« ‘Many Dishes May Break’ at the Next NATO Summit
Spitzer »



Hillary Clinton’s Monster Mash: Apologizing Her Way To the Nomination & White House?

March 13th, 2008
By SHAUN MULLEN, TMV Columnist

Print Print

01aa__angryHillary.jpg

The tactic is now well tested: A Hillary Clinton surrogate spouts something over the top and typically race laced about Barack Obama, Clinton looks the other way for a few days while the surrogate’s snark percolates in the media, and then when enough mud has stuck, she belatedly issues a statement of regret, repudiation and rejection.

And so it was yet again with L’affaire Ferraro.

In a campaign when the news keeps coming 24/7, nearly a week transpired from the time that Geraldine Ferraro did a pretty fair Archie Bunker imitation in claiming in an interview that Obama had gotten to where he is because he is black until Clinton finally distanced herself from the reprehensible remark. In the meantime, the news media was aboil with the story, which the unrepentant 1984 Democratic vice presidential candidate calculatedly kept ratcheting up.

Ferraro has now resigned from a position on Clinton’s finance committee but will keep on bloviating in the finest Gloria Steinem style about how unfair it is that a black man is upstaging the first serious White House run by a woman, Amazingly, Ferraro now claims that she is being criticized because she is white. (The victimhood thing is really getting old, gals.)

Meanwhile, a far younger and I daresay worldly-wiser woman, Obama foreign policy adviser Samantha Power, also did the resignation thing last week after calling Clinton “a monster” in what was supposed to be an off-the-record interview, but at least apologized on her way out the door.

There is a default position for the serial attacks that Clinton’s posse keep making against Obama with numbing regularity, but it makes her look just as bad: She just can’t seem to control her husband and other surrogates. If that is the case — and it isn’t since she could have made it absolutely clear at any point that such attacks are off-limits — what does that say about her claims that she has the managerial cred and experience to lead America?

I had a modicum of respect for Clinton coming into the campaign. I believed that she has been a not bad senator and while not my first choice, would be a not bad president. And Obama is certainly fair game insofar as whether he has what it takes when the red phone rings at 3 a.m., but not because he happens to be an African-American.

So it breaks my heart to say that while Power’s characterization was impolitic, she was right: Clinton is a monster.

Clinton is a monster who will tacitly approve any comment short of using the N-word that focuses unwanted attention on Obama. And she will employ any tactic necessary no matter how obscene or divisive in her lust for a nomination that seems to slip further from her slimy grasp with every passing day.

Clinton is a monster and that is truly horrifying when you consider the monstrosities that we have had to endure through over the last seven-plus years.

And you know what? Clinton’s monster mash just might work. She could conceivably slither her way to the nomination and then on to the promised land that eluded Ferraro and Walter Mondale 24 years ago through attacks that arouse the racist underbelly of American society followed by belated apologies. Do you think it’s an accident that so many hard-core conservative Republicans have been limbaughing over and voting for her in open primaries?

The beauty of this ugliness is that each time it is unleashed it is incumbent on Obama to fire back. And each time he fires back the focus shifts away from his message and what the campaign should be all about to his blackness.

Monstrously scary, isn’t it?



This entry was posted on Thursday, March 13th, 2008 at 4:34 am and is filed under Newsweek Blogitics, Negative Campaigning, Geraldine Ferraro, Bush Administration, Bill Clinton, Race, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, 2008 Elections. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Viewing 27 Comments

    • ^
    • v
    Shaun: She will NOT get the nom. She can only STEAL it, and then would have to claim O's folk are playing the race card cuz she stole it fair and square.

    But, it wd be a Pyrrhic victory, because the Obamaheads (both Dems and Indies like me who only voted Dem for him- or Edwards, were he in) will go third party or sit home. Big mac will win, despite his insane War stance, because Americans were repulsed by the 2000 W win, and won't allow it to happen a second time.

    So, scared as you are , Shaun, it ain't gonna happen, and all that a piece like this does is further ratchet up the estrogen levels of the Feminazis and Hill Shillers like Jill, Damozel, and Holly. Hill will lose.

    You would be better off focusing on the Mac-O matchup, and treat Hillary like yesterday's news- even if she picks up a dozen more delegates in Pennsylvania, only to give them right back in the last few primaries.

    It's over, and the media- you included, have better things to opine on that a washed up middle-aged woman's identity crisis.
    • ^
    • v
    http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/13384

    Good post on how Hillary's ID crisis vents itself.
    • ^
    • v
    Isn't the real problem is that they do not differ on the issues, they will probably govern with virtually the same advisors, and make about the same political appointments. Thus, the election is about personalities and public perceptions. And for the candidates who is the the lesser of the two on likability, they have no chance but to attack.

    Clinton was doing better when she tried to talk about the issues. The Obama campaign hurt themselves when they tried to talk about the issues in Ohio. But, I guess trade will not be as big an issue in the next few states.
    • ^
    • v
    Policies might be similar but skills of persuasion are different. There are thousands of talented singers for every one who has the gift for connecting with an audience.
    • ^
    • v
    Big mac will win, despite his insane War stance, because Americans were repulsed by the 2000 W win, and won't allow it to happen a second time.


