I’m not reading it, let alone linking but I just saw this on Kaplan.
I mean this as an honest question to all of you who were die-hard Hillary supporters: how do you defend her putting Mark Penn in charge of her campaign? I like Hillary, I would have voted for her in the general, I would have given money to her in the general, I would be supporting her just as strongly as I support Obama if she were president…but WTF?
The prophet Nostradumbass
Penn worked on Bill’s 1996 re-election campaign, and on Hillary’s 2000 and 2006 Senate campaigns, and you wonder why she picked him for her 2008 Presidential run?
dmsilev
I won’t know how to respond until you tell me how midgets between the ages of 30 and 35 who drive Fords think about Obamacare.
porter
That’s the sort of concern trolling I would expect from Greenwald or Cole. Yea, wtf?! Way to put personal history ahead of your party and country even when it’s against your own self interests you unprofessional douche
beltane
Time to dust off the old tag “I can no longer rationally discuss the Clinton campaign”?
No question that Hillary surrounded herself with the worst of hacks, and not just Mark Penn.
the Conster (f/k/a Cat Lady)
The Clintons are responsible for giving us Dick Morris, also too. This is why I never would have voted for Hillary over Barack, ever. All of those FOB scum suckers would’ve all slithered back over the transom.
Cacti
Here’s a rejoinder:
If Obama loses, will it validate Penn’s total turkey of a campaign in 2008?
Steve
I will offer an answer. Like everyone else, I thought Mark Penn was an idiot of course, but so what? If you like a candidate, are you seriously going to switch to someone else because their advisor sucks? She made a bad choice and, to the extent a different outcome was available, I guess she paid the price for it.
Maybe Hillary would pick horrible people for her Cabinet and totally screw up her presidency, I dunno. But all that is just speculation. I still admire her and I was proud to vote for her.
Litlebritdifrnt
I was under the impression that Hillary still owes Penn millions of dollars, for what? Mounting a losing campaign that didn’t know how to count delegates. I would have been fired for that crap.
NobodySpecial
I didn’t vote for her, but I can see that she thought the old rules still applied and she went with the people she knew, bad as they were.
kth
Dick Morris, whom Bill Clinton brought in after the 1994 House losses, makes Mark Penn look like Bill Moyers. But I’ve never blamed the Clintons–they obviously have a warped view of the electorate based on how insane Arkansas politics is, not to mention the impeachment (which arguably was Arkansas politics following them to Washington). Their incessant desire to get right with redneck America is quite possibly more battered politician syndrome than any true cultural or political affinity.
Splitting Image
I don’t think very many people would defend the choice, but I can understand not seeing it as disqualifying in and of itself.
I mean: Penn more or less ensured Clinton’s defeat, but if she had won, that wouldn’t have been the case, would it?
cthulhu
Isn’t Penn part and parcel of the whole New Dem/DLC crap? Not that Obama has strayed too much from that approach but sheesh, we need better Dems. (And Hillary herself certainly deserved better).
Heliopause
Doug, go out and have a drink, because relitigating this on a Friday night means you don’t have enough to do.
slag
Priorities, DougJ. You may be misplacing them.
arguingwithsignposts
Mark Penn = the “democrat” Bill Kristol. Nuff said
Splitting Image
Oh, and incidentally, I watched UHF a couple of days ago. Victoria Jackson’s involvement doesn’t stop me from enjoying the movie one bit.
jl
Answer: No.
That is about as simple as I can make it for him. Let me know if the corrupt incompetent brute Penn has any more questions.
Does ‘pavo bruto’ mean something in Spanish slang? I hope it does. To the extent that it is decipherable, it was made for guys like Penn, IMHO.
Schlemizel
Truth be told Hillary might very well be President today if she had not chosen that artificial fart to run her campaign. There is a symmetry of some sort there
R Johnston
Mark Penn was indefensible. Of course Obama’s health care plan, as opposed to Clinton’s and as opposed to reality, was also indefensible, and his health care plan was the only discernible difference in his campaign to Clinton’s.
Politicians suck. They’re morons. There may be exceptions, but Obama is not among them.
WeeBey
This post, FTW.
beltane
While we’re taking this little trip down memory lane, let us not forget Lanny Davis or that noblewoman with the common touch, Lady Lynn De Rothschild.
Donut
Am I the only one who is not taking this post so seriously? I am having a hard time seeing this as reliving 2008 – the question is, does Mark Penn have any credibility on the issues on 2012? Fair question and hardly a call to reexamine Hillary vs Barack. My answer is no, he was awfully bad in 2008 and probably cost her the nomination, so he’s fair game for criticism whenever he opens his maw about what will bring down Democrats this year.
eemom
WTF indeed. Have I stumbled onto the BJ equivalent of that memeorandum glitch a few weeks ago where a 2008 page kept popping up?
Let’s do the time warp agaaaaiiiiiiin…..
