Gah…it’s still a PITA to post because this script that makes it impossible to post.
Anyway…
So far North Carolina has been given to Obama, as expected and Indiana is still “too early” to call, but should be a Clinton win if polls bear out.
IOW, nothing exciting for tonight.
Over at The Field, Al Giordano gives us some levity on what we’ve come to expect on these primary nights.
In the Don’t you Ever Learn? category:
The Clinton’s campaign is hollering over a WSJ article that states that Sen. Obama favored ending Federal oversight on the Teamsters. The Clinton’s campaign and the WSJ both made it seem as though Obama only said that to the Teamsters to get their endorsement.
The Obama campaign pointed to a piece from 2004 that stated that Sen. Obama said he favored ending this Federal oversight. In the tradition of the faux-NAFTA outrage generated by the Clinton’s campaign, they accuse Sen. Obama of doing something (telling the Canadians one thing while saying something different to the American public) that they’ve done. The Teamsters stepped up to say that the Clinton’s said the same exact thing to them while seeking their endorsement.
Sen. Clinton’s statement to the Canadians Teamsters:
I am of the opinion that based on what I’ve seen over years of observation, this union has really done a tremendous job in turning itself around. That’s my observation. At some point the past has to be opened. If you screw up in the future, that’ll be a new day, right? That’s the way the system works. But you gotta – you can’t go around dragging the ball and chain of the past. And I think that’s true for anybody, any organization, any individual, you know, and so I would be very open to looking at that and to saying, what is it we’re trying to accomplish here? And seeing what the answers were because at some point turn the page and go on.
Now that they’ve been caught out, the Clinton’s campaign is now being disengenious by making it about Obama’s statement on ABC this morning where he said he wouldn’t make blanket statements. As a commenter turnip at TPM put it:
Obama supports less federeal oversight of the Teamsters. He has since 2004. Apparently so does Senator Clinton according to her statments from 2007.
These positions are essentially the same and whether it’s a “promise” or a “suggestion”, both candidates have historically been on the side of the Teamsters with respect to lessening the enforcement measure in the Consent Decree.
Today Obama reinforces that is his position.
Today Clinton attacks that position.
Wolfson and Clinton supporters can try to thread a needle of semantics on this one, but it’s another case of what is the meaning of “is”.
It’s all really so many levels of smack me on the head stupid ain’t it?
Yeah…I know it was totally expected so this is something of a yawner. What we need to know is by how much? Remember that 6 weeks ago, Clinton was leading Pennsylvania by 33%. One month ago, she was up 20 - 22%. The gap has closed, but we don’t know by how much. There was a large number of undecided (17%) and undecideds have been trending to the old and worn out in these races.
As I said over at TPM, an Obama loss of 10% or less will be awesome and very good news. The Clinton’s campaign will spin any win as A Win.
| Democrats | Polls | County Results | ||||
| Candidate | Votes | % of votes | Delegates won | Projected winner |
| Hillary Clinton | 61,203 | 53% | 0 |  |
| Barack Obama | 53,926 | 47% | 0 | |
| 5% of precincts reporting | ||||
h/t to TPM:
Hillary Clinton now has an ad running in PA with imagery of Osama bin Laden.
THUD
I…er…I thought that that was GOP territory. I mean, how many SOTU addresses have we played drinking games where we chug when Bush mentioned 9/11? How many times did we laugh at the inanity of Dick Cheney tying bin Laden with Iraq? Now, Sen. Clinton has concern trolled her way into the gutter.
The Obama campaign has a response:
Wonder how that’ll play with the Clinton’s?
One of the biggest jokes of the past week has been how Sen. Clinton tosses off “San Francisco” as if it’s a dirty word. We shouldn’t expect much from one half of a couple who spent an inordinate amount of time running away from the “liberal” tag just because the scary old Republicans tried to turn it into a playground taunt. Still, Clinton does have her supporters in San Francisco, so the way she’s been denigrating the Obama supporters who heard his truthful remarks and comparing them to “real” people, is so much GOP bullshit.
