Who'd a thunk it?

Hilary Clinton's test

Alex Pareene asks a very insightful question: should Hil!ary run in '16, will she pass the Mark Penn test?

Mark Penn is a pollster and political strategist and amoral P.R. creature who is generally wrong about everything. To find out how incompetent Mark Penn is at campaign strategy and how personally toxic he is in a campaign working environment go to your local library and check out literally any book about the 2008 presidential race. For the basics, check here and here. In short, he had no clue how the primaries actually worked and constantly pushed for the campaign to go as nasty and negative as possible, and everyone hated him and he was bad at his job and eventually he was fired.

Fired, but still well compensated. Since Clinton’s 2008 campaign ended, she has milked her donors — and Obama supporters — for millions of dollars to pay off her campaign’s debt. $5.4 million of the debt — all of it, that is — was owed to Mark Penn’s firm Penn, Schoen & Berland. Anyone donating money to Clinton since 2008 has essentially been paying off the man who did more than anyone outside the Obama campaign to prevent her from becoming president. The debt was only just paid off in full in January, just as Clinton left the State Department and shortly before the new pro-Clinton super PAC began operating.

 Read the whole thing for the Wayback Machine visit to some of the Clintons' most odious acquaintances.  Look, I like HC, but I won't for long if she proves to have learned no lessons from '08, when she was the prohibitive favorite.

The Clintons attack!

Well that figures.

Mrs. Clinton was deeply involved in the case, too. She proposed sending various people to Pyongyang — including Mr. Clinton’s vice president, Al Gore — to lobby for the release of the women, before Mr. Clinton emerged as the preferred choice of the North Koreans, people briefed on the talks said.

Another politically connected husband sent on a "junket" by his spouse. What a scandal.

Amnesia

I am not a political journalist. I'm a humble blogger with a memory laid waste by the ravages of time and a penchant for a plethora of vices.

But even I recall this stuff. Why can't the people who are, you know, paid to cover this shit remember what has happened in the not so distant past?

No, I'm not that naive. I know the answer. It's because it is a beltway sport to make fun of Sen. Clinton as fat, shrill, and power mad and to paint the Democratic nominee as a castrated pussy.

I expect Clinton's speech tonight will be an emotional thanks to her supporters and full-throated support for Barack Obama. The real "drama" will be seeing how the TV pundits twist and turn to cram it all into their prepackaged narrative box.

Via Digby.

Republican Party's women issue

Bill Kristol, feminist leader.

Will the Democratic party, which is committed (to say the least) to gender equity, and which in fact has a 50 percent quota for female delegates, accept Obama's imposition of a glass ceiling at its convention?

Rudolph Giuliani, astute observer of voters' issues.

"Senator Obama has made a choice more out of weakness than strength," Giuliani said today on ABC's "This Week."

Giuliani, who ran for the Republican nomination, said the presumptive Democratic nominee should have chosen Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), Obama's chief rival in the nomination process.

"She had 50 percent of the Democratic vote. Obama has 50 percent of the Democratic vote," the former mayor said. "You almost have to go to extraordinary lengths to avoid her as the vice presidential pick of the party."

According to the Post, Giuli911 was the only Republican on today's Sunday Festival of Hack.

Which is too bad, because it would have been fun to listen to more Republicans express their concern for Democratic -- particularly women -- voters. Because that seems to be the plan.

I'm sure there are still angry Clinton supporters out there, though I can't imagine how naming Clinton as the VP would have salved those wounds, particularly as I never believed Clinton ever wanted the job. But before they start listening to McCain sympathetic embrace, they oughtta remember his sense of humor as well. Because, you know, as evidenced by the treatment of his chief-executive, landlord wife, I'm sure he has nothing but the utmost respect for women.

Take a deep breadth

By the looks on their faces in this photo, it's going to take a lot of Barack Obama's "profound humility" to make peace with Clinton.

'Tis a pity she's a whore

David Shuster really should have said, "Sorry, my bad," and called it a day. Instead, here's his correspondence with Sen. Clinton's press flack.

-----Original Message-----
From: David Shuster
To: Philippe Reines
Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 8:51 p.m.

Nice to hear from you, philippe.

It is a fact that chelsea has made calls to superdelegates, as your campaign colleagues have acknowledged. It is also a fact that the campaign has reacted quite harshly to any media who have sought to interview chelsea. That was the point. By slamming any reporter who seeks to chat with chelsea while simultaneously having chelsea do campaign tasks such as trying to convince super delegates to support her mom, that's the reference.

Chelsea is polite and does a fine job of saying "I don't want to talk.". But for campaign staff to then jump down the throat of a reporter who seeks to talk to chelsea...that's an issue.

--------------------------
Sent using BlackBerry



-----Original Message-----
From: Philippe Reines
To: David Shuster
Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 9:00 p.m.

Since you guys asked for the transcript - here specifically is what David said on air:

SHUSTER: "But doesn't it seem like she's being--but doesn't it seem as if Chelsea is sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?"

I have a hunch that such offensive and unacceptable language was never used on MSNBC's air about Karenna Gore, the Bush twins, Venessa & Alex Kerry, Kate Edwards, the Romney sons - or any other adult offspring who chose to campaign on behalf of a parent.

-----Original Message-----
From: Philippe Reines
To: David Shuster
Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 9:16: p.m.

David - I want to make sure I'm crystal clear here - you're saying that because she doesn't grant interviews and makes calls on behalf of her mother, you are right to say that she is being pimped out?

I don't need to read a the whole transcript for context, you were way out of line. Nobody's jumping down your throat about asking for an interview or talking about calls she made. And you know it.

There is simply no excuse for being so offensive.

By actually rationalizing your behavior rather than accepting responsibility and apologizing, you become the poster child for everything wrong with tv journalism, and it's a shame your NBC colleagues have to be associated with this (expletive).



-----Original Message-----
From: David Shuster
To: Philippe Reines
Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 9:29 p.m.

No. That's not what I'm saying. And if you bothered to look at the transcript and saw all of the glowing things I said about chelsea and the way she was raised, you would know that.

The issue is not her making calls. As + said on the air, I have no problems with that what so ever. The issue is not her refusing interviews. The issue is that the campaign has come down hard on reporters who merely sought to ask chelsea questions. You can't have it both ways. Reporters have long respected the clintons desire that we avoid chelsea and let her have her space. But to get angry at reporters seeking to talk to her now is patently unfair. And you know that.

So he called her a whore. On teevee. Chivalry is not dead, after all.

Via Doghouse Riley.

Hillary derangement syndrome

As is so often the case, Roy puts it best.

UPDATE III. As usual, the best reason for even a modish, mawkish, wigger Obamist such as myself to yet tender some affection to Clinton is Whitewater dead-ender Andrew Sullivan, who in the wee small hours quotes Ari Fleischer on the ease with which Der Alte will defeat Hillary. Much as I dislike her, I do believe Clinton could appear in the General Election debates wearing a Nazi uniform and with two pencils sticking out of her nose and still give McCain a run for his money. However much trouble she's having at present with her opponent, she is very, very fortunate in her enemies.

David Brooks doesn't hate Hillary

I was going to enjoy myself with Brooksie's column today, but Doghouse Riley got their first and does it better.

At least "liberals favorite conservative" got something right: the news media is rooting against her. Why NY Times columnists don't write columns looking into why the news media should openly take sides or, even, that a NY Times columnists can write that the news media is rooting against her, and that no one elicits the slightest shock or anger, is what I'd really like to know.