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Sally Meisner's Blog

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McCains constant Gaffes- (worthy of future reference)

By Sally - Jun 4th, 2008 at 7:01 pm EDT

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/04/mccains-day-marked-by-fal_n_105283.html

Sam Stein
The Huffington Post
McCain's Day Marked By False Statements And Gaffes
June 4, 2008 06:35 PM

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About Sam Stein
Sam Stein is a Political Reporter at the Huffington Post, based in Washington, D.C. Previously he has worked for Newsweek magazine, the New York Daily News and the investigative journalism group Center for Public Integrity. He has a masters from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and is a graduate of Dartmouth College. Sam can be reached at stein@huffingtonpost.com.

A series of misstatements and verbal gaffes hampered Sen. John McCain on the day that unofficially marked the beginning of his general election campaign against Barack Obama.

Appearing at a press conference in Louisiana on Wednesday, McCain claimed that he had supported "every investigation" into the flawed response to Hurricane Katrina, when, in fact, he had twice voted against creating a commission to inspect the tragedy.

The remark immediately bounced around political circles and websites. After all it was just a few months ago when McCain defended those very votes on the back of his campaign bush, casting them as part of a broader campaign against wasteful spending.

"I'm proud of my support of American citizens regarding the taxpayers," the Senator said in April. "I will not vote for projects and programs and bills that are laden with pork-barrel projects that waste taxpayers' dollars."

The entire episode elicited a scathing rebuttal from the Obama camp.

"Whether he simply wasn't aware of his voting record again or he was intentionally misleading the people of Louisiana, John McCain certainly isn't offering us 'leadership you can believe in,'" wrote aide Hari Sevugan. To which, McCain's aides accused Obama of negative campaigning, saying the Senator wasn't familiar with the specific votes and had always supported Senate investigations, just not commissions.

That trip-up, however, was mild in compared to the gaffe that happened earlier in the day, when McCain acknowledged he was not aware that Obama had introduced a bill that called for international divestment from Iran.

Reporter: Are you familiar with his disinvestment bill?
McCain: No, I am not familiar with it at all. I do not know if it passed the senate or had any hearing or anything else. I had, so, literally thousands and thousands pieces of legislation are proposed every year. I know what he did. He voted against the Iranian revolutionary guard being declared a terrorist organization.

The admission could prove damaging for a variety of reasons. For starters, Obama's bill, which passed overwhelmingly in the House of Representatives, is currently being held up in the Senate by Republican Sen. Richard Shelby. More significantly, two McCain surrogates, Sen. Joseph Lieberman and Rep. Eric Cantor, are co-sponsors of Obama's measure despite, on Wednesday, ripping the Illinois Democrat for not having the experience to deal with Iran.

But a more worrisome issue for the McCain campaign may just be that a theme is emerging, both within the media and political circles, that the Arizona Republican has a penchant for playing lose with the facts. Indeed, last week, McCain lost crucial news cycles after he falsely claimed that force levels in Iraq had been drawn down to pre-surge levels and then, instead of admitting he misspoke, said the whole thing was a debate over verb tense. This, in turn, came after the Senator claimed, again falsely, that Iran was training al-Qaeda in Iraq, when in fact the two groups are religious and political adversaries.

All told, the gaffes have provided Obama an opportunity to re-frame a man who is best known as a "straight talker," a image battle McCain can ill afford to lose.

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McCain steals Obama logo and message (for future reference)

By Sally - Jun 4th, 2008 at 6:55 pm EDT

An excellent link- will come in handy in the very near future.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/04/mccain-rips-off-obamas-sl_n_105266.html

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The Correction..... (as I vomit) from the mouth of a Republican....

By Sally - May 14th, 2008 at 11:29 pm EDT

Also listed in: Jensen Beach for Barack Obama 2008 | Saint Lucie and Martin County for Barack | Treasure Coast Citizens for Obama

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/13/rumsfeld-on-2006-election_n_101537.html

Jason Linkins
The Huffington Post
Rumsfeld On 2006 Election: "The Correction For That...Is An Attack"
May 13, 2008 01:55 PM

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About Jason Linkins
Jason Linkins is a Political Reporter at the Huffington Post, covering media and politics. He's based in Washington, DC. Previously, he wrote for HuffPo's Eat The Press, and has also contributed to DCist and Wonkette.

