War for Ukraine Day 1,546: The Cost
14 hours ago
Showing posts with label Hillary Clinton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hillary Clinton. Show all posts
Sunday, September 14, 2008
SNL's Tina Fey as Sarah Palin
Here's the video of Saturday Night Live's Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin alongside Amy Poehler's Hillary Clinton. This was the only funny bit to come out of last night's SNL:
Sunday, August 31, 2008
McCain Picks Sarah Palin? Seriously?
I just got back from my friend's wedding and have been absorbing the profoundly disturbing news that McCain made one of the most incomprehensibly irresponsible, politically motivated decisions in the history of modern presidential politics: the selection of Sarah freaking Palin as his VP. Are you kidding me? Seriously?
I've had some time to digest a large number of reactions from around the media and blogosphere and I am still unable to fully comprehend how shockingly reckless, craven and "manifestly unserious" this decision truly was.
On the one hand, you have Sarah Palin and how dishonest, inexperienced, extreme, corrupt and unvetted (seriously unvetted) she appears to be (see below for a 50-point list of what we know about her to date). Don't even get me started on the shameless tokenism that this represents. Even the Republican Alaska Senate Senate President had this to say of her:
"She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president? Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?"
On the other hand, you have John McCain and how this decision so blatantly reveals him to be an intellectually incurious, cynical, impulsive, "shoot-from-the-hip" nutjob who is more concerned with winning an election than choosing a qualified person to fill the second-most important job in the world.
I will post more on the topic but in the meanwhile, check out this remarkable list of what we know about Sara Palin thus far, compiled by an intrepid kossack:- Sarah Palin has an Abramoff problem - a Pro-Palin illegal mailer was sent during her gubernatorial campaign on behalf of Palin by the RGA, the DC group that got money from Abramoff, Reed, etc.
- She advocated AGAINST mine safety / pollution control
- She has an ANTI-ENVIRONMENT RECORD and is on the wrong side of global warming and doesn't think polar bears should be listed as endangered because it interferes with her drilling plans.
- She's against sex education - abstinence only.
- Don't believe the whispers that she supportive of the GLBT community. She's opposed to state health benefits for same-sex partners and only vetoed a resolution that would have ended state benefits because the Supreme Court had already declared it unconstitutional.
- She's opposed to universal health care and stem cell research
- No foreign policy experience? According to the folks at FOX think she has foreign policy experience because "Alaska is near Russia." Oh, and she didn't even have a passport until last year.
- This choice is NOT helping McCain's polling numbers, especially with women.
- McCain only met Sarah Palin ONCE and talked to her TWICE making this a purely cynical and desperate political appointment by HIS CAMPAIGN not by him! She's not really HIS VP choice.
- She's deeply connected to the Bridge to Nowhere.
- She stated that she would force her own daughter to have a rapist's child.
- She has 3 houses
- Terre pointed out that she's connected to VECO - the company at the heart of Ted Stevens' troubles. She also received an endorsement from Ted that has suddenly disappeared from her webpage.
- She called candidate Clinton a whiner. Why does everyone in the McCain campaign think others are whiners?
- She apparently hasn't taken a stand on most major political issues
- Her selection has created a major rift among the Republicans, especially Romney & Pawlenty.
- Past quotes by Rove make Palin's selection look like desperation.
- Palin may have been scrubbing her own wikipedia page
- Sarah Palin, Buchanite - Palin supported Pat Buchanan in 2000, a fact which may alienate certain Florida voters. Hat tip to misslotus
- She was vetted too quickly and McCain only picked her the night before making the announcement.
- She's still focused on Alaska not the fact the she would be Vice President for the whole nation.
- She participated in a profane on-air attack againt the Alaskan State Senate President and giggled at the word b*tch..
- Like Bush and McCain, she can't admit when she's wrong.
- She's linked to the Dominionist movement and Joel's Army.
- The United Steelworkers have already spoken out against her.
- She was a bad mayor who left her town's economy in tatters.
