This is like deliberately hitting yourself in the face with a manhole cover.
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Yep
One of the ‘nice’ things about the HRC candidacy is that she’s shining a spotlight on just how awful the liberal establishment, which she heads of course, really is. Her Reagan-HIV apologia and the insultingly flip apology is awful, but in terms of the damage it’s done to the Democratic Party zeitgeist it’s just a few more Twinkie wrappers atop of the junkyard fire of liberal compromising and genuflection.
I mean, aside from the fact that there are liberals literally lining up to apologize for the Patriot Act, her anti-poor bigotry, her warhawkery, her Kissinger apologia, her influence-peddling with Wall Street, her supporters’ sexist identity politics, and who knows what else there are also so many more liberals who seem prepared to endure any amount of betrayal, humiliation, and manipulation from the Clintons because the Republican Party is just that bad.
Clinton supporters: just what does she actually have to do to lose your support? Will she get it as long as she’s at least on aggregate a little better than the Republicans? Or will she have it as long as she’s more ‘electable’ than Sanders?
just in case anyone forgot, Booman wrote yesterday that the superdelegates will probably stick with her even if she’s indicted
For fucks sake, man. SHE’S NOT GOING TO BE INDICTED.
You have a mole in the FBI?
As far as we know theres nothing remotely indictable about it.
They are investigating, hence there is a non-zero chance of indictment. No one but Obama can say flat out that she will not be indicted. I really didn’t think that Bill Clinton would be indicted and plea bargain his way out. Was a sitting President ever indicted before? Don’t say this can’t happen, when they are merely very low probability.
The fact that Bernie fans are pinning their hopes on a freaking indictment of the Democratic nominee is frankly pathetic. Self-proclaimed “progressives” who are doing the GOP’s dirty work are something to behold.
I’m not pinning any hopes on it, I doubt if she will be indicted, but how can you flat out claim that she will not be indicted without inside information or a crystal ball?
Because there’s no crime there. Nothing. No serious person who’s looked at this nothingburger has said there’s potential criminal activity here. Having her own server was not only legal, but within department policy. It was also very secure, moreso than the actual state department. And finally, retroactive classification of 20 emails is not something that gets presidential nominees indicted on criminal charges. Not now, not ever.
?so yes, you work for the FBI is what you’re saying. but watch out with the leaking, you may lose your job
You do get a bit over-defensive here when, according to you, there’s nothing that needs defending. And don’t put words in other people’s mouth as you did with Voice in the Wilderness because it makes you very suspect.
Really???? No crime?
No possible reason to grant anyone immunity for their testimony?
The DOJ is wasting all those hours for nothing at all?
The FBI have absolutely nothing else for their agents to do?
No serious person????
Really?
None of these are serious people?
career independent law enforcement agents
FBI agents
as well as career independent attorneys in the Department of Justice
NONE??
Quick call the ammosexuals out in Oregon and tell them
they gotz nuttin’ to worry about,
cause none of those people working in the DOJ are serious people,
an inter-tubes blogger just declared it.
Heck, given their fevered dreams …. they might actually believe you,
as for me
I’ll wait till the very serious people at the DOJ finish their inquiry and make their recommendations.
So this campaign has increasingly reminded me that there was in fact a big difference between Obama and Clinton.
Because in all honesty I can’t imagine Obama ever saying something like this.
And then there was the article in the Atlantic on Syria.
I had my differences with Obama. But Clinton really is a step backward.
Obama made fun of retarded people by joking that Republicans were in the “Special Olympics”. All pols fuck up from time to time.
That said, we’ll be missing Obama quite a lot very soon. He’s pretty unique.
what was the article on Syria?
Must reading. He is far from perfect, and by far and away the best President of my lifetime.
Not a lot of commentary on the piece in the liberal blogsphere – because it is profoundly critical of Clinton.
There are two pieces on Obama that are must reads
The New York piece on the stimulus package in ’09
And this Atlantic article.
“Obama has come to a number of dovetailing conclusions about the world, and about America’s role in it. The first is that the Middle East is no longer terribly important to American interests. The second is that even if the Middle East were surpassingly important, there would still be little an American president could do to make it a better place. The third is that the innate American desire to fix the sorts of problems that manifest themselves most drastically in the Middle East inevitably leads to warfare, to the deaths of U.S. soldiers, and to the eventual hemorrhaging of U.S. credibility and power. The fourth is that the world cannot afford to see the diminishment of U.S. power. Just as the leaders of several American allies have found Obama’s leadership inadequate to the tasks before him, he himself has found world leadership wanting: global partners who often lack the vision and the will to spend political capital in pursuit of broad, progressive goals, and adversaries who are not, in his mind, as rational as he is. Obama believes that history has sides, and that America’s adversaries–and some of its putative allies–have situated themselves on the wrong one, a place where tribalism, fundamentalism, sectarianism, and militarism still flourish. What they don’t understand is that history is bending in his direction.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/
wow. thanks, looks great. agree with you about Obama. what I like about the direction he’s taking our foreign policy is his cutting through the cr*p of ‘let’s develop markets for our arms industry’, I mean, “promote peace around the world”, to develop constructive diplomatic alliances
Just makes me want to run and cling to my guns and religion…
I’m not a Clinton supporter, but I don’t think she’s Satan incarnate like so many seem to here and elsewhere. Look, she said something nice about Nancy during the mourning period. So what? In fact , good for her, , she showed some class. Then some activists thought she went to far, and after some thought she agreed. Again, so what? In fact, again, good for her, for realizing that she overstepped in her praise of Nancy’s efforts.
All in all, it must be a slow news day at the frog pond.
