn’t have any real vision to offer. It’s my turn and we need a woman president isn’t as inspiring as what O’Malley can offer in my opinion. His speech touched on a vision for America that I can see galvanizing the party base. Plus, he can tie that vision into what he has accomplished.
I could be wrong. Maybe Hillary has something up her sleeve to inspire the party base and bring independents to vote for her. But, I am not seeing anything different from 2007 so far.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Kay: Yes, there will be a lot of “I will keep do the Obama good stuff, but I won’t do the Obama bad stuff” with varying definitions of good and bad stuff.
Patricia Kayden
@askew: The entire speech is great. Will be interesting to see if O’Malley will run in the primaries and if he has enough juice to beat Senator Clinton. Or perhaps she’ll be smart and try to talk him into being her VP. That would be a great ticket.
askew
@Kay:
Doesn’t matter what he’s polling nationally. It matters how he is perceived by the party base. If Hillary decides to beat Obama in the primary after he saved her career by naming her SoS, it will hurt her immensely. Lots of the base remembers her behavior in 2008. And lets not skip over the fact that her favorables are already dropping as well. She might not be much over 40% by the time the primary is run.
rikyrah
@askew:
It’s her TURN, don’t you know.
WaterGirl
@Gator90:
That’s a good distinction to make. Major bonus points because it’s so succinct!
askew
@Patricia Kayden:
I think he clearly runs. He needs the name recognition to get named VP ahead of the bland choices that Hillary is more likely to pick (Bayh, Warner, etc.). She’ll want someone that doesn’t outshine her and that is from a swing state if possible.
I’d rather a O’Malley/Gillibrand ticket myself. But, I’d settle for O’Malley/anyone with a pulse.
Keith G
lolololololol
Kay
@askew: @askew:
I think your focus is exclusivel on Clinton.
Bernie Sanders will probaly run. I guarantee he will part with Obama on issues.
Does that hurt the Party?
She’s a candiate. She has to run. I don’t think Obama has any illusions that Democrats will rally ’round to protect his legacy. He hinself ran on stripping some of the bullshit off of Bill Clinton’s legacy. That’s why Bill Clinton had a big tantrum hissy fit in 2008.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Morzer:
Being under hostile fire is a profound experience. Having your life threatened by someone unseen isn’t something that you’ll forget, conflate or misremember. Clinton told a self-aggrandizing lie. If that”s all right with you then so be it.
askew
@Gator90:
I see a distinction but there is decades of evidence of her lying about dumb stuff. There is a reason that one of the Clintons’ biggest backers backed Obama in 2008 instead saying that “Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease it’s troubling.”. Yes, he is now on board in 2016, but I am not.
The examples I used were well-proven lies from the 2008 campaign plus one that was just in the news this weekend. That shows a pattern of behavior and quite frankly the Bosnia lie alone is bad enough to disqualify any politician, but Hillary is getting a pass on it because she’s special I guess.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
Sure there will. Which is good. If Martin O’Malley wants to draw distinctions versus Arne Fucking Duncan I’m all for it.
Clinton can do the same thing. Hers will be in a direction I don’t like on foreign policy, but she’s running. She’s allowed to actually do that. She doesn’t have to follow some special deferential rules due to past sins.
SuperHrefna
@rikyrah: Yes, Yes and Yes again to everything you said. The fact that Frum is scum means we need to look closely at what he says, but it doesn’t automatically mean he’s wrong. I remember 2007/8. I remember it well. And it has left me with a deep distrust of Hillary Clinton’s character, I don’t like the choices she made when the chips were down, I don’t like the people she chose to surround herself with, I haven’t forgotten the truly disgraceful way she behaved once it was clear she had lost: https://balloon-juice.com/2008/06/04/delusional-and-codependent/
I think my being bicultural helps here. I would love it if there was a female president, and I would prefer a female president, but only if she was a woman I could look up to and trust. I don’t want just any female president. My memories of Maggie “Maggie Maggie Out Out Out” Thatcher are too dark and terrible for that.
