It's as if Mrs. Clinton has had a protective bubble around her ever since she first embarked on her "listening tour" of New York State— JWF (@JammieWF) May 10, 2013
And I just have to respond.
Let’s get this straight: The Vile Progs/Obots and the media despise Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Anyone who was paying attention in the Spring of 2008 knows that. I had been a yellow-dog Democrat for over 20 years by then, and I was stunned to discover how deeply Clinton Derangement Syndrome infected the Democratic party.
It’s no secret that the GOP has hated Bill and Hillary since 1992. Anyone who was old enough to read or watch television in the Nineties knows that. The media has hated them almost as long, and that hatred was amped up when the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke. But it wasn’t until 2008 that I realized how many progressives and leaders of the Democratic party establishment hated them too.
Back in 2006 Hillary was the consensus front-runner for the 2008 Democratic nomination. But there were quite a few people in the media and Democratic leadership determined to prevent her from winning. Ted Kennedy was one of the leaders of that movement, as were Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. John Edwards was the original ABC (Anybody But Clinton) candidate but by the end of 2007 Barack Obama had assumed that mantle.
When Obama won in Iowa the media openly celebrated the defeat of Hillary’s presidential aspirations. Then she won in New Hampshire. The 2008 Democratic primary was an ugly affair, primarily because of the Obama supporters and the media. They kept proclaiming that Obama was unbeatable but Hillary kept doggedly coming back.
Here’s a little known fact: When the smoke cleared in June 2008, Hillary led Barack Obama in votes. While Obama held a slight lead in pledged delegates, that was due entirely to the Rules and Bylaws Committee ruling on May 31, 2008 that gave Obama all the uncommitted delegates and some of Hillary’s delegates from Michigan. If you didn’t know that it’s because the media didn’t report it.
Obama “won” the nomination because of the superdelegates – the Democratic party establishment. Then the delegate voting at the DNC convention was rigged so that people would not realize exactly how close it had been.
The media and the Vile Progs quit attacking Hillary when she suspended her campaign and made a deal to begin endorsing Obama. Then after the election she was paid off by being nominated as Secretary of State. As a loyal member of Obama’s Cabinet she was immune from attack by the media. But that deal would eventually prove to be her undoing.
Now Hillary is no longer Secretary of State and if somebody has to take the fall for Benghazi she is the perfect sacrificial lamb. I’m not saying that she’s innocent in this affair – she’s not. But neither is she totally to blame. Her most grievous offense was trying to cover-up for Obama. She should have just told the truth.
The media and the Vile Progs are biding their time. They are waiting to crush her presidential ambitions in 2016 when Obama’s second term is almost over because they want to destroy her without hurting him. But if Benghazi continues to blow up they will throw her under the bus to protect him.
They would rather not have to do that because they want to sweep Benghazi under the rug. But Plan B is to put it all on Hillary. The GOP might go for that – they have wanted a Clinton scalp for a long time.
If that’s what happens, Hillary has no one but herself to blame. She never should have made a deal with the Devil in the first place.
Pat Smith, mother of slain State Department officer Sean Smith, who died in the September 11, 2012, attack on an American consulate in Benghazi, tore into the federal government and their efforts to investigate that deadly attack on Tuesday. In an interview with CNN host Jake Tapper, Smith said that she blames former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for failing to ensure her staff was secure and for not taking blame for that failure after they were killed in the line of duty.
“How are you holding up?” Tapper asked Smith.
“Terrible,” she replied as her voice broke with emotion. “I cry every night. I don’t sleep at night. I need answers.”
“Why was there no security for him when they were supposed to have security, and the security that they did have was called back?” Smith asked. “It’s just things do not add up and I’m just told lies.”
Tapper asked if Smith was concerned that the Benghazi investigation had been politicized. “Why don’t they just do their job?” Smith asked after agreeing that the investigation had become a political football.
“Have you heard from anybody in the Obama administration?” Tapper asked.
“I got one telephone call from a clerk that was a couple days after it happened,” Smith replied. “Since then, all they have told me is that I am not part of the immediate family so they don’t want to tell me anything.”
Tapper played a portion of former Sec. Clinton’s testimony before Congress in which she asked “what difference, at this point, does it make” what the impetus behind the attack on the consulate was.
“Well, that’s what I want to know,” Smith shot back. “Why did it happen? And she is in charge. Why couldn’t she do something about it? I blame her.”
“That’s her department. She’s supposed to be on top of it, and yet she claims that she knows nothing – it wasn’t told to her,” Smith said. “Who’s running the place?”
I generally don’t put much stock in what grieving families have to say. Of course they’re upset, who wouldn’t be? But this woman deserves answers. So do we.
What really disgusts me isn’t the cold shoulder she has received, it’s knowing that if there was any political mileage to be gained from it this woman would be a regular guest at the White House – she might even have sat next to Michelle during the State of the Union address.
