by Taylor Marsh
It's getting ugly. First we had Obama talking about Clinton as "Bush-Cheney lite." Today we have a new twist and it isn't into presidential territory.
Who said this?
"Wake up America. The White House is not for sale; the Lincoln bedroom is not for sale.''
Republican Bob Dole said it in 1996.
How about this:
"I believe they have had moved that sign the buck stops here from the Oval Office desk to the buck stops here on the Lincoln Bedroom. And that's not good for the country."
George W. Bush spewed this crap in 2000. As most everyone knows, the Lincoln Bedroom smear became a Republican standard against the Clintons.
During the 2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush sanctimoniously accused Clinton of "virtually renting out the Lincoln bedroom to big campaign donors." He condemned the use of the "hallowed" chamber for political payoffs.
Selling Lincoln bedroom disrespectful, by Helen Thomas
Fast forward. Now how about this beauty. Who said it?
"The American people deserve to know that their presidency is not for sale, the Lincoln Bedroom is not for rent, and lobbyist money can no longer influence policy in the House or the Senate."
Rudy Giuliani, right?
Nah, Mitt Romney, that's got to be it!
Wrong.
It's John Edwards in a speech he gave today in New Hampshire.
This is how an email from NBC First Read characterized the speech:
The Re-Launch: So is Edwards trying to re-launch his campaign? It depends on how one interprets a speech he's giving today in New Hampshire, where he attempts to re-frame the race in a way that makes him the real change agent in the Democratic race. "The choice for our party could not be more clear," Edwards will say, according to advance excerpts. "We cannot replace a group of corporate Republicans with a group of corporate Democrats, just swapping the Washington insiders of one party for the Washington insiders of the other." He also will say, "The choice we must make is as important as it is clear. It is a choice between looking back and looking forward. A choice between the way we've always done it and the way we could do it if we dared. It is caution versus courage. Old versus new. Calculation versus principle. It is the establishment elites versus the American people." This, it seems, will be the argument that Edwards plans to use against Clinton for the rest of the campaign. At a minimum, consider this the new stump speech.
They just left out the Clinton money quote Edwards used today, which is straight out of the right-wing playbook. There are plenty of ways to come at Clinton on the issues, especially Iraq. But if this is the Edwards re-launch, I hope it makes a turn into better territory. Because between Obama's "Bush-Cheney lite" and Edwards talking about "The Lincoln Bedroom is not for rent," I've got to say that these guys sound positively desperate.
UPDATE: Edwards aides respond, via an email exchange I had with the campaign.
Follow Taylor Marsh on Twitter: www.twitter.com/taylormarsh
Want to move your guy John Edwards up in the pundit poll? Help us raise grassroots funding and change the story. Come to my page or make your own.
http://johnedwards.com/action/contribute/mygrassroots/?page_id=MjgxOTc
I was undecided on who I should even think about supporting in '08, but after all the things that HRC has said lately, coupled with John Edwards' comments, I'm convinced that only John can lead our country down the path of REAL CHANGE.
HRC is Bush-Cheney lite.
Time to find a new path.
Edwards '08
And now the latest right wingnut talking point from Hillary: "It's a horrible prospect to ask yourself, 'What if? What if?' But if certain things happen between now and the election, particularly with respect to terrorism, that will automatically give the Republicans an advantage again, no matter how badly they have mishandled it, no matter how much more dangerous they have made the world."
Then she tells us that she's the only one who could handle the right wing talkers. Huh?
Hey, Hillary, like Michael Moore says, "The Republicans already have a candidate."
Finally we don't have to wait for a Nader. We've got a real old timey forward thinking labor Democrat running, John Edwards. Yee Hah!
If they nominate Edwards who will win, they get a filibuster proof Senate, and with it the keys to undoing everything that Bush has done."
-StrategicThinker
.........................................
What he said.
What more do you need to know people ?
Edwards '08.
Make. Rove's. Nightmare. Real.
Do "Telecommunications Act" and "Digital Millennium Copyright Act" ring any bells?
Look, I think Bill Clinton was the best President of my lifetime (though the bar's low -- George HW Bush is an easy second), but he sold our rights out to corporate interests at a rate Reagan would have approved of.
When you have to deny the truth, then you have a problem, Hillary Clinton. The truth is that Bill Clinton and his inner circle, such as Hillary's close friends and inner circle, perfected the greed in politics by taking money from everybody and anybody for any reasons whatsoever. They are uniquely responsible for corrupting our democracy, and it's a real shame they are Democrats.
