Wolfson is the same Clinton spokesperson that brought up Ken Starr. Now this inanity:
On a conference call with reporters and several prominent military supporters of Clinton’s presidential bid, spokesman Howard Wolfson was asked: if Obama is not ready to lead in times of crisis, how can he be considered for the vice presidency?
“We do not believe that Senator Obama has passed the commander in chief test,” said Wolfson. “But there is a long way between now and Denver.”
He did not say what Obama might be able to do to get ready in the months before the Democratic convention this August.
Obama’s not ready now, so don’t vote for him. But he could well be ready to be C-in-C by summer, so we’ll take him as VP? This is their offical statement and strategy? Are they trying to insult us with stupidity? They’re succeeding. Does the Clinton camp think through anything? The NYT says actually, no they don’t: the Clinton campaign is a free for all from a managerial (Commander in Chief?) standpoint with lots of infighting and sniping:
Mrs. Clinton accepted or seemed unaware of the intense factionalism and feuding that often paralyzed her campaign and that prevented her aides from reaching consensus on basic questions like what states to fight in and how to go after Mr. Obama, of Illinois
Senator Clinton: please fire this Wolfson bozo for our collective sanity. I don’t think I can take much more of this nonsense.
I find it ironic, I remember the celebration of Clinton Gore in 92′ where I think the song was “Don’t stop thinking about tommorow”. There was hope, excitement, change in the air. Hillary Clinton’s campaign is becoming anti-hope and about military bravado. Aren’t we done with leaders pounding their chests about how tough we need to be? Isn’t that what got us into this mess? Aren’t we trying to move into a post-Bush era without the scorched earth politics and rebuild America’s image in the world?
The message I hear from the Clinton camp under all this banter: when you’re losing, there’s no point in keeping your integrity. Ug.
Pre-rebuttal meme: “A Monster”… Powers… instantly fired.
is clearly an idiot. I’ve never seen an appearing by him where I sensed anything but that fact. However, I feel that way about most PR people, including many of Obama’s flakies. Why campaigns go to those lengths to get press, that they’d put people on TV who know you know they aren’t speaking three words of truth, is beyond me. I get the necessity to stay on message, so perhaps the real answer here is to expect more out of the media than to be willing to constantly be putting these asshats on tv and then call it ‘fair and balanced.’ It’s just a terrible way to provide media coverage of campaigns.
I was thinking about this recently:
and remembered back 5 and half years ago to when we were having the debate about the invasion, and I was part of a group that had pushed for our college Student Union to oppose the AUMF* and send letters stating so to the Congress, and part of the argument was that the war could cost as much as $200 million. That was a worst-case scenario estimate at the time I think. Leaving aside the issues of massive loss of human life, violation of international law, and startling mismanagement.
that Obama has signed onto all those funding bills too….
I will concede that D/ Rumsfeld screwed it up from the git go—he be a bean counter from the Robert MacNamara school.
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p>That being said. Sdam Hussein did in fact possess WMD at one point in time and used them. He cleverly foisted the idea that he again was manufacturing them for future use—shame on him. S Hussein in fact may have possessed them circa 2002 and moved them to Syria. Hussein was playing chess and never dreamed he would be maneuvered into check.
Nor did he understand that his head was about to be seperated from his torso.
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p>What many do not understand is that the world per se is not fair, it is not equitable, and there are many folks out there who will kill you simply because they have nothing better to do. I have met them. There are men in this world that have the means to control large numbers of people, weapons and who are also sociopaths or religious fanatics.
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p>The job of our CIC is to keep America safe from enemies—foreign and domestic. That is the primary—the numero uno job of the president of the United States. EVERYTHING else is secondary.
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p>Now you can moan and groan and and bemoan all of the injustice of anything and everything in this country or this planet. But if you are dead or about to become dead, what you think matters not a whit.
I remember when Clinton was asked in an early debate about her likability factor and Obama turned to her and commented, “You’re likable enough.” In the same vein I would say Obama is ready “enough”, just that Clinton is much more ready. I also believe that if the worst happened to the President, we should be able to say confidently, “The President is dead – long live the President!” without skipping a beat. In theory the VP should be ready to take over, but in practice I’m operating on the assumption that the term of the elected POTUS will not rival William Henry Harrison’s for brevity. I felt the same way about Edwards in 2004 – not enough experience to be elected directly to the presidency, but enough that he could develop in the vice-presidency to take over if need be. In both cases I felt both Edwards and Obama could bring a lot to the ticket as well. Therefore I submit that this position is not as contradictory as it may seem at first.