- She supported Obama's energy plan, but suddenly these references are disappearing.
- Some of the PUMA's believe that John McCain is patronizing them.
- Additionally, this choice eliminates the "He's not ready" attack on Obama.
- This choice raises the issue of McCain's age (Is Palin ready to take over if he keels over).
- It also raises the issue of McCain's past unfavorable statements against women.
- Additionally, this choice reminds us that McCain is an adulterer and raises the spectre that he is just a dirty old man with wandering eyes.
- Palin's husband is on BP's payroll creating a possible conflict of interest.
- She made extremely poor use of Eminent Domain during her time as mayor.
- She favors censoring library books (Alert your local librarian!)
- Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young (both under investigation) campaigned for her in 2006.
- She didn't support McCain in the primaries.
- The top 2 ALASKAN newspapers question her fitness for the job.
- She supports aerial hunting of wolves even though it was outlawed by Congress. She's using a loophole.. Hat tip to Scarce
- Undecideds apparently don't like the Palin pick. Thanks marabout40!
- More environmental problems - She fighting to prevent Belugas from being listed as endangered. Thanks again Terre!
- In addition to polar bears, belugas, and wolves, for the first time in Alaskan history she is supporting hunting black bear sows and cubs. Thank you for the information Bodean.
- She's either going to be distracted by being deposed soon or she is going to draw negative attention by trying to avoid being deposed.
- There have been discussion of witness tampering and possible impeachment hearings related to charges of her abuse of power
- MEME: Palin's selection provides a clear example of John McCain's hasty decision-making and poor judgement on important issues (like who would be best qualified to take his place if he could not complete his term).
- She wants to destroy 1.5 MILLION ACRES of ANWR, not the 2000 acres she has lied about on the news.
- Palin stated "I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq.."
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Bill Clinton Gives Great Speech at Convention - Video
Here's Andrew Sullivan's take:
Tonight, I think, was one of the best speeches [Clinton] has ever given. It was direct, personal and powerful endorsement of Obama. But much, much more than that: it was a statesman-like assessment of where this country is and how desperately it needs a real change toward reform and retrenchment at home and restoration of diplomacy, wisdom and prudence abroad. Yes, he nailed it with this line: "People around the world have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power"...
[S]ince 2000, the worst aspects of Republicanism have crowded out its once necessary virtues. The reflexive impulse to use force over diplomacy, to use aggression over persuasion, to spend and borrow with no concern for the future, and to violate sacred principles such as the eschewal of torture with no respect for the past: these must not just be left behind. They have to be repudiated.The United States needs this, as does the world. McCain, alas, cannot provide this. He may once have. But his party is too far gone, and his moment passed. His use of fear and deception and brattish contempt in this campaign have sealed the deal for me. But Clinton reminded all of us of what is mor broadly at stake. He did it with passion and measure and eloquence.
We've seen the worst of Bill Clinton these past few months, Tonight, we saw the best. And it's mighty good.
Here's the video:
Update: Go here to view the full transcript of Bill Clinton's speech.
Reactions to the Clinton DNC Speech
For the record, I thought Hillary's speech was great. See my take and the video here.
Here are some reactions from The Daily Dish
I'll amend this if I'm mistaken but on first read of Hillary's speech text I see no clear, flat assertion that Obama is qualified and prepared to be commander in chief from day one, which of course was always her central critique of him. That was something I had expected to see.
I agree with the rapidly-emerging conventional wisdom that she did everything he could possibly want, and I think Hillary's delivery is miles ahead of where she was when she began this race. She ate her Wheaties this morning.
I'd say that Sen. Clinton has had the best performance so far, by a wide margin, both in terms of attacking John McCain and the Republicans head-on and defining a nauseatingly comprehensive set of plans for raising taxes, getting mad at companies for "shipping job overseas," and pushing universal health care (or more accurately, even more expensive and less effective health care).