I’ve really loved the past years of feeling secure in the president, of trusting his judgement, of knowing when something terrible happens that the guy holding the reins has a good head on his shoulders and will make the best decisions possible in the circumstances. That he’s someone who won’t grandstand and bloviate about how evil the evil doers are, but someone who will set to work quietly behind the scenes to catch the bastards so they can’t cause more harm.
I’d like more of that in our next president please. Someone with good judgement. And I just don’t see that coming from Hillary “I hired Mark Penn” Clinton.
Gator90
@askew: Saying something is “well-proven” is not the same thing as demonstrating it is well-proven. Your real focus appears to be on the alleged lie about landing under fire in Bosnia. From what I know, that may well have been a lie. Assuming it was, I don’t agree it should disqualify her for the presidency. You seem to be proposing a standard that would exclude virtually all politicians. Just by the way, I happen to think Bill has been pretty honest about most things not involving his penis.
SuperHrefna
@rikyrah: And can I just add that I cannot BELIEVE she is pulling this “inevitable” shit again. It was a disaster for her the last time. And here she is doing it again? Why?
Betty Cracker
@SuperHrefna: Clinton hasn’t even said she’s running yet, much less that she’s inevitable. Your ire for the “inevitability” bullshit should therefore be directed at its purveyors, the Beltway hacks.
WaterGirl
@SuperHrefna:
I agree with you on all of that.
Edit: actually, I have no preference on gender for president, as long as we get a great president. Awesome female president would just be the icing on the cake, just like awesome black president was with Obama.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@SuperHrefna: FWIW, I don’t see Hillary making any statements of inevitability. Groups like Ready for Hillary are independent actors – unless you have some evidence that HRC is violating campaign laws.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: Betty, are the Ready for Hillary people affiliated with Hillary Clinton, or not? Do you know? I am really not sure.
It probably is the media hacks who promote the inevitability thing, but in 2008 it felt like it came from the Clintons, too. Hence my question above.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): I see you have answered my question to Betty Cracker!
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@WaterGirl: The RfH website explicitly states that it is not affiliated with or authorized by HRC. I cannot imagine that Clinton would flagrantly violate campaign laws by coordinating with an independent PAC.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): I have never been to their site, so I hadn’t seen that. No one but an arrogant governor undergoing a recall would be stupid enough to flagrantly violate campaign laws like that!
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@WaterGirl: I went once, during one of the previous Hillary threads, I wanted to answer that question because people was attributing to HRC statements from that website as though it were the official campaign site. It is, however, an unaffiliated PAC.
And wrt Walker, damned right.
askew
@Kay:
Nice strawman argument there. No one is saying that. What people are saying is that she doesn’t get a pass because of her poll numbers and she is going to get criticism just like any other candidate. She isn’t entitled to special treatment no matter what the Clinton people say.
And are we really pretending that Ready for Hillary didn’t get a nod from the Clinton camp before forming their PAC? Give me a break. I love how Hillary is never responsible that anything that happens. It’s always someone elses fault. Hillary “the buck stops over there” Clinton has done a great job in snowing people that is for sure.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@askew:
That’s a pretty nice strawman you just built. Assuming arguendo that HRC gave such a nod, it does not follow that HRC bears any responsibility for anything the site of the PAC does. Unless you can actually point to evidence that Clinton is flagrantly violating campaign finance laws, that one is a complete nonstarter.
askew
Giving the nod to them doesn’t mean that she is working with them.
She could certainly have said publicly that she wishes donors would concentrate on the midterms instead of 2016.
I get it. Playing cute in the media about not deciding whether to run or not lets put the entire Democratic field into limbo while they wait for her decision without requiring her to do any work. It’s easy and that’s fine. But, I am not going to pretend that these narratives coming from longtime associates of Clinton aren’t being given a nod by the Clintons. If they were unhappy with what Ed Rendell and others were saying the media, they would have shut them up by now.