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An ongoing exploration of the documents related to the Pentagon's "message force multipliers" program has unearthed a clip of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld suggesting that America, having voted the Democrats back into Congressional power, could benefit from suffering another terrorist attack, and doing so in the presence of the very same military analysts who went on to provide commentary and analysis of the Iraq War.

As documented by Newsvine, it all went down at a valedictory luncheon Rumsfeld hosted for those analysts on December 12, 2006. Many of the "message force multipliers" named in the original New York Times piece were in attendance, including David L. Grange, Donald W. Sheppard, James Marks, Rick Francona, Wayne Downing, and Robert H. Scales, Jr. They were treated to an extraordinary conversation (Newsvine has highlights, the hour-long clip of which can be found here) with Rumsfeld, that included many jaw-dropping moments, such as Rumsfeld admitting that in Iraq, the U.S. "can't lose militarily, but...can't win by military means alone," an agreement that Iraq could use a Syngman Rhee-type dictator (because that's what democracy smells like!), and a lengthy passage where Rumsfeld jokingly offers a bottle of champagne to anyone who could kill Moqtada al Sadr. You sure don't see too many people joking on al Sadr these days!

But by far the most extraordinary part of this luncheon is the antipathy the gathered members exhibit toward the American people for having the temerity to vote the Democrats back into power. When Lt. Gen. Michael DeLong bemoans the lack of "sympathetic ears" on Capitol Hill, Rumsfeld offers that the American people lack "the maturity to recognize the seriousness of the threats." What's to be done? According to Rumsfeld, "The correction for that, I suppose, is [another] attack."

DELONG: Politically, what are the challenges because you're not going to have a lot of sympathetic ears up there.

RUMSFELD: That's what I was just going to say. This President's pretty much a victim of success. We haven't had an attack in five years. The perception of the threat is so low in this society that it's not surprising that the behavior pattern reflects a low threat assessment. The same thing's in Europe, there's a low threat perception. The correction for that, I suppose, is an attack. And when that happens, then everyone gets energized for another [inaudible] and it's a shame we don't have the maturity to recognize the seriousness of the threats...the lethality, the carnage, that can be imposed on our society is so real and so present and so serious that you'd think we'd be able to understand it, but as a society, the longer you get away from 9/11, the less...the less...

Less than a week ago, the Department of Defense did a document dump on their program to use retired military analysts as surrogates on network and cable news to pimp the administration line on the Iraq War - something we now know they did on at least 4,500 occasions. Over at TalkingPointsMemo, a thread has been opened for those who want to sift through the material and highlight key discoveries.

So far, dedicated TPM readers have unearthed a number of noteworthy finds, of which this audio recording of this luncheon is perhaps the most astounding.

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Tar Baby, are you serious???

By Sally - May 14th, 2008 at 11:20 pm EDT

Also listed in: Jensen Beach for Barack Obama 2008 | Saint Lucie and Martin County for Barack | Treasure Coast Citizens for Obama

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/14/gop-rep-uses-term-tar-bab_n_101793.html

GOP Rep. Uses Term 'Tar Baby' In Memo About Obama, Election
Politico | Daniel Libit | May 14, 2008 06:15 PM

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In a 20-page memo on GOP electoral woes, Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) repeatedly misspells Barack Obama's name - it's one R, congressman, not two -- and then manages to use the racially charged term "tar baby" in a paragraph about Obama and immigration.

"Remember," Davis writes, "Hispanic voters are a swing group in this election and future elections. John McCain, being from a border state, may be out of sync with many Republicans but he has standing among Hispanics. Barrack Obama has not made the sale to Hispanic voters. Thus, this issue is a tar baby for anyone who touches it, with land mines everywhere."

Read the whole story here.

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McCain's wife selling off millions, aye?

By Sally - May 14th, 2008 at 11:18 pm EDT

Also listed in: Treasure Coast Citizens for Obama | Saint Lucie and Martin County for Barack | Jensen Beach for Barack Obama 2008

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/14/cindy-mccain-sells-sudan_n_101767.html

Cindy McCain Sells Sudan-Related Investments
JIM KUHNHENN | May 14, 2008 09:13 PM EST |

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In this April 3, 2008 file photo, Cindy McCain, wife of Republican presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is shown in Jacksonville, Fla. Cindy McCain, whose husband has been a critic of the violence in Sudan, is selling off more than $2 million in mutual funds whose holdings include companies that do business in the African nation. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, file)

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WASHINGTON -- Cindy McCain, whose husband has been a critic of the violence in Sudan, sold off more than $2 million in mutual funds whose holdings include companies that do business in the African nation.

