This just in from Huffington via Truthout. A pretty harsh assessment, I think
Breaking the Final Rule
By Gary Hart
The Huffington PostFriday 07 March 2008
It will come as a surprise to many people that there are rules in politics. Most of those rules are unwritten and are based on common understandings, acceptable practices, and the best interest of the political party a candidate seeks to lead. One of those rules is this: Do not provide ammunition to the opposition party that can be used to destroy your party’s nominee. This is a hyper-truth where the presidential contest is concerned.
By saying that only she and John McCain are qualified to lead the country, particularly in times of crisis, Hillary Clinton has broken that rule, severely damaged the Democratic candidate who may well be the party’s nominee, and, perhaps most ominously, revealed the unlimited lengths to which she will go to achieve power. She has essentially said that the Democratic party deserves to lose unless it nominates her.
As a veteran of red telephone ads and “where’s the beef” cleverness, I am keenly aware that sharp elbows get thrown by those trailing in the fourth quarter (and sometimes even earlier). “Politics ain’t beanbag,” is the old slogan. But that does not mean that it must also be rule-or-ruin, me-first-and-only-me, my way or the highway. That is not politics. That is raw, unrestrained ambition for power that cannot accept the will of the voters.
Senator Obama is right to say the issue is judgment not years in Washington. If Mrs. Clinton loses the nomination, her failure will be traced to the date she voted to empower George W. Bush to invade Iraq. That is not the kind of judgment, or wisdom, required by the leader answering the phone in the night. For her now to claim that Senator Obama is not qualified to answer the crisis phone is the height of irony if not chutzpah, and calls into question whether her primary loyalty is to the Democratic party and the nation or to her own ambition.
Is one of them, Don’t Taunt Reporters To Follow You While You’re Schtupping Your Mistress?
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p>Please, this is so absurd.
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p>Gary Hart lost because he didn’t have a good (i.e. meaningful yet brief) answer to “Where’s the beef?” after he’d made a bunch of speeches about having new ideas and new directions.
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p>Maybe the Obama surrogates like Hart and Olbermann think this outrage will bring the guy more votes. We’ll see.
I’ve been reading Clinton’s dastardly, Rovian, “Republican” remark over and over:
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p>–one can hardly avoid it these days.
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p>It strikes me as a pretty dumb way to argue that she’s got something Obama doesn’t. I think she’s asking for trouble asserting that she has crossed “the commander-in-chief threshold,” whatever that is. (The Constitution suggests you cross it when you get sworn in and not before.)
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p>However, I just don’t see this crossing the loyalty line–loyalty to the party and its possible nominee.
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p>Her statement does not “severely damaged the Democratic candidate who may well be the party’s nominee.” The blogosphere’s characterization of this statement as an endorsement of McCain over Obama simply does not ring true.
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p>I guess this is another one of those inkblot things that strikes the Obamatarians differently than everyone else. Careful, you all, that sword has two edges.
… that McCain and HRC have the experience and Obama does not. You cannot simultaneously argue disloyalty to the party and then argue that Obama’s willingness to reach out and acknowledge Republican experience is his exceptional quality.
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p>While a carless remark on HRC’s part, upon inspection this has all the lack of substance that the MLK/Johnston flap did. But it is more proof of the Good ship Obama crashing on the rocks of Politics as usual to win.
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p>Check out Obama’s Hollow “Judgment” and Empty Record if your looking for red meat on the issue of experience.
Maybe you are referring to the Reagan comment. He was not recognizing experience in that instance but Reagan’s ability to make change, which is fact (even if we disagreed with the substance of that change.
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p>HRC’s experience is trumped up – speeches mainly, and littered by a record of failure and mismanagement – from Web Hubbell (who she brought to Govt) to health care to her own mismanaged campaign.
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p>I agree with MLK/Johnson stuff wasn’t worth making a deal of. This McCain shit though is a little worse. Rip down the party for her own purposes. No class.
…that sound…oh my…it is the sound of the Democratic party being ripped apart because Hillary Clinton suggested that the Republican nominee has more experience than her opponent.
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p>Oh, and apparently when Obama praises the accomplishments of a Republican the accomplishment is neither the result of or contributes to experience?
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p>Histrionic pretzel commentary, IMO.