Kay
@askew:
Ed Rendell is a paid pundit. I can’t stand him either, but Hillary Clinton isn’t responsible for him.
The only thing that Ready for Hillary has done that I find cringeworthy is the Hillary bus. Mitt Romney did that and we all made fun of it here. They had 4 Mitt buses and they would send them around as if people were supposed to get excited by an empty bus. It was nuts.
I hope they aren’t following Mitt Romney’s playbook.
AxelFoley
@rikyrah:
Me><You, right here.
askew
@Kay:
I definitely agree that the buses are lame. I hate that the amount of money is being poured into a PAC that isn’t doing anything to help elect Democrats right now. That money could be much better spent. And I feel like it is being raised to intimidate any other Dem from running.
David Koch
300!
Kay
@askew:
I don’t think it’s zero sum, as I said. I don’t think Ready For Hillary money would have gone to “get Democrats out” in a midterm.
If “Democrats” are doing better more of them will come out. I don’t think Clinton has tge power to somehow depress or energize the Democratic base in a midterm.
”
I’m just treating her like a candidate. I also think she has her own “base” which I have always said. Tgis idea that she was a complete disaster in 08 simply isn’t true. I personally ran the Obama canvass in the 08 OH primary in this county. She beat us by a mile. We got killed. Obama never thought she was weak. She wasn’t. She was hard to beat.
Ruckus
@Kay:
I didn’t think then and don’t now that Hillary is a bad candidate. I think we hired a better person to the job in 08 but then I can’t think of a better president in my lifetime than the current one. And she didn’t lose in a landslide. But it will be 8 yrs later and I think that’s important. Yes she has filled out her resume quite nicely since and that’s important. I think some are seeing politics through a very large lens with lots of light on the subjects. That’s not necessarily bad but it does require us to understand that all politicians are flawed, just like all the rest of us. It’s our job to look for the large flaws and to understand that no one is perfect. Some get closer than others but no one hits the target. And some of course are so far off the mark that even considering them could give one the label of moron. Hillary isn’t perfect but she is a lot closer than any republican, and many democrats. She wasn’t my first choice in 08 but unless someone better comes along, she’ll get my support and vote. And if that happens and I get terribly disappointed, well I’ve learned to live with disappointment before.
Kay
@Ruckus:
Republicans are ginning up their base. It’s what t Dick Cheney and his daughter are doing and it’s what the attacks on Clinton are about.
It’s June, they don’t have 2010 level rage to rely on so they’re attacking Democrats to gin up their base.
None of this is even directed to us.
satby
@askew: Yeah, we all got it. You hate HRC. As Omnes suggested, maybe you could give the Hillary hate a rest and talk about why O’Malley or whoever is better.
Because the endless HRC bashing just makes you look like a crank. And to many of us old ladies around since the 60s, she’s overcome so much sexism and truly vile behavior by the right wing that it is annoying to see even if we would vote for someone else in the primary too.
Kay
@Ruckus: @Ruckus:
I think we have bigger problems than Hillary Clinton.
I read part of Sotomayors speech about “unrest” due to income inequality and I think she is missing a piece.
I think there coukd be unrest but only if people start to believe that government is actually in cahoots with monied interests to keep income inequality going.
That’s the real threat. They have to have some faith that there is someone “on their side”
It genuinely worries me.
Corner Stone
The only people who continue to claim the HRC mantle of “inevitable” are the ones who hate her guts.
Find one motherfucker in her “camp” (since she does not have a campaign staff) or on this blog who have wasted a breath saying it’s her TURN or she’s “inevitable”.
You fucking idiots keep denigrating a Democrat and flat fucking lying about an almost lifelong public servant.
Absolutely not one comment has been made on this specific blog that HRC MUST be the candidate in 2016.
