Hillary is trying to be a stand-up Pol, so why are so many of her supporters behaving so poorly?
An examination of the charges being made about Barack by PUMA and others, that he is:
dishonest because he never seriously considered Hillary as VP,
or, that he is disrespectful because he didn’t consult with Hillary on his pick,
and that he has broken his promise to Hillary to help her retire her campaign debt,
are shown to be false.
Despite the fact that Hillary Clinton has thrown her support behind Barack Obama addressing Democratic crowds with the statement "I hope you’ll work as hard for Senator Obama as many of you did for me" and has persuaded many of her supporters to back Barack. There are others though, who take the anti-feminist stance that they know what's best for Hillary, and will not follow the lead of the person they claim is the best leader for America. If you’re stomach can stand it, go to the PUMA website (which is looking more and more like a "COINTELPRO" style operation every day) here’s the lead-off to Sunday’s screed:
As most of you know, Barack Obama announced that he had picked Delaware Senator Joe Biden as his running mate at 3am this morning.
Other than the obvious choice of 3am as a direct jib at Hillary’s famous 3am ad, the fact that he never even considered Hillary for the Vice-President position, the fact that despite raising over $50 million each for two consecutive months he has done absolutely nothing to reduce Hillary’s campaign debt (it’s only been reduced by $1.3 million thus far), it is obvious that Obama does not take Hillary Clinton and the 18 million people who voted for her with any amount of seriousness nor does he treat us with aany sort of respect.
(sic)
Sadly, it’s not just the space-case PUMAnauts who are giving the "Truthers" a run for their money for who has the lowest moral and intellectual standards by putting forward the kind of garbage shown above. They are being enabled by the "mainstream" press like CNN
"He has provided her with a pittance compared to what the Clintons have given Obama," prominent Clinton backer Lynn Forrester told the Times of London. "Her debt could have been cleared within 10 days. It’s ungracious."
And the political press, like the Politico:
"She was never vetted," a Democratic official reported. "She was not asked for a single piece of paper. She and Senator Obama have never had a single conversation about it. How would he know if she’d take it?"
And the "from under a rock" press like Bill Krystol:
"So Hillary Clinton gets about 18 million votes in 2008, and isn’t even considered for--she apparently isn’t even given the courtesy of being consulted--the vice presidential pick."
The three main arguments being made by this troupe of tummlers are;
Barack is dishonest because he never seriously considered Hillary as VP,
Barack is disrespectful because he didn’t consult with Hillary on his pick,
Barack has broken his promise to Hillary to help her retire her campaign debt.
Okay, so let’s look at the charges. First, we should start off by acknowledging that unless someone knows how to read Barack’s thoughts, no one knows how seriously he considered Senator Clinton as a running mate. Admittedly the fact that Hillary wasn’t even visited by Barack’s screening team argues that she wasn’t in the running. But, let's also remember that Barack is a politician, and if he belived that having Hillary as his running mate would be the fastest, surest way to get to the Whitehouse, he would have picked her.
So, if Hillary wasn’t in the running, was that because Barack was being spiteful or disrespectful? I don’t think so. Anyone who looks at the situation knows that Bill Clinton and his Clinton Library fundraising was the main reason why Hillary could not have been anybody’s VP pick. As was reported in the Washington Post on December 15, 2007 by John Solomon and Jeffrey H. Birnbaum;
The Post confirmed numerous seven-figure donors to the library through interviews and tax records of foundations. Several foreign governments gave at least $1 million, including the Middle Eastern nations of Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, as well as the governments of Taiwan and Brunei.
In addition, a handful of Middle Eastern business executives and officials also gave at least $1 million each, according to the interviews. They include Saudi businessmen Abdullah al-Dabbagh, Nasser al-Rashid and Walid Juffali, as well as Issam Fares, a U.S. citizen who previously served as deputy prime minister of Lebanon.
Until Bill Clinton releases the list of contributors to his Library, and those who paid him big money speaking fees, this story doesn’t just have legs, it’s an eighteen-wheeler on high-octane fuel, capable of running every other story off the road – even stories about the person actually running for president.
If Hillary Clinton supporters want to be angry at anyone, be angry at Bill Clinton for not making sure that his Library donor list would be politically correct enough to be released to the public. In that regard, the most crucial question that Barack needed to ask Hillary;
"Madam can you assure me that your husband has not done anything since leaving office that will detract from my campaign?"
had already been answered, and any other "vetting" would have been superfluous.
The second charge, that Barack is disrespectful to Hillary and her 18 million voters because he didn’t consult with her on his VP pick. This allegation assumes that Hillary had the right to be consulted. Clearly, as a political strategist she should be taking lessons from Barack, as opposed to offering instruction. The recent publication of internal memos in The Atlantic showed that Senator Clinton was unable to run her own campaign.
In addition, a number of the "didn't consult" comments came from the same backbiting crowd that helped sink Hillary's campaign. It seems to me their real complaint is "why didn't you consult with the person who takes advice from ME?!" Besides, doesn’t consulting with Hillary smack a little too much like Bush asking Cheney to head up his VP search?
In examining the third charge, that Barack has broken his promise to Hillary to help her retire her campaign debt, let’s handle it along Socratic lines;
Q: Is it fair to say that if Barack wins in November, his already prestigious ability to raise money will, if anything, be increased?
Q. Wouldn’t it also be fair to say that if Barack wins in November, on good feelings alone, it would be easier to get his donors to give some money to retire Hillary’s debt?
Q. Which Hillary (or for that matter any other person in the same situation) would you rather rely on; a Hillary dependent on your success in November to pay off her debts, or a Hillary who owes you nothing because all her debts have been paid, regardless of whether you win in November?
Q. Any further questions?
Now that it has been shown that the three main charges against Barack are baseless, naïve, or both, we have to wonder why they have been made. They are consistent in one way (this excludes the bomb throwing by Krystol and the McCain "Hillary Has Been Dissed" ads) they smack of poor sportsmanship. I can think of nothing worse for future women candidates than for the Clinton campaign to be used in the argument that women should not be allowed in presidential politics because they are spoilsports and sore-losers.
The alternative is that the folks stirring up all this trouble are Bill Krystol, neo-Democrats, which is to say, they prefer that the Republicans continue to occupy the Whitehouse.