Op-Ed Column: The Facts, Keith Olbermann and Rabid Hillary Shills

Leading into the Texas and Ohio primaries, The New York Times reported that "the campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton is unleashing what one Clinton aide called a 'kitchen sink' fusillade against Obama." Meanwhile, the Clinton camp was busy working the refs: leveraging a Saturday Night Live sketch that ridiculed the media for alleged favoritism of Sen. Obama, Hillary Clinton cried foul as she and her campaign were simultaneously in the process of heaving said sink.

Clinton and her inner circle fueled the worst kind of xenophobia: "No, there is nothing to base that on. As far as I know," Clinton told 60 Minute's Steve Kroft, when asked if she thought Obama was a Muslim. And while the source of The Drudge Report's well-timed photo of Obama in traditional Somali garb (flaming those Muslim rumors) officially remains unconfirmed, the Clinton camp's history of leaking information to Drudge has been documented. To this day, the campaign has never issued a flat, unequivocal denial that the photo was sent by one of its members. (Mission accomplished: a December 2007 Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed that 8% of Americans thought Obama was a Muslim; a new WSJ/NBC poll reveals that the number of Americans who believe this falsehood has risen to 13%.) Concurrently, as the media failed to effectively challenge Clinton on her refusal to release her tax forms, it featured story after story on Clinton's unrelated and obfuscating counter-punch to any inquire into her tax records: Obama's connection to indicted businessman Antoin Rezko, about which after extensive digging by every major media outlet, not one has confirmed any legal wrongdoing on the part of Sen. Obama. (Welcome to Obama's Whitewater.)

The strategy worked like a charm. The Clinton camp is nothing if not schooled in such politics. With a cowed media focusing lopsided scrutiny on Obama days before the March 4 primary, Clinton's camp landed one shot below the belt after another. Effective and politically shrewd? Sure. Cheap, cynical and sleazy? You bet.

Since the March 4 primaries alone, Clinton press secretary Howard Wolfson has absurdly compared Obama to Ken Starr; Sen. Clinton has done Sen. McCain's bidding, breaking an unofficial rule among same-party candidates by asserting she and Sen. McCain have crossed the "commander-in-chief threshold" while Obama has not; and, of course, this past week one of Clinton's chief fundraisers, Geraldine Ferraro, said, "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position," then claimed reverse racism when people objected to her racist or, at bare minimum, intentionally racially divisive and factually ignorant comments. And if anyone thinks Ferraro's statements weren't tactical salvos - part of Hillary's "Archie Bunker strategy for PA," to quote my consistently straight-shooting friend, Will Bunch - then they're not paying attention or are willfully ignorant of her campaign's modus operandi.

The worst you can say for the Obama camp during the same period is that then foreign policy advisor, Samantha Power, jet-lagged and upset right after the results in Ohio and having witnessed firsthand how Clinton won the state, called her a "monster" during an interview, screwing up by then attempting to keep the comment off the record without having stated that request beforehand. She resigned immediately, publicly and profusely apologizing to Sen. Clinton. Moreover, the media failed to address what drove Power's comment: Clinton's self-evident willingness to do anything to win in Ohio, but also, taking into account Power's expertise on foreign policy and human rights, quite likely her knowledge of Clinton's egregious record on war and innocent civilian lives as well.

Meanwhile, Sen. Clinton initially offered only a tepid and - make no mistake about it - calculated response, saying she "did not agree" with Ferraro's comment and found it "regrettable." Clinton later finally denounced Ferraro's statements in clearer terms: "I rejected what she said and I certainly do repudiate it." But where did she happen to utter this delayed reaction? Before a gathering of black newspaper publishers at the National Newspapers Association meeting. Just another example of Clinton's track record of the most cynical political expediency. Moreover, when Ferraro's comments first made news, Clinton campaign manager Maggie Williams had the Orwellian chutzpah to insinuate that it was somehow Obama who was playing the race card in this instance. But this tactic shouldn't have surprised anyone because it's exactly what Williams had done during the Drudge/Obama-in-African-garb photo flap.

