Sucker Punch
May 24th, 2008 at 7:29 am by Susie
Any rational person can see that this whole trumped-up story is the Dean scream all over again - that is, unless you worship your candidate instead of merely supporting him. But rational thought seems to go out the window when it comes to the systematic demonization of Hillary Clinton by Obama supporters.
Truly stunning.
A war that’s rolling on, bankrupting the country. Gas and food costs rapidly rising. Global warming, threatening our very existence. Our national infrastructure, falling apart. Media consolidation that’s deeply distorted our democracy.
Hundreds of real, meaningful issues and every single time the corporate media wants to change the subject with the latest manufactured “outrage,” YOU TAKE THE BAIT.
Suckers.
your favored candidate says something so stupid, so foul and the best you can do is say there are better things to talk about (war, gas/food prices, etc)??? hrc has lied, pandered, grasped so wailingly at any thread that now all you can do is lie to yourself…pathetic and actually sad to watch.
Then go away where people don’t make you so sad, Joe. Buh bye!
So Obama supporters jumping all over HRC because she doesn’t matter at this stage of the campaign?
All of the shrill cries about “the math!” and “teh ruelz!”, and the cheerfuly deployment of eliminationist rhetoric (”take her into a room and only he comes out,” comparisons to the Glen Close character in “Fatal Attraction”) in the effort to convince everyone that she’s toast–well, it all seems rather overheated rhetoric if in fact you believe that she’s finished. Why not take the McCain campaign’s graciously patronizing tone towards Huckabee in the last few weeks before Huck pulled out? Who cares what Clinton says to some silly local rag in South Dakota, unless you think she’s actually still a viable candidate? So much fear and loathing of someone who’s supposed to be such a vile, pathetic, ridiculous, hopeless embarassment.
You’re right, Susie: Carl Jung had it all figured out. Good thing Robert Kennedy, Jr., does too, but I’m sure no one will listen to him since he previously endorsed the vile, pathetic, ridiculous, hopeless Clinton.
nope - i’ll keep coming back…you know that saying about car wrecks?
go back to talking about gas prices and the war. you’re all correct - lets just ignore her since she is no longer viable in this election.
Fear and loathing?? nah, more like the above mentioned car wreck…we still watch the aftermath even as the wreckers are pulling up and cops measure skid marks…
Flip it around baby. There’s more important stuff in this world than HRC’s failed ambitions. The sooner she and the members of her cult recognize it, the sooner we get to work on the important stuff.
The story was pushed by Drudge, people.
That alone is reason to question it.
I agree the RFK comment is getting more play than it’s worth. but it really was a remarkably stupid thing to say. if obama said something like this i have no doubt that suzy would be all over it, citing the comment as an example of “eliminationist language”. i understand why people may prefer Clinton to obama, but I don’t understand how people can lose their capacity for criticism for their own candidate. sure, on the one hand, the controversy is overplayed (what controversy hasn’t been
in this race?), but on the other, it was such a stupid thing to say it’s hard not to comment. so in that sense the mania over this is completely understandable.
or is this not about the RFK thing? I don’t read drudge, so was this post about something else?
Zuzu you read Drudge? Oh my.
Susie: Your Sen. Clinton voted for this war. I’m sure she wants us to talk about anything else. She voted for Kyl/Lieberman, I’m sure she doesn’t want us to talk about that.
Iraq is sexist.
Bombing Iran is misogynistic.
Sorry brendancalling.
zuzu: You earlier argued Clinton had “neutralized” Scaife. The right wing press - which has loathed the Clinton’s since 1992 - is suddenly exploding with calm, rational discussions of how unseemly it is that so many unhinged Democrats want her to withdraw.
So if a right-wing site pushes an anti-Clinton story that proves conclusively the story is false, but if right-wingers support Clinton that is proof not of any sleazy maneuvering on their part but rather proof of the genius that is Sen Clinton?
