Obama's back on track again. According to final results, he beat Hillary Clinton in Wyoming today, "The Equality State" (and not, as cluelessly sneered in Slate by effete moron "Chadwick Matlin", "Despite this minor flurry of attention, the Cowboy State—that’s seriously its nickname—still won’t matter when all is said and done."), by 61-38.
You would think that some moron without drool leaking from his mouth would notice that the "Equality" portion of the nickname came from Wyoming's position of being the first territory to grant women the right to vote in 1869 -- particularly meaningful in light of the current cluelessly pressist ("pressist" being a term that comprises "racist," "sexist," "sectist," "ageist," "clueless" and "drooling imbecility" in a single portmanteau term that can be easily lifted by bellhops) obsession with that Black Guy against The Chick meme. And the endlessly "pressist" breakdowns of "demographics" which is another way of saying -- we LOVE to classify people by their skin color, their sexual equipment, their age, their smarts and any other insulting stereotypes that rob humans of their individual dignity and identity.
(Right, all you blue-collar, high school-educated White single woman who voted for Hillary (obviously) solely because she is a woman?)
Why, you'd have thought that Gloria Steinem would have shown up to remind the voters in The Equality State of their historic opportunity, but, alas, Gloria is too busy being an intellectual and an activist to actually use her brain, seemingly. Or, perhaps the Clinton campaign has asked her to cool it in light of her disparaging comments on John McCain's imprisonment and torture in Vietnam the other day in Austin, Texas. But, frankly, they don't have any idea of where or what a "Wyoming" actually is, sad to say.
Still, if there were ever a photo op for the first Woman candidate campaigning in the FIRST Women's voting state, and the First Woman elected official state, and the first Woman governor state with the First Women of the Women's Movement, it would have been this weekend in Wyoming. But we were talking East Coast elitists.
So: No such luck. Let's take a moment to step back and assess the situation, thus far:
Eagle-eyed readers might note that I haven't particularly commented on last Tuesday's election results. At the time, and, to an extent, still, it seems that there are complexities and nuances that are still to be resolved -- for example, did Hillary or Obama actually win Texas? It looks possible if not probable that Obama will emerge from the Texas primary/caucus with MORE delegates than Hillary, which makes the question as to who actually WON Texas extremely murky.
But many friends have written me privately, expressing emotions that are quite similar to the ill chosen "off the record" remarks that The Scotsman newspaper in the UK decided to print, knowing full well that they'd ignite a firestorm, and probably get some person fired*: that Hillary was a "monster."
[* You know, one of the first lessons I learned as a published writer was that print amplifies one's words immensely, and that the power of the press can inadvertently be used to harm people's lives and careers, as casually as one would swat a fly. Thus, responsibility must devolve to the journalist on taking responsibility for the consequences of their writing -- viz. you have NO RIGHT to harm someone's life, knowingly, unless the public good outweighs those words, as in exposing a crime. To knowingly publish something that the speaker (who is helping you earn your paycheck for free) will be harmed by is exactly criminal. But then, I'm not some rationalizing two-bit Scottish newspaper editor. Glenn Greenwald, please take note. He, a lawyer, presumes to pass judgment on journalistic ethics in Salontoday, alas.]
I'm not willing to go that far, but it seems a damned shame that someone who watched all the sleazy crap that the Clinton campaign pulled in their "kitchen sink" attack on Obama would lose their job for inadvertently slipping and speaking honestly, and Hillary's spokeserpent, Howard Wolfson, would still have his job after diabolically characterizing Obama as "Ken Starr."
Yeah. Well, such is the nature of evil.
Maureen Dowdin The New York Times:
Hillary successfully recast herself in Ohio as a beer-drinking former waitress. Only after last week’s reversals did the Obama camp raise a louder ruckus about her tax returns. Obviously, Ms. Night Shift does not want to reveal the details of the fortune that Bill Clinton has made, sometimes through dubious associations.
As Melville believed, Good defeats Evil ONLY if Good is very, very careful, or, if you're going to "officially" represent a political campaign, office, etc. you'd better know how to rein in your mouth. So, it's sad, but true that Obama's Irish-born foreign policy consultant is now gone.
Such is the nature of politics.
(Reuters) ... Power's comments were made on Monday before Clinton revived her presidential bid with wins in the big states of Ohio and Texas.
"She is a monster, too -- that is off the record -- she is stooping to anything," Power was quoted by the newspaper as saying of Clinton. "We f***** up in Ohio," she said. "In Ohio, they are obsessed and Hillary is going to town on it because she knows Ohio's the only place they can win."
