Hillary's petty Barack crusade....

[snowbear]

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December 16, 2007

Hillary's petty Barack crusade

By RUBEN NAVARRETTE
Washington Post columnist

Some candidates never learn. They go negative when their poll numbers are falling because their political strategists tell them that mudslinging will cut opponents down to size. Yet negative campaigners never seem to consider that they'll be the ones getting soiled, coming off as desperate, petty and unlikable.

Will someone please explain this to Hillary Clinton, whose campaign continues to embarrass itself with its childish attacks on Barack Obama?

Did I say childish? Some of this stuff is right out of kindergarten -- where, thanks to the thoroughness of Clinton's opposition research, we now have the essential information that a 5-year-old Obama imagined himself running for president.

It gets worse. In recent days, Clinton and her campaign have made one tone-deaf blunder after another, and these seem to be paying dividends -- for Obama. Most polls show the Illinois senator leading Clinton in Iowa. And a recent CNN/WMUR poll showed them in a dead heat in New Hampshire.

Continued --- http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/Opinion/Editorials/opnOPN30121607.htm

[annie1]

1. we get it. you hate clinton. ok.

[Lucinda]

2. Ya think? Welcome to DU!

[snowbear]

3. No one here hates ANYONE Annie.

This is primary season bayyyybeeee!

Oh. And by the way... I didn't write the article --- it's from a Washington Post journalist.

[aquart]

36. Riiight. You posted it in sheer disinterested fairness.

Pull the other one.

[ClarkUSA]

4. Um, the OP is simply a news report headline - are you talking to the reporter?

Sometimes, Hillaryworlder mutterings are hard to follow. These are one of those times. And the Bush-lite tactic of accusing anyone and everyone
who criticizes your girl as a hater is right out of the Republican playbook. Thus, I award you this emoticon: :nopity:

[annie1]

6. maybe it's just me and the story was kinda old. the article is new...

but what's the news, that her numbers are falling for the drug comment? last i checked there's another thread just like this oh, right above this one.

[snowbear]

9. It's going in tomorrow's Washington Post....

Geez.. I guess from now on I'll try to only post news that has broken in the last 3 minutes or less..

[annie1]

15. : ). sry. It was the "petty" comment that got to me.

[aquart]

35. "Hillaryworlder"?

Gosh, no reason to suspect actual, utterly disproportionate hatred there. Nah, it's just a simple disagreement. What complete hypocrisy.

And it IS very Bushlike to accuse others of what you are doing yourself.

[tammywammy]

5. Annie, Welcome to DU

You're going to need to get a thicker skin. It's primary season. There are a lot of nasty supporters of all the different candidates around here. Expect it to last until Super Tuesday.


And most importantly, so I'll say it again, Welcome to DU. :)

[annie1]

7. ok, i'll simmer. : ). thanks.

[tammywammy]

11. I do my best to just ignore certain people

You get to realize who's just spouting the talking points of the day (and all three major candidates have people that basically just do that).

And then there are the posters, that have definitely picked a candidate and post good & informative threads. That's what you gotta look for.

Good Luck.

[MadBadger]

10. And we get that your a McCain lover.

[annie1]

13. you are insane. i'm a mccain lover? i posted he was a decent guy. ?

[snowbear]

14. She's a McCain supporter? ... you sure?

"OMG, I have a supporter !?!?!?"

[MadBadger]

19. Good for McCain to get those endorsements. He deserves them!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=3843355&mesg_id=3843715

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=3843664&mesg_id=3843728

McCain is a warmonger who has bowed down to the bigoted Christian Right.

[tammywammy]

25. Well, I'd rather McCain get them

Than Huckabee or Romney or Guiliani

[annie1]

27. He does. Who else on the GOP does over him? It's the GOP endorsement.

[MadBadger]

29. None of them deserve anything.

[annie1]

28. lol

[earthlover]

38. Why do you hate America? Why do you hate Hillary? Are you a card carrying Republican? ;-)

[BeyondGeography]

8. Good for Ruben...call them on their ugliness

==But wait. As if bringing up someone's past drug use isn't low enough, Shaheen went even lower. Speaking to the reporter, he helpfully suggested a series of questions that Republicans would likely raise about Obama's drug use: "When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?"

Stop the tape! Did you sell them to anyone? I don't recall anyone, no matter how much they hated Bill Clinton, ever suggesting that he was a drug dealer.

I can't imagine that this has anything to do with the fact that Obama is black or that this is an ugly tactic intended to play on stereotypes about who uses drugs and who deals them.

