No.

I don't know if any of that is true. But it's coming from the Clinton camp for some reason—whether it's about an actual exit from the race or press-managing-gamesmanship is unclear. Either way, Obama needs to be giving her the Heisman. Big Time.

That this shit is going on—or if it's not, that she tolerates this tactic from her "inner circle"—is Exhibit A why she is undeserving of a VP nod from Obama or the office of President she seeks. To put it mildly, who the fuck does she think she is?

The always-excellent Hilzoy does a better job with this than I can, or have time to try [emphasis mine]:

I have been thinking about Clinton's conduct ever since she compared her efforts to get the Florida and Michigan votes counted to abolitionists, suffragists, and the current crisis in Zimbabwe. I agree with Josh Marshall that her attempts to gin up resentment and a sense that the nomination was stolen from her are toxic. Even Ezra Klein, who has been a lot more open to Clinton than many people, has concluded that she is trying to ensure that Obama loses. Since then, there have been a lot of stories wondering what on earth she is up to. And while I haven't heard what the NYPost describes as a "Groundswell Of Calls For O-Hill Union", there has definitely been a groundswell of stories about that alleged groundswell, much of which seems to be coming from the Clinton campaign itself. There have also been a lot of stories asking: what does Obama need to do to keep her on board?

Note what's missing here: any sense that Clinton herself is a responsible moral agent. People are writing about her as though she were a bomb that needed to be expertly defused, as opposed to a person who can govern her own life, and is responsible for her own choices.

I am aware that it must be hard to face the fact that you've lost. But it became clear that she was not going to win the nomination months ago -- I would say after Wisconsin, but certainly after Texas. Moreover, this is not unprecedented. People lose the nomination every four years. Most of the time, they do not stay on until it is mathematically impossible for them to win; they leave when it has become clear that they will not win. They do not complain about disenfranchising all the states with later primaries, they do not threaten to keep their supporters home, and they certainly do not threaten "open civil war" if they don't get nominated for Vice President. On those rare occasions when some candidate does this in the absence of some truly monumental issue, we normally think that that candidate is a narcissistic and unprincipled person who has just shown why s/he should never, ever be President.

There is absolutely no reason not to apply these same standards to Hillary Clinton. Right now, instead of floating demands in the press and comparing herself to abolitionists and suffragists, she could be telling her supporters that she lost fair and square; that while there was a lot of sexism in the campaign, there was racism as well, and that sexism does not explain why a candidate with literally every institutional advantage over her opponent lost the nomination. She could be reaching out to the voters who supported her in places where Obama has had trouble, and urging them to vote for him. She could, in a word, be doing the right thing: trying to earn that respect she seems to want.

Instead, she's throwing tantrums, making demands that she has no right to make, and threatening civil war.

All or Nothing

"I respect Hillary supporters because they haven't had the chance to get to know her like I have. She does not have the political skills of her husband. Or Barack. You need somebody who can bring people together. She criticized my health care bill because it wouldn't achieve universal coverage until 1998. Well, today we'd be celebrating the 10th anniversary of having every American with insurance." - Congressman Jim Cooper, of Tennessee

Everybody knows Hillary Clinton tried and failed to get universal health care implemented in the 90s. What not everybody knows is that she took a Dubya-esque "My way or the highway" approach and derided the plans of everyone—Democrats included—who failed to reach her unattainable goals at the time. She stacked her Commission with insiders and yes-men and refused input from anyone who wouldn't meet her on her terms. The fact that this is still a campaign issue fourteen years later is on her as much as anyone who opposed her—her approach probably set the movement back years.

That she continues to do the same thing to Obama's more measured, but probably more attainable, plan doesn't indicate, to me, she's changed or that she'd have any more luck getting things done now.

[h/t Sullivan]

Whose Votes Matter

Back To The Future

Hillary's path to the nomination...

The Logic Of Hillary '08

Five video "parables" that boil down the arguments of the Clinton campaign...



Awesome.

Scaife Deals Hillary the Race Trump Card

Last week, a desperate Hillary Clinton decided the stakes in Pennsylvania are high enough that she needed to ante up her soul at the table of Richard Mellon Scaife, the godfather of the "vast right wing conspiracy." So Clinton sat down and went all-in.

