2008 Primaries Thread

LOL

Paula Abdul, ladies & gentlemen:

You know I would love to see a woman. You know, it’ll change the world, having a female president. … Women have the ability to take over when there’s major crisis and breakdown and a woman has the ability to think on a whole different perspective. From a heart place that is different.

So get out there and vote from your heart-place, wherever that may be.

God forgot to give me one of those.

lol me n elmo readin wonkette

x-post: Alfred is at least revealed to be the Tin Man.

Interesting how those RNC Obama Valentines basically parrot Clinton's anti-Obama arguments. Not enough experience, present votes...

i'm now convinced that obama is well and truly the best-dressed man in washington, per the photo on the frontpage here:

http://specials.ft.com/vtf_pdf/110208_FRONT1_USA.pdf

wow obama is really pissing krugman off to the point that he comes one step from comparing him to nixon (then says nothing to back it up)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/opinion/11krugman.html

I laughed aloud on the bus this morning reading that cult-of-personality tripe.

+bonus return of you have no good reason to dislike hillary meme

The prime example of Clinton rules in the 1990s was the way the press covered Whitewater. A small, failed land deal became the basis of a multiyear, multimillion-dollar investigation, which never found any evidence of wrongdoing on the Clintons’ part, yet the “scandal” became a symbol of the Clinton administration’s alleged corruption.

During the current campaign, Mrs. Clinton’s entirely reasonable remark that it took L.B.J.’s political courage and skills to bring Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream to fruition was cast as some kind of outrageous denigration of Dr. King.

And the latest prominent example came when David Shuster of MSNBC, after pointing out that Chelsea Clinton was working for her mother’s campaign — as adult children of presidential aspirants often do — asked, “doesn’t it seem like Chelsea’s sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?” Mr. Shuster has been suspended, but as the Clinton campaign rightly points out, his remark was part of a broader pattern at the network.

whitewater: mountain made of a molehill for political gain

lbj/mlk remark: manufactured controversy invented for political gain

chelsea/pimpin remark: THIS IS SERIOUS BUSINESS GUYZ IRL CONSEQUENCES

what a fucking hack

One of the most hopeful moments of this presidential campaign came last month, when a number of Jewish leaders signed a letter condemning the smear campaign claiming that Mr. Obama was a secret Muslim. It’s a good guess that some of those leaders would prefer that Mr. Obama not become president; nonetheless, they understood that there are principles that matter more than short-term political advantage.

aka "racial puppetry in liberal opinion-writing"

Chelsea remark I guess was the straw that broke the camel's back. MSNBC has been terrible.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zODHaIDfPXU

taken as a whole krugmans distaste for obama, as evidenced by the ongoing multi-column assult, seems to be primarily motivated by a strong reaction to obamas post-partisan rhetoric.

and its not just that he finds it soft-minded and destined to be tooken advantage of by immoral republican wolves (which would be a fine opinion if you like hadnt been paying any attention at all). i get the feeling that he thinks partisan warfare is somehow inherently virtuous. obama is fucking w/some deeply held beliefs there.

“Clinton rules” — the term a number of observers use for the way pundits and some news organizations treat any action or statement by the Clintons, no matter how innocuous, as proof of evil intent.

Exactly. I suppose you guys are quoting Krugman in a sarcastic way?

i think krugman wouldve done better to say that while there is tons of irrational clinton hate, this doesnt make the clintons immune from all the shit he's decrying

i mean seriously after the whitewater thing and the lbj thing, i thought the chelsea para was gonna be him admitting 'ok sometimes hilz plays this game too' - however much you want universal healthcare doesnt make her not a disingenous campaigner

campaigning as the widow of absurdity omglololol chris mathews that dude operates so far out of bounds my god

i'm not the first person to say this, but shuster is being punished for chris matthews' sins, which is a big account to have to settle. and msnbc running a 'headliners & legends' puff piece on Hil, oh, just out of the blue, because it was a great program we had lying around, yeah, awes~~

still, it's good to have someone smacked the fuck down for getting pimp and ho talk into the mainstream media yet one more time.

