Hillary’s Voice

David Horsey

Obama Flips off Hillary (video)
Different locale, same speech, same gesture, same crowd reaction.  Don’t tell me he didn’t mean it.  Fox News is reporting it..—Caro

Can we say “imaginary hip black friend” now? Since the Boiz just did? (by lambert at Corrente)
Of Barry’s latest awsum speech, full of “pretty cool” “dogwhistles” — one of which was giving Hillary the finger — Spencer burbles: “Starting at 2:20, bear witness to perhaps the coolest subliminal cultural reference [to this extremely presidential Jay Z tune] in the history of American politics.” I’ll just quote one comment, from reader weakervessel, who I think deserves a Unity Pony if anyone does: “Dude, I nearly swooned — SWOONED, I tell you — when I saw that. That’s one of my fave Jay-Z joints of all time. HUGE SWIRLING VORTEX OF LOVE. I could not pink-fuzzy-heart Barack one iota more.”… Great. Just what I want from a President.

The ..|.. Finger of Hope, Change and Unity (by eriposte at the Left Coaster)
[A]fter Sen. Obama performed underwhelmingly in the ABC debate…, some of [his] supporters have taken to rending their garments about Sen. Clinton using Republican style talking-points against Sen. Obama… [Being troubled] by his opponent for behaviors that have long been the defining characteristic of his own campaign is pretty silly.

[Examples:] 1. Attacks on President Clinton’s sex life (a longtime staple of Republican politics and the corporate media) and attempts to tie that to Sen. Clinton’s electability… 2. Attacks on Sen. Clinton for the crookedness of a fundraiser (who also happened to be Sen. Obama’s fundraiser)… 3. Caricaturing and Attacking Sen. Clinton using the standard right-wing attack memes: Her “Negatives”, “Divisiveness”, Alleged Inability to Work with Republicans… 4. Attacks on Sen. Clinton Using False or Unsubstantiated Stories from Right Wing Fraudsters Matt Drudge and Robert Novak… 5. Borderline Racist Attack Against Sen. Clinton… 6. Borderline Sexist Attacks Against Sen. Clinton.
Click through for more.  Personally, I’d go beyond “borderline” on the racist and sexist attacks.  They’ve been covert, but they’ve been full blown.

The Courage Campaign’s attack on reality. (by John: south of Melrose at Liberal Rapture)
I have been saying for a while now that Obama has unleashed a dangerous cult on the American scene. I mean it. There is a true darkness behind the Obama Phenomenon. A darkness born of a deep pain and disconnect in the American psyche. Obama has exploited this pain to create what can only be called a mob. It is akin to the collective mob mentality we often see on the Right - but it is more dangerous. The Right comes together and attacks when it believes its world view is being threatened. It is often scary and ridiculous but it is based in beliefs - however misguided many of us think those beliefs are. Obama’s mob has no such underpinnings. It is purely a personality cult manipulated and directed from the top. When he needed them Bush used encoded words to coach his gang in the electorate. Obama throws the bird and insists he did not. But any fool can see it. Obama smiles and talks “hope” then launches into character assassination. His minions lap it up. There is a collective insanity going on in our midst.

Hillary Clinton: No Wimps in the White House (Political Radar, ABC News)
Stepping up her criticism of her rival’s performance in ABC News’ primetime debate on Wednesday, Clinton, D-N.Y., told the FOX affiliate in Philadelphia, “I know he spent all day yesterday complaining about the hard questions he was asked. Being asked tough questions in a debate is nothing like the pressures you face inside the White House. In fact, when the going gets tough, you just can’t walk away because we’re going to have some very tough decisions that we have to make.”
Please note that Hillary Clinton didn’t use the word “wimp”,  ABC News did.

Obama’s secret weapon: the media (by John Harris and Jim VandeHei at Politico)
The shower of indignation on Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos over the last few days is the clearest evidence yet that the Clintonites are fundamentally correct in their complaint that she has been flying throughout this campaign into a headwind of media favoritism for Obama.  Last fall, when NBC’s Tim Russert hazed Clinton with a bunch of similar questions—a mix of fair and impertinent—he got lots of gripes from Clinton supporters. But there was nothing like the piling on from journalists rushing to validate the Obama criticisms and denouncing ABC’s performance as journalistically unsound.

Obama, get ready for the “Clinton rules” (by Joe Conason, Salon)
As Wednesday’s awful debate proves, it won’t matter who the presidential nominee is — the press will play footsie with McCain and attack the Democrat.

“Ladies is pimps too, go and brush your shoulders off” (by lambert at Corrente)
Obama planning to buy PA’s vote: Obama hopes to deliver a knock-out blow by outspending her in advertising. With tens of millions from fundraising at his disposal, he plans to spend well over $2m (£1m) on ads in the run-up to the primary, at least twice as much as the cash-strapped Clinton campaign. In Philadelphia, which could determine the outcome, he reserved for the final days $465,000 worth of television and radio spots, while Clinton reserved $91,000 worth. Obama’s strategy, which he has deployed time and again during his political career, is that the more money spent on advertising, the higher the odds of winning an election.

