I turned on the morning brain vacuum [Good Morning America] and finally they are reporting that Hillary and Bill are firing False claims at Obama - Jake Tapper, National Senior Political Correspondent debunked the Billary train this morning by taking each false point the Clinton’s made and reporting the truth. Finally, a national news outlet is reporting the Billary train is slinging horse sh*t and not facts at Obama. Distorting the truth will only help Obama in the long run.
This whole thing is stinking to high heaven, I actually like Bill and Hillary - though I will not be voting for her in any election - I like them as human beings. But good Og please folks the tag teaming bullshit will only show the American Public that Hillary can’t win without Bill…And Og willing Obama will pull it off in an honest campaign with an honest win.
Can Hillary bring up anything that has substance against Obama? She seems to be drawing on some wobbly claims…The inexperience card doesn’t appear to be hurting Obama at all, and the race card is not really being played.
I left at 7:30am so if there was a rebuttle I didn’t see it. What I saw was Diane Sawyer interviewing Obama and Jake Tapper playing clips of Hillary making false claims. And underlining each claim as false…I didn’t see a rebuttle though about Obama throwing false claims.
On a less serious note, what makes you think that pointing out that this particular series of whoppers are deliberately false and misleading is going to prevent the next batch. It doesn’t seem to have done for his “I was against the Iraq war from the beginning”.
The Clintons know politics- they know you get more attention with an accusation, true nor not, than you get with the rebuttal- like when people get arrested for suspcion of murder and then are let go, the arrest is front page news, the release generally isn’t. Everyone knows Bush called Kerry a waffler, no one remembers Kerry’s defense.
I seem to recall a story about one of LBJ’s Congressional races, where Lyndon wanted to infer that his opponent diddled farm animals. The exchange went
Staffer: “Jesus, Lyndon. You know your opponent isn’t a sheep fucker.”
LBJ: “I know, but let’s make the son of a bitch deny it.”
I know you are right “just politics as usual from the Clintons” - I just want the media war [ala public opinion] to not work as much against Barack. No way to avoid it I understand…but nontheless I want to see Obama on top. [of the race that is not on HRC]
Here’s a link to the report. It starts out calling Hillary and Bill on their lies and distortions, then, at the bottom of page 1, calls into question the following by Obama. . .
To me, that doesn’t even come CLOSE to comparing to the shit-slinging the Clintons are pulling. So 5 years ago he said he liked a certain program, and now he says he never said we should “go ahead and try to get” it. Yeah, I guess it can seem contradictory, though he genuinely could have meant his rebuttal to clarify comments he’d made just that night, not “never” as in "never, ever in the history of ever. For example, [Obama] “Here’s what I propose, blah, blah.” [Edwards] “What you’re suggesting amounts to single-payer, blah blah.” [Obama] “I never said that.”
I can see it coming out like that and not in any way being an intentional lie about his current policy stance. But even if you want to call it a lie, does it really rise to the level of making up out-and-out bullshit about one’s opponent the way Billary’s been doing?
Then they further raked Obama over about his connection to Rezko, not bothering to even get their facts straight about the true nature of that association. So no, I’m not terribly impressed with their “bravery” as a national news outlet stepping up with the truth.
Ah, but Obama clearly said in Monday’s debate that he would be in favor of such a program if we were starting from scratch. So I don’t think that quote proves anything, unless we see it in context.
I think it’s a lost cause for the media to try and flesh out which candidate is telling more lies or, even more difficult, “stretching the truth” more. I think the best they can do is offer us the evidence and let us decide. I wouldn’t expect Obama (or any candidate) to come out squeaky clean in such an analysis.
It’s tough to fight. If you ignore it people wonder if it’s true. If you spend too much time defending it people still wonder and now you’re not discussing the issues that matter. I think the best response is to mention that it’s false and let the staff do the defending and calling a lie a lie. Something like Obama has done. Make it clear that your candidate or your candidates ex president husband resorting to dishonesty is exactly the kind of politics we as a nation need to reject. Reject it at the ballot box.
Let the staff and supporters call them out as intentionally distorting the facts. I think the public has had enough of that with Bush and hopefully it will backfire on the Clintons. I do think he needs to stress that he needs the help of the public to change the way politics as usual works in this country.
It’s really hard to think on one’s feet, but I think Barak made a mistake in engaging Hillary directly on stage. It might have been better had he responded to her first attack (the slumlord line) by not even looking at her directly, but looking at the audience instead and saying, “To my right is business as usual in Washington. That’s exactly what I will change with your help.”
I didn’t see the show but l can guess the content. Probably cribbed from fact check … and not bad if they did.
On the scorecard:
Lies about the other-
The Clintons - lied about working for Rezco, lied about Obama’s war position, lied about Obama expressing admiration for Rebublican ideas, lied about the Trib saying that Obama took a pass - although others have said so. That’s 4 right off.
Obama - no lies. Zero Swiftboats.
Lies about their own record-
Clinton - lied when she said that she never expressed the same admiration for Reagan’s political acumen.
Obama - lied when he said he never advocated for single payor. He once did.
That’s it. The Clintons Swiftboat. Obama doesn’t. Is he perfect? Of course not. Who should care that she was on the board of Walmart, she didn’t do anything bad there? But he hasn’t made up shit about her like they have about him.
Good, TV debunkings are much more valuable for Obama than print media or internet ones.
Keep in mind that Obama already has the well-educated population strongly behind him. He is leading in those who have college degrees and absolutely killing in those who have more than a college degree, whereas Hillary has a big lead in those with high school educations or less. Indeed, this may be the biggest demographic gap in the entire contest, bigger even than race.
What kind of media people consume is highly correlated to education levels. Hillary’s constituency is less likely to read print media daily, or use the internet, and more likely to get their news on TV (not just because of education, but age as well). I mean, people’s consumption of news already tilts toward TV, but given the cleavages of this race, it is even more important I think.
I don’t know if Hillary would have used the slumlord line if he hadn’t first used the Board of Directors of WalMart line. He initiated the cheap-shot exchange, which I think was his mistake.
I didn’t see that part of the debate, so that’s why I was just paraphrasing an example of how one could use the term “never” and not mean it as never, ever, EVER, which is what ABC pulled out as an example of him having spoken less than “the truth and nothing but the truth” (as if he were swearing an oath or something). It was them who compared what he said in the debate to something he said 5 years ago. I think it’s a stretch to call that an outright lie, but even if one wanted to, it’s not even in the same ballpark as the lies Billary are smearing him with.
I’ll see if I can find the transcript of the debate anywhere.
I basically agree, but he was responding to a question about a cheap shot Hillary had made in the past. However, you and Lib are right, he probably should have just responded to that and moved on.
Well, if we’re going to pick his words apart, he actually never did say that “we should… get single-payer”, emphasis added. He only said that he would advocate that only if we were starting from scratch. But we’'re never going to start from scratch, so he never advocated it.
