Yesterday, dailyhowler.com wrote well (in FRAMING CLINTON!) on liberal blogs' new and ‘self-destructive for Democrats’ trend to lie like Republicans about Hillary Clinton. This kind of crap about major Democrats has already for a decade and a half been the norm both at the Republican National Committee and in its loyal servant, the mainstream press.
But do we really have to imitate them? But the howler finds AMERICAblog and then Atrios employing radical distortions of what she recently said in order to fuel their Hillary attack pieces. And kos's Tuesday attack on Hillary in McAuliffe channels Tancredo, while Hillary doesn't regret war vote would have fit right in with those two reality-bending attacks.
Does this make any damn sense at all on liberal, ‘for the Dems’ blogs?
Here's the worst of kos's inaccuracy, accusing Hillary both of dishonesty and of being a Lieberman on Iraq:
The biggest news, however, is that Hillary Clinton has just stated, flat-out, that she does not regret her war vote. At the same time, she is still trying to campaign as though she is against the war, claiming that she wouldn't have started it, and that she would end it. Basically, it is the same thing we saw from Lieberman during the general election against Lamont: an absolute hawk trying to appear anti-war in order to pick up Democratic votes.
This type of dishonesty worked for Joe Lieberman in Connecticut, so who knows, it might work for Hillary.
First of all, kos says Hillary is dishonest on the Iraq war. That’s a very serious charge, for which you’d think the evidence would have to be pretty clear when the accusation is front-paged on a Democratic Party supportive blog.
Okay, so she says she doesn’t regret her vote authorizing the war. I think a common sense impression of what this means is that, knowing what she knew then, she would vote the same as she did. She simply doesn’t want to get into the what ifs.
But Kos apparently thinks this statement of non-regret contradicts her "claiming that she wouldn't have started it, and that she would end it." I just don’t get that: knowing what she knows now, she wouldn’t have started the war. That’s now, versus then, so where’s the contradiction or dishonesty?
I’m left to guess this ‘dishonesty’ is founded on past bad impressions of Hillary and reading her between the lines, perhaps unwittingly guided by Republican Party spin that permeates the mass media.
And, on the matter of whether she’s dishonest about whether ‘she would end it,’ Hillary did vote for Levin-Reed Amendment last June, which would have started a pullout by the end of 2006, though admittedly with an unspecified end date. Of course, unspecified end dates are the norm among leading Democratic Presidential candidates and potential candidates: Gore, Clark, and Obama also will not be tied down on when the last American soldier will be out of Iraq. (Edwards, however, is firm on withdrawal and admirably so). And yet we don’t hear any of those three guys accused of being "an absolute hawk trying to appear anti-war." In fact, and for what it’s worth, their positions on Iraq are generally admired here at dailykos.
So what gives? Why is Hillary a Lieberman for kos?
Those feelings, when based on basically nothing as is the case here, are exceptionally counterproductive for this Democratic Party supporting blog.
And finally yes, I realize we all wish Hillary were more personable, more liberal, and less well-funded by large corporations. But do those imperfections justify making up stuff about her that just ain't true?
For more on potential, former, and actual candidates’ positions on Iraq one place to go is my old diary, Presidential Candidates 2008: Positions on Iraq.