Look, this story is grossly overplayed. It was a dumb, tone-deaf thing for her to say; nothing more nothing less. It’s worth a passing nod - no more than that. But to all of you who pounded “periodically” and “he gave her the finger” and “he violently ‘flicked her off his shoulder’” into the ground it’s awfully hard to understand your sudden demand for decorum. If you play by those rules accept those rules.
Rational thinking is on vacation in America.
This just coincides with the Edward Kennedy death watch that has been going on since Bobby was assassinated. The media sell a lot of peas with this stuff, and much more, that we as individuals and a society could do without.
Being an Obama supporter does not and never should have become synonymous with being a Hillary basher, and vice a versa. That is a function of our own minds. All the media needs is a storm cloud of controversy to fork ball lightning into the herd, apparently, sending half of it stampeding on way and half the other. Wolves like it too.
While I support Obama for a multitude of reasons, just as many support Hillary, I think it is very important for the left to bear in mind that neither one of them is very far removed from the center, and are on many issues and in many instances hostile to the left in general, and blogs in particular.
When this election is all said and done, they will on many occasions and in many instances drop us, one and all, like hot potatoes. It may be time to move back from the cult of personalities into the realm of policy, before we all forget that we as a collective are only a faction of the Democratic Party, and not the majority faction.
Snuzy is the voice of reason once again - in other words his comment is pretty much what I was gonna say ^_^.
As I’ve said before, Clinton’s comment was tone deaf and ill advised. And a very poorly fitting analogy to her situation, for reasons I’ve already posted in the other thread.
At the time RFK was assassinated in early June ‘68, literally fewer than 1/3 of the states had held their votes . It was very clearly a different dynamic than what the Party sees come June this year. On top of that, if you’re trying to build a case that party unity is less important than plowing ahead with a lost campaign, is it REALLY a good idea to reference that ‘68 Dem race where the chaos of a divided party at the National Convention was so palpable?
Hillary’s RFK reference is just dumb on all fronts. And … I’ve tried all along through these primaries to avoid mentioning the possibility that Obama might be assassinated. It’s obviously a fear that looms large in many people’s minds, for obvious reasons, and for my part I just didn’t even want the idea of it prominent in the public sphere. So I thought about it frequently, but didn’t talk about it. So much for that. Thanks Hill.
Susie, there are very rational reasons to be displeased with Sen. Clintons remarks, dismissing it as “irrational” is … irrational. We all have a Shadow to us don’t we? Eh?
Wow people lets think this through for a minute. So HRC, in a desperate bid to sullen her democratic rival, nefariously plots for weeks on how to smear Obama, and then…. wait for it….. jumps on the foolproof “Kennedy elimination/assassination secret weapon reference”. She boldly seizes this timely opportunity during a two minute interview with a third tier newspaper reporter……
Meanwhile back in the bowels of HRC’s evil laboratory, her minion cackle away, plotting even more desperate references linking Obama to Adolf Hitler and Paris Hilton…….
Wow…. amazing…… the sheer genius and brilliance of it….
That’s the point. It was a REALLY stupid thing to say, no?
Yeah, this is depressing. If one ever needed a reminder that the blogosphere can jump all over something unimportant and declare it the most important thing ever with the worst of the traditional media, this is it. It was a stupid statement, but the reaction to it has been almost what I would have expected had she called for Obama’s assassination. Fascinating.
The problem is that Hillary will do and/or say anything to get elected. She has been floating the RFK rhetoric for some time now, and noone called her on it. She finally got the pie in her face that she so richly deserved. The more she pulls this, the more likely it is that John McCain will be our next president. Maybe if he’s elected, we will have seen the last of the Clintons. Good riddance. Bill paved the way for 8 tears of Bush with his Monica escapade/lies, and now Hillary is paving the way for the republicans to keep the white house. They define the ugliness of the lust for power.
HRC supporters here gleefully wallowed in the grotesque circus of stupid stories about “bittergate” and Rev Wright short out takes and told any Obama supporters who objected to STFU.
