DSeid - this is what I meant re: Clintons’ agreement about the Presidency:
While this doesn’t qualify as unambiguous, everyone who reads the statement can tell what Obama meant and what he was insinuating. And considering that the account Obama is referencing has long been discredited by the alleged source - it’s dishonest.
Re: NAFTA
Obama repeatedly accuses (until now) that Hillary said that NAFTA was a boon to the economy. Hillary never said this and Obama already has the real score about this. Obama could certainly claim that Hillary changed position which would be fine. But to repeatedly claim that Hillary said that NAFTA was a boon to the economy despite the correction is a lie. This is clear and unambiguous.
Re: Negotiation with rogue leaders:
Hillary didn’t say that “meeting with rogue leaders” is naive and irresponsible. What was irresponsible is meeting with them without preconditions - which was the question posed during the debate and which Obama botched. So for Obama to say that Hillary is against tough and direct diplomacy is a lie.
Sorry about the third one. I usually look at all the lies each camp spout whether it’s against the other camp or not.
BTW, what exactly are the smears from the Clinton camp to the Obama camp. Is it any worse than the D-Punjab document and the smear on Clinton that the Obama campaign perpetrated very early on? I’ve yet to hear a factually inaccurate statement from the Clinton camp about Obama. Have you? Can you give me just one example. The facts do not support the impression of most people that the Clintons are the dirtier campaigners this season. It’s the Obama camp that should have this reputation by a wide margin.
Philosphr: I don’t care who wins. I’m not American. I’m just surprised at how far the facts are from a lot of people’s impressions about the campaign. The media bias in favor of Barack doesn’t help.
I’ve been following his campaign and been researching his record - and have decided to back him instead of Hillary. I’m campaigning for him in CT and to be honest, I find Hillary’s campaign distasteful and her tag teaming crap with Bill [tho I can’t blame him, I’d stand up for my wife as well] is just plain wrong, and I think it will hurt her campaign over time.
I mean everyone has their opinions and I’m not afraid to admit I want Barack in the white house because I think we need to clean house and have new fresh ideas coming in from him. Hillary will simply be the coming of the same old calvary…not good enough for me.
As I’ve said, I’ll be content in voting for either one, and I know that my first choice won’t be the ultimate nominee. I have some preference for Obama over Clinton, for the reasons you’ve suggested, although there would be nothing wrong with a return to the effectiveness of the Clinton White House of the 90’s. We shouldn’t need to run from our success, although I understand why Obama feels a need to diminish the Clinton legacy.
My concerns with Obama are that too often these days, bipartisanship simply is a code word for capitulation to the conservatives (look at our current congress). Combine that with a strategy of veiled or not so veiled praise for past Republicans, and my wariness grows. If he can stand for his principles, I’ll be satisfied, but suggesting that the Democratic White House of the 90’s was not a success isn’t good for us as a party.
I agree - and I don’t want to suggest the white house of the 90’s wasn’t successful in it’s own right. But certain aspects of the dem white house of the 90’s did not bode well for the US stance in the middle east in the 21st century. I simply do not want a return of that now.
I’m sure your choice is well-considered. I would just like to know why you find Hillary’s campaign distasteful and why you find “tag teaming” wrong. I’ve yet to hear anything Bill said that was wrong or unfair about Obama. OTOH, Michelle Obama has said a number of things that ARE distasteful - race-baiting the “fairy tale” comment comes to mind.
Aww. I set you up so that all you had to do is offer one really good one, and instead you try to shotgun with a bunch that aren’t that good. Do you want to try again and just pick the one you think is best? Or shall I pick? That way we can focus a bit.
Unless there’s quotes around the word boon, meaning that she said it directly (as opposed to just saying that NAFTA was good), there’s little question that Hillary was an advocate for NAFTA in the '90’s.
FactCheck agrees that, while Clinton has changed her stance since, she originally supported and spoke out in favor of NAFTA. It’s no lie to state that Clinton called NAFTA a good thing. She did, plain and simple. Her support for a plan which proved, a decade later, to be a failure in the eyes of many is a valid point.
I’ll stick just to the one that you ironically use as your alleged point against Obama.
Michelle Obama never stated that Bill Clinton said electing a Black man to the office was a fairy tale. What did she say?
No, she didn’t bother to correct the misperception about what Bill had said. But she didn’t create a lie about him or explicitly repeat it. And she was addressing what had been a major reason for less than stellar support for Obama among some Blacks: the belief that it is a fairy tale to believe that White Americans would vote for someone identified as Black.