Money can’t buy him love (by riverdaughter at The Confluence)
Well, massive infusions of cash for TV ads didn’t help him in CA, NY, NJ, MA, AZ, OH, TX, FL (oops, naughty, naughty, Barry) but that doesn’t mean that he’s not going to try to buy PA. Hillary can out debate him, out qualify him, out tough him, but so far she has been unable to outspend him. Hey, maybe she doesn’t need to but why take any risks? If you have a few bucks, send it her way and help her keep up with Obama’s planned saturation coverage for the weekend.

Newsmax/Zogby Poll: Clinton Surges Ahead in Pa.
UTICA, New York – New York Democrat Hillary Clinton had a good day in the Newsmax/Zogby daily tracking poll ahead of Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary, following a strong debate performance in Philadelphia Wednesday night, and now holds a 47% to 43% advantage over Barack Obama of Illinois.
Okay, Newsmax is right wing.  But John Zogby is in the bag for Obama.  Which is very interesting, since John’s brother James is the head of the Arab American Institute.

Dean Urges Superdelegates to Commit
Howard Dean asked uncommitted superdelegates to commit soon to avoid dragging out the nominating process all the way to the party convention.

Obama’s and the DNC ’s BAD Behavior (Obama Who)
This is the man who had the 50 state strategies?  The man who is perfectly willing to let Florida and Michigan stand on the outside of picking the candidate?  So, the primaries are not over with yet, he wants all the superdelegates to commit now and then to hell with the rest of the voters?  Look, everyone knows Obama went down in flames [Wednesday] night but it appears that Howard Dean is doing the same thing now as he did to Michigan and Florida, making the rest of the votes not count.
Click here to tell the DNC what you think.  They’d better be thinking about the Electoral College.  See below.

Electoral-Vote.com, April 19 Electoral Votes (270 needed to win):
Clinton v. McCain -  Clinton 289     McCain 239     Ties 10
Obama v. McCain - Obama 260     McCain 254     Ties 24
Click through to see the maps.

“She’s not as bad as you think” (by Walter Shapiro, Salon)
When a male supporter in the audience at Haverford College asked for advice about how to persuade undecided voters as he canvassed his neighborhood, [Hillary] Clinton cracked, “Knock on the door and say, ‘She’s really nice.’ Or you can say, ‘She’s not as bad as you think.’”…  Hillary Clinton still boasts the three ingredients that an underdog candidate needs in order to continue in presidential politics: money for television, loyal local supporters and a large traveling press corps. She also has something that’s perhaps even more important — a refusal to take no for an answer in what she called Thursday “a very long extended job interview that has gone on for 15 months.”
And, of course, the reason so many people think she’s “so bad” is that the right wing has wanted a 16-year multi-hundred million dollar campaign against her.  I thought that’s what all of us so-called progressives were fighting against.  But it turns out that some are fighting only when THEIR candidate gets tough, or even unfair, coverage.

Clinton Gets 3 New Superdelegates (The Caucus, New York Times)
Hillary Rodham Clinton added a new trio of superdelegates to her tally on Friday. Two former New Jersey governors, Jim Florio and Brendan Byrne, endorsed Mrs. Clinton last year, but they were only selected to be their state’s add-on delegates Thursday. As such, they have the same voting rights as superdelegates and don’t have to vote with the popular vote winner of their state (although Mrs. Clinton won New Jersey anyway).

Clinton Slams Democratic Activists At Private Fundraiser (by Celeste Fremon at The Huffington Post)
At a small closed-door fundraiser after Super Tuesday, Sen. Hillary Clinton blamed what she called the “activist base” of the Democratic Party — and MoveOn.org in particular — for many of her electoral defeats, saying activists had “flooded” state caucuses and “intimidated” her supporters, according to an audio recording of the event obtained by The Huffington Post… Howard Wolfson, communications director for the Clinton campaign, verified the authenticity of the audio, and elaborated on Clinton’s charge that these same party activists were engaged in acts of intimidation against her supporters: “There have been well documented instances of intimidation in the Nevada and the Texas caucuses.”… In fact, the Nevada caucuses occurred prior to MoveOn’s endorsement of Obama, and when Clinton made her remarks, the Texas caucuses had yet to take place.
There was intimidation, whether or not it was from MoveOn activists.  I’ve heard some of the accounts myself.

“Off the Bus” goes “Off the Rails” (by Paul Lukasiak at Corrente)
“Off the Bus” is a joint venture by Jay (Pressthink) Rosen and Ariana Huffington that encourages “citizen’s journalism.” The idea is that us “little people” can attend campaign events, and report them, just as well as the corporate media. Recently, Off the Bus made news when an Obama supporter, Mayhill Fowler, reported on remarks made by Obama at a San Francisco fundraiser — the “bitter/clinging” controversy. Rosen addressed the controversy over at Pressthink, explaining the care and attention given to Fowler’s piece. Then [Friday], Off the Bush published a hit piece on Clinton, based on a two month old recording. Off the Bus apparently has two different standards — one for Obama, and another for Clinton…

Consider the contrasts
FOWLER was an Obama Supporter, doing an “insider critque” of the context in which Obama had said something.
FREMON is a self-loathing Clinton-hater…, who is slamming Clinton from ’outside’ the Clinton camp, and is writing not about the context, but about what was said, in an accusatory manner.
FOWLER WAS THERE. There is nothing that suggests that FREMON was at the CLinton fundraiser.
FOWLER wrote about contemporaneous events, FREMON writes about a two month old tape recording.
FOWLER’s piece was accompanied by an audio link that included the full context (in context, Obama comes off as tone-deaf, rather than “elitist”) of Obama’s remarks, and a full transcript of those remarks. FREMON provides only a short clip, which sounds like it has been edited in order for maximum attack value.
Click through for more.

