Well, I guess Markos caused some controversy with a throwaway post he made this morning. He quoted the following comment favorably.
At some point the concept of “Republicans will do X” has turned into a license for Hillary to do all the same things. It’s bizarre, but I don’t really consider her a Dem any more.
Predictably, the Hill-o-sphere is going nuts over this with posts from Jerome Armstrong, Armando, Pamela Leavey, etc. The most interesting response is from Tom Watson, who manages to maintain a calm and somewhat detached demeanor. I agree that it’s kind of stupid to not consider Hillary Clinton a Democrat anymore. But only kind of. Let me explain.
It’s true that Clinton hasn’t suddenly started advocating Republican policies. In fact, the platform she is running on is a tad to the left of what we might expect from a member of the DLC Leadership Team. Hillary Clinton is no Joe Lieberman (although she did inexplicably support the Kyl-Lieberman amendment and suggest a Middle Eastern security umbrella to save our allies from scary Iran). No, Hillary Clinton is still safely on Democratic ground when it comes to policy.
Where she is starting to resemble a Republican is in her campaign rhetoric and tactics, and her indifference to what most of us ‘Obamaphiles’ like to call ‘The Math’. Watson acknowledges that Clinton is waging a ‘moderately vicious shin-kicking campaign’ but he doesn’t seem to disapprove in any way. And that’s disturbing.
Hillophiles like to defend her against accusations of racializing the campaign. But even if they remain deaf to dog whistle politics they cannot deny that only about twelve percent of blacks (.pdf) in Pennsylvania are supporting their candidate. How will blacks react if Obama’s reputation is trashed by Hillary making right-wing attacks on his affiliations, and he is denied the nomination despite winning the most pledged delegates, the most contests, and (most likely) the popular vote? Will they enthusiastically come out to vote for the person that perpetrated (in their eyes) the crime? And what will that do for our downticket races?
It’s the failure to look one step ahead that is aggravating to supporters of Obama. Maybe Obama will have a rough time in the general election with talk of his pastor and flag-pins and a couple of verbal gaffes he’s made in this long campaign. But at least he will have won the nomination in a way that is seen as legitimate by the vast majority of the Democratic electorate. And, please, don’t compare Michigan and Florida to a situation where Obama is denied this nomination despite winning the most pledged delegates, the most contests, and (most likely) the popular vote. That’s disingenuous.
And there has been a lot of disingenuousness and a lot of magical thinking coming out of the Hill-o-sphere. But that doesn’t mean that Hillary’s supporters are not good Democrats. And when Markos says that he is beginning to feel like Clinton is no longer a Democrat, that doesn’t mean that he thinks her supporters are no longer Democrats.
Let’s talk about Lieberman. If Lieberman had merely supported the war and cast a few lousy votes we wouldn’t treat him any differently from Ben Nelson. But Lieberman started cozying up to the Bush administration and saying and writing things that were patently untrue, and criticizing Democrats, and stepping all over the party’s message, and using right-wing talking points and tactics. It wasn’t the war the got him kicked out of the party, it was all the accouterments that went along with the war. And that is where Clinton is flirting in dangerous territory.
She’s saying that the guy that has about a 98% chance of being our standard bearer in the fall is less qualified to be president than John McCain, and suggesting that he should quit his church, and linking him to Farrakhan and the Weathermen and Hamas. If you are being honest with yourself, you have to see the resemblance to Holy Joe. These are slimy, dishonest, right-wing attacks.
At some point the concept of “Republicans will do X” has turned into a license for Hillary to do all the same things.
There is a major element both within the Clinton campaign and within the Hill-o-sphere of a ‘we’re here to save you from yourselves mentality’. It’s an article of faith that Obama cannot withstand these arbitrary and unfair attacks on his character so the Clintons are duty bound to use these arbitrary and unfair attacks as a kind of preemptive measure. Sorry, but even if that were true, the time to make that case was before Obama built an insurmountable lead in the pledged delegates. Right now, good Democrats should seriously consider spending their time defending Obama from these attacks, especially if they think they are so potentially lethal. And that’s where some Democrats are beginning to look at some Clinton supporters with a jaundiced eye. What exactly explains your continued support for your candidate under these circumstances? Farrakhan? Hamas? You are a willing participant in this?
