Reply #28: Actually since Iowa, [View All]

[karynnj]

the Clintons have played fast and loose with the truth. They have hit Obama with a barrage of attacks, knowing that an attack is easy to start and defense both makes you look defensive and takes more effort. From the NYT today, the campaign intends to keep BC as an attack dog. That he is attacking doesn't bother me, it does bother me that he is attacking with lies. Wolfson had said in 2005 that they learned that swiftboating works. I had a problem with Republicans who could ignore it - I don't think I can and I hate the thought that our general election candidate may engage in it. If she does, I can't, in good conscience vote for her.

Here is a short list of Rovian actions:
1) The choice mailer in NH - it distorted his views and was put out as a flier over the names of credible people, some of whom now feel used.
2) The Obama was inconsistent on Iraq rant - contained several charges. Obama needs to address the one that he said he was close to Bush in 2004. What Obama said was that, like Bush, the Democrats were committed to leaving a stable Iraq, but he then went on - as Kerry did - to speak of the need use diplomacy and internationalizing the effort. You can find similar comments from people like Dean and Clark. He also made many criticisms of how Bush was fighting the war - just like Kerry, Dean, and Clark. The Republicans, with their media allies, made the same Kerry is saying the same thing as Bush. It was a lie then about Kerry, it's a lie now about Obama.
3) The Clinton via allies did try to suppress voters in NY via that suit. That is fact. Bill's comments on the weights were wrong and the suit did not attack the weights, but the actual voting sites.
4) When it became an issue, they created the CU is intimidating people story. though I'm sure there were isolated instances where some low level union people overstepped, it is clear that there was no systemic coercion, given that HRC got more than half of them. The Matt Stoller post commented that a HRC union did a "better" job organizing the CU people, than its own union. Likely because the CU was intimidated by the Clinton charges. (Stoller twists things saying that it was because they intimidated people that people did not vote for Obama - it's been years since I took Labor economics but that is NOT the normal response to intimidation for a public vote.)
5)The distortion of the Patriot vote was pure Rove, especially as it matched HRC's.

What I don't get is that with all the party support and the media support HRC had - and she was the inevitable candidate, that as soon as anything hasn't gone their way, their first reaction is to lash out with no respect for truth. They have, in fact, damaged themselves and Obama with this. Is this a first couple we can be proud of?