The Clinton campaign statement is that Obama may be ready by August. Therefore not soon enough to be nominated as a Presidental candidate, but just in time to be the Vice Presidential candidate. It’s a ridiculous argument. It feels like the Clinton campaign is running by the seat of their pants. Throw the kitchen sink up at the competition and see what sticks. Maybe that’s ok, I think Bill Clinton had great instincts and wonkyness that it was effective as a President. But to argue that Hillary Clinton has got experience and they’re ready to go, when the very arguments they make to do so are nonsensical and disorganized (and apparently so is the whole campaign operation) says the opposite. The irony: a wobbling ship saying we’re more competent and experienced.
These two should never be confused as they take different skill sets. Our Governor, for example, at times seems better at campaigning. Dukakis, Kerry, and Bob Dole are recent presidential contenders that did not always campaign well, but probably would have been competent as President.
that governing and campaigning are different skills sets. Thinking about that, there’s people with natural charisma that do great in campaigning and there’s people who don’t have that but are clearly very competent like Dukakis, Gore, Kerry. Presumably the former might run on charisma and less on managerial skill versus the latter which would then be great at managing. Clinton then falls into having neither then? No a natural charismatic person and not a great manager? A campaign is a complicated operation, but the whole US government executive branch is even more complicated. We’re told NYT she’s not communicating well with and not managing well her inner circle of hand picked advisors. She not even getting consensus within her own inner circle on a strategy. She’s learning as she goes, fine. It just shows the hollowness of the experience attack.
Heck, I’d fire him for stupidity.
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p>Just when Clinton had changed the subject from this to the “fusion ticket” option. (Just as calculated, but warmer and fuzzier, and a better gambit for her.)
no matter what the Clinton campaign does or says, the Obama crowd would respond disproportionately. We can debate whether Wolfson’s response was “right”, which in the words of Mark Twain, “the difference between the right word and an almost right word is the difference between lighting and a lightning bug,” but I still fail to see how that translates into Hillary’s campaign being “anti-hope.” Anti-hope! I haven’t been this excited by a race in decades! Your perspective and animosity does not make this campaign anti-hope.
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p>I think the there’s a strategy and a pattern of over-response on the part of supporters of Mr. Obama, yet if y’all keep crying “wolf,” you will do yourselves more harm than good. This strategy of constant hot button pressing may help you win the Democratic nomination, but it will fail miserably in the general election. People want to know that the Commander in Chief is more than a Whiner in Waiting.
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p>Now calm down and have another latte.
and how different perspectives see things. I actually find the Clinton campaign to be very whiny. They embraced the SNL thing so whole heartedly that it became hard to see where the satire began and ended. And the Clinton camp is playing up the “victim” card, which seems to actually work pretty well each time. People respond to it as well (they’re out to get us). The hot button? The Clinton campaign (or someone in their campaign) made the decision to go negative with the 3am ads. They made the decision to go negative with the inexperience theme. In this post I’m just pointing out that there logic falls apart here. The notion that speaking up about this and keeping the Clinton camp honest on their inconsistencies is crying wolf is somewhat is similar to the logic of: to say something negative about the president is to not be with the troops. The Republicans for years have mastered the art of making arguments to silence liberals (out of patriotism, out of being too liberal or being biased media; they also do this to scientists, my pet peeve).
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p>I think Bob is on to something about who’s actually running for the Democratic nomination. Its like the Clinton camp (and maybe many Democrats) have had so many years of fighting against these tactics that we’re instinctively adopting them: the fear 3am ads, the liberal media is against us line, the ‘your speaking up is hurting the cause logic’. And I don’t buy the logic that we have to do this to win cause that’s what they’ll do to us. Fellow citizens: don’t drink the kool-aid.
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p>OK, anti-hope is probably not the most appropriate phrase, but no one can debate that the Clinton campaign has gone negative, and one tack they have taken is that the inspirational tone of the Obama campaign is just words. That by definition is against the hopefulness of the Obama campaign. Negative is probably the most accurate wording.
