Loathsome
Earthside Comments: It is low, it is cheap ... it is Clintonian.
She smears, she lies, she exaggerates and she bullies.
We've just gone through almost eight years of this kind of divisive, gutter politics in the White House -- enough is enough -- no more.
Link: Clinton Chats With The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy? | Scott Conroy/Horserace/CBS News
The news out of Pennsylvania today was that Hillary Clinton weighed in on the Reverend Jeremiah Wright controversy when she told a newspaper editorial board, "he would not have been my pastor … You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend."
But somewhat lost in the hubbub over this latest jab at Obama was the very fact that Clinton was meeting with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review editorial board at all.
Published by billionaire conservative activist Richard Mellon Scaife, the Tribune-Review is known for its opinion page, which tilts heavily to the right. During the 1990s, the paper published a series of stories examining the case of Vince Foster, the former White House Deputy Counsel whose 1993 death was ruled a suicide after several investigations.
The Tribune-Review was at the forefront of conspiracy theorists who speculated that Hillary and President Clinton may have been involved in murdering Foster and covering up his death. As late as 2002, the Tribune-Review published a column suggesting Hillary Clinton's presidential aspirations would be tampered due to the Foster "cover-up."
Asked at a news conference this afternoon what it felt like to sit in the heart of the "vast right-wing conspiracy," Clinton laughed.
"It was actually very pleasant … " she said. "I said in the beginning when I arrived that it was obviously somewhat counterintuitive for me to be there, but it was a good discussion."
Link: The Clinton Campaign Keeps Lying About NAFTA | John Nichols/The Nation
There is a lot of buzz this week about Hillary Clinton's admission that she "misspoke" when she made claims – apparently to buff her commander-in-chief credential – about "landing under sniper fire" and "running with our heads down" when she traveled to Bosnia in 1997. As it turns out, she was greeted by children reading poetry. Sure, that's embarrassing.
But at least she has admitted to "a blip" of a "misstatement" on the Bosnia front.
There have been no such admissions with regard to her outright lies regarding trade policy.
Clinton has campaigned this year as a critic of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Despite the fact that the deal was promoted and passed during the Bill Clinton presidency, and despite her own long record of praising NAFTA's "benefits," Clinton has been claiming on the current campaign trail that, "I have been a critic of NAFTA from the very beginning."
In truth, she was an advocate for NAFTA within the Bill Clinton White House. White House records released last week confirm that Hillary Clinton spoke on behalf of NAFTA and participated in strategy sessions organized to figure out how to gain congressional approval of an agreement that was opposed by labor, farm, environmental and human-rights groups.
Remarkably, the Clinton campaign continues to claim that Hillary Clinton was really a fifth columnist quietly promoting a fair-trade agenda within her husband's militantly pro-free trade White House. "Senator Clinton was pushing back," Clinton campaign spokesman Jay Carson claimed in a conference call with reporters last week. Even when she appeared at a November 10, 1993, session set up to tell business leaders how to lobby Congress, Carson says Clinton simply did a "drop by" – sort of a peak in the door and a wave.
The reality is that she was the headliner at that closed-door event.
And she was not "pushing back."
The executive director of the United States Association of Importers of Textiles and Apparel, Laura Jones, was at the meeting. She tells ABC News that it is "ludicrous" to suggest that Hillary Clinton was a half-hearted backer of the trade deal that has cost the United States hundreds of thousands of unionized jobs, hobbled whole industries, saddled this country with record trade deficits, undermined protections for workers in the U.S. and abroad and forced Mexican farmers off the land and into the immigration stream.
"There was no question that everyone who spoke including the First Lady was for NAFTA, it was a rally on behalf of NAFTA to help it get passed," says Jones. "It's unquestionable."
l just spoke with a Democratic Party official, who asked for anonymity so as to speak candidly, who said we in the media are all missing the point of this Democratic fight.
The delegate math is difficult for Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, the official said. But it's not a question of CAN she achieve it. Of course she can, the official said.
The question is -- what will Clinton have to do in order to achieve it?
What will she have to do to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, in order to eke out her improbable victory?
She will have to "break his back," the official said. She will have to destroy Obama, make Obama completely unacceptable.
"Her securing the nomination is certainly possible - but it will require exercising the 'Tonya Harding option.'" the official said. "Is that really what we Democrats want?"
The Tonya Harding Option -- the first time I've heard it put that way.
It implies that Clinton is so set on ensuring that Obama doesn't get the nomination, not only is she willing to take extra-ruthless steps, but in the end neither she nor Obama win the gold.
(In this metaphor, presumably, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., would be Oksana Baiul. Does that make former President Bill Clinton Jeff Gillooly?)
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