I could give a shit about what's on the transcripts, but Clinton's response is catastrophic

[Recursion]

I don't like many here think there's some kind of hidden kryptonite in the transcripts. I'm basically certain she talked in the kind of vague bromides we've trained politicians to speak in. I'm even more certain that whatever she said, Goldman Sachs et al weren't listening; you don't get HRC to speak at your holiday party to hear what she has to say; you get her to speak to brag at the yacht club "Hillary Clinton spoke at our party; who spoke at yours, again?" But this refusal to release what she said has passed into absurdity, and worse yet into an absurdity she can't realistically back down from.

Frankly, "Fuck you; I was paid to give a speech and I gave it; the people who paid for it can release it if they want to" would be much better from an electoral standpoint than "I'll look into it" or "I'll do it if every single other candidate does". (Then again, I also think "I want to be the first woman President" is a better elevator speech for her candidacy than anything she's offered so far -- for that matter I think it would be devastatingly effective, nationally.)

This strikes me as yet another example of Clinton running the Last 20th Century Campaign™. 25 years ago, stonewalling Wolf Blitzer was enough to let the media run on to the next shiny 24 hours later. (BTW: people get the sense of "24 hour news cycle" exactly wrong: Carville's point -- I think he coined the term -- was that the press at the time had an attention span of 24 hours, and if you can stall for that long you can avoid any given issue; it also meant you had precisely 24 hours to land an attack on your opponent on a given issue. I know Carville is not popular here but he really is a giant among political operatives.)

In an environment where a hashtag or meme can pop up anywhere, at any time, you can't just stonewall and hope stuff goes away.

[99th_Monkey]

1. We already know what's in transcripts Lots'a glad-handing, happy-talk & collective ego massage. nt

[JackRiddler]

3. Maybe.

So why haven't they been released?

[Recursion]

5. Craziest part: if she hadn't backed herself into this corner

I'd put money on the proposition that they were literally her standard stump speech. Because that's what we've trained (at least on the D side) politicians to do: speak in generalities that nobody can disagree with.

But she's made this a contest of wills, and Hillary Clinton absolutely does not back down in those, ever.

[99th_Monkey]

6. Because it's not popular now to glad-hand, adore & fawn-over corporate 1% crooks.

Hillary may have gone even further .. after all.. $225,000 is $225,000 ...

There was an eye-witness attendee at one of the GS events, who came-out
with essentially what I said. but there could well be more, much more.

Inquiring minds must know, and soonish.

[JackRiddler]

7. Anyway, the $225K says a lot more than any speech.

[JI7]

2. i agree, just put it out there

[ucrdem]

4. It's a Benghazi and she's busy right now.

I'm sure she'll help them when she gets a chance.

[californiabernin]

8. She must have a concern about something she said.

no doubt about it.

[Recursion]

10. Except I really don't think she does

Hillary Clinton is literally the most cautious and circumspect politician I've ever seen. I would be literally astounded if she said something even remotely substantive in any sense.

[stillwaiting]

38. Hillary Clinton's campaigning is the exact opposite of cautious.

I don't recall seeing another politician running for the Democratic nominee that so frequently insults her opponent's supporters in quite the way that Hillary, her family, and her surrogates in the media have stooped to doing.

It's going to make it very difficult for her to get some progressives to vote for her in the G.E. because SHE has made it extremely personal. Her attacks are in no way cautious or circumspect. She, her family, and her surrogates are directly attacking US, and they are expecting for us to fall in line and vote for her in the General. I have always voted for the Democrat in every single election I have lived through, and voting for Hillary would be the most difficult vote I've ever had to give, and it would not even be close. I genuinely don't know what I'm going to do if she's the nominee, and I am far from alone. It's HER fault completely.

[jeff47]

41. She never ran a primary until 2008. And it shows. (nt)

[bigtree]

9. leading republican candidates oozing up from their own dirt

...and you're worrying about this little gotcha game Sanders is playing?

The argument for the transcripts has little traction as campaign fodder for this Democratic primary. She not going to surrender this primary point. It makes more sense to save all of that for any challenge from republicans, and leave her Democratic rival with little more than talking points.

[Recursion]

11. The ooze on the GOP side is neverending

The ooze from Clinton in this case is minimal if even existing to begin with (there is literally nothing whatsoever wrong with Clinton taking money from Goldman Sachs to speak at their event).

The response from her campaign, however, worries the hell out of me.

Also a wave from the old O'Malley group. This feels like one of those moments from Gettysburg when Major Whoever realizes Colonel Whats-His-Face is on the other side...

[bigtree]

13. same side

...same Democratic coalition.

[Recursion]

14. Amen (nt)

[Peace Patriot]

16. "nothing whatsoever wrong with Clinton taking money from Goldman Sachs."??