The sale on Wednesday came after The Associated Press questioned the investments in light of calls by John McCain, the likely Republican presidential nominee, for international financial sanctions against the Sudanese leadership.

McCain, who was campaigning in Ohio, said neither he nor his wife were aware of the Sudan-related holdings.

Last year, at least four presidential candidates divested themselves of similar holdings involving companies doing business in Sudan.

According to McCain's personal financial disclosure, Cindy McCain's investments include two mutual funds _ American Funds Europacific Growth fund and American Funds Capital World Growth and Income fund _ that are listed by the Sudan Divestment Task Force as targets for divestment.

"Those have been sold as of today," said McCain spokesman Brian Rogers. Both funds have holdings in Oil & Natural Gas Corp., an India-based company that does business in Sudan. The American Funds Capital World Growth & Income Fund also has holdings in Petrochina, a Chinese government-owned oil company with vast investments in Sudan.

Last year, in a speech on energy policy to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, McCain cited China's investments in Sudan as an example of regimes that survive off free-flowing petro dollars.

"The politics of oil impede the global progress of our values, and restrains governments from acting on the most basic impulses of human decency," he said. "There is only one reason China has opposed sanctions to pressure Sudan to stop the killing in Darfur: China needs Sudan's oil."

On Wednesday, Rogers said: "Senator and Mrs. McCain remain committed to doing everything possible to end the genocide in Darfur."

After touring a waste-reprocessing plant near Columbus, Ohio, described the American Funds as "one of the country's largest mutual funds."

"Obviously, we didn't know about it and I didn't know anything about it until I saw the story, because I don't have anything to do with her finances," he said. "But they divested as soon as it was brought to us."

For the McCains, the Sudan-related investments are among scores of different investments listed in his financial disclosure documents. Cindy McCain is heiress to a Phoenix-based beer distributing company whose fortune is in the $100 million range.

Sen. McCain is regularly ranked among the richest lawmakers in Congress, but under the terms of a prenuptial agreement, much of the family's assets are in Cindy McCain's name. While the disclosure reports provide the identity of income and assets held by candidates and their spouses, they only offer a range of the amount of the holding. Indeed, the report lists Cindy McCain's investments in the two mutual funds as simply "over $1,000,0000."

In tax returns he released last month, the Arizona senator reported a total income of $405,409 in 2007.

But Cindy McCain files separate tax returns which she has not made public. Last week, she said she would never make her returns public even if her husband becomes president.

Later Wednesday, the Democratic National Committee reiterated its call for Cindy McCain to release her tax returns. "The fact the McCain family was holding Sudan-related investments even as John McCain was out on the campaign trail calling for sanctions is a reminder of why the American people expect and deserve full disclosure from their elected officials," said DNC spokesman Damien LaVera.

McCain aides pointed out that the Sudan investments were contained in publicly disclosed data. John McCain on Wednesday also defended his wife's decision not to release her tax returns.

"When we file our (financial disclosure) report in the Senate, there's quite a bit of information in there," he said.

The Sudan-related investments illustrate the hazards for wealthy candidates whose vast holdings undergo thorough scrutiny during a presidential campaign.

A year ago, several presidential candidates divested themselves of Sudan-related holdings. Among them were Democrats Barack Obama and John Edwards and Republicans Sam Brownback and Rudy Giuliani.

In 2006, Brownback was among members of Congress who wrote 44 governors to urge them to divest their employee pension funds from businesses linked to Sudan. He is now serving as a top adviser to McCain's campaign.

At the time, Obama placed the total value of his divestitures at $180,000. The sales of the investments were recorded in their financial disclosures.

According to Giuliani's financial disclosure, he invested between $500,000 and $1 million in a Vanguard Wellington Fund. Data compiled by the Sudan Divestment Task Force shows that Vanguard Wellington has a small percentage of stock in Schlumberger Ltd., a French oil field services company that does business in Sudan.

Edwards sold stock he and his wife owned in Schlumberger for between $40,000 and $100,000. He also invested $50,000 to $100,000 in Evergreen Equity Income Fund, another fund identified by the divestment task force as having stock in Sudan-related companies.

"Considering Democrat candidates, including Barack Obama, had the very same type of holdings, it is the height of hypocrisy to attack Senator McCain and his family," said Republican National Committee spokesman Danny Diaz said.

