The past week marked the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War and the milestone of the 4,000th American soldier killed in that disastrous adventure. Commemorating and underscoring the urgent need for a new policy direction, Senator Clinton delivered a serious and detailed address clearly setting out her vision for and commitment to ending the conflict. Her approach includes a direct critique of the most glaring failures of the Bush administration: its unwillingness to use political pressure and intense international diplomacy to effect a resolution of the outstanding differences that have driven the region into a proxy war within Iraq with the United States manning and supporting combatants on all sides. For years American generals have been telling the administration, the Congress, and the public that Iraq is not a situation that lends itself to a military solution and will only be resolved politically. While the focus of American opprobrium has been on the Iraqi government for its failure to find those solutions, Senator Clinton, in her speech, is the first presidential candidate to spell out in a precise plan the elements required for an international effort, including co-opting and controlling the enablers of the ongoing violence in Iraq, to promote political reconciliation and reform.
My wife, former CIA agent, Valerie, and I accompanied Senator Clinton to Philadelphia the day after her speech. Valerie pointed out in her comments how, in the run up to the invasion, the administration lied to the Congress and the American people about the nature and the seriousness of the weapons of mass destruction threat posed by Saddam Hussein. The Bush administration's willful twisting of intelligence was crucial to manipulation of the press, the public and the Congress. Not until months later, after the invasion, did the facts of the administration's distortion of intelligence slowly begin to trickle out, partly as a result of my own efforts in a New York Times opinion piece in July 2003.
Understandably, Senator Obama's speech on race relations overshadowed Senator Clinton's policy pronouncements. While laudable in intent, Senator Obama would never have made the speech had his relationship with fiery pastor Jeremiah Wright not become a public relations nightmare for him. Among other things, Wright preaches that the United States government unleashed the HIV virus in Africa to kill blacks. (Having worked in Africa for much of my adult life, including with one of the early AIDS researchers, Dr. Jonathan Mann, I can safely say that there is absolutely no evidence to sustain Wright's reckless charge.) Obama had no choice but to address his 20-year close relationship with a man he still considers, as he made clear in his speech, a mentor.
In the immediate aftermath, the Obama campaign dispatched several foreign policy surrogates to blitz the airwaves, supposedly to offer alternatives to Clinton's recommendations. But that's not what happened. Instead, Hillary was subjected to yet another round of personal abuse, denigration and ridicule rather than a serious debate of the issues. The real subtext of the Obama campaign was to attack Hillary in order to distract from Obama's association with his anti-American preacher. National security went un-addressed. Rather than filling in his largely absent record, Obama had his surrogates engage in what can be termed the mendacity of hype.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, an otherwise serious person, made the extraordinarily silly comment belittling two-term Senator Clinton by comparing her experience to that of Mamie Eisenhower and his own travel agent after offering an analysis of the situation in Iraq and the path to a resolution that essentially mirrored the basic points Senator Clinton made in her speech. Brzezinski was not asked and did not explain why Obama early embraced him as an adviser and openly praised him, but recently has coldly distanced himself because of Brzezinski's controversial views on Israel.
Nor did Brzezinski address the bloody issue of mercenary forces like Blackwater, which Obama states should be allowed to remain part of our military force in Iraq -- a position challenged by Senator Clinton, who has called for phasing them out. In place of practical policies, Brzezinski offered his vague "sense" that Obama is a person who understands change before it takes place and is therefore capable of making "transcendental" decisions, whatever that might mean. For a man with a reputation as tough-minded, Brzezinski retreated into cloudy abstraction in his defense of Obama, who, according to the Senator, he, Brzezinksi, knows hardly at all.
Senator John Kerry, another Obama surrogate, offered the startling observation that Obama is better equipped than anyone else to bridge the divide between the U.S. and the Muslim world and end Islamic extremism and terorrism -- "because he's a black man." There is absolutely no empirical evidence to sustain that claim, the notion that a single individual, even one with a resume filled with appropriate experience, would be able to halt terrorism because of the color of his skin. It is patently absurd. But Kerry presented nothing to back up his astounding racial reasoning. And the Obama campaign was remarkably silent on Kerry's racialization of the foreign policy discussion.