Most of this speech could have been given a year ago. It has nods to Obama, but it's almost entirely about her. It's not an attack on McCain, it's not a case for electing Obama, it's just nostalgia and platitudes.
Clinton did little to sell Obama's personal characteristics, his qualities or ability as commander in chief. She mentioned Obama 12 times, McCain 12 times. But Clinton's speech probably did what it had to, closing out ambiguity and putting Obama in a position to close the deal on Thursday.
After watching Hillary tonight I imagine the William Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Reverend Michael Pfleger, Reverend James Meeks and Samantha Powers (ousted Obama advisor) wish they had backed her. This woman does not throw people under the bus. She is a person of integrity and sticks to her word. She sticks with people who, by their conduct, deserve to be abandoned. But she finds in herself the grace to forgive and look pass the sin. She promised to support the nominee, no ifs, ands, or buts. And she delivered. She gave Barack Obama everything he could want and much more than he deserves.
Maybe it's unfair to expect this of Hillary specifically, but what I want at some point during the convention is the equivalent of what Zell Miller did in 2004 with his keynote: vicious, personal attacks against John McCain. The kind of attacks that Obama can't do because of his image, and Biden can't do because of his friendship with the Macker.
It wasn't a speech about Barack Obama, or Hillary Clinton, or even George W. Bush. It was a speech about being a Democrat, and what electing a Democrat will mean for the country. Tonight, she was the party's standard bearer. And she, and those of her supporters who aren't using her candidacy as a means to elect John McCain, deserved that.
...this was an immensely powerful delivery, and a richly woven together speech. The beginning seemed fine but not remarkable. But it slowly built into something very powerful.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Hillary Clinton: Great Job - Video
I just watched Hillary Clinton's speech at the Convention and I think she did a great job. As many of you know, I was not exactly a supporter of her during the primaries but I am proud of the job she did tonight. I think this will do a lot of good for Obama.
Update - Here is the video:
Secret Mountain Fortress
Dave Barry captures my almost-nervousness about today:
Sen. Clinton is scheduled to address the convention Tuesday night, when she will either call on her supporters to unite behind Obama, or attempt to snatch the nomination and escape with it by helicopter to a secret mountain fortress. ''We are fully confident that Sen. Clinton will do the right thing,'' stated a Democratic party official, adding, "but we have a net.''
Friday, August 15, 2008
Baracky II
This is one of the better grassroots Obama videos I've seen. I especially like the bits of Barack and Hillary training together. Great stuff:
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Poisoning the Well
I'm pretty significantly depressed this evening.
I went to a going-away function some friends at work threw me and I chatted with a friend of mine who I haven't talked to in months. As it turns out, she was a huge Clinton supporter and launched into a tirade about how Obama was terribly sexist throughout his campaign and that she planned on not voting in the general election as a result.
I have read a bunch of pontificating about how Clinton supporters are wounded and hurt that their candidate didn't win. I have read a bunch of commentary arguing that the benefits of Clinton's gender (in terms of her strong female following in the primary) were far outweighed by the rampant negative sexism employed to tear her down. I have bought into the general notion that most of this anger and grief over Clinton's fall was centralized among so-called "low-information" voters.
Well, I got a dose of reality tonight. My work friend is a highly informed, highly intelligent corporate litigator. She is the first truly engaged friend of mine I've come across to hold the views I noted above.
My conversation with her makes me depressed because a lot of the anger and vitriol that my friend (and thousands of other Clinton supporters out there) holds in her heart could have been mitigated somewhat by Clinton bowing out more gracefully without launching a months-long umbrage campaign about how all the horrible sexism in this country was the main thing holding her back.
Look, there was sexism in this campaign and there was racism. All true. But, let's be honest. Clinton didn't win the nomination for much more enormous reasons than her gender.
She ran an antiquated 1990s campaign in the 21st century.
She failed to attempt to leverage online donors until it was too late.
She relied on the profoundly flawed advice of Mark Penn, who will likely go down as one of the worst campaign strategists in modern memory.
She failed to contest the caucus states.
