Bang the Drum

This gal has a bit of a selective memory, but the drubbing she gets from Bill Clinton in public was just…well, over the top.

To be clear, there is no question in my mind that Hillary Clinton did work hard to make health care reform work during Clinton’s first term. She was unsuccessful, largely because of her style. The lack of consensus building, team building and discussion with various constituencies in the Congress and in the industry killed it.

The lady’s bottom line is right: Hillary Clinton didn’t get it done after promising it. But her accusation goes a little too far when she suggests that she didn’t TRY. or WORK ON IT.

What has bothered me about Senator Clinton’s health care plan this time around is the same point this woman makes. It plays well on the campaign trail, but will it get done?

At any rate, the public drubbing was something I would not have taken well. Not at all. This lady did a better job than me, because being called ‘crazy’ in public by the former President of the United States would have really pissed me off. On the other hand, he makes a case for McCain’s temper. McCain looks like a pussy cat next to Bill in full dudgeon.

Real classy, Bill.

Technorati Tags: health care, Bill Clinton, West Virginia, video, temper

Technorati Tags: time magazine, cover, obama

Photo: Larry C. Johnson’s self portrait,
as published on the Huffington Post

If this guy is a friend of Hillary Clinton’s, she really doesn’t need any enemies. With screeds like this where imaginary terrorists named William Ayers become arguments against Barack Obama 5 days ahead of the West Virginia and Kentucky primaries, the excrable Larry Johnson displays the worst and ugliest of the Bush/McCain administrations while stumping for..

a Democrat. And not just any Democrat. Hillary Clinton.

His bio is revealing:

Larry C. Johnson is CEO and co-founder of BERG Associates, LLC, an international business-consulting firm that helps corporations and governments manage threats posed by terrorism and money laundering. Mr. Johnson works with US military commands in scripting terrorism exercises, briefs foreign governments on a regular basis on terrorist trends, and conducts undercover investigations on product counterfeiting and smuggling.

If you’re inclined to read the entire bio, you’ll discover two important facts. First, he was probably Barack Obama’s age (6) during the Weather Underground times and only knows what he’s read from biased right-wing liars. Second, he worked for the CIA at important, critical junctures, up to and including the year 1989, when the CIA should have been gathering and reporting the intelligence that could have prevented the 9/11 attacks. The CIA failures that caused George Tenet to fall on his sword. Yes, that CIA.

Of course, it also goes without saying that those same years in the CIA that have earned him such “acclaim” were also the Clinton years. Of course, it is true that they were a little distracted there at the end.

How unfortunate that he would go ballistic on Hillary Clinton’s behalf and write this:

Hillary’s only hope is that the super delegates will come to their senses and realize that Barack Obama’s relationships with the corrupt Tony Rezko, the racist-wife stealing Jeremiah Wright, and the unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers will provide the Republicans with ammunition they have never had at hand to use against the Democrats’ candidate. This is particularly true of that flag stomper, Bill Ayers.

No, those are no hopes at all for Hillary. None. Zero. I’d like to think she’s learned her lesson when it comes to relying on this stuff. See, this year the voters are all about authenticity. Even the ones who didn’t go to college are thinking. (Note: If you believe any of the guano Johnson is tossing, you’re NOT thinking. Start.)

In actuality, the flag stomper is Mr. Johnson, who qualifies in my book as the same kind of government shill that was doing the dirty work for the Bushies with the networks when they were loaned out by the government as “consultants and commentators“.

So, Mr. Johnson, let me put this plainly. Bill Ayers ain’t going to play much of anywhere other than backwater areas where they only get Fox News and actually believe the shit they try to pass off as fact. Why? BECAUSE BILL CLINTON PARDONED TWO WEATHER UNDERGROUND CRIMINALS AND BILL AYERS WAS NOT CONVICTED OF SQUAT.

Got it? Good.

The rest of Johnson’s rant is just irrational. It hasn’t worked for the past month and it’s not going to work now. Ayers isn’t going to play no matter how desperately Bob Novak (aka Mr. “Out Valerie Plame”) wants to think so.

And Mr. Johnson, consider this. Not one time has Barack Obama pointed out Whitewater, the White House travel scandal, the “Lincoln Bedroom for campaign cash” scam, or Bill Clinton’s impeachment. Not one time. Surrogates speaking for Hillary Clinton should consider their own conduct in this regard.

This desperate gasp on Mr. Johnson’s part confirms what I’ve believed all along. The GOP was desperate for Clinton to be the Democratic candidate, believing that they had 1200 pages of dirt to serve up in the upcoming national campaign. Now that the majority of voters (no matter how you cut it, with and without Florida and Michigan, by the way) have said they choose Barack Obama, the GOP knows the inevitable truth.

In November, they will lose the White House and the Congress. There will be a sweeping mandate, and there won’t be a goddamn thing they can do about it.

The Republicans’ chickens are coming home to roost.

Technorati Tags: Huffington Post, William Ayers, Bob Novak, GOP, Republican chickens, roost, chickenshit, head up his ass

According to the Indiana Secretary of State, the official totals were:

Hillary Clinton: 637,814 50.4%

Barack Obama: 626,642 49.6%

The difference: 11,152 less than 1 %

h/t Jack and Jill Politics

People following me on Twitter already know this, but now I’m going to put in print and permalink:

CNN is dead to me.

