Posted on 01/26/2008 9:13:41 AM PST by jdm
Earlier this morning, I noted that some Democrats have discovered that the Clintonian Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy meme may actually have been drizzly pap. In the Los Angeles Times today, Jonathan Chait reluctantly comes to that conclusion. He writes that the conservatives who have long railed against the lies and dirty tactics of the Clintons have been somewhat vindicated by the primary campaign tactics of Bill and Hillary:
Going into the campaign, most of us liked Hillary Clinton just fine, but the fact that tens of millions of Americans are seized with irrational loathing for her suggested that she might not be a good Democratic nominee. But now that loathing seems a lot less irrational. We're not frothing Clinton haters like ... well, name pretty much any conservative. We just really wish they'd go away.
The big turning point seems to be this week, when the Clintons slammed Obama for acknowledging that Ronald Reagan changed the country. Everyone knows Reagan changed the country. Bill and Hillary have said he changed the country. But they falsely claimed that Obama praised Reagan's ideas, saying he was a better president than Clinton -- something he didn't say and surely does not believe.
This might have been the most egregious case, but it wasn't the first. Before the New Hampshire primaries, Clinton supporters e-mailed pro-choice voters claiming that Obama was suspect on abortion rights because he had voted "present" instead of "no" on some votes. (In fact, the president of the Illinois chapter of Planned Parenthood said she had coordinated strategy with Obama and wanted him to vote "present.") Recently, there have been waves of robocalls in South Carolina repeatedly attacking "Barack Hussein Obama."
I crossed the Clinton Rubicon a couple of weeks ago when, in the course of introducing Hillary, Clinton supporter and Black Entertainment Television founder Robert L. Johnson invoked Obama's youthful drug use. This was disgusting on its own terms, but worse still if you know anything about Johnson. I do -- I once wrote a long profile of him. He has a sleazy habit of appropriating the logic of civil rights for his own financial gain. He also has a habit of aiding conservative crusades to eliminate the estate tax and privatize Social Security by falsely claiming they redistribute wealth from African Americans to whites. The episode reminded me of the Clintons' habit of surrounding themselves with the most egregious characters: Dick Morris, Marc Rich and so on.
The Clinton campaign is trying to make it seem as if the complaint is about negativity, and it is pointing out that Obama has criticized Hillary as well. That's what politicians are supposed to do when they compete for votes. But criticism isn't the same thing as lying and sleaze-mongering.
Lying. Sleaze-mongering. False claims. Well, no one can say that conservatives didn't warn everyone -- repeatedly -- about these Clinton characteristics. Chait still wants to shrug it off by claiming that the Republicans are somehow worse, and does so by calling Paula Jones "trailer trash", and then justifying it in the next paragraph.
Somehow, that doesn't amount to a stirring repudiation of sleaze-mongering and character assassination, Jonathan.
This does show that the Clintons have started becoming a liability among the elites. That could drive better coverage of their deceptions and smears from the media and expose them in a way that never happened during their years in power. It might force the Democrats to come to terms with the gutter politics they've cheered from this crowd and finally put an end to the Clinton machine.
I am still amazed that whenever there’s sleaze, the Clintonistas still get away with blaming it on the ‘conservatives’.
How soon will this church lose its tax exempt status, IRS? Inquiring minds want to know.
No one so blind (democrats) as one who will not see.
If Democrats would move on from the Clintons, this would be a great thing for the country.
Then maybe we could argue about policies, not the ‘Toons lies.
Sickening.
It won’t...
I already seen how this works...
The Pastor doesn’t “Endorse” the candidate directly, but “rents” the chapel to the candidates campaign for a buck or so, and it just happens to be during service time!!
Obama doesn’t think that Reagan was a better president than Clinton? I’d sure like to know what he bases that on - maybe the accomplishments that were generated by the Republican’s Contract with America?
Nice to see Hillary can still get a few old black tokens to support her.
Ninety percent of the white Democrats in South Carolina are voting for Hillary. What does that tell ya?
Don't hold your breath or you'll pass out waiting, Captain. As Rush Limbaugh said last week: "And the Washington Post and the New York Times and William Greider and Maureen Dowd will write editorials and op-eds complaining about the under-the-table, backhanded, horrible tactics of the Clintons, and then come November vote for them anyway."
Irrational loathing? You mean there’s something about Bill and Hillary that isn’t loathesome?
Oh no,I see a cross in that picture.
This person is delusional. Dims will tell us how horrible the tactics are, how disgusting it all is, how sleazy the Klintons are, that we have to clean up politics, get rid of the politics of personal destruction.........as they are walking to the voting booth to vote for Hitlery Klinton.
Clintons and McCain, the New York Time Favorites, have gotten pass after pass after pass.
If we review the Democratic party, Clinton placed a person as the head of that party’s organization a few years ago even though the grass roots wanted a prominent black politician and the Clintons said no, there needed to be a money raiser.
Bill has key people across the US and overseas who will return favors for him and help him repay a debt to his wife by working for her election.
While we may be shocked in other countries about wives who take over after their husbands are put in jail or kicked out of office, we need to consider if the same kind of political dynasty system is being formed here in the US. The Bush-Clinton-Bush-potential Clinton succession is very frightening to a democracy.
I actually saw Rep.Clyburn,D, blame all the negativity on Huckabee. He said that Huckabee basically defended the use of the Confederate flag and that’s what started all the negative campaigning in SC. Yeah, right. Huckabee is responsible for the Clinton smear machine’s lies.
Notice that Mrs. Clinton is facing away from the cross. If she looked upon it, her flesh would begin to fry.
My initial answer to the hit piece done on HILLARY! UNCENSORED - http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1959934/posts
But it sounds like we can say that "Liberals refuse to face up to reality."
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