Even as the White House strove last week to move beyond questions about the Benghazi attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2012, fresh evidence emerged that senior Obama administration officials knowingly misled the country about what had happened in the days following the assaults. The Weekly Standard has obtained a timeline briefed by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence detailing the heavy substantive revisions made to the CIA’s talking points, just six weeks before the 2012 presidential election, and additional information about why the changes were made and by whom.
As intelligence officials pieced together the puzzle of events unfolding in Libya, they concluded even before the assaults had ended that al Qaeda-linked terrorists were involved. Senior administration officials, however, sought to obscure the emerging picture and downplay the significance of attacks that killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans. The frantic process that produced the changes to the talking points took place over a 24-hour period just one day before Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, made her now-famous appearances on the Sunday television talk shows. The discussions involved senior officials from the State Department, the National Security Council, the CIA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the White House.
The exchange of emails is laid out in a 43-page report from the chairmen of five committees in the House of Representatives. Although the investigation was conducted by Republicans, leading some reporters and commentators to dismiss it, the report quotes directly from emails between top administration and intelligence officials, and it includes footnotes indicating the times the messages were sent. In some cases, the report did not provide the names of the senders, but The Weekly Standard has confirmed the identities of the authors of two critical emails—one indicating the main reason for the changes and the other announcing that the talking points would receive their final substantive rewrite at a meeting of top administration officials on Saturday, September 15.
The White House provided the emails to members of the House and Senate intelligence committees for a limited time and with the stipulation that the documents were available for review only and would not be turned over to the committees. The White House and committee leadership agreed to that arrangement as part of a deal that would keep Republican senators from blocking the confirmation of John Brennan, the president’s choice to run the CIA. If the House report provides an accurate and complete depiction of the emails, it is clear that senior administration officials engaged in a wholesale rewriting of intelligence assessments about Benghazi in order to mislead the public. The Weekly Standard sought comment from officials at the White House, the State Department, and the CIA, but received none by press time. Within hours of the initial attack on the U.S. facility, the State Department Operations Center sent out two alerts. The first, at 4:05 p.m. (all times are Eastern Daylight Time), indicated that the compound was under attack; the second, at 6:08 p.m., indicated that Ansar al Sharia, an al Qaeda-linked terrorist group operating in Libya, had claimed credit for the attack. According to the House report, these alerts were circulated widely inside the government, including at the highest levels. The fighting in Benghazi continued for another several hours, so top Obama administration officials were told even as the fighting was taking place that U.S. diplomats and intelligence operatives were likely being attacked by al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists. A cable sent the following day, September 12, by the CIA station chief in Libya, reported that eyewitnesses confirmed the participation of Islamic militants and made clear that U.S. facilities in Benghazi had come under terrorist attack. It was this fact, along with several others, that top Obama officials would work so hard to obscure.
That information would have kinda fucked-up the official Obama campaign talking points that “Osama bin Laden is dead!” and “al Qaeda has been decimated”. It didn’t exactly help that whole “Arab Spring” story either. Too bad that Mitt Romney had to go and politicize everything.
But wait! There’s more!:
The talking points were first distributed to officials in the interagency vetting process at 6:52 p.m. on Friday. Less than an hour later, at 7:39 p.m., an individual identified in the House report only as a “senior State Department official” responded to raise “serious concerns” about the draft. That official, whom The Weekly Standard has confirmed was State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland, worried that members of Congress would use the talking points to criticize the State Department for “not paying attention to Agency warnings.”
In an attempt to address those concerns, CIA officials cut all references to Ansar al Sharia and made minor tweaks. But in a follow-up email at 9:24 p.m., Nuland wrote that the problem remained and that her superiors—she did not say which ones—were unhappy. The changes, she wrote, did not “resolve all my issues or those of my building leadership,” and State Department leadership was contacting National Security Council officials directly. Moments later, according to the House report, “White House officials responded by stating that the State Department’s concerns would have to be taken into account.” One official—Ben Rhodes, The Weekly Standard is told, a top adviser to President Obama on national security and foreign policy—further advised the group that the issues would be resolved in a meeting of top administration officials the following morning at the White House.
And who did Victoria Nuland work for last September? Who was her direct supervisor? Who instructed her to send that smoking gun email?
I think someone needs to put Ms. Nuland under oath and ask her a few questions about that smoking gun email.
The secretary of state was just wrong. She said she did not participate in this, and yet only a few months before the attack, she outright denied security in her signature in a cable in April, 2012. … The thing that our report shows and our continued investigation shows is, they had a policy of normalization-appearance. They did everything they could to look like they’d won the war and had the peace, and so the policy that you saw in that April cable is the policy that led to the ambassador being exposed and killed. It led to the absence of a plan in what is basically a war zone. … None of it’s been disputed. Bless the Democrats’ hearts, they like their report, but they can’t find a factual error to ours, and as we go into more documents — ones that we want to have given to us, not just allowed to look at — we’re going to find more of these kinds of mistakes that need to be corrected.
