Conservative GOPers Targeting Hillary (UPDATED)

The Los Angeles Times reports that GOP conservatives’ political knives are out — bigtime — for New York Senator Hillary Clinton. And one of the political knives is reportedly held by former Clinton advisor Dick Morris, now a columnist and Fox News contributor:

Old enemies of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton are out in force. Just weeks after she joined the Democratic Party’s flock of presidential contenders, Clinton is being targeted by conservative and Republican-allied activists intent on derailing her campaign before the start of next year’s primaries.

They have surfaced with a flurry of planned projects: a Michael Moore-style documentary film, book-length exposes, and websites such as StopHerNow.com and StopHillaryPAC.com.

Conservative admirers of the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth media blitz that helped torpedo Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry’s presidential candidacy in 2004 are now agitating to “Swift-boat” Clinton.

“People are doing what they’re doing because they want to defeat her before she has a chance to win. You can’t hold off your silver bullet to the end,” said veteran Republican operative David N. Bossie, who is involved in the film project with Dick Morris, a former advisor to Bill Clinton.

According to the LAT, these efforts to basically short-circuit Ms. Clinton are coming precisely because she is viewed as a formidable threat. And, to be sure, she has been bracing for such attacks for quite some time. The question is how she’s going to respond to attacks and how quick she can fight back:

“For Democrats, there’s a strong sense this time around that they can’t allow those same tactics to define Democratic candidates,” said Democratic media consultant Jim Margolis.

At a recent Democratic National Committee gathering in Washington, Clinton told party officials, “I know how they think, how they act and how to defeat them” — a battle call echoing her 1998 evocation of a “vast right-wing conspiracy” during the furor over her husband’s affair with intern Monica S. Lewinsky.

And the Clinton film? For all of the denunciations from conservative talkers, etc about leftist documentary maker Michael Moore, the new film will in effect copy Moore….in many way:

Bossie’s film, scheduled for release by year’s end, is being funded through appeals from Citizens United, a conservative interest group.

Bossie, a blunt-spoken opposition researcher who has mined Clinton controversies since Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, said that the film would mimic the hard-edged partisan style of left-wing filmmaker Moore and that camera-carrying “trackers” would tail Clinton during campaign events.

Bossie is delving into Hillary Clinton’s roles in the Whitewater real estate deals, her $100,000 profit from cattle futures and the firing of White House travel officials — controversies that Clinton aides dismiss as old news. He and GOP allies are convinced new nuggets will turn up —and they also see new opportunities in contrasting Clinton’s avowed centrism with what they call her “polarizing liberalism.”

“Conservatives believe she’s more dangerous today as a potential president than when she tried to take over the healthcare plan and root it in socialism,” said public relations man Greg Mueller, who handled media appearances for anti-Kerry veterans in 2004.

Bossie and his Citizens United partners have long vexed the Clintons and Democratic presidential contenders. Morris — the architect of Bill Clinton’s mid-1990s political revival until he was fired in August 1996 after revelations he consorted with a prostitute — declined interview requests from The Times, though he has discussed the movie on Fox News. Bossie said his partner’s past “is an acceptable risk we’ll take because of Dick’s personal knowledge of Hillary Clinton.”

(Our inappropriate joke about Moore and Bossie wanting to do to Ms. Clinton’s political career what prostitutes do to their clients is omitted here).

Michael Dukakis blew his Presidential bid by not responding enough or by responding weakly to Republican attacks. Bill Clinton & Co learned that lesson, vowed never to let it happen to them and created the (in)famous instant-response-to-attacks War Room during Cinton’s successful presidential campaign.

John Kerry did not learn the lessons of recent political history. Rather than be prepared to be attacked when he made his controversial Vietnam service (yes, he was a veteran but one who opposed the Vietnam war in high profile venues) a cornerstone of his candidacy, he let the Swift Boaters and their associates inflict grave damage on his image.

The question: is Hillary Clinton ready to deal with the film and other attacks? The Times points to one instances that shows she is:

Hillary Clinton’s longtime spokesman, Howard Wolfson, dismissed the early GOP moves with characteristic terseness: “One thing people know about the Clintons is they know how to fight back.”

