Virtually every pundit, regardless of political bent, has propagated the meme that Hillary has run a scorched-earth, kitchen-sink campaign that leaves Barack Obama no choice but to reluctantly start playing a little hardball.
This meme has reached nearly 100% saturation. Even the seraphim that circle Obama's head are surely telling him to take the gloves off.
This weekend, a friend wrote me, saying that Hillary's "running the way a Republican would... always out to destroy their opponent... trying to emasculate him, belittling his credentials to be president, even as she dangles the second spot. That the kind of chutzpah you expect of GOP primary contestants in any year but this one."
Another said that she gives the impression that "she would sacrifice her whole party and all semblance of dignity for her shot at the White House."
And a third termed her response to the "Is Barack a Muslim?" question "sleazoid," until I sent him
Eric Boehlert's thorough debunking of that mini-meme.
For those who’d rather print the fact than the legend, the Clinton campaign has assembled a strong case showing that the Obama campaign is, and has been, a veritable factory for tear-down-your opponent mudslinging.
Clinton Internet Director
Peter Daou has circulated an e-mail listing numerous examples of the Obama campaign using its famous way with words to completely belittle Hillary Clinton, doing what she's endlessly accused of doing: endangering the opposing candidate's chances in the general election.
The Clinton campaign also created a more-exhaustive compilation of Obama's attacks on Hillary, dating back over a year, at
www.attacktimeline.com.
Now, for those who are ready to rethink the media-fed myth that Hillary's the low-blow artist in this fight, and that Barack's a political pacifist, let's consider the topics that are generally cited as the crookedest cuts of all.
First, the race card. Let's not be lying nitwits here. Race (and gender) were
always factors in this campaign. You could fill a library with citations about the "meaning" of this "historic" campaign, the signals it would send to the world, and so on. But bringing
racism into the mix was the
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=aa0cd21b-0ff2-4329-88a1-69c6c268b304|Obama campaign's invention>. What else do you call twisting Bill's "
fairy tale" comment about Obama's Iraq War credibility into
racism? And morphing his praise for LBJ's role in civil rights into a dance on MLK's grave, thereby helping seal for Obama a nearly unanimous black vote in South Carolina? It's beyond me how anyone who has hit the fainting couch over divisive campaign tactics doesn't recognize this as the low point of this campaign — the fabrication of claims that your opponent is a racist (and, to boot, so is the only Democratic president we've had since 1980).
Secondly, maybe you're in a lather over the "3AM ad." Putting aside the surreal
New York Times op-ed which saw images of sleeping white children (two of whom, as the commentator observes with grave suspicion, "seem vaguely Latino") as a callback to the Willie Horton ad and
Birth of a Nation, the ad says — in its cheesy and derivative way — that the candidate who paid for the ad is the better bet in a crisis. Just the kind of underhanded implication you'd expect from someone who didn't have the decency to quit the race when the Kewl Kidz said she should. Shameful. Why can't she run uplifting ads, which claim her opponent will "
say anything and do nothing." What could possibly help the party more in the general election? If Hillary pulls this thing out, she'll probably want to run that ad herself, with its warmly supportive message of progressive unity.
Finally, there is Hillary's statement implying that only she, among the remaining Dems, can match up to McCain on experience. Given how Dick "Gravitas" Cheney wiped the floor with John Edwards in the 2004 debate (despite how singularly terrible Cheney's "experience" is), this is a legitimate concern for the general election, no? Still, once again, Obama
plays the gentleman, by saying that Sen. Clinton has "higher negatives" and reveling in the implication that his supporters won't back her in November.
I'm going to name my Unity Pony "higher negatives," because that's what a high-road candidate would say. Oh, and as with Obama's other above-board blows, this preceded the offending Hillary statement or ad.
What Obama's putting out about Hillary is good for the party, right? Just like his supporters' endlessly perpetuating the myth that Hillary is a monstrous cheater, who runs like a Republican and will gladly destroy her party in a deranged and desperate grab for "her precious." How could that possibly hurt her, and us, in the general election?
It can't, because she's a zombie, a machine, a bitch, and certifiably insane, as we hear 24/7. She may cry crocodile tears, but she isn't capable of feeling any real pain — and if she does she deserves it, right?
Nothing you say about Hillary or her husband — no matter how demeaning or untrue — could ever hurt them personally, or could diminish her chances in the general election, because she
mustn't be allowed to be nominated. Even if Obama has to steal votes in FL and MI, with his
cynical 50/50 ploy, because that's the right thing to do.
Because she's the devil. This I know, because AM radio told me so. It would be bad for the party to think otherwise.
___
The Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy, now at my new home: Correntewire.com
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