It's worth noting, too, that Maggie Williams is Clinton's newly appointed African-American campaign manager; so far, the Clinton camp's two highest profile uses of Williams was to send her out to blunt its own execution of racially divisive strategies, in which Williams made two of the most absurd counter-attacks on race this campaign has seen. And while the Clinton camp and her more frothing surrogates make the claim that Obama is the one playing the race card in these incidents, it's also an insult to African-Americans across the country, as it implies they are somehow being duped, that they're incapable of arriving at their own conclusions as they witness these historically coded racial strategies unfold, and that Obama's soaring rise in the black vote, which in Mississippi reached 92%, is not, to some degree, a result of being genuinely and understandably disgusted by the racist or, at the very least, exceedingly racially divisive actions of the Clinton campaign.

At the end of the day, the Clinton camp's approach, led by such swell human beings as chief strategist Mark Penn - CEO of PR firm Burson-Marsteller, which has represented Blackwater, Shell Oil and makers of the child-killing Aqua Dots toy - is to argue Sen. Obama's unelectability in the general election by doing everything possible right now to make him unelectable. In fact, Penn let slip this strategy in a conference call with reporters Thursday. Said Penn, "We believe that [the Pennsylvania primary result] will show that Hillary is ready to win, and that Sen. Obama really can't win the general election." Moments later, when a reporter followed up on Penn's comment, press secretary Wolfson tried to remake reality, revealing the kind of shameless, bald-faced mendacity that has been the cornerstone of the Bush administration. "Mark did not say that," Wolfson lied. Except, well, Mark did. And at least one of the reporters taped it.

Indeed, the delegate count does not add up for Sen. Clinton unless she can convince more of the superdelegates that Obama is unelectable. To do that, Clinton and her campaign - and their win-at-all-cost shills (not to be confused with honest and responsible Clinton supporters) - have shown their willingness to potentially ruin Sen. Obama's chances against Sen. John McCain now that mathematically this is the only way for her to win the nomination.

This is neither opinion nor veiled partisanship. Merely a simple fact based on math and the actions of the Clinton campaign, so despicable on so many occasions now as to call into question whether its strategy includes this Plan B: if Clinton cannot win the nomination, then doing everything in her campaign's power to tear Obama down and thus swing the general election in McCain's favor, preserves Clinton's chances at a re-election bid four years from now. In other words, destroying Obama is a win-win for Team Clinton, whether for this November or the one in 2012. This is the deeply cynical yet hardly far-fetched idea that the Clinton camp, based on its own actions, has single-handedly stoked in the minds of citizens who are free to formulate their own thoughts. They see it, they smell it - political expediency in its crudest form. After being backed into a corner, Clinton has proven she's willing to hand over the election to McCain, who, for starters, has shown he's determined to attack Iran, uphold "legal" torture, and preserve this White House's sustained war on civil liberties, the Constitution and international law, as well as permanent tax cuts for the wealthiest one percent. There's no hiding the fact any longer that Clinton cares less about the continued death, destruction and misery of human beings at home and abroad than she does about winning.

Which brings me to Keith Olbermann's special comment on Wednesday.

Like many intellectually honest observers of this race, Olbermann had simply grown disgusted by the Clinton camp's scorched earth approach. As he said in prefacing his editorial, his opinion Wednesday night was not in any way an endorsement of Obama or some kind of official pox on the Clinton campaign. Rather, Olbermann did what he has done for years now in covering the Bush administration: he weighed the record, cut through the doublespeak and targeted lies, hypocrisy and underhanded acts.

Contrary to the empty invective the Taylor Marshes and Larry Johnsons of this race spewed the following day, Keith Olbermann's critique of the Clinton campaign was wholly valid and based in reality. Fair, honest and factual. In claiming otherwise, Marsh, Johnson and their win-at-all-cost lackeys rooted their attacks on Olbermann (Marsh launching hers before Olbermann delivered the special comment) not on the basis of facts but ad hominem sniping.

Overnight, Olbermann was branded an unprofessional hack and misogynist.

The next day, Johnson wrote, "In August of 2006 I praised Keith Olbermann as the 21st Century’s version of Edward R. Murrow. As a result, Ed Schultz banned me from his radio program because I dared praise Keith. Sadly, fame and acclaim have maimed Keith’s brain, and he has become just another partisan hack....Olbermann either does not realize he has become a joke or he does not give a shit. Either way, Keith is not worth a minute of your time. Same for his sponsors."

