Monday, March 10, 2008

Clinton's Up-Is-Down World

By Robert Parry
March 10, 2008

Throughout history, it’s been common for politicians to shade the truth when caught in a tight spot. But sometimes politicians push the limits, crossing the line into an Orwellian world where up is down, where bullies are victims, where people objecting to the lies are shouted down.

If that world seems familiar to Americans, it should. It is the world in which we’ve lived for the past seven or eight years under George W. Bush, as his clever operatives routinely turn truth inside out. Now, Hillary Clinton’s campaign is applying many of these same head-spinning tactics to win the Democratic presidential race.

Read on.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

If Hillary gets the Democratic nomination without having more popular votes nor more pledged delegates... we will witness the birth of a legitimate third party with tons of grass root support that will finish the job of putting Barack Obama in the White House. Government by the people for the people is Coming BACK. We will not be denied. Democratic Party, lead, follow, or get out of the way.

Anonymous said...

"...whether Democratic voters want a nominee whose campaign seems to have bought into the negative, reality-bending, albeit winning strategies..."

Even *more* than not wanting that kind of person as nominee, I don't want a *president* that I am forced to suspect is dealing w/ the public, w/ agencies, w/ other countries in that very same way.

We have some very hard times coming, the working through of which will require an administration that knows the importance of integrity.

Anonymous said...

It appears that we don't really know what we will get with a Hillary presidency. Perhaps when she said that she or McCain are the only experienced candidates eligible to be president, what she was also indicating was that they aren't very different either. A vote for Hillary or McCain will result in a similar kind of leadership... with lots of pandering. If she steals the nomination I will not vote and leave the Democratic party... period!

Deep Trunk said...

I have in the past contributed to support your efforts. You seem to be among the progressives who are spending massive effort attacking the only two term Democratic President since FDR and Hillary Clinton, who as I understand is responsible for everything that went wrong in the Clinton Administration and nothing that went well. I think it might be better to spend some time on McCain.

Anonymous said...

Okay I have to say something here. You have now posted about 8 different anti-Hillary stories and seem completely in the dark about Obama. This has to stop if you want to be taken seriously. Not only are your facts highly selective but you seem bent on interpreting every fact in the most one-sided manner possible.
For example, you state that "Matt Drudge reported that a Clinton staffer e-mailed around a photo taken of Obama during a 2006 trip to Kenya" and then imply that this was somehow sanctioned as a tactic to be used by the Clinton camp. This is almost certainly not the case. What is far more likely is that one of the 700 or 800 people working in the Clinton campaign emailed a copy that was sent to them as an example of something circulating and someone forwarded it on to Drudge who couldn't wait to exploit it. It would be completely stupid for Clinton to send that to Drudge (who is basically a right wing nut) intentionally, especially at that point in the campaign as the press was generally favorable to her then. Why on earth would she want a blast of negative press just before the vote? This picture was circulating for months or years before that point. Why would you take Drudge at his word?
What is certain is that Obama used this opportunity to scream about this picture and blame the Clinton camp even though he must have known that its origins were highly questionable. Obama has used similar dirty tricks before. For example his camps ranting about the Jesse Jackson comment by Bill which was pretty innocuous in its actual substance. He also repeatedly brought up Novak ‘s suggestion that the Clinton camp “has dirt on Obama” even after repeatedly being told and proven that the story originated elsewhere. Then there was the Martin Luther King nonsense where Obama again tried to whip up outrage over nothing...
Certainly Hillary plays dirty but must you always see Obama as some spotless and helpless victim in these disputes? Surely you know better.

shatrajit said...

I'm a fan of Robert Parry, but he's being unfair this time. Did he even HEAR Sen. Clinton's firm and unequivocal response on 60 minutes to the very provocatively phrased and repeated question re Sen. Obama's religion? Apparently not. He should have mentioned Sen. Clinton's repeating, in a debate, of the Bush factory lie about Saddam's "kick[ing]" the inspectors out of Iraq. This is, of all Parry's rather trivial complaints, the real reason why nobody should vote for her: either she'd knowing lying, or she's misinformed; either way, she has disqualified herself as a candidate for the presidency.

Anonymous said...

Funny, as badly as Bill Clinton was flayed by the Republicans and the media, he never played the victim, but the holier-than-thou Hillary shows no hesitation. Her behavior as of late plays into Republican hands.

Anonymous said...

While I agree with your article (as I usually do ;), I could not quite understand the following:

"As Obama explained, his real position was that he would authorize an attack on al-Qaeda bases inside Pakistan if the Pakistani government refused to act. He wasn’t threatening to “bomb Pakistan” in any reasonable interpretation of his words."

Wrong. That's exactly what he was threatening: if the Pakistani do not obey his commands, he would bomb areas inside Pakistan.

I'm sorry, but this would definitively be seen as "bombing Pakistan" by the rest of the world. The reason given would be of no interest whatsoever - he'd (or rather, the USA (again)) would be attacking a foreign country.

Anonymous said...

You are either dishonest or incompetent maybe both. In the article about Hillary's reply to Croft when he ask her on sixty minutes if she thought Obama was a muslim, her initial reply to the first time he ask her was "no, absolutely not" Your research should be better instead of quoting the sleazy Bob Herbert, who didn't include the whole quote eitheer or he wouldn't have had a column. How stupid

Anonymous said...

Wow. Using selective facts, selective (highly edited) quotes, and selective rumors to make your case!

I have an idea for your next column. How about examining the fact that Barack Obama supported John Kerry back in 2004 for president even though Kerry "voted for the Iraq War resolution" as some people are wont to phrase it.

Doesn't that make Obama a hypocrite or a flip-flopper, or a liar, or possibly simply inexperienced, to support Kerry even though Kerry "voted for the war" when he hammers at Hillary's alleged lack of judgment on the same topic?

And, BTW, I am really getting sick and tired of Obama's campaign rearing their heads with cries of racism everytime they see Hillary making headway.