Politico: Matt Bai, NYTimes, thinks "Hillaryland is Playing Dirty"

[flpoljunkie]

December 18, 2007
When You Want to Get Down, Down on the Ground …

By Matt Bai

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/when-you-want-to-get-down-down-on-the-ground/

First there was Mark Penn, Clinton’s top strategist, on “Hardball,” setting a new record for uses of the word “cocaine” in 30 seconds. Next, President Clinton himself went on Charlie Rose to say that nominating Mr. Obama would be like “rolling the dice” with the nation’s future. And then this week of rhetorical atrocities came to a close with Bob Kerrey, the former senator, smoothly praising Mr. Obama by remarking on how comforting it would be to Muslims around the world to see an American president with the middle name “Hussein.”

Like a lot of reporters who’ve known him, I like Bob Kerrey, but I have too much respect for his intelligence to think that he didn’t know what he was doing, whether or not it was pre-planned.

This is more than just ugly politics. There seems to be, in the Clinton camp, a genuine and growing antipathy toward Mr. Obama personally, a sense that he has been accorded a status he has not earned. For whatever reason, Mr. Obama brings out in the Clinton world a not terribly flattering sense of entitlement that a John Edwards, for instance, does not.

One reason is that they just don’t think Mr. Obama belongs in the big time, and they can’t understand why the media won’t point this out. Another reason for the anger, though, is that Mr. Obama has directly challenged not just Hillary Rodham Clinton, but the Clinton era as a whole. He holds himself out as an indictment of the nasty ’90s, a chapter in Washington with which he alone, among the candidates, has no connection. Clintonism — that is, not the former president himself, but his philosophy and his legacy—has become a subtle but critical issue in this campaign as we head into the final few weeks in Iowa. It’s also the subject of my cover piece in the magazine this coming Sunday, so I won’t say much more about it here, but I hope you’ll read it and share your thoughts.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/

[aquart]

1. "Hillaryland"?

So rational discourse is out?

[babylonsister]

2. What do you know-so do I! nt

[sandnsea]

3. And then there's Hillary's own words

Give Me A Break

“I think the remarks were very positive,” Clinton said. “I know Bob. He was being very complimentary of Sen. Obama. He was making a point that Sen. Obama makes himself all the time, that because of his upbringing and his heritage he is, in his view, very well suited to communicate with the rest of the world. And he has just said himself that he wants to have a particular outreach to the Islamic world. So I think Sen. Kerrey was being, you know, very generous in what he said.”

[babylonsister]

5. Getting too close to the wire, no apologies now. nt

[K Gardner]

4. This is old news, LOL :-)

[flpoljunkie]

6. Old? It will be the subject of his cover piece in the New York magazine this Sunday.

It’s also the subject of my cover piece in the magazine this coming Sunday, so I won’t say much more about it here, but I hope you’ll read it and share your thoughts.