Strongly disagree.

What's legal, and what's morally wrong (after what those SOBs did to our country!), and what's politically humongously stupid are all different things.

There is EVERYTHING wrong with her taking big bucks from Goldman Sachs! And it's become a symbol of what she IS, which means that she is politically humongously stupid or just doesn't give a crap!

Two strikes and she's out.

[elana i am]

31. i beg to differ

(there is literally nothing whatsoever wrong with Clinton taking money from Goldman Sachs to speak at their event).

if she were a private citizen i'd say more power to her. as a supposedly "progressive" (crock of shit that is!) candidate for president? hell no.

goldman sachs doesn't pay big bucks to be lectured to and shamed so we know what she said in those speeches is pretty much besides the point. that she lacked the judgement as a supposed "progressive" (TOTALLY a crock of shit that is!) to even go down that road is all we need to know about where her true priorities lie. greed. avarice.

it's NOT fucking progressive to hobnob with criminals who defraud and victimize us and consider us riff raff. just no.

[OZi]

12. I keep thinking in terms of best case and worst case scenarios.

Regardless, how she is handling it is more of a problem for me than what might have been said. She seems to be leading from behind rather than leading by example.

[malokvale77]

15. I don't really give a damn what she said in her paid speeches.

The fact that they paid her (a lousy speaker) that much money tells me all I need to know. They expect a return.

[Peace Patriot]

17. Disagree on two points, but generally agree about her political ineptness...

...except that I suspect she really doesn't give a crap what "We, the People" think. She's playing to the Oligarchs. She IS one of the oligarchs, by getting money from those who whacked us really hard.

I was going to say she's playing to the Oligarch media, but I think it's more than that. As to the Oligarch media, I disagree with this: "I'm basically certain she talked in the kind of vague bromides we've trained politicians to speak in." I guess I don't know who you mean by "we," but that training comes from corporate advertising firms, not from "We, the People." We've certainly tolerated it too long, but it was not our doing. Our politicians speak like TV commercials, and the Oligarch media encourages them to do so, in fact makes it impossible for them not to do so, because of the fractured nature of their, um...'news.'

My other disagreement: I do want to know what she said in those speeches. Goldman Sachs did so much damage to us! They are a criminals. Their corporation should have been de-constructed, and top individuals indicted. So, in my view, Clinton is very tight with criminals and thieves. Could be she spoke in TV commercials. Could be she slobbered all over them in delight at being around so much of our wealth in private hands. I figure the NYT probably knows that the speeches are fairly innocuous. They probably have copies. They likely wouldn't have written the editorial otherwise. But what they would consider innocuous and I what I would consider innocuous are probably quite different.

Totally agree with your "24 hour news cycle" paragraph--something else "We, the People" have tolerated for too long. And with your hashtag ending--this new era is QUICKER. She's old school. Bernie Sanders has a whole lot of supporters who are of THIS era. Gives me hope. Me? I'm back in the 1960s reading a book. But sometimes we looked at a TV, back when news was news and not TV commercials. Got to see Vietnam up close and bloody. THAT was news.

[libtodeath]

18. Or they paid her to purchase favors.

[Recursion]

19. And you're saying that would be in the transcript? (nt)

[libtodeath]

20. Not those exact words but alluded to.

[Recursion]

21. You really think that would be alluded to?

That just seems dubious to me.

[libtodeath]

22. Politicians endlessly let big donars or lobbyists know what they will get from them without saying

the exact words.

[jeff47]

42. More like there is no speech.

"Hi. I'm Hillary Clinton. Where's my check? Ok, let's eat"

Obviously that's hyperbole, but one "bad" possibility from releasing the transcripts would be if there's really nothing there. A couple minutes of "blah blah blah" for $225k? And you hired her multiple times afterwards?

That would heavily imply it was a quid-pro-quo situation, and the speech is only the quid.

[Recursion]

43. That would also not surprise me

Again: you don't hire a celebrity to hear what he or she has to say.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

23. "I intend to run on my record."

"Can we see your records?"

"No."

"Then how can we judge your record?"

"mutter*mutter*grumble*GOP*mutter*mutter*sexism."


A more politically astute person would have cleared these matters off the deck years ago, not allowed them to become a campaign issue in and of themselves. She's not as savvy as everyone wants to believe she is. This is decades of being a rank amateur and too thick-headed to learn any lessons from it. It screams of blind ambition and that alone should be cause for concern.

If there truly is no there, there then that makes all of this even more catastrophically stupid because now we have depositions and subpoenas coming up in the middle of the election cycle and a full-fledged criminal investigation by the FBI.

The FBI? Really?

