*Breaking* Top Clinton Aide Aligns w/RW Extremist Groups in anti-Obama Email Campaign

[npincus]

Sidney Blumenthal, top Clinton aide, has been behind the McCarthyite attacks that have been distributed for months, using the services of rabid RW organizations to disseminate these attacks. Much of the material used in these attacks has been plucked out of the Right-Wing blogosphere.

See who Clinton has aligned herself with to destroy a fellow Democrat.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/sidney-blumenthal-uses-fo_b_99695.html

But, rather remarkably for such a self-professed liberal operative like Blumenthal, a staggering number of the anti-Obama attacks he circulates derive from highly-ideological and militant right-wing sources such as the misnamed Accuracy in Media (AIM), The Weekly Standard, City Journal, The American Conservative, and The National Review.

To cite just one recent example, Blumenthal circulated an article taken from the fervently hard-right AIM website on February 18 entitled, "Obama's Communist Mentor" by Cliff Kincaid. Kincaid is a right-wing writer and activist, a longtime critic of the United Nations, whose group, America's Survival, has been funded by foundations controlled by conservative financier Richard Mellon Scaife, the same millionaire who helped fund attacks on the Clintons during their White House years. Scaife also funds AIM, the right-wing media "watchdog" group.

The Kincaid article that Blumenthal circulated sought to discredit Obama by linking him to an African-American poet and writer whom Obama knew while he was in high school in Hawaii. That writer, Frank Marshall Davis, was, Kincaid wrote, a member of the Communist Party. Supported by no tangible evidence, Kincaid claimed that Obama considered his relationship to Davis to be "almost like a son." In his memoir, Dreams from My Father, Obama wrote about meeting, during his teenage years, a writer named "Frank" who "had some modest notoriety once" and with whom he occasionally discussed poetry and politics. From this snippet, Kincaid weaves an incredulous tale that turns Davis into Obama's "mentor."

Kincaid's piece had been previously circulating within the right-wing blogosphere, but Blumenthal sought to inject the story into more respectable opinion circles by amplifying it in his email blast.

[leftofcool]

1. Blumenthal is not a top Clinton Aide

He was Bill Clinton's advisor. If you are going to post, get your facts straight first

[npincus]

4. WRONG-- he joined the HRC campaign as a "senior advisor" in 2007

and if you remember, he caused her campaign a bit of embarrassment when arrested for drunk driving, back in Jaunuary.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Blumenthal
Blumenthal joined the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign as a "senior advisor" in November 2007.<7>

While on a trip to advise Hillary Rodham Clinton on her Presidential campaign, Blumenthal was arrested for driving while intoxicated in Nashua, New Hampshire on January 7, 2008. Blumenthal pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor DWI charge.

[leftofcool]

7. But he is not with the campaign now is he?

Thank you for making my point

[npincus]

9. WRONG again- he is still w/campaingn- see April 15 article below:

Blumenthal's activities w/these groups have been going on for months- the start pre-dating his DWI arrest. Why so anxious to defend that schmuck?


http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2008/04/15/clinton_campaign_aide_sentenced_in_dwi/

Clinton campaign aide sentenced in DWI

– + April 15, 2008
NASHUA, N.H.—A campaign adviser to Senator Hillary Clinton was fined and his license was suspended for 10 months after he pleaded guilty to drunken driving in New Hampshire.

more stories like thisSidney Blumenthal pleaded guilty and was sentenced last month, several weeks before he had been scheduled to be in court.

He was fined $900 and his driver's license was revoked for 10 months. Blumenthal can seek to get his license back after four months, if he completes and alcohol education program. Blumenthal also agreed not to contest a six-month administrative license suspension, which was already in effect.

Blumenthal, who lives in Washington, was arrested in Nashua on January 7th, the day before the New Hampshire primary.

------

[leftofcool]

10. I don't defend his actions

it is just that I know for a fact he does not legitimately work for her campaign. His actions are pathetic.

[hokies4ever]

12. Just like Mark Penn is no longer with the campaign?

[marshall]

13. Tell that to his attorney

If you have proof of that it could be grounds for the attorney to be disbarred.

[marshall]

11. He is still on her campaign,yes.

According to his lawyer he was on her campaign staff as of two weeks ago when he took a deal for the drunk driving charge.

http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080415/NEWS01/424263755

Even if she did quietly ditch him in the last two weeks, the point is he was part of the campaign when the shenanigans happened.

[Cooley Hurd]

2. So many careers are being destroyed in this campaign...

Sid Blumenthal's credibility as a journalist has just been smashed to bits. Shame - I always thought he was one of the good ones.:(

[npincus]

15. right- he's the guy who coined "vast RW conspiracy"... and he was RIGHT then

How sad that he is on their team now. similar to how some HRC supporters at DU continue to defend her disgusting camapign.

[bluestateguy]

3. And yet he screamed bloody murder when Matt Drudge called him a wife beater in 1997

Sued Drudge for defamation and ended up withdrawing the suit and paying Drudge's legal fees.

[TheZug]

5. It's okay--she's sacrificing her integrity so that we--the little people--may know prosperity.

No matter how dirty, no matter how much dissembling, no matter how many betrayals of liberalism and integrity she may commit, just remember: she's doing it for us, the little people.

Go Hillary!

She's gorgeous!!!!!!!!!!!!

[MannyGoldstein]

8. LOL

Well said.

[npincus]

16. LOL- I guess "integrity" is another word for "bitter"

[DangerousRhythm]

6. This campaign gets more disgusting by the day.

Seriously, every day brings some fresh hell that makes my brain explode.

Disgusting.

[npincus]

17. not a peep from the MSM- it's not Rev. Wright.

[TwilightGardener]

14. Good to know what he was up to when he wasn't hitting the sauce.