Category: The Dish

The Clintons know no respect for rules or propriety or restraint in the pursuit of power. But Clinton’s latest speech in Florida should cause even veteran Clinton-hating jaws to drop some more:

Now, I know that Senator Obama chose to remove his name from the ballot in Michigan, and that was his right. But his choice does not negate the votes of all those who turned out to cast their ballots, and we should not let our process rob them and all of you of your voices. To do so would undermine the very purpose of the nominating process. To ensure that as many Democrats as possible can cast their votes. To ensure that the party selects a nominee who truly represents the will of the voters and to ensure that the Democrats take back the White House to rebuild America.

Now, I’ve heard some say that counting Florida and Michigan would be changing the rules.

I say that not counting Florida and Michigan is changing a central governing rule of this country – that whenever we can understand the clear intent of the voters, their votes should be counted. I remember very well back in 2000, there were those who argued that people’s votes should be discounted over technicalities. For the people of Florida who voted in this primary, the notion of discounting their votes sounds way too much of the same.

How do you respond to a sociopath like this? She agreed that Michigan and Florida should be punished for moving up their primaries. Obama took his name off the ballot in deference to their agreement and the rules of the party. That he should now be punished for playing by the rules and she should be rewarded for skirting them is unconscionable.

I think she has now made it very important that Obama not ask her to be the veep. The way she is losing is so ugly, so feckless, so riddled with narcissism and pathology that this kind of person should never be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

(Photo: Chris Hondros/Getty.)

They will not go quietly:

"I say that not counting Florida and Michigan is changing a central governing rule of this country."

Then this:

"We’ve got to change the way we nominate presidents for a lot of reasons," she said. "I personally believe these caucuses are terribly unrepresentative … [And] I think that what’s happened with Florida and Michigan raises serious questions about the principles of our party."

And this:

In an intentional bit of symbolism, Clinton’s three campaign stops will be in Palm Beach, Broward, and Dade counties – the three jurisdictions where Democrats allege voters were disenfranchised during the 2000 presidential election.

She will try – by systematic distortion, deception and distraction – to turn her defeat into an indictment of the nominee and the process which all agreed to in advance. This is about de-legitimizing Obama. When will Gore step in? Someone has to.

Frank Foer was impressed:

A couple of new—at least to me—rhetorical moves. There were the plays for Hillary’s voters: in addition to the obvious brown-nosing, he mentioned Seneca Falls in his climatic narration of social movements through history. He also began to turn towards November by invoking "sportsmen" and "churchgoers." These were done in passing—and when he talked about churchgoers, he didn’t muddy his play for Christians by mentioning shul and mosque-goers. It was the casual way that he dropped these references that is politically promising. I liked that he returned to his patriotism themes tonight in a more substantial way. The language of American Exceptionalism should coarse through his every speech, a wholesale theft of Reaganesque language, and he had lots of "last best hope" and "only in America" lines tonight.

I was more struck by some of the more hackneyed anti-Republican lines. It felt more stylistically partisan, and thereby less attractive to Obamacons like me.

It’s another sign that things may actually be improving in Iraq. Readers know my evolution on this question over the years – and it has been rooted in an attempt not to let ideology or wishful thinking or my own pride get in the way of seeing reality. So it behooves me to note real progress there, progress that we should all hope is sustained, whatever sides we have been on and whoever we may support in this election. Pete Wehner notes:

The Sadr City military offensive is impressive, especially when executed on top of the success we’ve recently seen in Basra. (After a shaky start, for the first time the Iraqi government has pacified and restored government control there). The Sadr City offensive is doubly impressive when you consider that no American ground forces accompanied the Iraqi troops into there. While we shared intelligence, helped the Iraqi’s in planning the operation and provided overhead reconnaissance, it was “totally Iraqi planned, led and executed,” the U.S. military told the Washington Post.

The militias may well return; the October elections will be very instructive – and may impact the US election the next month. I wonder to what extent the knowledge that the US, under Obama or McCain, will be withdrawing troops in the near future has affected the urgency behind Maliki. But these are encouraging signs and should be better acknowledged and understood.

George Packer calls out China:

…since I’m not a member of the U.N. Secretariat, the U.S. Department of State, or the executive board of Save the Children, I don’t have to be polite to either the Chinese or the Burmese government. So let history record: at the U.N., China is blocking any chance of a Security Council resolution authorizing the world to do for suffering Burmese what their government won’t do or allow to be done for them, even if it means an uninvited intervention.

Matt, I assume, will see this as scapegoating China and more half-hearted advocation for invasion. But there is some truth in what Matt Steinglass wrote earlier this week:

If the response were playing out according to the rough script that obtained in the ’90s for international interventions in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Kosovo, and East Timor, then Western governments would be holding summit meetings right now to put together a coordinated diplomatic approach to pressuring Burma to open hurricane-affected regions to foreign aid agencies, with a threat of military intervention as a last resort. It would be left unclear exactly what foreign militaries planned to do in the last resort, just as it was left unclear in Kosovo and East Timor. The aim would be to push the Burmese government to accept more access for foreign aid agencies in a compromise deal to avoid military conflict. As the unacceptability of the crisis became established in the international public’s mind, diplomatic pressure would be applied on countries reluctant to approve humanitarian interventions, such as China. Ultimately, just as Russia acceded to intervention in Kosovo, China might signal to the Burmese government that it could no longer shield it from international demands. At that point hopefully a face-saving compromise could be found that permitted more access for international aid agencies than would have been obtained without the vague threat of eventual military action.

John Stossel argues that legalization of hard drugs is a lower price to pay than the empowerment of global drug gangs that might one day be powerful enough to use WMDs.

Steve Waldman notes two data points: the percentage of people who told exit polls that race was a factor in their vote, and Obama’s results.

The LA Times can’t do math.

Ezra writes:

Matt wonders whether Obama is a new Jimmy Carter or a new Ronald Reagan. I think that’s actually the wrong comparison to fear: The question is whether he’s a new first term Bill Clinton.