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Sunday, June 1, 2008
Obama's Muzzle List
I got to thinking this morning about what is going to happen to all of the Clinton surrogates after Obama cinches the nomination next week?
Will they simply do a 180 and go on all the talk shows to sing Obama's praises?
For the most part, I'm sure this would be a good thing.
However, I also think that Obama needs to (and probably is) keeping a "Muzzle List" -- a list of people whose support he may welcome but in a VERY low-key, off-media kind of way. A list of people who may be permitted to say something to their local constituents or speak at a private fundraiser but are banned from Chris Matthews.
I've compiled my Muzzle List below. I also included a "Purgatory List", which lists the people Obama can do without.
I'd love to hear your suggestions for the list!
The Muzzle List: (those who Obama should keep quiet)
Lanny Davis - Former Clinton appointee and one of the worst Clinton windbags of the primary season.
I am convinced that there isn't a shred in Senator Obama's being that shares [Rev. Wright's] hateful or bigoted feelings. And I respect his strong words denouncing the views of a man for whom he has deep and genuine feelings of affection and loyalty, which I also respect.
But many people, including Obama supporters, may still have two questions that Senator Obama's speech did not sufficiently answer, at least in my opinion.
Geraldine Ferraro - One slip-up is a gaffe, twenty is inexcusable. Former vice-presidential candidate who's lost most of her marbles and thinks that Obama is "terribly sexist" and is lucky to be black.
"Racism works in two different directions. I really think they're attacking me because I'm white. How's that?"
Bill Clinton - Yeah, I know, he's very popular, has a Southern accent and all the ladies love him but be serious for a moment. You don't think he's going to be a petulant little schoolboy with a gaffe-a-minute waiting to subconsciously sink Obama in the general?
"There was a lot of fulminating because Hillary, one time late at night when she was exhausted, misstated and immediately apologized for it - what happened to her in Bosnia in 1995. Did y'all see all that. Oh, they blew it up. Let me just tell you." Clinton then criticized the press, saying, “You woulda thought, you know, that she'd robbed a bank the way they carried on about this. And some of them, when they're 60, they'll forget something when they're tired at 11:00 at night, too." ABC
Bill on his alleged opposition to the Iraq war from the start. (!)
On April 21, Bill Clinton said “I think they played the race card on me” of the Obama campaign. The next day when an NBC reporter asked Clinton, “Sir, what did you mean yesterday when you said that the Obama campaign was playing the race card on you?” Clinton claimed that he didn’t make that statement. Think on These Things
James Carville - The over-the-hill "ragin' cajun" with a complete lack of any verbal filter. I debated whether to include him on the purgatory list but I at least figure that he can lick stamps or something (as long as Obama keeps him far away from the cameras).
According to Carville, the fact that Senator Clinton made an ugly gaffe [by referring to RFK's assassination as a reason to stay in the race] and the press paid attention to it is the Obama campaign’s fault and therefore the contest can’t end on June 3. Somebody, please, file a missing persons report on the old James Carville. That guy was tough and able to roll with the punches. This guy, not so much. The Field
James Carville told the New York Times that Richardson, a former member of Bill Clinton's Cabinet, had committed "an act of betrayal," adding that it "came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out [Jesus] for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic." "I'm not going to get in the gutter like that," Richardson responded on "Fox News Sunday." "And you know, that's typical of many of the people around Senator Clinton. They think they have a sense of entitlement to the presidency. RK"
Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones - Although not prone to any particularly notable gaffes this season (except for the fact that she thinks Obama is from Somalia), her fantasyland-based pro-Hillary commentary and disquietingly permanent grin on every news show she can find have earned her a spot on this list.
Howard Wolfson and Terry McAuliffe - Hillary's main bobble-heads. I lump them together because they haven't done anything in recent memory to really substantively cause me to cringe. However, as with Rep. Tubbs Jones, the ease with which they wallow in fantasyland-driven rationales and ever-shifting goalposts is unsettling.
