This morning, The Big Boss (TBB) and I had a conversation about firing someone who works for us on contract. Ever since the guy came on board, he’d seen a mean streak in his work that he just didn’t like and we’ve heard from others who don’t like it either. The guy has his fans but it was clear things weren’t going to work out. TBB told me about a particularly nasty e-mail from the guy that he wasn’t going to answer but decided to just go ahead and fire him, because it was better than stewing about it over the weekend.
There have been lots of complaints in the blogosphere and sent to the DNC about Donna Brazile’s behavior. I first read about this recent exchange she had with a Hillary supporter over at No Quarter. (It was also posted at Taylor Marsh’s blog.)
Not that I had my doubts but it’s hard to deny after reading this that she’s long outlived any benefit she can bring to the DNC, especially as head of the Voting Rights Institute.
It’s long, even though I trimmed it a bit, but stick with it; Donna’s reply follows.
From: [redacted]
Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2008 2:17 AM
To: donna@brazileassociates.com
Subject: This RaceHi Donna!!!!
I am emailing you on behalf of many people. I am, as you may know, a Hillary Clinton Supporter. You have probably gotten a lot of emails from her supporters, and I understand from the blogs I often frequent that you have responded to many of them.
I want you to know that I read bits and pieces of your autobiography, Cooking With Grease, and thought it was wonderful and well written. I came to understand from your book and from a lot of what I have witnessed in this election cycle that to simply put groups of people in Demographics and Exit polls is a misunderstanding of both America and the Democratic Party.
What I have learned is that people often vote based on their experiences. You, as an Undeclared Obama supporter, probably identify strongly with his candidacy because of the struggles you went through during a time when race relations in this country were in turmoil. I voted for Hillary Clinton, not only because I relate to her strongly as both a person and a woman who is very spiritual and devoted to her family and to helping others, but also because she is the greatest candidate to lead this country out of the mess we’re in, and because her policy proposals have been phenominal and close to my heart, because it proves to me that she is not simply talking and promising change, she is telling me how she is going to make it happen. It proves to me that she actually cares.
[…]
I understand that many of the emails you have received by Clinton Supporters urging you to do the right and ethical thing by seating Michigan and Florida delegates have been angry and often probably obnoxious. But you cannot possibly understand how frustrated they are. And while you may say that they are “the reason” Hillary is losing, whatever her supporters have done or said pale in comparison to the abuse and mistreatment we have suffered from some supporters of Senator Obama.
[…]
Ms. Brazille, I urge you not to disclude and disenfranchise millions of voters from every walk of life from this nominating process simply for the sake of one candidate, because doing so would be an awful mistake. I have respect for you as a person, Ms. Brazille, but I would implore you to make the right decision and seat Florida and Michigan . I would also implore you to stop encouraging super delegates to force Senator Clinton out of the race, because the more they do this, the stronger she gets.
Ms. Brazille, I cannot pretend to understand what you have gone through in your life, nor what you are going through now. It would be ignorant of me to try. But many people feel angry when they are stereotyped or put in a box because if what candidate they support. I support Hillary Clinton, and I love all of my friends. Including the great African American friends I have that I adore. and all of the African American women at my mother’s church who embrace me and always tell me how “pretty” I look every time I see them. I also love my Latino friends, my Italian friends, my Jewish friends, my Catholic friends.
As I said, I cannot pretend to understand your experiences, but nor can you understand mine. Just because a person’s skin may be paler that yours, does not mean their lives are without suffering.
[…]
So Ms. Brazille, I would yet again urge you to do everything you can to seat Michigan and Florida properly, and also, I would ask that you stop saying you are “undeclared” on CNN’s panels when clearly you know which candidate you support.
Thank you very much for reading this email. Like you, I am very emotionally invested in this Campaign, (as is Stephanie Tubbs Jones, a Congresswoman from the district next to mine who also supports Hillary :D) and wish you all the luck in the world.
respectfully,
A young female voter from Ohio
From: “Donna Brazile”
To: [redacted]
Subject: RE: This Race
Date: Thu, 8 May 2008 07:58:35 -0400Thanks [Name],
As of today, I am not going to respond to any more anti American, Anti Democratic emails. Have a nice day.
I am sorry because you are sincere, but the Hillary forces are uncivil, repugnant and vile. When you come up for air and would like to email a person who cares about America and not just a personality, I will respond.
Thanks for your time and your interest.
Donna
I don’t need to parse this; I think it all speaks for itself. Time to let Donna go. Her mouth got her fired from the Dukakis campaign. She should not be rewarded with keeping her job in the Democratic Party. It’s not like that is the only thing she has to do with her time.
Front page
please tell me that's a joke
One of those letters is fake right? Please tell me that a person of Donna Brazile’s professional stature would never even dream of writing such a letter. If that is a real response to a real letter, she should be fired within the hour.
I hate to say it
No, it’s no joke. That is the kind of missive Donna sends. If I find others, I’ll post them.
I don’t care if Donna’s position is the polar opposite of this voter’s, it did not deserve that level of vitriol. Even if you disagree with the writer’s opinion, there is no harm in saying “Thanks for your thoughts, Have a nice day.” But to characterize the message as “anti American, anti Democratic” is out of hand.
I'm de-front-paging this
I’ve just gone through the whole “War Room” thing with digital data that has no provenance. I find this mail incredible as well, and the reason for that could be that it is incredible. Let’s have more data points than LJ and TM, please.