It's interesting to note that Johnson also links to Marsh's view on Olbermann's special comment, the one she wrote prior to Olbermann's delivery of it. In her pre-emptive attack, titled "Keith Olbermann Is No Edward R. Murrow," Marsh declared, "Olbermann is now the Bill O'Reilly of MSNBC. A big giant head railing against the first viable female candidate in U.S. history." After actually watching the special comment, Marsh, specifically on Olbermann, only had this to say Wednesday night:

As for Olbermann, he started by thanking the Clintons, then ripped the scab off of every primary wound that's come before today. At one point the pompous anchorman actually squealed "David Duke," while doing the Obama camp's greatest hits, resurrecting them all, including Bill Clinton in South Carolina. The delivery was so overwrought and dramatic at one point I was almost convinced he was going to start talking about Jesus, then ask for cash.

Early the next morning, Marsh posted a video of Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., Obama's former pastor, about which she said, "The wing-nuts have been rolling this stuff out as well." Uh, shouldn't that tell her something?

Though that wasn't enough for Marsh: later that same morning, she dedicated another post to Obama's former preacher. Salivating over how this dirt had gone from Fox News to Politico to then, as of Thursday, ABC News (of course now it's everywhere), an exuberant Marsh cried, "Praise the Lord, and pass the political ammunition. We're in it now," while linking to the ABC story. Never mind this new kitchen sink item has nothing whatsoever to do with substantive issues, or that it's insinuation - by association Barack Obama is a reverse racist and dislikes white people - is despicable GOP/Rove-approved mudslinging, exactly the kind we should expect from John McCain if Obama wins the nomination but not from his own Democratic rival. What's more, Marsh simultaneously summoned the Olympian cognitive dissonance to claim, "Every thing said and every Clinton supporter is now seen through the prism of race," and, "This is a nightmare. A Democratic nightmare, especially since Obama and his campaign are intent on making divisiveness the signature remembrance of his primary campaign, extending through a part of culture that is always incendiary: religion."

Further into this post, Marsh again reveals the gutter into which she's descended and appears comfortable to dwell: "Senator Obama may call Reverend Wright 'an old uncle' with whom he doesn't always agree, but I doubt that once the wingnuts and talk radio gets through blasting him across America that voters will feel the same." Yes, those wingnuts. She then added, with accompanying Fox News video featuring that ever-respectable "journalist" Sean Hannity: "Hannity has been on this for quite some time. Rush  [Limbaugh] started today. It's only the beginning, which Reverend Wright's convenient retirement will not staunch."

Hannity. Rush. Marsh. Nice company. Is there a more direct example of how loathsome this latest attack is than to note Hannity and Rush are all over it? Marsh aligns herself with the some of the most fascist, duplicitous and hateful propagandists our the nation has ever produced and sends her readers directly to Fox News for the truth, but it's Keith Olbermann who's lost his credibility?

This has become a farce of a farce. The suspension of disbelief to follow such logic is insurmountable.

Just as Olbermann mentioned his reluctance to deliver his special comment on Clinton, I was at least somewhat apprehensive to enter this fray as well, as MediaBloodhound is also not in the endorsement or cheerleading business. And neither, too, is this an endorsement of Sen. Obama. Throughout this campaign, I have called out the media for unfair or insipid critiques and observations of both Senators Clinton and Obama. But in not endorsing either, I am also not beholden to anything but the facts. And if anyone wants to tell me that, on the whole, Hillary Clinton has run the more honest, principled and less corrosive campaign, then I would be lying to my readers and to myself if I didn't say that such a belief at this stage in the race is either ignorant, willfully ignorant, delusional or patently mendacious.

Moreover, I've done a great deal of research into the mainstream media's biggest failure in this campaign - assessing these two candidates' respective senatorial voting records - and found, overall, Sen. Clinton's to be far worse. Specifically on matters of war and the protection of innocent civilian lives around the world.

We all know about the Iraq War authorization vote. Yet we never hear these days about her revealing September 2007 vote for the Kyle-Lieberman amendment, which Sen. Jim Webb, a decorated veteran, called "Cheney's fondest pipe dream" and about which he warned could be "interpreted" to "declare war" on Iran. As for protecting innocents in war zones, Clinton unconscionably voted against an explicit amendment that proposed to ban the use of cluster bombs - one of the most deadly, indiscriminate and inhumane weapons on the planet - in civilian areas. What's worse, the underlying factors driving Clinton's votes on such matters of life and death, which I recently investigated for a forthcoming article in another publication, are even more appalling than these votes appear to be on the surface (more on that soon).