We're really fronting a candidate who claims she had nothing more than yoga routines on the sole source of email correspondence during her tenure as Secretary of State but has so blatantly mishandled her political foes that now the DOJ of her former boss is investigating her and her staff for possible criminal charges.

Yoga routines.

I'm pulling for Sanders in the primary though I'm resigned to Clinton taking the nomination. But what I cannot shake is the overriding sense that the Republicans are going to have a field day. We'll pine for the days when we actually could debate things like the national debate and universal healthcare.

[Recursion]

24. This

I have a ton of differences with most of the Sanders camp, and several criticisms of Sanders, but Clinton's strategy of being 100% reactive worries the hell out of me.

Clinton feeds the troll. She responds to attacks made on her, in a very effective defensive way. That's how you feed trolls (we've all seen that on DU: "Of course I don't mean all Republicans are racist...&quot This would normally not matter much, but against either Cruz or Trump it would be disastrous. Clinton would respond, cogently and accurately, to all their attacks, and leave the initiative in their hands the entire campaign.

Sanders, meanwhile, would campaign against either Cruz or Trump as if they didn't exist. (Which, really, is the only way to campaign.)

[libtodeath]

26. That sums it up perfectly

She always has regarded any criticism or questioning as something that can be just waved off with the back of her hand.
That would be fine if it was the crazy birther stuff the repukes were in a frenzy over with President Obama but when it is your own party wondering why you are cozying up to and taking big bucks from those that destroyed millions of regular people it is just maddening.

She really seems to think we should be grateful to her for running and not her being grateful to the people that would support her.

[stillwaiting]

40. If Hillary is the nominee the Republicans will have AMPLE ammunition.

Hillary will need us to defend her from the countless missiles the Republicans will be launching.

And, Hillary has pissed off many of the most vocal and politically active progressive Democrats that she will need to counter the offensive that will be launched against her. I just don't know how she gets the independent vote in light of everything that's happened.

[treestar]

25. she should not release anything

as someone pointed out, it may contain things she wants to put in books she wants to write. She should refuse to be bossed around by medieval people implying she is guilty of something.

Let Bernie release his resume, then. And his birth certificate and his college transcripts. And all of his personal notes. Why do white men not get these demands? Because they are respected and no one is trying to put them in their place. Their privacy is respected and their personal notes are their own.

[libtodeath]

27. Pretty sure he has and without it being demanded.

[EdwardBernays]

29. Lol

This is hilariously desperate.

[mac56]

30. "It may contain things she wants to put in books she wants to write"?!?

Oh. Well, then, okay.

[EdwardBernays]

28. She's saying

"I'll let Republicans decide when I'll be transparent"

[yourpaljoey]

32. Look for these damning statements:

1. I will not pursue prosecution
2. In fact, I believe you need more of that good ol'
quantitative easing
3. Yes, I understand and agree you are too big to fail

[Vinca]

33. I would like to know what she really thinks about the people who caused the worst financial crisis

since the Great Depression. It was our tax dollars that bailed them out and allowed them to give 6 and 7 figure bonuses to the incompetent/criminal fools who caused the mess. We've been told she sympathized with the poor banksters and assured them we were all at fault and we'd all get through it together. BS to that. People lost their homes, people lost their retirement savings, people lost their jobs. Back on Wall Street they were making travel plans for winter vacations to their beachfront condos, most likely having a good laugh over the con they pulled on the little guys. Who does she stand with?

[Recursion]

35. The government made money on the bailout

That's a simple fact I've never seen the anti-bailout voices address.

[Vinca]

36. And some people still haven't recouped their home values. What's the point?

I don't really care if the government made money or not if peoples' lives are still destroyed all these years later. There was another way to do the bailout, by the way. Rather than a direct line to Wall Street, it could have been funneled to them by reducing everyone's debt a few percentage points so everyone benefited, not just the fat cats.

[Recursion]

37. But then the government wouldn't have made our money back

People act like TARP was given away for free. It wasn't. In some ways it was kind of a shakedown.

Remember: Goldman Sachs opposed TARP. It cost them money.

[Vinca]

39. Wouldn't it have been great if it had never happened??????

But it did and the average guy on the street was not the responsible party. Blame needs to fall where it belongs, even if the price is a quarter of a million dollar speech.

[ret5hd]

34. "...you get her to speak to brag at the yacht club..."

No. Wrong.

You pay somebody that much money ONLY with the expectation of something in return. It's how the game is played. Bribery is illegal,but if you drop that cheesecloth disguise of "honorarium" over the whole sordid affair it magically becomes legal.

I do agree however that no one, neither Hillary nor listener, cared one whit about about what was said. But then, I am only repeating what was said in my first paragraph.