Clinton Smears Obama on Iraq — Again

[NYCGirl]

From David Corn:

http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/01/6850_clinton_smears.html

Senator Hillary Clinton appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday, for the entire show, and asserted once again that Senator Barack Obama's rhetoric does not match the reality of his record. Referring to voters, she remarked, "I want them to have accurate information about our respective records." Yet moments later, Clinton, ostensibly providing voters with information about Obama's record, falsely characterized what Obama had once said about Saddam Hussein--to make it seem that prior to the war Obama was weak on Saddam.

-much snipped-

Go back and review Clinton's abovementioned remark about Obama. She was suggesting that his book was evidence that Obama didn't want to do anything regarding Saddam. Yet Obama plainly stated he favored an alternative course of action to war: diplomacy, tough inspections, and sanctions. Clinton's statement was clearly misleading--and purposefully so.

This is not the first time Clinton has mischaracterized Obama's position on Iraq. In New Hampshire, Clinton claimed that Obama had broken a significant promise: that when he ran for U.S. Senate in 2004 he vowed "never" to vote for Iraq war funding but then did so once he was in the Senate. This was part of her effort to persuade Granite State voters that Obama was an all-show/no-work hypocrite. There was one problem with her use of this example. It was not true. Though Obama did oppose an $87 billion funding bill for Iraq and other matters in 2003, he didn't say he would "never" vote for Iraq war money. When he later voted for funding bills, he was not, as Clinton insisted, breaking a promise.

Clinton and her gang are certainly entitled to raise questions about Obama's experience and his record--including on the war. Though Obama did speak out against the war before entering the Senate, he was not a leading voice of antiwar opposition in his first years as a senator. (Neither was she during those that period.) But Clinton and her aides have been peddling false information about Obama to undercut one of his primary arguments: she voted for the war; I was against it. Engaging in such disingenuous attacks may help Clinton beat back Obama, but it is hardly the way for her to counter Obama's claim that she represents poltics-as-usual. It only proves his point.

LOTS MORE AT LINK

[liberalnurse]

1. YaYaYayydddddaaaaa.

******What! xxxxxxx........HRC...............**********zczczczc@@@


To all that it implies!

[NYCGirl]

2. Good response. I'm going to have a sampler embroidered with that.

:evilgrin:

[William769]

3. Yep smearing the liar.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4064504&mesg_id=4064504

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4064564&mesg_id=4064564

[HeraldSquare212]

4. Clinton to herself: "I must make people think he is as big an idiot

as they know me to be."

[Skip Intro]

5. Could you post the supposed mischaracterization? It is strangely missing from your post.

thanks

[NYCGirl]

7. The part I printed is ONE, here's another (difficult since we can only

excerpt 4 paragraphs):

-snipped- (Senator Clinton says that in 2002, Obama said "we didn't have to make any efforts" re Saddam)

That was one helluva charge. Obama was willing to sit back and let a WMD-toting dictator go along on his merry own way (while Clinton was doing what she could to pin down that snake). Could this be true? Had Obama been a do-nothing appeaser of Saddam in 2002? (Forget for a moment that it turned out Saddam had zilch in the WMD department at the time.) I emailed Howard Wolfson, the communications director for the Clinton campaign, and asked for a citation to back up this incendiary allegation. He quickly replied, directing me to page 294 of Obama's Audacity of Hope.


Obama writes on this page, "Like most analysts, I assumed that Saddam had chemical and biological weapons and coveted nuclear arms." Indeed, that's what Clinton had maintained he had said. So far so good. But what about Clinton's charge that Obama didn't want to do anything about a WMD-bearing Saddam? For that, Wolfson provided a link to the same speech that Russert had quoted from. And Wolfson pointed out this particular sentence:

can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

Was favoring the continuing containment of Saddam Hussein in October 2002 the equivalent of doing nothing? That's what Clinton was suggesting on Meet the Press (adopting a talking point of the neoconservative cheerleaders for the war). But in that same 2002 speech, Obama advocated making "sure that the UN inspectors can do their work." That was not a call for doing nothing. And in his book--on the very page that Wolfson cited--Obama fully explains his position at the time,

[Dogmudgeon]

6. Looks like Mother Jones has already decided

Their nuanced, sophisticated hermeneutic -- informed by postmodern sensibilities, finely crafted jacksnapery, and Delta Blues -- always transcends the vulgar, common corporate dialectical exegesis.

Hillary Eatz Babyz! Hillary Eatz Babyz!

--p!

[robbedvoter]

11. Weren't they attacking the Clintons throughout? back to business for them.

[Dogmudgeon]

14. It's The Grand Mantra --

"Clinton is Corporate! Clinton is Corporate! Clinton is Corporate!"

I don't know how this one got started, but I first saw it in a rad-left publication shortly before Bill became President. There has never been a time that the radical left has not hated the Clintons, with a passion rivaling the hatred from the Right.

The strangest thing is that while there is plenty in the HRC record they could actually point to, they insist on repeating the "corporate" mantra, and reprinting gossip -- about how Hillary hates blacks, Jews, women, Eskimos, Asians, you name it. Even when the gossip is definitively debunked, it gets repeated.

Team Obama should take notice. Although they seem to be the favorites of the uber-left, as soon as he gets into power, the "Obama is Corporate" mantra will be on their lips. They will find secret insider sources to claim that Barak puffs on non-union cigarettes (his smoking habit will be prominently mentioned), smacks around Michelle and the kids (Hillary-spanking-Chelsea stories were a staple of the Right for years), reads the Koran, hates the blacks, Jews, women, Eskimos, Asians, you name it.

Mother Jones, like most of the hipster left, is more about maintaining their "rep" than accurate reporting. That's a shame, too, because in most places and times, the uber-left are the only ones you can trust. Today, it's the nerdy "lukewarm" liberals (affiliated with Clinton, Obama OR Edwards -- or not), the ones whom EVERYBODY hates, that are peddling the straight dope.

Across the board, our error is that we are voting for surrogate parents instead of hired administrative specialists. Self-proclaimed sophisticates from all quarters seem to miss that distinction. But when an adult searches for the parental love that was missing during childhood, that's the definition of "neurosis" in action.

--p!

[Cha]

8. Hey, I like David Corn...he has that

website with all the bushlies on it..maybe he'll do one on hillary one day.

Wonder if hillary ever feels like the little lying, lust for power, politician that she is. Karma's goin' get that woman.

[Bread and Circus]

9. Nice, Mother Jones is a fine news magazine. Very good article.

Depicts the issue quite well.

[suston96]

10. Oh, dear - please stop yelling at the black candidate....it may be construed as a racist remark.....

...and you know what happens if you do that.....

And don't yell at the lady candidate or she might - uh, cry....

What a load of horseshit this is getting to be.

[NYCGirl]

12. No one is yelling. NT

[suston96]

13. Yes, you are yelling ! I can hear you all the way up in my spaceship......