Before the news that she was quitting, Power issued an apology and Obama condemned the comment through his campaign. "Senator Obama decries such characterizations, which have no place in this campaign," Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said.
We will leave aside the bizarre facts that:
- Hillary HAS been acting in precisely the characterized manner, and
- the endless parsing of The Scotsman's defense that this was all "newsworthy" in a BOOK TOUR INTERVIEW -- knowing that it would probably wreck the woman's career -- was completely justified by some hateful provision of vicious journalistic "ethics" that I've never heard of, and
- Clinton spokeserpent Howard Wolfson smears Obama by likening him to "Ken Starr" but, while the Clinton camp demands Power's resignation and GETS it, nobody suggests that Wolfson ought to be fired over a MUCH MORE vicious characterization -- a generic 'monster' CANNOT compare in Democratic circles to the X-rated panty-raid on the Constitution engaged in by Special Prosecutor Starr that led to the impeachment,
and, instead, we shall focus on the more significant aspects of the tale.
My friends have implicitly asked what I THOUGHT of Tuesday's results, and, after taking a couple of days to confirm my initial impression, I will reply that I believe it to have been a Pyrrhic victory. I'm not alone in my assessment that, while Hillary achieved her objective of staying in the race, she created a massive backlash in terms of how she is VIEWED. Jonathan Chait, The New Republic:
Clinton's path to the nomination is pretty repulsive ... negative campaigning is a negative-sum activity. Both the attacker and the attackee tend to see their popularity drop. Usually, the victim's popularity drops farther than the perpetrator's, which is why negative campaigning works. But it doesn't work so well in primaries, where the winner has to go on to another election.
Clinton's path to the nomination, then, involves the following steps: kneecap an eloquent, inspiring, reform-minded young leader who happens to be the first serious African American presidential candidate (meanwhile cementing her own reputation for Nixonian ruthlessness) and then win a contested convention by persuading party elites to override the results at the polls. The plan may also involve trying to seat the Michigan and Florida delegations, after having explicitly agreed that the results would not count toward delegate totals. Oh, and her campaign has periodically hinted that some of Obama's elected delegates might break off and support her. I don't think she'd be in a position to defeat Hitler's dog in November, let alone a popular war hero. [* note, see Steinem, above -- HW]
Now, some may think that they know what the term means, and others might not know what it means at all, and this is a good time to explain it, if only to crystallize the metaphor.
Pyrrhus was the finest general of his era, and lived in the interval between the death of Alexander the Great and the rise of the Roman Empire as the supreme power of the Mediterranean. In fact, at one point in the Pyrrhic wars, from 280–275 BCE, the Romans formed an alliance with the Carthaginians against Pyrrhus. (A very short time later, the Romans and Carthaginians would square off in the three Punic Wars that would determine which empire would live and which would die: Rome or Carthage).
The war itself was a complex series of ever-shifting loyalties, over different objectives and is too confused to explain here.
Wikipedia:
In 279 B.C. Pyrrhus fought the second major battle of the war at Asculum. This one was of a much greater scale, taking two days in the hills of Apulia. The Roman general Publius Mus managed to use the terrain to reduce the effectiveness of the Greek cavalry and elephants. Thus the first day ended with a stalemate.
And here is the historian Plutarch, from whom all subsequent descriptions are paraphrased:
from Plutarch (written 75 A.D.)
Translated by John Dryden
The Romans, not having those advantages of retreating and falling on as they pleased, which they had before, were obliged to fight man to man upon plain ground, and, being anxious to drive back the infantry before the elephants could get up, they fought fiercely with their swords among the Macedonian spears, not sparing themselves, thinking only to wound and kill, without regard to what they suffered.
After a long and obstinate fight, the first giving ground is reported to have been where Pyrrhus himself engaged with extraordinary courage; but they were most carried away by the overwhelming force of the elephants, not being able to make use of their valour, but overthrown as it were by the irruption of a sea or an earthquake, before which it seemed better to give way than to die without doing anything, and not gain the least advantage by suffering the utmost extremity, the retreat to their camp not being far.
Hieronymus says there fell six thousand of the Romans, and of Pyrrhus's men, the king's own commentaries reported three thousand five hundred and fifty lost in this action. Dionysius, however, neither gives any account of two engagements at Asculum, nor allows the Romans to have been certainly beaten, stating that once only after they had fought till sunset, both armies were unwillingly separated by the night, Pyrrhus being wounded by a javelin in the arm, and his baggage plundered by the Samnites, that in all there died of Pyrrhus's men and the Romans above fifteen thousand.