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
It's worse than out of hand
This is more than just some personal quirk of Donna Brazile’s, like being a “straight shooter” or being a boss who yells at employees. Anyway, the young voter in Ohio is no employee of Brazile’s. That letter is evidence of frighteningly incompetence and likely corruption.
She’s a fucking clown. And not a sad clown or a funny clown. A nasty nasty clown.
What is it about Obama that the nasty clowns love him so much?
well I hope it's a hoax
That’s hard for even me to believe. And i”ll believe just about anything.
That's fine
I’m trying to track it around and see where else it shows up.
She's a 17-year-old blogger.
Seems real to me…
http://littleisis.blogspot.com/2008/05/m…
Murphy, I agree with your concern as to the legitimacy ...
of this supposed response from Donna Brazile. I have written to and have received a response from Donna Brazile re MI/FL. Although I couldn’t say my delivery was faultless I was surprised by the insulting and dismissive tone of her response.
I love this job!
I've been looking around
So far none of the well-known blogs or news places have mentioned it. I did find a hillary forum where people were posting rude and hostile replies that brazile had sent them.
Supposedly Little Isis sent a screencap of the email from Brazile to Greg Sargent at TPM, so I’ve been looking there to see if it pops up.
If true, this isnt merely an unhinged and uncalled for response from an obama supporter to a hillary supporter. Donna Brazile’s JOB is to make sure the democrats WIN the fucking election in November. That’s her fucking JOB. I assume we pay her paycheck with our donations to candidates and the DNC.
I’m waiting to find out if it’s legit. If it is, I hope Lambert puts Corinne’s post back on the front page. We get accused of being divisive all the time just because we support Hillary. I’d like to do a little actual divisiveness if this turn out to be true. If we cant stop Obama from steamrolling the party and losing us the white house, we can at least try to embarrass and vilify and damage the corrupt and nasty clowns who are cheating for him.
Here are others
Here’s one about a Clinton supporter who told Brazile she was switching parties over how Hillary Clinton was being treated. Donna’s reply:
Masslib posted this exchange over at Hillary’s Bloggers: Donna Brazile is for Obama.
One more.
Look, I’m as cynical as they come. Part of my job involves vetting letters to the editor and recommending which ones we should publish. Even though our readers are primarily Ph.D.s, the letters range from thoughtful to barely coherent, and we do get letters from people who have other agendas so I’m not in the habit of taking every letter at face value.
However, having said that, there is a pattern of behavior that does not befit someone who is in a position of influence in the Democratic Party. And the reward for that behavior should not be allowing her to stay in the position.
I don’t need this to be front-paged. I’ll save that chit for a topic I’m more passionate about. :-D
your modesty is becoming!
But I also hope it gets back up front so that people can read and circulate it and start agitating.
Brazile needs to go. She is a well respected expert who has reached the top of her field by actually LOSING elections she should have won (gore 2000 anyone?).
She IS vulnerable and weakened by her obvious hidden agenda. How ironic that if by underhandedly passing the nom to her guy she ends up losing her position and stature. Although I’m sure Obama will be loyal to her. just like Grandma, and Wright, and Kos, and the working class, and women, and glbt, and on and on.
Not to quibble...
But to my knowledge…
Larry nor Taylor have posted anything ’false’ about Obama.
Ever.
Most of it is sourced stuff.
No reason to believe they have a motive to lie about anything.
And given what went down on live television between Donna and Paul…it’s not that much of a stretch to attribute those emails to her.
She gave the same general spiel at the SOBU -
“I work the trenches, yall can’t tell me shit!”
Tis her attitude.
Reality check on Donna Brazile
She no longer sits on the Rules & Bylaws Committee. Howard Dean reorganized R&B a couple of months ago, as the DNC rules called for in preparation for the Convention, and her name no longer appears on the membership list. She’s been kicked to the curb, and with her mouth and high-profile MSM platform that’s a dangerous thing to do; his courage in doing the right thing about her is one more reason to admire Howard Dean.
She is a DNC At-Large member, which means she has enough political clout in her DC district office to get herself appointed to an open slot position – she wasn’t chosen by DNC, but foisted on them. It is an unpaid position, so the only DNC money that would flow her way would be expense reimbursement. Since most of the DNC meetings are in DC, where she lives, she’ll be drawing cab fare and getting a free lunch. More than she’s worth, granted, but not enough to sweat over.
Her only “official” position now in DNC is Chair of a voting rights advisory committee, with no policy role or authority; also a volunteer job, which she got primarily because nobody else wanted it. She has sucked up travel money for that job, and Goddess knows she’s probably screwed it up too, but again it isn’t a position that sets policy and at this point Dean and the DNC Executive are just ignoring her.
For now, Donna Brazile is not a powerhouse member of the DNC, nor is she in a position any more - thankfully - to decide what to do about FL and MI. That delegate deal is already done, all credit to Howard Dean, and both states will have their delegations seated at the Convention. Asking Donna Brazile to do anything about the issue now is a waste of time.
She’s a self-centered jerk with a flair for self-promotion; one of many. At this point, she isn’t anything more than that. By all means condemn her, but let’s not give her credit for stature she no longer has.
Thanks Bringiton
I did not know that. Thanks a lot. I wonder if most people are like me and think she’s like number 2 at the DNC.
You're welcome
She’s a promoter. She has her own agency, whose sole purpose is sucking in money for the continued promotion of the myth of the highly influential Donna Brazile. She’ll tell you how important she is, over and over and over….
Not to say that she’s harmless, she isn’t; but right now she’s down, and pointing that out loud and clear is the best thing we can do to keep her there.
Say it loud, say it proud.