Yesterday, the first hand was dealt. And it was as ugly as it gets...

Obama's indoctrination

By Ralph R. Reiland | Tribune-Review columnist
Monday, March 31, 2008

The Department of Justice reports that approximately 8,000 blacks were murdered in the United States in 2005. In one year, that's exactly double the total number of American military deaths during the entire five years of the war in Iraq; in one year, that's 10 times the average number of American military deaths per year since the start of the war.

A recent study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics at the Department of Justice shows that blacks committed murders in 2005 at a rate seven times higher than whites.

[...] For 1976 through 2005, the Justice Department reports that blacks, 12 percent of the U.S. population, committed 52 percent of the nation's murders and were 47 percent of all murder victims.

Until I heard the racist and anti-American tirades of Barack Obama's pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, it hadn't occurred to me that the murderous fires in the black community were being stoked from the pulpits inside black churches.

THAT is why Hillary Clinton should never have walked into the level of Hell that is the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and sat down with a demon like Richard Mellon Scaife. Because his "paper" runs absolute fucking bullshit like that—and I omitted several paragraphs of black-related crime statistics in the middle of that blockquote.

Whether or not this is in any way orchestrated by or with her campaign is now irrelevant. She just sat down at the table with these "editors" and gave the paper credibility and sought its endorsement. It looks and smells exactly like quid pro quo whether she wants it or not. Hillary Clinton is the clear beneficiary of this column aimed precisely at the voters her meeting with Scaife was designed to reach. While Obama is the clear target of one of the most race-baiting, fear-for-your-life-whitey pieces of shit I've think I've ever read.

Clinton can't distance herself from this. Can't claim she has "no control over what this paper prints." She crossed a bright fucking line last week by doing that interview and this was the only possible outcome. Did they print this column because Hillary met with them? No. I'm sure they would have printed this shit anyway, because it's what Scaife and his paper do!

That's the reason it was a story last week. Clinton supporters tried to play it like "it's just another editorial board interview..." or that "she showed toughness in facing her critics."

They. Are. Wrong. She had no obligation to talk to Scaife and the Trib, and no good reason to do so. She made a calculated decision to lend credibility to the man who spent millions savaging her and her family and has done as much as any single person to sow and fertilize the "vast right wing conspiracy." [more on Scaife here] She yukked it up with Scaife, starting the interview with "It was so counterintuitive, I just thought it would be fun to do."

"Fun?" Making a fool of yourself bowling with the locals is "fun." Selling yourself and your party out and tying them to the worst elements in the media and society is pretty fucking far from "fun."

The Pastor of Disaster

Yesterday, Hillary Clinton happily took the exit ramp marked "Low Road" when she sat down at a table with Richard Mellon Scaife (think Vito Corleone to Rush Limbaugh's Sonny) to put out a hit on Obama by wallowing straight into the Rev. Wright Controversy.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a wide-ranging interview today with Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporters and editors, said she would have left her church if her pastor made the sort of inflammatory remarks Sen. Barack Obama’s former pastor made.

“He would not have been my pastor,” Clinton said. “You don’t choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend.” […]

The Clinton campaign has refrained from getting involved in the controversy, but Clinton herself, responding to a question, denounced what she said was “hate speech.”

We're past kitchen sink territory, Clinton is now throwing Sub-Zero commericial appliances. After commendably passing on this controversy for over a week, Hillary, faced with a p.r. catastrophe of her own making, got desperate enough to pick open a scab that had just begun to heal.

