James Carville on Meet the Press

I didn't have a chance to launch it live, but another blog pointed me to a segment today were Tim Russert showed Carville Bill Clinton's speaking about the press picking on his wife about the sniper fire

Carville's response really surprised me.  He didn't even try to defend Hillary.  His entire response was talking about how much he loved Bill Clinton and how Bill was violating his own first rule of politics (everytime we make it about us it hurts us, everytime we make it about them, it helps us)

Here is a link to the clip:

Carville on Meet the Press

What surprised me even more was the segmet following that was a discussion about running mates.  Two of the other pundits talked about they thought would be a good choice for Obama (didn't even talk about Clinton). What shocked me was that Carville didn't even fight that the Democratic nominee would be Clinton.  He simply threw out a name (Some General who's name I didn't recognize) without making any fight for Clinton.  

It looked to me that Carville's loyalty doesn't extend to the ex-President's wife.

Meet the Press on Running Mates

•  MTP was a disgrace

  It pretty much always is, I know, but especially so this morning. You had Carville and Matalin and the other repub who are all three against Obama, and Shrum, who seemed to marginally favor him. That's fair for ya in the MSM.

  by demoKatz on Sun Apr 13, 2008 at 06:26:16 PM PDT

  •  yea that crew is getting old.

    Why don't they at least rotate others in there?

    by B P Pgh on Sun Apr 13, 2008 at 06:31:51 PM PDT

  •  And not one mention

    on MTP about the 17 service memebers we lost in Iraq this week.

    Instead Timmeh wants to talk about elitism.  

    by dannyinla on Sun Apr 13, 2008 at 07:19:11 PM PDT

  •  on the other hand

    You could say he had 3 dems and a gop (plus Tim is a Dem too). Just sayin' ...

    by ldaniels on Sun Apr 13, 2008 at 08:57:55 PM PDT

•  Carville was quick

  to agree with Obama that Indiana would be a "tie-breaker."  If Obama called Indiana, in any context, a tie-breaker, it was a dumb move.

  by bugscuffle on Sun Apr 13, 2008 at 06:29:57 PM PDT

  •  It's an awesome move

    What Obama has needed for the past month is an endgame. Making it all about IN gives him an endgame - make the press aware that when he wins IN he's the nominee.

    by sab39 on Sun Apr 13, 2008 at 06:35:12 PM PDT

    •  Are you nuts?

      It concedes a tie!  Obama is clearly winning, any way you look at it.

      by bugscuffle on Sun Apr 13, 2008 at 06:36:42 PM PDT

      •  I agree!

        It's so, so, so, so not a tie.

        by stefanielaine on Sun Apr 13, 2008 at 07:52:31 PM PDT

•  oh come on! lol

  are you kidding - Carville is fiercely loyal to both Clintons- is it even possible to differentiate between Two-for-One?
  I think Carville (God he looks like an evil lizard) is beginning to accept that HRC will not be the nominee. I noticed it too, the closest he could come was much better than the Clintons themselves have, in saying that he is by far a better choice than McCain.

  by ladygreenslippers on Sun Apr 13, 2008 at 06:32:55 PM PDT

  •  My mom drew a portrait

    of Carville using only straight lines.  It was pretty cool.

    by bugscuffle on Sun Apr 13, 2008 at 06:34:19 PM PDT

•  Carville...

  ...made several semi-pro-obama statements. I was surprised. He also continually laughed at the Hillary campaign while half-heartedly defending it.

  He seemed like a good democrat that will support either in the GE.

  by bradreiman on Sun Apr 13, 2008 at 06:33:51 PM PDT

  •  That and

    he probably can sense the way things are moving and he doesn't want to lose all his talking-head-cred by tying himself entirely to the Clinton wagon.

    Yes, I am cynical!

    by socratic on Sun Apr 13, 2008 at 06:43:41 PM PDT

    •  You know...

      ....I think he just might have had some second thoughts after the "Judas" melee. He has always been a good democrat and suddenly, this year, he was blindsided by Obama and forgot about the party.

      I for one am ready to welcome him back to the party if he repents his sins. I always really loved his fight.

      by bradreiman on Sun Apr 13, 2008 at 07:42:02 PM PDT

•  Carville...