Wolfson on Hillary's ludicrous "gas tax holiday": "There are times that a president will take a position that a broad support of quote-unquote experts agree with. And there are times they will take a position that quote-unquote experts do not agree with." Ezra
Wolfson on why Obama is like Ken Starr: "When Sen. Obama was confronted with questions over whether he was ready to be commander in chief and steward of the economy, he chose not to address those questions, but to attack Sen. Clinton. I for one do not believe that imitating Ken Starr is the way to win a Democratic primary election for president." Politico
McAuliffe praising Fox Noise: "You know what - every independent study has said that this is the most biased coverage they have ever seen in a presidential campaign. Clearly it has been a biased media, no question about it. I have said this - Fox has been one of the most responsible in this presidential campaign -- I have said that all along." ABC
McAuliffe again shares his love for Fox Noise: After Clinton’s victory in the Pennsylvania primary, McAuliffe said, “Let me congratulate Fox because you were the first ones to call it for Hillary Clinton. Fair and balanced Fox. You beat them all.” When the correspondent kicked it back to the studio, Brit Hume told the audience, while partially laughing, “It certainly is nice to hear none other than Terry McAuliffe, acknowledging that we were first on this call and that saying that as other Clinton representatives have, that we are fair and balanced. We certainly try to be. We’ll take that and be proud of it.” CBR
Paul Begala - Former CNN Crossfire host, current CNN talking head and diehard Clinton loyalist. I am so over him and his fantasyland musings. You have to love how DNC Member Donna Brazille took him to task recently for suggesting that Obama's democratic party doesn't want whites and working class people.
Apparently, way before this election began, Paul Begala got together with Lou Dobbs in heathen New York City, where they ate the Food Of The Working Class and pinned Barack Obama's electoral hopes on whether he could prove that he was able to accommodate dwarves with their insatiable need for marmalade. Or something. Begala may be drunk, or filling the performance-art vacuum left by his absence of pal James Carville. We don't know. But Begala did find a way to denigrate "Volvo drivin', NPR tote bag totin'" liberals, and claim Obama needed to "put the jam on the lower shelf where the little folk can reach it." HuffPo
The Purgatory List: (those whose support Obama does not need)
Mark Penn - "Former" Clinton "chief strategist" with the distinct honor of being rabidly hated by BOTH Obama supporters AND Clinton supporters alike! There is just too much material here! His lobbying for the Columbian government while Hillary claimed that she opposes the trade deal. As many have suggested, Mark Penn really is Clinton's "turd blossom".
On "Hardball" Thursday night, Clinton strategist Mark Penn brought up the word "cocaine" in a discussion about Obama's past drug use. And then, in an exchange with John Edwards strategist Joe Trippi that looked like a Mac vs. PC ad gone bad, Penn tried to suggest that he hadn't mentioned the word at all. Salon
At a strategy session last year, Penn reportedly said that a Clinton win in California would effectively wrap up the nomination by awarding her all of the state's 370 delegates. As we all know, Democrats don't do winner-take-all primaries, but instead use a form of proportional representation that has been in force for about 20 years -- a fact that didn't seem to sink in with the Clinton campaign and their big-state strategy. TPM
Every Clinton Supporter Protesting Outside the DNC Rules & Bylaws Committee - Yes, those knuckle-dragging simps (who Hillary encouraged to come and protest) who chanted insults directed toward members of the DNC, threatened to vote McCain if they didn't get their way, and compared the primaries in Michigan and Florida to slaves not having the right to vote.
Howard Dean may hope that the "healing will begin today," but two blocks away from the northwest Washington Marriott where the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee is meeting right now to try to figure out Florida and Michigan, the Hillary protesters are occupying an utterly alternate (and healing-free) universe: a universe in which one of the big lawn rally's speakers yells that the Democratic Party no longer is in the business of "promoting equality and fairness for all"; in which a Hillary supporter with two poodles shouts, "Howard Dean is a leftist freak!"; in which a man exhibits a sign that reads "At least slaves were counted as 3/5ths a Citizen" and shows Dean whipping handcuffed people; and in which Larry Sinclair, the Minnesota man who took to YouTube to allege that Barack Obama had oral sex with him in the back of a limousine in 1999, is one of the belles of the ball. TNR
Taylor Marsh - Fraud, blowhard, alleged "radio host" and described by many as the Michelle Malkin of the Left. She's been one of the most red-faced and uninformed of all of Clinton's supporters in the "media" and tries her best to keep pushing the meme that Obama has repeatedly tried to paint Clinton as a racist.
The Obama campaign started playing the race card immediately after Obama lost New Hampshire with Jackson Jr., then upped the dialogue with Dyson, going further with the above press release. Playing the race card before South Carolina? It fits right in with the ugly politics that is regularly seen in that state every time the presidential primaries roll around. TM
Fox News - Even though, as I noted above, Clinton's talking head Terry McAuliffe has repeatedly praised Fox Noise for being "fair and balanced", I think the Obama campaign can do just fine without them.
Posted by Metavirus at 6/01/2008 10:00:00 AM
Tags: Barack Obama , Election 2008 , General Election , Hillary Clinton , Primaries
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2 comments:
This is such a brilliant post. I have been thinking about this myself. My concern is that I don't trust these people and they are going to look like phonies anyway all of a sudden talking as if Barack is the best thing since sliced bread. I like you concept of muzzle vs purgatory. Hillarious.
Funny as hell. And so true!!
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