Almost 24 hours have passed since the Huffington Post published a damning audio of Clinton disparaging the “activist base of the Democratic Party,” and the New York Times has absolutely ignored it. By this time last week, the Times had written about 258 stories about Obama’s “elitist” views, as revealed in, like, 16 words in San Francisco.
Just after her defeats on Super Tuesday last February, Hillary told the VIPs, "We have been less successful in caucuses because it brings out the activist base of the Democratic Party. MoveOn didn't even want us to go into Afghanistan. I mean, that's what we're dealing with. And you know they turn out in great numbers. And they are very driven by their view of our positions, and it's primarily national security and foreign policy that drives them. I don't agree with them. They know I don't agree with them. So they flood into these caucuses and dominate them and really intimidate people who actually show up to support me."
Talk about elitist…When are we who believe the Iraq War is bad for our treasury, bad for our soldiers and their families, bad for the environment, bad for Democracy, bad for our foreign relations, bad for gas prices, and bad for American jobs, green collar or otherwise, going to stop being treated like third-rate citizens? When will our opinions have an audience with a Democrat in Washington, let alone the Republicans? When will the millions of Americans, diverse in race and gender and gender orientation and socioeconomic status, stop being lumped together in the “kook fringe” category and dismissed every time they decide to think differently than well-connected Washington insiders? It’s degrading, and offensive to be reduced to a category box and written off. People of color in America deal with it every day, on a far more emotionally challenging level, and women deal with it, but it is offensive and degrading nonetheless. I’d expect this breathtaking haughtiness from a Republican, but from Hillary Clinton?
If there are any Democrats left in Pennsylvania who still think that Clinton cares about their interest in pulling out of Iraq, to escape war with Iran, to escape the American escalation of conflict throughout the world…reconsider now. After running a campaign that openly shuns the “activist base of the Democratic Party,” how can we expect her to differ substantively from Senator Trent Lott (R-Miss.)?
“Activist base of the Democratic Party.” “I don’t agree with them.” “Activist base of the Democratic Party.” “I don’t agree with them.” “I don’t agree with the activist base of the Democratic Party.”
Let’s break out the microscope that the media used to dissect Obama’s “bitter” comments because I don’t quite understand what she’s really trying to say here.
Where is the media now? If they love controversy, they have the biggest, most newsworthy controversy since the primaries began. Here is Clinton basically repudiating her base, and its coming out on the eve of THE BIGGEST Pennsylvania primary ever. This tape is going to absolutely destroy the Clinton campaign.
The calls for her resignation will treble by the end of this weekend. With every new sign of her contempt for the very voters she wants to step on in her ascent to the presidency, it ought to be clear that these voters are voting for their own silencing and negation when they vote for Clinton. It ought to be clear that they are voting against the very beliefs that make the Democratic Party the greatest party in the world. If Clinton isn’t proud of that tradition, then she shouldn’t be running as a Democrat. If Clinton isn’t proud of the Democratic base, then the Democratic base in Pennsylvania ought to leave it up to the Republicans to win Clinton the primary nomination.
Clinton ought to know that the Democratic base doesn’t split...not these days. In the last several years, the Democratic base has grown strong together, united by the disparagements of the right wing, which for too long and too often mocked and taunted “Northeast liberals.” We grew stronger together, and we stood strongly together when we all shared in the victories of 2006. All of us, united as a party in a way we had grown unaccustomed to.
In Washington, allies and foes are perhaps mutable and changing every day. That may explain how Clinton can do shots with John McCain one night, and with blue collar workers at a bar in Indiana the next, but the Democratic Party doesn’t split today. Not today. Not now.
We are Democrats all, united in brotherhood and sisterhood, who watched George W. Bush steal the elections in 2000 and 2004. We are Democrats all who opposed this useless, wasteful war in Iraq, whether at rallies or in spirit. We are Democrats all who care about green energy, and good jobs and health care and peace and the end of corporate intimidation, recklessness and hegemony. We always have stood together, through the high opinion polls for George W. Bush and the low. And we always will.
So Clinton keeps showing us exactly how she feels about us, but she keeps forgetting that the primaries aren’t over yet. She keeps forgetting that before she can dismiss the Democratic base and rehire Mark Penn, to negotiate free trade agreements; and forget about ending the war in Iraq and begin a new war in Iran, that she has to win OUR nod. The nomination of OUR PARTY: the proud “activist” party of the civil rights movement; the proud “activist” party during the grape strikes for Cesar Chavez’s laborers; the proud “activist” party that lobbied for de-escalation in Vietnam.
Our “activist base” is every registered Democrat because to even register as a Democrat in these days in America is to invite ugly homophobic attacks from the right wing; is to invite comparisons to Communists and Stalinists. To register Democrat is to display courage when the overwhelming majority of media pundits and journalists slant to the extreme conservative branch of the corporate Republican Party.