I have said for months now that there are two wrongs here – the fuck-up and the cover-up. Hillary was involved up to her eyebrows in both. Bad policy and bad lies.
I must admit I am conflicted because I still a fan of Bill and Hillary. But we have to hold our friends to the same standards we hold our foes. This could be a sad ending to an otherwise great career.
A few days after Barack Obama finally emerged as the Democratic nominee in his epic 2008 showdown against Hillary Clinton, Katie Couric delivered a rare editorial commentary in an online video. The then-“CBS Evening News” anchor captured the emerging sentiment among much of the media establishment, which suddenly found itself with time for reflection.
“Sen. Clinton has received her fair share of the blame, and so has her political team, but like her or not, one of the great lessons of that campaign is the continued and accepted role of sexism in American life, particularly in the media,” Couric said. “Many women have made the point that if Sen. Obama had to confront the racist equivalent of an ‘iron my shirt’ poster at campaign rallies, or a Hillary nutcracker sold at airports, or mainstream pundits saying they instinctively cross their legs at the mention of her name, the outrage would not be a footnote. It would be front-page news.”
Though media partiality toward Obama was neither uniform nor unfailing in that race, few could deny that the palpable excitement surrounding the Illinois senator’s candidacy tended to overshadow the equally historic nature of Clinton’s run.
And while the relationship between campaign staffers and reporters is typically adversarial, the dynamic inside the Clinton campaign bubble was often particularly contentious.
But that was then.
These days, it is increasingly difficult to find an unflattering word written or said about Clinton in the mainstream press as she begins re-emerging as a force in domestic politics after four years in the constitutionally apolitical role of secretary of state. And this generally glowing coverage figures to benefit Clinton as she mulls a second presidential run.
But any edge over her potential opponents may prove flimsy as 2016 draws nearer. The inevitable reexamination of her extensive record in the national limelight and another looming campaign will surely take some of the shine off this politician considered the strongest non-incumbent presidential front-runner in modern U.S. history.
“There’s a good chance she can continue to get a lot of good coverage between now and the time the general election starts; and then you’ll get what is sometimes, in my view, artificially evenhanded coverage that hurts one candidate and benefits another,” said Democratic strategist Bob Shrum, who has more than four decades of high-level experience on presidential campaigns. “There’s a natural tendency of the press to even this thing out. On the other hand, I think what’s being written now reflects her real strength in the Democratic Party and in the country.”
Will Hillary Clinton’s media honeymoon last?
The short answer is: Hell no!
If Hillary runs again it will be another feeding frenzy as Vile Progs and the media (but I repeat myself) fight over her bleeding corpse. The only reason they have been nice to her since she ended her presidential campaign is she was supporting Barack Obama. Once she was appointed to his Cabinet she was virtually immune from Obotian criticism (as long as she remained competent and loyal).
I predict that if and when she decides to run again that Benghazi will suddenly become an issue but somehow only for her. Obama will remain immune.
I have mixed feelings about her possible candidacy. On the one hand there is her performance as Secretary of State. I don’t blame her for taking the job. It was the best use of her talents under the circumstances. Until last year I would have given her at least an “A” grade for the job she did.
But the debacle in Libya ruined her grade. There are two parts to Benghazi – the fuck-up and the cover-up. She was involved up to her eyeballs in both. The fuck-up is excusable but the cover-up is a major honor code violation.
The second issue is her (and Bill’s) wholehearted support of Obama and the current Democratic party. If I need to explain that to you then you haven’t been paying attention.
Notwithstanding all of that, I still believe that Hillary is the best qualified Democrat to sit in the Oval office, and that includes the current occupant. But that is not so much an endorsement of Hillary as it is an indictment of her fellow Democrats. The pickings are very slim.
What I dread most is a repeat of 2008. I really don’t want to go through that again, even if Hillary were to prevail this time. It was an ugly and traumatic experience I would not care to relive. I will never look at politics or Democrats the same way again.
Here’s the rub: I can’t think of a single person in either party who is likely to be a viable candidate that I feel enthusiastic about. I’m gonna have to wait and see who’s running and then hold my nose and vote for one of them.
I think it’ll be unimaginable. I mean, if — I just go around the country and if there’s a Democrat that does not want her to run, I have not met them. Now she is her own person and seems perfectly willing to resist that kind of pressure, but in terms of encouragement, I don’t think there’s ever been anybody that is a prohibitive front-runner for a party’s nomination as former Secretary of State Clinton is right now. You can feel it out there wherever I go and whenever people talk to me, it’s the same thing.
I’ll believe it when I see it. I don’t doubt for a minute that she would be popular with the Democratic voters just as she was last time. But except for Ted Kennedy the people that screwed Hillary over in 2008 are still there and I expect the Vile Progs to turn on her like a bad dog.