Liberal Democrats would never do something like that. No matter how desperate they were.

Or maybe they would. Hey, this isn't kindergarten.==

[ClarkUSA]

12. Navarette brings home the money point here:

Here's what the Clintonistas don't understand: A lot of Americans genuinely like Obama. Even if they don't support him, they admire him.
And they're not going to like or admire Clinton if she or her surrogates attack him personally -- especially in ways that are unfair and
unoriginal.

The Clinton campaign is starting to sound a lot like the folks who, 15 years ago, went after a certain Arkansas governor.

Their whole negative campaigning against Obama is vintage Atwater Republican with a dollop of Rove. To think I once admired both Clintons. Never again.

[BeyondGeography]

20. Guess they think black voters won't notice

or maybe they're just not thinking at all. John Lewis must be putting his fingers down his throat every night before he goes to bed.

Hillary has always been a next-to-impossible sell for me, but I stuck with Bill through his presidency, never gave the "concerns" about him a moment's thought, mostly because I was thrilled to have a Democrat in the White House and the RW'ers are so over-the-top with hatred. But these are exhausting people and I was ready to move on in 2000. And here we are, seven years later. All I want to do is watch Barack put an end to it all for them and get on with the business of saving this country's soul.

[ClarkUSA]

26. They don't give a shit about the black voter demographic - it's all pandering to older women now

Bill Shaheen's remarks which deliberately played on racist stereotypes of black men proved that. Even Republicans never got caught "wondering" whether Bill
was a drug dealer.

The Clintons never cared about anything but votes and their DLC pro-corporate credo that led to welfare "reform", NAFTA and massive media deregulation
under Clinton I. I can't wait for them to exit the national stage either. I'm pretty sure Iowa Democratic activists are leaning more our way than the "Let's go
back to '90's" crowd.

[BeyondGeography]

31. I agree

Here's a good diary at Kos, btw, pointing out more holes in the DMR endorsement logic. McCain is praised for his ethics, and, on the other hand, they endorse the most ethically-challenged Democrat in the race:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/12/16/21838/814/339/422727

[ClarkUSA]

32. Ah, from your sentence, methinks I see a method to the DMR madness now.

I'll go read it now. Thanks, BG.

The contrary dynamics of the DMR dual party endorsement smells skanky, doesn't it? Then again, it is the Clintons we're talking about.

[MonkeyFunk]

16. You never heard anybody suggest

Clinton was a drug dealer? Were you asleep during his presidency? He was frequently accused of running a huge cocaine ring.

[annie1]

17. omg, lol! i remember that! lol. The Arkansas drug ring. lol

[tammywammy]

18. You know, I saw a post here that referenced to that

But I've never heard of it before.

[Lucinda]

22. I never heard it before either...and I went to grad school in Arkansas.

Guess I know even less than I thought I did. :)

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[MonkeyFunk]

23. YOU were the writer

of the point to which I responded.

And why the hostility? Do you need a nap?

[BeyondGeography]

24. Re-read my post

It's an excerpt from the column.

Yeah, someone's asleep.

[ClarkUSA]

30. Was Bill accused of being a drug dealer by a Democratic national co-chairman from a rival campaign?

That's the relevant question.

*crickets*

I never heard of him being publicly accused of it by a Republican national co-chairman either. If you have, then give up a link now or you're full of BS...
again.

*crickets*

[MonkeyFunk]

34. But that wasn't the original claim

quit moving the goalposts. And you think the crickets thing is cute? I don't live and breathe in order to respond to your posts on your schedule.

The fact is, Bill Clinton was widely accused of dealing drugs. Deal with it.

[ClarkUSA]

46. No, Bill was not "widely accused of dealing drugs". I don't remember that and few others do.

He certainly wasn't swift boated by a fellow Democrat. Your attempt to make a bogus claim is pathetic. Prove it.

[hayu_lol]

37. MonkeyFunk, just the other day on this board,

the entire spiel over the coke flying into Arkansas. Course, those of us who are informed, knew about that and how the Bush/CIA family was involved in that.

Bottom line, the usual posters just can't stand the thought of a woman running the country. Note the extra care with which they insert the word "older" when using the word woman.

[earthlover]

39. Good quote...I liked this passage from the article too....

"The Clinton campaign is starting to sound a lot like the folks who, 15 years ago, went after a certain Arkansas governor.

