Democrats are getting played by Drudge.

[nonconformist]

Yep, I said it. PLAYED.

What do Republicans want more than anything? Us divided and ripping each other's heads off, that's what.

Think about it for a minute, critically. Who is offended by that picture? Who benefits if we're fighting like crazy?

The answer to those two questions is who is responsible for all of this.

I'm sad to see DU'ers fall for the media spin and right-wing lies we all know full well they're capable of.

[Carni]

1. I totally agree with you!

Since when has drudge been the go to man for ANY Democrat?

I cannot believe people can be this dumb!

[tekisui]

2. The Clinton's have a Drudge liason. See this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4776383&mesg_id=4776383

[SaveOurDemocracy]

3. Believe it ... I do.

[Dogmudgeon]

4. It's laughable. So why am I crying?

If we keep falling for this shit, we will get stomped into the ground. There is that.

--p!

[HeraldSquare212]

5. Hey, where's Occam's Razor when you need him?

OK, OK, it's Occamsbandage, but still... the principle applies here.

[Occam Bandage]

9. Checking in!

[HeraldSquare212]

14. LOL - faster than Batman responding to the Bat signal!

[Hugin]

6. Yeah, up until a couple of days ago I hadn't heard the name Drudge in a couple of years...

I thought maybe he'd gotten an honest job.

[tekisui]

7. It could be that.

Or, it could have been some Clinton staffers. It's really yet to be known. Just as the Clinton camp carefully "denied" the Obama/muslim email and the cocaine email, they may eventually be caught red-handed in this. Each of those started with denials and ended with firings.

We just don't know, yet. And, unfortunately, the tactics of the Clinton camp have not been the most trustworthy in situations like this.

[Bluerthanblue]

8. Except that "drudge" didn't come out "shame on you" or mocking

the "celestial..clouds open up...." crap.

It may be that no one officially connected to the Clinton campaign actually "slipped" the e-mails going around through their staff to drudge. But when you play dirty, your reputation suffers- and you realize the 'cost' of the "win at any price" mentality-


peace~

[tekisui]

10. And this point--

The email in question said, "If this was Hillary, it'd be on the front pages..."

And, it was the very day that the Clinton camp started the "media-biased against Clinton" claim. Wolfson made the rounds claiming bias. It looked coordinated. I would like to think that the Clinton camp had nothing to do with this, but we just don't know....yet.

[Debi]

11. Are you sure?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4782111

[sandyj999]

12. That's What I've been saying too.

Divide and conquer. Why can't people see we are being played?

[NastyRiffraff]

13. I'll repeat it ONCE AGAIN

The Drudge post was a slur on BOTH candidates. There's absolutely no reason..none...the Clinton campaign would send internal emails to Drudge about this sort of thing. It makes the campaign look bad.

Here's a clue in that supposed email that nobody has been talking about: "Send this to everybody you know!" Think about that for a moment. Would any campaign use those words in an internal email? Come on. More likely, unless the email itself was faked, it was from volunteer rapid-response teams, etc, typing from home. And there are many, many ways of getting emails forwarded to "everyone you know."

Yes, we're being played by Drudge. It's not the first time he's done something like this. Sadly, many have fallen from it in their eagerness to slam Hillary.

[WilliamPitt]

17. Bingo.

[nonconformist]

18. Nailed. nt

[Freida5]

15. Democrats always get played by Drudge

My view is that if he doesnt want people to see him in the costume he wore than he should not allow any photograph to be take. To try to hide from the facts now and claim outrage is a campaign ploy nothing more. He is trying to rally his base. Chicago pols planted this.

[liberalnurse]

16. Absolutely

Additionally, the Trolls here are propogating the misinformation with the primary objective of splitting the DU bonds.

[CyberPieHole]

19. True Dat...

:kick: and rec

[rodeodance]

20. An Drudge played Obama very well. Obama believed him even though it was heresay!!

[Occam Bandage]

21. Way too simplistic.

Your model of politics includes three discrete actors: The Clinton, The Obama, and The Drudge. You're saying, "hey, The Drudge published something, and The Obama and The Clinton started fighting, so obviously The Drudge is playing The Clinton and The Obama off one another." In simplistic models, things only happen because someone makes them happen.

In reality, campaigns take advantage of unexpected events, and things happen because individual people make individual decisions that may or may not be advantageous to them. I think it's pretty apparent what actually happened: Clinton staffers were kicking around that picture, considering if it might possibly be used as part of an argument to the effect that Obama's past and ethnicity make him too weak for the general election. Somehow, some idiot forwards it to someone outside the campaign, and it gets into Drudge's inbox. Perhaps some idiot on the Clinton campaign thought they'd float it and see what kind of reaction it got; perhaps they sent it to someone with dubious loyalties who sent it to drudge. Who knows?

Regardless, Drudge saw an opportunity and went with it. He doesn't exist to take down Democrats; he exists to drive traffic to his site. He's anti-Democrat because you have to align yourself with someone in order to get the juicy inside stuff; he has no compunctions about running pieces damaging to Republicans if he thinks it'll be a net gain for him, nor about running pieces favorable to individual Democrats. So anyway, he gets this nice picture and email. He laughs and posts it. He makes sure to play up that it came from the Clintons. This will drive traffic. He likes that.