CDS never dies.
OTOH I can’t think of any Democrat I’d rather vote for except maybe Bill and he can’t run again. Can you imagine Joe Biden as POTUS?
For the first time in 30 years neither Bill nor Hillary Clinton is on a public payroll somewhere. He was Governor then President, then she was Senator and Secretary of State. He was the Attorney General of Arkansas for a while too.
I stopped betting against Hillary Rodham Clinton 23 years ago when I watched her crush one man’s ambitions to preserve her husband’s career.
Summoned to a Capitol rotunda news conference by Tom McRae, an earnest Democrat challenging then-Gov. Bill Clinton for re-election, I heard the click, clack, click of the first lady’s low-heeled shoes approach from a hidden marble hallway.
“Tom!” the first lady of Arkansas shouted. “I think we oughta get the record straight!”
Waving a sheaf of papers, Hillary Clinton undercut McRae’s criticism of the Clinton administration by pointing to his past praise of the governor. It was a brutal sandbagging.
“Many of the reports you issued not only praise the governor on his environmental record,” she said, “but his education and his economic record!”
McRae’s primary campaign was toast. Bill Clinton was one step closer to the White House.
Wait . . . what?
What a low-down dirty move, confronting a candidate with his own words! What a horrible thing for the wife of a popular incumbent to do!
Seriously, I don’t know what Hillary plans to do next but I wish the best for her and Bill. They’ve earned a break. Maybe Chelsea will give them a couple grandkids to play with.
The president lavished praise on Mrs. Clinton for her discipline, stamina and talent. And they put a glossy shine on history by brushing off the tough primary attacks five years ago as the product of trying to find differences where, they now say, there actually were not that many.
“Despite our hard-fought primary, we had such agreement on what needed to be done for our country,” Mrs. Clinton said.
“Made for tough debates, by the way,” Mr. Obama added, “because we could never figure out what we were different on.”
“Yeah, we worked at that pretty hard,” she said.
That’s funny, because we didn’t have any problem figuring out where the candidates were different. Neither did the Obots. (No! She’s evil! EVIL!) There is a perfectly good reason why there was no significant difference between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on policy. That’s because he copied hers.
The real differences between the two candidates were in two other areas – experience and character.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified before a Senate committee this morning about the terrorist attack in Benghazi. Next up is the House of Representatives.
If you are watching it join our live-blog. If you can’t watch it live because you are at work then follow along with us.
Okay, Round One is over. Round Two starts in a couple hours. The last thread was a live blog. This is a reaction thread.
So far my impression is that Hillary Clinton was at the top of her game. The GOP landed a few blows but there were no knock-outs. She accepted responsibility without accepting (or assigning) any blame.
I expect the media (who never really covered this scandal anyway) to announce that everything is settle and resolved.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton bucked the suggestion Wednesday that she’s retiring, instead saying that she’s taking a break.
“I don’t know if that is a word I would use, but certainly stepping off the very fast track for a little while,” she said in response to a reporter’s question about her retirement plans. The comments came at Clinton’s first appearance before the press since she returned to work following several weeks of illness including a brief hospitalization for a blood clot in her head.
“I am back in the swing,” she said. “I am thrilled to be back and I am also incredibly grateful for this fabulous team that I have here at the State Department who never missed a beat during the time I was away.”
But her return to Foggy Bottom is “somewhat bittersweet” because it will be followed soon by her departure.
Clinton said she is already working on “a very smooth, seamless transition” ahead of the expected confirmation of Sen. John Kerry to her job.
Take some time and put your feet up, Hillary. Sip some wine and watch a sunset. Turn off the ringer on the phone.
I give it six weeks and then she’ll be climbing the walls looking for something to do. She’s been going and going like the Energizer Bunny for several decades now. She might slow down but she won’t stop.
Though Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s return to work next week will be brief, given President Obama’s nomination of John Kerry to replace her as secretary of State, it comes amid an aura of national popularity, respect, and even fascination.
An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll in December found that Secretary Clinton and her husband, the former President Clinton, are America’s two most popular politicians. At the same time, a Bloomberg poll found that 70 percent of Americans view Secretary Clinton favorably – an astounding number given the country’s hyperpartisan divide.
What explains the high-flying ratings enjoyed by Bill and Hill, as Washington columnists prefer to call them?
Some pundits speculate that Secretary Clinton’s “relegation” to the relatively noncontroversial global stage of international issues has allowed her to win approving nods from Democrats and Republicans alike.
Others say it’s simply because the Clintons are so ubiquitous, with Secretary Clinton traveling up a storm representing America to the world and Mr. Clinton holding court during this past election cycle – first at the Democratic National Convention, then on the stump – on behalf of Mr. Obama.
But as The Washington Post noted recently as it marveled over the “good year” the Clintons have enjoyed: “[U]biquity usually breeds fatigue from the public, not more excitement.”
