Clinton, Clinton-haters, a movie, and some idiot from Mother Jones

[walkitout]

Here, at Mother Jones:

http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2008/01/hillary-the-movie-citizens-united.html?src=email&link=hed_20080116_ts3_There%20Will%20Be%20Mud

A foolish, foolish woman makes the claim that if we elect Hillary, we get these creeps, too.

Well, I've got Bad News for the Obama and Edwards fans out there, thinking we can somehow
avoid this kind of mudslinging by voting for them instead:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080115/NATION/513973288/1001

Mudslinging Will Happen.

Duh.

Comments

[walkitout]

I think that this bit:

"he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing."

which is an Obama quote from that blog post, contains a lot of words that have a GOOD value associated with them: optimism, dynamism, entrepreneurship. The Clintons may have taken that a step further. When you parse Obama's comments carefully, he did not come right out and say that Reagan was good, his ideas were good, the Republicans ideas were good.

FWIW, I saw the Obama clip before the Clinton's were being quoted as commenting on it, and when I heard Obama saying those words, the hair rose on the back of my neck, and I went, oh shit, we're about to get a Chicago president in the style of a Mayor Daley. I think that's basically an inaccurate reaction, but that was my reaction _before_ I heard any commentary.

I don't know precisely what Obama was thinking when he said that. After thinking it over, R. and I tend to think he's running a Deval Patrick style campaign: once you're sure you've got your team lined up, you start making nice with the other side. I wish I could say that Patrick's administration in Massachusetts was impressing the heck out of me (his campaign did), but it is not.

I still think we're not going to go far wrong with any of the three candidates on the Dem side, and I haven't heard anything remotely to make me feel like I'd hesitate to vote for whoever makes it thru the primary. I do think that a lot of this stuff is getting played up a lot in the press, who would like to see a divisive mess on the Democratic side so the Republicans have some kind of chance otherwise post-primary the race will be booooorrrrring. OTOH, I think we _have_ to have some of this, or we risk someone surviving the primaries with unturned-over rocks that the Republicans can go to town on in the general.

So. Mixed feelings. I do NOT like what Obama said. I do NOT think the Clintons "lied". I DO think it's unfair to say that there was no positive tilt to the Reagan comment; I do think he was being fairly clever with his wording.

Check this out -- it's an instance in which Hillary Clinton is misquoted as saying Reagan was a favorite president, when what she actually said was that she liked his communication skills. It was heavily misrepresented by Tim Russert.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200801200007?f=s_search