Well folks it’s YOUR TURN!!!
Obama isn’t pushing this story and his folks have been extremely gracious in their treatment of it. So you’re not even getting as good as you gave. Clinton made Obama’s misspeaking a central theme of her Pennsylvania campaign, so she absolutely cannot claim any high ground there.
I agree it’s stupid for the media to keep hyping this and I agree that Clinton did not mean anything sinister, but I also know …
she just got what she deserved (and you folks did too) after the crass bullshit that she and you have pulled in similar situations.
Suck it up! If you can’t take the heat you should quit the campaign!!!
The above is almost a word for word quote of what I was told here when I objected to Clinton HERSELF doing to Obama what the media is now doing to her.
Ms. Clinton is the Democratic candidate in this election who is most like RFK. If anyone should be worried about being shot, it’s her. Mr. Obama may have many faults, but being a member of a well-known family who is campaigning for an elective office a previous family member once held AND being down in the delegate count is not one of them, unless you’re claiming that Mr. Obama is actually Bill Clinton’s brother.
And if you’re claiming that, I’m sure I’m not the only one who will insist on seeing the results of the DNA tests.
If Obama is not assassinated in June will she decide to drop out then?
As Mr. Potatoehead himself, Dan Quayle, was reminded by Sen. Lloyd Benston, “I knew John Kennedy, and sir, you are not him”. Hillary, is not and never will be RFK or even like him. She is Bill Clinton’s wife, a former first lady, a short-term Senator from NY. She is not progressive, nor is Bill Clinton. Both are corporate democrats. Socially “liberal”, but they know where their bread is buttered. Would she be better than McCain? Probably, but let’s be clear on who were are supporting. The People? Not.
Ok, you are all still talking about her…..
Can Obama make the “grand gesture” and extend the olive branch to her at this stage of the game??? If not…why not??
“The problem is that Hillary will do and/or say anything to get elected.”
” Your Sen. Clinton voted for this war.”
“hrc has lied, pandered, grasped so wailingly…”
Don’t you Hillary Clinton haters ever feel the need to develop some new material? These are the scripts you’ve been running for months now–do you have them all loaded into macros in your computers so that you don’t have to type them all out any more? I guess out of self-respect and in order to avoid intellectual boredom, I’d try to branch out myself, but if that’s not your style…
C’mon, Susie, let’s not be naive. It’s all crap from Axelrod’s Department of Changing The Subject.
And why? This is why:
Since March 4:
Hillary votes: 6,519,685
Obama votes: 6,007,744
Margin: Hillary +511,941
Hillary pledged delegates: 510
Obama pledged delegates: 495
Margin: Hillary +15 delegates
Hillary contests: 7 (OH, RI, TX, PA, IN, WV, KY)
Obama contests: 6 (VT, WY, MS, GU, NC, OR)
http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/05/some_new_data_from_the_clinton.php
The OFB and the press who, as Somerby quotes Judis as saying, have “thrown their support” to Obama, doing everything they know how to do to drag a dead Unity Pony over the finish line. But the Unity Pony really is dead.
The Obama campaign has managed to turn this primary into a justice issue, by disenfranchising two states, and a legitimacy issue, both with the disenfranchising issue, and this latest, indecent, immoral act of character assassination — and on top of the baseless accusations of racism and the vile misogyny. This is another way for them to tell me they don’t want my vote. Well done, Obama. Well done.
Obama has disenfranchised two states? You have got to be kidding. And what’s wrong with a little Justice? And unity for the big event in the fall. Seems to me that the fratiricide that’s going on benefits the other side immensely.
As for Hillary’s RFK comments, the more she lies and distorts, the more likely I will vote for McCain. If only to be rid of the Clintons.
Lambert: Did the New England Patriots win the Super Bowl by outscoring NY in 2 quarters, tying in one and only being outscored in one?
