I dunno about this sentiment. If we have to fully realize what the Conservative Movement is really all about, I say we have to also acknowledge what HRC candidacy really means. Just like there is no reaching across the aisle and working hand-in-hand with perverts and dog-abusers, there is no walking hand-in-hand with HRC without getting a little of her VRWC crud on you.

Just because liberals stop talking about it and bottle up all their ill-will doesn't make it magically go away. It is like a unity theory of bi-partisan rainbows and sunset walks on the beach.

Give some background, here.

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

i don't trash hillary for anything other than her actual votes, policy, and statements with which i disagree. i do think she lacks the charisma of her husband, but i don't really care about that. i think most progressives don't bash her, already, and that those on our side who do sometimes slip into winger talking points that have been repeated by the less progressive here in the blogosphere. but hatred? most of us can avoid that.

but we're not the problem, are we? the problem is

-the media, which utterly hates her. lemme see if i can find the thing i read today about how the press in iowa treated her. short version: with complete, open contempt.

-the mushy, low information, "moderate middle" voters. atrios' favorite target, "self identified independents" who are arrogant in thinking they are better because they won't call themselves by a party or a definitive label like "liberal." these people vote according to what they see on teevee, and given my first point, a hillary candidacy means bad news for our side.

-hillary herself, who has been trying to do what obama pulled off in iowa, and is now stuck trying to be a less charismatic version of the centrist/moderate politician-character that we really don't need right now.

personally, i think hillary is almost as liberal as i am. but she's a technocrat, someone who's been so deep in the beltway scene for so long, and during such a fucked up time, i worry that she's lost her ability to imagine herself in any other way than what she's been presenting since being elected senator. whatever the case, i can only go on her voting record and her policy statements. not terribly impressive, but not so bad.

still, i'm starting to worry that i have been wrong, and that she does not understand the challenges facing her. very simply, as i've said for years now, hillary must overcome two things that i don't know anyone, even her, could. she is a vaginal-american, and she is associated with the most vile, pernicious media narrative in the history of american politics, one that's alive and well. i just don't think she can overcome that.

i had let myself believe she could win, because i remember all this when she ran for senate. no one thought she could win, esp in upstate new york. but she did. i think she won because she understands the nuts and bolts of being a successful campaigner. and because she knows the right people to talk with, and to get behind her behind the scenes.

now, she seems to have failed to make this work in iowa. that isn't so surprising, iowa went 3% for bill in 92. iowa is just the sort of place where hillary hatred is so long running and real that no amount of backroom dealing, listening tours and cookie baking ads can overcome it. it's not new york.

new hampshire could be it for her, as much as i hate saying that. lambert is right, progressives and bloggers should lay off the "hate" and let her have a fair chance. but i don't think that will make any difference in NH.

if edwards "poor" showing in iowa taught me anything, it's that teevee still picks our presidents for us. perhaps someday blogs will have that role, but it's not today.

Hillary really doesn't need any "fair chances" or help in any primaries. Just go check out CNN and she already won the Democratic primary. It already says that. So, I'm well beyond that. It think it is essential for the blogsphere or whatever to get all their hatred out of their system and all the talking points out there now. The VRWC isn't in full speed yet because they are saving their rotten eggs to throw out there after Hillary picks a running mate.

I'd rather people try and respond to the hatred now and come up with counter-arguments (if there are any) now. Rather then respond in real time.

It's real and it's as true as Iraq involvement in 9/11. It will effect independents and even GOP trying to get back their party or at least some dignity. A place like Ohio which will be key to 2008 will become an anyone-but-HRC state.

You know what, f-ck it. The whole paper ballot central count has really screwed Ohio. Brunner has set Ohio up for the most massive stolen election and stuffed ballot boxes in many people's lifetimes. Seriously. It was bad before, now it is open season for election theft, and I'm not being alarmist. I'd rather hackers and code trying to steal it while keeping the numbers in line, at least only a few people could do that. Now it will be any toothless idiot who has access. (Seriously poll signature books and NVRA database are in such a mess you have no idea)

I'd forgotten about Obama blaming the defeat of Hillary's health-care initiative on -- wait for it -- not reaching across the aisle: http://correntewire.com/obamas_bidens_and_the_msms_bipolar_misdiagnosis_of_hillary_clinton

...was documented by Michael Kelly in "The Great Limbaugh Con", a book worth reading for other stuff as well. And Stephen Ducat, in "The Wimp Factor" has an entire chapter on the way Conservative Movement turned Hillary into a combo of 'vagina dentata' and 'uppity woman'.

