Obama '08?

Well, I must admit I'm pleased tonight. I love both candidates but I I was hating the way the press seemed to be deciding this election. Chris Matthews was eating crow. He said, "I'll never underestimate Hillary again. I loved that moment, if you were watching MSNBC, when Rachel Maddow said that the Hillary victory could be credited to Chris Matthews for all his heavy handed down-on-Hillary campaign. New Hampshire has proved that the press is not as powerful as they think they are. My hope is restored.

Donna Brazile did, too.

Honestly Blatham... you see nothing to object to in Bill's speech?

Or are you saying that yes, of course, they'll "go negative" and make **** up, and that's fine?

An indignant, finger-pointing Clinton said:

"But since you raised the judgment issue, let's go over this again. That is the central argument for his campaign. 'It doesn't matter that I started running for president less a year after I got to the Senate from the Illinois State Senate. I am a great speaker and a charismatic figure and I'm the only one who had the judgment to oppose this war from the beginning. Always, always, always.' "

"First it is factually not true that everybody that supported that resolution supported Bush attacking Iraq before the UN inspectors were through. Chuck Hagel was one of the co-authors of that resolution. The only Republican Senator that always opposed the war. Every day from the get-go. He authored the resolution to say that Bush could go to war only if they didn't co-operate with the inspectors and he was assured personally by Condi Rice as many of the other Senators were. So, first the case is wrong that way."

"Second, it is wrong that Senator Obama got to go through 15 debates trumpeting his superior judgment and how he had been against the war in every year, numerating the years, and never got asked one time, not once, 'Well, how could you say, that when you said in 2004 you didn't know how you would have voted on the resolution? You said in 2004 there was no difference between you and George Bush on the war and you took that speech you're now running on off your website in 2004 and there's no difference in your voting record and Hillary's ever since?' Give me a break.

"This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen...

So you can talk about Mark Penn all you want. What did you think about the Obama thing calling Hillary the Senator from Punjab? Did you like that?"

"Or what about the Obama hand out that was covered up, the press never reported on, implying that I was a crook? Scouring me, scathing criticism, over my financial reports. Ken Starr spent $70 million and indicted innocent people to find out that I wouldn't take a nickel to see the cow jump over the moon.

"So, you can take a shot at Mark Penn if you want. It wasn't his best day. He was hurt, he felt badly that we didn't do better in Iowa. But you know, the idea that one of these campaigns is positive and the other is negative when I know the reverse is true and I have seen it and I have been blistered by it for months, is a little tough to take. Just because of the sanitizing coverage that's in the media, doesn't mean the facts aren't out there.

Chuck Todd, political director at NBC, seems to back the "race" angle in the poll fiasco, citing some famous examples of whites telling pollsters one thing and voting otherwise. Asked why this didn't happen in Iowa, he points out that it was a caucus vote, with people having to declare themselves openly. In New Hampshire they could pull the curtain and vote privately.

"These Negroes, they're getting pretty uppity these days and that's a problem for us since they've got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we've got to do something about this, we've got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference. For if we don't move at all, then their allies will line up against us and there'll be no way of stopping them, we'll lose the filibuster and there'll be no way of putting a brake on all sorts of wild legislation. It'll be Reconstruction all over again."

--Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson (D., Texas), 1957
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110011033

Last night, Kristol, in his natural habitat on Fox News, snidely dismissed Clinton's victory as follows: "It's the tears. She pretended to cry. The women felt sorry for her. And she won." Neoconservatives never err. They are only victimized by the flaws of others -- in this case by the incomparably calculated manipulation of Hillary Clinton and the vapidity of female voters.

UPDATE: This was the very first paragraph of the very first NYT column written by Kristol (h/t Awklib):

Quote:

Thank you, Senator Obama. You've defeated Senator Clinton in Iowa. It looks as if you're about to beat her in New Hampshire. There will be no Clinton Restoration. A nation turns its grateful eyes to you.

Was Gloria Steinheim's op ed, describing the Obama moment in terms of a supposed deep seated "gender bias", profound insight, or merely a crass attempt to use the moment to peddle the one idea on which she has based her career?

This is pretty rich. Last night, Matthews said: "I give her a lot of personal credit; I will never underestimate Hillary Clinton again."


But by this morning Matthews had already forgotten his newfound respect for her. He said: "The reason she's a U.S. Senator, the reason she's a candidate for President, the reason she may be a front-runner, is her husband messed around. That's how she got to be Senator from New York. We keep forgetting it. She didn't win it on the merits..."


Put aside for a sec just how loathsome this statement is on its own terms. The larger point here is that a mere half-day after acknowledging that he'd gotten it wrong and that she deserved a lot of "personal credit" for winning over voters, Matthews was already imposing his own narrative on her entire political career, the current race included, saying that her past and current success have nothing to do with "the merits."

In his denigrations of Senator Clinton, was Chris Matthiews any more objective and honest than when he was criticizing president Bush or the Republican policies he so assiduously opposes?

Let's go through it.

First off, the writer's intro...

Quote:

An indignant, finger-pointing Clinton said:

How dare he?! Criticism of the press! Just like a Clinton to turn around and put the attention on someone else. Just like Bill to make judgements after everything he has done with internes and cigars.