While Hillary Clinton has accused Obama of Rovian tactics in this race, the facts simply bear out that it is her campaign that has unquestionably depended more on tried and true - and cynical and divisive - tactics that Rove and the Republicans have employed for years. One overarching strategy in particular: accuse your opponent of the very thing you yourself are exhaustively perpetrating. She has done this on nearly every issue, from race to NAFTA to the shadiness of campaign contributors.

Before this race, people once relied on blogger/radio host Taylor Marsh and former CIA agent/counterterrorism expert Larry Johnson for their reality-based assessments of the Bush administration. But now they attack Obama, and anyone who doesn't fall in lockstep behind the Clinton campaign, with the same kind of smear tactics they once decried.

In one of Larry Johnson's latest assaults on Obama, he takes a direct page from the GOP, claiming the Illinois senator is in cahoots with terrorists because he received a campaign contribution of $200 in 2001 from former Weather Underground member William Ayers, who's now a distinguished professor of education at the University of Chicago. Says Johnson, "As Democrats and Independents weigh who they want to run against John McCain in the fall, answer this question. Can you support a candidate who is friends with terrorists? Can you support a candidate who takes money from terrorists?" The Washington Post (h/t Oliver Willis) has noted how lame this attack is:

But the Obama-Ayers link is a tenuous one. As Newsday point out, Clinton has her own, also tenuous, Weatherman connection. Her husband commuted the sentence of a couple of convicted Weather Underground members, Susan Rosenberg and Linda Sue Evans, shortly before leaving office in January 2001. Which is worse: pardoning a convicted terrorist or accepting a campaign contribution from a former Weatherman who was never convicted?

To be clear, neither of these superficial connections deserves any play in the Democratic presidential nomination race. But Johnson has pounded Obama's loose tie to Ayers as supposed evidence of his unelectability while willfully ignoring or being ignorant to Sen. Clinton's own connection to the very same group. Thus, Johnson proudly leads the Swiftboat pack on this one. As of Thursday night, he had the same video of Obama's former pastor sitting atop his blog that Marsh has been prominently featuring on hers.

Repeatedly and hypocritically, Johnson has accused Obama of Rovian tactics, only to turn around the next moment and dredge up Rovian talking points as proof of why Obama should not be nominated.

Everyone, of course, has a right to support either candidate openly, or to sit on the sidelines and distill what is actually going on in this race without claiming a horse in this race. And there are certainly plenty of intellectually honest Clinton supporters, unlike Marsh and Johnson, who have respectfully and honorably backed their candidate, some who have even acknowledged or spoken out about their disappointment in the overall tenor and tactics of their candidate's campaign but who still believe she would make a better president.

But when you start attacking a candidate on the basis of sleazy assertions, bogus ties and ad hominem digs, when you become exactly what you once professed to stand against - and while you even have the prerogative to jump off the reality-based ship in doing so - you officially relegate your views (at least pertaining to this race) to spin. You are no more reliable than the most duplicitous campaign spokesperson.

Plain and simple, you've become a shill. Less interested in fair play, facts and substantive ideas than in saying or doing anything to give your candidate an edge. You've forfeited all credibility outside your choir. Apart from your followers who eagerly lap up each nasty bit directed at Obama, your opinions on this race have been rendered meaningless.

It's as though Hillary capos like Marsh and Johnson learned nothing from the Bush years. Nothing about the danger of making judgments based on emotion rather than fact or of vilifying those who dissent from their point of view. Nothing about the intrinsic inner rot of a movement in which winning totally trumps the methods of how you get there and strong leadership is defined as how unscrupulously you're willing to go to destroy anyone in your path.

So it has come to this: Keith Olbermann, one of the only network journalists to do his job during the Bush years, who has consistently and courageously told it like it was on the Iraq War, Katrina, illegal wiretapping, torture, habeas corpus, extraordinary renditions, missing White House emails, disappeared CIA interrogation tapes, telecom amnesty, civilian casualties in Lebanon, global warming - on every single issue this administration has suffused with obfuscation and doublespeak - is now being called washed up for holding the Clinton campaign to the same standards of fair play and truthfulness.

This is how far shills like Marsh and Johnson are willing to sink. Everyone and anyone is fair game. Either blindly goose-step behind the Clinton bandwagon or be trampled beneath it.