Does Tom really answer these concerns?
But in the some of the high emotion of this long campaign, I have noticed on the part of Obama supporters a disturbing notion that Hillary Clinton and her followers shouldn’t be considered real Democrats – that the Clinton campaign is somehow working a wild, long-range bank shot that includes taking Obama down now, living through four years of McCain, and then challenging the incumbent in 2012. In reality, she’s playing out the string in aggressive fashion, trailing decidedly by not hopelessly, and doing her best to win the nomination and reward her supporters now.
I don’t know about the 2012 bank-shot but the thought has occurred to me. What’s more of a concern is how Tom blithely explains that blasting Obama with the Sean Hannity’s kitchen sink is nothing more than ‘playing out the string in aggressive fashion’. Should Obama respond to comments about Farrakhan by bringing up Vince Foster’s suicide and the Mena, Arkansas, Contra cocaine smuggling ring? That shit is bound to come up during the fall if Hillary is the nominee.
I think Hillophiles need to understand that the rest of the party (the people not still invested in her campaign) sees nothing wrong with Obama that he (and we) can’t handle. We’re excited about our nominee and impatient to get started with the general campaign. But we don’t appreciate a fellow Democrat running her mouth bringing up Farrakhan and Hamas and saying our guy isn’t qualified and he’s elitist and he’s out of touch and he’s just words with no action. When McCain and the right-wingers attack us, people know they’re biased and they take that into account. But when a fellow Democrat does it, it hurts.
Consider Sen. Thad Cochran’s comment about McCain.
“The thought of him being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper, and he worries me.”
If Barbara Boxer said that, would anybody think it was damaging? But when a Republican colleague says it, it creates a powerful 30-second attack ad. See what I mean?
Clinton needs to knock off the crap. And the fact that she is just getting nastier and nastier isn’t exactly giving the rest of us the warm-fuzzies.
So, yeah, she’s still a Democrat. But she’s beginning to wear out her welcome. If her chances of winning the nomination were quantifiable rather than infinitesimal, we might be more tolerant.
And one last point. Clinton supporters are taking this all very personally, as if an attack on Clinton is an attack on all her supporters. Or as if a desire to see Carville, Begala, McAuliffe, and Penn chucked on the ashheap of history means that the progressive blogosphere wants to throw Clinton’s base supporters there with them. That’s totally inaccurate.
I know, I know, you feel like the rest of us think you are stupid. And there is some of that. Can’t you do The Math? Can’t you see that Clinton can’t both win the nomination and keep Obama’s black and younger voters? So maybe some of you are offended by the high-handed and dismissive attitude you’re getting from a lot of people in Obamaland. I sympathize. But part of the problem is that you never saw the Clintons as a DLC machine that is a mortal enemy of the progressive movement. We don’t want to destroy you, we want to destroy the Begala/Carville/McAuliffe/Penn influence on the party. Those people hate you too, even if you don’t know it.
We don’t want to fight with you anymore than you want to fight with us. If you stop calling our guy an unqualified out-of-touch terrorist-coddling unpatriotic Angry Black elitist with ties to Hamas, the Weathermen, and Farrakhan, then we’ll stop punching back. If you’ll stop fighting, so will we.
But you’re all good Democrats. Maybe you are a little misguided. That’s all.
Excellent foray into a difficult and murky subject.
Like you, I find the 2012 argument somewhat less than persuasive. I am not at all convinced that 2012 is the Clintons’ principal concern. I suspect the bigger issue is who controls the Democratic Party from here on? The Republicans, via the Clintons, as they have done to a remarkable extent for many years now — or Democrats who are not Republican quislings. The power of the Clintonistas derives from being able to deliver the Democratic sheep to the Republican slaughter. Obama is just not that kind of guy.