The out of touch media dorks were oh-so-quick to give a shout out to their blue-collar upbringings…well, that is the blue collar cities where they were born (near), though many of them are trustafarians who were raised in a different area. Their experiences with blue collar workers has either been ordering them around or getting their asses beat by them. The way they condescend bears this out. Keep in mind that these were people who were telling us that blue collar workers have no idea what arugla is.
Insulting.
So while the small town voter in Pennsylvania who was not being insulted by Sen. Obama’s remarks, is being puffed up by Sen. Moneybags and the Fourth Estate, the poor souls in San Francisco have to deal, yet again, with being treated like they’re so far out of the mainstream. In all these years where “San Francisco liberal” has become a Pavlovian buzzword to half-witted Republicans and even some “D”emocrats. I’ve never once heard any media pundit come to the defense of the San Francisco voter. I’ve never heard any Democrat stand up and say, “This is where we draw the line, the voters of San Francisco are people, tax-paying Americans who also deserve to be treated with respect.” Maybe we could even go all Godwin’s law or something. The fact is, that words taken of out context and/or distorted could be insulting to anyone anywhere. You know who the media largely caters to when they’re more concerned about blue collar workers, gun owners and the crazed Bible-thumping faction of religion being insulted than if black, Latino, rich, gay, or just regular religious folks (UCC anyone?) are insulted.
Let’s take the Muslim thing for example. For almost 14 months during this campaign, Muslims have been smeared. In that, I mean that some Democrats <coughHillaryClintoncough>, the media and certainly the unintelligent Republicans feel that it’s alright to “slime” Sen. Obama by implying that he’s a Muslim. Sen. Obama is the only elected official during this entire campaign to say that what these people were doing was insulting to Americans who are Muslim. The only one. That tells me more about their character than anyone Sen. Obama may have sat next to on a board eons ago.
That Clinton thinks that’s it’s totally okay to denigrate one group while ginning up false outrage over a distorted remark not aimed at another group, say even more about her character. On one hand I should be surprised, but then I remember that this is a person who has told us that black voters, activists, caucus-goers, young people, and states that she didn’t win aren’t important. This is a person who wrote off the endorsement of a friend for her opponent as “insignificant”, then spent two weeks publicly attacking the friend.
So, while she’s reminiscing over a duck hunt with dad that probably happened as often as sniper fire in Tuzla, we’ll do well to remember that even though she’s been a hanger-on in the upper echelons of the political class for over 30 years, she can still pretend to the a voice of the American people, while mildly insulting those San Francisco liberals who went to listen to Sen. Obama. Though, I’m sure the San Francisco liberals who are dumping nearly $500K (that’s 10% of what Clinton loaned her campaign!) in Pennsylvania this week on her behalf are the right kind of San Francisco liberals.
There’s no recap. It sucked balls.
ABCNews needs to know how much they fucked up on this one. You can call (212) 456-7777 or email them.
It was, hands down, probably the worst excuse of a debate in all of debating history. It was through no fault of the candidates. It was purely Assclown Hijinks with Chuck Gibson and Georgie-boy. Absolutely NOTHING of substance was asked of the candidates. I came in late and was still subjected to 45 minutes of non-issue questions on Rev. Wright, bitterness and flag pins. Can you guess the bias? There was one guess on Clinton’s lying habits. She actually said something like, “People are just going to have get over my habitual lying.” Oh…that part may be an tiny exaggeration.
Okay…wanna know how bad it is? Jonah “Iraq is Going Great!” Goldberg thought it was bad. When you have me agreeing with something Goldberg writes you know it’s bad. (h/t to idredit)
I’m no leftwing blogger, but I can only imagine how furious they must be with the debate so far. Nothing on any issues. Just a lot of box-checking on how the candidates will respond to various Republican talking points come the fall. Now I think a lot of those Republican talking points are valid and legitimate. But if I were a “fighting Dem” who thinks all of these topics are despicable distractions from the “real issues,” I would find this debate to be nothing but Republican water-carrying.
