Reply #5: "Surprised" Hildebrand Responds To Critics: "I Don't Regret Any Of It" [View All]

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"Surprised" Hildebrand Responds To Critics: "I Don't Regret Any Of It"
By Greg Sargent - December 8, 2008, 4:36PM


Former Obama adviser Steve Hildebrand, who touched off an explosion with his HuffPo piece arguing that "the left" should hold its fire and let Obama do his thing, says he doesn't regret a word of the piece, though he did make a key concession to critics.

"I don't regret any of it," Hildebrand told me when I asked him a few minutes ago by phone whether he regretted the tone of his piece, which many found condescending and finger-wagging.

"My intent was exactly what I wrote," Hildebrand said, adding that the criticism had "surprised" him.

Hildebrand also confirmed that the Obama team had had no hand in writing or approving the piece. "This was not collaborated with anybody in the Obama camp," he said, and a source close to the transition confirms this.

Hildebrand did appear to concede some turf to critics who are pointing out that his piece seemed to suggest that "the left wing of our party" is somehow at odds with Obama's desire to be "pragmatic" and holds priorities that are somehow at odds with Obama's big-ticket agenda items.

"The one thing I left out, which goes without saying, is that working on health care, getting out of the war in Iraq, fixing the economy ... those are very progressive ideals," Hildebrand clarified.

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