I turned off their breaking news texts, unsubscribed from their blogs, removed their page from my Blackberry.

They are dead, because last night they walked over a couple of lines that are, in my opinion, completely unacceptable.

Here is part of a transcript from an exchange between Paul Begala and Donna Brasile while they were waiting for election returns last night:

BEGALA: We cannot win with egg heads.

Let me finish my point.

We cannot win with egg heads and African-Americans. OK, that is the
Dukakis Coalition, which carried ten states and gave us four years of
the first George Bush.

To her credit, Donna Brasile served it right back up to him, but it wasn’t just the words that offended. It was the message. Instead of placing the blame at the feet of those who refused to support the Democratic party when it most needed it, it was placed at the feet of those who DID support the party.

Discourse like this makes the division deeper, and does nothing to advance a conversation about why Hispanics, women and non-educated whites chose to vote for George Bush.

I might have forgiven that, since Donna Brasile did such a magnificent job of pushing Paul Begala back into a corner, but what John King and Wolf Blitzer did to the mayor of Gary, Indiana later that night is absolutely evil, unforgivable, and deserving of a humble apology they’re never going to get.

Lake County was slow to report returns, as was another rural county that went overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton. When they did report returns, they started with the absentee ballots, which broke 75/25 for Barack Obama and erased much of Clinton’s lead in Indiana. The balance of the reporting came in slowly and piecemeal.

John King and Wolf Blitzer went after Rudy Clay with a vengeance, interrogating him over and over about why it took so long for the ballots to be counted and the precincts to report. No matter how many times he answered the question, they would not accept the answer and continued to browbeat him, bringing in the Hammond mayor to act as surrogate and accuse Clay of stuffing the ballot box. Of course, the accusation took place on the air after Rudy Clay had hung up the phone.

It is unacceptable for a major news outlet to allow such an accusation to be made with absolutely no substantive evidence that there had been ANY vote-tampering or other impropriety, AND to bring in an Ivy-League looking white mayor to level that accusation.

There’s no other word for it. It was race-baiting. Intentional race-baiting. The clear message was that you sure couldn’t trust the black guy to count the votes, but the white guy on the screen, yeah, he was trustworthy. And this is done in the context of a very close and deeply divided primary season between a black man and a white woman. A white woman, incidentally, with extraordinarily high name recognition and a former President of the United States at her back.

When CNN began to see their ratings climb as a result of their election coverage, they slowly became more sensational and less factual. Not that they were ever as factual or as in-depth as they could have been, but as time went on, I have watched them move closer and closer to being the Democratic party equivalent of Fox News to Republicans. Biased, and in this case, dirty racists.

So farewell to you, Anderson Cooper, as much as I love watching you in a hurricane, I accept that there will be no more long nights with the wind and rain bearing down on you.

To Donna Brasile and David Gergen, thanks for offering the only intellectually honest commentary.

To CNN, you are dead and buried. Only a sincere, heartfelt apology to every egghead and African-American you insulted and accused could possibly resurrect you, and since I don’t see that coming any time soon, I’m shoveling the dirt on your coffin as fast as I can.

MSNBC is my new bff. Olbermann may not play as well in a hurricane, but the man can certainly make his own weather when he’s pissed.

Buh bye.

Update, courtesy of GW Frink: The Chicago Tribune tells the story of Lake County’s delay. They had three times the number of absentee ballots as ever before, and 144,291 total voters. The final count showed no indication of ballot-tampering; in fact, as ballots were counted, the gap between the two candidates was closed.

So CNN, where IS that apology?

Technorati Tags: CNN, news bias, racism, media racism, media, broadcast, Wolf Blitzer bites, John King

This will be a very quick post because I’m in between meetings for the REAL job today.

Politico has a post up saying that Barack Obama will claim the nomination on May 20th. He just gave an interview to Brian Williams of NBC which will air tonight. In the clip I saw just now, he answered Williams’ question about May 20th this way (not an exact quote, but close):

“May 20th is an important date. If we have the majority of pledged delegates, we can make the claim that we’ve won….But it’s really important to bring in all the parties and make sure our attention is on the Republicans for the fall.”

Now this news follows news that the Clinton campaign is pushing back hard on the question of the Michigan and Florida delegates, and that Michigan has offered a compromise to seat their delegates where they would be seated 59/69.

In a letter sent from the Clinton campaign to Senator Obama, she asks him to work toward a resolution.

In addition, Senator Clinton made the following statement in an interview with USA Today :

“I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on,” she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article “that found how Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”

“There’s a pattern emerging here,” she said.

This type of statement reveals how far Hillary Clinton can go and how deeply she can divide the Democratic party. On the one hand, her letter seems to indicate an opening for negotiation of a gentle and classy exit from the race, yet on the other, her racial statements which clearly pander to anyone doubtful about Obama because of his race.

My opinion: Negotiate an exit, work on party unification before the convention, and come out strong against the McCain.

Read more reaction to the “white comments” here and here.