There are two great benefits to this excruciating campaign. One is that it has empowered the Democratic voters of all fifty states and assorted territories. The second is that it has gradually torn the mask off the Clintons and their whole operation. It is clear to me, and I assume to many others, in a way that it just wasn’t at all before 2004, just how this scam has been operating for so many years, with a corrupt Democratic leadership and manipulative media.
Torn the mask off. You are so right. They have given daily, visible proof supporting the misgivings many of us have had all along. From Day One in the 1990’s.
Are they Democrats? Considering the size of each of the party tents, I suppose so. But I have absolutely no confidence in her policy pronouncements. Her campaign tactics and how her administration will be run behind the scenes are one and the same. Two sides of one coin. We are in a state of deep denial if we think that Bill’s foreign entanglements (Kazakhstan, Colombia) and domestic wheelings and dealings (Ron Burkle, Marc Rich) won’t influence her policies and how she would enforce them. The corporatists in both parties have a lot in common, and loyalty to the principles of a political party or grass roots constituency isn’t part of their mind set. Political parties are tools.
Obama, Dean and their followers are a real threat to this power center that knows no loyalty to democratic principles, but only to personal power and enrichment.
Well, people like the Clintons aren’t why I’m registered a Democrat. And they are definitely why a large number of my progressive friends refuse to register as Democrats. I’d say this election is the first in a long time when true progressives are willing to get out there and donate and work for like minded candidates. Because they have some hope. And BTW, there are a lot of decent Republicans who feel their party has left them in the last 30 years. There used to be liberal Republicans, especially in the Northeast, and definitely populist ones in the Midwest where I grew up.
As the Master said in Animal Farm:
As the applause dies down and the card game is resumed, the animals creep away from the window. However, they hurry back when they hear a furious argument break out. The argument is because Mr. Pilkington and Napoleon have both played an Ace of Spades at the same time. But as the animals look from Napoleon to Pilkington, from man to pig and from pig back to man, they find that they are unable to tell the difference.
(From a crib)
Alas, Napoleon, er Hillary! I knew her well.
Dean is telling superdelegates he needs them to make a decision NOW
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/04/17/dean-i-need-a-decision-now/
that is kind of significant. I wonder if it will result in more pledges.
Friday’s NYTimes will publish on their probing of super-delegates too.
The super delegates must be in shock, if not on the freak show, then on the fall out.
ABC got a wake-up call. ObamaNation is organized and loaded for bear. No swift-boaters this time.
love the way he pivoted off the debate. Have you seen the video on his response?
Hope you have. Classy. Dirt off my shoulders and feet. He got a standing ovation. Absolutely, he’ll not allow himself to be swift-boated.
A read of the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette readers’ reaction to the debate gives a sense that Obama came off very well in small towns.
Best is the reader Danny Evans of Dormont, PA.
Good if that holds on Tuesday.
One can only hope.
This has become like a national daytime soap opera. And just as tawdry.
Take heart, the 160,000 new PA voters together with all the rest of the new registrants didn’t slog down to the polls already just so that they could listen to crap like ABC pulled last night. Remember people young and old haven’t just registered. They’ve opened up their wallets, stood in line to go to primaries, slogged through the caucus process, phone banked – all those little inconsequential people have arrived and they care about issues Not distractions. Holy shit Obama made it over to Colbert!!!
You had me nodding along until you got toward the end.
Gosh. Ya think?
One last point … we need the Clinton supporters if we want to win in November. Condescension towards all Clinton supporters doesn’t strike me as a good campaign strategy.
haven’t you learned by now that I’m not into the game of writing crap I don’t really think like, ‘Clinton needs to win by 20 points or she loses.’ ??
I’m not going to pretend that Clinton supporters (at least in the blogosphere) are good at math or have a firm grasp on reality. You’ve read the threads. It’s frightening. And I don’t give a shit if they are mad at me. I’m not real pleased with them.
It’s not my job to make them love Obama.
yep. I know you well.