Oh, pish posh. She’s not Satan incarnate. She’s Margaret Thatcher incarnate.
Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice. – Grey’s Law
Closer policy-wise to Angela Merkel than to Thatcher IMO.
No, she’s more like Margaret Thatcher. … well, that’s not really fair to Thatcher. Hillary Clinton is definitely to the right of Thatcher WRT the security state, health care, and foreign policy and not much to the left elsewhere, including taxes and poverty relief.
Probably the only real point of difference in HRC’s favor is their opinions on gay rights.
I visages on every point. Your k owl edge of Thatcherism seems rather limited.
WTF visages?? Tried to type disagree.
that’s the kind of spelling “correction” my very low end phone would make
Yep, typing on a phone. Shouldn’t do that! I never learn.
Then enlighten me. Without using unfalsifiable counterfactuals* please explain to me where Hillary Clinton’s policy differed from Margaret Thatcher’s. I’ll accept non-political accomplishments or even speeches, but I won’t accept hypotheticals unless they’re backed empirically.
* i.e. if HRC and MT had their brains swapped and no one noticed, MT in Hillary’s body facing her electorate would’ve been more conservative and HRC in MT’s body with her electorate would’ve been more liberal.
Jesus, go do some reading. Try the history of thatchers war with the coal unions, and she ultimately broke them. Try reading about her privatization of government owned industry. Her tax policy. The huge increase in unemployment and poverty under her administration, just for starters. It’s on the Internet, dude.
True, Reagan, H. Bush, and Carter did most of the work before the Clintons. They’re the senator who arrived late to Caesar’s fatal mob-stabbing and was assigned with carving up the corpse as punishment for their tardiness.
Then again, Hillary Clinton did support NAFTA and before her massive flip-flop supported TPP. And Bill Clinton massively reduced government employment, one of the major sources of unionism. So while we can’t really say for sure what Clinton would’ve done in Thatcher’s position, I wouldn’t have expected much better from her.
The top tax rate right now is a little under 40%. About what it was when Thatcher left office. Not only has HRC shown no interest in raising the top marginal rates but she repeatedly whines about how Sanders wants to raise taxes on the middle class of $250k households/year.
Good thing extreme poverty didn’t spike during the Bill Clinton administration. Err, well, good thing HRC opposed those policies and didn’t laugh down her sleeve about how those welfare deadbeats were humiliating their kids with their unemployment. Otherwise this would be devastating to my argument.
Clinton is Margaret Thatcher. Actually, she’s worse, because she’s much more bloodthirsty. I know it hurts to acknowledge that because it means acknowledging that someone you sweated and toiled and voted and hoped for is nothing more than a gladhanding, influence-peddling hack. But seriously, how long are you going to let her rook you liberals like this? Don’t you know that you guys look like those pre-rejected Omega pledges getting paddled, complete with soiled tightie-whities?
You seem to think I’m a Clinton supporter. No. But I do not think she’s Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher was the British version of Reagan, I lived through those years. If you think Clintons policies on taxes, labor, the govt role in alleviating poverty, chilled welfare, the size of government, privatization, or any number of other issues have anything to do with Thatcherism, I can’t help you, we must not be speaking the same language.
Chilled welfare. Oy. Time to call it a night.
Okay, then point me to some policies. Point me to the major Hillary Clinton policies that she supported that were to the left of Margaret Thatcher.
I mean, on taxes, health care, the security state, poverty, the war on drugs, free speech (lol video games and flag amendment), financial regulation, free trade, and above all war I can point you to actual policies where she was about where or even further to the right of Thatcher is. What exactly is left at this point? You either have situations where Thatcher was explicitly bad but Hillary wasn’t explicitly on the hook for the same/a similar issue — like with dismantling unions.
I’m pointing you to specific policies, and all you’re doing is just going ‘nuh uh, you weren’t THERE, man!’ I mean, what the hell? You want to convince me that you’re not just living in denial? Give me the policies. I don’t give a shit about the zeitgeist or some sort of essentialism, give me the policies.
I always thought Reagan tried to imitate Thatcher. A truly awful period for the U.K.
Thatcher would have increased teacher pay?
Thatcher would try to encourage union membership?
Thatcher would raise capital gains taxes?
Thatcher would try to increase government involvement in health care?
Thatcher would try to increase the minimum wage?
Thatcher would decriminalize marijuana?
Thatcher would increase transaction taxes?
Seriously, Hillary=Thatcher?
Hillary Clinton opposes merit pay for individual teachers and supports it for higher-performing schools. So, no. Neither of them would.
Even beyond that, though, while Clinton has a history of saying that teachers were underpaid, I couldn’t find any proposals or at least benchmarks for increasing teacher pay. Until I do, I’m going to assume ‘hand-wringing’.
Hillary Clinton wants to raise capital gains taxes. See her 2015 proposal. Good for her. But they would still be below Thatcher’s level. So… what exactly would be the difference?
More broadly, who cares about the direction of a change? What about the final destination? Kennedy massively cut taxes for the rich. Clinton significantly increased them. That doesn’t mean that Clinton’s policy was better than Kennedy’s unless Clinton said that he wanted a higher rate than what they could get. Don’t get me wrong, direction of change is good as long as there are plans to continue it. But… where’s the ideal final destination? Because right now it’s at Thatcher level.
Hillary Clinton supported Reinventing Government and didn’t say a damn thing about federal employment under Obama collapsing. Close to 50% of American union workers are in government. Thatcher’s battles might have been more public and dramatic, but the Clintons and Obama did grievous harm to unions as well.
We won’t even get into NAFTA/TPP. But the idea of Clinton being much better or even any better for unions than Thatcher is laughable.
See my comment about taxes.