When a thinly sourced report from a conservative Web magazine falsely claimed last month that Clinton researchers had uncovered evidence showing that presidential rival Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) had been educated at an Islamist madrasa in Indonesia, Clinton’s team moved swiftly to dismiss the story.

And, indeed, that story is indicative of the way sleaze operates (on all sides) in 21st century politics with the new and old media. The “scoop” was picked up by radio and cable talk show hosts and by blogs.

Blogs talk about being “new media” but in reality they largely rely on reporting and writing done by mainstream media for about 90 percent of most blog content. Most blogs copy, paste and comment on what is in the mainstream media — rather than offering original material. In this case, some blogs picked the story up. Some picked it up without questioning and ran with it.

But in the end the Clinton camp managed to defuse it in the area where it counted most — in the mainstream media. Many (thoughtful) blogs were similarly satisfied.

Even a can of string beans on the shelf at Ralph’s Grocery Store could see in 2002 that John Kerry was going to be under fire for presenting himself as a Vietnam Veteran by people who would seek to undermine that positive by pointing to his opposition to the Vietman War.

And the same can of string beans today is probably saying: “Hillary Clinton is going to come under massive attack.”

Is she really ready for it?

UPDATE: The political minefields are expanding now for Hillary Clinton. It’s not just a question of her having to navigate her way through conservative attacks.

She is facing increasing problems from the Democratic Party’s left as well over her refusal to apologize for her vote on the Iraq War. The New York Times notes that she has tried a new approach:

Yet antiwar anger has festered, and yesterday morning Mrs. Clinton rolled out a new response to those demanding contrition: She said she was willing to lose support from voters rather than make an apology she did not believe in.

“If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from,� Mrs. Clinton told an audience in Dover, N.H., in a veiled reference to two rivals for the nomination, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina.

Her decision not to apologize is regarded so seriously within her campaign that some advisers believe it will be remembered as a turning point in the race: either ultimately galvanizing voters against her (if she loses the nomination), or highlighting her resolve and her willingness to buck Democratic conventional wisdom (if she wins).

Reaction has not been pretty for Ms. Clinton’s campaign so far. The Times reports that some of her allies are worried how long this progressive ire will last and how it will damage her campaign. (Note that Ralph Nader has also suggested he will run again to siphon votes off of…..I mean, to offer an alternative to…the Democratic Party candidate). Some comments:

Kos says she has lost his potential vote:

Not only is the Clinton campaign pig-headed, they are also remarkably out-of-touch. They are “surprised” at the anger this war is generating? Has she been living in a cave the last four years (yes, the Senate apparently is a cave). The last thing we need in the White House is another out-of-touch, tone-deaf Bush-style presidency, unable or unwilling to admit mistakes and change course as a result.

Hillary will now see her campaign events hijacked by anti-war protesters, with people demanding she defend her vote at every corner. Iraq will dominate coverage of her campaign, and she’s on the wrong side of the issue. And by going this far without admitting her mistake, she has painted herself into a corner. Any attempt now to back off and apologize would be met with the proper scorn.

Glenn Reynolds on Kos’ comments: “MARKOS is unhappy with Hillary. Too much backbone.”

Americablog’s John Aravosis:

It’s one thing to make a calculated gamble to write off the “left wing of the party,” but other than Joe Lieberman’s, whose Democratic vote is she angling for?

…This does not strike me as a wise course for Senator Clinton to take. Hillary may have chosen to take on the “anti-war left,” but she must remember that that’s who votes in Democratic primaries. The second issue she needs to keep in mind is that people like Joe and me aren’t the anti-war left. We tend to be progressive, obviously, but I, at least, am not anti-war (I’m not sure what Joe’s position is on the more general subject of “war,” so I’ll leave that to him). I’m anti-THIS WAR, and that’s a big distinction. Nonetheless, the things I’m reading and hearing the past several weeks, like all this talk about Senator Clinton’s war vote being influenced by her special experience of September 11 – you know, that day the rest of us apparently went on vacation – is starting to bug me. And I’m not someone who was bugged by Hillary at all in the past.

Meanwhile, Dean World’s Ron Coleman sees it as heartening sign.