Clinton ought to apologize to the supporters she has fooled so far, and explain clearly to Democratic voters in Pennsylvania that their opinions will not be welcome anymore after their ballot has been cast. She ought to apologize to the Democratic Party for confusing its visions of peace, and energy independence and international respect with those of William Kristol. Clinton must account for her remarks and her attitude toward the Democratic base.
Dean Danger Powers is an international man of mystery.
You know. Find a hunk to stand up against that most viral McCain--that sort of drivel. But then comes Hillary oblivious to the obvious that Democrats come in old and new models. Worse, she would have to herd those cats if she should happen to make it to the White House.
I defer to one of my hunches. Bill Clinton is more hip to the changes which came after 92 than she is. But she's in the driver's seat, and he is acting as her GPS. It gets no farther than around the next corner. I guess you can say she is expecting the older white women who feel let down that she couldn't get them healthcare insurance the first time around. So long ago! So irrelevant now!
Could it be that Hillary believes that McCain is a powerful threat and she knows how to outspeak him? That would be one be misspoken campaign, methinks.
by
Margaret Bassett (25 articles, 1687 quicklinks, 29 diaries, 1015 comments)
on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 8:28:51 AM
Yes it is, a children's birthday party, a party just like the other lot who couldn't care less about the working class. Clinton tells us she had a grandmother, well that's astonishing news in itself but does she know her granddad.
If the Democrats had any interest in working families there would be a health care system second to none.
There would be houses built of solid materials instead of plastic sheet nailed onto a wooden frame ready to scatter at the first sign of a strong wind.
The USA is mostly third world and it is so because of the two political parties partying instead of doing their job.
Of course the whole hoax works because the people are dumbed down from the moment they're born with religion and patriotic dogma. 9/11 would have been exposed on 9/12 in a democracy, the Iraq invasion could never take place in a democracy only in a Fascist state could these events occur.
The greatest tragedy is that the USA could and should have been a beacon for democracy but it could never be even from the start given its roots of religion and slavery.
by
douglas kay (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 83 comments)
on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 8:38:20 AM
Mrs. Rodham-Clinton's festering contempt for the 'little people' and the garish process called democracy is apparent to all who have bothered to look. This is a woman who routinely bellows about being some sort of champion for working class values but is nothing but another of the prostitutes of Wall Street, Big Pharma, Agribusiness, the Military Industrial Complex and big media (her recent consorting with Richard Mellon Scaife and Rupert Murdoch are great examples).
What you have here is the indignant caterwauling of one who loathes her sense of entitlement being challenged, like Tracy Flick in the movie "Election" she is a relentless, self-centered force of nature determined to slime her way into the Oval Office and control of the corporate money spigots. This is no surprise whatsoever, the former Wal-Mart board member has always despised the unwashed masses who are nothing more than pawns and props to her.
Hillary Rodham-Clinton is symbolic of the rot that has poisoned the party of FDR and JFK and contributed to the decline of the empire itself as we sit perched on the edge of the abyss after the success of Ronald Reagan's twenty five year war against the middle class.
And all she want's to talk about are flag pins, overblown relationships with 60's radicals and the big lie of her opponent being anti-American. Sadly there will never be any mention of her own anti-American affiliations with the Bilderberg Group and other corporate elite globalist organizations.
Shame on her, shame on us all.
Just my two cents
EE
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Ed Encho (7 articles, 18 quicklinks, 56 diaries, 391 comments)
on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 9:18:23 AM
How long will our party prop up these Charlatans? McPain's only path to becoming POTUS is having Hillary as his foil. It must be apparent to most by now, how utterly disingenuous the Clintons really are. Hindsight being 20/20, what a shame that Bill Clinton wasn't removed from office for his so called dalliances in the White House.
So now we are left with Hillary's doomsday scenario, the party torn asunder and the promise of a 'Battle Royale' at the convention. Hillary and Bill will deftly attempt to hijack the nomination by the auspices of the credentials committee and Superdelegate upheaval.
To be honest, after enduring the Clintons at their shameful worst, I'm inclined to revise my conclusion for what's best for the Democratic party. Perhaps our best strategy is to have that showdown in August. Let's redefine the rules of engagement, if she wants a fight let's give it to her!
In the movie "The Omen" Gregory Peck was lucky. In less than two hours he was able to acquire the seven daggers needed to vanquish his unholy child. As Democrats we have been far less fortunate, force fed our marching orders all these years from Hillary and Bill in lockstep with the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) and the Neocon Hate Machine.
Maybe by the time we get to Denver the party will find the courage to throw the bucket of water on Hillary. Once we take her broomstick, we can finally leave Oz and go home.
