There is, at present, in the pro-Hillary blogosphere (No Quarter, Talk Left, Hillbuzz, hillaryis44) a continuing, and in some cases heightened effort to deliberately destroy Obama's campaign. These sites (especially No Quarter and Hillbuzz) have made it clear that they are not interested in Democratic victory. It's unclear they are even interested in a Clinton victory. What their official connection to the Clinton campaign is is unclear, though it does appear that some of them are more closely tied to Clinton's official campaign than the DailyKos or Huffington Post is to the Obama campaign. There is also a clear difference in the kinds of attacks promoted. The official agenda of these sites now appears to be that of deliberately trying to elect McCain, so as to make the Democrats and Obama "pay" for dissing Hillary.
Therefore, if Hillary really is going to come clean, support the party's nominee and work to get a Democrat elected she needs to send a message to Larry Johnson, hillbuzz, Hillaryis44 and her other "fan clubs."
That message needs to be the following:
- No more trying to create the image that Barack Obama is a scary Black man and that Michele Obama is Angela Davis. The job of all Democrats is to hit back against this kind of Republican attack. That means, no more rumors about non-existent video tapes (for example):
- Stop with Tony Rezko. There is no evidence at all that Obama had any involvement in Rezko's corruption. Obama returned Rezko's money. So stop saying (or implying by innuendo) that Patrick Fitzgerald is coming after Obama;
- No more sponsoring of "Democrats for McCain" or "Party Unity My Ass" bumper stickers and logos:
- McCain is not a friend to women or to feminists. Mccain is anti-choice. He wants to stay in Iraq. He is against Universal health care. On nearly any and every feminist legislative goal McCain will line up squarely against achieving these goals. Obama, as would any Democrat, will support at least many or most (if not all) goals. Obama is pro-choice. Obama wants to get out of Iraq.
- Stop with the "popular vote" and the "DNC stole the election." There is no way to compute a valid popular vote total in Democratic Primaries. Nobody won the popular vote. Both Clinton and Obama had and have strong bases of support. Their numbers are probably roughly equal. The DNC played by the rules and Obama won the nomination fair and square. There is no asterisk.
- Stop implying Obama is a sexist or that he ran a sexist campaign. Chris Matthews is condescending-of that there can be no doubt. His "will Hillary Obey?" comment was offensive-not to mention idiotic and peurile. But Chris Mathews is not in the tank for Obama. He spent weeks trying to bring Obama down on one single poorly worded comment.
If Clinton gives her supporters and base anything other than a direct, no nonsense message to stand down, it is not over. And unless and until she does that, anything else she says smacks of sheer disengenuity.