I’ll give you that one. But only a very small amount. She supports letting states legalize it and moving it from Class 1 to Class 2 — which would negate most of the benefits of legalization if she wanted to force the issue like Obama.
Sweet. We finally found an issue where she was significantly to the left of Thatcher. Thatcher wanted to eliminate the minimum wage altogether while Clinton has a record of wanting to increase it. I mean, she wanted to increase it by bullshit amounts but that’s still better than Thatcher.
So yeah. Looks like I’ll be amending ‘other than gay rights’ with ‘other than gay rights and minimum wage, Hillary Clinton is the second incarnation of Thatcher’.
She has people that figure that out for her, write up the least apologetic statement possible, and HRC signs it. This one required more than usual because there’s a lot of votes and money in that LGBT faction. So, I give her no credit for her “walk backs.” Such as I was tired and misspoke about about my trip to Bosnia. Problem is that she didn’t merely misspeak that one time.
She hasn’t and won’t ever apologize smearing, lying, etc. about Sanders.
Marie I can’t recall an instance when you gave Clinton credit for anything, much less her walk back here. So at least you are consistent, like your hero Senator Sanders.
Just because you haven’t seen any doesn’t mean I haven’t given HRC plenty of credit. But I do try hard only to give people credit for what they’ve authentically done.
I don’t put anyone on a pedestal and immune to valid criticisms. And your need to say like your hero Senator Sanders says far more about you than me.
What does it say? I read your posts, he does seem to me to be your hero. I do think that consistency in his case is a bit of an Achilles heel In the sense that he seems to be stuck giving the same speech since 1980 or so. It’s a good speech, but like many oldsters he doesn’t seem to me to be very adaptable. Rather, he’ll take a question on foreign policy and go off about class warfare. I like sanders, I might vote for him when the primary comes to my state. I also like Clinton, and I still think she will do better against the eventual repub.
Bernie like all people developed his political maturity over many years. He doesn’t waffle on the ethical, moral, and practical variables and principles that form the bedrock he uses to reach his decisions and conclusions on current issues. An example, if equality under the law is a bedrock principle for one and many years later someone says, why can’t gays and lesbians marry? As a straight person such a question never occurred to me on my own nor did any of the gay or lesbians friends and co-workers I’ve had the pleasure of knowing ever pose that question or express a desire to marry. Once posed, it took me about thirty seconds to conclude that of course they should have the right to marry because it’s a simple matter of equality under the law.
The practical considerations in how to get that changed weren’t easy; so, following the lead of leaders in the gay community was the most respectful way forward (and there were plenty of disagreements within that community on how and when to proceed). But it would never have occurred to me after passage of same sex partner benefits legislation, civil unions in VT, and legalization of same sex marriage in MA to go out and claim that “marriage is a sacred bond between a man and a woman.” That didn’t demonstrate wisdom, good judgment, or political astuteness. The train had left the station four years earlier.
The old fuddy duddy (who happens to be but a few years older the HRC) never had a problem with same sex marriage, but during the early years of the naughts he was constrained by the VT law. In 2009 VT enacted same-sex marriage legislation. Legalized in NY in 2011. When did HRC publicly announce support for same sex marriage? Seems to me that the old fuddy duddy is HRC and not Sanders.
The “oldster” also got Iraq and Libya right and HRC didn’t. This are all major issues that demonstrate how an individual analyzes a situation and draw conclusions. I must be an oldster as well because my process (ethics, etc.) isn’t dissimilar to Sanders’. I sort of care about getting it right on major issues and if that takes oldster think, then maybe a few more people should try it.
When you say that you think HRC would be better in the GE what do you mean by “think.” Is your thinking evidence based or just some gut sense? As in ’08 the GOP is a mess. Therefore, any decent and honorable DEM with campaign organizational skills and campaign chops should be able to beat any GOP candidate. Not once in ’08 did I argue that Obama was more naturally electable than HRC. Obama had the handicap of his race and she had the handicap of her gender. Seemed close to a wash to me. The differences for me came down to the fact that Obama was ethically cleaner and ran a cleaner and better primary campaign. As it turned out he inspired more enthusiasm among younger and non-white voters which was higher than the enthusiasm she inspired among women voters, but that wasn’t a factor that was apparent in the early stages of the primary elections; so, Monday morning quarterbacking doesn’t count or guide us this time around.
(Should add that there isn’t anything wrong with O’Malley, but he’s like many candidates that don’t have any reason for running other than the desire to be POTUS. He’s not politically mature and his campaign chops aren’t well developed.)
I can honestly say that I’ve never (1968-2016) seen as impressive a POTUS candidate as Sanders. No name, no money, no institutional/elite support and he’s come up with first rate campaign operation, some of the best TV ads ever, (both better than Obama’s in ’08), demonstrated more vigor on the campaign trail than most people twenty years his junior (Obama ’08 bests him on that measure) and he’s been up against the most formidable non-incumbent opponent. Not formidable in her right as a candidate but in everything else: name ID, money, connections, institutional/elite support, all of which was near 100% before she entered the race. What she doesn’t have is a message for these times. Odd that Bernie is winning by large margins among the youngest voters and by your standards he’s a non-adaptable oldster.
Exit polls identify who prefers HRC. Old people and wealthy people. I fall within only one of those groups, but I’ve been fighting the “oldsters” my whole life and don’t have any plans to change.
I agree with much of what you write. As a youngster ion 68 I was a fan of Bobby Kennedy and was devastated by his assignation. But yes, Sanders run has been impressive in many ways. However, He has multiple weaknesses going into the general that have not yet been exploited by the repubs. I’ve written before about why I think sanders is probably going to the same as far get beaten like a drum if he’s nominated, against any competent repub. candidate. Now maybe you are right and even a self avowed democratic socialist can beat trump, but the election is too important to leave it to republican incompetence.
