Duck and Cover

I have nothing to add to what Olbermann and Alter have to say here except to wonder how the hell the complete disintegration of Hillary's "resumé of experience" isn't the final nail in her campaign? The dissection gets really good after the 5:00 mark. Alter just goes down a list of substantive lies on everythin from SCHIP to Ireland. I mean, seriously. She made all this shit up. And in this case, visibly, got caught. On video. Twelve-year-old video. Yet the campaign lives on.

Stop complaining about media bias, Hillary. Anybody else would have been buried weeks ago.

Necessary Roughness

Experienced. Tested. Ready.

Those are the qualifications that this country needs in its Commander in Chief in this time of danger and uncertainty.

John McCain has crossed that threshold.

Hillary Clinton has crossed that threshold.

And certainly THIS MAN has crossed that threshold. The man with whom Hillary went to Hell and back...stood shoulder to shoulder staring death in the eye...the hero who risked it all to help Hillary bring peace to a war-ravaged part of the globe...International Statesman, Global Asskicker and Peace Negotiator...



You might recall that Hillary tried to use this Bosnia Trip to inflate her international creds on "The Today Show" and got confronted by Meridith Viera (see my post and the video from January). Hillary bluffed and bullshitted her way out, emerging battered, but intact. And apparently undeterred...

Never content not to push the boundaries when it comes to truthiness regarding her accomplishments, Hillary has continued to go back to that Bosnian well to puff up her "Commander in Chief Threshold-Crossing."

On the campaign trail she recounts her 1996 trip to Bosnia as "a harrowing international experience" that makes her tested and ready to answer a 3 a.m. phone call at the White House on Day One™..." She elaborates and describes arriving "on a plane that made a tight corkscrew landing to avoid potential attacks. "Somebody said there might be sniper fire," she said, adding tartly, "I don't remember anyone offering me tea on the tarmac."

That's true, Hillary, but don't forget...it was because that grizzled Delta Force of Sinbad, Sheryl Crow and a teenage Chelsea were forced to jettison the tea set during your dogfight with the Serbian Air Force...right?

Well, Sinbad is having none of that bullshit.

Harrowing? Not that Sinbad recalls. He just remembers it being a USO tour to buck up the troops amid a much worse situation than he had imagined between the Bosnians and Serbs.

In an interview with the Sleuth Monday, he said the "scariest" part of the trip was wondering where he'd eat next. "I think the only 'red-phone' moment was: 'Do we eat here or at the next place.'"

[...] Threat of bullets? Sinbad doesn't remember that, either.

"I never felt that I was in a dangerous position. I never felt being in a sense of peril, or 'Oh, God, I hope I'm going to be OK when I get out of this helicopter or when I get out of his tank.'"

In her Iowa stump speech, Clinton also said, "We used to say in the White House that if a place is too dangerous, too small or too poor, send the First Lady."

Say what? As Sinbad put it: "What kind of president would say, 'Hey, man, I can't go 'cause I might get shot so I'm going to send my wife...oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you.'"

As you may have guessed by now, Sinbad isn't supporting Clinton for president. He's an Obama guy. All because of Clinton.

"What got me about Hillary was her attitude of entitlement, like he messed up her plan, like he had no reason to be there," Sinbad said. "I got angry. I actually got angry! I said, 'I will be for Obama like never before.'"

So, Sinbad, is it safe to say Hillary is living in "A Different World"?

Again With the Mandates, Professor?

As long as Paul Krugman keeps cranking out these columns slamming Obama for failing to meet his progressivism double-standard, I'll keep telling him to drink up.

Yesterday, the good Professor again mounted his steed and aimed his lance at Barack Obama, in defense of Hillary's supposedly superior plan.

Krugman:

But as I’ve tried to explain in previous columns, there really is a big difference between the candidates’ approaches. And new research, just released, confirms what I’ve been saying: the difference between the plans could well be the difference between achieving universal health coverage — a key progressive goal — and falling far short...

[...] Mr. Gruber['s research] finds that a plan without mandates, broadly resembling the Obama plan, would cover 23 million of those currently uninsured, at a taxpayer cost of $102 billion per year. An otherwise identical plan with mandates would cover 45 million of the uninsured — essentially everyone — at a taxpayer cost of $124 billion. Over all, the Obama-type plan would cost $4,400 per newly insured person, the Clinton-type plan only $2,700.

Well that sounds pretty cut and dry. Maybe Krugman is right.

But wait, look closely—PK isn't comparing Obama's plan to Hillary's plan—he's comparing a plan of unknown similarity to Obama's plan with one that doesn't even exist—that same "Obama-like" plan, plus mandates—it's got nothing to do with Hillary's plan. I call bullshit.

And those per person costs are not per insured, they are per newly insured. So, they are wildly effected by the numbers enrolled, not actual costs. And how do this "research" conclude the differing numbers of newly insured?

It "assumes." In other words, makes it up.

[link] Professor Gruber writes: "In particular I assume that 95% of those who would not voluntarily choose to insure are forced to insure through the mandate."

Massachusetts has yet to enroll more than half the uninsured in it's mandated plan, so how does Gruber "assume" near-perfect enrollment? Especially considering Clinton has not given ANY indication yet how she plans to enforce a mandate?

Krugman goes on to make some more valid points about the politics of all of this, and yes, I wish Obama's plan was more aggressive—hell, I wish they were both talking single-payer—but I've read plenty of counterpoints that make Obama's plan seem every bit as viable as Clinton's, and they've done a better job of doing so without (that I can tell) making shit up out of whole cloth.