If anything, there has been a metric fuckton of “meh” about her potential candidacy, closely overpowered by the fucking liars who keep telling us all here that “it’s her TURN, donchaknow? (har har har)” and she’s shutting down every other potential candidate because some assholes on blogs are writing “huge essays” to close down discourse.
Bullshit. Then why is O’Malley giving teh awesome speeches and meeting with teh grassroots in Iowa?
Because if she’s so “inevitable” and “it’s her TURN” then why is he bothering?
Corner Stone
And that person who said Jeb! was better on foreign policy? You do realize who his fucking brother is, don’t you?
Corner Stone
And David Frum?
Really?
Really?
We “know exactly who he is but we’re going to give him the benny?”
Really?
Really?
The next time I take something David Frum writes with less than 100% sceptisism is the first fucking time.
You hate her so much you’ll repeat uncritically what GWB’s former speechwriter says.
And people making money off stirring the pot against any and all D’s.
Really?
Really?
Corner Stone
@schrodinger’s cat:
And Jimmy Carter probably deserves the other 50%.
askew
@satby:
Shut up and fall in line. Stop being so mean to Hillary. Please. Put me in the pie filter if you can’t handle criticism of Hillary. And no I don’t hate her. She isn’t worth it. She’s just thoroughly mediocre in every way so I remain more baffled by how she managed to get a whole bunch of people snowed that she is somehow exceptional in any way. I’m an old woman too and I don’t really care that Hillary’s had it tough especially after the disgusting racism her campaign engaged in during 2008.
Rhoda
So, to the dude/ete that called me retarded. Friend, there is not much difference btwn Jeb and Hillary. That was what I was driving at; but, that probably makes me even more of a dumbass in your eyes. Oh well.
@Kay: I agree about ’07/’08. But, she’s rusty. She is reminding me of Bill in the primary (the tone deafness, not the racism which is another post). She just watched Mittens get killed over being rich and she’s going around saying they’re not that rich. It’s mind-boggling.
Ruckus
@Kay:
Income inequality is always an issue. It always has been and it always will be. It becomes a flashpoint when it becomes obvious to enough people that they are getting screwed with their pants on by a very few people. We aren’t there yet but I think we are approaching that point. The teaparty really is about this, they just are blaming the wrong people for the wrong reasons. But that is predictable, given who they are and who delivers their message. I’m not saying they aren’t racist, I’m saying that the underlying message is about money and who gets some. Because they think the economy and the government is a zero sum game, their thinking, such as it is, always looks for the simplest answer that explains why. They have latched onto taxes, reverse racism, at home and foreign welfare as the explanations to how they are getting screwed, never even getting that the financial world and uber wealthy are screwing all of us. How many of them are up on history or current events? They know the “news” which is lies most of the time on anything other than weather, sports and local crime. Especially with faux news.
Rhoda
@Corner Stone: She voted for that war and then refused to address the fact that she got it wrong.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Rhoda:
Link.
Kay
@Ruckus:
I don’t care that much what Republicans think.
I think what Democrats have to worry about is not “income inequality” but peoples perception that government is incapable of addressing it, or, worse, actively working with uber-wealthy people to make it worse.
THAT’S what will bring “unrest”. I don’t have any problem with disparate incomes. I accept that. What I object to is government skewing the field in favor if wealthy and powerful people.
Sotomayor is acting like there’s no role for government other than a safety net.
I disagree. I think government has a role in how we got here. THEY helped skew the field against working class people. THEY have to help fix it, and not just with food stamps, either.
Taxes, trade, lobbying, privatization. They did those things.
Corner Stone
@Rhoda: You just continue to lie. It’s ok. You’d prefer an R in the WH over someone who has spent 50 years in the D party.
Sorry that’s not pure enough for you. What color pony would you like?