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Scott2008 (7 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 5 comments)
on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 9:55:01 AM
...definitely when she started to use typical Republican arguments, in a move akin to Kerry's Republican swiftboating--you accuse your oponent of being exactly what you are--an armchair warrior who did not go to Vietnam like Bush resorting to shills to call a Vietnam vet like Kerry a coward, a rich white woman like HC calling BO an elitist.
And the fact she is willing to ruin the party to win: no ethics!
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francine (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 332 comments)
on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 9:57:18 AM
the worst from Hillary is promising jobs to those in the rust belt who are truly desperate, with no earthly idea of how to, or intent, of producing those jobs.
I believe that anyone from any party who will go to the disgraceful level of promising jobs that will NEVER come to pass, should be held accountable for that promise and prosecuted should they not come through.
Having such a law would certainly give them pause to offering chickens and delivering feathers.
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Mike Folkerth (120 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 566 comments)
on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 10:30:36 AM
A little whine with your dinner, Madame, Monsieur?
We know all the faults of our beloved republic; we know because the leftists keep repeating the mantra. Tell us something we don't know--like how to solve the problems.
That is the "activist" base to which Hillary alludes. They have been nettling the government on all levels for decades. They are being outmaneuvered and outshouted and outblogged by the far right and all they can do is play the blame game; it ain't me...it's someone else...it's the awful Clintons.
Yawn. It's all of us--over-fed, undereducated and unwilling to actually make the sacrifices necessary to affect real change. You people think one man (in the case, Obama) can bring back the salad days of FDR and post-war America where we owned the world. Won't happen; those days, as in the case of the great Greek age of Pericles, are over. Forever. Get used to it.
(And I might add, parenthetically, Greek civilization was never the model of democratic principle we have been led to believe; it was flawed, as well. There was democracy of a sort--for men of property; women were not accorded the vote in that system; there were slaves and endless wars of conquest exhausting physical and economic resources until the government collapsed under its own excesses. Sound familiar? That made the city-states vulnerable to outside invasion. I think that is where we are now in our societal evolution: vulnerable to outside invasion. Are any lights going on upstairs?)
We have three choices for president in November--and that will be whittled down to two by the end of the primaries or the Dem convention.
You can choose an inexperienced poseur or an experienced, though some find flawed senior citizen and woman, or a whack-job, who apparently has tasted the kool aide and thinks his experience as a war prisoner qualifies him in international affairs.
Other than that prospect, you can declare war on the U.S. like the Weather Undergroud did, go literally underground and start blowing up buildings.
Your choice. If you are a true red-blooded leftist, you will choose the latter.
And contrary to popular belief, I am not receiving any compensation from the Hillary campaign for my comments; if the check is in the mail, I haven't received it yet; please expedite.
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Marilyn Frith (6 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 191 comments)
on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 11:27:40 AM
Good God Marilyn, you are such a transparent Clinton hack who has absolutely nothing to add other than obfuscation, smears and rebuttals of the facts. You certainly have a right to be heard and free speech entitles to you to your opinion but can you please just shelve the talking points?
It's insulting to the intelligence of others who post here.
EE
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Ed Encho (7 articles, 18 quicklinks, 56 diaries, 391 comments)
on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 1:37:15 PM
Enough of your 90's style self-justifying self-defeatism
Look -- next time you decide to patronize everyone else who's reading with your cynical rants, why don't you try having something actually coherent to say to begin with?
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Michael Lubin (12 articles, 2 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 41 comments)
on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 2:16:22 PM
Are you under the misimpression that you're being clever?
You doubtless think it's clever to write "a little whine with your dinner." You probably think your tossing off blather about Pericles & Greek democracy is sort of stylish.
Actually, though, what stands out in your post is its complete lack of substance. You don't make points based on the interests & positions the Clintons actually represent. Instead, you rely on over-simplistic 'gotcha' phrases like "Get used to it." This kind of thing probably makes you feel that you're ordering everyone else around -- which is pretty much what animates the imperious & utterly unprincipled power-seeker, Hillary.
In your considered opinion, a "a true red-blooded leftist" would now be embarking on a program of blowing up buildings. This is a laughably inane asssertion, which makes one doubt you even know what a leftist is. (You probably think a "leftist" is an antiwar person who opposes Hillary.) Why don't you try naming for us some of the "leftists" you've been reading, who advocate anything of the sort?
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Richard Mynick (2 articles, 3 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 1168 comments)
on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 2:39:51 PM
Funny little bit of wordplay there Marilyn. Kind of plays into that whole manufactured covert Muslim terrorist thing too - Barack HUSSEIN Obama who doesn't wear a flag pin and hates America. You also take the next logical step in demonizing non Clinton Democrats and independents as being al CIAda operatives too.