Hilary has her issues too. But All in all, my gut tells me ( yes, just my gut) she is stronger in the general. I actually like her as a candidate and as a person. She has gotten so much crap from the right over the years, and what she is now getting from the left is just more of the same as far as I am concerned. Most of it is bull. She’s Margaret thatcher. She’s corrupt, she’s a liar. She killed Vince Foster with her bare hands. All on the same spectrum of crap. You people are just carrying water for Karl Rove. It’ had better stop if she’s the nominee.
Sorry for the typos, shouldn’t post when I’m tired. Wish there was an edit function….
Best run campaigns of my lifetime
With the exception of Carter, I had a connection to each of these.
The primary campaign the Duke ran in ’88 was pretty good.
My husky could have won in ’92.
A shame so many have fallen short on their GE campaigns. Seriously, guess the difference between ’88 GHWB and ’92 was Lee Atwater. Then Shrub had Rove and Hughes.
Harold Washington’s and Paul Wellstone’s campaigns were also well run. Barbara Boxer (expected to lose every time) ran four excellent campaigns for Senator. Not to dismiss any of those candidates or their campaigns, the challenges for mayoral, Senate, and Governor campaigns are a fraction of the challenges for a POTUS campaign.
Carter’s ’76 campaign was clever, but mostly because he started early (an advantage of not having a day job) and understood how to work the new campaign rules. Let’s remember that the Iowa caucus had previously not been a factor (and wasn’t a major factor again until 2004) and the media reported it as a big win which it wasn’t — he lost to Uncommitted. When others finally got going, it was too little too late and there were several fine candidates that year.
I appreciate that you were a Gary Hart fan, but he was a proto-DLC politician and at the time only slightly less hawkish than Scoop Jackson. There were not good choices that year — and none strong enough to defeat Reagan.
Why I ranked Sanders’ campaign higher than Obama is simple:
1) Obama had been given national print and TV exposure beginning in ’04. Sanders had a weekly radio interview with Thom Hartmann.
October ’06 Barack and Michelle appeared on Oprah’s show and Obama was on the cover of Time. Ophrah (who does carry a lot of weight with women viewers and in Hollywood) endorsed Obama in early ’07
Sanders started with his long-term aides and then had to scramble to choose the best that remained available after HRC picked the expected best of the litter including much of Obama’s prior teams.
This isn’t meant to denigrate Obama’s campaign because it was very good, but to point out that he started with many advantages that Sanders didn’t have which meant that Sanders campaign had to be much better than Obama’s for him to be competitive.
The Guardian — It’s not over til it’s over: inside the Sanders campaign’s do-or-die moment The “grassroots” just needed an organizing principle for all the smart and creative people that were ready to go. The Tea Party was a top-down funded and driven faux version that attracted “morans” and the wretched MSM kept calling a grassroots movement.
Hillary has a “trustworthiness” problem, and it is reflected in many polls. After a while, one becomes immune to “walk backs.” During the March 9th debate in Miami, Karen Tumulty asked Hillary about her untrustworthiness and then pointed out that a recent poll shows only 37 percent of Americans consider Clinton honest and trustworthy. I don’t know about Marie3, but Senator Sanders is my hero. Why? I think he’s a genuine progressive and truly cares about the little people. And no, he is not perfect–no one is.
Let me fix your BRILLIANT comment a bit:
Any sufficiently advanced malicious statement can easily be excused as incompetence.
In other words, at some point something becomes so evil that it can be excused as stupidity.
Something like that.
I arrived as a young lawyer in NYC in ’87.
It was a great time – I was young and had money and lived in a great city.
Except for one problem: I went to a lot of funerals.
Of young men.
Who died.
In part because the Reagan Administration didn’t give a fuck about “fags” dying from the gay disease.
So you’ll pardon me if I tell you this in not a minor deal.
you missed the 80’s you young thing?
Another news cycle down the gurgler. Ironically the Right can’t use this without explaining what a divot Reagan was.
It’s Friday Friday.
I can’t even figure out who she was trying to pander to.
The Reagan Democrats. She seems to have developed the same complex that Nixon did.
It’s the only possibility I can think of too, but even there it seems a miss.
If Hillary’s going to make gaffes at a rate worthy of Joe Biden, then I wish Biden had run. 🙂
Reagan Democrats? Or Trump Democrats?
How many Trump Democrats have LGBT rights or AIDS treatment as a high value? I don’t want to stereotype, but I’d guess that’s a small space on a Venn diagram.
Saying something nice about Nancy was all that was intended. It was just a bit of badly fumbled fluffing.
That I can buy, but, well, shoot, if that’s all she wanted then damn that was stupid.
I’m pretty confident everyone agrees about that.
You’d be apoplectic if anything like this came out of the mouth of any other politician or celebrity. Oh, but HRC — she just misspoke, AGAIN.
Yes
Think about Ronald Reagan’s relationship to the average Republican for a bit. Now think about HRC’s demographic challenges for the 2016, 2018, and 2020 elections. Then you’ll understand why Hillary Clinton threw some historical revisionism towards Nancy Reagan.
She doesn’t care who they are as long as they vote for her and she get more votes than Obaama did in ’08.
Maybe that’s a good indication that she wasn’t trying to pander to anyone, and was perhaps only trying to be nice to a dead lady who used to be First Lady. Or do you think there’s a huge constituency out there who wants to hear what trailblazers the Reagans were about HIV?
OK, I assume she was pandering, but you’re right, it could have been spontaneous. If spontaneous, she comes off looking more naive than venal, but otherwise it doesn’t change the picture too much.