You think they are stupid. You are going to tell them so and if they get pissed off at you (and all the other Obama supporters who treat them like crap) so be it. Even if it means they decide to stay home in November out of spite.
Personally, I’d like them to vote for Obama. Even if they have to hold their nose.
And no I haven’t read the threads. Intentionally.
I left the Hillary supporting sites so I wouldn’t be reading the threads. So that I could still be nice to all those people once we’re on the same side.
I truly have no idea why you read the threads. It’s one thing to read the blogger but who on earth do you read the threads?
Of course you don’t have to make them love Obama. And of course you can pitch a fit about Jerome or Armando or whoever those other people are. They love the attention.
But I think you’re very silly to be insulting the Clinton supporters in general.
If someone is going to base their vote in November on what I say in April…
what am I saying? That’ll never happen.
True, it’s unlikely.
On the other hand it took me a long time to come around to voting for Obama and part of that was because his on-line supporters were (and are) incredibly obnoxious. I kept finding myself attributing their attitudes to him. It’s one reason I stopped reading all candidate diaries at dkos (and I still mostly avoid them – even people like Kid Oakland who I normally love to read).
So don’t minimize the impact of your words combined with all the other words. It can impact things like how long it takes to get them fully on board. Is the cooling off period going to be 30 days, 60 days or are they still going to be fighting their anger going into the end of October? Because a grudging vote is fine. But a pre-meditated vote with monetary contributions and on the ground support is even better.
Stick with insulting Jerome and Armando. Really. Everyone will be happier in the long run. Including Jerome and Armando.
I think your problem (or your wisdom) is that you don’t read the HillBot threads. If you did, you’d know exactly who I’m talking to and why.
But your post did give me a chuckle (in a good way).
BooMan,
I’m a witness. I’ve seen the charges about Obama, his Kenyan cousin, Auchi, Rezko and the rest of that nonsense. LOL!
I even had to beat a guy into submission after he interviewed someone about the above.
I understand your concern in part. As a former Edwards supporter, it was difficult to shift my support to Obama. I really resented the pressure from some Obama supporters for Edwards to drop out or for Edwards supporters to shift their support because the odds were low that he could win. Edwards said that he was going to the convention and I was willing to back him until then whether he won or not. I also was and still am willing to back the Democratic nominee in November. Part of the reason I was willing to back Edwards all the way was because I felt that he stood for a cause (my cause) and that no other candidate was willing to fight for it in the way that Edwards was.
So, I can understand if, for some reason, Hillary’s supporters feel attached to their candidate and resent pressure for her to drop out. What I don’t understand is their willingness to support her in sliming her opponent. I don’t understand the magical thinking or the efforts to disregard the popular vote. I certainly don’t see how anyone could perceive her persistence in this campaign is for the good of a noble cause, win or lose, to which she must give voice at the convention. (Can’t they see that the Clintons don’t ask what they can do for the Party, but what the Party can do for them!?!). I’m sorry, I just don’t think there is a gentle way to get through to her hardcore supporters, just as there is no gentle way to get through to her. The only way to send a clear message is for her to lose decisively one of her “strong” states or, even better, for a majority of Superdelegates to commit to Obama — sooner rather than later.
Of course, those outcomes are out of Obama supporters’ hands. So pressuring Hillary true-believers to abandon her before such a decisive defeat may be resented.
there are a couple of points on which I disagree with your entry:
Hillary has joined Joe Lieberman’s efforts to elect McCain. She knows it’s over for her because she wouldn’t be praising McCain – as she did yet again today on global warming.
If you really have your Party’s interest in the forefront, that’s not good politics.
I agree with Markos. Hillary has broken one of the prime commandments made popular by The Gipper:
Thou shall speak no evil of a fellow Party member.
Shades of 1968 notes Andrew Sullivan
Treachery. They need to be purged. And I reject and denounce all of my defending them during the 1990s. All of it. A hateful, despicable couple.
Praised McCain AGAIN?
I broke the Reagan rule months ago because it was clear that the GOP want her as the nominee.
Did you all see McCain’s comment last week that he wanted to run against her and that nobody should critize her YET?