But since she brought up a hypothetical "not-my-pastor" perhaps it's worth considering the opinion of the man who actually IS Hillary's pastor:

"The Reverend Jeremiah Wright is an outstanding church leader whom I have heard speak a number of times. He has served for decades as a profound voice for justice and inclusion in our society. He has been a vocal critic of the racism, sexism and homophobia which still tarnish the American dream. To evaluate his dynamic ministry on the basis of two or three sound bites does a grave injustice to Dr. Wright, the members of his congregation, and the African-American church which has been the spiritual refuge of a people that has suffered from discrimination, disadvantage, and violence. Dr. Wright, a member of an integrated denomination, has been an agent of racial reconciliation while proclaiming perceptions and truths uncomfortable for some white people to hear. Those of us who are white Americans would do well to listen carefully to Dr. Wright rather than to use a few of his quotes to polarize. This is a critical time in America's history as we seek to repent of our racism. No matter which candidates prevail, let us use this time to listen again to one another and not to distort one another's truth," - Dean J. Snyder, Foundry United Methodist Church, March 19, 2008.

Perhaps Hillary should shop for a new church, as hers obviously supports "hate speech" just like Obama.

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.

Hillary "Apologizes"

Today's New York Times:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton did something Wednesday night that she almost never does. She apologized. And once she started, she didn’t seem able to stop. […]

Her biggest apology came in response to a question about comments by her husband, Bill Clinton, after the South Carolina primary, which Obama won handily. Bill Clinton said Jesse Jackson also won South Carolina when he ran for president in 1984 and 1988, a comment many viewed as belittling Obama’s success.

”I want to put that in context. You know I am sorry if anyone was offended. It was certainly not meant in any way to be offensive,” Hillary Clinton said. ”We can be proud of both Jesse Jackson and Senator Obama.”

”Anyone who has followed my husband’s public life or my public life know very well where we have stood and what we have stood for and who we have stood with,” she said, acknowledging that whoever wins the nomination will have to heal the wounds of a bruising, historic contest.

That's an apology? Are you fucking kidding me?

Sincere apologies don't start with "I want to put that in context..." Excuses do.

She then employs the classic passive/aggressive non-apology apology. Break it down:

"You know..." Puts the responsibility squarely on the recipient. You're expected to know that the Clintons could NEVER be racist, and if you don't, that's not Hillary's problem, it's yours.

"...I am sorry if anyone was offended..." This never apologizes for what was said. It doesn't acknowledge that it was offensive coming out of Bill Clinton's mouth, only that it was offensive to some other people's ears. And that, by the way, is also their problem.

"...It was certainly not meant in any way to be offensive...” This part is true. It was meant to be a dogwhistle and a wink. It was supposed to fly over he heads of anyone who might be offended. But it's no apology.

"...We can be proud of both Jesse Jackson and Senator Obama.” I'm not sure what this means...I guess she'll give them stickers when she's President?

Finally, let me add what great people my husband and I are and how dare you question us. You must not have been paying enough attention to us. Oh, and the bruises and wounds to the party? That's all me. Hopefully the rest of you can get over it and support or forgive me.

The Fake Apologalooza then turned to the more recent offensive statements of Geraldine Ferraro:

”I certainly do repudiate it and I regret deeply that it was said. Obviously she doesn’t speak for the campaign, she doesn’t speak for any of my positions, and she has resigned from being a member of my very large finance committee.”

I don't think she regrets that it was said at all. She was happy to have central PA mull that one over for a couple days...She's sorry the wrong people paid attention she paid a price for it in the media.

And finishing with "...he has resigned from being a member of my very large finance committee.” is the not-my-fault cherry on top. Another excuse. You can either run a campaign or you can't, Senator. If your committee is too big for you to control, that's your fucking fault.

Are We Sure the GOP Race Is Settled?

Because Obama seems to be facing two Republican campaigns...

I want to follow up on something Rickey mentioned in a previous comment, "...the Clinton smear tactics are a warm up for the vicious attack ads the beleagured GOP party will unleash on Obama."

Well...I'm not so sure the GOP can be any more insidious than this.



Can the GOP be more obvious and clumsy? Yes. But how much more disgusting can it get?

This example has flown around the blogosphere as "the Clinton ad that makes Obama more black" (ala the TIME magazine OJ cover). But I think kos nails it when he says "more Muslim." They didn't just make Obama's skin darker they changed tone, hue and contrast to make him look more like an Arab. I'm surprised the copy doesn't just refer to him as "B. Hussein Obama."

