Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Clinton racism

Marc Ambinder (February 27, 2008) - Adelfa Callejo, Welcome To The Spotlight: "The newscaster quoted her saying “Obama’s problem is that he happens to be black.”

Clinton: “Well obviously I want us judged on our merits. I believe strongly that the fact that we have an Aftrican Ameircan and a woman running for the Democratic nomination is historical and I’m very very proud of that . I want people thought to look beyond, look beyond race and gender, look at our records, look what we stand for, look what we’ve done and I think that;s what most voters are looking for.”

Q (paraphrase) Is this something you reject and denounce?

“People have every reason to express their opinions. I just don’t agree with that. I think that we should be looking at the individuals who are running.”

Q - Do you still want her support, though?

Clinton laughed and said, “You know This is a free country. People get to express their opinions. A lot of folks have said really unpleasant things about me over the course of this campaign. You can’ take any of that as anything other than an individual opinion.”"

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Clinton incompetence

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan: "Clinton is a terrible manager of people. Coming into a campaign she had been planning for, what, two decades, she was so not ready on Day One, or even Day 300. Her White House, if we can glean anything from the campaign, would be a secretive nest of well-fed yes-people, an uncontrollable egomaniac spouse able and willing to bigfoot anyone if he wants to, a phalanx of flunkies who cannot tell the boss when things are wrong, and a drizzle of dreary hacks like Mark Penn. Her only genuine skill is pivoting off the Limbaugh machine (which is now as played out as its enemies). Her new weapon is apparently bursting into tears. I mean: really."

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Washington Wire - WSJ.com : Clinton Apologizes for Husband's Comments

Washington Wire - WSJ.com : Clinton Apologizes for Husband's Comments: "“If anyone was offended by anything that was said, whether it was meant or not, or misinterpreted or not, then obviously, I regret that,” Clinton said in a question and answer session at the annual “State of the Black Union” symposium held in New Orleans.

“My husband apologized for slavery."

Thursday, February 21, 2008

George F. Will - Playing the 'Fair' Card - washingtonpost.com

George F. Will - Playing the 'Fair' Card - washingtonpost.com: "Their, and her, sense of entitlement is encapsulated in her constant invocations of her '35 years' of 'experience.' Well.

She is 60. She left Yale Law School at age 25. Evidently she considers everything she has done since school, from her years at Little Rock's Rose Law Firm to her good fortune with cattle futures, as presidentially relevant experience.

The president who came to office with the most glittering array of experiences had served 10 years in the House of Representatives, then became minister to Russia, then served 10 years in the Senate, then four years as secretary of state (during a war that enlarged the nation by 33 percent), then was minister to Britain. Then, in 1856, James Buchanan was elected president and in just one term secured a strong claim to being ranked as America's worst president. Abraham Lincoln, the inexperienced former one-term congressman, had an easy act to follow."

Monday, February 18, 2008

What Was I Thinking?: Books: The New Yorker

What Was I Thinking?: Books: The New Yorker: "Ariely and a colleague asked students at M.I.T.’s Sloan School of Management to write the last two digits of their Social Security number at the top of a piece of paper. They then told the students to record, on the same paper, whether they would be willing to pay that many dollars for a fancy bottle of wine, a not-so-fancy bottle of wine, a book, or a box of chocolates. Finally, the students were told to write down the maximum figure they would be willing to spend for each item. Once they had finished, Ariely asked them whether they thought that their Social Security numbers had had any influence on their bids. The students dismissed this idea, but when Ariely tabulated the results he found that they were kidding themselves. The students whose Social Security number ended with the lowest figures—00 to 19—were the lowest bidders. For all the items combined, they were willing to offer, on average, sixty-seven dollars. The students in the second-lowest group—20 to 39—were somewhat more free-spending, offering, on average, a hundred and two dollars. The pattern continued up to the highest group—80 to 99—whose members were willing to spend an average of a hundred and ninety-eight dollars, or three times as much as those in the lowest group, for the same items."

Clinton incompetence

Obsidian Wings: They're Not a Machine:
"Supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton are worried that convoluted delegate rules in Texas could water down the impact of strong support for her among Hispanic voters there, creating a new obstacle for her in the must-win presidential primary contest.

Several top Clinton strategists and fundraisers became alarmed after learning of the state's unusual provisions during a closed-door strategy meeting this month, according to one person who attended.

What Clinton aides discovered is that in certain targeted districts, such as Democratic state Sen. Juan Hinojosa's heavily Hispanic Senate district in the Rio Grande Valley, Clinton could win an overwhelming majority of votes but gain only a small edge in delegates. At the same time, a win in the more urban districts in Dallas and Houston -- where Sen. Barack Obama expects to receive significant support -- could yield three or four times as many delegates.

Good lord, let’s see if I have this right. The Clinton campaign decides to cede every post-Super Tuesday state to Obama under the theory that Texas and Ohio will be strong firewalls. After – after – implementing this Rudy-esque strategy, they “discovered” that the archaic Texas rules will almost certainly result in a split delegate count (at best)."

