Hillary’s Voice

Penn out as Clinton senior strategist
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Mark Penn, the pollster and senior strategist for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential bid, left the campaign Sunday after it was disclosed he met with representatives of the Colombian government to help promote a free trade agreement Clinton opposes.
Good.  I think he’s been a detriment to the campaign for a while.  Now, if we could only find out who Obama strategist David Axelrod’s SECRET clients are, and what he’s doing for THEM…

Obama Adviser Calls for Troops To Stay in Iraq Through 2010 (New York Sun, thanks to No Quarter)
WASHINGTON — A key adviser to Senator Obama’s campaign is recommending in a confidential paper that America keep between 60,000 and 80,000 troops in Iraq as of late 2010, a plan at odds with the public pledge of the Illinois senator to withdraw combat forces from Iraq within 16 months of taking office… This is not the first time the opinion of an adviser to the Obama campaign has differed with the candidate’s stated Iraq policy.

A well-oiled machine (video)

Drawing sharp contrasts with McCain (by lambert at Corrente)
I’m glad to hear that Obama’s finally getting ready to draw some contrasts between Himself and McCain. Just one thing though: I do have just a little problem with the idea that neither candidate has been drawing contrasts with McCain, and that both should start. In reality, Hillary’s been drawing a sharp contrast all along… Hillary’s campaigning, tirelessly, by giving the voters excruciatingly detailed policy prescriptions showing how government can help them.

Unemployment Rising (by Alegre at No quarter)
I’ve said it before and I’ll keep on saying — it’s still the economy stupid. So the big-shots are actually starting to use the R word — it’s not news to a lot of folks back home in Michigan. They’ve been neck-deep in the R word for the last year or more. Homes in foreclosure where even the banks can’t sell them. Folks out of work. We thought of moving home a couple years ago so our kids would be closer to my folks and the rest of the family, but we knew there was no way my husband could find work. No one’s fixing up homes when they can barely make the mortgage payment. It’s not a pretty picture and it’s only going to get worse… Guys it all comes back to strengthening our economy and Hillary gets that like nobody else.
Click through for more information and to watch Jim Cramer’s interviews of Hillary Clinton on what needs to be done about the economy.  Cramer appears to be a Hillary fan.

Blog Funnies (by Big Tent Democrat at TalkLeft)
I do not link enough to Bob Somerby. I thought this was pretty funny: “This week, we emitted a low, mordant chuckle at one part of this David Sirota piece, to which we’d been linked by the person who has kidnapped Josh Marshall.” Some days I feel like the entire Left blogosphere has been kidnapped.
Those who have been fighting the right wing the longest–Gene Lyons, Arkansas journalist, author of Fools for Scandal and co-author with Joe Conason of The Hunting of the President; Bartcop; and Bob Somerby, Al Gore’s former roommate and proprietor of The Daily Howler—are among the few so-called progressives calling the bullshit, rather than adding to it.

Liar, Liar, Pant(suit) on Fire! (by myiq2xu at Corrente)
The New York Times and the GOS Hardy Boys are on the case, proving … something. Hillary has been telling a story about an anonymous pregnant woman in Ohio who died (along with her child) because she couldn’t afford healthcare… [T]he NYT’s story, if true, doesn’t prove that Hillary was dishonest, nor does it disprove most elements of the story. Hillary heard the story from a Ohio deputy sheriff. If he was wrong, that doesn’t make her a liar. As for the OFB’s [Obama Fan Base] who are clutching their pearls and hyperventilating on this story, I’m disgusted. This is reminiscent of the right-wing reaction to the Scott Beauchamp story. Right-wing meme, now right-wing tactics. Have they no shame? What happened to the Democratic Party?
So is it any wonder … that a lot of people think Clinton is dishonest?  Couldn’t have ANYTHING to do with how she’s portrayed by the Clinton-hating media, helped by so many in the so-called progressive media?  See below.

Is Hillary Clinton dishonest? A lot of Americans think so (McClatchy Newspapers)
WASHINGTON — The flap over Hillary Clinton’s false claim that she braved sniper fire during a 1996 trip to Bosnia has highlighted a problem that’s plagued her for much of her public life: A lot of people think she’s dishonest.