She ran an "experience" campaign in a "change" election season.
And the list goes on and on.
It really galls me to think that a strong progressive women like my friend will be turned off enough to either not vote (like my friend) or vote for McCain due in large part to Clinton choosing to pour gasoline on the simmering flames of sexism among her supporters.
I won't sleep well tonight.
Nader Siphons From McCain Because of Clinton Supporters?
I was digging through the new Bloomberg/LA Times poll today and had an interesting thought based on the following observation in the story:
On a four-man ballot including independent candidate Ralph Nader and Libertarian Bob Barr, voters chose Obama over McCain ... 48% to 33%.
Nader ... and Barr ... both appear to siphon more votes from McCain than they do from Obama. When Nader and Barr are added to the ballot, they draw most of their support from voters who said they would otherwise vote for the Republican.
Now, factor this in to the following with respect to the head-to-head match-up between McCain and Obama:
The great majority of Clinton voters have transferred their allegiance to Obama, the poll found. Only 11% of Clinton voters have defected to McCain.
Based on these numbers, I wonder if the addition of Nader to the mix is siphoning off a large chunk of the 11% of angry Clinton voters that might otherwise choose to support McCain as a second choice in a protest vote resulting from Clinton not getting the nomination.
After all, you'd hope that those 11% would be rational enough to realize that McCain would be disastrous for most of the policy positions that Hillary Clinton supports and that Nader would be much closer to Clinton that McCain would be (at least on most issues).
Could it be possible that in this kind of calculus, Nader could actually be worse for McCain than for Obama?
Hmm...
Monday, June 16, 2008
McCain Has a Strange Way of Wooing Clinton Supporters
John McCain has a really strange approach to wooing Clinton supporters.
In his recent "townhall" organized to do just that, he pretty much highlighted all of the reasons why his positions are anathema to many women (and Democrats in general).
Here is the HuffPo article with McCain's own words below:
McCain on Roe v. Wade:
"Roe v. Wade, we obviously will have a disagreement. I think it was a bad decision."
McCain on abortion rights:
"[W]e have to change the culture of America. We have to convince people of our view that the rights of the unborn are as important as the rights of the born."
McCain on medically necessary late-term abortions:
"I am unalterably opposed to partial birth abortion."
McCain on the two or more Supreme Court appointments the next president is likely to make:
"I would find people along the lines of Justice Roberts."
"I wouldn't have selected Justice Ginsberg or Justice Breyer."
"I believe that interpretation of the Constitution, and only that, should be the criteria for Supreme Court justices."
McCain on gay rights and "don't ask, don't tell":
"Don't ask, don't tell: I want to rely on the advice and counsel of our military leaders. As president ... I will ask the Joint Chiefs of Staff to go back and review that and other policies to see whether those policies are appropriate, and I do rely on them to a large degree because they're the ones we entrust the leadership of the lives of our young men and women in our military. And I'm sure you may have a disagreement with that policy."
McCain on his own intelligence:
"You don't have to be real smart. I stood fifth from the bottom of my class at the naval academy, which shows in America anything is possible."
McCain's on what makes America great:
"We're the only country in the world that has over time sent our young Americans to shed our most precious asset -- American blood -- in defense of someone else's freedom."
Why would a Clinton supporter want to vote for this guy again?
Interesting Twist on the Veepstakes
Among undecided voters, 25 percent said Clinton's presence would make them more inclined to vote for the Democratic ticket, but 38 percent said she would make them less likely to vote Democratic.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Time for Everyone to Stop the "Popular Vote" Argument
Senator Dianne Feinstein, one of Sen. Clinton's closest supporters, kept pushing the false "Clinton won the popular vote" meme today on This Week with George Stephanopoulus:
"Hillary Clinton is well known, certainly she had the popular vote in this election."
Sen. Dianne Feinstein reiterated that Clinton had won the popular vote — an assertion that is not accepted by Illinois Democrat Sen. Barack Obama’s camp and one that, if repeated often, could harm Democratic attempts to unify behind him.