Rhoda
@Corner Stone: I want a blue pony, of course! I’m not trying to lie, I saw the link were she addresses it in her new book. I give her that, she’s going to make new mistakes like saying she’s not rich enough. I don’t care how long Hillary Clinton was in the Democratic Party; I’m more interested in what she’s looking to do in office.
We’ll hear about that soon enough.
Meanwhile, I don’t think she’s fit to be president. I just don’t. I have numerous problem with her on a personal level; and then on a purely political level I don’t trust her. That’s it. That doesn’t have anything to do with the Republicans.
Corner Stone
@Rhoda: It does when you stick your dick in the pudding and say Jeb! is better on foreign policy.
And, no, you did not “give her that”. You lied when you said it, you got checked and now you want to conveniently skip past it.
Corner Stone
Hey, you know what? Don’t donate, don’t campaign and don’t vote for her.
satby
@Rhoda: so your answer would be to vote for the guy from the party that absolutely promises to undo the small gains made over last 5 years. Got it.
satby
@askew: so maybe your problem is reading comprehension, since no one told you to “shut up and get in line” either.
schrodinger's cat
@Corner Stone: No Bush does.
El Caganer
Well, I’m just glad that this thread has finally got the whole HRC-in-’16 thing sorted out.
Corner Stone
@schrodinger’s cat: Who?
Corner Stone
@Rhoda:
Not a dime’s worth of difference!
LAC
@rikyrah: you are on fire tonight, girl. Thank you!
LAC
@Corner Stone: oh great.your angry drunk ass has arrived. I knew the great conversation was not going to last too long.
Ruckus
@Kay:
Not disagreeing with you. Just trying to add something to the conversation. OK back to the issue. You are correct that government did at one time not all that long ago keep checks on the financial system getting out of hand. And on the idea that not all of us can be rich but we all deserve a chance at a reasonable life. Which many were actually having. Now we are back at a fairly small number of folks are doing pretty good, a lot fewer are stealing everything else and the majority of us are at best just getting by. I think you are correct that none of this will change until people recognize that government is the only thing that can change this. None of the better off are going to do anything to change it. And I say this even with people like W. Buffet telling us that he doesn’t come close to paying enough taxes. The number of really wealthy that are willing to stand up and say that is a pretty small percentage of the really wealthy and they aren’t getting any traction. We have to say it and get the message across. My point about the teaparty was they grossly misunderstand how things work and who/what is to blame, but their underlying, base goal is about inequality. They want what they perceive life to have been like on Leave it to Beaver or Andy Griffith.
Joel Hanes
@Morzer:
We are indeed the self-trolling party
People without self-doubt or angst, true believers, are scary because entranced.
Hypocrisy is not just tolerated by the right; it’s a core competency.
I’ll take the Democrats, thanks.
Glocksman
@Corner Stone:
When I read that quoted statement, the first thing that pops to mind was the repeal of Glass-Steagall and a lot of the other Depression-era regulations that prevented banks from fucking around with other people’s money too much to begin with.
To me on economic policy, Bill was a mixed bag.
Robert Reich. Excellent.
Robert Rubin. Notso Hotso.
Rhoda
@satby: No. I’m hoping Hillary gets beat in the primary if she runs. I think there’s a good chance of that.
Paul in KY
@Glocksman: Hear, hear!
Paul in KY
@Rhoda: Once again, for the record (and on the issue of Jeb being about same on foreign policy as HRC): You are an idiot (IMO).
schrodinger's cat
@Glocksman: Bill Clinton signed the law which let the derivatives genie out of the box. Remember the Frontline about Brooksley Born where Bob Rubin and Summers intimidated and overruled Born when she was the head CFTC, regarding derivatives regulation.
ETA: Bill Clinton’s Treasury Dept had completely swallowed the neoliberal Kool-Aid.
Older
@Botsplainer: “Got her out finally” — good for you! I hope you mean out of the hospital. Hospitals are bad for your health. It’s too bad they are the best possible choice for a lot of people who are already in poor health.