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Clinton incompetence

Obsidian Wings: Ready To Lead: "Valuing loyalty over competence is a terrible trait in a manager. But so are other things that come through in this piece: putting off decisions that obviously need to be made, for instance, and letting personnel problems fester rather than resolving them, and having subordinates who 'protect' you from bad news that you really need to know. But the one that particularly struck me -- which is why I quoted Greene at such length -- was this: In 2006, Solis Doyle first burned through an extraordinary amount of money in 2006 -- the NYT story Greene quotes says that the campaign spent '$27,000 for valet parking, paid as much as $800 in a single month in credit card interest and — above all — paid tens of thousands of dollars a month to an assortment of consultants and aides.' She then demonstrably lied about the campaign's financial situation in ways that angered Clinton's base of donors. Various Clinton insiders, including (according to Greene) Terry McAuliffe and Maggie Williams -- tried to get her fired. And yet Clinton hired her to manage her Presidential campaign."

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Clinton sleaze: The Clintons' Terror Pardons

The Clintons' Terror Pardons - WSJ.com: "While the pardon scandals that marked Bill and Hillary Clinton's final days in office are remembered as transactions involving cronies, criminals and campaign contributors, the FALN clemencies of 1999 should be remembered in the context of the increasing threat of domestic and transnational terrorism that was ramping up during the Clinton years of alleged peace and prosperity. To wit, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1995 Tokyo subway Sarin attack, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the 1995 'Bojinka' conspiracy to hijack airplanes and crash them into buildings, the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, the 1996 Summer Olympics bombing, Osama bin Laden's 1996 and 1998 'Declarations of War' on America, the 1998 East African embassy bombings, the 2000 USS Sullivans bombing attempt, the 2000 USS Cole bombing, and the 2000 Millennium bombing plot.

It was within that context that the FBI gave its position on the FALN clemencies -- which the White House succeeded in keeping out of news coverage but ultimately failed to suppress -- stating that "the release of these individuals will psychologically and operationally enhance the ongoing violent and criminal activities of terrorist groups, not only in Puerto Rico, but throughout the world." The White House spun the clemencies as a sign of the president's universal commitment to "peace and reconciliation" just one year after Osama bin Laden told his followers that the United States is a "paper tiger" that can be attacked with impunity.

It would be a mistake to dismiss as "old news" the story of how and why these terrorists were released in light of the fact that it took place during the precise period when Bill Clinton now claims he was avidly engaged, even "obsessed," with efforts to protect the public from clandestine terrorist attacks. If Bill and Hillary Clinton were willing to pander to the demands of local Hispanic politicians and leftist human-rights activists defending bomb-makers convicted of seditious conspiracy, how might they stand up to pressure from other interest groups working in less obvious ways against U.S. interests in a post-9/11 world?

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Clinton sleaze

Next Up for the Democrats: Civil War - New York Times: "Last month a Hispanic pollster employed by the Clinton campaign pitted the two groups against each other by telling The New Yorker that Hispanic voters have “not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates.” Mrs. Clinton then seconded the motion by telling Tim Russert in a debate that her pollster was “making a historical statement.”

It wasn’t an accurate statement, historical or otherwise. It was a lie, and a bigoted lie at that, given that it branded Hispanics, a group as heterogeneous as any other, as monolithic racists. As the columnist Gregory Rodriguez pointed out in The Los Angeles Times, all three black members of Congress in that city won in heavily Latino districts; black mayors as various as David Dinkins in New York in the 1980s and Ron Kirk in Dallas in the 1990s received more than 70 percent of the Hispanic vote. The real point of the Clinton campaign’s decision to sow misinformation and racial division, Mr. Rodriguez concluded, was to “undermine one of Obama’s central selling points, that he can build bridges and unite Americans of all types.”"

Friday, February 08, 2008

Declarations - WSJ.com

Declarations - WSJ.com: "With Mr. Obama the campaign will be about issues. 'He'll raise your taxes.' He will, and I suspect Americans may vote for him anyway. But the race won't go low.

Mrs. Clinton would be easier for Republicans. With her cavalcade of scandals, they'd be delighted to go at her. They'd get medals for it. Consultants would get rich on it.

The Democrats have it exactly wrong. Hillary is the easier candidate, Mr. Obama the tougher. Hillary brings negative; it's fair to hit her back with negative. Mr. Obama brings hope, and speaks of a better way. He's not Bambi, he's bulletproof.

The biggest problem for the Republicans will be that no matter what they say that is not issue oriented--'He's too young, he's never run anything, he's not fully baked'--the mainstream media will tag them as dealing in racial overtones, or undertones. You can bet on this. Go to the bank on it.

The Democrats continue not to recognize what they have in this guy. Believe me, Republican professionals know. They can tell."

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Clinton sleaze: Cash Strapped Clinton Campaign -- Stunt?

ABC News: Cash Strapped Clinton Campaign -- Stunt?: "One longtime Democratic consultant not affiliated with any campaign wondered if perhaps the whole thing wasn't a big stunt to garner media attention and look like an 'underdog.'

'I'd take this revelation as a sign that they planned this whole thing,' the consultant said."

Clinton sleaze

With Friends Like These ...: "THE DONORS
Marc Rich, fugitive American businessman; Denise Rich, songwriter and socialite.


THE GREEN
Denise Rich contributed $70,000 to Hillary's Senate campaign and $450,000 to the Clinton presidential library fund.


THE SCANDAL
Over seventeen years after Marc Rich fled to Switzerland to avoid charges of racketeering, illegal trading, and tax evasion (he owed $48 million), Bill Clinton pardoned Rich during his last moments in the White House. His ex-wife Denise's generous donations and Friend of Bill status gave the pardon a particularly rotten stench.


THE SLEAZE FACTOR
7.5. Rich has been accused of a long list of white-collar crimes. The classiest: trading with Iran while the country was still holding U.S. hostages."