First, Hillary claimed that Obama lacked foreign policy experience, something that George H.W. Bush said about Bill Clinton in the 1992 campaign. Then she questioned Obama's character, something that critics of Bill Clinton did all the time. Hillary went on to challenge Obama's courage and convictions, which brought back memories of Bill Clinton's liberal allies when he pushed for reform of "welfare as we know it" and signed the Defense of Marriage Act.

Hillary Clinton defended her husband against those attacks. But now she's lobbing similar bricks at Obama".

[creeksneakers2]

42. They called Clinton worse than a drug dealer right here on DU

They say he imported tons of cocaine through the Mena Airport in Arkansas.

[BeyondGeography]

43. And now the Clintons have their surrogate suggesting it about a fellow Democrat

something the Democrats never have and never would do to them.

That's called adopoting Limbaugh tactics.

[0007]

45. Accordingly, those stories may be true ... .

This is the story that couldn't be suppressed. An investigative report into a scandal that haunts the reputations of three presidents - Reagan, Bush, and Clinton.

THE CRIMES OF MENA
By Sally Denton and Roger Morris
Barry Seal - gunrunner, drug trafficker, and covert C.I.A. operative extraordinaire - is hardly a familiar name in American politics. But nine years after he was murdered in a hail of bullets by Medellin cartel hit men outside a Salvation Army shelter in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, he has come back to haunt the reputations of three American presidents.

Seal's legacy includes more than 2,000 newly discovered documents that now verify and quantify much of what previously had been only suspicion, conjecture, and legend. The documents confirm that from 1981 to his brutal death in 1986, Barry Seal carried on one of the most lucrative, extensive, and brazen operations in the history of the international drug trade, and that he did it with the evident complicity, if not collusion, of elements of the United States government, apparently with the acquiescence of Ronald Reagan's administration, impunity from any subsequent exposure by George Bush's administration, and under the usually acute political nose of then Arkansas governor Bill Clinton.

The newly unearthed papers show the real Seal as far more impressive and well-connected than the character played by Dennis Hopper in a made-for-TV movie some years ago, loosely based on the smuggler's life. The film portrayed the pudgy pilot as a hapless victim, caught in a cross fire between bungling but benign government agencies and Latin drug lords. The truth sprinkled through the documents is a richer - and altogether more sinister - matter of national and individual corruption. It is a tale of massive, socially devastating crime, of what seems to have been an official cover-up to match, and, not least, of the strange reluctance of so-called mainstream American journalism to come to grips with the phenomenon and its ominous implications - even when the documentary evidence had appeared.

The trail winds back to another slightly bruited but obscure name - a small place in western Arkansas called Mena.

more at link.....

http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/the_crimes_of_mena.htm

[creeksneakers2]

47. I'm sorry, I stopped reading at the beginning when

they said the story didn't appear in the Washington Post because one of the editors is was a member of Skull and Bones. The Mena accusations were investigated by the House Banking Committee and the Inspector General of the CIA. Neither found any evidence at all against Clinton. The whole story was started by associates of billionaire Clinton slanderer Richard Mellon Sciafe. The accusations were publicized through a right wing kook magazine, The American Spectator, and another right wing group that also made a video about Clinton murdering over 50 people.


http://www.salon.com/news/1998/03/26news.html

Behind the Clinton cocaine smear



BY MURRAY WAAS | Conservative billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife secretly paid more than $250,000 to two law firms and a former Mississippi law enforcement official to investigate allegations that President Clinton, while governor of Arkansas, ordered local law enforcement authorities to protect the activities of a cocaine smuggling ring operating in his state.

(snip)

Armistead supplied information about his Clinton drug investigation to the House Banking Committee, which conducted an exhaustive two-year probe of the charges, according to a committee spokesman. Federal investigators have found no evidence to support the allegations, which have been widely circulated by fierce conservative opponents of the president.

[Hippo_Tron]

33. If I were Clinton I would be focused soley on downplaying expectations in Iowa

Get the media for the next two weeks to talk about how Obama is going to win Iowa. That way if he wins it's less of a big deal and she still has a chance to catch up with New Hampshire and Nevada.

[earthlover]

40. I think she is already starting to do this...

she recently said Iowa was not a neighboring state and always thought it would be difficult. Well, NH IS a neighboring state...she will of course need to develop an excuse for losing that one too!

Winners don't make excuses.

[Enrique]

41. right-wing columnist makes DU's greatest page

what's going on here?

[creeksneakers2]

44. Clintonistas?

That's right wing slander.