I proudly stand with Keith Olbermann. I proudly stand not with Obama, nor with Clinton, nor with Marsh or Johnson, but with the facts as they present themselves to me.

I prefer to think for myself. It's quite liberating.

Comments

[Brad Jacobson]

The Facts, Keith Olbermann and Rabid Hillary Shills

[Avedon]

To this day, the campaign has never issued a flat, unequivocal denial that the photo was sent by one of its members.

That's false, Wolfson did so on the same day.

I'm told the 60 Minutes thing is a Rorschach test, but I'm not sure what of. I've watched that video numerous times, now, and what I see is a woman trying to restrain herself from telling the interviewer he's talkin' crazy. What I hear from people who condemn her for it sounds to me like they're complaining that Hillary isn't campaigning for Obama.

In fact, 99% of the complaints about Hillary's campaign amount to, "How dare she campaign for herself instead of for Obama?"

Look, I'm sorry, much as I dislike the fact that she's in the race at all, she has a genuine gripe about the unfairness and sexism of the way she's been covered, and there's no evidence she's been responsible for any race-baiting.

I don't understand why so many people are blind to the fact that Hillary knew perfectly well that she needs the black community more than she needs the racists. She's known it all along and I'm certain would never have deliberately allowed anything in her campaign that smacked of race-baiting because she also knows they'd notice it.

Take a good look at that Obama memo (sent out by his team right after New Hampshire) that falsely claims Andrew Cuomo was referring to Obama when he said you can't just shuck and jive in a face-to-face campaign the way you can in a press conference. And falsely claims Bill Clinton's remarks about Mandela and Hillary's MLK/LBJ comments were dissing black leaders. And falsely claims there's something underhanded about mentioning Jesse Jackson.

Really, this stuff is crap. Gerry Ferraro was understandably bitter about the sexism aimed toward Hillary and the media hatred toward her, so she let some tiny, out-of-the-way paper no one reads talk her into venting to them. No one even would have noticed if Kos hadn't made such a big deal out of it. I mean, who's Ferraro anymore? She's a forgotten ex-celebrity who was not in any kind of advisory of policy-making role in the campaign, so who cares what she said to some paper no one reads?

Oh, but we can't let people forget that Hillary Is A Monster, so we have to hear about this shit endlessly.

Sorry, no. Putting out that memo was the most divisive thing anyone could do, and Obama's team did it, not Hillary's. Someone didn't give a shit whether the Democrats win in November and we all end up hating each other.

Calling someone who has a long history of supporting civil rights a racist, charging them with deliberately race-baiting, is a very, very serious thing to say, and was an extremely damaging thing to say about the Clintons - not just to Clinton, but damanging to the whole party.

So don't for a minute think I'm going to get on my high horse against Hillary for this one.

I'm incredibly dissapointed in you for this, Brad, I thought your insights into the media's game-playing were better than this.

Neither of these people should be running for president, but Hillary isn't the one who has created this monstrous mess. Quit falling for this crap. It's just what the GOP wants - they've been trying for years to pretend it's Democrats who are the "real" racists, and the media has been happy to follow Obama's lead by carrying the meme that if Obama loses the nomination, it's only because of all us racist white ladies.

[BB]

I agree with Avedon. And thinking that the MSM has been giving Clinton a break? I don't think so. I watch all 3 cable news channels (Faux just a bit to keep up with what muck they're shoveling that day.) What I've seen is Hillary bashing & Obama worshipping.
I've really enjoyed Keith, too, and I still do. I think some of what he said is also true. Nonetheless, what she is doing, IMO, is running a regular campaign. If the Obamaites think this is a nasty campaign then I wonder if they will be able to withstand what the McCain camp will throw at them if they manage to get on the ticket.

[Brad Jacobson]

Avedon, you know how much I respect your opinion and of course consider you a friend. I'm genuinely sorry if I've disappointed you with this but I'm calling this as I see it, just as you have every right to do so as well. In fact, I think what's been missing in the race, as stated in the post, is the ability to express a view without being tossed under the bus. So I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one, and I think that's okay. I respect your right and anyone's right to vehemently disagree with me.

Please also note that, first, it's not false to say Howard Wolfson never issued a flat, unequivocal denial that some member of his staff sent out the photo of Obama. The closest Wolfson came was this (via TPM):

"No, not to my knowledge...I've never seen that picture before. I'm not aware that anyone else here has. I'm not aware that anyone here has circulated this e-mail."

