Hillary Clinton Ad Features Osama Bin Laden: Campaign AdWatch

Today's polling indicated a slight upward trend for Senator Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, with most numbers tacking above the margin for error. Still, there might be something to the rumors that tomorrow's primary is expected to be a tight contest, and the clearest sign that the Clinton campaign is taking that seriously is that they've released a new thirty-second ad called "Kitchen," which "detail[s] how tough the job of President is...asking voters who they think is ready to step in and handle it." And, hey! Look who makes a cameo appearance! None other than stock footage of Osama bin Laden, presumably on loan from the defunct Giuliani campaign.

And now, for the rebuttal, please welcome President William Jefferson Clinton:

UPDATE: And in a rebuttal to the rebuttal, we have campaign newbie, Geoff Garin, who says: "It states the reason why Hillary Clinton is the right choice to be president now...the premise of this ad and this campaign is that we're at a moment where we need a president who's got the strength and the knowledge to take on very tough challenges...To say that she is the best choice on those things, there's nothing negative about that."

Indeed, the most "positive" thing about the ad may be its efficacy. As Talking Points Memo notes, "Dropping a last-minute bomb in order to sow doubts about Obama among the late-breaking undecideds -- and doing it in the guise of an ad only mentioning Hillary -- worked in Ohio and Texas. Camp Hillary is hoping that the tactic will deliver a second time."

MORE UPDATES: And, so, this little spat escalaltes to "Defcon: OMFG!" From Obama spokesman Bill Burton:

When Senator Clinton voted with President Bush to authorize the war in Iraq, she made a tragically bad decision that diverted our military from the terrorists who attacked us, and allowed Osama bin Laden to escape and regenerate his terrorist network. It's ironic that she would borrow the President's tactics in her own campaign and invoke bin Laden to score political points. We already have a President who plays the politics of fear, and we don't need another.

So, uhm...Hillary Clinton is to blame for Osama bin Laden being at large? Really? That's what you're gonna go with, Burton? Can't wait for this primary contest to end in that bring-the-party-together "Dream" ticket!

UPDATES GALORE: The Obama campaign has produced an ad in response to today's Clinton ad. Man, when this primary is over, just think about how "bitter" all the out-of-work political ad people are going to be!

Comments

[dotmafia]

Hillary Clinton is a terrorist?!?

So this finally proves that Hillary Clinton is engaging in a form of terrorism over her own people in the United States, trying to instill fear in them which is exactly what extremist terrorists do. She and her supporters cannot use the excuse that she is simply warning the American public about Obama's potential failures. She is using the exact same strategy which Bush and Cheney used to get re-elected -- releasing the Bin Laden video days before the 2004 election to stoke FEAR. Disgusting.

Clinton supporters should be ashamed for supporting her when she is purposely engaging in "passive terrorism" over the American people, just so she can win the nomination. Absolutely bloody disgusting.

The Clinton's have now officially sunk to new lows

[neocon43]

Those kind of words will really help Obama get the womens vote.Can you say president Mccain.i CAN.

[JiminNC]

Say it all you wish neo! That will not come true :)

[Aleka4]

I am amazed that they manage to do this nearly every day.

I mean seriously - every day I think, "Wow, they could not get any lower"...and then they do!

[PhDiva]

The main problem with this ad is not that it's 'against' another democrat, it's that Clinton still hasn't proven that she's the one who has the skills to handle any of these problems. Moreover, she keeps using false standards that make McCain look better than both Clinton and Obama, which is pathetic. She keeps doing his job for him. Now, she's just starting to bore me.

[mammaboy]

You found your kindred spirit.

[storeyy]

I spent every summer from 1960 to 1975 in Sewickley PA, I have relatives in McKeesport , Erie and a even a few in Pittsburgh. With that being said Senator Obama isn't going to win in PA. I wish he could because I believe in his message of change. He's appears to be a man of conviction and integrity, something we could use in America right now considering our reputation around the world, but that won't be enough. The people in Pa are different. Sure there are alot of young people on both the east and the west of the state...but it's the middle I worry about. The young people that grow up in places like Clarion and in counties like Mifflin and they go away to school and never come back. Therefore the population is older. I just hope he can keep it under 5 or 6 percentage points then we can go to NC and IN and shut her down!