I've been biting my tongue on this example for a day or two, because this blog has been a goddamn "Groundhog Day" of Anti-Hillary, and I was hoping for a rejection of Clinton by the voters, but instead her Rovian tactics have brought her back from the grave—and continuing, even increasing them seems her only possible strategy.

This shit cannot stand.

Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign fucking disgusts me. It is now at the point that I won't be in the same party as her. She is running a Republican slash and burn campaign through her own party's future—and I mean beyond Obama.

If the craven Democratic Party establishment or the stupid fucking sheep of an electorate validates this, I won't be a part of it.

“Daisy”-Eating “Wolves” are Coming for Your “Children”

I think you can officially say that the Clinton campaign is the one in possession of The Rove Playbook™. No need for me to go off on some big rant, because unlike John Kerry, Barack Obama gets after it. His response...

"We’ve seen these ads before. They’re the kind that play on peoples’ fears to scare up votes.

"Well it won’t work this time. Because the question is not about picking up the phone. The question is – what kind of judgment will you make when you answer? We’ve had a red phone moment. It was the decision to invade Iraq. And Senator Clinton gave the wrong answer. George Bush gave the wrong answer. John McCain gave the wrong answer.

"But I stood up and said that a war in Iraq would cost us thousands of lives and billions of dollars. I said that it would distract us from the real threat we face – and that we should take the fight to al Qaeda in Afghanistan. That’s the judgment I made on the most important foreign policy decision of our generation, and that’s the kind of judgment I’ll show when I answer that phone in the White House as President of the United States – the judgment to keep us safe, to go after our real enemies, and to provide the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States with the equipment they need when we do send them into battle, and the respect and care they have earned when they come home. And I’ll never see the threat of terrorism as a way to scare up votes, because it’s a threat that should rally this country around our common enemies. That’s the judgment we need at 3am. And that’s the judgment that I am running for President to provide."

Class. Fucking. Dismissed.

Oh, and the best part? There's a reason why, as you watch the ad, you (more than) halfway expect it to be a GOP 527 ad or one of Bush's FISA propaganda pieces—this is a total and complete ripoff of a McCain ad* from a few months ago...

UPDATE: Bill Clinton responds...

"Now, one of Clinton's laws of politics is this. If one candidate is trying to scare you and the other one is try get you to think, if one candidate is appealing to your fears and the other one is appealing to your hopes, you better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope."

Oh, I'm sorry, that was from 2004...

*UPDATE 2: There was apparently a Mondale ad ("The Red Phone") like this in the 80s—used in the primaries against Gary Hart. Feel the plagiarism!

UPDATE 3: Obama already has a response ad out.



"They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. *That's* the *Chicago* way!" -- Jimmy Malone, "The Untouchables"

Quote of the Day

From the estimable Hilzoy, who's filling in for Andrew Sullivan [link]:

Note to self: If I ever run for office and base my campaign on the idea that I am ready to lead from day one, I must remember to actually run an effective campaign.

Inspired by this article in the Washington Post:

System Worries Clinton Backers
Supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton are worried that convoluted delegate rules in Texas could water down the impact of strong support for her among Hispanic voters there, creating a new obstacle for her in the must-win presidential primary contest.

Several top Clinton strategists and fundraisers became alarmed after learning of the state's unusual provisions during a closed-door strategy meeting this month, according to one person who attended.

Um, you guys might've wanted to look into that before you based your entire comeback strategy on erasing Obama's lead by winning Texas.

Hillary Clinton—"Ready on day one," but hopelessly incompetent until then.

[Original h/t Publius. More Hilzoy] If you're not reading Obsidian Wings, you should be.

--

UPDATE: More from the Clinton camp that makes me want to retch. First, Mark Penn further divides and denigrates the Obama states, and Clinton strategist Harold Ickes discusses how he (and the Clinton campaign) will fight to have Michigan and Florida seated even though he personally voted to set the rules that disqualified them.. And here's more on their superdelegate plan.

The Times They Have a-Changed, Hillary

Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. ... It took a president to get it done.
-- Hillary Clinton, Jan. 7, 2008

What follows here perfectly sums up one of my overall problems with Hillary (and her establishment), and nails the reason why he MLK comments generated so much animosity...