Wolfson also said, "We've been very clear that we're not aware of it," he added. "Obviously the campaign didn't sanction it, and don't know anything about it."

Sorry, "not to my knowledge," "I've never seen that picture before," "I'm not aware....I'm not aware....We've been very clear that we're not aware....didn't sanction it, and don't know anything about it" -- is very clearly not an unequivocal denial.

An unequivocal denial would be: No one in this campaign emailed that photo of Sen. Obama to Matt Drudge. No one in this campaign circulated that photo. Period. It wouldn't consist of these linguistically legal hedges. Not being aware of something does not mean it didn't happen. And I'm sure, Avedon, you'd agree that Wolfson is savvy enough to know the difference, that his language was certainly no accident - for God's sake, he's not just a political operative, he's her press secretary.

You should remember this as well (via Raw Story):

Noting that the campaign has hundreds of staffers, Wolfson would not categorically deny that the photo came to Drudge's attention from within Clinton's campaign. But he implied that the Web site should not be taken at face value, and said the campaign would not be investigating the matter further.

"If you have done any independent reporting that unearths an e-mail let me know," Wolfson told another reporter. "I'm not in a position to ask 700 people to come in and answer questions about it."

Those are the facts on the Clinton camp's response to the photo flap.

Second, I never said the Obama campaign was perfect. (Which is an interesting Catch-22 for them that I do think they're unfairly saddled with by the media, the meme that a candidate calling for change can never ever play dirty even while his opponent is lobbing bombs.) What I said was, overall, the Clinton campaign has run the more underhanded and cynical race.

Moreover, Hillary's 60 Minutes performance is indicative of the linguistic hedging in which Wolfson took part over the photo flap. If Hillary Clinton wanted to be crystal clear that Obama is not a Muslim, she would've done so. Something to the effect of: I'm appalled by those rumors. They're absolutely untrue. He's a Christian. I know he's a Christian. Period. Next question. Instead, she ended the segment by sowing the seeds of doubt: "As far as I know."

I simply don't understand how anyone can see that as anything but a calculated response, an attempt to appear as if she's officially saying the right thing while simultaneously spreading doubt. "As far as I know" was a mistake? What if Obama had been asked, say, "What do you think of rumors that Hillary Clinton is a lesbian?" and Obama replied, "I don't believe that. There's nothing to base that on. As far as I know." Would you not consider his "as far as I know" cold calculation. I sure as hell would. And I think you would, too.

Thanks for your comment, Avedon.

[Avedon]

I probably should have responded to the post in e-mail rather than in your comments, but I think you're being willfully blind.

Politicians are always pretty mealy-mouthed about saying anything other than that they believe in God and the flag. Clinton is not obliged to make impassioned speeches on Obama's behalf.

Clinton was very clear that she thought the "Muslim" charge was ridiculous. She doesn't owe Barack anything more than that - he can figure out how his own campaign is going to deal with this stupid charge.

"You're nice enough." Gee, why didn't Obama rave about how wonderul and warm Hillary is? What kind of response is, "You're nice enough?" It was a slap in the face - right to her face - in front of the whole world.

You gonna write a screed about how insulting he's been to her?

Let's try again: How many times have you heard Obama come to Clinton's defense against the sexism that's being aimed at her? Oh, wait, I forgot, he just thinks she's on the rag for daring to campaign against him.

How many times have you heard Obama protest the false charges of racism against her? Oh, that's right, his campaign circulates memos creating rumors that her surrogates accused him of "shucking and jiving", and saying that mentioning Jesse Jackson proves the Clintons are racists. (But treating Jesse as unmentionable, that's not racially offensive, is it?)

You're holding Clinton to a much higher standard than you're holding Obama. He smears her as a racist, and now it becomes her job to defend him against RNC racism.

With all due respect, she'd be within her rights to say, "Fuck Obama and the sexist, race-baiting horse he rode in on, and fuck you, too."

Oh, but she can't, because she's running for the Democratic nomination and if she loses it she's going to have to support this slimy son of a bitch.

Just like I am. And I'm gonna hate doing it after listening to weeks of sneers and smears against every white woman who isn't in love with his pretty face. I've reached the point where I dislike him every bit as much as I've ever disliked Hillary.

I'm not stupid, Brad. I've still got scars - real, literal scars on my body - from the civil rights era. I came out of the house hanging out with kids from 17th Street. I know racism and bullshitting about racism when I hear it. I've seen this crap before.