Now, reaction time:

Obama's camp, predictably, bashes the Clintons. This is done purely to get a response; the story here will not be the picture, but rather the civil war that erupts, and they want to make sure the Clintons look bad.

Clinton's camp, stupidly, does not deny the charge and attack Drudge, but rather defends the notion of distributing such a picture, and attacks Obama for mentioning it. That's fucking retarded; it makes them look guilty as hell, especially since nobody really thinks that a picture of Barack Hussein Obama in a turban and robe would be sent out by an opposition camp with benign intent.

Obama says "oh, I'm very disappointed in this kind of politics. This kind of nasty politics. Oh, these nasty bad Clinton politics are very politically nasty politics Clinton cynical politics Clinton politics."

By noon, the Clinton camp has found its fucking head again, and denies knowingly sending out such a picture. They decide the best tactic is to change the subject; Clinton takes the opportunity to deny knowledge and talk instead about how Obama's health care and job plans are worse than hers. Okay move, but still miscalculated.

Today, they've decided they can make hay with it. They're still pushing the same line that got Bob Kerrey in trouble: "Gee, what's wrong with this? I would think that Obama would be proud of his black African Muslim heritage as a black man from Africa who is Muslim black black Africa black Muslim." They think it might help them with the only constituency that they're still holding: uneducated white voters.

Obama, on the other hand, is aware that Clinton's biggest handicap is her negativity; he therefore wants to push the line that Clinton is playing cynical, nasty politics.

All parties were always aware of what the other parties were doing, and were always acting in what they believed was in their self interest. No parties were acting in the interest of John McCain. Not even Drudge.

[nonconformist]

22. How is it "apparent" that Clinton staffers were kicking around that picture?

Is there any evidence of that at ALL? Besides Drugde?

There is, however, evidence that the Freepers had that pic AND were also talking about sending it to Drudge.

Say what you will, but the Clinton camp has a point. It's a fucking picture, he took it, it's not photoshopped, all politicians dress in traditional garb when they're visitors to other countries. What's the big deal? How is it a slam?

Point is, it's not. The only "slams" that really came out of this are between the Obama and Clinton camps over the release of the picture. It's all very stupid when you think about it, really. And it stinks to high heaven of manipulation.

Occam, you should know best that the simplest explanation tends to be the right one.

[Occam Bandage]

25. Simple--Drudge generally,

for all his fuckery, avoids lying. He spins. He misleads. But he tries to avoid saying things that are outright false. Really, think about it: what is wrong with Clintonites kicking around that picture? I'm sure they constantly send each other silly or stupid looking pictures of Obama. I'm sure the Obama people do the same. Campaigns constantly say things, internally, that they would never want to get out. The pre-SC list of possibly-racist Clinton statements that was kicking around the Obama camp before Drudge got hold of it (and which Clinton bashers gleefully held up as proof Obama was race-baiting) was undoubtedly genuine. At the same time, there was absolutely nothing wrong with it.

This is undoubtedly genuine. Seriously, the facts of the Drudge story so fucking innocuous that it isn't a story. The absolute facts Drudge claims are:

1. A picture, which you do not find offensive and neither do I, was passed by at least one person to one other in the Clinton campaign.

2. This was accompanied by a caption, saying "Can you imagine if HRC did this? It would be in every magazine in the country!"

To me, that looks like it could just be two people laughing at a silly picture, and sneaking in a complaint about MSM coverage of Hillary. Why would Drudge risk his cred to make up something so stupid? If he was going to lie to hurt the Dems, he would have claimed that the Clintons leaked the picture, and leaked it as an anti-Obama smear. But he didn't claim that. He didn't claim anything offensive. He just implied it.

I think that it was being kicked around by a few staffers with consideration towards a later smear simply because of the five-point plan that the Clinton camp explained to the NYT--one of them is sowing doubts as to Obama's ability to stand up to McCain on character/past issues, and the picture would be helpful so long as it was not traced to the Clinton campaign. It would be nice if the media picked up on it, a staffer thought, but of course they won't, because they love BHO and hate HRC. He made the latter comment to a co-worker. The co-worker agreed, and sent it to someone else. Drudge got ahold of that email, and posted it, adding his spin.

See? There's no evil there on the Clinton campaign's part. There's no wrongdoing. There's just Drudge's spin. Clinton and Obama added their own spin.

In the sciences, the simplest explanation tends to be the right one. In politics, the simplest explanation is the spin. The truth is only a guessing game, found by trying to find the most likely (that is, the simplest) real-world events that:

A: Are not in direct conflict with the spin.
B: Fit the motivations of all parties involved.
C: Keep the number of major actors to a minimum.
D: Do not ascribe unrealistic powers to any one actor.

I believe your theory violates B and D, and to an extent A.

[cd3dem]

23. Funny when the media was creating spin against the Clinton's it was a different story!

[nonconformist]

24. deleted - dupe