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Little bit of news from Florida

By Sally - May 14th, 2008 at 11:15 pm EDT

Also listed in: Jensen Beach for Barack Obama 2008 | Saint Lucie and Martin County for Barack | Treasure Coast Citizens for Obama

http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2008/may/14/hobe-sound-edwards-delegate-supports-endorsement-o/

Hobe Sound Edwards delegate supports endorsement of Obama
By Jim Turner (Contact)
Originally published 06:39 p.m., May 14, 2008
Updated 06:39 p.m., May 14, 2008

Wife of former state Rep. Bob Allen running for Brevard County elections supervisor
Russ Lemmon: Sign of times: Candidates play various name games
Obama to campaign across Florida next week

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards' endorsement of former rival Barack Obama is fine with Florida Democratic Party delegate and Hobe Sound resident Linda Spisak.

"I would support Obama if that is what (Edwards) is saying that is what he wants us to do," Spisak said as news broke of Edwards's endorsement on Wednesday.

Spisak, 55, was selected by Democratic party members from Florida's 16th District in Congress to attend the national convention as a delegate in support of Edwards. She is obligated to vote for Edwards on the first round, but after that she would be a free agent.

She is the only delegate from Martin, St. Lucie or Indian River who had been designated for Edwards.

The Edwards endorsement comes the day after Clinton defeated Obama by more than 2-to-1 in West Virginia. The loss highlighted Obama's work to win over the "Hillary Democrats" -- white, working-class voters who also supported Edwards in large numbers before he exited the race. Edwards dropped out of the race after finishing third in the Florida primary.

Party members are still working on a plan for Florida's delegates to attend the convention.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Secret Memos Further Question Hillary's Honesty (another excellent read)

By Sally - May 8th, 2008 at 4:14 pm EDT

Also listed in: Jensen Beach for Barack Obama 2008 | Saint Lucie and Martin County for Barack | Treasure Coast Citizens for Obama

http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080508/NATION/602407036/1001

Once-secret memos question Clinton's honesty
By Jerry Seper
May 8, 2008

A decade before Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton admitted fudging the truth during the presidential campaign, federal prosecutors quietly assembled hundreds of pages of evidence suggesting she concealed information and misled a federal grand jury about her work for a failing Arkansas savings and loan at the heart of the Whitewater probe, according to once-secret documents that detail the internal debates over whether she should have faced criminal charges.

Ordinarily, such files containing grand jury evidence and prosecutors' deliberations are never made public. But the estate of Sam Dash, a lifelong Democrat who served as the ethics adviser to Whitewater Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr, donated his documents from the infamous 1990s investigation to the Library of Congress after his 2004 death, unwittingly injecting into the public domain much of the testimony and evidence gathered against Mrs. Clinton from former law partners, White House aides and other witnesses.

The documents, reviewed by The Washington Times, identify numerous instances in which prosecutors questioned Mrs. Clinton's honesty, an issue that continues to dog her on the campaign trail after she was forced to acknowledge earlier this year exaggerating a story about coming under sniper fire as first lady during a visit to Bosnia in 1996.

For instance, the papers say prosecutors thought Mrs. Clinton first concealed her legal representation of Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan Association -- and the money she made doing it -- during the 1992 presidential campaign when she and her husband, then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, came under fire in a questionable Arkansas real estate project known as Whitewater.

Beginning in March 1992 and continuing over the next several years, Mrs. Clinton steadfastly denied that she ever "earned a penny" in representing her Rose Law Firm clients, including the failing thrift's owners, James and Susan McDougal -- the Clintons' partners in the Whitewater Development Corp. project.

But the newly discovered records, more than 1,100 pages in 30 separate documents, tell a different story.

A June 1998 draft indictment of Mrs. Clinton's Rose firm partner Webster L. Hubbell, who followed the Clintons to Washington in 1993 as associate attorney general, said Mrs. Clinton did legal work for Madison "continuously" from April 1985 to July 1986. It also said she represented the thrift before the Arkansas Securities Department for approval to issue preferred stock, helped Madison obtain a questionable broker-dealer license to sell the stock and was actively involved in a failed Madison project known as Castle Grande.

The draft indictment clearly asserts that Mrs. Clinton, despite her denials, represented Madison and its projects "in a series of real estate and financial transactions." A separate 183-page report included in the Dash documents said Mr. Hubbell and Mrs. Clinton "concealed from federal investigators the true nature of their work" with Madison and its various entities.