Hillary is campaigning against Obama. She is not one of his campaign surrogates and she is not required to be. She wasn't as rude as I would have been to the jerk who was interviewing her, but that's because she's running for office. You can only ask so much.

She did a fuckload more for Obama than he would ever do for her in similar circumstances, you can bet on it. He's had plenty of opportunities to be a better man and he hasn't done it, so don't tell me how shameful her behavior is. She's shown a lot more class than he has.

[Audrey Fryer]

I sincerely hope that Barack Obama files an immediate lawsuit, like $100 billion dollars worth) against the MS press for "Defamation of character" and "Destruction of Reputation". They are destroying this man on someone else's words and innuendo. Keith Olbermann has always been a Clinton supporter so I'm sure it hurt him a lot to do a special comment - but when you see everyone else trashing Barack Obama and no one supporting him on air - what was the man to do. Good for him and yes I still think he is the best in-depth reporter there is (he does research and uses actual facts).

[Andie Marshall]

Amen. HRC's campaign is the ultimate betrayal. The HRC team is starting off where the shrub team left off. The whole thing is so very off-color.

All I can see and hear in my mind's eye are the witches around the caldron at the beginning of Macbeth...

[Avedon]

See what I mean, Brad? His actual campaign team (not just some flunky who over-uses e-mail) sent out a memo slandering the Clintons as race-baiters, but it's her campaign that's the betrayal.

Witches around the cauldron. Yes. All those women who came out of the civil rights movement are to blame for the fact that the Republican-owned media has started attacking Obama now that he's the likely nominee.

As always, it's Clinton's fault. But then, didn't she murder her lesbian lover Vince Foster? Mena Airport! Filegate! Travel Office!

Gaaah!

[Avedon]

PS. I am not throwing you under a bus. But this stuff really pisses me off.

[Brad Jacobson]

I definitely got that this stuff pisses you off. When Marsh and Johnson summarily threw Olbermann under the bus, after everything he's done, it really pissed me off. And it also pisses me off when so-called Democratic supporters (or people who profess to care about this country) like Marsh and Johnson directly spearhead and cheerlead attacks on a Democratic presidential candidate by way of such fascist windbags as Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. Today, in fact, Marsh referred to a NewsMax story (NewsMax - Christ, the NY Post is to the left of NewsMax, and NewsMax is to the right of sanity), saying, "The latest from Senator Obama is that he wasn't in the pews when Reverend Wright used 'white arrogance' and 'the United States of White America' on July 22, disputing the NewsMax report that's been circulating." But fear not, Marsh has standards: "I didn't link to that piece or cover it because, after all, we are talking about NewsMax." So she'll reference a NewsMax story but she won't link to it. Bravo. Yet she gleefully directs her readers and listeners to Hannity, Fox News and Rush.

I'm not sure if you've been following Marsh and Johnson's attacks on Obama, but their methods, which are now identical to far right-wingers, should also piss you off.

Their actions drove me to write this post.

I thank you for not throwing me under the bus, my friend. And I understand your anger and frustration. I was raised by a strong, successful and trailblazing woman who ran for local office in NJ in '75 - the first woman actually (and the first Jew) ever to run for a Democratic seat in a very conservative district. She was also deeply involved in the League of Women Voters and went back to school at age 40 to pursue her law degree (in 1980). I could go on about her, but I won't. I'll just say that no one experienced the slings and arrows of being a "tough woman" in our contemporary society more than my mother, who was a tough woman long before it was acceptable, who helped in her way to allow someone like Hillary Clinton to be a new kind of First Lady, run for the Senate and now the presidency. My mother is a 73-year-old white woman, a contemporary of Geraldine Ferraro. She has voiced concern when she felt Clinton was being treated unfairly because of her sex, as have I. But with all of her experience, my mother thinks that overall Clinton has run the more underhanded campaign and she's appalled and frankly disappointed by such things as Ferraro's comment.

So I do also have to say that it's a bit off-base to paint everyone who thinks Clinton is running the worse campaign as haters of accomplished white women. Of course there are jerks out there who hate Hillary for that reason, just as there are jerks out there who hate Obama because of his skin color. But there are also people like myself who were raised and influenced by strong women (which includes my older sister) - the kind of women that insecure and ignorant men often call "bitches" - and those women themselves, like my mother, who disagree with you on this, Avedon.

