Posted on 03/08/2016 12:30:26 AM PST by Fedora
On February 29, 2016, New York Times reporters Amy Chozick and Patrick Healy provided an insider analysis of the Clinton team's plan to defeat Donald Trump. Citing interviews with "more than two dozen" Clinton insiders, including several who spoke directly to Bill Clinton, the article reported on a series of emergency meetings Clinton supporters convened to respond to Donald Trump's February 20 victory in South Carolina and his February 23 win in Nevada. The article reported that Bill Clinton and others argued against those inclined to underestimate Trump "that Mr. Trump clearly had a keen sense of the electorate’s mood and that only a concerted campaign portraying him as dangerous and bigoted would win what both Clintons believe will be a close November election."
On February 25, the Anti-Defamation League issued a press release in which ADL National Chair Marvin D. Nathan and ADL CEO Jonathan A. Greenblatt called upon Trump " to distance himself from white nationalist and former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke, as well as other white supremacists, and publicly condemn their racism". Nathan and Greenblatt's press release acknowledged that Duke had not endorsed Trump and Trump had already told NBC News in December that he would repudiate an endorsement from Duke, but it insisted that he must do so again "unequivocally". Greenblatt, who recently replaced Abraham Foxman at the ADL's helm, had previously been described in 2014 by Daniel Greenfield of the David Horowitz Freedom Center as "a Clinton official who bummed around NGOs during the Bush years and then became Obama's director of the White House’s Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation". Greenfield's article exposed Greenblatt's association with the Aspen Institute, funded by former Nazi collaborator George Soros, who had previously been condemned as a bigot by the ADL. In September 2015, Greenblatt had painted Ben Carson as a bigot, saying, "Dr. Ben Carson’s statement that a Muslim American should not serve as president is deeply offensive, un-American and contrary to the Constitution." In December 2015, after several months of the ADL sparring with Carson, Greenfeld had issued a press release condemning Trump's call to seal the border against Muslims.
On February 28, the Anti-Defamation League's February 25 press release was cited by Jake Tapper in the CNN State of the Union interview that triggered the recent uproar over Trump and Duke. Tapper, who had previously been ABC's Senior White House Correspondent for several years following Obama's election, has had a long career in Washington, which started as a campaign press secretary for Democratic Congressional candidate Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, mother of Chelsea Clinton's then-future husband Marc Mezvinsky, and also included dating Monica Lewinsky before her scandal with Bill Clinton broke.
On March 7, Greenblatt's ADL predecessor Abraham Foxman renewed the attack on Trump, telling Times of Israel reporter Eric Cortellessa that Trump was deliberately inviting his audience to make a "fascist gesture" by raising their hands to pledge to vote for him. Foxman insisted that Trump is "smart enough to know the images that this invokes", and he brought up the Duke controversy again, adding, " Even though he proclaims he doesn’t know who David Duke was, or the other white supremacists, we know very well that he knows. So he’s playing to an image." In 1993, shortly after Bill Clinton's election, Foxman had begun lobbying the Clinton administration to release convicted spy Jonathan Pollard. In 2001, it was revealed that after the ADL received $250,000 from Marc Rich, who had been convicted of tax evasion and illegally making oil deals with Iran during the Iran Hostage Crisis, Foxman concocted the plan that led to Bill Clinton's controversial pardon of Rich. More recently, Foxman became an apologist for Obama's Palestinian policies, insisting in 2011 of Obama's call for two-state borders based on 1967 lines that "I don't see this as the president throwing Israel under the bus." In 2012, Foxman called for Congressmen concerned about Islamic lobbying to "stop trafficking in anti-Muslim conspiracy theories". In 2014, Foxman voted to include J Street in the Conference of Major Jewish Organizations after J Street defended John Kerry's characterization of Israel as "apartheid".
This is the type of person calling others Nazis.
And shame on the Republican candidates who jumped aboard this attack with gusto.
Trump did himself a disservice when he said he didn’t know who David Duke was or what white supremacist groups were. If he did have a “lousy earpiece” as he claims, why didn’t he say so then and there? It’s not like him to be shy.
Actually, I think Trump is behind it. He thinks all Republicans are racists, and he didn’t want to offend them.
A few years back, people on Twitter were telling me how great and fair a guy Jake Tapper is. What a crock.
“The Democrats are shooting their wad well before the Election.”
These are just the initial feelers, gauging where the big money is best spent in the general.
The NY Times had a front page story not long ago on the approved anti-Trump strategy - scorched earth demonization. They have to - Hillary has no charisma, no accomplishments, and no real effective policy proposals to run on. In particular, they will seek to make him distasteful to women, racist, and unstable.
This article was essentially a coordinating memo to the left to prepare their attack themes, to target the voter demographics that they need to swing or motivate - women, minorities and independents. They demonized Boy Scout Romney, but this cycle they will have more money, more material, and a more focused effort on going negative.
Now THAT is a stretch, that The Donald was somehow behind all this talk that he was a “supporter” of the KKK/Nazi/white supremacy anti-minority point of view.
The Donald is probably one of the most color-blind candidates running, and this would simply not be on his radar. But those who are actively working to deny The Donald a shot at the candidacy for the President of the US would pick up a half-truth, that denying the illegal immigrants any implicit right to remain within the borders of that territory once known as “the United States of America” is somehow “racist”, and use it to lob at The Donald.
But a half-truth, like a half-brick, is much easier to throw, and though it at first does a little less damage, by breaking everything into half-truths, there is suddenly twice as much ammunition, and hurling all these half-truths is much more damaging than throwing whole lies, which can be shrugged off.
And these things do not even have to be “half-truths”, they need only be plausible, even if only a short while.
Money quote:
Bill Clinton and others argued against those inclined to underestimate Trump "that Mr. Trump clearly had a keen sense of the electorate’s mood and that only a concerted campaign portraying him as dangerous and bigoted would win what both Clintons believe will be a close November election."
This is interesting.
First, no less a political talent than Bill Clinton is speaking. Second, other people less talented are in agreement. Which implies that there is a pot of polling and other data which has been sifted and the entrails read.
Lastly, the agreement in the enemy camp is that Trump will be tough to beat, and they'll have to crash the low road and define, or redefine, Donald Trump for late deciders. I take that as the counsel of weakness and fear.
The article doesn't give any indication of what the same dataset reveals about head-to-head matchups with other GOP leading candidates. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz were said a month or two ago to enjoy substantial margins over Trump versus Hillary Clinton, Trump being burdened with negatives higher than Mrs. Clinton's among the general public.
I don’t think you are following me. Trump is obviously not a KKK supporter. (He wants to ban the confederate flag and Affirmative Action is a litmus test for him) He was so steadfast about refusing to disavow the KKK on that show, because thinks Republicans are racists and he would lose support if he had gone along with it.
I'm sure he can be fair and balanced ... oh, wait ..... well, whatever, but he'll brag for the rest of his life that he got to Monica first.
I cannot imagine the existential pressure on the brain that having anything to do with that family must generate.
I’m not worried about the KKK. I’m worried about the CCC (Clinton Criminal Consortium).
Ping. Here is another one for your thread. You should put a link to that thread on your FR profile page.
How powerful those Clintonistas are, to make Trump fumble the question so badly.
I never dreamed they were able to prevent him from denouncing the KKK in an interview. And they made him lie about not knowing who David Duke is!
Truly their power is staggering. Or maybe Trump is just a crass huckster trying to appeal to all his possible customers at the same time.
bump to the top
ping
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