Take her down. I can’ what you have to do. Take her down.
I posted this on another blog. Whatever it takes.
Will Hillary demand an apology from Bibi?
Will she reject and denounce him?
Nice photo of Hillary and Bibi
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/873739.html
Report: Netanyahu says 9/11 terror attacks good for Israel
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/975574.html
Is she saying to him in the photo that the attacks were not good for the U.S.? Or for anyone for that matter: the plaything the U.S. is, cannot be any more transparent.And by the way, there’s another bunch of politcians who might agree with this man: the scam-gang running the show and raking it in in Iraq, The Occupied.
there’s another bunch of politcians who might agree with this man
Quentin,
She’d be part of it. I was leaning away from her early on and her debate lies about the Syrian attack did it for me.
She’s a hawk and a liar.
But there is only one effect of a vote for Clinton right now–giving McCain an edge.
Look, my spouse and I have argued Obama vs. Clinton for months. That’s because we both are truly committed to universal (albeit single payer) healthcare, and we’ve parsed their “plans” (which must be negotiated with a yet-undetermiend congress)!
The arguments stopped abruptly when it became obvious that a) Clinton couldn’t manage her campaign staff, and b) Clinton couldn’t win.
Every voter in Penn. and Indiana should be gently and respectfully told this truth–which will be very hard to swallow for sincere folks. Clinton can’t win; she can’t even break even at this point.
So vote for Clinton, and you end up voting for McCain.
BooMan hits on what I think is a very important thing. When Bill Clinton was elected president, from that moment forward it was he who, by force of personality and strategic brilliance, carried the DLC machine along with him, (though Al From and the rest of them pretended otherwise). It was him giving them stature in the arena, not the other way around. Yet even with that, the party veered rightward and the DLC gang and their odious strategists have been losing elections ever since.
Now however, it is the Begala/Carville/Penn/DLC gang in all it’s ugliness that is driving the juggernaut that is the Hillary campaign. The Bill Clinton/DLC dynamic has been inverted, and this is anathema for both the party and the country.
BooMan is right. Driving a stake through the heart of this DLC hydra-headed creature is essential if anything is to be salvaged of what used to be our constitutional democracy. Hillary’s candidacy is a threat not because she is who she is. She is, after all, smart and competent and aware. It’s a threat because of the creeps running ther show to whom she is now beholden, both in terms of the sort of clubhouse loyalty she needs to demonstrate to them, and because she inevitably needs to take some degree of direction from them in order to keep her cash flow/support lines secure.
You have finally shown me what the so-called Democratic Party is all about and it has nothing whatsoever to do with progressive politics.
Sad!
What took ya so long?
AG
why don’t you offer any explanation at all?
Is there anything in my post you think is inaccurate?
Anything that you think is not progressive?
I don’t have a clue what you’re basing your comment on because it has no content.
Now available in orange.
BooMan, a word of caution and no, I don’t disagree with your article. Be very careful of burnout. You are a tremendous blogger and I love The Boo Man Tribune. I also loved Billmon and The Whiskey Bar. He, as you, read the threads of his blog assiduously and often responded to comments as do you. His posts, while brilliant, were also frequent. Then, he was gone and his mighty voice silent.
Please, please, don’t let that happen to you. I think you may need to cut back a bit. We need you and the Tribune for thelong fight ahead.
Sincerely,
the biggest obstacle to hearing my voice is not burnout but poverty.
There is a donate button on the left side of the screen. I am running low on money to burn on blogging and am already actively seeking other employment. So, don’t worry about me burning out because no one can shut me up as long as I live. But my server cost $129/month and I got barely more than that in my blogads check this month.
I used to make a modest living blogging. Those days are long past. And that is why you are seeing voiced going silent all over the blogosphere. Ad sales are down 900%.
Sorry to be so clueless. I just joined Paypal – I was going to anyway – and made my first donation. I have given up spending mega bucks on wines from Wally’s (LA)
so you enjoy some of the savings. Cheers.