For some reason they have this blog entry on Time’s Swampland by a Jay Newton-Small who is apparently a very unsophisticated fibber.



Thinking the actual video of the dinner would never be aired, she rants with her fictitious description of the crowd’s reaction to Hillary.



(Time-Blog swampland)

The audience … let out a noise that sounded like a thousand people collectively groaning… Clinton was forced to pause as boos from the crowd mixed with cheers from her own supporters

Check out 1:00:25 & 1:10:49

(Sorry I can’t turn off autoPlay. Anyone that has a clue about this flash player let me know, it might be useful to embed CSPAN clips.


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On the one hand, yeah, the press has been BRUTAL to Hillary, far more than she deserves. I basically agree with just about everything the Daily Howler's had to say about this. And I'm not thrilled about Barack Obama's echoing of the most dishonest of these criticisms. Somerby's right. Liberals/Progressives have to learn to stop pouncing on these poison pills the MSM dishes out and criticize in a more forthright and principled manner.

And yet - it's not as if she's been free of her own mistakes. What a miscalculation voting for Kyl-Lieberman - or is that what she REALLY believes? Either way, not good for her. Did she really have to put no light between herself and the Israeli furthest rightwing? I DON'T believe she really believes that, given her past.

Or an issue near to my heart - did she have to become so chummy with Indian offshoring firms that they jokingly referred to her as the "Senator from Punjab", an attack angle that Obama was too chickenshit to pursue. Were those campaign contributions make or break for her campaign? I doubt it.

And then there is the continued and unjustified arrogance of the Third Way crowd. Yeah, it had its advantages, but it's long past time for the Clinton crowd to fess up to its problems in an honest way. These guys are smart but not infallibly so, and they'd be in a better spot today if they'd admitted some of it. They may have been the smartest guys in the room in 1992, but that was 16 years ago.

I don't hate her but I think the Clinton magic is gone.

On the one hand, it's totally obvious that the media have been brutal to Hillary Clinton. I'm in agreement with Bob Somerby of the Daily Howler who prowls this beat almost daily, and not just for Clinton, he's an equal-opportunity critic of media fatuousness, whoever it hurts. Some of the talking heads this morning even admitted it. And like Avedon Carol, this crap has even made me feel sorry for her - even to the point of moving me to think for awhile that Clinton was slightly preferable to Obama.

I'd like Barack Obama much more if he hadn't boosted himself by eating so much of this poisoned fruit of the MSM, and their phony critiques. "She's ambitious, always wanted to be president" - as if Obama is without ambition. What a joke. In the long run, playing this game in the primaries can come back on you in the general.

However, Hillary bears much of the blame herself. Did she have to back the Lieberman-Kyl amendment? Was it political calculation or her true beliefs? Who knows, and, finally, who cares? This is a self-inflicted wound.

A deeper issue is the issue of Clintonism in general - all the Third Way BS. It can be debated over and over, and though I am an opponent of this kind of politics - run on putting people first, give them NAFTA - all done with a "we know better than you" arrogance - I can admit that their politics was not without redeeming value.

But the Clintonites have NEVER been willing to debate it. People like Rahm Emanuel and Sidney Blumenthal have written much and never truly engaged their critics. Finally this year, Hillary conceded that trade deals may have not been as great as they've said for years. That was a first! For all these years, they would never touch with a ten-foot pole those who disagreed with them. Was it smart politics to cave on NAFTA and hope Wall Street would reward them with Universal Health Care - or was it stupid? If we had to have NAFTA - wouldn't it have been better to make Universal Health Care its price, for example? Instead of getting nothing for it?

So, no I don't hate Hillary, but neither do I accept that the Clintons have always been right. They've been wrong on many things, and things might be looking a little better for them if they'd ever found a way to admit it.

so that the damned CSpan clip doesn't start automatically every time I hit the page?