The armies separated; and, it is said, Pyrrhus replied to one that gave him joy of his victory that one other such would utterly undo him. For he had lost a great part of the forces he brought with him, and almost all his particular friends and principal commanders; there were no others there to make recruits, and he found the confederates in Italy backward. On the other hand, as from a fountain continually flowing out of the city, the Roman camp was quickly and plentifully filled up with fresh men, not at all abating in courage for the loss they sustained, but even from their very anger gaining new force and resolution to go on with the war.
Thus the term "Pyrrhic victory" entered Western idiom, a millennium before anything like the English language existed. Or, from another translation, published in Vol. IX of the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1920:
The two armies separated; and we are told that Pyrrhus said to one who was congratulating him on his victory, "If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined."
And that's where Hillary is. The blogosphere seems enraged at Hillary's sleazy tactics, which have continued, except that, like the Romans, more and more troops seem to be streaming to Obama, and Hillary's support is not increasing. She threw "the kitchen sink" at Obama, and, well, one more victory like this one and she shall be utterly ruined, methinks.
Consider how she's being characterized in the press. For example:
Obama likened to Kenneth Starr
Clinton campaign presses victim role
By Rick Pearson and John McCormick
CHICAGO TRIBUNE CORRESPONDENTS
March 7, 2008
CANTON, Miss. - Hillary Clinton's campaign furthered its efforts to portray her as a political victim Thursday when a top aide likened Barack Obama and his vow to take a new aggressive tone to Kenneth Starr, the Whitewater special counsel whose wide-ranging investigation of Bill Clinton's administration led to his impeachment.
Obama's campaign responded by accusing the Clinton camp of having a double standard when it comes to criticism...
Or this, today, from The Times (UK)
The Clintons, a horror film that never ends
Times Online, UK - 7 hours ago
They endure all sorts of humiliation – remember the taped Clinton deposition in the Ken Starr investigation (in which Clinton admitted to the inquiry headed ...
It seems ironic that the Clintons are reportedly, privately either contemptuous or dismissive of the "net roots" -- e.g. Daily Kos, the blogosphere, et al -- not understanding them, or, particularly, caring what the online community thinks.
Worse, her campaign has been openly dismissive of all the states that she hasn't WON.
Which has always seemed their problem: they are fighting the LAST war.
They are geared up to fight Karl Rove and George Bush in 2000, Bob Dole in 1996, Newt Gingrich in 1994, and NOT, significantly, the world of 2008.
Hillary is a princess phone, and is geared up for the politics of personal destruction, as practiced over the past three decades in Washington, D.C. attacking old dial phone John McCain and NOT iPhone Barack Obama. Indeed, she doesn't seem to have the slightest clue as to how he works. As CBS' Bob Schieffer characterized the Bush Administration after Katrina, Clinton's campaign has been like a dog watching television: Noises and pictures, but no idea what it all means.
This was never so apparent as it's been in her attacks on Obama.
Listen:
I think one is an ad hominem attack and one is a historical reference.
That was Hillary Clinton in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, today, when asked if there was a difference between ex-Obama advisor Samantha Power calling Hillary a "monster" and Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson calling Obama's request for Hillary to release her tax returns "Ken Starr" tactics.
A shameless double standard.
Now, does anyone believe that those who aren't yet committed aren't SEEING this?
The obsessive secrecy of the Clinton campaign seems to betray a paranoia going back to the first Clinton Administration:
The Obama campaign is returning to the issue of Clinton's secrecy today, after spending a conference call yesterday lambasting the lack of tax returns provided by the New York Senator. In a conference call, campaign manager David Plouffe had this today, via Politico:
"Behind closed doors, they're trying to prevent the American people from evaluating [Clinton's White House] experience," he said. "You have to wonder whether she'll be open and honest with the American people as president."He also noted, again, that Clinton doesn't need to wait until April 15 to release the last six years of tax returns.
Clinton is "one of the most secretive politicians in America today," he said.
Ironic that Hillary bases her claim of experience on time that she refuses to release the records of. ("I have a secret plan for ending the War." -- Nixon; "I have a secret period of government experience." - Clinton)
In addition to the issue of tax returns, the statements came as a response to a USA Today article reporting that the Clinton library was withholding information about pardons made near the end of President Clinton's tenure:
Federal archivists at the Clinton Presidential Library are blocking the release of hundreds of pages of White House papers on pardons that the former president approved, including clemency for fugitive commodities trader Marc Rich.The archivists' decision, based on guidance provided by Bill Clinton that restricts the disclosure of advice he received from aides, prevents public scrutiny of documents that would shed light on how he decided which pardons to approve from among hundreds of requests. (ibid.)