Or maybe she was just trying to be nice at a funeral. She’s obviously the first person ever to whitewash someone after they were dead, but still not in the ground.
///s
Yeah this is what I think, but theres nice and then there’ 180 up is down resposne. Talk about how close she was with her husband or whatever.
Maybe. It was obvious she goofed on this line and it’s clear she realized it after the fact. But it’s likely she just wasn’t knowledgeable about the horrible response to HIV that happened in the early 80s (nearly 40 years ago). And my take on this is that today, Donald Trump openly called for violence against peaceful political protesters.
If what’s making a person outraged today is Hillary’s words at a funeral instead of violent fascism coming to America, their priorities are skewed.
Right, maybe it’s not such a big deal. But to say, as you do, that ‘it’s likely she just wasn’t knowledgeable about the horrible response to HIV that happened in the early 80s (nearly 40 years ago)’ is pure deception. No sentient American who lived through the Reagan horror show first hand—I assume she falls into the category of sentient–could not know how horribly and cruelly Reagan acted as if the plague wasn’t happening. Why should we think that his wife thought otherwise? If she did, her opinion never seemed to get out. It was Elizabeth Taylor who pried the can of worms open when Rock Hudson was dying. To boot, Nancy Reagan made herself quite ridiculous with her astrologer and campaign to save the souls of sex workers in LA—that was a cause she put her life on the line for!
Reposted from my FB:
The Reagans were worse than silent through the early AIDS years, they were actively scornful and dismissive while my friends and colleagues died ugly and (mostly) lonely deaths, frequently unable to find caring treatment, even in hospitals and nursing homes, thanks to the example coming from the top. What Trump today is to immigration or BLM, the Reagans were to gay men and other HIV patients (Ryan White). AND EVERYONE ALIVE OVER THE AGE OF 13 WITHOUT THEIR HEAD UP THEIR ASS FUCKING KNEW IT. Fuck HRC for her callow ignorance and divorce from reality, her political gameplaying, or whatever. I do not accept her apology.
yes, and with the death, heartbreaking incidents of partners not able to visit partners in the hospital, being kicked out of their house by “legitimate heirs” because couldn’t inherit
she’s lost it? or is she running for the republican nomination? Reagan on HIV AIDS? he refused to use the name of the disease. that was the era of ACT-UP.!!!
I hope the superdelegates are at least nonplussed by this insanity
But the money! All that delicious Goldman-Sachs super PAC money! They couldn’t give that up for a guy who’s actually going to depend on $25 contributions from the ordinary smuck in the street, could they? Be reasonable. The Great Unwashed might think that they actually should have some say in the government. That’s reserved for the godlike intellects of Loyd Blankfein, Jamie Dimon, and Henry Kissinger.
This combined with her statements on Central America must mean that she missed the 1980s — slept through them only to wake up in 1992. These are not minor foot faults but demonstrations of her world view and her place in it.
Will she “misspeak” when taking the oh so important 3:00 am phone call? “I meant Benghazi, you idiots, not Bejing” “But Madame President you said, “Hit Bejing — in China using the protocol.”
Driftglass coined a word for this phenomenon; he calls it ‘strategic forgettery‘.
Previously only observed among Republicans it now seems, in response to increasing awareness among constituents of just how badly they’ve been screwed, to have jumped to establishment Democrats.
Own GOAL!!!!!!!
At least it won’t hurt her among younger voters who weren’t there when Ron and Nancy shamefully looked the other way (since so few younger voters support her in the first place). And the monstrous Reagans had a number of gay friends.
Hillary is not very good at this politics thing.
Clearly she’s listening to too much Milli Vanilli on cassette.
Or Jesus Jones and C & C Music Factory.
8 track?
Seems the Michigan loss has really shook up Hillary and her campaign. Saying anything to appear important and in control. When you are not will cost you every time.
If she’s losing the Rust Belt working class to Sanders in the primaries and Trump in the polls her people must be worried they’ve triangulated her into a corner.
HRC wants to win the Rust Belt (and other prizes, like the House) the same way a couch potato wants to get into shape without exercising or dieting. They switch to Diet Cokes and skip dessert and walk around for 30 minutes every Sunday and wonder why their bodies are stubbornly refusing to lose weight despite the fact that they’re trying soooo hard.
“Any man who must say, “I am the king” is no true king. I’ll make sure you understand that when I’ve won your war for you.” – Tywin Lannister.
If only HRC’s pack of liberal toadies/cowards could impart that lesson to their soi disant liberal (not Democratic, liberal) champion once they win this war for her.
I feel good that I was reading fantasy ficion that said that back in the 80s.
For once, I have absolutely no idea what you guys are talking about.
It’s extraordinary and unprecedented that she did this — that she’s walking her praise back — and I think it’s very brave, to do it during a campaign.
She’s not “pandering”; she’s doing the right thing. I’m very impressed (and I’m almost never impressed with her).
First it was Kissinger, then the Central American business and now this. Taken in isolation each could probably be rationalised but as a trend it is disturbing; homeless neocons and all.
It’s almost as if she’s trying to work against the Overton Window shift to the left that Sanders has imposed on the campaign. If that’s the case, if she really believes that is where the party needs to go, she needs to articulate that vision. But she can’t, and won’t, because she rightly assumes that progressives would go ballistic. Recognising this, since we are attuned political junkies, we go ballistic anyhow.
The sober political observer, however, is busy absorbing yet another example of attempted electoral suicide by triangulation which her campaigns have already enshrined in political history. As noted above it was a bit of badly fumbled fluffing. It was not artful politics; sort of like a carpenter hitting their thumb with the hammer.