[ByeObama]

DO YOU REALLY KNOW OBAMA"s BACKROUND AND YOU WANT HIM IN>>INTEGRITY??? >>READ Political Forum.Com Elections and Campaingns by Latisha......DOn't be fooled ..BE very afraid to vote this illassociated liar, in office..His father was a member of the most corupt organization in Africa the Kenyatta who killed, raped and were arsonist..his muslim step father..who by the way Obama lived with till he was l0 ...enrolled his step son in Jakarta's musslim Wahabbi school Wahabbism is the radical teaching that created the musslim Terrorists who now wage Jihad on the rest of the world..see U.S. Veteran Dispatch December 2006???HILLARY AND BILL HOLD THE LONGEST PEACE KEEPING TIME OF ANY PRESIDENCY AND THE BIGGEST ECONOMIC GROWTH OF ANY PRESIDENCY>>THESE ARE THE BIGGEST ISSUES OF AMERICA TODAY!!..VOTING IN ANOTHER INEXPERIENCED GUY AND SHADY TOO IS NOT CHANGE!! >>LOOK WHAT HAPPEN WITH BUSH WITHOUT THAT TAINTED BACKROUND! NO BRAINER HILLARY 2008!!!

[linquistic]

Hillary and Bill had the longest blah blah blah and the biggest economy????.... Why you keep saying Hillary and Bill. Try saying Bill Clinton. She held no cabinet position, she was first lady for Christ sake. She gets no credit for any of theses things. She's trying to chalk up Bill Clinton's experience as hers. Talk about her accomplishments in the Senate and maybe then you will gain some credibility.

[Aleka4]

Holeee.....That is some crazy chit you are posting, and i know for a fact it isn't true. Do you think before you post, or just spread lies that come in your email from crazies?

Its all been debunked you know.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2007/dec/20/chain-email-gets-obama-religion-wrong/

[WHusseinLA]

Keep up the 3rd party BS issues and help your true choice, McSame.

[storeyy]

ByeObama... but be mindful that I am still voting for Obama. I would vote for a person that offers hope, not lies. If HRC would lie about a simple thing like Bosnia, hell, what won't she lie about. Our country is in the midst of 2 wars and we need someone that can use diplomacy to get us out of this crap. I can just picture Hillary Clinton yelling, "I am the POTUS dammit...Bill get my guns" I am sorry that your values allow you to vote for liars......mine doesn't. So lets just agree to disagree.

[TNFarmer]

"HILLARY AND BILL HOLD THE LONGEST PEACE KEEPING TIME OF ANY PRESIDENCY" First, not all CAPS, please. Hillary didn't do squat to keeping the peace, and the main reason Bin Laden et al are so viable today is because Bill didn't get'r done when he was in office. Just because Bill didn't get us into a fiasco like Iraq, doesn't mean we didn't take some serious hits from terrorists - he just didn't respond fast and hard enough.

Perhaps Obama's background is murky - but the Clinton's are factually worse, or at least have sunken to a lower level during this campaign. Putting it another way, choosing between the lesser of two evils is pretty darned easy in this case.

[Obama4Life]

Why doesn't Obama use the rebuttal video with Bill Clinton as and ad against her??

Why doesn't he, it would stop her fear mongering once and for all.

Man, I feel sorry for Bill having to live with a woman like Hillary. I wonder how he clams her down when she goes off on one of her temper tantrums like the one in Ohio.

[CaIndy]

you feel sorry for him?? He is just as bad if not worse than she is...

[OlderBudWeiser]

Does Hillary know Bill's campaigning for Obama?

[Barbarossa03]

Because he's trying to steer away from the gutter politics of Clinton, plus his is a message of change, not fear

[andhakari]

Hillary isn't wearing a flag-pin in her lapel. Is she a terrorist?

[kid5rivers]

The woman is a raving lunatic! Totally obfuscated by her mad desire to have power at all costs, just as terrorists are.

Why put up with her for so long? God along knows.

[mammaboy]

Who is obfuscating her? God?

Or do you need a dictionary?

[JiminNC]

How about totally consumed by ... ?

[williamgg]

Quite honestly, I'm not offended by this ad. But, I agree with Rachel Maddow - Hillary's campaign has such a negative (toxic!) feel to it.

[givetruthachance]

This use of Bin Laden shows, yet again, there is no low to which Hillary will not stoop. How much more of her slime must we endure? How many more baldfaced lies will she try to sell? Please, Pennsylvania folks, you have the opportunity---end the madness: vote Obama!

[globalcitizenlinda]

If some superdelegates leaning on the fence are not pushed over to Obama by this recent HRC garbage then the country will get what it deserves.

How can my fellow women endorse this kind of nonsense and still vote for the fear-monger-in-chief?

I feel sorry for HRC as a person who tried to accomplish so much in life but will be more remembered i history for only her lowest points - such a pity

[kevenseven]

"but will be more remembered i history for only her lowest points"

Much like her husband?

[naijaman]

Hillary disqualified herself from being President when she voted to invade IRAQ after we were attacked by SAUDIS.