Quit with the fucking litmus test and the stretching the truth, Professor. It's speaks poorly of your "conscience as a liberal."

[via Mark Kleiman]

An additional critique on Krugman here. [via Sullivan]

Desperate

Alright, this post has been in the chute for a few days, and I've been unable to finish it off. It is now 10:30 on primary night, and Hillary is leading the N.H. results with like two-thirds of the precincts reporting. Supposedly the college towns have not reported, so Obama has a chance, but either way, it will be close, which is all Hillary needed. The press and polls had been predicting a blowout, so I'll be curious to see how they treat Obama now—is this a failure for him, and they all jump off the bandwagon? We'll know tomorrow...

Back to what I had planned, which is pretty much a reaction to the way the Clinton team and Hillary herself responded to getting their ass kicked in Iowa...the gloves are off and the Clinton Machine™ is set to "Dirty Politics."


Hillary keeps telling us how she can handle the Republicans better than Obama and the others...well, she ought to know, she's staying up late studying their playbook...

HuffPolitics the day after Iowa:

Obama faces the prospect of severe and hostile vetting from his primary opponents, however. Upon her arrival in New Hampshire this morning, Hillary Clinton signaled that she intends to play on Obama's as yet unexploited political weaknesses: "Who will be able to stand up to the Republican attack machine?" she asked at an appearance in Nashua.

Hillary's aides point to Obama's extremely progressive record as a community organizer, state senator and candidate for Congress, his alliances with "left-wing" intellectuals in Chicago's Hyde Park community, and his liberal voting record on criminal defendants' rights as subjects for examination.

Are you fucking kidding me? They are going after Obama for being too "progressive, left-wing and intellectual"...they better be done complaining about "right-wing memes."

[...] ABC reported that Clinton aides gave the network various examples, of Obama's controversial stands. The aides cited Obama's past assertion that he would support ending mandatory minimum sentences for federal crimes, pointing to a 2004 statement at an NAACP-sponsored debate: "Mandatory minimums take too much discretion away from judges."

Fuck. Her. Mandatory minimums are a goddamned blight on this country, and she is the Senator from the state with some of the most draconian drug-sentencing laws in the country. She knows better—this is a pure fear pander, and though the fact that Obama is black is merely incidental, this crap is designed to play on people's racism as well.

Clinton is going after Obama for straight-up run-of-the-mill Democratic positions as far as I'm concerned. If this reflects her positions, than the party is either worse off than I thought, or she's running in the wrong primary. This is beyond "going negative," this is going scorched earth, and she is attacking progressivism and liberalsm as much as her opponent. I'll be getting back to that "defendant's rights" part later...


Don't worry, she took time to get personal as well. [link]:

Inside a frigid airplane hangar in Nashua, N.H., Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., tried to reframe the choice before New Hampshire voters, asking them if they wanted "an untested man who offers false hope or a woman who's electable."

Clinton said, "Of all the people running for president, I've been the most vetted, the most investigated and — my goodness — the most innocent, it turns out."

Oh my...could she be referring to this? I don't know what else it could be. Then her staff busted out the gender card.

...Clinton advisers suggested that part of the reason for her showing at the polls in Iowa might have been Iowa's reluctance to support female candidates. They also pointed out that a victory in Iowa does not guarantee success on the path to the White House. There is, after all, no President Richard Gephardt.

They also threw Bill Richardson under the bus for the poor Iowa finish...

And the Big Dog is lying his ass off and making weak excuses here. Every time the Clintons try to claim Obama has "waffled" in his opposition to the war—and they will do it often—remember it's total bullshit.

--

That was the reaction/adjustment after one loss, what will they stoop to if she loses N.H. as well? Or, perhaps worse, if she wins, does this vindicate the strategy?

Another Reason to Say No...

This is awesome. Hillary goes on Today for a one-on-one chat with Meredith Vieira. Probably expecting a last-minute pre-caucus fluff interview, Hillary starts trotting out some of the same old shit that she was personally involved and integral in everything from brokering peace in Northern Ireland to creating the budget surplus while splitting the atom, all as First Lady...

Hillary: "I was the first high-profile American to go into Bosnia after the Dayton Peace Accords..."

Really? I had no idea...And what other high-powered world leaders accompanied her on this momentous diplomatic mission?

This guy.


No, seriously. Fucking Sinbad.

Watch the video, it's not often that Hillary gets caught by surprise...



UPDATE: As Smitty points out in the comments, this isn't really a classic "gotcha" moment or gaffe situation, but it IS taking one of Hillary's patented lines/claims and dismantling it. Right in front of her. And she is left with not much to say...

Vieira: "But, you went to Bosnia with Sinbad. A performer..."

HRC [interrupts]: "That's right. That's right."

Vieira [continues]: "...that, that wasn't really establishing any kind of foreign policy."

HRC [dismissively]: "Oh, you know, again...I put my experience up against anybody."

Against anybody. Even Sinbad.

In a sense this is kind of a Romney/MLK moment...Hillary is portraying (embellishing?) her years in the White House as First Lady as something more akin to Vice President, and we only have her word to go on—she has sealed most of the records, etc so there's no way to check. So she can sit there inserting what might have been a simple handshaking/USO tour into a context of phrases like "formal national security council meeting," "intimately involved," "Dayton Peace Accords," "the way decisions were made" and inflate it up into something it might not have been.

And I don't really go for that.

[h/t TPM]