The responses from viewers on ABCNews gives you a better idea of how bad it was:
Jesus Christ - are you kidding! This is the worst sham for an unbiased debate I have ever seen - FIRE STEPHANOPOLOUS and GIBSON… and by-the-way, NO multi-miliion dollar severance package - make them pay a fine for torturing americans with their insane questionsPathetic job, ABC. Very sad. You had a chance to cut through the crap, but you chose to wallow in it. Lapel pins? Wright? Bosnia? All that crap’s been hashed and rehashed. And millionaire Gibson whining about capital gains taxes. What a travesty.Whatever they paid them to gang up on obama i’ll double it.they should leave the debates to the REAL news networks!!!!!What a terrible debate by ABC’s moderators. I guess this is why I never watch ABC News. About 30 minutes was spent on Rev. Wright, the bitter comment, and Hillary mis-speak(which was only about 5 of those 30 mins). We then had to sit through 30 minutes of commercials in a two hour program. That was pathetic ABC. PATHETIC.
The only good thing about it was that Obama managed to rise above it all. The live feed had an audience reaction screen. During the intensely stupid first hour, Obama did a great job of explaining that those questions were exactly the sort of stupid questions people are tired off. Audience reaction skyrocketed to the high 90s (scale goes up to 100). Then Tracy Flick Clinton had to jump in and whenever she’d hit Obama or do a pathetic oppo dump, audience reaction dumped…when she jumped in on Wright, audience reaction went down to the high 20s.
Honestly, the only thing tonight’s debate proved was that there should be no more debates. It also reinforced the notion that Gibson and Stephanopolous are both useless tools.
LOL…One of my great laughs of the day has been watching Clinton’s new dead horse ad. If you haven’t seen it, you simply must see just how not bitter her “supporters” are:
See? Don’t just look like they shit rainbows and break into song at any moment?
“I find my faith uplifting.” GRRRRRRRRR
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Luckily, there are people in Pennsylvania with a firm grasp on reality. They aren’t buying into Clinton’s distortion of Obama’s words. Twenty-one party leaders and elected officials in Pennsylvania sent out a letter today:
Dear Fellow Pennsylvanian,
We live in small towns and rural areas throughout Pennsylvania and we support Barack Obama for President.
A few days ago, Sen. Obama made some comments that his opponents are now using to make him appear as if he is something he is not. Instead of speaking to us honestly about how they intend to solve the problems we are facing, they are playing the same old Washington games that accomplish nothing.
What Sen. Obama said is that over the last 25-30 years, working class people in places like Pennsylvania have been falling behind, and that politicians in Washington haven’t been looking out for them. He also said that, as a result, many people have become frustrated, angry and even bitter about all the broken promises.
He was right.
The politicians who are now saying that we shouldn’t be frustrated are the ones who are out of touch.
People in the towns and communities we live in have seen their jobs shipped overseas. We’ve seen our pensions disappear. We’ve seen our health care costs skyrocket. We’ve seen everything from the cost of gasoline to a gallon of milk go through the roof.
As our families have struggled to make ends meet and our communities fought to stay intact, how has Washington responded? By giving tax breaks to the wealthy, rewarding corporations who ship jobs overseas, and turning the levers of power over to the lobbyists and special interests.
It’s easy to feel a little frustrated when you see these Washington politicians continue to ignore you. But it’s not the only emotion we feel. When someone comes along who is untainted by the system in Washington, who doesn’t take money from federal lobbyists or special interests and who promises that things can be different, we feel something else—hope.
That’s why we’re supporting Barack Obama. Others have come along and promised change, but failed to deliver. Sen. Obama is different than the rest. He doesn’t take money from the special interests, and he speaks honestly about the issues we are facing.
In addition to supporting his plans for jobs, health care and education, we believe that he can deliver on his promises to ensure economic opportunity for family farmers, to provide support for rural economic development, to promote renewable energy in rural America, to protect the rights of hunters and other law-abiding Americans to purchase, own, transport, and use guns for the purposes of hunting and target shooting, and to preserve open land for hunting and fishing.
Unlike his opponents who have been part of the Washington establishment for decades, Barack Obama understands the struggles we are going through. We welcomed him with open arms as he made his way through small towns and rural areas on his recent bus tour across the state. And we will work day and night from now until the primary on his behalf not only because he has heard our frustrations, but because he speaks to our hope that Washington can actually work for people like us.