Srsly dude. You need to take a sabbatical from TROLLING if this is the best you can come up with.
beltane
@Donut: I think that is the point of the post. How could anyone take Mark Penn’s opinion on anything seriously? This is the guy who was paid millions of dollars to run Hillary’s campaign and who somehow was unable to figure out how the Democratic party’s nominating process worked.
I was hoping Mark Penn had joined Team Romney. He would fit right in there.
Corner Stone
@Donut:
Total troll post on DougJ’s part. He didn’t get what he wanted with the earlier totebagger post so he’s pushing the next troll button.
Mike in NC
Penn is most likely on “Rmoney’s” payroll these days.
Corner Stone
@the Conster (f/k/a Cat Lady):
Ummm…this is some kind of deranged humor, right?
taylormattd
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Lol. Yeah, clearly, it was him that won those particular elections, nevermind him being, you know, always wrong during those elections.
nipsip
The Republicans and the Tea Party own Healthcare in America if the ACA is overturned by a Conservative, Political SCOTUS.
IMO, Obama wins both ways. He tried to do it involving the private sector, since it was a Conservative idea. It really works well for the insurance companies. However in a concerted effort to undo anything a black president does, it was not a go.
17MM children, and 17MM seniors will feel the affect right away if ACA is overturned and the Republicans have no answer for the questions. “Why should my premiums go up to treat people who buy a bass boat instead of health care insurance”? Why should my tax money pay for hospitals who treat people who smoke, are obese, pre-diabetic, and will not change their ways and refuse to buy health care insurance.
This time a single payer is the answer.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@porter:
Isn’t there some gayness in the media somewhere you could be complaining about?
jl
@Corner Stone: Not sure what DougJ MasterTroll of BJ Land is after. Since I was a die hard of none of the Democratic candidates in 08, I cannot answer DougJ’s question, and do not see why I should try, even if I had been a die hard HRC supporter.
So, I just saw the post as an opportunity to ridicule the incompetent and nasty bully (and corrupt, did I say corrupt?) Penn. Which is reason enough to make a comment.
Sorry, DougJ, I did the best I could. We fallible human clay have been letting you down lately.
taylormattd
@Donut: And why not? Why shouldn’t we rexamine this, given douchebags like Penn are still around vomiting stupidity everywhere?
For that matter, why shouldn’t we revisit this given many of the psychopath trolls who, to this day, pretend to be paragons of pure progressive virtue spent all of 2007 and 2008 screaming about how Obama was a pussy who wouldn’t bomb enough Serbias at 2 am?
kwAwk
It’s amazing to me how bitter O-bots are about an election they won.
From Penn’s article:
Maybe you shouldn’t prejudge the article and actually read it.
Corner Stone
Now, I’m talking about
You and me… and her and her and her, simultaneous
You and me… and women in the house, simultaneous
Three and seven, make it a baker’s dozen
See the ladies in the house clap your hands
Now that’d be a party, ladies
Steve
@kwAwk: Wouldn’t the center on health care be somewhere to the left of the Heritage Foundation plan?
slag
@kwAwk:
Yes. Why prejudge? Look how wrong you can go when you prejudge.
__
Just imagine how great a political gift this ruling can be. I hear the rallying cry now: “Once more into the center, dear friends, once more!”. It’s a surefire winner. I can’t believe Shakespeare didn’t think of it first.
porter
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Looks like I made quite an impression on you my hypersensitive little insecure groupie.
dww44
@kwAwk:
I hate to be dense, but in this comment is Penn saying that Obama should move to the center from the left, vis-a-vis the ACA legislation? How much more centrist could that policy have been? As Howard Dean said on my teevee, over and over again in the runup to passing the ACA, it was really insurance reform, not health care reform. I don’t get how any rational being would think of the ACA as some sort of socialist leftist policy. But then, maybe I’m one of the latter and no one’s told me yet.
ant
@kwAwk:
pfft
no thanks.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
what will the clown car propose for health care reform?
at this point in the scrotus show.
wish a motherfucker would.
Rome Again
I’ve been under the impression that PUMAs will ALWAYS be anti-Obamaites. This is not surprising to me in the least.
David Koch
He must mean Obama’s half brother in Kenya.
Certainly, he can’t mean the President Obama who’s leading Mittens by 11 pts in this Wednesday’s CNN poll and Mittens by 17 in Wisconsin in today’s NBC poll.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
The goddamned stupid thing is that Obama and the Dems already moved to the center and beyond with ‘Obamacare’. This is basically the same goddamned plan the GOP proposed in opposition to Hillary’s plan way back then.
And yet….I can’t see anything but total fucking disaster if the Supremes overturn it. Single Payer is a pipe dream, especially with this Congress, and you know the Supremes will decide to shit on that idea even worse if they’re kiboshing the mandate. And all the GOP will see is blood in the water. Will it tank Obama? I doubt it. Will it tank the party’s (as a whole) hopes in November? I can’t see anything but the GOP doubling down on the crazy, and the public doubling down with them in celebration. Because apparently, Obamacare is the WORSTEST SOSHULISMS IN THE HISTORY OF FUCKIGN EVERRFRRRREHFKJDFHDF.