If this meme keeps getting repeated, it will metastasize the (largely justified) disappointment and hurt that Clinton supporters are feeling right now and will solidify for them the notion that Hillary was somehow robbed of the nomination.
Unlike in the general election where every state has their citizens cast a ballot for President, the democratic primaries involve both primaries (where each person casts their vote) and caucuses, where people gather in a room, express their support for their candidate and, from such internal voting, delegates for each caucus are apportioned to the state convention. As a result, the popular vote numbers that you see are not apples-to-apples comparisons.
Now add to the mix that Obama was not on the ballot in Michigan (from which state Clinton supporters continue to insist that Obama got zero votes, even though the DNC Rules & Bylaws Committee reached a compromise and apportioned all of "uncommitted" delegates to Obama). In addition, none of the candidates were allowed to campaign for votes in Florida. Further stir into the Michigan and Florida equation the fact that hundreds of thousands of people did not vote because they were told that their vote would not count at the Convention (as reflected in the fact that both states' voter turnout was much lower than expectations) and you get a highly polluted set of data from which to draw "certain" or "unquestionable" conclusions.
Final data point. In Washington, Iowa, Maine and Nevada, these states did not release an official estimate of voter turnout. However, Clinton supporters like Sen. Feinstein are content to completely disregard any tabulation or estimate of the turnout in such states in order to make the damaging argument that Sen. Clinton somehow "won" the popular vote. Are voters' voices in Washington, Iowa, Maine and Nevada not supposed to be heard?
From the above analysis, I hope most of you will agree that the fairest assessment of the popular vote is to give the "uncommitted" Michigan votes to Obama and give both candidates the estimates of voter turnout in Washington, Iowa, Maine and Nevada.
There are only two conclusions to draw:
- If you tally up the popular vote in the fairest and even-handed way described above, you'll see from RealClearPolitics that Obama is ahead of Clinton by 61,703 votes.
- If you decide to tally up the popular vote in some other skewed and selective manner, the vote tally you come up with is too questionable to be asserted by our nation's respected leaders as unquestionable fact.
Obama is now the presumptive nominee.
Hillary Clinton has suspended her campaign and endorsed Obama with a ringing call for party unity.
In the interest of party unity, as so eloquently expressed by Senator Clinton yesterday, we all need let the whole popular vote argument go. It can only serve to make people angry, prolong the grieving process and hurt the Democrat's chances in the fall against John McCain.
Let's All Calm Down and Reflect
I appreciated the bulk of Clinton's speech yesterday but let's not all go overboard here:
It needs to be said that Hillary struck an extraordinarily difficult balancing act with real grace and eloquence. On the one hand, she needed to signal that she has built a movement of her own and to reinforce the idea that she is the undisputed leader of American women -- both as a genuine point of pride and as proof of her undiminishing influence. Hence the repeated references to the 18 million votes she earned.
This is buying into a dangerous meme, as The Jed Report highlights. Sure, she did well among women in many of the primary contests but Obama ran a strong second in the vast majority of states in which Hillary carried the women vote. He also won the female vote in 14 states. "The undisputed leader of American women" is a mantle both deceptive and dangerous. Let's not calcify the us-vs-them wound that needs to heal in the Party.
The vast bulk of Hillary's supporters, 90% or so according to most estimations based on current polling and historical precedent, will come to support Obama after a short time of unity-building. We need to get over the "you got your votes and I got mine" mentality.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Clinton's Concession Speech
Color me impressed. I generally thought that Clinton's concession speech today hit many of the right notes. Three relatively minor criticisms:
- She spoke at length about fighting for women's issues. However, she did not follow up her point by saying: "Having said all that, I can assure everyone here today that you will find no better champion for women's issues remaining in this campaign than Senator Barack Obama."
- She failed to mention John McCain and make the explicit point that her supporters should not vote for the Republican just because they might feel slighted after the nomination contest.