    Which is why they reelected him in 2004!!! I think you mean third time...

    Trying to be funny right?

    All of you Obama supporters massively underestimate the innate racism of the American Voter. In the coming Obama/McCain presidential contest, I expect that McCain will pick up the standard Republican L (The south and the states between the Mississippi and the Rockies) plus quite a few so called safe Blue States.

    But anything is better than that monster Hillary, especially when McCain invades Iran and starts another pointless war that kills a few hundred thousand civilians and kicks off a whole new bloodbath.

    And don't expect the Democrats to moderate a McCain Administration, because they won't, spineless cowards every last one of them.

    But go for it nominate Obama, and I will get the pleasure of using the four most beautiful words in the English Language on November 11th: "I Told you so".
    • ^
    • v
    No, SD, it's not, because if tyou look at the two candidates' positions, while there's about a 90% agreement, the way they achieve those aims is radically diff. Hillary, as example, in healthcare, trusts the drug co's to lower prices, Obama does not. Obama takes a bottom's up approach to problem solving, like a grassroots organizer wd. Hillary, and Mac, for that matter, are top downers- they gather experts, listen to the blather, and delegate. That's old and has failed. Obama's way may fail, too, but at least it's different.

    When folk like you try to blur differences you have no right to say they're all the same, when they are clearly different- it's why there is such a fierce battle- the old vs. the new, the elitists vs. the masses. And do you really think the Ferraros of the world will end up in an Obama White House? Where are you getting your blow?

    'Clinton was doing better when she tried to talk about the issues. The Obama campaign hurt themselves when they tried to talk about the issues in Ohio. But, I guess trade will not be as big an issue in the next few states.'

    Actually, that's a 180. The very reason that Hillary has ratcheted up the race issue is because Obama has KILLED her on issues, so she only has mud left.

    So you are wrong on substantive differences within the campaigns and how the public has reacted to them.

    This is why, along with Shaun's fanning the flames of a fire that is almost wholly out, political dialectic suffers. On a post below, Mark writes of the death of a truly great, hard-working Senator, and no one gives a damn, but this BS keeps coming- from folk like you, DLS, Kanzeon, and other demagogues of the Right, and from Shaun and the Hill Shillers on the Left.

    A little analysis before opining goes a long way, even if it is not the way of the blog.
    • ^
    • v
    DG: 'Which is why they reelected him in 2004!!! I think you mean third time...

    Trying to be funny right?'

    No, but 9/11 may have slipped your mind. A turd from my toilet bowl could have been Prez when that happened and gotten re-elected. Again, think b4 typing.

    'But anything is better than that monster Hillary, especially when McCain invades Iran and starts another pointless war that kills a few hundred thousand civilians and kicks off a whole new bloodbath.'

    Or vote for a woman who approved the war and will be the Dem's Nixon and continue it, as well. More specious logic. And you are underestimating the power of the under-40 voter and the anti-war folk. Hill will likely lose to Mac if she steals the nom, but O will win the general. Did you watch any of the debates. Mac is horrid, absolutely horrid, in debates, while Obama is slick and polished- not as good as Edwards, but better than Hill or any of the other folk who ran.

    "I Told you so".

    I'll remind you when Obama's sworn in, Hillary's in a white coat, and Mac is sticking pins in his W kewpie.
    • ^
    • v
    Cosmo,

    Our comments policy is very clear. Note point 6b from that policy, among others:
    "Comments posted several times a day that insult or call other commenters or blog writers names or repeatedly make the same point with the effect of or clear intent to annoy other commenters or blog writers."

    Your repeated, derogatory characterizations of several TMV bloggers have been largely ignored to date, but now you ratchet up this behavior with an inflammatory term like "Feminazi."

    I can't speak for Joe or all the editors, but as one assistant editor here -- one who has benefited from constructive dialogue with you in the past -- I would personally ask that you return to such dialogue and discontinue inflammatory comments like those referenced above as they are in direct violation of site policies.

    Thanks.
    • ^
    • v
    Cosmetica,

    I have looked at Senator Obama positions and just do not see bottom up. Look at the federal mandates for energy and the environment. Look at the federal mandates for healthcare while promising low costs (that used to be called Voodoo economics when the Republicans proposed harebrained schemes). Not many signed of bottom up but plenty of signs of Washington telling people what to do and how to do it. On a small topic, does having a federal mandate that child care center be tested for lead paint sound like the bottom up.

    The best you can say about Senator Obama is that his policies sound like something a former community activity would propose, free money to as many groups as possible from the federal government with no questions about how to pay for it or how to measure outcomes.

    Also, when looking at the advisors for both campaigns, it is the same list of Ivy league, wonkish political insiders. Their world view is the same. Do you really think that no one from the former Clinton Administration will end up in the Obama Administration?