Hillary Clinton, You’re Better Than This
Hillary Clinton has attacked Barack Obama by saying, snidely and slyly, that he’s like George Bush. Back in the day that would have been justification for a duel or something, so scurrilous the charge as to compare someone to such an abject failure as George Bush. What it is, more so, is Hillary Clinton’s commitment to politics as usual.
You know better, Hillary Clinton. The real deal is that you probably do know better that negative campaigning will not work as easily with the Democratic electorate this year, but you and your staff decided to go there anyway, echoing a charge against Barack Obama I discussed just yesterday, but made then by a right-wing blogger who almost everyone agrees bases his opinions on stupidity and illogic. The Clinton campaign yesterday, through the sly words of Hillary Clinton herself, made the same charges John Hindraker made in his column Friday. I would like to say that we Democrats are better than that, but it has become clear that Hillary Clinton and her campaign are not better. They see no limits on scurrilous campaigning. And we should put a stop to it by giving the New Hampshire vote to Obama.
So what did Hillary do? The worst possible. She compared Barack Obama to George Bush. From the Philadelphia Inquirer:
Clinton, whose third-place Iowa finish after months as the Democratic front-runner punctured the aura of inevitability around her candidacy, was campaigning on two tracks yesterday. First, she was looser, having jettisoned her standard stump speech to stand and answer questions - for 90 minutes straight - in Penacook. And she also took a couple of jabs, including a mocking description of President Bush that may have been a veiled reference to Obama.
“He said he’d be a uniter, not a divider. He said he’d bring America together,” she said, referring to Bush and inspiring knowing chuckles in the audience. “He didn’t need a lot of experience, he had this great intuition, he understood people, he could go meet with rogue leaders, look in their eyes and their souls, solve our problems. Remember that?”
OK, Hillary only implied that Barack Obama is like George Bush, but even that implication coming from her mouth reduces her stature in my eyes, and I’m sure it paints her as the purveyor of the same old politics many people are tired of. It is simply morally wrong, after all, for her to paint Barack Obama, by all measures a thoughtful, intelligent, moral and good man, as anything like the nightmare President of the last seven years. In doing so, Hillary Clinton sounds a whole lot more like Mitt Romney and his “attack first” strategies, and that’s going to turn off Democrats. Heck, Mitt, at least, knows what his constituency will listen to, a comparison of his rival to Hillary Clinton. From the Philadelphia Inquirer:
Speaking before about 300 people in a school gymnasium in Derry, Romney talked about the message he took from Iowa, where he finished second to Huckabee. He said that there were two big losers coming out of the caucuses and that he was not one of them.
“They were Hillary Clinton, who’s been around Washington forever, and John McCain, who’s been there even longer,” he said. “The American people recognize that we’re not going to change Washington by sending back the same old faces and just have them change chairs.”
Oh, yeah, the negative campaigning is coming out on both sides, and I’d personally like to see the Republicans maintain a monopoly on this, the same old, same old tactic of political campaigning. No, I’ve made it no secret that I support both John Edwards and Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton, but that doesn’t mean I want Hillary Clinton to shoot herself in the foot. She is doing that, in my view, by attacking Barack Obama with the implication that he is similar to George Bush. And my discussion doesn’t even begin to address Clinton’s support of Bush policies with her own votes — but she’ll open the discussion to how much she enabled tragic Bush policies if she goes further down this road, of that I’m sure.
Hillary Clinton is acting as if the message from Iowa is that “politics as usual,” as dirty as it can get, is what the political doctor ordered. I’m thinking she’s dead wrong, and I’ll go out on a limb and say the people of New Hampshire will tell her so.
y’know…it’s only the reporter who dropped that “meant for obama” bomb, and i think it’s a little irresponsible for you to echo like that.
and anyway, if she were to attack obama on his uniter stance, i’d say more power to her. i probably hate that the most about obama, and i think it’s the absolutely worst tactic for a dem to take. it’s wishy washy, which the repubs are always quick to point out is frequently one of the worst traits of dem candidates.