Visonary soup can be so tasty.
hey!! thanks a lot. That’s a nice thing to wake up to. I appreciate it.
Regardless of how all this shakes out, there are about a half dozen blogs I used to read daily that will no longer get any traffic from me. I’m not overly concered with what happens in comment threads, but what’s posted up on the front page, when it crosses certain lines of objectivity, is behavior that should not be rewarded.
Once in a while Kos slips into hyperbole to make a point. Nothing wrong with that, unless the reader has a perspective deficit. That’s what I feel about myself when I read a comment by Gilroy here. All the hot wind about reverend Wright comes down to about the same thing, too. I’m tired of hearing people qualifying their rejection of Mrs. Clinton with the judgment that she’s smart. Who is stupid then? If she uses her smarts to praise McSame, I’d say she’s using her smarts stupidly. But then we do not know what she’s getting at, do we?
Can anyone remember a candidate running for the nomination of one party being so effusive for the candidate of the opposition?
There is NO REASON for a Democrat to be praising McCain during the election cycle. If you like McCain’s stance on global warming (blech!) then keep it to yourself. His stance isn’t particularly great unless you compare it to Bush II. There are other Republicans with which to denigrate your opponent. Hell, why use a Republican at all?
So Hillary is smart. What the hell is she doing with this continuing lovefest with McCain? She’s sabotaging the Dems. She would be sabotaging the Dems if she had a chance to win the nomination. After all, her words would be used against her. So if she is not stupid, what is she doing? Is her greater goal to defeat the Democratic Party? Is it possible that she’s so much an agent against progressivism that she has taken this road with a deliberateness that has no other explanation?
I’m wondering how old you have to be for “weather underground” to mean anything to you. Who are these people talking to? My guess is – anybody who thinks hippies really are dirty and that putting on a John Deere cap makes the farmers feel brotherly toward you. That ain’t us, babe.
It’s been a long time since we’ve heard the words to The Times They Are A’Changin’
I’m 60 this year and have never felt closer to my hippie roots than I do now. The trouble we’re in today eclipses what was going on back then by several orders of magnitude.
I want a pitchfork and a flaming torch to use in the protests to come, (like the villagers chasing Frankenstein), but now the cops have tasers and I have an implanted cardiac device so I also need to wear a sign that says “Don’t tase me bro, you’ll short out my defibrillator and I’ll die”!
“The Times They Are a Changin” indeed.
sbj,
I’ll jump in front of you and take the taser if you’ll have my back when they use these:
For years, the US military has been looking for a good, non-lethal weapon, something that could be used on demonstrators or rioters…. Some armies have tried rubber bullets. For a while the US military considered shooting sticky foam at people but then gave up after realizing that getting the foam in your lungs would be damaging.
The energy beam would produce heat in the targeted person the same way a microwave oven heats up food, by agitating water molecules. But microwave oven rays are longer and at a much lower frequency so they penetrate the food being cooked, while the beams from this new weapon theoretically affect only the skin’s surface to a depth of 1/64th of an inch. Still, if the beam is powered up enough and remains focused on someone long enough, it could burn the skin. The scientists who developed the weapon say people instinctively move out of the beam before suffering any damage. Other weapon experts aren’t so sure. John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org is impressed but skeptical.
Thanks for the kind and courageous offer Cee. I’ve heard about that heat thing already and it sounds diabolical. It’s probably safe to assume that whatever they say about it being ‘safe’ itself is untrue to some degree or another, (no pun intended).
We probably need Klaatu and Gort (from “The Day The Earth Stood Still”), to just zap all the fancy weapons into oblivion. Then our pitchfoks and torches would have mre meaning.
Regardless of how all this shakes out, there are about a half dozen blogs I used to read daily that will no longer get any traffic from me. I’m not overly concered with what happens in comment threads, but what’s posted up on the front page, when it crosses certain lines of objectivity, is behavior that should not be rewarded.
by mikefromtexas
That is just how I feel, on both sides.
Bloggers I really respected seem to have lost thier senses.
.