Next, Governor Bill Richardson, who campaigned on his resume as a foreign policy practitioner, "agonized," he explained, before putting his faith in a "once in a lifetime leader" and endorsed Obama, repudiating his own rationale of experience as a prerequisite for being President. Rather than state why he believes Obama has superior national security credentials and positions, he opted to complain instead about James Carville comparing him to Judas Iscariot. Since Richardson made foreign policy the centerpiece of his campaign -- a direct consequence of President Bill Clinton's appointments -- and of the salience of foreign policy as an issue in the election, he owed an explanation of how Obama's foreign policy would make us stronger and more secure that Clinton's. But, preferring to defend himself against the charge of having betrayed the Clintons he neglected to discuss such policy.
Then, there was retired Air Force General, Merrill "Tony" McPeak, whose media appearance last week consisted of making the outrageous charge that Bill Clinton was using "McCarthy-like tactics" simply because he mentioned, in the event of a Hillary-McCain match-up, that Hillary and McCain are good patriots and that the campaign should be devoted to a substantive debate of the issues. Even the right wing National Review's Kathleen Parker, who was at the event, felt compelled to correct the record. "Bill Clinton was saying that Hillary and McCain are both good patriots who love their country, not that all those unmentioned are something else."
Bill Clinton, of course, was not using "McCarthy-like tactics," but the Obama campaign was eager to smear him. Which was guilty of "McCarthy-like tactics"? Attack the character of your adversaries; demean them; turn them into caricatures; while lying about someone, claim they are liars.
Finally, the Obama campaign pushed a compliant press corps, all too eager to do its bidding rather than maintain its standards of objectivity and skepticism, into hyping a mini-pseudo-scandal: whether Hillary "misspoke" about being under sniper fire when she paid a visit to Tuzla in Bosnia in 1996. In fact, the then-First Lady was told the plane was diving to land to avoid possible sniper fire. Whether there was or not is irrelevant. Anybody who has been involved in these situations, as I have, knows this. The threat was apparently real enough for U.S. military on the ground, the pilot and her security detail to engage in evasive procedures. That should have been the end of the matter. But the cable TV talking heads nattered the Obama campaign talking points endlessly.
Obama's week of rolling out national security surrogates and talking points was not a pretty sight and turned out to have almost nothing to do with bolstering his thin credentials. His distracting efforts were a clear attempt to deflect attention from them, in fact. In response to Hillary's detailed, substantive speech on Iraq, Obama replied with ad hominem insults. Instead of presenting his own plan, his campaign indulged in character assassination.
David Axelrod, the top Obama political strategist, for one, knows better. After all, he and his wife were direct beneficiaries of Hillary Clinton's personal kindness and public policy experience when, in the midst of the impeachment trial of her husband, she travelled to Chicago to support Susan Axelrod's efforts to raise money for her foundation, Citizens United for Research on Epilepsy (CURE), established by her after one of the Axelrod children was afflicted with the malady. As reported in the New York Times in April, 2007 (with thanks to eriposte of the Leftcoaster blog for his research):
"It was January 1999, President Clinton's impeachment trial was just beginning in the Senate and Hillary Clinton was scheduled to speak at the foundation's fund-raiser in Chicago. Despite all the fuss back in Washington, Clinton kept the appointment. She spent hours that day in the epilepsy ward at Rush Presbyterian hospital, visiting children hooked up to machines by electrodes so that doctors might diagram their seizure activity and decide which portion of the brain to remove. At the hospital, a local reporter pressed her about the trial in Washington, asked her about that woman. At the organization's reception at the Drake Hotel that evening, Clinton stood backstage looking over her remarks, figuring out where to insert anecdotes about the kids. "She couldn't stop talking about what she had seen," Susan Axelrod recalled. Later, at Hillary Clinton's behest, the National Institutes of Health convened a conference on finding a cure for epilepsy. Susan Axelrod told me it was "one of the most important things anyone has done for epilepsy." And this is how politics works: David Axelrod is now dedicated to derailing this woman's career."
Senator Obama and his campaign should get back to defending his policy positions and record rather than diminish a good person and an accomplished public servant. They know better.
James Carville has been out bragging that his "Judas" comment about Governor Richardson had the desired effect, because it "branded" Richardson's endorsement of Obama with that disingenuous label. He said he did that consciously so that whenever people thought of Richardson, they would think of Judas, and therefore Richardson's endorsement of Obama would be forever tainted. (In his dreams.)