Somegirl, it was pretty obvious who Hillary was referring to. Sure, the “uniter” thing can be a bit wishy-washy, and if Hillary wants to attack that head-on, I’m more than happy to see her do so. I think she’ll fail if she tries to do so, as she’s going to insult a whole bunch of people who support Barack Obama.
That said, you bring up a good issue. Do we want someone in office who disdains all Republicans so much that he or she refuses to unite with them on governance? Hillary herself, because of the fear Republicans have of her, will likely cause such governmental stalemate that we won’t get anything done. I guarantee she, and not the Republicans, will ge the blame for that. Edwards? I love that he wants to stake out positions on issues of poverty and healthcare that absolutely need to be addressed, but he’s also not likely to pass a damned thing through the Senate, not when he’s so on the edge as far as policy is concerned.
I fear a country so divided between red state and blue state that we’ll never get any of the issues we care about addressed. I think also as long as we exploit the divisions between the parties we’re going to remain a divided country where no issues get addressed in a meaningful manner. Perhaps the word “uniter” is trite, because of its misuse by Mr. Bush, I think, but it also represents a way towards addressing what may be our most pressing problem in this country, that many folks on either side of the red state/blue state line hardly speak the same language anymore. Sure, healthcare, poverty, the state of the cities, our place in the world — those are all important issues, but they will never be solved until someone can cajole the American people, all of us, into understanding the issues in the same way. That’s at least some form of uniting
it’s not about disdaining repubs, but republican policies. and when in the past 15 years have they played ball with the dems? we are already that country you fear. caving into backwards theocrats isn’t the answer.
and just how is obama gonna cajole us? not by spouting empty rhetoric about hope and uniting, that’s for sure.
Good questions, somegirl. We are already that country, and it is one I don’t like. I would rather, still, try to unite rather than give up and put in someone who has only the hope of dividing us further. Perhaps that’s the naive liberal in me, but it is there nonetheless.
I have to agree with Somegirl. Your post is an example of the unfair and nasty readings coming out constantly about Hillary. Why is she clapping? Why is she laughing? Of course, a low-cut dress is calculating.
Vomit.
I am not going to vote for Hillary (I like Edwards), but enough is enough. Give her a break. She needs to point out the differences between her and Obama, and one BIG one is the whole (as Jeralyn at Talk Left calls) Obama’s Kumbaya shtick. I want to punch out Britt Hume, not have lemonade and cookies with him. A lot of Dems feel that way, and Hillary is tapping in to that.
I think she is raising a very valid point that he is being naiive that if he wins everyone will play nice, And she has her busband’s tenure in office to prove that.
twit, you firsdt said my point about what Hillary said was just me picking on here, then you praised her for making that very same point. Which is it?
Further, Hillary has a longer record of working with these folks than anyone else in the field. She’s not done it successfully, but it isn’t for lack of trying, and even for voting for Bush policies. She’s not been successful either opposing Bushie, Rethuglican policies or trying to do the Kumbaya thing to change those policies.
steve, no one has done it successfully, and not for lack of trying, not just hilary. that’s because the big money and/or big religion thugs just won’t do it. they need to be disenfranchised as much as moderates have been under bushco. then we might get somewhere. but playing nice just ain’t gonna cut it. sorry.
Wendy, Hillary doesn’t get to argue that Obama is all Kumbaya when she’s been failing at that strategy for her entire political career, and while she’s still doing the same. We’ve got a choice here between Hillary, who has failed to work with the opposition, often voting for their insane policies, Obama who still thinks he can work with them, but who has at least opposed some of the worst programs of the Bush Administration, and Edwards, who seems as if he’ll stand up, but who hasn’t the backing. I’ll take Edwards for the ideological “rightness,” but can’t support Hillary from this angle. I don’t trust her not to carry out Bush policies.
You know you can’t keep Hillary down when it comes to dirty politics, she was going to come out of her shell soon enough.
I support Obama and if he doesn’t win I might just vote for Huckabee. Hillary just means business as usual, politicians getting fat at tit of corportate America. She might even take a page from the “decider” GW, and invite companies to the white to write policy.