So why doesn’t America have Clinton fatigue?
In Secretary Clinton’s case, Americans appear to admire her work ethic and her ability to reinvent herself – and not just to make do with the hand dealt her, but to employ it with a flourish.
You can tell this guy is in the media because there is not one word in there about competence, peace, or prosperity. Not only that but it probably helps that for the past four years the Clintons (for the first time in two decades) have been relatively free from media attacks. I can’t remember the last time that Chris Matthews speculated on the air about the distinguishing characteristics of the presidential penis.
I don’t know if Hillary will ever run for office again. If she does run, I don’t know if I will vote for her. It will all depend on who she is running against. But if she does run again you can count on the knives coming out again as well. We will probably see some preemptive character assassination during the next couple years just in case.
Clinton Derangement Syndrome never dies. It’s just in remission right now.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is under observation at a New York hospital after being treated for a blood clot stemming from the concussion she sustained earlier this month.
Clinton’s doctors discovered the clot Sunday while performing a follow-up exam, her spokesman, Philippe Reines, said. He would not elaborate on the location of the clot but said Clinton was being treated with anti-coagulants and would remain at New York-Presbyterian Hospital for at least the next 48 hours so doctors can monitor the medication.
“Her doctors will continue to assess her condition, including other issues associated with her concussion,” Reines said in a statement. “They will determine if any further action is required.”
Clinton, 65, fell and suffered a concussion while at home alone in mid-December as she recovered from a stomach virus that left her severely dehydrated. The concussion was diagnosed Dec. 13 and Clinton was forced to cancel a trip to North Africa and the Middle East that had been planned for the next week.
The seriousness of a blood clot “depends on where it is,” said Dr. Gholam Motamedi, a neurologist at Georgetown University Medical Center who was not involved in Clinton’s care.
Clots in the legs are a common risk after someone has been bedridden, as Clinton may have been for a time after her concussion. Those are “no big deal” and are treated with six months of blood thinners to allow them to dissolve on their own and to prevent further clots from forming, he said.
A clot in a lung or the brain is more serious. Lung clots, called pulmonary embolisms, can be deadly, and a clot in the brain can cause a stroke, Motamedi said.
Keeping Clinton in the hospital for a couple of days could allow doctors to perform more tests to determine why the clot formed, and to rule out a heart problem or other condition that may have led to it, he said.
There was a lot of speculation that Hillary was faking an injury to avoid testifying before Congress. That’s not really Hillary’s style but anything is possible I guess.
I remember when William Casey was reported to have suffered a stroke just hours before he was to testify before Congress about Iran Contra. Many people speculated that he was faking in order to avoid having to testify about what he knew. A few months later he died of a brain tumor, taking whatever secrets he had to the grave.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was hospitalized in Manhattan last night after doctors found a blood clot during an exam to follow up on a concussion she suffered earlier this month, the State Department said. The blood clot is located between her brain and skull behind the right ear.
Clinton, 65, was admitted to New York Presbyterian’s Washington Heights complex, where she will stay for at least 48 hours to be closely monitored.
Doctors will treat the former first lady with anticoagulants, said her spokesman, Philippe Reines.
“Her doctors will continue to assess her condition, including other issues associated with her concussion,” Reines said.
So since it’s already pretty much over, I shouldn’t feel bad about airing a few grievances. For full disclosure, I do not come to this subject from some nonpartisan, detached position, as I’m about to explain. I do not like Hillary Clinton. In fact, I pretty much despise her, and have for quite some time. I was angry at her during her time as First Lady when duties involving public policy were essentially handed over to a non-elected (and thereby unaccountable) person simply because she was married to a politician. I was put off by her transparently political, “stand by your man” routine when Bill’s affairs were revealed. (Let’s face it, no matter how skillful of a politician he was, Bill Clinton was a dog. And as a husband he was an embarrassment. She should have had enough pride in herself to give him the boot.) I was frustrated with Hillary when she came on her first carpetbagging tour to my home state of New York to steal our Senate seat. (Though perhaps not as disgusted as I was with the people of the state who took to their fainting couches in droves to coronate her.) It just seems like every experience I’ve ever had involving Hillary Clinton was negative.
[...]
I’m not sure how much of Chapman’s take on this is accurate prognostication and how much is wishful thinking, but I certainly hope it’s more of the former. There will have to be a primary, as there are plenty of Democrats who have an appetite for the big chair, and I refuse to believe everyone is just going to wave off the landing to pave the way for her. And the GOP isn’t just going to lay down and die. There is a long history between Hillary and the Republican Party, and plenty of stuff in the records which will all come to light again.
But the country definitely has an appetite to see the first woman president and there’s no denying it. And she’s leaving her current position with strong favorable numbers and four years to plan while having no responsibilities where she might slip up. If it comes to that, though, you can bet I’ll be working hard for the GOP nominee, no matter who we manage to put up next time. Like I said… I just don’t like the woman. And I’m not going to apologize for it.