Sincerely,
Ted Alter, State College
Westmoreland County Commissioner Tom Bayla, Greensburg
Mayor John Brenner, York
Lloyd Casey, West Chester – President, Pennsylvania Forestry Association
Mayor John Fetterman, Braddock
Mayor Rick Gray, Lancaster
Scott Harrison, Warriors Mark
State Representative Bryan Lentz, Swarthmore
State Senator Sean Logan, Monroeville
Carl Majji, Claysville – Corporal, U.S. Army
Mayor Thomas McMahon, Reading
State Senator Bob Mellow – Pennsylvania Senate Democratic Leader
U.S. Representative Patrick Murphy, Doylestown – U.S. Congressman (PA-08)
Perry County Commissioner Steve Naylor, New Bloomfield
Lackawanna County Commissioner Corey O’Brien, Dunmore
Fran Rodriquez, Lancaster
State Representative Josh Shapiro, Abington – Deputy Speaker, Pennsylvania House of Representatives
Major General Walter Stewart, Berks County – Former Commander, 28th Infantry Division, Pennsylvania Army National Guard
State Representative Dan Surra, St. Marys
State Representative Thomas Tangretti, Greensburg
Lackawanna County Commissioner Michael Washo, Scranton
You can sign your name to this letter too on Barack Obama’s website (warning there’s a video that starts playing automatically)
I really despise Bob Johnson. It’s bad enough that he inflicted BET on us, but the ongoing problem is that he continues to talk like someone cares. Jim Morrill did an interview with Johnson in the Charlotte Observer. Bob Johnson not only repeats the “Obama is lucky his black” meme, but revises history to boot:
“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position,” she said, just before the resulting firestorm forced her to step down as an adviser to Obama rival Hillary Clinton.
“What I believe Geraldine Ferraro meant (is) if you take a freshman senator from Illinois called ‘Jerry Smith’ and he says I’m going to run for president, would he start off with 90 percent of the black vote? And the answer is, probably not.”
You have to read the rest of Johnson’s quote over at Morrill’s site, but this is the gist. Bob Johnson, is pretending that all along Sen. Obama was carrying the black vote. We all know that that’s not true. I have no idea why Morrill didn’t point out that that wasn’t true.
It wasn’t until after Iowa, that Obama’s standing among black voters surged to over 70% in some cases. Before that, he was polling behind Clinton among black voters. In October 2007, Sen. Clinton was polling high among black females, while black males were split between the two. It was black women, who was giving Sen. Clinton her edge among black voters at that time. The following month, Sen. Obama saw a small surge in black support, though he was still lagging behind Clinton who, at the time, held an 83% favorable rating among black voters.
Then December came…most of you may remember December as the month, the Clinton surrogates rolled out the race-baiting aspect of their campaign, starting with Bob Kerrey on Dec. 8th. Most people were wrapped up in themselves or Mike Huckabee’s Christmas card, but black people were talking about it all. Then Iowa happened. Not only did Clinton come in 3rd, but Obama won a state with a black population of 2.5%. Then the Clinton’s and their surrogates happened…There’s no need to rehash, but it’s clear that the bigotted antics of Clinton’s “fun part” of the campaign caused her some serious erosion in black support.
For Bob Johnson, to sit up there and pretend that 1) none of the race-baiting happened and 2) that Obama has always has black voters backing him, shows that Johnson is much more out of touch than his soft-porn cable channel proves that he is.
The next time some Clinton supporter whines that the media is mean to Clinton just say ‘Tuzla’. See, I’m not getting it…Obama’s Reverend says stuff that unhinges a nation. To make it worse, the words were taken out of context and when you read the entire sermon, make a lot of sense. Sigh. But stupid people are stupid people and they’re actually getting upset and demanding that Obama leave his church. Let me repeat that. These people think Obama should leave his church based on 40 seconds of words snipped from a 30 year career. To make it worse, some of them even say that means that he shouldn’t be president…because of some one else’s words.
Huh?
So, it’s been proven–again–that Sen. Clinton is a bald-faced liar. Now, remember that she’s been on about her trip to Bosnia and all the sniper fire. You’ll remember that back on March 11, before all this Rev. Wright stupidity, The Sleuth ran a story with Sinbad who was also on that trip.