Clinton: If you can’t stand the heat, don’t run for president (Reuters)
EUGENE [OR] - Sen. Hillary Clinton defended the critical and sometimes harsh exchanges between her presidential campaign and that of rival Barack Obama, saying, “It is not a coronation, it is a contest.”… Her comments came in response to a young man in the crowd who said he was an Obama supporter. He asked if anything said by her campaign might have hurt the Illinois senator and might merit an apology… “Elections are about choices,” she continued. “You’re supposed to present your case, and you’re supposed to critique the other case. That’s what you do in an election.”
Too many Obama supporters are kids who have no idea what elections are about.

Real Time with Bill Maher: Your Delegate Sensibilities (by Nicole Belle at Crooks and Liars)
On Real Time with Bill Maher this week, Bill Maher had some strong words for those who feel that the Democratic nomination race should be decided already. “And finally, new rule: If voting can destroy the Democratic Party, then the party isn’t very democratic. Democrats need to stop freaking out about how this long primary battle between two popular candidates needs to be ‘settled yesterday! Because the candidates are bloodying each other! They’re causing irreparable harm! Mommy and Daddy are fighting!’  Hey you people need to reach into your teenager’s knapsack and pull out a Paxil or Prozac and chill out… [T]his is America, we don’t call the election before we know who the real winner is.  That, after all, is the job of the Supreme Court.”
Click through to watch the video.

Clinton should hang in there and run a good race to the end (by Helen Thomas)
WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton should hang in there and run a good race. And she has vowed to do so… Although Obama has racked up more delegates, neither candidate has nailed the 2,024 delegates needed to secure the nomination… I am still trying to find the key that has made Obama a prime candidate for the presidency, and to understand what he has done for the country beyond his middle-of-the-road political moves to make his name known and to steer clear of hot-button issues. The Rev. Martin Luther King had a dream, too. But he acted on it. He went to jail, he marched, he led.

THE CLINTONS’ MONEY…. (by Kevin Drum at Political Animal, the Washington Monthly)
Mickey Kaus wants answers about the Clinton family dough:  “…Where’s the rest of it? If it’s all invested, what is it invested in?… And assuming it’s invested, what are they going to do with it later?” I don’t get it. Have we ever asked this about any previous presidential candidate? Reagan? Bush Sr.? Bush Jr.? Kerry? (Actually, that’s a genuine question. Have we?) In any case, Hillary already has to file an annual financial disclosure form with the Senate, and the 2006 form shows that the bulk of the Clinton family fortune is invested in Citibank deposit accounts and a qualified blind trust. The 2007 form will be disclosed in a couple of months. What more is there to know? Or are we just making up special rules for the Clintons?
Kevin, where have you BEEN for the last 16 years?  OF COURSE there are special rules for the Clintons.  And remember, no question of them is EVER ANSWERED SUFFICIENTLY.  Every answer to every question only generates MORE QUESTIONS.  We must always dig more and more and more and ever deeper into their personal lives.  We must, finally, see, photograph, and measure the curvature of the former president’s penis.  Those are the Clinton Rules.

Via email from O’Tim at Much That Is Hidden, regarding the Randi Rhodes situation:
There is absolutely no reason NOT to hold Obama’s feet to the fire on this, given what he said in the CNN interview following the Rev. Wright brouhaha (addressing Wright’s statements about Sen. Clinton): “’I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it’s on the campaign stump or in the pulpit,’ Obama continued. ‘In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue.’ Obama, during the CNN interview, said, ‘I just don’t think it’s necessary to talk about Senator Clinton or anybody in those terms.’”
But Obama hasn’t chastised Rhodes.  He chastised ED SCHULTZ, instead!  See below.

Obama campaign: McCain not a ‘warmonger’
Democrat Barack Obama’s presidential campaign on Saturday repudiated a liberal talk show host’s [Ed Schultz] description of Sen. John McCain as a warmonger, a comment made to an audience that Obama later addressed.
But still no repudiation of Randi Rhodes saying that Geraldine Ferraro is David Duke in drag and that she and Hillary Clinton are fucking whores, though.  Obama would rather defend John McCain.  But HILLARY is the one who tries to placate the right wing.  I know, because the Obamabots on the internet told me so.

