Hillary Clinton: Armed & Dangerous
The Hillary Clinton campaign’s attempt to make Barack Obama’s self-admitted high school drug use an issue is a defining moment.
Joe did a terrific round-up here earlier today, but the issue is worth revisiting because of what it tells us about the woman for whom the nomination has been hers to lose: That is the reality that Mrs. Clinton not only has the steely resolve to be president, but is so calculatedly vicious that the prospect of her wielding the vast powers that come with the Oval Office is truly frightening.
I have made no secret of my dislike for Mrs. Clinton although my politics are usually left of center and I certainly have looked forward to the end of the Republican presidential interregnum. I will hold my nose and vote for her if the Republican nominee is even less acceptable.
As the race heats up, the quantity of mud being slung will increase in direct proportion to the desperation of the candidates who find themselves falling behind too much or not gaining enough. That is a given, and it is obvious that the woman who has been running like an incumbent and whom the mainstream media had all but crowned as the nominee is hearing Obama’s footsteps.
Mrs. Clinton did not bring up Obama’s use of cocaine and marijuana as a teenager, which he has written and spoken about with refreshing candor. The spear chucker was Billy Shaheen, her New Hampshire campaign manager, the husband of Governor Jean Shaheen and a likely candidate for the Senate next year.
Billy Shaheen disingenuously cloaked the drug “issue” in terms of candidates’ electability. He whined that Obama is far less experienced than Christopher Dodd or Joe Biden, yet is a frontrunner unlike those veteran pols.
He predicted that Republicans surely would seize on the “issue.”
“It’ll be, ‘When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?’” Shaheen said. “There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks. It’s hard to overcome.”
The line about selling drugs is especially vile since, to the best of my recollection, no one has asked any white politicians who have acknowledged drug use whether they ever sold what they were smoking or snorting.
Don’t give me any stuff about Shaheen’s remarks being unauthorized; the man is constantly at Mrs. Clinton’s side when she campaigns in New Hampshire and is well aware of how far over the line he is allowed to go.
Shaheen should have fired himself, or Mrs. Clinton could have shown him the door when she apologized. That would have been a nifty way of assuring Democrats — especially the many Democrats who have negative views of her — that her campaign will not take a page from the Bush playbook and use the politics of fear and character assassination.
But he didn’t and she didn’t. (UPDATE: Shaheen has now resigned from the campaign.)
Comparing what Mrs. Clinton says and does to what her husband said and did does not typically play with this voter. But it should be noted that Bill Clinton never made a clean breast of his serial philandering, which nearly destroyed his presidency, or his own recreational drug use. He says he didn’t inhale; Obama wryly notes that of course he himself inhaled, that’s why you smoke pot, right?
Will this abomination blow up in Mrs. Clinton’s face? I certainly hope so, especially as it applies to black voters who may be on the fence, but it’s too soon to tell. Besides which, in another few days the holidays will be upon us and few people will be listening to anything the candidates are saying, let alone the offal emanating from the Clinton campaign with increasing regularity.
18 Responses to “Hillary Clinton: Armed & Dangerous”
It’s not that big a deal, Shaun. She’s an enormous hypocrite taking a cheap shot at Obama while trying to appear more r-e-s-p-o-n-s-i-b-l-e.
Andrew Sullivan has an interesting post from a reader that points out the racial problem for Hilary. Apparently on black oriented radio talk shows, there was a great deal of resentment over Penn’s mention of drug dealing. When the drug issue came up with Bush and other white politicians drug dealing was nevermentioned. Why bring up dealing when smearing a black political figure? The reader thinks this could be the beginning of a defection. It that’s the case, she’s toast in South Carolina.