Either way she’s not going to win based on praise for her damage control although, personally, I’m inclined to award her points for clarity with “I miss-spoke… For that, I’m sorry” and hope she stays in better practice.
And it brings up misgivings about her as our nominee and the ‘vision’ forward. This unpredictable cycle is making everyone (me) nervous and Hillary apparently is not ‘agile’; perhaps even a bit of a plodder strategically.
But she corrected the mistake, this time.
It’s exactly as if she’d gotten up and said that she was wrong about Kissinger. She did exactly what her harshest critics would want her to do: she switched to the correct position and expressed her regret for getting it wrong. (And, as I said, she did it at some personal cost.)
Again, I don’t see why she’s getting flak for this. It’s admirable. She’s flying directly into the wind, against the grain of Reagan’s legacy, for the sake of AIDS victims, then and now. I just can’t find any fault with it.
As I said, I’m inclined to award her points for rapid and clear response. But what was she doing sniffing around Reagan’s legacy in the first place? End of the Cold War? Fine. Everything else is toxic waste as history’s verdict will attest.
To most progressives the Reagan years was the ‘trail of tears’ that led us to this God-forsaken corporate dystopia which is now suddenly upending American politics.
Connect the dots from there through the deregulating Clinton years, the bubbles and busts of the global economy and #occupy to the ‘surprise’ candidacies of both Sanders and Trump. Hillary should have people willing to try to convince her this is a changed game. Sanders totally gets it.
Obama also ‘sniffed around Reagan’s legacy’: he specifically praised him, if I remember correctly, evidently saw him as a role model, didn’t he? I can’t remember that he ever praised FDR, but I could be wrong. FDR seems to have been erased from the official self-image of the Democratic Party. Maybe Sanders mentions him. Of course most kids have no idea what FDR stood for. The economic world we live in today was conceived by Jimmy Carter and given birth by Ronald Reagen. US history goes back no farther than the Iran hostage affair.
But he neglected to attend the funeral. Michelle went.
Nixon was pissed that Clinton did attend Pat’s funeral. But really it’s just not done absent extenuating circumstances like a personal relationship between the former FLOTUS and current POTUS.
The only fault I can find is that it was somewhat clumsy.
She gave an answer anyone who gave a shit about aids should know is flat wrong. Its like saying the holocaust didnt happen and then reversing yourself.
“I just can’t find any fault with it.”
If you can’t find fault then you’re callous. The Reagan administration utterly, purposely, failed to react to the AIDS crisis until it had already taken forty thousand lives during a five year period. The most deadly heath crisis by far during his, or any other post-WWI presidency and they ignored it. Hillary’s ignorance, if that’s what it was, is a fault. Hillary’s lying, if that’s what it was, is a fault. Hillary’s dismissive, two-sentence statement later, explains nothing, and it comes off like she’s annoyed that she has to bother to make an apology at all.
Her statement is literally the equivalent of saying George Wallace was a champion of Civil Rights in the early 1960’s.
The defenses I have read say a great deal of just how far some Clinton defenders are willing to go in defending her.
yes, to my knowledge they didn’t ignore the crisis, it was a blackout on info and assistance
I’m telling you, the rot has set in really deep. And if Clinton gets elected and sweeps in her pack of dessicated media/neocon cronies with her, the rot will spread even further.
Can anyone here explain this? It’s mind-boggling to me that Hillary Clinton, as the recipient of the Human Right’s Campaign’s official endorsement for president, doesn’t know this history. She says, in her defense, that she’s stupid. If she’s telling the truth, then she’s too stupid to be president; too stupid, and too dangerous.
Is it true what she said in her so-called apology? She misspoke about one of the most heinous offenses of the Reagans and his presidency? How could she not know that?
I’m waiting for praise of Pinochet and the other September 11th
She was trying to do what politicians do — which is say something nice about a recently deceased public figure (regardless of politics or former disagreements). But this was a particularly boneheaded example. How can anyone sentient in the 1980s not remember the Reagan’s atrocious record on HIV/AIDS? How can Hillary be so tone deaf to how this would land with liberal Democrats and particularly the LGBT community? For a smart woman, that’s an idiotic gaff.
Which is why she fixed it. Why isn’t this a good thing?
Did that really sound like a contrite or at least straightforward ‘I’m sorry for lying/talking about things I don’t know about’ to you?
That wasn’t just a sentence of historical revisionism. That was several sentences. That’s beyond misspeaking.
What did she “fix?” She said: “I misspoke about their record on HIV and AIDS.” That’s all she said.
It goes nowhere near correcting the errors in her original remarks: “The other point to make, too, is it may be hard for your viewers to remember how difficult it was for people to talk about HIV/AIDS back in the 1980s. And because of both President and Mrs. Reagan, in particular Mrs. Reagan, we started a national conversation, when before nobody would talk about it. Nobody wanted to do anything about it. And, you know, that too is something that I really appreciate with her very effective low-key advocacy, but it penetrated the public conscience and people began to say, hey, we have to do something about this, too.”
Clinton’s “apology” is an insult to those of us that actually tried to inform the public in the 80s, that actually started the conversation while the Reagan administration laughed and shut down the discussion when questions were raised. I’m not sure exactly how Clinton could possibly “fix” this error, but her short dismissal of a statement doesn’t even begin to address it.
I mean, having John Lewis misrepresent Bernie Sanders’ record on civil rights was eye-opening, but until a couple of months I had no idea how deep the rot had set in.
Fuck it, I’m a full-on socialist now. I say that even though I flat-out disagree with dialectical materialism and the labor theory of value. But at least being a socialist doesn’t mean having to grovel like a dog at HRC’s feet with a tearful: “The Wall Street donations and Kissinger analingus doesn’t matter — just PLEASE save us from the evil theocrats and fascists.”