"But since you raised the judgment issue, let's go over this again. That is the central argument for his campaign. 'It doesn't matter that I started running for president less a year after I got to the Senate from the Illinois State Senate. I am a great speaker and a charismatic figure and I'm the only one who had the judgment to oppose this war from the beginning. Always, always, always.' "

"First it is factually not true that everybody that supported that resolution supported Bush attacking Iraq before the UN inspectors were through. Chuck Hagel was one of the co-authors of that resolution. The only Republican Senator that always opposed the war. Every day from the get-go. He authored the resolution to say that Bush could go to war only if they didn't co-operate with the inspectors and he was assured personally by Condi Rice as many of the other Senators were. So, first the case is wrong that way."

Do you find something factually wrong here? Is there some inference or suggestion lurking which I do not apprehend?

"Second, it is wrong that Senator Obama got to go through 15 debates trumpeting his superior judgment and how he had been against the war in every year, numerating the years, and never got asked one time, not once, 'Well, how could you say, that when you said in 2004 you didn't know how you would have voted on the resolution? You said in 2004 there was no difference between you and George Bush on the war and you took that speech you're now running on off your website in 2004 and there's no difference in your voting record and Hillary's ever since?' Give me a break.

Here?

As for Mr. Clinton's pounding away at Mr. Obama's war stances over the years, Mr. Obama said: "But I think Tim Russert answered Bill Clinton this morning. Every point that he raised was a question that had been answered _ had been asked and answered, not only on "Meet the Press" but repeatedly.

"It is a little frustrating for the president to _ the former president _ to continually repeat this notion that somehow I didn't know where I stood in 2004 about the war. He keeps on giving half the quote. I was always against the war. The quote he keeps on feeding back was an interview on Meet the Press at the National Convention when Tim was asking, `Given your firm opposition to the war, what do you make of the fact that your nominee for president and vice president didn't have that same foresight.' And obviously I didn't want to criticize them on the eve of their nomination. So I said, `Well, I don't know what _ you know, I wasn't in the Senate. I can't say for certain what I would have done if I was there. I know that from where I stood the case was not made.' He always leaves that out.

"And you know, I understand why he's frustrated. But at some point since we've corrected him repeatedly on this and he keeps on repeating it, you know it tells me that he's just more interested in trying to muddy the waters than actually talk fairly about my record."

"This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen...

You've mentioned the 'fairy tale' phrase earlier. What exactly is your problem with that phrase?

So you can talk about Mark Penn all you want. What did you think about the Obama thing calling Hillary the Senator from Punjab? Did you like that?"

I don't know this 'punjab' allusion. We talked earlier on the Penn/cocaine thing and I expressed my opinion that it was as Trippi described it.

It's also accurate to make the argument that in even bringing up the 'madrassa' term, is to forward the rightwing smear. But there are two sides to that. To continually forward the proposition that Hillary's campaign is 'attacking', 'dirty', 'malicious' is to forward a different rightwing smear. You yourself are contributing to this, soz.

"Or what about the Obama hand out that was covered up, the press never reported on, implying that I was a crook? Scouring me, scathing criticism, over my financial reports. Ken Starr spent $70 million and indicted innocent people to find out that I wouldn't take a nickel to see the cow jump over the moon.

Again, I don't know to what this alludes.

"So, you can take a shot at Mark Penn if you want. It wasn't his best day. He was hurt, he felt badly that we didn't do better in Iowa. But you know, the idea that one of these campaigns is positive and the other is negative when I know the reverse is true and I have seen it and I have been blistered by it for months, is a little tough to take. Just because of the sanitizing coverage that's in the media, doesn't mean the facts aren't out there.

And here I see the press bias (and your own bias) as the valid complaint Bill is arguing, for all the reasons I've mentioned above.

Quote:

In his denigrations of Senator Clinton, was Chris Matthiews any more objective and honest than when he was criticizing president Bush or the Republican policies he so assiduously opposes?

george

You've already told us you don't watch TV. So just how the phuck would you have any notion as to what Matthews supports or opposes, quite aside from what he does assiduously?

Quote:

"Or what about the Obama hand out that was covered up, the press never reported on, implying that I was a crook? Scouring me, scathing criticism, over my financial reports. Ken Starr spent $70 million and indicted innocent people to find out that I wouldn't take a nickel to see the cow jump over the moon.

Quote:

Again, I don't know to what this alludes.

I don't either, and this is the single part that bothers me the most. He's accusing Obama of something here. What is it? Where's the proof? Or is it all just inferences?

Blatham - back off!

You know that G and I are 2 of the original founders of the VRWC (vast right-wing conspiracy, for non-fans of Mrs. Clinton) and while he tends to be polite I'm somewhat less so

It turns out, however, that the New York Times reported the same accusations, attributed to Bill Clinton, last March.

The Times' conclusion?

Quote:

[A] review of Mr. Obama's statements on Iraq since 2002 shows that he has opposed the war against Saddam Hussein consistently, calling it ''dumb'' and ''rash.'' Yet when it came later to hypothetical questioning about how he would have voted on the 2002 Iraq war resolution, Mr. Obama has been more circumspect.

The examples cited by the Times of Obama being "circumspect" turn out to be the same ones cited by Clinton and explained by Obama last November during an an hour-long "Meet the Press" interview.

I just reviewed the video of that interview, and the quotations cited by Clinton (and Tim Russert and the Times) all came from the same day -- July 27, 2004 -- the same day John Kerry and John Edwards were nominated to the Democratic Party's presidential ticket. As Obama explained later to Russert, "It probably was the wrong time for me to be making a strong case against our party's nominees decisions on the war in Iraq."

...
Could we be seeing a Clinton/Edwards ticket?