Clinton campaign spokesman Jay Carson disputed the allegations.

"This is a baseless accusation which was looked into over a decade ago in an investigation that took $71.5 million and eight years to determine there was no case," he said.

But exit polls from Tuesday's North Carolina and Indiana primaries found that about half of the voters in each state said they didn't find Mrs. Clinton "honest and trustworthy."

Mrs. Clinton misspoke in March when she claimed she had come under sniper fire during a trip to Bosnia in 1996. She said she and her daughter, Chelsea, ran for cover under hostile fire shortly after her plane landed in Tuzla. She later admitted to making a "mistake."

The Library of Congress documents have not been released publicly. A library official said they are still be "processed."

In April 1998, Whitewater prosecutors, divided over Mrs. Clinton's truthfulness, argued over whether to indict her on charges of lying under oath about her legal work for Madison. Lawyers and others close to the probe said a draft indictment of the first lady became "a work in progress" after Mrs. Clinton's January 1996 grand jury appearance in U.S. District Court in Washington.

Prosecutors concluded at the time, the sources said, that she had testified falsely in denying doing legal work in the Castle Grande venture.

"There is concern among some about how successful they might be in bringing a criminal indictment against Mrs. Clinton for obvious reasons, but there is no lack of desire to do so," one lawyer familiar with the probe said at the time. The lawyer said the decision rested on two major points: whether there was sufficient evidence to contradict her sworn testimony and, more importantly, whether prosecutors could win the case in court.

No indictment was sought, but Whitewater prosecutors noted at the time, according to the Dash documents, that sworn statements by Mrs. Clinton were contradictory and misleading and that her involvement with Madison"s failed real estate project known as Castle Grande project was only fully detailed with the discovery of her Rose firm billing record summaries in the White House living quarters in January 1996 -- two years after they had been subpoenaed.

A week before the summaries were found, the Resolution Trust Corp. (RTC) said in a Dec. 28, 1995, report it had little information on Mrs. Clinton's ties to Madison or Castle Grande. After their discovery, the agency concluded Mrs. Clinton was more involved with the two entities than was previously known.

The summaries said Mrs. Clinton billed Madison for 60 hours of legal work, spoke with Madison officials about the Castle Grande project on 14 occasions, discussed legal matters with Madison's owners -- the McDougals -- 16 times, had 28 meetings with Rose firm lawyers on Madison, and met with state regulators about Madison at least twice.

At the time, Madison was seeking help from Mrs. Clinton's Rose Law Firm in Little Rock to fend off state and federal regulators concerned that the thrift was insolvent. Madison also wanted to jump-start a questionable preferred stock deal to pump much-needed cash into the operation and was desperate to keep the government from shutting it down.

In December 1995, the Senate Whitewater Committee also made public handwritten notes of a telephone conversation that contradicted assertions made by Mrs. Clinton during the 1992 presidential race that she had little participation in the legal representation of Madison when state and federal regulators were deciding whether to shut it down.

The notes, by New York lawyer Susan Thomases, one of the first lady's closest advisers, said Mrs. Clinton had numerous conferences with officials at Madison, that she reviewed documents, that she made calls to discuss a preferred stock plan aimed at keeping the failing thrift afloat, and that "she did all the billing."

The committee released 350 pages of Madison files that said Mrs. Clinton, according to the billing summaries, had made significant claims on the thrift for legal services, and at one point was listed exclusively as the billing attorney. The summary is all that remains, since the original Rose firm billing records for Madison disappeared.

In May 1995, as the Whitewater investigation expanded into separate probes by Senate and House committees, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), the RTC and a federal grand jury, Mrs. Clinton denied in sworn affidavits any knowledge of a Madison real estate project known as Castle Grande, saying she had "no recollection" of doing legal work for the 1,050-acre development.

Madison was closed in 1989 at a cost to taxpayers of $70 million. Castle Grande failed at a taxpayers' loss of $4 million.

Another major area of concern, authorities said, was an option agreement regulators said "facilitated" a questionable $300,000 payment to Seth Ward, the Madison official to whom Mrs. Clinton had spoken about Castle Grande. The agreement was written by Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Hubbell and guaranteed Mr. Ward a payoff and negated his liability in the project. While the option was never exercised, it disguised the reason for the payment and created a paper trail to justify the outlay to Mr. Ward, who was Mr. Hubbell's father-in-law.