9/11: Where Barack Obama and Condi Rice Sound Alarmingly Alike (by Kristen Breitweiser one of the 9/11 widows, Huffington Post, thanks to Alegre at MyDD)
Barack Obama appeared on MSNBC’s Hardball [Wednesday] night and was asked about the way he would handle the 3 a.m. phone call. The transcript: “… OBAMA: Oh, well, the–I don’t think anybody predicted 9/11. And, so, we don’t know what kinds of circumstances are going to come up.” Yup. That’s right, Barack Obama glibly stated that he didn’t “think anybody predicted 9/11.”… Perhaps Obama might better strengthen his image of having a handle on national security issues by not sounding so much like the disgraceful, incompetent former Bush Administration National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice…

[I]t is fairly well known and accepted that the attacks were entirely predictable — indeed, their very predictability is why our government (wrongfully or rightfully) spent millions of dollars overhauling, upgrading, and re-shuffling our entire intelligence apparatus post-9/11 — because the attacks should have been prevented. How could Obama have such a poor understanding of the 9/11 attacks and their subsequent impact on the US intelligence community? Has Obama even read the 9/11 Commission’s Final Report that (even in its whitewash form) calls Rice to task for her “misleading” statement about the predictability of 9/11-style attacks? Or sets forth recommendations for intelligence community reforms?

Obama: “I don’t think anybody predicted 9/11″ (by lambert at Corrente)
I mean, I’m used to the right wing talking points from Obama, but channeling Condi’s weaseling on 9/11 moves beyond the absurd to the surreal… I’m not asking Obama to don the foil, and Gawd knows both he and Hillary are centrists, but is it really, really necessary for Obama to repeat the stalest of stale talking points from Bush’s defenders on 9/11? And is it really, really necessary to give the Bush administration a free pass on 9/11, as Obama just did? How is that going to help us in the general? And how on earth do you walk this back?

Female Mysogynists for Obama (by Larry Johnson at No Quarter)
Women who hate women seem to flock around Obama… Let me introduce you to a person who says she is Melinda Shanks-Robbins…[:] “… Going after Randi the way you [Larry] did is no different than physically assalting or raping her. You are a criminal. I hope she does sue your ass.” Can you follow the batshit logic here? Posting the video of Randi calling Hillary Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro is the equivalent of beating or raping Randi? Jesus Christ!! We are to blame for Randi’s intemperate remarks? It is impossible to even begin to fathom the stupidity of the person who would make such a comparison. [In a later message:] “You can spin what you did anyway you want, but it still was cruel, petty, and of course Rovian.” So folks, I leave it to you to decide. Who is the spinner here? So remember, if you publicize the film clip of someone saying something that they really said that, in the fantasy world of Obamaland, is Rovian. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
And I hear the same arguments from the Obamabots.  It’s not HIS fault that he sat in a pew for 20 years listening to racist speech and even donated to that church, it’s the fault of those who made the speeches public.  It’s not HIS fault that he hung out with corrupt political fixers and Weather Underground radicals.  He’s not to blame for anything.  Anyone else see a parallel to the adoration of George Bush from 1999 through the devastation of Hurricane Katrina?

[Lack of penis] Driving Pressure to Quit (by Steven Stark at Real Clear Politics)
This past week, Vermont senator Patrick Leahy joined a growing chorus of politicians, pundits, bloggers, and Barack Obama supporters urging Hillary Clinton — trailing by a little more than 100 delegates with a number of contests still to go — to quit the Democratic race in the interests of party unity. It is, in truth, an argument virtually without precedent in modern political history…

• In 1988, Jesse Jackson took his hopeless campaign against winner Michael Dukakis all the way to the convention, often to great media praise.

• In 1980, Ted Kennedy carried his run against Jimmy Carter all the way to the convention, even though it was clear he had been routed.

• In 1976, Ronald Reagan contested the “inevitability” of Gerald Ford all the way to the convention…

• Also in 1976, three candidates — Mo Udall, Jerry Brown, and Frank Church — ran against Jimmy Carter all the way through the final primaries, even though Carter seemed more than likely to be the eventual nominee.