And, again, I think that's okay. I appreciate your honesty and openness to speak your mind here. As you know, I'm not into echo chambers or censorship and always welcome differing points of view. Cheers.

[Brad Jacobson]

Actually, for the record, my mother went back to school to pursue her law degree in '77, not '80, at age 40. She graduated in '80. Sorry, Mom.

[Avedon]

So I do also have to say that it's a bit off-base to paint everyone who thinks Clinton is running the worse campaign as haters of accomplished white women.

I didn't say that. I'm talking about the attitude that the Obama campaign has fostered, not what's inside the mind of every person "who thinks Clinton is running the worse campaign."

Obama is, in fact, running a magnificently slick campaign. As a campaign to ruin Clinton, it's been downright outstanding. He's wrecking the party, but hey, who cares as long as he can beat the crap out of Clinton? Because that's how he's running.

Clinton's campaign starts with a handicap (accusing him of his real sexism can never be as effective as his fake charges of racism are), but she also has crappy advisors and the "experience" theme is a weak one. It's one thing to claim experience (so do all politicians), but you can't make it your whole campaign theme, and that's what she's been doing.

So if that's what you mean by a worse campaign, well, hey, you'll get no argument from me.

On the other hand, if you mean a morally worse campaign, sorry, no way. He's branded her a racist when it wasn't true. It's indefensible. And that's not some blogger who happens to support him, it's his campaign that circulated that memo.

As to the "Muslim" interview, once again I'm just astonished that you've let Chris Matthews and his little friends eat your brain.

Clinton insisted that the question was bullshit. Three times - as in, "I tell you three times."

Just how far gone do you have to be to be complaining that she didn't defend him enough when she did so three times?

I'm surprised I even have to explain this.

[BobJ]

Avedon writes: :.. because she's running for the Democratic nomination and if she loses it she's going to have to support this slimy son of a bitch.. Just like I am."

I'm not even going to get into this pissing contest with you folks here but I can say one thing for sure: if Clinton somehow manages to steal the nomination, I will NOT vote for her. She stooped to a new low in saying McCain was more qualified to become CIC than Obama, and I'll take her word for it and give him my vote (it'll be my first national republican vote). When I look at Obama, I see dignity, intelligence, respectfullness, honor, and hope. But when I look at Clinton, I see, well, Bush & Rove. Pathetic.

[Avedon]

When I look at Clinton, I see a pretty mainstream politician, which is a shame, but at least she thinks healthcare and children should be priorities. When I look at Obama, I see a guy on the make. I haven't the first clue what he wants to do for the country because he doesn't seem to have any pet issues or an overriding theme. What does he stand for?

If you see Bush and Rove when you look at Clinton, I think you need to clean your glasses. That's just the kind of insanity I'm talking about - people have had their brains so polluted that they can't see the difference, and the difference is enormous.

[Brad Jacobson]

I'm surprised I even have to explain this.

You don't have to explain this, Avedon. I get everything you're saying, I just don't agree with you. I'm sure you can understand how that might happen without "Chris Matthews and his little friends" having eaten my brain. Again, we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one. Maybe the next time you're in New York, we can pick this up over some pints.

[Avedon]

Next time I'm in New York, we should definitely get together.

But look at that video, Brad - her facial expression and tone of voice make it pretty clear when she's says, "as far as I know!" that she's still saying the question is absurd.

(Also remember that the last part of it, where she talks about being the victim of false charges, has been snipped off the video that's on YouTube. She didn't just stop at, "As far as I know!")

[McCamy Taylor]

Please resist the temptation to scrub this site once it becomes clear that we were all punked just as we were punked in 1972. Hunter S. Thompson got punked by Pat Buchanan who had him writing about Ed Muskie's drug addiction for the Stone and describing suit cases full of mob money being delivered for Humphrey---so that McGovern's VP chances would be nada. Luckily, Clinton lived through 1972 and learned from it, and she will be a team player this fall. But lots of journalists like KO and others are going to be very embarrassed by the bs they have written and the way they have fallen for RW and RNC internet pranksters.

The sources should have raised all kinds of red flags. And when the source is Drudge or the Moonies or Bob Novak---dude, Novak punked McGovern with Abortion, Acid and Amnesty. How could anyone ever trust Bob Novak over another Democrat?

Sigh.