It is a risky strategy, but Hillary Clinton is playing to win, not the nomination, but the national election. She is leveraging the political (and financial) advantages she has coming into this process, many of which indeed are not at all earned, and therefore should indeed be spent. By doing so, she is reducing her odds of getting into the national election because of the control the Left has over the nomination process. But she is making herself a legitimate national security voice who at least will be able to have a serious conversation about Iraq and terrorism with a future Republican adversary.

If a politician can succeed at this and even apply such restraint at governing, you have to take that person seriously. I can’t think of any other nationally prominent Democrat that merits the use of that word to describe him or her.

Time‘s Joe Klein, writing on the magazine’s lively Swampland blog in a post titled “This Won’t Cut It”, thinks she bungled badly:

This is what’s known in the trade as…fighting the last war. In 2008, the public isn’t as likely to be very concerned about a Democratic candidate who admits mistakes. Why? Because they’re sick to death of a President who refuses to admit mistakes.

In any case, admitting a mistake isn’t the same as flip-flopping. Why? Because flip-flopping implies dishonesty tinged with political convenience. It’s not admitting a mistake: I voted for it before I voted against it. John Edwards, by contrast, can hardly be accused of flip-flopping: He doesn’t fudge his former position at all. He just says he was wrong. I would suspect that simple honesty will trump consultant-driven “firmness” this time around.

Don Surber:

Clinton 44 in many ways is Clinton 42, sans the Bimbo Eruptions that made his wonkery so entertainment. But 15 years is a long time and what played well in 92 (he got 43% of the popular vote) might not play well in 08.

Which may be why the press muffed her Sister Souljah moment. Her rebuke of the most radical elements of the left failed to generate the heat that Bubba’s original rebuke drew all those years ago….But in standing up to the Intolerant and Insufferable Wing of her party — no matter how contrived it was — Hillary earned a little praise. So she can have mine.

Talk Left: “Personally, I don’t care about an apology. What I want to know is why she thought a war with Iraq in 2002 made strategic sense, even if the intelligence was not wrong and stovepiped. Because, Senator Clinton, this is perhaps the most serious question we ask of our Presidential candidates- when do you think we should use military force? Your vote FOR the Iraq war in October 2002 was wrong on every level. It is a vote that must be explained. And yes, you voted for war Senator.”

Pamela Leavey:

I personally think the most important issue about Iraq at this point is ending the war, not dredging up the past over and over again. We can make a difference in the future by bringing an end to Bush’s ill-gotten war, but we can’t change the past. If she’s not willing to apologize, so be it. I noted here the other day that some feel it’s about integrity, Clinton not apologizing. That theme was resonated again the NY Times piece I referenced above. I personally think it takes more integrity to take responsibility for one’s actions, but again… so be it, if she won’t. She is however, making moves that show that she is willing to change the dialogue on Iraq and start talking about deadlines. On that level, she’s moving in the right direction in my book.

So now the question becomes whether Mrs. Clinton will stick to her political guns and move on — or whether she will take a stance to try and compensate due to what seems to be an awkwardly-handled political monkey wrench clogging up the machinery of what was viewed as a well-oiled, well-funded campaign?

Can this be a sign of things to come? And will it help her or hurt her –in the end meaning she loses supports from the side that would applaud her non-apology?

U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the early front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, has called for a 90-day deadline to start pulling American troops from Iraq…..

“Now it’s time to say the redeployment should start in 90 days or the Congress will revoke authorization for this war,” the New York senator said in a video on her campaign Web site, repeating a point included in a bill she introduced on Friday.

James Joyner writes:

Even if we give her the benefit of the doubt and believe this is now her honest position on the war, it makes no public policy sense. The surge is at least a plan to do something different in hopes of winning the war. Capping the troop levels and starting a slow pullout, on the other hand, is a tacit admission of defeat unaccompanied by decisive action to get troops out of harm’s way.

If you’re going to say the war isn’t worth winning–or simply isn’t winnable–then why wouldn’t you want an immediate and complete withdrawal? Leaving aside that the Democrats simply don’t have anything like the votes to withdraw authorization for the war, wouldn’t that at least be a more responsible position?