David Koch
@R Johnston:
There was another tiny little difference http://tinyurl.com/87lz929
David Koch
@dmsilev:
Mark Penn drives a Ford?
David Koch
All kidding aside, this is why Mark Penn shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near Hillary. With the above quote, he paint Hillary’s 2008 mandate plan as leftist, when mandates are a Heritage Foundation’s idea. Penn is a complete political moron.
El Cid
Admit it — this was a ‘hey y’all, watch this’ post.
David Koch
@porter:
How dare you call Glenn a troll, just because he trolls his own posts under different names.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@porter:
You wish.
Brachiator
@R Johnston:
I will keep this in mind while we wait for angels on unicorns to run for public office.
Apart from this Penn is just emitting nervous gas while we wait for the Supreme Court decision. All the pundits are saying that it will come in June, and might be a political gift to Romney and the GOP.
I think that the nation got lucky that Penn ran such a crappy campaign, and spared us the prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency. I appreciate her service as senator, but think she has been at best an adequate secretary of state.
Joseph Nobles
The longer title for this piece at Kaplan is, “Could defeat for Obamacare mean victory for Obama?” So judging it solely based on the shorter title is probably premature.
But on reading through most of it, it’s pretty clueless. It starts off being an OK summary of the past, and then throws out a shoutout to Penn’s idea of 10-year terms for the SCOTUS (OK, Mark, we get it), and then veers off into stupidity.
Anyone who doesn’t see that overturning the individual mandate takes a weapon against Romney out of the President’s hand and sharpens Romney’s weapons against the President is stupid or selling you something. Romney gets to go to 11 about this Anti-Constitutional President and President Obama can’t make Mitt Romney run against Romneycare anymore.
I mean, Penn actually says this:
Ahem. HE ALREADY HAS.
Tom W
PUMAs are a myth – maybe there were several dozen in like 2008. There are virtually none now. I hate when this strange idea gets perpetuated.
handy
@kwAwk:
Wouldn’t moving to the center in this case have to mean moving from the right?
Or maybe Mark Penn is a complete bozo. Yeah maybe that.
AxelFoley
@R Johnston:
LOL
STFU, bitch.
Corner Stone
@Brachiator:
You slip into the morass of stupidity further with every post.
Please continue Maestro.
I mean, you do realize who’s orders she’s following as SoS, right? Or are you one of those inexhaustible morans who thinks she’s gone rogue and Obama is powerless to can her because of the wave of Mongols who would siege the WH.
Fuck off.
Corner Stone
@handy: I’m really trying to understand all this DougJ inspired kerfluffle.
The ACA is essentially a right leaning plan.
How the F does it get to the center from here?
Corner Stone
@David Koch:
I’m sorry Mike Kay, what was this again?
Brachiator
@Corner Stone:
It is good to see that you’re keeping count.
On the other hand, here you continue to demonstrate an inability to string coherent thoughts together. How does my saying that she has been merely adequate lead to any notion of her going rogue, or not following orders?
Obama did replace a largely lackluster Secretary of Commerce, but he encountered the typical stupid GOP opposition in getting a replacement in. I’d like to see new faces in Treasury, State, and Labor.
Now, if you want to pull your head out of your butt and make a case for Secretary Clinton’s accomplishments in her current post, that would be the start of a discussion. Otherwise, you should just crawl back into your hole and try to calm down.
Keith G
I’m giving Obama a pass on Larry Summers, so I guess I’ll also give Hillary a pass on Penn.
Lawnguylander
@Brachiator:
Leaving the other two aside, why would you want to replace Hilda Solis? She’s probably his best appointment.
Corner Stone
@Brachiator: You offered a moronic opinion and I suggested that you are, in fact, a moron.
Pretty coherent string, it would appear. Except to a moran such as yourself.
Brachiator
@Corner Stone: You keep operating under the misapprehension that your weak snark is intelligent commentary. I really don’t know why you bother. Everybody is on to your game.
Triassic Sands
I think with virtually all “mainstream” Democrats you have to hold your nose at some point. Virtually all of them eventually hang out with or appoint some pretty unpleasant characters.
Brachiator
@Lawnguylander:
Based on what? Serious question, not snark.
I would have liked to have seen Commerce and Labor come up with innovative solutions to creating jobs, and balancing the macro economics focus coming from Treasury. Neither Gary Locke (first Secretary of Commerce) nor Hilda Solis (at Labor) provided much in the way of anything in this regard.
Joe Bohemouth
@Brachiator: Jeeziz Christ. It’s one thing to expect magical bully pulpit pony-conjuring from the president, but seriously, from mix-matched island of broken toys departments like labor and commerce? Wow.