'Nuff said.

[BlueStateMan]

We weren't attacked by ANY sovereign nation. It was a CRIMINAL act & it should have pursued as such.

Iraq was attacked for MONEY, nothing else.

[mammaboy]

Way too simplistic. We attacked as a last corrupted attempt to maintain our nostalgia for American hegemony. But the will was not there, and now we recoil at the table of the Russian, Chinese, Iranian oil conglomerate. We failed and fail. We're used goods. We should be thankful. It's better this way.

[kevenseven]

Well. Yes.

[eej]

I don't know why Hillary brags about her experience so much when she has made so many, and such serious mistakes.

Obama has 11 years of elected public service - more than Hillary and has made no such disastrous mistakes.

[OlderBudWeiser]

Yep, She's quite the "BUNGLER" Lots of experience.

[CaIndy]

At this point, I think the DEMOCRATS should just stop with the primaries, don't even compete for the general election... and just hand the WH over to John McBomb...

this was almost a given for the DEMOCRATS and they have once again managed to shoot themselves in the face!!!

Who really believe that with either candidate the DEM party is going to unite to beat McCain???
There will be so many hurt feelings and bruised egos that there will be no point come NOV!

[ZHarris]

There won't be any democrat supporters voting for McCrazy... Nice try.

[CaIndy]

you must not be paying much attention... plenty of DEMS from each side so angry and "bitter" if their candidate doesn't win that they will vote for McBomb... and I don't need a "nice try"... I am in no way for McBomb... but this party has allowed me to see that they have once again spoiled a golden opportunity...

its actually quite sad!

[kevenseven]

I'm remarkably certain that Obama is going to crush McBomb.

[CaIndy]

you really think thats possible without the support of those supposed "feminists" that support Hillary???

They look at it as another man stepping on progress for a woman!

[neocon43]

Hey Indy.I cannot believe people on this site think that independents and Clinton supporters are not going to vote for Mccain will beat Obama by double digit in Florida.Howard dean has really messed things up badly for democrats in a year that I thought would be tough for republican to win.if you look at electoral map this is Mccains to lose now.He is going to be tough to beat with Florida and most likely Ohio in the bag.

[ByeObama]

McCAIN????? IS FOR THE 400 million a dollar a day war..it will already take us a 100 years to pay back literally...He knows nothing about economy ..he attest to ...He had an affair with Cindy on his ailing wife and then married drug addict Cindy who stole money and drugs to support her habit????McCain is the oldest person to run for president..HE HAS NOT EXPERIENCE IN THE WHITE HOUSE AS DO THE CLINTONS as they hold the record for the biggest economic growth of any presidency and the longest peace keeping time..McCain wants more war...McCAin war hero?? If that is what you want to call someone who was a prisoner of war?? l.3 trillon the war will cost by the end of the fiscal year and HE WANTS TO CONTINUE IT !! NO WAY NO MORE UNJUST DEATHS WAKE UP AMERICA!!! the UNITED STATES has no money we borrow everyday as it is from China, Korea, Japan ect....HILLARY AND BILL HAVE THE FACTS< EXPERIENCE AND THE KNOW HOW TO GET US BACK ON TRACK>>>WE NEED HILLARY and BILL 2008!!

[storeyy]

You can't really be this angry can u?

[Rog49Thomas]

I didn't know that Bin Laden was involved in Pearl Harbor. Live and learn.

Every time this guy re-emerges I mutter a small curse at President Pan for not getting him. I suppose like many of you out there I blame him for not focussing on bringing Brother Osama to justice.

But I've noticed something that may explain why he's so hard to catch.

Have you noticed that Brother Osama only appears during elections? The rest of the time he has as they say "gone to the mattresses". Not in the presss. He's the truly forgotten man.

But when there's an election, he's all over the place.

Maybe we need to have more frequent presidential elections.

That way we can smoke him out of his hole.

[RHCNYC]

It's always amusing to hear people criticize Obama supporters as somehow falling for some kind of 'act'.
Meanwhile, Hillary picks up southern accents, starts wearing yankees baseball caps, become a hunting beer drinking small town girl, goes from being totally sacrcastic to whimpy tears...

I'm sorry... uhh.. WHO is falling for an act?
C'mon now, son.

[bluesman49]

I just can't see Hillary as the Commander in Chief. Sorry to all the women out there who see it otherwise. She is not top executive material. It's not her sex, it's her demeanor. For example, I had a 5th grade teacher that had a sign in the classroom that said "be sure brain is engaged before putting mouth in gear". She says some weird stuff. She has the same problem Howard Dean had I think, and John Kerry to a degree. And of course George Bush - but he won 2 elections! Obama is far more polished than her and on the world stage he will excel. She is really running on Bill's reputation, which is really lame if you think about it.