Just remember Jazz, the Clintons feed and grow strong on your hate.
Seriously though, I don’t know if Hillary will run and if she does run I don’t know if I’ll vote for her. I’ll make up my mind in about three years. We just finished a two-year long death-march campaign. Let’s at least wait until after the mid-terms before we start another one.
President Obama will be reelected president by a narrow Electoral College margin for three reasons.
First, when autoworkers and auto companies faced a 1930s-style depression and Mitt Romney proposed a vulture bankruptcy that would have destroyed Ohio for a generation, Barack Obama was there for them, and next week I believe Ohio voters will be there for him.
Second, words cannot fully express the power, clout and credibility of the passionate and determined support for President Obama by a man whom history will rank among the great presidents and a grateful nation now applauds as the prosperity president, who has gone by the name of the Comeback Kid, and called himself the man from a place called Hope, who barnstorms the nation on behalf of Barack to battle for a future that neither Bill nor Barack nor Hillary nor the men and women who support them will ever surrender.
And third, in the spirit that the last shall be first, the great X factor of this campaign, the secret advantage of Democrats next Tuesday, which is not today highlighted on RealClearPolitics, or discussed on Fox News, or bannered by Matt Drudge, or even acknowledged by the Obama White House, is that a giant rescue mission for the Obama campaign and the Democratic Party is being led beneath the radar of the commentariat class of American politics by …
The Hillary women!
I predict that the voter turnout among women who most admire Hillary Rodham Clinton is being underestimated in the turnout models of all major pollsters, and if I am right by even a small percent this will shake the foundation of a razor-thin election.
Top Bill Clinton confidant Douglas Band has said that he will vote for Republican Mitt Romney, according to a report in The New Yorker, apparently a move to strengthen Hillary Clinton’s position in the Democratic Party.
In revealing the relationship between President Barack Obama and former President Clinton, The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza drops a fascinating tidbit in the second-to-last paragraph of the story.
“By some measures, a defeat for Obama in November would leave Hillary the undisputed leader of her party and propel her toward the Oval Office that much faster. At least one of [Bill] Clinton’s closest advisers seems to be backing that strategy,” writes Lizza. “According to two people with direct knowledge, Douglas Band has said that he will vote for Romney. Band declined to comment.”
IOW – A vote for Romney is a vote for Hillary!
I agree with the strategy. It’s what I have been saying for several years now. If Obama wins then the Republicans are a lock to win in 2016.
If Romney wins there are two obstacles to Hillary running successfully in 2016:
1. The economy – If the economy is turned around and unemployment is down, Mitt will be almost certain to win a second term (and he would deserve it).
2. Benghazi – We still don’t know how big a stain the Benghazi attack/cover-up will leave on Hillary’s record.
Obama Campaign top adviser David Axelrod told Chris Wallace on FOX News Sunday this morning that the State Department was responsible for embassy security matters.
David Axelrod:
“The White House was talking about what the White House knew. There are embassies all over the world and requests all over the world and these requests go over the the security professionals at the State Department. And there’s no doubt that some of these matters went into the security department of the State Department. But it didn’t come to the White House and that’s what the White House was responding to.”
This is Barack Obama’s way of thanking Bill Clinton for working overtime to drag Barack Obama across the finish line in this year’s election.
I wonder how all those former PUMAs that jumped on the Obama bandwagon feel now?
A confusing array of contradictions concerning the murders of four Americans, one of which was a U.S. ambassador, was made worse by Vice President Joe Biden’s remarks during the debate with Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan Thursday evening.
Today the confusion only worsened yet again when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters that her agency was not the source of misinformation concerning the attacks, charging instead that the White House was the source of the false mantra that the murders were spurred by an anti-Muslim film made in the United States.
Clinton told reporters that when Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, made her rounds on every Sunday morning news show to claim the film motivated the attacks, the information had been fed to her by the White House and not the intelligence community in the State Department or the CIA.
With tensions between President Obama and the Clintons at a new high, former President Bill Clinton is moving fast to develop a contingency plan for how his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, should react if Obama attempts to tie the Benghazi fiasco around her neck, according to author Ed Klein.
In an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller, Klein said sources close to the Clintons tell him that Bill Clinton has assembled an informal legal team to discuss how the Secretary of State should deal with the issue of being blamed for not preventing the Benghazi terrorist attack last month.
White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters during a press conference Friday that responsibility for the consulate in Libya fell on the State Department, not the White House.
If blame for the security failures falls to Hillary Clinton, Klein said, it’s possible that she would even consider resigning over the issue.
“Bill is working on a number of strategies about what Hillary ought to do. He’s even gone so far as to play with various doomsday scenarios including up to the idea that Hillary would consider resigning over the issue if the Obama team tries to use her as a scapegoat,” Klein told TheDC in an interview.