  ...and his, umm, better half, have become more like a lounge act than political pundits.

  by boran2 on Sun Apr 13, 2008 at 06:36:43 PM PDT

•  Carville is not all bad

  he DID get Bill Clinton elected, who brought us many states we had never won before which we now win on a regular basis, and salvaged out image out of the Mondale/Dukakis mold, and the Kerry campaign did have him come aboard, only tho in the last few days, when it was too late. He is smart. The fact is, he was always gonna be close to the man who made his career, along with his wife. After 1992, campaigns all over the world wanted him, and all he does now is foreign politics. He DID spend 19 months getting him elected president of the USA, and much of that time with him and Hillary. He sees the writing on the wall. I think the Clintons are just staying in this just to keep face. Why would they ever go quietly? While yes, he was polarizing and we lost some Congressional seats, he brought our Presidential aspirations and long term image from the ground up. Now, more Americans trust us fiscally and foreign policy because they have contrasted Bush/GOP to a Dem admin past.  Losing the White House was an accepted fact of life before Bill Clinton. For that, they will not be pushed out of the race. They will stay in, and when the time comes, Hillary will bow out gracefully. It is simply a matter of pride.

  by deaniac20 on Sun Apr 13, 2008 at 06:53:46 PM PDT

  •  What??

    I think the Clintons are just staying in this just to keep face.

    Just to keep face?  They're pissing off 50% of the electorate and the Democratic party. Their negatives are going up daily.  How in the hell could that be considered saving face?

    While yes, he was polarizing and we lost some Congressional seats,

    Uh, the guy lost the house AND the senate that had been held by the Democrats for many years.  He did more than lose 'some' congressional seats.  Give your head a shake.

    by vernonbc on Mon Apr 14, 2008 at 03:38:43 AM PDT

    •  who cares about the seats

      if we didn't have a Democratic president, the 90's would have been much worse with GHW bush and Dan Quayle running the show. The Dems who lost seats were complacent with Reagan/Bush anyway.

      by deaniac20 on Mon Apr 14, 2008 at 10:20:14 AM PDT

•  Carville is an Ass

  Who feeds into dangerous Republican memes. He sat there on MTP and fed into Mary Matalin and the Republican strategist going on about Dukakis and Gore being elitist. The panel wound up using the term "sociologist" and "anthropologist" like a swear word.

  Hillary and Carville both, and even Shrum, are feeding this lie that intellectual is bad, that college educated is bad, and that it is bad to try and have a reasoned discourse about issues.

  Now Hillary is throwing out the word "San Francisco" as if it were a swear word being used by a Republican (she was sure happy to take their votes in the primary).

  Frankly, I think the mainstream media, Carville and Hillary have all shown their true colors. They won't rest until Democrats constantly spew the same ignorant bilge spilled by Bush.

  The media portrayed Gore and Dukakis as elitists, which to some degree they are. The difference is they were elitists who earned their status through education and hard work. Bush is an elitist.

  But somehow, saying ridiculously stupid things, not being able to tell Shia from Sunni, etc., etc. puts you in touch with the "working class" while having gone to Yale or Harvard and actually learned something is considered somehow bad.

  The fact is, Obama is right: the guns, gays, god etc. issue has been used to distract and play on people's bitterness, and Mary Matalin loves it and Carville is playing into it.

  If Hillary wins the nomination she will have legitimized the whole Republican meme. If she loses, she will have legitimzed it. And Carville is her chief facilitator.

  by Citizen Rat on Sun Apr 13, 2008 at 07:05:13 PM PDT

  •  there is a threshold

    of wording one cannot say. you cannot call people, say what people will pereive as calling them bitter and because of that, they care about gun rights and religion because that is how it will be spun, and sounds. Obama was talking political strategy, which sounds cynical to most. Realizing why the GOP memes are what they are is why Bill Clinton got elected, and why Gore beat a Republican in the popular vote, and Kerry almost took out an incumbent wartime president, who had no charisma, had horrid commercials. Don't give me the Perot meme, THATS a GOP meme in defiance of exit polls and polling opinion trends before both elections. We won and are competetive because we confronted the welfare loving meme and the soft-on-crime meme head on, and ended that one of the GOP. The fact is, Gore and Kerry didn't feel to most people like they were, or could connect on their level, as Bill Clinton could. If our candidates had talked to voters, not at them, and didn't reek of political cynicism, we'd have won 2000 clearly and won 2004.

    by deaniac20 on Sun Apr 13, 2008 at 07:24:50 PM PDT

  •  This kills me.

    Now Hillary is throwing out the word "San Francisco" as if it were a swear word being used by a Republican

    Hillary, who for years has been the face of high-end fund raising functions, whose campaign is going broke now because they've tapped out all their big donors, is making snide comments about Barack attending a fund raising function in California.  Her hypocrisy makes me ill.

    by vernonbc on Mon Apr 14, 2008 at 03:42:01 AM PDT