- She made a passing reference to her intellectually dishonest "18 million" votes, without a forceful climb-down statement that Obama won this contest fair-and-square, with more votes and more delegates. As summarized by RCP, she only validly gets past the 18 million vote threshold if she gives MI "uncommitted" votes to Obama and factors in the caucus voting estimates from IA, NV, WA and ME -- at which point Obama has 18,107,710 votes and she has 18,046,007 (a net plus for Obama of 61,703)
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Hillary Clinton Going Forward
A reader writes:
I think we all need to lighten up on Clinton. There's a high chance at this point that she'll be fitting the VP position, despite all that is wrong with her - the Rev. Wright egging on, non-committal answers about Barack's religion, political exploitation of Florida and Michigan, and ad hominem attacks. We've gotten what we've wanted, Barack on the ballot - now we have to help the Democratic party as a whole.
This is a really weird and tough email to write. I'm the biggest Obama supporter in my small town and have rallied a coalition of fellow high school students around the cause (I will be eligible to vote in November). I've never been able to stand Hillary as a person, but I still believe that at this point in history, we can't afford to keep making negative comments about her.
First of all, thanks very much for your advice and feedback -- and thanks for reading! To address your points, I largely agree with you.
Now that Hillary Clinton will be endorsing Obama on Saturday and suspending her campaign, I agree that further commentary on her machinations would largely not be fruitful. This, of course, comes with a caveat. I will take her at her word that once she suspends her campaign and endorses, she will campaign strongly for Obama and do nothing to undermine him. If this comes to pass, I will hold my
However, as to the VP question, I must respectfully disagree. As I've noted here before, I think that she would be a terrible choice for VP, for a variety of reasons. For full disclosure, I have come to dislike her as a person and a candidate. I don't trust her and believe she has little capacity for honesty or integrity. However, there are a host of less emotional reasons not to want her as VP:
- As recently reported, the big "deal-breaker" would likely be Bill's refusal to fully disclose and open for vetting his questionable business activities after leaving the White House and the donors to his presidential library. Any VP and their family must be vetted and if this can't happen, it's a non-starter.
- One important quality of a VP is the need for them not to overshadow their boss. Take your pick of what Hillary brings to the table that has the huge potential to overshadow Obama.
- As a philosophical matter, Hillary represents (rightly or wrongly) the precise kind of sleazy, do-anything, say-anything Washington insiderism that Obama is running against. Bringing her onto the ticket would tarnish his image as a reformer.
- There are many other posts that Obama could offer and be seen as magnanimous to Clinton supporters, especially if Hillary subsequently discusses how she never wanted the VP job in the first place and that Obama offered and she declined.
- Hillary Clinton on the ticket, whether in the primary or subordinate role, would do for John McCain what he is unable to do himself -- galvanize the Republican base and bring out a better voter turnout.
- There are SO many other good VP picks out there that do not have Hillary's high negatives. Obama can pick a running-mate with solid bona fides without getting tarnished by the 51+% of the country that does not trust Hillary.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Hillary to Drop Out and Endorse Obama on Friday
Again, please God, let this be true. Reports out this evening say that Hillary Clinton will drop out of the race on Friday and endorse Obama.
More Clinton Speech Reactions
I can't stress how much anger I feel at having Clinton manipulate her way into (and piss all over) Obama's grand moment last night.
Here's more reactions to her speech (hat tip Andrew Sullivan)
I don't know what the fallout will be, but at minimum, I'd say that anybody on her staff who cares about their party has a moral obligation to publicly quit and endorse Obama.
If Clinton wants people to believe that she cares more about the Democratic Party than her own career, she is failing badly.
Hillary Clinton had one last chance, tonight, to exit the stage with dignity. She missed it.
JPod:
You don’t get psychodrama like this very often. It’s like political reality TV.