Mrs. Clinton told the RTC in May 1995 she had no memory of providing legal services for Mr. Ward and said in a sworn statement she did not know the Castle Grande name, thinking the project was called IDC even though the Castle Grande name was widely associated with the site.

Not truthful

According to the Dash documents on Whitewater, investigators also challenged Mrs. Clinton's public statements on what she knew at the time of Mr. Hubbell's March 1994 Justice Department resignation. Mrs. Clinton told reporters she thought he quit over an "internal billing dispute" with his former Rose firm partners that "likely would be resolved."

But the records said that three months before the resignation, Mrs. Clinton had been told by another Rose firm partner, Allen Bird, that Mr. Hubbell's "billing problems were very serious" and documents released during the Senate Whitewater hearings in 1996 said that two weeks before Mr. Hubbell resigned, Mrs. Clinton was notified formally that her former law partner was involved in a conflict-of-interest investigation and he might have lied in a sworn statement to federal regulators.

The Dash records also state that Mr. Hubbell's extensive role in a conflict in the Rose firm's representation of Madison and his testimony under oath to the RTC had meticulously been described in a March 1, 1994, memo written by White House Associate Counsel W. Neil Eggleston and forwarded to Mrs. Clinton by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Harold Ickes.

The records said Mr. Eggleston's seven-page memo described concerns by the RTC and the FDIC on whether the Rose firm had disclosed its prior legal representation of Madison in an FDIC lawsuit against the thrift's former auditors and whether Mr. Hubbell had disclosed his relationship with Mr. Ward in Castle Grande.

Mr. Eggleston's memo, according to the records, said the RTC had concluded the Rose firm disclosed neither the prior representation nor Mr. Hubbell's relationship, noting that an "ultimate finding" of nondisclosure would mean that "Mr. Hubbell was not truthful in his recollection." Mr. Eggleston said a finding against the firm would mean that it was "permanently barred from any further work for the RTC or the FDIC (and possibly other banking regulators.)"

He also said that while it was "not clear" whether the FDIC or the RTC would review the accusations under an actual conflict standard, there was the possibility of sanctions in the case, including "criminal liability," the records said.

The records also said Whitewater investigators were concerned that Mrs. Clinton played a key role in helping Mr. Hubbell obtain consulting contracts after his March 14, 1994, Justice Department resignation.

In a report titled "Hubbell Hush Money Summary," Whitewater investigators said that a day before Mr. Hubbell quit, Mrs. Clinton and other top administration officials met privately at the White House to arrange for him to receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees at a time his cooperation in the Whitewater probe could have resulted in charges against the then-first lady.

The records said Mrs. Clinton took an active role in White House efforts to "take care of" Mr. Hubbell financially, helping to locate campaign supporters who divvied up more than $450,000 over the next nine months mostly for consulting work he never did.

In 1997, Mr. Starr subpoenaed White House records to determine whether the consulting fees were intended to guarantee Mr. Hubbell's silence in the Whitewater probe. Mr. Starr also wanted to know whether the White House had sought or directed the payments.

An Oct. 22, 1998, report said Mr. Hubbell's fees were arranged through "high administration officials or advisors," including Mrs. Clinton, whom was described as "the direct impetus for at least one client." Others who helped were identified as White House Chief of Staff Thomas F. "Mack" McLarty; former Democratic National Committee Chairman Truman Arnold; Washington lawyer Vernon Jordan; Small Business Administration Chairman Erskine Bowles, a former White House chief of staff; and U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor, the Clinton-Gore campaign chairman in 1992 who later served as commerce secretary.

An April 21, 1998, report questioned why White House officials would choose to "support Hubbell and take care of him" at a time "[Mrs. Clinton] was on notice that Hubbell engaged in a widespread pattern and practice of cheating the [Rose Law Firm]." The report said a "sinister reason" could be Mr. Hubbell knew about Mrs. Clinton's role in doing legal work for Madison and other related companies.

A May 21, 1997, memo, noted that most of the company officials who paid him consulting fees said no work product was ever produced. The report said one employer told investigators the only document Mr. Hubbell produced was "his bill."

Mr. Hubbell pleaded guilty in December 1994 to mail fraud and income-tax evasion in the theft of $482,410 from his Rose firm clients and partners and failing to pay $143,747 in taxes. He was sentenced to 21 months in prison, serving 16 before being released.

