Have you guys seen Hillary's latest attack on Bittergate? She is basically using the Republican framework. With no shame.
Her comments below the fold, but also, how can we help Obama?
"I was taken aback by the demeaning remarks Senator Obama made about people in small town America. Senator Obama's remarks are elitist and they are out of touch," Clinton told the factory workers. "They are not reflective of the values and beliefs of Americans. Certainly not the Americans that I know -- not the Americans I grew up with, not the Americans I lived with in Arkansas or represent in New York. You know, Americans who believe in the 2nd Amendment believe it's a matter of Constitutional rights."
She also pushed back when it came to Americans' faith and economic views. "Americans who believe in God believe it is a matter of personal faith," she said. "Americans who believe in protecting good American jobs believe it is a matter of the American Dream... The people of faith I know don't 'cling to' religion because they're bitter. People embrace faith not because they are materially poor, but because they are spiritually rich. Our faith is the faith of our parents and grandparents. It's a fundamental expression of who we are and what we believe."
"If we are striving to bring people together -- and I believe we should be --
I don't think it helps to divide our country into one America that is enlightened and one that is not
," she continued. "We know there is an unacceptable economic divide in America today, but that is certainly not the way to bridge it. The way to do that is to roll up our sleeves and get to work and make sure we provide, once again, economic opportunity and shared prosperity for all Americans. People don't need a president who looks down on them; they need a president who stands up for them. And that is exactly what I will do as your president. Because I believe if you want to be the president of all Americans, you need to respect all Americans and that starts with respecting our hard working Americans."
Alright. Let's isolate her comments and distill it to the essence, shall we? Which is this comment: I don't think it helps to divide our country into one America that is enlightened and one that is not.
That is quite simply the most rank, opportunistic, Republican framing I have ever seen... She is taking his comments and twisting them to their ugliest possible meaning. She is saying about him, what Republicans ALWAYS say about Democrats. But worse than all of that, she is stepping the line of what is acceptable in a primary.
Last week, when she was attacking him on the oil companies ad, I shrugged and said, well that's fair game. And it is. It's FINE for Hillary to campaign against Obama. He can handle it. He's a big boy. It's NOT fine for her to engage in these kinds of attacks. Because she is setting up the framework for the attacks the Republicans will use in the general election. This is back to the Tonya Harding strategy. Obama has a hard time with working class Democrats...so she is going to tell working class Democrats that he is elitist?? Is she working for John Mccain or WHAT? She has no chance to become the nominee so the only effect of this attack will be to make it harder for Obama to win these folks back.
Lastly, how we can help Obama with the pushback? So far all I could come up with was reaching out to the media. I have written a supportive e-mail of him to various news outlets (including bloggers like Ben Smith and Marc Ambinder, news outlets like all the MSNBC folks, the CNN contact page and various others) but I have no idea if that helps. I am also writing a letter to the editor and sending to some of my local papers.
I also sent Barack $25. Erm, anything else that you folks think we can and should do?