So as I understand it, philandering by Bill and his pot use is fair game but cocaine and Obama is dirty pool? When he himself raised the issue in his book? This is exactly what i have been hearing from Democrats all season so you will excuse me if I dont get all fired up about this issue. Obama himself (and Edwards) have all but called HRC a liar. Others have variously accused her over the years of murder, drug dealing, enabling a sexual predator, a shrew, a bitch, a cackler, a thief, etc. Where were any of our brave commentators when that was happening? It strikes some of us that there is rank hypocrisy going on here which angers us, and its not from her. Anyone can say the most despicable things about HRC (and Bill) every single night and day, and no one comes to her defense like they have with this comment by her NH manager. And throughout all of the crap the Repubs threw at Bill there is no evidence whatsoever that he misused the powers of his office to try to destroy his enemies, so I find your comment that this incident illustrates that HRC would be a dangerous President most disingenuous. She is a fighter, and she wont go down without a fight. She has been called everything under the sun so my guess is she didnt think people had such a thin skin about a comment about Obama when he will face far worse in the general election. More importantly for the general election, the visceral hatred being shown for HRC by some Democrats runs the risk of splitting the party and dampening the vote. Heck,you yourself leave open the possibility of voting Republican if she is the nominee (unless the Repub nominee is even less acceptable. Query: which ones would be more acceptable?).
So there you have it. I have been a supporter of Bill since 1991 when I saw that he too was a fighter and could win. I have sympathies for his much maligned wife who has done precious little to deserve the crud thrown at her other than preserve her marriage. I am open to Obama and like some of what he offers. But I dont find any return similar thoughts from Dems who hate her, and I am mighty offended by what I have heard from bloggers and voters about HRC over the past few months and I am not alone. How do we get out of this mess? I dont know.
Lastly, she has not run as an incumbent, I have never heard her say she was inevitable or had some sort of entitlement. I have heard a lot of Dems and dumb talking TV heads say that, but never her.
Drug use is only one prong of the Clinton campaign’s panicky personal attacks on Obama as he closes in on her in the polls. There are Rovian smears about real estate deals, Nixon-like slush funds and allegations about trying to get out-of-state students to vote in the Iowa caucuses. Sad…
http://ajliebling.blogspot.com/2007/12/blackening-obama.html
Jammer:
Any politician is fair game for past indiscretions, but what HRC has done through her proxy is especially perverse because (1.) Obama himself has made a clean breast of his indiscretions, and (2.) the proxy “warned” that Republicans will engage in fear mongering and character assassination while doing that very thing on Mrs. Clinton’s behalf.
FYI, I addressed the sickos who have gone after Bill and Hill here just last week.
Finally, candidates have to earn my vote; they don’t automatically get it because of their party affiliation. I vote for more Republicans than Democrats because they typically field better candidates and the state and local level where I live.
Hillary has not earned my vote, but she has 11 months to do so. If McCain is the GOP nominee he too will have to earn my vote, but I could see voting for him over Mrs. Clinton if push comes to shove.
Shaun, fair enough. Read your article last week with thanks. I dont find the issue being debated today perverse but HRC has now personally apologized to Obama so maybe we can close the chapter.
I hear what you are saying on party votes. A too like McCain although as in allegations made re HRC and Romney that they constantly change their opinion to suit voters, this charge sadly applies to McCain too and I dont really know where he stands anymore compared to the attractive candidate of 2000. My personal interest is in the Supreme Court which i think needs to be elevated on everyone’s list of important presidential issues. It was my greatest fear of a W election (who could have seen 9-11 coming) but so many people found W so likable and wanted to have a beer with him. Likability counts for next to nothing as far as I am concerned. Smarts and toughness counts. A heart on the right side of the issues counts. I am personally determined to do everything I can to avoid another Alito, Scalia, Roberts, Thomas nomination which will tip the Court for decades in a direction I dont want to go. In that respect, my decision will almost certainly be a party decision this time out.
Jammer, I believe that you’re incorrect when you write that Mrs. Clinton is not running as the incumbent. She is not running as one who held the office of President but as one who held the vice presidency. She continually touts her white house experience as qualification for the position of president. Whether its true or not, her experience, we don’t know, but she constantly trots out her white house years to bolster her credentials.
