“‘I think it would be really wonderful if me and Barack Obama could get together and make a nice counter ad,’ Knowles said.” Enterprising local journalists in Bonney Lake, WA find the little girl in Clinton’s fearmongering 3am ad and discover, not only that she’s old enough to vote, but that she’s a strong supporter of, and former precinct captain for, Barack Obama. Apparently, the ad used stock footage from 8 years ago, which should help to quell the talk of subliminal racism on the Clinton campaign’s part. (I don’t happen to subscribe to that intentional-racism theory, or this one. But, if this thing goes on another month, who knows where Team Clinton will draw the line?)
Tag: Hillary Clinton
Foreign Policy Experience? She has none.
“It was her coming that helped. But she had absolutely no role in the dirty work of negotiations…This had nothing to do with her competence.” The Chicago Tribune delves into Clinton’s dubious claims of foreign policy experience and finds not only that she has little to none, but that she is basically lying about what she’s accomplished. “Pressed in a CNN interview this week for specific examples of foreign policy experience that has prepared her for an international crisis, Clinton claimed that she ‘helped to bring peace’ to Northern Ireland and negotiated with Macedonia to open up its border to refugees from Kosovo.“
Let’s take ’em one by one. Regarding Ireland, historian Tim Pat Coogan refers to Clinton’s role as “part of the stage effects, the optics, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Lord Trimble today called Clinton’s claims “silly”: “I don’t want to rain on the thing for her but being a cheerleader for something is slightly different from being a principal player.” The Telegraph digs up coverage of the one meeting Clinton attended in Belfast, and it wasn’t exceptionally hard-hitting. In fact, it was a photo-op. “Conversation ‘seemed a little bit stilted, a little prepared at times’ and Mrs Clinton admired a stainless steel tea pot, which was duly given to her, for keeping the brew ‘so nice and hot’.” The Kitchen Debate, it wasn’t.
Regarding Macedonia and Kosovo, that border was opened the day before Senator Clinton arrived. Update: The picture above is from Clinton’s Kosovo trip. As you can see, part of her delicate negotiations to get this already-open border opened involved singing with Chelsea, Sheryl Crow, and some poor military officials forced to humor the wife of the Commander in Chief.
As TPM’s Josh Marshall aptly summed up, “Let’s get real and admit that Hillary Clinton is getting the free ride of all free rides on her repeated invocations of foreign policy experience.“
Going back to Cali.
California officially certifies its delegate count from Super Tuesday, and, as it turns out, Senator Obama has picked up eight more delegates there. That’s twice as many as Clinton received on her big “blowout” day of March 4th, when, delegate-wise, she won Ohio and, it seems, lost Texas. Update: Just to clarify, I should say Obama picked up four more delegates in CA, which Clinton in turn lost. So Obama +4, Clinton -4, a.k.a. an eight-delegate swing.
Power Games.
Ugh. Another day of pettiness from Hillary Clinton and her crew — we have to sit through seven more weeks of this, just because pundits are bad at math? Sigh…anyway, after referring to Hillary Clinton somewhat off-the-record as a “monster,” (while promoting a book in England, and not speaking for the Obama campaign), author, journalist and genocide expert Samantha Power resigns as an Obama foreign policy advisor. This is mainly because the Clinton campaign called for her head (less than a day after Wolfson’s Ken Starr analogy, mind you) and apparently deemed her original apology not sufficient.
To put things into perspective, when SNL’s Tina Fey called Clinton a “bitch” several times over two weeks ago on national television, Bill Clinton called to thank her. (And, when Hillary Clinton suggested somebody kill Ralph Nader back in 2000, everyone just shrugged it off. Somehow, that seems worse to me than calling someone a “monster”…I’ll never understand why that didn’t cause more of a stir.)
In any case, Power is out (for now — I expect she can come back once the Clinton people internalize the reality of their loss.) To be sure, her remark was unfortunate in public, but she did apologize. But I guess the Clinton campaign just has a problem with strong women speaking their mind, when that mind is directed against Her Eminence. And particularly when the strong woman in question just happens to have way more national security cred than Hillary Clinton, and thus puts the lie to her recent slobbering over John McCain: While Samantha Power was risking her life to research The Problem from Hell and get a handle on the world’s most nightmarish dilemma, Hillary Clinton was toodling around Bosnia with a security detail, Sheryl Crow, and Sinbad. O, beware, my lady, of jealousy; It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on.
Update: Clinton dispatches Wesley Clark and Jamie Rubin to pile on. Charming. Rubin’s always been a stooge, but I thought Gen. Clark had more class than this. Guess I was wrong.
Bradley: Clinton’s not vetted.
“I think Barack Obama has a much stronger chance of beating John McCain in the general election. I think Hillary is flawed in many ways, and particularly if you look at her husband’s unwillingness to release the names of the people who contributed to his presidential library. And the reason that is important — you know, are there favors attached to $500,000 or $1 million contributions? And what do I mean by favors? I mean, pardons that are granted; investigations that are squelched; contracts that are awarded; regulations that are delayed.” Former Senator Bill Bradley, who endorsed Obama back in January, asks some tough questions about the Clinton library’s shady financing. (And before anyone accuses Sen. Bradley of raising a phantom scandal, consider Frank Giustra and Boratgate.) Update: In related news, USA Today reports that Clinton library archivists are blocking the release of papers involving the Clinton pardons.