Last Night's Clinton Speech
I woke up this morning still fuming and found an article that sums up much of my feelings about Clinton's graceless, classless non-concession speech last night. Here it is in its entirety: I'm sure plenty of people had strong reactions to that speech Hillary just gave. For my money, the two most outragerous sentiments expressed were (and this is from my rough contemporaneous notes): 1.) "What does Hillary want? ... I want the nearly 18 million Americans who voted for me to be respected, to be heard, no longer to be invisible." Then, a little later, "...Opportunity--that's what I want for every single American… It is a fight I will continue until every single American has health care, no exceptions, no excuses." When Hillary says she wants her 18 million voters to be respected and heard, but opportunity and health care for every single American, she seems to be saying, pretty unambiguously, that not giving her the nomination--not privileging the will of her voters--would be an illegitimate outcome. (Otherwise, why not say you want every single American "respected and heard"?) That's a pretty inflammatory comment. 2.) "To the 18 million people who voted for me, and many other people out there… I want to hear from you… I’ll be consulting with supporters and party leaders, to determine how to move forward, with the best interests of our party and our country in mind." So she's going to leave it to her voters to decide whether she should accept defeat after having, you know, lost? What if every losing candidate left it to their supporters to decide whether or not to accept the outcome of a race? Who would ever accept defeat? What good could possibly come of this? With Hillary proclaiming herself the legitimate winner, they're clearly going to say "keep going." If she actually does keep going, that's a disaster for the Democratic Party. And if she doesn't, you've just drawn a ton of attention to the fact that a large chunk of the party doesn't accept Obama as the legimiate nominee. No, worse: you've encouraged them to think that, then drawn attention to it. What a disaster. Update: Here's the precise version of the first quote: You know, I understand that a lot of people are asking, what does Hillary want? What does she want? Well, I want what I have always fought for in this whole campaign. I want to end the war in Iraq. I want to turn this economy around. I want health care for every American. I want every child to live up to his or her God-given potential, and I want the nearly 18 million Americans who voted for me to be respected, to be heard and no longer to be invisible. ... A commenter expressed confusion about my point here, so let me put it slightly differently: Taken by itself, it's a little unclear what Hillary means when she says she wants the 18 million Americans who voted for her to be respected, heard, not invisible. Wanting people to be respected, heard, etc. is a legitimate desire, just like wanting them to have health care and to live up to their God-given potential. It's when Hillary says she wants the latter for everyone, but the former only for her supporters, that things start to get weird. That's how you know she's essentially saying, "Those 18 million votes should make me the nominee." And here's the second quote: But this has always been your campaign, so to the 18 million people who voted for me and to our many other supporters out there of all ages, I want to hear from you. I hope you'll go to my website at HillaryClinton.com and share your thoughts with me and help in any way that you can.
That Outrageous, Delusional Clinton Speech by Michael Crowley
This nation has given me every opportunity, and that's what I want for every single American. ... And it is a fight I will continue until every single American has health insurance. No exceptions and no excuses.
In the coming days, I’ll be consulting with supporters and party leaders to determine how to move forward with the best interests of our party and our country guiding my way.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Clinton a Classless Extortionist
Well, she did exactly what I predicted in her not-concession speech tonight: she kept alive the canard that somehow the nomination was stolen from her.
I am listening to Obama's speech right now and his speech is as generous and graceful as hers was stingy and classless. Thank God we have Barack Obama. I trust him to dispose of this terrible person in a classy and subtle way.
Here's what a Daily Dish reader had to say of Clinton's speech:
What Democrats needed from Clinton tonight, aside from at last CONCEDING to Obama, was to go after McCain with everything she had: this would have been a first step to pulling her supporters into the larger Democratic fold. Instead, incredibly, she chose to continue her veiled critique of Obama. Instead, incredibly, she chose to emphasize and repeat all of her lies: that she won the popular vote, that she has "more votes than any other candidate who's ever run in the primaries", and, most damagingly, insinuating that somehow, this election was "stolen" from her. We see, more clearly than ever, that this is not about defeating Republicans in 2008: it is, for her, solely about her own career.
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