• Even in 1960, Lyndon Johnson and Adlai Stevenson fought the “certain” nomination of John F. Kennedy all the way to the convention floor…

Yet in one of the tightest races in modern history — before the opponent has come close to clearly clinching the nomination, before a number of voters have been given the chance to have their voices heard, and when Clinton still has a chance, albeit a slim one, to win the prize, she is continually vilified for failing to see the light and bow out. What gives?
Thanks to Violet at Reclusive Leftist for pointing out the physical attribute that all those not pressured to quit have in common, but that Hillary Clinton doesn’t have.

Obama defends his spin team (by Dave Davies, Philadelphia Inquirer)
It was my turn to interview Barack Obama today, and ask something that’s been on my mind: He talks about changing the culture in Washington, and running a positive campaign, and while his public statements and ads have taken the high road, his campaign staff has consistently urged reporters to write negative stories about Clinton and sent releases about things like her “legacy of misleading voters.” I asked if that’s consistent with his principles.Obama began nodding his head halfway through my question. His response:  “This is a tension that we have at this stage in the campaign. Once Senator Clinton employed what her own staff called her kitchen sink strategy…”
Obama lies when he says he only started attacking Clinton recently.  There’s a timeline of Obama’s attacks on Clinton, which started in January of 2007, as soon as he started his campaign.

Obama Finally Gets Asked About His Negative Campaigning (by Taylor Marsh)
[In regard to the story posted above:] It’s what I’ve been writing since Obama’s “D-Punjab” smear on Clinton back in June 2007, or the financing hit from him, while the dueling headlines showed him more positively. I couldn’t possibly link all of the examples. But remember Obama swallowing Bob Novak’s swill, then making a fuss about it? What I wrote when I got a hold of Obama’s race-baiting South Carolina memo… Jesse Jackson, Jr. Oh, and who can forget Obama’s “Bush-Cheney lite” remark? It’s just the the traditional media has had their collective heads so far… well, let’s just say they missed it, because they don’t like Hillary Clinton. Obama’s their guy. But the facts have been out there for months.

The Obama infection and the lynching of Hillary Clinton (by John: south of Melrose at Liberal Rapture)
Obama has injected a poison into the body politic of the United States. The ugliness Obama has stirred up is real and severe - all the more damaging because he is so charming. We are past now the dizzying, frothing, mindless adoration from Huffington and the Daily Kos. We are now past the snotty, childish attacks on Clinton by Olbermann and Cafferty. We are into a new realm … The hatred quietly coached and encouraged by Axelrod is now bubbling forth everywhere.

Irony DOA (by Big Tent Democrat at TalkLeft)
It’s official. TPM’s M.J. Rosenberg murders irony when he writes: “… By constantly attacking Obama, [Paul Krugman] is turning off the 50% of Democrats who favor Obama as our nominee. People like me can no longer read him without thinking ‘What’s up with this guy? Has he really developed such a personal animus to our likely nominee based on his differences with him on health care? What’s his agenda here?’”… Yes, Paul Krugman has substantive critiques of Barack Obama and he loses Obama fanboys like the ones writing a TPM. The shallow, fallacious and empty attacks on Hillary Clinton by TPM, not to mention the legion of Obama supporters from Senators on down, is sure to make for a wonderfully unified Democratic Party. Writing from the TPM glass house with its tattered reputation, Rosenberg chooses to throw stones at Paul Krugman? Yes, irony is now dead and buried.

Rezko Controversy: Headache For Obama (by Stephen Spruiell. National Review Online, posted at CBS News)
Now that the governor of Illinois has been implicated in the schemes of Obama’s friend Tony Rezko, it might be time for Obama to explain his relationship with Rezko in a major speech on the endemic political corruption that afflicts his home state of Illinois… Obama’s relationship with Allison Davis — the alleged go-between in Rezko’s scheme to shake down Tom Rosenberg — could pose another problem for him. Obama worked for Davis at the law firm of Davis Miner Barnhill. Later, when Obama sat on the board of a charity called the Woods Fund, he voted to invest $1 million in a partnership operated by Davis, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. [Stuart] Levine’s testimony in the Rezko trial puts Davis in the middle of an attempted quid pro quo, making him yet another associate Obama might be pressured to disown. And the trial could stretch well into May, at which point a Rezko conviction could lead to even more headaches for the candidate. If Rezko is looking at a long prison sentence and decides to start talking, who knows what he might say?

Lots more really good stuff at MakeThemAccountable.com.

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com