This post is attempting to do the same thing. Obama's second Grammy winning book is called, "The Audacity of Hope." So Amb. Wilson's title here, which may have been written by Carville, includes "The Mendacity of Hype." Don't look now, but you have just given over control of your mind to James Carville; you've been branded with what arelikely Carville induced associations. Again, in his dreams.
Same thing with the "Smears and Tears" part of the title. The Clinton's rely on "Fear and Smear" to get elected, but they want to soften the negative association of that, so they want to muddy that with "Smears and Tears," of which Obama has done neither, really, so it is impotent on its face. Obama has been upright, and used very little hyperbole. The Clintons and Carville are using the demagogue tactics of all the really not nice people that you can think of for the last century, and more. No thanks. We get it now. We're not buying it.
Ambassador Wilson, please don't do it. We still need you.
Yes I do know who Ambassador Wilson is, and I respect him in general, as I do RFK, Jr. I just wish they wouldn't let themselves be used in this way. Though they truly may not see it that way, it looks rather like it from where I sit.
"Tell me how you gain foreign policy experience by visiting other countries?"
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CEFDF133DF935A3575AC0A963958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2
"Speaking more forcefully on human rights than any American dignitary has
on Chinese soil, Hillary Rodham Clinton catalogued a devastating litany
of abuse that afflicts women around the world..."
Kickin' ass beside Benazir Bhutto in1995.
(bucking her husband to do it!)
Not mentioned in papers Barack demands to see.
(where she was during...Monica...is)
It DID show up in The New York Times.
What a First Lady Does When Visiting.
Michelle gave a...speech...after MY Wisconsin Primary,
tells National Guard farm families, tells ME,
she's never been proud of her country.
Next day, email from Obamafriend:
"Mrs. McCain IS proud of HER country"
Open it to find...a lynching.
"God Damn America" "Typical White People"
Troublesome flirtations; Farrakahn, Stokely, New Black Panthers,
Wm Ayers of Weatherman Underground.
71 HATE RANTS at myspace today, 69 yesterday.
At Hillary's page:
"Listen folks...you really want a woman having hot flashes
in the middle of the night answering a foreign policy call.
I guess she was on her period when she voted for iraq."
and (astricks mine)
"f**k u hillary clinton u f**king c**t....VOTE OBAMA"
High minded (borrowed) speeches...
But THAT'S the Obama I fear and loath.
There are SEVERAL...accountings...at a convention.
One will be with the alarmed offended American People.
start clapping.
When you have to misrepresent someone to get your candidate elected, maybe she's just not that good of a candidate to begin with.
As to the rest of your post, if I understand you (and I'm not sure that I do), any fool can log onto a site, call themselves "Obamafriend", and then spew invectives at Hillary Clinton's supporters in order to further harden feelings. I can assure you that all over the internet, every day, I see the most vicious, racist stuff directed at Barack Obama, usually misspelled, and coming from screen names like "HRC4u".
Only the incredibly dull are taking the bait.
Joe, you're a really intelligent man - a lot more intelligent than the piece I just read. You and Valerie, more so than almost any public figures I know, understand the effect of taking phrases out of context and twirling them around until they fly off and stick to the wall - someplace.
Knock it off - all you're doing is systematically destroying the respect people like me once held for you. Praise Hillary all you want - it's still a free country and there's lots to admire about her intelligence and willingness to fight for what she wants and that in which she believes. But someone who watched his wife pilloried by much smaller people than she - purely for political purposes - should know better than to do the same to someone of Barack Obama's stature. For shame.
Perhaps the Clintons are charming in person, and are able to charm people into doing their bidding, but Wilson is a diplomat, and they are supposed to know better than anyone else when they are being charmed. I just don't get it. RFK, Jr. did the same kind of piece. Didn't get that one either.
"An exaggeration that wasn't that far from reality"?! -- Saying that she was under sniper fire and had to run with her head down isn't that far from standing still and listening to a girl recite a poem? Saying that the welcoming ceremony had to be cancelled because of sniper fire isn't that far from her attending the same welcoming ceremony? You mean saying that the president sent her to places that were too dangerous for him isn't that far from a place being safe enough to bring your teenage daughter along?
Here's a link to an explanation of Obama's "lie".
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/trailhead/archive/2008/03/26/bending-the-law.aspx
Notice in particular where the school says, "he was plenty qualified to be a professor, but he just didn’t have the time." [and the article goes on to say] Instead of making him a professor, they gave him the senior lecturer gig, which means he didn’t have to publish scholarly works (and therefore wasn’t on tenure track)."