Wanna talk about blowing up buildings? My tax money is still paying for the blowing up of buildings (mainly containing women and children) in Iraq in the illegal war that Tracy Flick Clinton voted for that you find so much pride in cheerleading in favor of. Hell, how many Iraqi civilians have been killed since we have even been having this conversation?
At least have the courtesy to go and find some new talking points next time
EE
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Ed Encho (7 articles, 18 quicklinks, 56 diaries, 391 comments)
on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 3:01:26 PM
"We have been less successful in caucuses because it brings out the activist base of the Democratic Party. MoveOn didn't even want us to go into Afghanistan. I mean, that's what we're dealing with. And you know they turn out in great numbers."
You wouldn't know that we "turn out in great numbers" by what is represented on the Main Stream Media. In fact, censorship through aggressive, "free speech zones" and carefully monitoring who attends what rallies, limiting the questions and framing the debates has further threatened our democracy.
Those in power continue to strengthen their hold on the American people.
And Clinton's phrase, "I don't agree with them" shows us all just exactly how out of touch she is with the American people.
That said, Obama is bundling and accepting money from interests that could compromise his campaign and positions on important choices like global warming, environmental concerns and military industrial complex choices.
He does, however, seem more open to change - but that remains to be seen - we need a better report card on every single one of our elected officials - what they promised - what they delivered and who gets the financial benefits of those decisions - the people or those in power.
by
August Adams (10 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 442 comments)
on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 11:38:17 AM
Your comment is about the only one that makes any sense; I am finding it more and more difficult to take anyone seriously who actually defends Bill Ayres and Bernadine Dohrn. Or seriously dismisses Obama's love affair with radical elements of any stripe--homegrown or alien.
That's his base.....
What the h________? As you say, BO is just a showhorse of another color and all the hype and hoopla and grandstanding won't turn this frog into a prince nor a president make. We get what we deserve and I guess we are going to get it big time. Many will be surprised when it hits the fan because they have their heads so deep in the sand, it will take time to come up for air.
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Marilyn Frith (6 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 191 comments)
on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 2:29:32 PM
I would certainly think that Mrs. Clinton's association with scoundrels and global criminals the likes of Rich would be of far more concern given the decay of every institution over the past 25 years than some hippie radical back in the 60's.
And who excactly coughed up all the dough for the Clinton Library?
You surrogates are so predictable in trying to flip flop the debate back into the same ridiculous 1960's culture wars that have been the Republican's bread and butter and allowed corporatist toadies like the Clintons and the DLC to betray the party of JFK and FDR.
So I'll see your Ayers and raise you a Marc Rich
EE
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Ed Encho (7 articles, 18 quicklinks, 56 diaries, 391 comments)
on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 2:37:24 PM
Bill Ayres isn't in jail today. In fact he is a "Distinguished Professor" at the University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Education. Why would knowing him or befriending him be a political issue? Only right wing nuts would make Ayers into any kind of ipolitical ssue.
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Gregory Wonderwheel (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 99 comments)
on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 5:42:47 PM
As one of those activist democrats who has signed at least 100 petitions regarding this quackmire, torture, constitutional rights, care for our soldiers, etc etc. I resent the statement Hillary said and I am BITTER. Bitter as hell!
As far as this so called Democratic Party, to hell with them. I am now more than ever convinced to vote 3rd party--to hell with conservative judges and all the reasons to vote for a Democrat.
I am bitter, resentful, pissed off and angry as hell and I think I will call on Satan and take his power away from Dick Cheney!
Btw, give "Merelyn"(can't recall the spelling--apology) some cheese.
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shirley reese (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 316 comments)
on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 2:10:48 PM
The important point is not that Hillary hates the activists, that's to be expected, the interesting point you raise is that the NYT is showing it has put the horse's head into Obama's political bed.
By refusing to pick up this story after so many days of attacking Obama as an "elite" the silence of the NYT shows that Obama is no longer approved by certain elites. Obama has flirted too closely with the left base of the Party and so will be trashed by the power brokers speaking through the NYT signaling that Obama is no longer on the reservation.
The more the NYT tips their hand against Obama the better he looks to me.
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Gregory Wonderwheel (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 99 comments)
on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 5:29:00 PM
What people fail to realize is, it doesn't matter what McCain and the Republicans intend to throw at Obama, Clinton betrayed the Democratic party and all it stands for. Nobody crosses that line. Nobody. The sore loser kitchen sink tactics that are 'toughening him up' are not for a fellow democrat, who has no chance of winning, to do! She is a traitor. A horrible team player who cannot be trusted. Hillary has proven time and time again, that she is disloyal to the party and people who made her first lady and a senator. She has cursed, spat upon and even taken a crap on the Democratic party, and there is no end in sight. It's fine for Sean Hannity, Fox and Republican 527s