"tooken advantage" ftw

I certainly don't agree with Hillary on everything but I do see a lot of attacks on her as.. well, once you believe she does/says everything for political gain, for crying out loud she could single handedly cure cancer and stop global warming and Frank Rich/Maureen Dowd/Arianna Huffington, Chris Matthews and everyone at MSNBC would still trash her over it.

Far as I know the outcry over the Chelsea comment came directly from the blogs and word of mouth. I personally saw a reference on a blog (maybe MyDD, I don't read Kos much anymore because it's insane) and sent word to Media Matters as did some others I gather, and MM ran with it, and it went from there.

yah msnbc has been truly over the top w/this shit - its prob one of the reasons ive been primarily watching them on election nights - ie omg did he just say that is way more entertaining than wolf blitzer plus washed up party hacks

i get the feeling that he thinks partisan warfare is somehow inherently virtuous. obama is fucking w/some deeply held beliefs there.

Oh yeah, he's said so on the record, many times: he thinks this generation of Dems is too soft. He's right! But it's one thing to make this legitimate claim adn quite another to construct a false polarity: HRC-strong/Obama-weak. He seems to have convinced himself that Obama is a softie.

I couldn't even find the worst example where someone compiled a video of Chris Matthews sucking up to Rudy Giuliani talking about how America loved him and wanted a strong leader like him and wondering whether he could beat Ahmadinejad in a fight.. and then showed clips of Matthews trashing Hillary over her looks, her clapping, her laugh, the whole "widow of absurdity" thing, why isn't she likable, can a woman really be commander in chief, and on and on.

def shuster was sacrificed for mathews sins

Hmm.. I suspect Krugman thinks Obama's more.. a centrist leaning right on the economy whose advisors have all faith in the markets to solve everything, so they have philosophical differences.

i think dems are way too soft too - but that doesnt mean i disagree w/obama.

its weak to believe fighting is the only way to show or leverage strength.

As opposed to Hillary, who's... a centrist leaning right on the economy whose advisors have all faith in the markets to solve everything

Yeah, Schuster was, I agree. He'll be back soon enough I'm sure (I hope so, I'm not a fan but he's no worse than any of the rest of them). I get why, though, there is a pattern on that network and once a comment is made that's pretty much indefensible, then you make your case.

He seems to forget that Bill Clinton was a centrist leaning right.

yah i dunno daria - this ongoing assault speaks to more than just a few "philosophical differences".

Hillary calls for DC voting rights

serious question: i think i remember bill having the "no taxation for representation" license plate on his secret-service vehicles when he was president - did he or hillary try to do anything about DC voting rights during the 90s?

and shuster is actually better than the most of the rest of them - ie hes actually done a lot of real reporting abt like real stuff - prob just out of his element filling in for tucker trying on the pundit costume.

I thought Krugman was an Edwards fan ultimately..

obama allegedly meeting with edwards later today; hillary met with him thursday

yah i dunno daria - this ongoing assault speaks to more than just a few "philosophical differences".

Well, it must be somewhat lonely to be one of the few Clinton-backers on the Times columnist staff: most of the other liberal and even the conservative columnists (such as Kristol and Brooks) have lined up in Obama's camp. His criticisms of Obama are no more shrill than their attacks on Clinton have been.

Not sure re: DC voting rights in the 90's.. the GOP was in control most of that time. I didn't move here until 99 myself.

Frank Rich on Sunday was the worst thing I've read in a while. Did the Clintons shoot his dog or something?

yah maybe its all just times editorial page crazylanditis

somerby has documented rich's devotion to clinton rules over the years, if you want to put yourself through the agony

pretty sure clinton didn't do jack about voting rights besides the license plates, but I think that's partially b/c the issue is mostly congress's deal anyway.

lol those license plates are the best tho

yeah you can't get any other license plate now in dc but that one

This business of not counting all of the votes in Washington can only help Huckabee and Paul, eh?

yeah, dc plates are great, I have them. They didn't do that until 2000 actually, Clinton specifically had them switched right before he left office. It was "Celebrate and Discover" before that. boring

we had a "free dc: no taxation w/o representation" poster in the window of my group house during college, our landlord was pissed about for one reason or another

I think that's partially b/c the issue is mostly congress's deal anyway.

Not sure re: DC voting rights in the 90's.. the GOP was in control most of that time.

yea that's what i was kinda thinking