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p>Thanks for the suggestion for another latte, I actually drink tea. That must make me a Colonist đŸ˜‰ Now come on, are you trying to take the Republican playbook strategy of those liberals drink lattes on us? What does Hillary drink in the morning? Bud?
I was just teasing ya, mak. God almighty, this is a very thin-skinned crowd. But interestingly enough, just as you call my jest a “Republican playbook,” I can also point to a very ugly, very nasty Republican playbook email that some Obama folks are having a party with that connects the Clintons to something like 42 deaths. I can post it here, if you’d like. It’s very cute, and very subterranean.
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p>So let’s talk about some hot buttons. You know, you guys keep pretending that Mr. Obama hasn’t gone negative with his mailings on NAFTA and healthcare…which Fact.org has certainly dissected and found to be not quite factual. How about Michelle saying that “it is our view that if you can’t run your own house, then you can’t run the White House,” which everyone knows was a direct smack at Hillary, very early in the game. And Monstergate. Are these inconsistencies with the “message” or just part of politics that Obama gets to engage in and no one else?
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p> You can say what you want about Hillary and her supporters – we’re not delusional. We don’t pretend she’s above it all, and it’s a good thing, because if she does get the nomination, we would want her battle ready, because that’s what the general election is going to be. As I’ve mentioned before, a dear friends of mine has said that “if Obama thinks the Clinton warships are bad, then just wait until he sees the McCain juggernaut.”
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p>The thing is….Obama’s no more of a uniter than any of the rest of them. Hillary’s no more of a dirty fighter than the rest of them. The difference is the window dressing that smug and self-righteous appears to be getting instead of the vetting it should be getting.
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too with the Bud comment. Maybe they should armwrestle to really prove who’s the more macho candidate. I’m struggling not to make jokes about relative chest hair.
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p>Another thing, clearly the people who support both candidates are very diverse. I’ve been appalled at some of the shockingly (reverse) racist anti-Obama (pro-Clinton?) comments I’ve seen online. It is clearly unwise to lump all supporters into a box based on the unfortunate actions of the fringes and to generate angry enthusiasm about it (another Repub favorite tactic, thinking of Limbaugh and flag burners etc. Don’t we all drink latte and burn a flag everyday?).
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p>My point in all this is that if they’re going to make some claims they should at least make some sense. Otherwise they’re fair game to be criticized. Nonsensical arguments, even if you’re battletested, aren’t useful going to be particularly effective. They’ll just be mocked.
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p>Besides, I think the most effective weapon against “battletested” McCain is actually Dave Letterman’s old man jokes:
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p>Isn’t McCain the one that got sideswiped by the Bush/Rove machine in 00′?
This is a campaign, remember? Do you really think Obama wanted to spend his time talking about not being Hillary’s VP? And you may think his argument that Clinton is being inconsistent about his qualifications is some big “gotcha” moment, but I really don’t think it resonated that much with voters. And really, is the argument he wants to be making “I thought you said I’m not good enough”?
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p>For a bunch of idiots who don’t know what they’re doing, Clinton’s team sure seems to have controlled the conversation for quite some time now.
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p>Obama won huge in Mississippi tonight, and I’ll bet it’s just another campaign story tomorrow, with no grand proclamations about his momentum. Instead, all the talk will be about Pennsylvania, which happens to be a place where Hillary will likely do very well. It wouldn’t have been that way a month ago.
I think Wolfson was smart to bring up Ken Starr. And despite what Obama’s supporters like to say, he didn’t say Axelrod was Ken Starr. He said he was using Starr-like tactics. I think this was in response to Axelrod making comments like “I really don’t think the Clintons want to talk about real estate deals.” Wolfson was just setting the groundwork, in case the Obama campaign wants to bring up Whitewater. If they do, it’s already being positioned as a Starr-like maneuver.
the Obama campaign didn’t bring up the Whitewater thing. They brought up the taxes because it is relevant, a 5 million dollar loan from themselves (the Clintons) implies they have strong corporate ties.
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p>Hearing Ken Starr’s name again just gives me the jeebies. Gail Collins had a great column about how if Clinton is elected and re-elected we will have had 36 years of a Bush or Clinton in office (VP included). We’re talking more than a generation of two family dynasties. Sometimes its just a really good thing to have a change.
yet none of these holier than thou’s want to prosecute!