So, in all but name, he was a professor. If anything, that's much closer to "mis-speaking" than Hillary's complete and utter fabrication of events. Hillary didn't only lie about Bosnia, she lied about almost all of her experience.
That's absurd.
Obama's pastor said some things that are hurtful and scared the white community. Obama then addressed the issue directly and completely. Instead of turning it into a "woe is me - the media hates me" campaign rally he used it to address Americans and ask them to try to understand the race issue. He not only met the issue head on, but used it for the potential betterment of this country.
29% of Hillary supporters will vote for McCain if Obama wins the nomination. A direct result of you people being trained to love John McCain. Of course, there are also a bunch of people in the Obama camp that won't vote for Hillary if she steals the nomination. The difference is that Obama has already won, and his supporters would be disenfranchised if isn't nominated- Hillary has lost and she would be the cause of that disenfranchisement if she's nominated.
Otherwise...why didn't he correct her when she erroneously told America she "Remembers accompanying Amb. Wilson to Africa" where I guess they found Dr. Livingstone or stamped out malaria or maybe they were the ones who chased Osama Bin Laden out of Somalia...I can't remember but I vividly remember the trip!
It is evident, although still hoping for a last second win, Clnton is laying the groundwork for a 2012 run by using the quoted "Tanya Harding option". Cripple Obama in the general election to help McCain win. She and Bill have already endorsed McCain several times over her fellow Democrat. Polls show that 10% more Hilary supporters would likely vote for another 4 years of Republican executive power. This with the hopes that McCain disappoints and keeps us in this war through his entire administration making him more unpopular. Clinton would then sweep in to vie for the nomination and the election. Plus McCain will take the heat for keeping the troops longer in Iraq. Evidence of this is one of her advisers criticizing Obama's plan for withdrawal saying that there are CONTINGENCIES that may need to be considered prior to withdrawing troops.
I also like the way Wilson sweeps away the race speech by Obama. I think that dealing with the race issue in America is more important than foreign policy. If we can't deal with our own domestic issues how can we deal with issues of other nations?
Doesn't it beg the question for those who say that Hilary is the answer to the Democratic party that Al Gore has not come out right to endorse the wife of his former boss? As both candidates have flaws I have been able to come to terms with those of Obama as opposed to Clinton.
The talk is always about the greatest issues facing America, but the opinions about issues like these are just as important, if not more so, and I think they show whether or not the candidate is really involved and knowledgeable on ALL levels of government, and are listening on ALL levels to the American people.
It is true, Obama and McCain get a hell of a lot more good press than Hillary does, no matter what side of the battle she's on. Even when they criticize the guys, they are apologetic about it. Maybe it's just a guy thing.
Was Obama vacationing in the Virgin Islands when the 4000th soldier died? Where was Hillary?
Are you aware that both Clintons mischaracterized Obama's remarks early in the campaign and told audiences that his interview with a Nevada newspaper claimed that Republicans had "better ideas" than Democrats? Either they were both inattentive and clueless or they were deliberately distorting Obama's position that Reagan changed the trajectory of American politics.
Any native speaker of English can look up the interview on the Internet and see a clip of Obama;s actual words,
This is the underlying pattern of the Clinton campaign that more and more of us are beginning to see. It has nothing to do with foreign policy experience. It has to do with the qualities and integrity that are brought to bear in making foreign policy decisions.
Neither distortion nor cluelessness will serve America on day one, sir.
The donor's argument that Hillary should stay until the end of cycle fails. Where are Dodd, Edwards, Biden, Romney, Huckabee and the other potentials? They left when a frontrunner was clearly established.
I see The New York Aluminum Tubes Times is still licking its Hillary endorsement wounds with the Deval Patrick story too - page one, over the fold.
Yelling, name-calling and finger-pointing are repulsive persuasive techniques, nomatter who is yelling, calling names or pointing fingers. Let us wield something else, like logic based on incontrovertible truth.
Sadly, it appears Hillary would rather ruin the party than simply help out her country. ... That sounds harsher than I want it to, but it is the way she is being perceived.
With her skills backing up Obama, or even vice-versa, now that would have been a team.
But now that she clearly can NOT win without hi-jinks, her current scorched earth approach are making such options mighty scarce.