The victories on Tuesday seem to have "empowered" Hillary Clinton's campaign to ignore all rules, dispatch with all sense of shame and flog flagrant hypocrisy.
Now, like Pyrrhus, she has lost "supporters" in all of this, but has no way of replenishing them (unless there is a large, untapped demographic of "evil-but-uncommitted" Democrats that I'm unaware of). On the other hand, Obama seems to be picking up supporters if ONLY by negation: those Democrats sickened by these Rovian tactics, these distortions, hypocrisies, and flagrant attempts at cheating, pretending themselves the victims, and holding others to a standard that they themselves will not be held to.
You see, the American people are NOT as dumb as politicians and comedians seem to think that they are. If you were to be a fly on the wall at a local diner in Pig's Knuckle, Arkansas, I think you'd hear plenty of conversations focusing on the brazenness of the post-"victory" Clinton campaign, and the amazing forbearance of the Obama campaign in the face of astonishing provocation.
Given John McCain's legendary penchant for flying inappropriately off the handle, the victory in this endgame may well go to the candidate who can keep their cool.
And I think that we all know who THAT is, hands down.
Now, it is ironic that even normally mild-mannered Thom Hartmann thinks that Obama should take the gloves off and throw down with Clinton. The cynical journalists of a damned generation -- as one -- think thatObama needs to "get tough" and Swiftboat them right back.
Which says to me: they just don't get it. Obama is about saying "We're sick of that. No more of this divisive, paralyzing attack politics. America first, partisanship second."
To "throw down" in the manner that they describe is the antithesis of his message.
And so, he asked two legitimate questions.
- Why won't Hillary release her tax returns?
This led to the assinine and self-destructive "Ken Starr" comment. And
- What are Hillary Clinton's great "foreign policy" accomplishments?
This led to an almost insane claim that she's brought peace to Northern Ireland. I kid you not. According to The Washington Post's (incredibly kind) The Fact Checker:
Hillary Clinton has repeatedly cited her White House years as key to why she has the ability to serve as president from "Day One." Both she and her husband have pointed to her "independent" role in bringing peace to Northern Ireland as an example of her foreign policy experience. Her critics, notably former Clinton pollster Dick Morris, have poured scorn on her claim that she was "intimately involved" in the peace process. So who is right? [...]
The Pinocchio Test
Hillary Clinton seems to be overstating her significance as a catalyst in the Northern Ireland peace process, which was more symbolic than substantive. On the other hand, she did play a helpful role at the margins, by encouraging organizations like Vital Voices, a women's group that takes a stand against extremism. One Pinocchio for exaggeration.
This is, of course, embarrassingly kind. Hillary Clinton says she brought peace to Northern Ireland? If she hadn't played the "victim" card so artfully with the media, she'd have been laughed off the stage by now. (Give me a break, people!)
Seriously, do you think that the most vicious "Swiftboat" attack could have produced more tangible results than Obama's reasonable two questions? The pundits don't think so, but -- as I said -- that only proves that THEY DON'T GET IT.
And never have, evidently.
Wyoming's results seem to confirm this. Not only did Hillary AND Bill campaign there, but Obama kicked their ASSES by a huge and embarrassing margin -- 61% to 38%. I cannot but think that Tuesday's Pyrrhic victory played a role in it.
Finally, consider this Huffington Post blog from Gary Hart(the subject of Walter Mondale's "Red Phone" ad that Clinton plagiarized for her "a vote for Obama is a vote to kill your children in their sleep" ad):
Breaking the Final Rule
Posted March 7, 2008 12:45 PM (EST)
It will come as a surprise to many people that there are rules in politics. Most of those rules are unwritten and are based on common understandings, acceptable practices, and the best interest of the political party a candidate seeks to lead. One of those rules is this: Do not provide ammunition to the opposition party that can be used to destroy your party's nominee. This is a hyper-truth where the presidential contest is concerned.
By saying that only she and John McCain are qualified to lead the country, particularly in times of crisis, Hillary Clinton has broken that rule, severely damaged the Democratic candidate who may well be the party's nominee, and, perhaps most ominously, revealed the unlimited lengths to which she will go to achieve power. She has essentially said that the Democratic party deserves to lose unless it nominates her....
So tell me that Hillary's Tuesday showing wasn't a Pyrrhic victory. (Although, as Senator Hart notes, the last act of Samson comes to mind, as well.)
Go Wyo.
Courage.