May 5, 2008 at 7:36 PM by David Pleasant
Want a sneak preview of the first ad the Republican Party will run if Clinton is the Democratic nominee? Here it is — straight from a major speech Hillary made on Iraq at George Washington University on March 17, 2008. What will resonate more? This speech combined with Hillary’s comments from 2005 or an ad about a lapel pin?
The more the world regards us with suspicion rather than admiration, the more difficult it is to confront these challenges. Despite the evidence, President Bush is determined to continue his failed policy in Iraq until he leaves office. And Senator McCain will gladly accept the torch and stay the course, keeping troops in Iraq for up to 100 years if necessary.
They both want to keep us tied to another country’s civil war, a war we cannot win. That in a nutshell is the Bush/McCain Iraq policy. Don’t learn from your mistakes, repeat them. Well, here is the inescapable reality. We can have hundreds of thousands of troops on the ground for 100 years, but that will not change the fact that there is no military solution to the situation in Iraq….
Each passing month we stay in Iraq gives the Iraqi government more time to avoid the hard decisions on how to split the oil money and how to share political power. Senator McCain and president bush claim withdrawal is defeat. Well, let’s be clear, withdrawal is not defeat. Defeat is keeping troops in Iraq for 100 years.
We simply cannot give the Iraqi government an endless blank check. Each passing month we stay in Iraq gives the Iraqi government more time to avoid the hard decisions on how to split the oil money and how to share political power.
Senator McCain and President Bush claim withdrawal is defeat. Well, let’s be clear, withdrawal is not defeat. Defeat is keeping troops in Iraq for 100 years. Defeat is straining our alliances and losing our standing in the world. Defeat is draining our resources and diverting attention from our key interests….
I have concrete, detailed plans to end this war, and I have not waivered in my commitment to follow through on them. One choice in this election is Senator McCain. He’s willing to keep this war going for 100 years. You can count on him to do that.
May 5, 2008 at 6:18 PM by David Pleasant
I’m beginning to wonder if Hillary can do any more damage to the Democratic Party than she’s already done, regardless of how long she stays in the race. This statement Clinton made in 2005 on Iraq should convince John McCain and Democrats she’s the best person to be the Republican Party’s Vice Presidential nominee.
"Senator McCain made the point earlier today, which I agree with, and that is, it’s not so much a question of time when it comes to American military presence for the average American; I include myself in this. But it is a question of casualties," said Clinton. "We don’t want to see our young men and women dying and suffering these grievous injuries that so many of them have. We’ve been in South Korea for 50-plus years. We’ve been in Europe for 50-plus. We’re still in Okinawa with respect to protection there coming out of World War II."
In the unlikely event that Clinton wins the Democratic nomination, the Republicans will tear her to pieces on her Iraq position alone. This will be run in GOP ads 24-hours a day until the November election and will also render useless the highly effective ad the DNC released last week.
Moreover, this further emphasizes no one can believe anything Hillary says. On April 5, 2008, Clinton said she was against the Iraq war before Barack Obama was. She based her incredulous argument on the premise that the record must begin in 2005, not 2002 when Obama vehemently, and publicly, spoke out against the war.
In Eugene, Ore., Saturday. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., attempted to change the measure by which anyone might assess who criticized the Iraq war first, her or Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., by saying those keeping records should start in January 2005, when Obama joined the Senate. (A measure that conveniently avoids her October 2002 vote to authorize use of force against Iraq at a time that Obama was speaking out against the war.) She claimed that using that measure, she criticized the war in Iraq before Obama did.
But Clinton’s claim was false.
Clinton on Saturday told Oregonians, "when Sen. Obama came to the Senate he and I have voted exactly the same except for one vote. And that happens to be the facts. We both voted against early deadlines. I actually starting criticizing the war in Iraq before he did."
It’s an odd way to measure opposition to the war — comparing who gave the first criticism of the war in Iraq starting in January 2005, ignoring Obama’s opposition to the war throughout 2003 and 2004. (And Clinton’s vote for it.)
OK, let the record reflect 2005.
May 5, 2008 at 11:27 AM by Political Chase
(Updated below)
It is obvious I was frustrated, to say the least, when I wrote my last post about the Clintons’ nuclear plan to win the Democratic nomination. One could easily argue a few statements were over the top and it would have probably been better if they remained unsaid, at least publicly.