[BlueStateMan]

Bush never "won" the first election.... she IS running on Bill's (diminishing) reputation, though.

Obama is polished, yes.... but he'll need some experienced cabinet members to see him through the mess he might be left with.... more so now that the neocons are exacerbating that mess deliberately to pass on to their successors.

[mammaboy]

HuffPo is a blog--it's not your secret therapy time, unless we all could charge. But here is a freebie: You resent women as leaders because you believe they will eventually, as your mother did, rip from under you the support that was the foundation of your selfhood. Mothers can be cruel when they're done mothering.

[Aleka4]

I didn't see any sign of sexism there?

You know, it is entirely possible to dislike her as a -person-, not a woman.

[Earl]

Pro...jec...tion!

[TNFarmer]

Absolutely ridiculous comment that has nothing to do with the topic, except maybe a personal catharsis for you. I agree with Aleka4 - it is very possible to oppose her because of what she stands for, not what gender she is (or isn't).

[SmootyBooty]

Yes. Yes, it is. Considering Bill did everything the GOP wanted him to...

[ByeObama]

QUIT JUDGING STRENGTH AS DEMEANOR >>YOU ENJOYED THE BIGGEST ECONOMIC GROWTH UNDER THE CLINTONS AND THE BIGGEST PEACE KEEPING TIME UNDER THE CLINTONS THEY HOLD THE RECORD FOR BOTH OF THESE ISSUES>>ISSUES THAT ARE NOW THE BIGGEST CONCERNS OF AMERICA>>YOU PETTY People well I don't like her demeanor ..but OBAMA WHO IS KNEE DEEP IN CONTROVERSY is your man???? WHY DOESN"T HIS MAFIA DEALINGS BOTHER YOU..What about his demeanor of the anitamerican preacher he sat and listen to for 20 years and said he never heard any hate towards America only to change his story on the VIew a week later saying he did and would leave the church if the pastor did retire..OR HIS 50 lies see Political Forum.com Elections and Campaigns by Latisha...or his muslim father who belonged to the most corrupt African government that killed, raped and were arsonist...see U.S. Veteran Dispatch...ect.ect..but you don't like Hillaries..demeanor ???? THAT ISN"T WEIRD STUFF WITH OBAMA??? WOW! He is polished? Please educate yourself.

[bluesman49]

She is not presidential material, period. Her husband was, that does not mean she is. She is divisive. She is a pathological liar. She is lucky to be senator from New York, and she should remain there and try to get her act together else she will lose that job too.

[Sunsprite]

Elmer Fudd would have done well handling the economy under the high tech boom..or did Clinton invent this.
And his foreign policy was dreadful.Rwanda anyone? too bad Bill didn't think those black people had any strategic value.
The worst part after allowing the genocide and turning his back to these people Bill had the nerve to address the Rwandans four years later and lied to them about how he had no idea what was happening to them.Bill lies like a rug.again and again and again.....The Clinton;s have no shame,none ..zero.

Quote:That lie came four years after the genocide. During a 1998 presidential tour of Africa, Clinton stopped at the airport in Kigali, Rwanda, and issued an apology. Sort of. Speaking of those nightmarish months in the spring of 1994, he said, "All over the world there were people like me sitting in offices who did not fully appreciate the depth and speed with which you were being engulfed by this unimaginable terror.
Lying About Rwanda's Genocide
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?pid=1353
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/mar/31/usa.rwanda

[superbu]

Oh, please. If Hillary already had the nomination and the identical ad had been run against McCain, all Democrats would have been cheering. Nobody would have criticized her then for playing "the Bin Laden card." But it's Obama, so everyone's supposed to baby him, treat him with kid gloves. Be very careful, don't hurt Obama's feelings -- he's fragile.

[CaIndy]

he's not fragile... he's not the one crying on national tv!

[StillIRise]

The huge distinction is that this is NOT the general election against McCain ... we're still in the primary and Hillary ran this ad against another Democrat, using the GOP's politics of fear, and once again feeding the GOP fodder for the general! This has nothing to do with "babying" Obama. It's about showing a modicum of respect for her Democratic opponent, the Democratic Party, and the Democratic base; that is, if any of these still matter to her!

Still I Rise

[ZHarris]

Simple issue stupor... Did going in to Iraq help capture Osama or hurt?

[williamgg]

Obama isn't complaining.

[linquistic]

It's the fact that they are both democrats. Ocourse i would be happy if it was an ad against McCain, thats what should be happening!