The Numbers Game: 55, 3, 76.
“[It’s] a humbling achievement, and I am very grateful for your support,” Obama said in another fundraising appeal. “No campaign has ever raised this much in a single month in the history of presidential primaries. But more important than the total is how we did it — more than 90 percent of donations were $100 or less.” The fundraising numbers for February are released, and Sen. Obama raised a record-breaking $55 million (i.e., a full $20 million more than Sen. Clinton.) In other good campaign news, Obama picked up three more supers today (to Clinton’s one: Barbara Boxer.) And TPM’s FlyontheWall explains why the 76 UADs (unpledged add-on delegates) further complicate Clinton’s situation. Did I mention this was over?
Hillary stumps for McCain.
“‘I think it’s imperative that each of us be able to demonstrate we can cross the commander-in-chief threshold. I believe that I’ve done that. Certainly, Sen. McCain has done that and you’ll have to ask Sen. Obama with respect to his candidacy.’…Calling McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee a good friend and a ‘distinguished man with a great history of service to our country,’ Clinton said, ‘Both of us will be on that stage having crossed that threshold.’” Say what? Still happily in denial about her recent loss of the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton spouts more GOP talking points on national security in an attempt to wound Obama after the fact. (In case you missed it, she did the same sort of thing the other day.) Now, I remain unclear as to what national security qualifications McCain and especially Clinton assume they enjoy. (Lest we forget, Clinton didn’t even have a national security clearance during her tenure as First Lady.) That being said, this sordid wallowing in (and thus legitimizing of) right-wing agitprop is exactly why the party can’t afford to let Hillary Clinton sustain the delusion she will be our nominee. It is time for her to go.
Alter gets it.
“Hillary Clinton won big victories Tuesday night in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island. But she’s now even further behind in the race for the Democratic nomination. How could that be? Math. It’s relentless.” Seemingly a rarity among pundits at the moment, Newsweek‘s Jonathan Alter does the post-Tuesday math, and makes the case I outlined yesterday: the race for the Democratic nomination is over, and Barack Obama has won. “I’ve asked several prominent uncommitted superdelegates if there’s any chance they would reverse the will of Democratic voters. They all say no…The Clintonites can spin to their heart’s content about how big March 4 was for them. How close the race is. How they’ve got the Big Mo now. Tell it to Slate’s Delegate Calculator. Again.“
The Wolf who cried Starr.
“I for one do not believe that imitating Ken Starr is the way to win a Democratic primary election for president, but perhaps that theory will be tested.” A Starr is born? Clinton flunky Howard Wolfson makes the implicit explicit and directly likens Senator Obama to independent counsel and GOP bogeyman Ken Starr, suggesting that any criticism of the Clintons must be rooted in the “vast right-wing conspiracy.” Well, Wolfson, I don’t know Ken Starr personally. But, as fate would have it, I wrote the book on Ken Starr. And, news flash, Barack Obama is no Ken Starr. Y’see, I did copious research for And the Horse He Rode In On, and I discovered while doing so that Ken Starr, despite his self-righteous persona, was pretty much your run-of-the-mill hypocritical scumbag of a party hack. Now that doesn’t really describe Sen. Obama very well, but, as it turns out, that is exemplary shorthand for one Howard Wolfson.
Exhibit A: What prompted Wolfson’s “Ken Starr” smear today? That would be the Obama campaign’s call to have Senator Clinton release her tax returns for the past seven years, something she’s continually refused to do despite the fact that it would take all of five minutes to accomplish and is considered relatively standard in political campaigns at any level, let alone a race for the presidency. Now, let’s flashback to 2000 for a sec: Then, Clinton flunky Howard Wolfson was running around with a guy in an Uncle Sam suit demanding that GOP Senate candidate Rick Lazio…wait for it, wait for it…release his tax returns.
Their hypocrisy knows no limits.
Blame Canada.
“‘He said someone from Clinton’s campaign is telling the Embassy to take it with a grain of salt,’ said one participant in the conversation. The source added, ‘someone called us and told us not to worry.’” As I’m sure y’all know, one of the late-term factors redounding against Obama in Ohio was Goolsbeegate, where it seemed one of Obama’s top economic advisers had suggested to the Canadian government that the Senator’s rhetoric on NAFTA was just political hot air. Senators McCain and Clinton, of course, ran with it. (This has caused a political uproar in Canada, as the leak seemed an attempt by the right-leaning Canadian government to help out McCain.) Well, now it turns out that, not only is there less to the Goolsbee story than first appears (Canadian officials sought him out before Super Tuesday, not the reverse, as reported), but that it was Sen. Clinton’s campaign actually making overtures to the Canadians on the subject of NAFTA.
Charming. Somehow, with Ohio come and gone, I doubt this side of the story will have much in the way of legs. But, if you needed any further indication at this late date that Sen. Clinton can be a tremendous hypocrite at times, just look to our friends to the North.