Klein — the best-selling author of the Amateur, a book on President Obama — elaborated on his reporting in an op-ed for The Daily Caller.
As of Friday afternoon, the White House, the State Department and the former president’s office did not return requests from The Daily Caller for comment on Klein’s reporting.
But as for the chance that Hillary Clinton would resign, Klein said in the interview: “At this moment, it appears unlikely that she’s going to do that. I mean that would be an extreme step for her to take.”
“Not only would it be hard to predict how it would play out as far as Hillary is concerned in the future, but it would certainly damage Obama’s chances for re-election if she resigned,” he said.
This is too good to be true but DAYUM! I hope it is. That would be ultimate fuck-you if right before the election Hillary announced she was resigning and spilled the beans on Obama. She could throw Obama’s ass under the bus and sail off into the sunset.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defended the early response from the Obama administration regarding the terror attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that claimed the lives of four Americans, including Amb. Chris Stevens.
But she would not weigh in on the growing controversy about when exactly members of the Obama administration knew the Sept. 11 attack on the consulate was carried out by terrorists or whether senior administration members knew that State Department security officials were concerned about the situation at the embassy in the months leading up to the attack.
Clinton took questions from reporters following a bilateral meeting with the Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi di Sant’Agata, and was asked about Vice President Joe Biden’s assertion during Thursday night’s debate that the administration was unaware of requests for increased security at the consulate.
Biden’s comment would seem to be contradicted by testimony a day earlier on Capitol Hill from a State Department security official that he had repeatedly requested more security.
Clinton said there is still an internal investigation, and an FBI investigation going on, and that she is cooperating with both.
“There is much we still don’t know, and I am the first to say that,” she said.
“There is nobody in the administration motivated by anything other than trying to understand what happened,” said Clinton. “We are doing all we can to prevent it from ever happening again anywhere.”
But Clinton said the circumstances surrounding the attack are still, more than a month later, not completely clear.
“To this day we do not have a complete picture, we do not have all the answers,” she said. “No one in this administration has ever claimed otherwise. Every one of us have made clear that we are providing the best information we have at that time. And that information continues to be updated. It also continues to be put into context and more deeply understood.”
[...]
Today Clinton defended Rice.
“Ambassador Rice had the same information from the intelligence community that every other senior official did,” said Clinton. “We can only tell you what we know based on our most current understanding of the attack and what led up to it.”
There is more than one legal eagle around this dump and I’m sure they will all back me up when I say that part of legal training is learning how to parse words carefully. It applies to things like writing contracts, understanding statutes and nailing down witness testimony. Lawyers focus on precise language more than any other profession.
MS. NULAND: We’ll take one from each side today. Let’s start with CNN, Jill Doherty.
QUESTION: Thank you very much. Madam Secretary, in the debate – the Vice Presidential Debate last night, there was one thing that the Vice President said, which was, “That is what intelligence told us.” And there’s just one issue that seems so very basic that I’m finding it difficult to understand why it’s not clear, and that is whether or not there actually was a demonstration that night. Is there any clarity that you have at this moment about that?
And then also, could you tell us a little bit about what you were doing when that attack actually happened? I know Charlene Lamb, who as the State Department official, was mentioning that she back here in Washington was monitoring electronically from that post what was happening in real time. Could you tell us what you were doing? Were you watching? Were you talking with the President? Any details about that, please.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, Jill, before I answer your question, I want to underscore what an invaluable partner Italy has been in our efforts to support a democratic Libya. Italy played a crucial role in NATO’s Operation Unified Protector to protect the civilian population from Qadhafi’s violence. More than 4,000 air missions were flown from Sigonella alone. And in the wake of the Benghazi tragedy, the support of Italy has been absolutely essential. In ways large and small, our Italian friends and partners helped us evacuate our people on September 11th. They helped us get the FBI team in and in so many other ways. So I personally want to thank you, Giulio, and thank you, through you, your government for everything that you have done. And as you said, we will continue to work together to try to stabilize Libya and give the Libyan people the kind of future that they have so clearly stated they want.
With respect to your questions, Jill, I think that it is very important to recognize that we have an investigation going on. We have an Accountability Review Board that is just beginning its work. There is much we still don’t know. And I am the first to say that. But as someone who has been at the center of this tragedy from the beginning, I do know this: There is nobody in the Administration motivated by anything other than trying to understand what happened. And we are doing all we can to prevent it from ever happening again – anywhere. And of course, we are, as a government, doing what it takes to track down those who were responsible.
To this day – to this day, we do not have a complete picture. We do not have all the answers. No one in this Administration has ever claimed otherwise. Every one of us has made clear that we are providing the best information we have at that time. And that information continues to be updated. It also continues to be put into context and more deeply understood through the process we are engaged in. Ambassador Rice had the same information from the intelligence community as every other senior official did.