And then we watch Bill Clinton, who I used to like, leave office and become the rent-a-pretty-face boy for the corporate world. And why are people willing to pay Bill Clinton hundreds of thousands of dollars to show up at their events? Because they want to be able to bribe his wife, if she does become president? And because Bill Clinton, by appearing for money, gives a stamp of approval to many of these groups.
Following in the footsteps of Reagan and Daddy Bush, Clinton has spent his post-presidency years mostly trawling for dollars, with the occasional public appeal to help the unfortunate.
Look at Hillary's financial disclosures. IBM paid Bill Clinton $200,000 to give a speech. Cisco paid him $150,000. General Motors paid him $200,000. I wonder what they wanted? Does it have anything to do with tougher requirements for autos? The Mortgage Banker Assn paid Bill $150,000. The Jewish National Fund paid him $150,000. Citigroup also came in at $150,000. This is just in 2006, by the way, and is just a partial list.
The Clinton's trawling for dollars is notorious, is despicable, and is a perfect example of why Hillary Clinton will be a corporate-sponsored president with the stamp of approval from Rupert Murdoch and wall street.
So please, let's not gasp when somebody mentions that the Clintons are money grubbers. I think the real shocker would be if either one of them did something because it was the right thing to do, and not just because someone paid them to do it.
Most politicians make a living doing speaking tours, and the Clintons were not only broke, they were deeply in debt from ridiculous legal battles when Bill left office. Of course the guy does speaking tours - he's the most popular speaker in the country. Your attempt to turn it into a negative against Hillary is ridiculous. Edwards did plenty of speaking to earn dollars, and look at his hedge fund foray.
If we don't want Hillary to win (and I don't) then we have to stop all this ridiculous cheapshotting and focus on the real issues where she falls down, like foreign policy. Those get lost in the name-calling, and then are dismissed en masse as anti-Hillary ranting. losing their impact on her poll numbers.
Yeah, okay, but once they're out of office, why keep taking the money? Are you kidding me as to why General Motors, and the real estate brokers and mortgage brokers industry, and Citicorp are giving Bill Clinton this kind of money? Are you really that naive? It's all part of the same system.
I'm sorry that I don't believe this money is needed for poor Bill to pay the debt-collector. As I recall, his wife got something like $8.0 million for her little book, and I can't even remember what Bill got for his. They don't need this money.
They take it because corporations are willing to pay money to politicians to buy influence. I mean for heaven's sake this isn't really like the Clintons holding a car wash to pay off their legal bills.
This is a systematic and on-going nationwide corporate-sponsored ATM for the Clintons. Every penny given to them is taken out of our pockets ten-fold. How can anyone defend this level of corruption?
The way Hillary has locked up the nomination, as an aside, is by taking more corporate money than any other candidate, and getting these corporations to commit to give money only to her. She wins because she's taken the most money. Not because she's liked, not because there was a grassroots movement to get her nominated, not because even one working person wanted her. She wins because the corporations selected her. And yes, I do think that is an enormous issue in this election.
I think the man has some really good ideas, and to some extent I can almost believe he means them. But truthfully, he simply does not look like a President, and that's his problem.
As to the comment itself, why does everybody think that HRC is open game? I expect this sort of thing from republicans, and clearly from the majority of the comments on the story, you have all already swallowed their narrative of the woman. I can't remember how many times in 2000 I heard from my progressive friends about how Al Gore was corrupt, or "republican-lite" so when I hear these same labels attached to HRC it makes me realize that we haven't really learned a thing from that election.
The only way HRC is a big set-up by the GOP is if she manages to split the Democrats the way Nader did in 2000, which I'll remind anyone who voted for him that YOU are responsible for the current mess this country is in, and if you don't get your head straight, you're going to make it happen again.
Still, I can't feel too sorry for her - she's got Murdoch on her side. And the rest of the MSM. This blog (and a couple of others) have a lot less influence than we think - otherwise, Hillary would be toast.
I cannot wait to see John next Tuesday. I really think he and Obama are a great match.
Go EDWARDS!!
I think you're absolutely right about the purpose of Edwards' remark. You're not discussing the rightness or wrongness of the remark, you're referring to the purpose of it.
I went to wikipedia and looked up the meaning of "jump the shark." It refers to the moment when an entity - in this case, the Edwards campaign - does something over-the-top in a last ditch attempt to re-attract fans who are moving on.
I do think that that is what Edwards was doing.
Did you read or hear the speech, Taylor? Unbelievably shallow and defensive analysis.