Please note, this is the second time that I’ve agreed with the content of a post by Shaun Mullen.
Clearly the blogger nation thinks this is some sort of big deal, but sorry, I don’t. It’s nothing more than a wee bit of grade school level political lowball that won’t even register on Main Street.
Having Willie Horton running around your neighborhood resonates on Main Street……..what one campaign operative says about candidate wraps tomorrow’s fishbones.
Political correctness is SO powerful today that Hillary has nothing to throw at Obama that is not considered smear tactics and an enormous lack of political savvy.
If she says nothing…shes weak…….if she says anything shes smearing or a racist.
The facts are…….Obama did drugs. Bush had to fess up to his……..Obama should have to face up to his. Obviously they did not hinder Bush so they should not hinder Obama.
Yet Hillary is in a no win situation. The hype of her candidacy for 8 years CANNOT match the reality. Anything less then 65 percent in numbers and she is losing, worthless and a failure.
She is the victim of her own success. The greatest miscalculation in the history of Politics. Had she deflected a run for President for the first 4 year. Not rule it out but put a damper on it then she would have done much better today……..as it is after 8 years we are TIRED of hearing about Hillary.
Somebody:
A wee clarification. Bush has been fairly forthcoming about his abuse of alcohol, although he did not acknowledge being arrested for drunk driving until that was revealed in a newspaper report. He never has been forthcoming about his abuse of cocaine.
Good — then to meet all three criteria you cannot honestly support someone like Eliot Spitzer [retch]
Revealing and unsurprising — did anyone else see this, and what it implies about what is “normal”?
DLS:
What it implies is that I can’t be plastered with simple labels, which you do ad hominem and with mind-numbing regularity.
Can we get back to reality?
What Hillary’s campaign manager/staffer? said was that Obaman’s drug use would be used by the Repubs against him.
In that, he was absolutely correct. There isn’t anything they would fail to use against him. This will be hot campaign, after all.
Did speculating about it to a reporter have an ulterior motive?
Possibly, Certanly, it was a mistake in these days when every breath anyone takes anywhere near a condidate is analyzed fifty different ways.
But let’s not put iwords into his mouth. He did not say it was a stain on Obma’s character. He only pointed to a possible political liability.
There is something weird about people’s obseesion with Hillary. The way people just KNOW what she is thingking and plotting at every moment approaches the psychotic, IMO.
I’ve never been a fan, but I’m more a fan of Hillary’s thatn I am of this insane allocation of every evil motivation on earth to her. That is what truly repels me.
She is a politician.
I just watched the Dem debate. There isn’t a single one of them, nor of the Repubs, who is not coldly calculating how every word helps or hurts his prospects. Only Hillary is the cold calculator, though, to hear folks speak.
Edwards speaks as if he would wipe corporations out of the American landscape. How realistic is that?
Obama appears to promise he will change Anerican politics with merely the force of his character. Can anyone believe that?
Goals are great’ they are essential., Knowing just how bloody the battle can be to bring even the tiniest change should count for something.
What’s more, whoever the next president will be, that person had better be calculating or he won’t survive Washington for more than a week.
I’m alarmed by some of Hillary’s votes in the SEante. My opinion is based on that, not on whether she is warm and cuddly.
I’m not looking for a friend. I’m looking for a president.
She flubbed some debate questions. I’m interested in her complete postions, not on how glib she can be in 10 sex. sound bites.
I’m still not crazy about Hillary. But I think she is a realist. A realist with the right goals works better for me thant a candidate who makes heart warming speeches and makes promisses no one can deliver.
And one ot these days I’ll make up my mind for whom to vote.
Billy Shaheen has resigned from the Clinton campaign.
As I have said elsewhere, she’s running for the Presidency officially this time. She was unofficial President (often-the-more-powerful-and-vicious co-President) already.
I have a headache…
There was no ad hominem attack here, nor is that a staple tactic of mine. Calling things as they are and (here) posting insight doesn’t merit, in turn, a true unwarranted attack on me.