And that’s the very way that I’m answering your question today, because we can only tell you what we know based on our most current understanding of the attack and what led up to it. Obviously, we know more as time goes by and we will know even more than we did hours and days after the attack.
So that’s what an investigative process is designed to do: to try to sort through all of the information, some of it contradictory and conflicting. And I want us to keep in mind that four Americans were killed, four men who served our country. Dozens of Americans fought for their lives that night, and to honor them we all have to get to the bottom of every question and answer it to the best of our ability. And then we’ve got to be sure that we apply the lessons we learned to make sure that we protect everybody in harm’s way.
So I’m going to be, as I have been from the very beginning, cooperating fully with the investigations that are ongoing, because nobody wants to know more about what happened and why than I do. And I think I’ll leave it at that.
QUESTION: Mrs. Secretary, if you could, the question was –
SECRETARY CLINTON: I know, but I’m going to leave it at that.
If you parse Hillary’s words you will see she didn’t say very much at all. She didn’t describe what she knows or when she learned it. The stuff about the investigation is a non sequitur. Yeah, there is an investigation going on but they will never know everything. Is there some reason they can’t tell us what they do know?
She didn’t really defend Susan Rice. She just said that Rice knew what every senior official knew. But was Rice telling the truth? Hillary didn’t say.
From a professional standpoint I have to give Hillary an A+ for her answer. She gave what kinda seems like a substantive answer but isn’t. There is nothing in there that can be called a lie or used against her.
I have mad respect and admiration for Hillary Clinton but she has to be held accountable just like anyone else. At some point she is going to have to provide better answers than she has provided so far.
But I recognize that she has to walk a fine line. She has a duty of loyalty to her boss. But she is also a Cabinet officer who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. Many of the things she knows are classified as state secrets. She has her own career and legacy to think of. Obviously some of those are more important than others.
It is possible that Hillary is working hard to cover-up the truth about what happened in Benghazi. It is equally possible that she is working hard behind the scenes to ensure that the truth comes out and the people responsible are held accountable.
I am willing to be patient and to withhold judgment for the time being. But my patience isn’t endless.
Prior to the attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi late in the evening on Sept. 11, there was no protest outside the compound, a senior State Department official confirmed today, contradicting initial administration statements suggesting that the attack was an opportunistic reaction to unrest caused by an anti-Islam video.
In a conference call with reporters Tuesday, two senior State Department officials gave a detailed accounting of the events that lead to the death of Amb. Chris Stevens and three other Americans. The officials said that prior to the massive attack on the Benghazi compound by dozens of militants carrying heavy weaponry, there was no unrest outside the walls of the compound and no protest that anyone inside the compound was aware of.
In fact, Stevens hosted a series of meetings on the compound throughout the day, ending with a meeting with a Turkish diplomat that began at 7:30 in the evening, and all was quiet in the area.
“The ambassador walked guests out at 8:30 or so; there was nobody on the street. Then at 9:40 they saw on the security cameras that there were armed men invading the compound,” a senior State Department official said. “Everything is calm at 8:30 pm, there is nothing unusual. There had been nothing unusual during the day outside.”
The House Oversight Committee is meeting this morning to investigate the events that took place in Benghazi last month. I hope they get some answers.
I said before that this scandal has two parts – the fuck-up and the cover-up. The information that is coming out the past week or so indicates that both elements were related to the same thing: Obama’s reelection campaign.
The “Arab Spring” was supposed to be a big foreign policy victory for Obama that he could brag about on the campaign trail. The administration wanted to conceal the fact that things weren’t working out so great after all. Sending in a bunch of Marines to protect our diplomatic posts in supposedly friendly countries would contradict the narrative.
When the lack of security backfired horribly on September 11th, the administration tried to cover-up their negligence by blaming some stupid YouTube clip. That cover-up failed miserably.
Now the media is caught between a rock and a hard place. They participated (perhaps unknowingly) in the cover-up by ignoring what was happening and by attacking Mitt Romney. But the truth is too big to hide and now they have to choose between doing their jobs and protecting Obama. They can’t ignore the story any longer but the truth is gonna be damaging to the candidate they support.
I will be very disappointed if Hillary Clinton ends her tenure as Secretary of State with an ugly black mark on her record, but facts are facts and we deserve to know what they are. Let the chips fall where they may.
But I get the feeling that Hillary has no intention of falling on her sword to protect Obama. If you notice she hasn’t been very visible since the day the coffins came home. Three of the people scheduled to testify are senior State Department officials who work for Hillary. The fourth is Lt. Col. Andy Wood, whose 16-man security detail was pulled from Benghazi in August.
Darrell Issa is the chairman of the committee. This could get very interesting.
The hearing begins at 9am Fresno standard time. I’ll probably try to live-blog it, or at least put one up before I leave to get my traditional mid-morning beauty sleep.