“I never felt that I was in a dangerous position. I never felt being in a sense of peril, or ‘Oh, God, I hope I’m going to be OK when I get out of this helicopter or when I get out of his tank.’”
In her Iowa stump speech, Clinton also said, “We used to say in the White House that if a place is too dangerous, too small or too poor, send the First Lady.”
Say what? As Sinbad put it: “What kind of president would say, ‘Hey, man, I can’t go ’cause I might get shot so I’m going to send my wife…oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you.’”
You’d think that the media would have picked up on this, but they didn’t it. Apparently to be mean to Clinton. So, then video showed up late last week, definitely making Clinton’s words lies. You’d think that on the Sunday talkshows, it would The Story, you know, since a presidential candidate was caught in a lie. But on Meet The Press, Tim “Obama is BLACK–like Farrakhan!!!” Russert merely glossed over it:
MR. RUSSERT: Chuck Todd, Hillary Clinton released–had some documents released about her experience as first lady, which brought up again her foreign policy experience as she has articulated it. Here she was last Monday, talking about a trip she made to Bosnia in 1996, suggesting they sent her rather than her husband because of the danger involved. And here she is.
(Videotape)
SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D-NY): I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead, we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.
(End videotape)
MR. RUSSERT: Yesterday in a column called “Factchecker” by Michael Dobbs in The Washington Post, Dobbs wrote this: “Clinton’s tale of landing at the Tuzla airport `under sniper fire’ and then running for cover is simply not credible. Photographs and video of the arrival ceremony, combined with contemporaneous news reports, tell a very different story. Four Pinocchios.” Which is the highest you can get, which means a whopper in terms of exaggeration. Now, the Clinton campaign has responded by having a speechwriter who was with Hillary Clinton saying, in fact, it was a dangerous situation. And General Nash, who had told Michael Dobbs there was no sniper fire, said that he was aware of some security concerns, but The Post stands by the four Pinocchios. The credibility issue, truth telling, is this a problem for Senator Clinton?
MR. TODD: Well, it’s been–the thing, the nagging thing throughout this whole campaign. When you ask that question of honest and trustworthy, she has always consistently scored lower than Obama, though I am curious what things are going to look like next week, because now, as John Meacham put it, Obama’s mortal, and now he is going to be viewed as just another politician. And so how much does he take a hit, for instance, on that one question. But I, for the life of me, haven’t understood why they have pushed this story. They knew that, well, somebody went after and reinterviewed Sinbad, who was on that trip, the former comedian, and I put “comedian” in quotes, that he was on that trip and doesn’t remember it being that harried or anything like that, and yet she went out and, and retold the story. They have an, an amazing sometimes, with the, the Clinton campaign, where they continue to push something like the, the Ireland thing, which was, her role in the Irish peace process, there appears to be that she certainly played some role or she was involved with it, but what was it? And they, they seem to, to push it. They didn’t need to retell this story because, if they had not, then they wouldn’t have gotten this four Pinocchio thing under The Washington Post and given the Obama’s campaign something to, to hit them with.
That was it. Remember Russert needling Sen. Obama about Farrakhan? Didn’t it look lame that Russert was pushing on Obama to distance himself from something Farrakhan said almost 18 years ago? Then on Monday, this went viral:
That was handmade for the media, but nothing. After getting very strong headlines supergluing Obama to his pastor’s 40 seconds words out of a 30 year carreer, we see “Clinton says she misspoke” or “Clinton backpedals on Bosnia“…all because the media is out to get Clinton.
The media is so evil to Clinton that they just reported the spin lies from their campaign spokesperson. Here we have a candidate who flat out lied. She lied. She’s a liar. I haven’t seen any pundits going, “Well, what does this mean for Hillary?” Meanwhile, Obama gets calls to end his campaign because of 40 seconds of snippets out of a 30 year career that were spoken by someone else?
If anyone ever complains about Clinton’s media portrayal just mention ‘Tuzla’ because trust, if Obama had made a statement like that with video that clearly proved he was lying, the Clinton campaign would be all over this like stank on shit and the media would do their best to drum Obama out of the race.
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