No good deed goes unpunished (by lambert at Corrente)
Back in 2007: “The Senate voted on Thursday to repudiate an ad from MoveOn.org that referred to Gen. David Petraeus as ‘General Betray Us.’ Democratic presidential front-runner Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) opposed the measure, while her closest competitor, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), missed the vote.” Barry? Not present? You’re kidding! Meanwhile, Hillary votes just the way the “progressive” should have, back in the day before the term got hijacked by goateed Village misogynists, and with some courage, given the vote was 72-25.

Obama once visited ’60s radicals (by Ben Smith, Politico)
In 1995, State Senator Alice Palmer introduced her chosen successor, Barack Obama, to a few of the district’s influential liberals at the home of two well known figures on the local left: William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. While Ayers and Dohrn may be thought of in Hyde Park as local activists, they’re better known nationally as two of the most notorious — and unrepentant — figures from the violent fringe of the 1960s anti-war movement… “Ayers was a terrorist. Bernardine Dohrn was a terrorist. Ayers has never offered one word of apology — he glories in it, thinks it’s terrific. And that to me is not what I would call acceptable or mainstream behavior,” said Dan Polsby, a former law professor at Northwestern who is now dean of George Mason University Law School. “If Obama takes a different view on that — well, OK, that’s data about Obama.”
Once visited.  Uh huh.  Once that we KNOW of.  Don’t forget that Obama and Ayers together served on the board of an organization that provided funds for Palestinians.  And let’s never forget that when Alice Palmer changed her mind about giving up her state senate seat, instead of bowing out of the race, Obama ruthlessly had her name removed from the ballot by challenging her petition signatures. Obama supporters say that she (and the other candidates—he bumped them all off) had fake signatures, but we don’t really know that.  It’s cheap to challenge and expensive to prove the challenged voters are legitimate, so we just don’t know.

The Chicago Three: Obama, Ayers & Rezko (by Bud White at No Quarter)
Overview: This is a story of big-city behind-the-scenes politics — of scratch-my-back and I’ll-scratch-yours backroom dealings. It is a story of how Bill Ayers and Barack Obama — sitting on a charitable board (for which they were paid) — aided and abetted the lucrative real estate development projects of Obama’s former law firm associate Allison Davis and Davis’s development partner Antoin “Tony” Rezko.  The Woods board on which Ayers and Obama sat ended up giving those two development partners the sum of one million dollars, from which both Davis and Rezko reaped considerable financial gain. And Obama did not recuse himself from the board’s vote on this large real estate transaction despite a clear conflict of interest from his past associations. Obama then became the beneficiary of large — very large — campaign contributions from Rezko and many of his wealthy associates. It all worked out very well for Sen. Obama.

Obama endorsed by former senators Nunn & Boren; Reich does so as well (On Politics, USA Today)
Two former senators with long records on foreign policy and national security issues — and who come from “red” states where Republicans dominate — have just endorsed Sen. Barack Obama’s bid for the White House. Sam Nunn of Georgia and David Boren of Oklahoma, both Democrats (as is Obama), will also be serving as advisers on Obama’s national security foreign policy team… [O]ne-time “friend of Bill” and former Clinton administration Labor secretary Robert Reich.. Reich makes it official: … “I believe that Barack Obama should be elected President of the United States. Although Hillary Clinton has offered solid and sensible policy proposals, Obama’s strike me as even more so.”
Nonsense.  Famed economist Paul Krugman says Clinton’s plan is the one with the solid and sensible policy proposals.  Reich is getting something out of this, trust me.

Nunn-Boren “Unity” Rears its Ugly Head on Behalf of Obama (by GRL at InsightAnalytical — Watching Our World)
So, former Senators Sam Nunn and David Boren endorsed Obama today. It seemed like a convenient thing to do in light of Obama’s recent juvenile activities involving fingers. Both will now advise on national security… Of course, Nunn and Boren are the the epitome of what Obamaphiles looking for “change” are thirsting for! Let’s see, Nunn’s record in the Senate includes: being a member of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC); voting NO on deducting Social Security payments from income taxes; voting YES on prohibiting same-sex marriage; voting Yes on limiting death penalty appeals; voting YES on limiting product liability punitive damage awards; voting YES on abstinence education funding; and an unknown stance on abortion rights. Boren’s record is even more conservative. And scary, especially with regard to foreign policy.

Lots more really good stuff at MakeThemAccountable.com.

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com