Of course what did Bill actually mean? Oh yes, it was his lie characterizing Obama’s consistent record against the war from the start as a fairy tale.
Acch, I’ll give one more quick one - HRC’s calling Obama a slum lord’s lawyer. A blatant lie. A Swiftboat smear. The Clintons do Rove proud.
Not a lot of time this morning to address the absurdity of some of these claims against Obama (Including those found in that ridiculous link from Hentor), but just didn’t want to let this one slide by un-addressed. . .
You mean the one that repeats a comment Hillary made about herself, first? The one where, “Obama, sometimes too quick to apologize, took full responsibility for the memo and any harm that it caused, despite the fact that he hadn’t even seen it yet”? That one?
Wow! Simply rank handwaving? That’s pathetic. I don’t have a dog in this fight, really, and this kind of stuff doesn’t change my opinion about who I’ll vote for, but the glazed over messianic treatment some supporters give for their preferred candidate is at once amusing and frightening.
Sounds like they were pretty sleazy in pushing a false story about Clinton to me.
Just FYI, here’s an apparent timeline of attacks from the perspective of Clinton supporters: http://www.attacktimeline.com/
I’d forgotten about Obama attacking Paul Krugman. I’ve much admired and respected Paul Krugman’s work for a long time. He’s a progressive who’s always demonstrated a high capacity for reason and thoughtfulness. If you choose to start a tangle with him, and you’re a Democratic candidate, you better have good reason and strong facts to back it up. Just another thing about Obama that lowered him in my opinion.
To bring it back to the thread here, it just doesn’t sound like the Obamaniacs here are putting much thought into their positions or their arguments. (And once again, I like Obama better than I do Clinton!)
I think that one problem here is that Obama and Clinton just aren’t that different in their policy positions. They say they want to talk about the issues, but the more they do that, the less they differentiate themselves from each other. Hence the sniping. It’s come down to a popularity contest, and it’s just too easy to take the low road-- smearing the other person.
I had a vague recollection of reading about this longer ago than the beginning of December, but that’s about the earliest I’ve been able to find stuff:
An interesting observation from Kevin Drum at the end of the last linked article that pertains to both the glassy-eyed view of people here and my concerns about “bipartisanship”:
In this sense, I can understand better how some could misguidedly move from Obama to McCain - both have been selected as “truth-tellers”, no matter what the objective facts are.
Wow! Simply insulting me personally in Great Debates? Because I said I didn’t have time to address every point at that moment, and only chose one to respond to in that particular post? That’s what I call pathetic. And frankly, I’ve had enough of the thinly veiled character jabs you’ve taken at anyone who doesn’t agree with your opinion on this topic. Messianic treatment? Glazed over? I’m done here. I’ll let someone else play your little game.
Well, all those links refer to the same Obama rebuttal of a Krugman article. Krugman inaccurately characterized Obama’s plan as not covering everyone. Say what you will about not mandating insurance, that is different from not covering everyone that wants it.
My question is why Krugman has decided to have a personal campaign against Obama. I’ve seen at least 5 columns attacking Obama in recent months. And he was apparently attacking from before Obama fought back.
Mr. Krugman initially was just evaluating the different health care proposals of the different candidates. Krugman gave Obama the benefit of the doubt that eventually, he would also follow suit with a mandate because it is essential to achieve universal coverage.
But when Obama began to attack the concept of mandates, Krugman was taken aback because Obama’s attack on the concept of mandates was exactly how Republicans attacked (and eventually defeated) the concept of universal health care. So, Krugman began to be more critical of the Obama health care plan. Now, Obama, instead of looking into Krugman’s points gave a press release showing that Krugman changed his position about the candidates’ health care proposals (this is not true)- much like the kind of document you will put out about another candidate. This is when Krugman became more critical of Obama himself.
I never said she did. But bot she and her husband allowed the misperception to exist because it benefits his husbands chances. She race-baited.
What was the lie there? That Obama didn’t pull down the speech from his website a year later? That Obama didn’t say that he wouldn’t have known how he would have voted had he been a US Senator at that time? That he voted almost exactly like Clinton did since then? All of those are true.
Bill Clinton was merely pointing out that Obama’s point of differentiation as far as opposition to the Iraq war is concerned is overstated.
Obama did represent Rezko who was a slum lord who let his tenants freeze in winter. Obama understates his relationship with Rezko, but Rezko is a much more significant figure in his political life.