I regret, to a point, that I allowed my frustration to “boil over” into the public domain. It is important to maintain civil discourse. However, on the other hand, I do not regret the sense of frustration that motivated some of my statements. I suppose I had a Samantha Power moment.
After seven years of watching the Bush administration twist, distort, and frequently outright lie in order to push personal agendas rather than serve the best interests of the country, I cringe when I see the Hillary campaign doing the exact same thing. Obviously, the cringe worked its way into my written sentiments last night.
Update: I should probably clarify a point. I did not intend to imply that my frustration was derived from a likelihood that Clinton’s nuclear strategy would prevail (or not). The strategy is what I find to be frustrating.
May 5, 2008 at 2:06 AM by David Pleasant
(Updated below)
(Editorial Note: I should note that the HuffPo article quoted below does not cite a specific or even anonymous source, so you’ll have to make your own judgement as to its credibility)
The Clintons are planning the 21st century version of the Reformation and intend to forcibly crown themselves the contemporary versions of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.
Last week I wrote about the pundits on MSNBC uncharacteristically and emphatically predicting “something was up” in the Hillary campaign. Well, it has nothing to do with Hillary graciously exiting if she loses Indiana. In fact, gracious is probably the last modifier that should be associated with Hillary Clinton. She intends to storm the convention and overthrow the party by dropping a nuclear bomb on it.
Of course, this should came as no surprise given the increasingly destructive campaign Hillary and Bill Clinton have run. This plan has nothing to do with the institution of democracy and everything to do with crowning Hillary as the absolute monarch and Supreme Head of the Church — answerable only to God, and even God’s Supremacy is in doubt from their perspective.
There are no words I can use at the moment to adequately describe the contempt I have for Hillary and Bill Clinton.
If the superdelegates allow this to happen, it certainly will not be the Democratic Party I have felt represented my personal beliefs and values for almost two decades. In fact, I don’t see how the word democratic could any longer be included in the party’s official name. If the Clintons obliterate the party, so be it. Let them have it and just change the name to Bill and Hillary’s Dictatorship Ruling Party.
I don’t have to join the ranks of the Rethugs, but I sure as hell will not be associated with a party overtaken by a coup and led by the absolute monarchy of Bill and Hillary Clinton.
From the Huffington Post:
Hillary Clinton’s campaign has a secret weapon to build its delegate count, but her top strategists say privately that any attempt to deploy it would require a sharp (and by no means inevitable) shift in the political climate within Democratic circles by the end of this month.
With at least 50 percent of the Democratic Party’s 30-member Rules and Bylaws Committee committed to Clinton, her backers could — when the committee meets at the end of this month — try to ram through a decision to seat the disputed 210-member Florida and 156-member Michigan delegations. Such a decision would give Clinton an estimated 55 or more delegates than Obama, according to Clinton campaign operatives. The Obama campaign has declined to give an estimate.
Using the Rules and Bylaws Committee to force the seating of two pro-Hillary delegations would provoke a massive outcry from Obama forces. Such a strategy would, additionally, face at least two other major hurdles, and could only be attempted, according to sources in the Clinton camp, under specific circumstances:
First, this coming Tuesday, Clinton would have to win Indiana and lose North Carolina by a very small margin - or better yet, win the Tar Heel state. She would also have to demonstrate continued strength in the contests before May 31.
Second, and equally important, her argument that she is a better general election candidate than Obama — that he has major weaknesses which have only been recently revealed — would have to rapidly gain traction, not only within the media, where she has experienced some success, but within the broad activist ranks of the Democratic Party.
Under that optimistic scenario, some Clinton operatives believe she could overcome several massive stumbling blocks…
[snip]
One of the arguments the Clinton campaign is privately making to autonomous “super” or “automatic” delegates, as well as to delegates technically “pledged” to Obama as a result of primary and caucus results, is that the campaign shifted dramatically in roughly mid-February. At that point, Clinton supporters contend, the economy replaced Iraq as the dominant issue among primary voters, and that transition led to Clinton’s successes in Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania.
Clinton people also make the case that the past six weeks have seen examples of Obama’s political vulnerabilities: his wife’s “proud to be an American” remarks, the emergence of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy, wider coverage of Obama’s ties to 1960s radicals Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, “bittergate,” the flag pin imbroglio, and “hand on the heart” accusations — all impugning Obama’s patriotism.
Update: I should probably clarify a point. I did not intend to imply that Clinton’s nuclear strategy might prevail, or fail miserably for that matter. The strategy is what I find to be frustrating.