You don’t have to believe in dialectical materialism to be a socialist. Lukacs, Korsch, Gramsci rejected it. I know that Chaim Zhitlowsky, a Jewish socialist influenced by Marx (of course) but who did not consider himself a “Marxist”, rejected it. And in this I believe he was much influenced by Eduard Bernstein and Karl Kautsky.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Sanders socialism really is descended from Bernstein, because that really was a democratic socialism and it had a great influence of on the Jewish working class.
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Eduard_Bernstein
Here’s someone who has the same idea :
http://www.publicseminar.org/2016/02/bernie-sanders-democratic-socialist-a-primer/
As for the labor theory of value, it’s not exclusively socialist, since it originates in Adam Smith and David Ricardo and is found in some anarchist economic theories.
I’m sure that Sanders puts more stress on labor in the theory of value than almost any other major US politician, but I doubt he believes it is the exclusive source of value.
Thanks very much.
Yes, hitting yourself in the face with a manhole cover because you had to. Clearly none of this happened by chance. In fact, it probably provides an excellent glimpse of the client patronage system through which the Clinton machine operates.
One of Hillary’s clients, or group of clients, wanted her to say something nice about Nancy Reagan in relation to HIV. So she did. Unfortunately, she said too much. And as soon as she did, a different client or group of clients was offended and strongly pressured her to retract it. The pressure must have been quite strong, because she had to bow to it though it put her in an awkward position.
hope they ask her about it in the next debate – just for fun!
I think the truth is that Nancy Reagan did make a tiny contribution, and in private. She was, after all, a friend of Rock Hudson, who died of AIDS. The problem is that Hillary exaggerated her contribution, especially in light of the well-known Reagan anti-contribution.
In other words, she grossly exaggerated it and took it out of context. Now I ask you — has she ever done that before? I would say she does it constantly, both in puffing somebody up or in hatcheting them down (think: Bernie Sanders, for example).
Now is that a good quality for a president to have? I don’t think so.
Rock Hudson, in Paris trying to get experimental drugs (and weren’t they all experimental then), called Nancy’s WH office seeking help. Nancy did not return the call.
Some "friend."
Apparently she was the one most open in the administration to dealing with the problem. Thats a pretty low bar.
There were rumors at the time that Nancy had been pushing Reagan to actually do something about AIDS. I’m guessing Hillary heard those same rumors. Actually when I first heard this I thought Hillary was right but I couldn’t source anything so I guess it’s the fog of 30 years. This probably says more about how hard it is to say something genuinely nice about Nancy Reagan.
well, there’s this
http://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisgeidner/nancy-reagan-turned-down-rock-hudsons-plea-for-help-seven-we#.f
bdBydo3
that they turned down RH’s request to help him get admitted to the one hospital in Paris that could treat him. otoh, maybe it wasn’t appropriate for the WH to intervene
anyway, we can assume she just lost whatever shred of the youth vote she had
All the uproar about the eighties? Ancient history.
Incorrect. It’s all over Gawker, Jezebel, Dan Savage, etc. So now it’s obviously going to be all over Facebook and Twitter, etc.
Damn I love the internet.
Individually maybe. But most young gays are going to know and tell their friends.
and yet people continue to ignore the polling that finds an alarming number of voters consider her dishonest and untrustworthy…go figure.
the great clintonian juggernaut is, again, starting to unravel.
Truly amazing.
I think this is probably a case of premature triangulation…. Really, she needs to wait at least until they announce her name at the convention before she starts running right. And even then, maybe think a bit first about who needs to turn out for her to win the election?
For the win, sir or madam.
Um…No. Just. No. I lived through the AIDS epidemic. I was on the staff that organized a 750,000 person March On Washington in 1987, an event organized specifically because then-president Reagan literally said not a word as hundreds of thousands of less-then-human (i.e., gay) men – an entire generation – died slow, agonizing deaths in the ’80s. Some of those people were friends of mine. All of them died too young, and many died needlessly because research into treatment was delayed for years by Reagan’s contempt for AIDS victims. Reagan’s “Just Say No” wife was just as bad with her stigmatization of IV drug users, who were also among the epidemic’s victims.
Hillary Clinton was not living in a cave in those years. Her husband was governor of Arkansas, and thousands died there, too. This is not only historical revisionism of the worst kind, but a gross disservice to their memories. No apology could ever be sufficient for this kind of despicable pandering.
I went to that MOW. It was the best one I ever attended, on any issue. Thanks!
Uncle Joe…..calling Uncle Joe.
Kissinger? Nancy Reagan and AIDS?
I think that there’s a reason why she keeps forgetting which party she’s in.
Wait a moment.
Hillary Clinton made some stupid remarks about the Reagans and AIDS. She was criticized and retracted the remarks.
Would it have been better had she not retracted the remarks (which were nonsense, after all)? Is that what I’m supposed to take away from the comments here?
What’s with this ‘waaah, she said the magic words, why won’t this completely go away??’ sniveling?
Yes, apologizing for something stupid you said is better than not apologizing for it but it won’t go away just because you said you’re sorry. If you say something stupid or damaging or offensive enough, expect to get hammered for it well after your apology. If what you said doesn’t sound sufficiently contrite or fits into a pattern of rudeness/ignorance, expect forgiveness to take even longer to come — if it even comes at all.
And if you don’t like this incredibly basic element of human social dynamics, go cry to your therapist about how it took a few years for the bridesmaid to forgive you even after you sincerely apologized for drunkenly commenting that she looked like a beached whale in her bridal gown.