The analogy Clinton was implying was obvious: I'm Lyndon Johnson, unlovely doer; he's Martin Luther King, charismatic dreamer. Vote for me if you want results.

Forty years ago, that arrangement -- white president enacting African-American dreams -- was necessary because discrimination denied blacks their own autonomous political options. Today, that arrangement -- white liberals acting as tribune for blacks in return for their political loyalty -- is a demeaning anachronism. That's what the fury at Hillary was all about, although no one was willing to say so explicitly.

The King-Johnson analogy is dead because the times are radically different. Today an African-American can be in a position to wield the emancipation pen -- and everything else that goes along with the presidency ...Why should African-American dreams still have to go through white liberals?

Times must have indeed a-changed, because that is the first (and probably last) time Charles Krauthammer and I will agree. He's right, and dare I say, the whole column is worth reading.

What Hillary said pissed people off, because on it's face, it's a slight to MLK, and belittles his own role in his accomplishments, but Krauthammer does the best job of exposing the underpinnings of Hillary's flawed perspective (the psychiatrist finally makes an effective diagnosis).

The Democratic Party has long been the defender and advocate for the down-trodden, and for good reason. The Clintons, especially Bill, have traded on that legacy so effectively that he was literally called the "first black President" (news to Obama, I'm sure). The same is true for gays, and as a more recent battleground, more accurately demonstrates what I (and Krauthammer) am talking about...

Because the Republicans are so clearly the party of white, straight people—even better if they're rich—minorities never have an alternative to the Democrats. So, the Democrats take their support and votes for granted. Much like the GOP and the religious base—they pander to them during election time, and then fail to deliver when in office. For the GOP, they never actually give the evangelicals the pro-life carrot...And the Democrats via Clinton? He rewarded the support of GLBT voters with the Defense of Marriage Act and "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." (NOTE: This gets to the whole Obama/Reagan thing. More on that later.)

Hillary may actually a better-prepared "experience" candidate than Obama by some definitions, and she (and Edwards) surely have to walk a fine line when opposing a transformational candidate like Obama—nobody wants to LOOK LIKE they are getting in the way of a historic moment.* I'm not saying people should step aside for Obama—run your race and make your case, but if you're going to stand in Obama's way you better make damn sure you never use "you're not quite ready to handle this by yourselves yet" as a reason.

It's why it appears voters of color are abandoning the Clintons for Obama, not just because "Holy Shit!" they can vote for a black President, but because Hillary and her fake-black husband want to hold on to them, "Wait! Are you sure about this guy? You're rolling the dice here...you know us!"

It's fucking condescending. They are too wrapped up in their own roles as benefactors. The fact that the framework where this is occurring, race, is incidental and only applies to this gaffe. It's a larger problem than that...which leads back to this...

I said at the top that this was one of my "overall problems" with Hillary. Not the "race" part, or any specific instance as much as the fact that everything is all about her. And that somehow she has to do it. None of the other candidates can do it, and the country can't do it without her. Doesn't matter what "it" is. That's not leading, it's taking over. And it won't work, especially for her.

--

I'm not questioning the beliefs of Bill and Hillary Clinton regarding social issues. Really, I'm not. But I question the commitment. In Bill Clinton's Presidency, I think he was all too ready to triangulate and abandon those beliefs and commitments. This campaign has revealed in no uncertain terms that power, and regaining the White House, is a by-any-means-necessary proposition. And why, if they win, retaining that power will always trump even their own beliefs.

UPDATE: Slight edits/additions. Also, there have been a few other things I've read on this, I hope to find those links.

• WaPo on why the old-school civil rights leaders are lukewarm on Obama. It's similar to the Clintons problem—he's not beholden to them, and he represents, if not their obsolescence, but the passing of a torch they need to hang on to.

*Yes, I realize a woman President is also historic, but because Hillary is who she is (the very embodiment of establishment power), it frankly loses a bit of luster up against Obama. Plus, she wields that power and status so brutally it's unbecoming of a transformational candidate.