Sorry, within the next week or so Obama will hit the magic number. He won. Parsing results can be an interesting parlor game, but in the Democratic primaries the winner is the one who wins over all - not in months with odd numbered days - not in states with two words in their name - nor with any other mad up metric.
By the way, I suggest you study the history of the “justice issue” you’re raising. Your preferred candidate signed on when she thought it would be advantageous to do so. Only now that she needs the votes has her conscience become so bothered by it all.
23Historiann:
So, enabling the killing in Iraq is old & tired, eh? What sort of life do you live when death is just some sort of political strategy? FYYFF, as that late, great NOLA blogger said.
Lambert: …”and on top of the baseless accusations of racism and the vile misogyny.”
You see the misogny but the “accusations” of racism are “baseless”.
“Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in ‘84 and ‘88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here.”
“He would not have been my pastor,”
“I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on….that found how Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”
I won’t bother with the Geraldine Ferraro quotes.
I don’t believe Sen. Clinton is racist. I do believe she and some of her supporters have stooped to racist framing in an effort to win.
Just as I don’t believe Sen. Obama is sexist, but I do believe he and some of his supporters have stooped to sexist framing in an effort to win.
I am getting so, so tired of being accused “worshiping” Obama instead of merely “supporting” him by people who are completely and utterly incapable of acknowledging that Hillary Clinton has any flaws whatsoever. For seven years, I’ve referred to Bush as the “God-King” of the GOP. I’m beginning to view Hillary as the God-Queen of her supporters. The Queen, like the King, can do no wrong.
Suzie, is there anything Hillary could do, short of officially announcing that if she didn’t get the nomination she would campaign for McCain in the Fall, that would cause her to lose your support? My suspicion is that not even that would cost her Lambert’s allegience.
Early on I heard “He (Obama) may be elected but he will be prevented from being able to govern. (Just like the first Black mayor of Phila)
agree the RFK comment is getting more play than it’s worth. but it really was a remarkably stupid thing to say.
I think we’re going to find that it was an unaffordable thing for her to say at this point in her campaign.
well, her camp is saying today Her High-and-Mighty was tired. oh, that again…
The queen is dead - long live the queen. oops, not that “dead” means dead like RFK-dead, just you know…gone; over; finito; el-done.
is a big deal being made of a small thing? yes. is it business as usual? yes. Is it politics? yes! we all have been so reminded that this IS politics…
but, like true to form, by Tuesday she will be claiming victim for all the hoopla over the RFK-killing comment. You know…tired and now all the boys are picking on me…big bill will come out and wag a finger at the bullies trying to kick her out, hell he may even get that crimson face again and shout all this shows msm and OB supports to be sexist. becuase to the true hrc supporters, if her-majesty loses it can only be because of sexism. just another chapter added to the textbook study this campaign will be in poli-sci grad school on how to choke a sure win. bill deserves his rep as a astute and talented politician (with faults but hey we all have faults) but hrc…hmmm, I think she will cast a rather long shadow from now on. Dec 07 she said the election will be over Feb 5…she was right - I have to give her that!
Personally, I think her comment was not big deal.
It didn’t tell us anything about how her mind works that we didn’t already know.
Obama :
“I have learned that when you are campaigning for as many months as Senator Clinton and I have been campaigning, sometimes you get careless in terms of the statements that you make and I think that is what happened here. Senator Clinton says that she did not intend any offense by it and I will take her at her word on that.”
Please stop pretending that Obama is somehow pumping this up or acting in a demeaning manner. He is being quite gracious. Especially when you consider how churlish her comments about him were when he made a mistake in his wording.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/TheNote/Story?id=3105455&page=1
Oh yes, very gracious:
Also known as “having your cake and eating it, too.”
Suzie–Yes, it is the Dean Scream all over again — and the pro-Obama left blogs are carrying on as if they’ve never seen the MCM work this on a Democratic candidate ever before!
What’s that thing about not learning from history….???
Your post nailed it.
Isn’t the term “nailed” rather sexist?