She needed to withdraw.
And disappear from public life.
And enter a monastery and perform expiatory acts for the rest of her life.
Nothing less is even the beginning of adequate.
No, that’s not enough.
She clearly needed to renounce her citizenship and promise to never say anything in public ever again. And then agree to be transferred to Gitmo to save the public the cost of a trial for all of her crimes.
Even then, that might not be enough.
snark, in case that’s not clear.
:-
I understand people getting upset over remembering the horrible, horrible things that Reagan and the GOP did. But, Zooks, the overreaction to Hillary’s mistaken remarks for a woman’s funeral today by progressives is amazing to me.
My wife’s doing it too. 🙁
Another 8 months of this may be hard to take…
Cheers,
Scott.
Soon enough.
I’d settle for her just getting the fuck out of the Democratic Party, cancelling all of her favors so we don’t have the spectacle of John Lewis and Rachel Maddow humiliating themselves for access, and taking all of her cronies like Peter Daou and David Brock with her. Afterwards she can go to as many Kissinger parties and cozying up to as many Wall Street execs as she wants.
But as long as she represents the Democratic Party, I expect her to fucking control herself. None of this Clinton Foundation and dictator-snuggling and historical revisionism bullshit. And if she doesn’t, you should expect us to register our displeasure with her pathetic shilling and influence-peddling.
hey Davis, you’re not funny on this
Her remarks were completely sensible. It wasn’t nonsense. So what in the hell was she saying? She needs to explain it more completely. She says she just misspoke.
But she went on misspeaking a while, embellishing, contextualizing, and Trump-like, inventing an entire scenario around the Reagans that never happened. Clinton seems to want us to believe she was only hallucinating at the time, and the hallucinating and misspeaking were just, you know, normal for her.
If what she did today was nonsense, then her entire campaign and career in politics is nonsense, too.
Nancy Reagan was no Elizabeth Taylor;
on or off screen.
thinking about the incident since yesterday, I’m wondering if she’s becoming impaired – this is the kind of thing Romney would do, say something completely wrong in the same demeanor as he’d say anything; as I recall ppl concluded he really cannot tell what true and what’s not
She’s been running flat-out for President for months. She’s flying all over the country, wearing her voice out, meeting thousands of people every week, all probably on very little sleep.
How well does your mind work while getting too little sleep for months on end? How well do you remember what Barbara Bush said and did about policy X 30 years ago?
You don’t remember “sniper fire”?
She was trying to say something nice on the occasion of a first-lady’s funeral. She was remembering things that happened 30 years ago. She mis-remembered.
She’s not going senile, she’s not History’s Greatest Monster. She has an excellent (but not perfect, of course) record for someone who has been in politics for a very long time and who actually had to make decisions (rather than simply purity-snipe from the sidelines). She jumbled a memory and apologized.
Sheesh.
Cheers,
Scott.
well, no. one doesn’t “misremember” that George Wallace was on the cutting edge supporting Martin Luther King, Jr and the SCLC on Civil Rights. that’s flat out wrong. and In this instance, 40,000 ppl died, as fladem points out elsewhere.
but yes, I wonder if the underlying health problems, mentioned some years back by one commenter on this site, are surfacing due to exhaustion and stress and lack of sleep and medications for all of the above. if so, this kind of thing isn’t like polio; one cannot function as president with this kind of impairment. if she were to win, the stress and exhaustion would increase, not decrease.
Um, just don’t go there.
The best theory I’ve seen on what the heck she was thinking came from Yglesias, who suggested that maybe she has such a top-down theory of social change that she was thinking only of other voices within the White House.
Or maybe someone wrote this for her and she was too tired to think it through.
the health issue was brought up by a respected commenter on this site years ago, poster supports her strongly but didn’t think her health would permit her to run.
there were no voices in the White House that were known iirc at that time, there were desperate pleas from people and people dying, do something! and Ratzinger Cardinal at the time, later Pope, who was in charge of that aspect of Vatican policy absolutely refused to permit any use of condoms, even in the case of a woman whose husband acquired AIDS from a transfusion [i.e. not from “sinning”] – hence I found it fascinating that Pope Francis said last week that women exposed to Zika should use condoms – is that Pope something, or what!!
so I’m not sure what you mean by “don’t go there” but this is not a misremembering, it is not “being nice to some nice lady” – it’s the wife of, and influence on, the president, whose policies were connected with the deaths of thousands. either the pandering has made her lose track of truth and falsehood, or there are other problems. nothing wrong with FDR’s brain, although he was in a wheelchair. too bad the optics wouldn’t permit that now in a candidate. that was what I was trying to say and I stand by it
Check this out
wow
I think you’re missing the point
Guess Mrs. Clinton missed this in the 1980s as well:
Recognize that Taylor didn’t have much formal education, but enough heart and brains to figure out what was what and put her own celebrity status and butt on the line to do what was right.
My gob was smacked. The deification of Reagan et al. is really something to behold. The propaganda seems strongest inside the Beltway
Bernie Sanders Gives Martin Shkreli’s Donation to an HIV Clinic
Oh, he knows how to play the game, too. He is a pol, yes he is.
iirc, this is the kind of thing Fladem was referencing in Sanders’ run for mayor of Burlington, VT
Since I’m sure he won’t post the link, yastreblyansky has posted a reminder of all of the many steps that the Clintons have taken to fight the AIDS epidemic.
Well worth the time.
This is a great link, I had forgotten much of this history. Thanks for posting.
Billmon. There she goes again == apparently can’t remember the 1990s either.
Statement from Clinton today (3/13/2016)
Follow-up apology is much better. Had she said that, I wouldn’t have given two shits.