The Whitewater probe ended on March 21, 2002, when Independent Counsel Robert W. Ray, who succeeded Mr. Starr, concluded in a final report there was "insufficient evidence" to bring charges against the Clintons. But the report also said statements by the Clintons to investigators were "factually inaccurate" and that White House delays in the production of evidence and the "unmeritorious litigation" by its lawyers "severely impeded the investigation's progress."

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Obama's Army of Small Donors (excellent read)

By Sally - May 8th, 2008 at 3:56 pm EDT

Also listed in: Jensen Beach for Barack Obama 2008 | Saint Lucie and Martin County for Barack | Treasure Coast Citizens for Obama

http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/254/story/317383.html

The people in Obama's army of small donors

By NANCY BENAC - Associated Press Writer --

WASHINGTON --Kriss Riggs isn't one to spend her money on politicians.

"Even the place you can donate a dollar on your taxes, I refuse to do it," says the 60-year-old photographer from Blue River, Ore.

Likewise for Kate Schwartz, a 24-year-old marketing expert from Chicago. Past elections, she says, always seemed far removed from young people.

"A lot of people felt like it wasn't happening in my demographic," Schwartz said.

Not this time.

Riggs and Schwartz are foot soldiers in Barack Obama's 1.5-million-strong army of campaign contributors. Dozens of Associated Press interviews with donors, and an AP financial analysis show how contributions that make only a soft ca-ching by themselves, arriving in increments of $10, $15 and $50, have collectively swelled into a financial roar that has helped propel Obama toward the Democratic president nomination.

Altogether, Obama's campaign has taken in an unprecedented $226 million, most of it contributed online. His donor base is larger than the one the Democratic National Committee had for the 2000 election.

These are hardly political fat cats. Ninety percent of his donors give $100 or less, and 41 percent have given $25 or less, according to the Obama campaign. Overall, he has raised 45 percent of his money in small contributions. Hillary Rodham Clinton's figure is 30 percent, Republican John McCain's is 23 percent.

Riggs and Schwartz are examples of how Obama has become a financial colossus: Neither had given money to a candidate before; both have donated to him more than once; both expect to continue giving. And, just as significantly, they've gone on to help the campaign in other ways, staffing phone banks and canvassing neighborhoods.

In interviews with small donors around the country, the same message comes through: These donors feel they've taken ownership. They believe they're helping to set Obama free from the tug of big-money corporations and special interests.

Says Aaron Alpern, a 46-year-old actor from Chicago: Donors like him "don't have the pull of a gigantic corporation, but we have sort of the reverse - we give him freedom."

An AP analysis helps to fill in the portrait of Obama's small donors.

They are more broadly dispersed than Clinton's. People whose small contributions to Obama add up to at least $200 can be found in more than 14,000 ZIP codes nationwide, compared with a little less than 12,000 for Clinton, and less than 9,000 for McCain. Conversely, the 10 ZIP codes that contributed the most to Clinton's campaign account for more than 15 percent of her total contributions, while Obama's top 10 ZIP codes account for less than 5 percent of his take. McCain's top 10 ZIP codes account for just over 11 percent of his total.

Obama, a magnet for younger voters, is cashing in on that phenomenon. Among small donors, students have given $303,000 to him, compared with less than $100,000 to Clinton and less than $20,000 to McCain.

Campaigns are not required to disclose detailed information on donors who contribute less than $200, so little is known about the smallest givers. But campaigns do report information on small donors once their combined contributions top the $200 mark.

Associated Press writers Ann Sanner, Christine Simmons, David Pace and database editor Troy Thibodeaux contributed to this report.

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Full Webcast of Meet The Press 5/4/08

By Sally - May 4th, 2008 at 4:09 pm EDT

Also listed in: Jensen Beach for Barack Obama 2008 | Saint Lucie and Martin County for Barack | Treasure Coast Citizens for Obama

I missed it- it was great, here's the link for any others who missed it also-

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/24452804#24452804

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Bill Ayers, Spread this blog.

By Sally - Apr 20th, 2008 at 9:16 pm EDT

Also listed in: Jensen Beach for Barack Obama 2008 | Saint Lucie and Martin County for Barack | Treasure Coast Citizens for Obama

http://billayers.wordpress.com/2008/04/06/episodic-notoriety-fact-and-fantasy/

Episodic Notoriety-Fact and Fantasy

Day in and day out I go about my business, I hang out with my kids and my grandchildren, take care of the elders, I go to work, I teach and I write, I organize and I participate in the never-ending effort to build a powerful movement for peace and social justice; now and then (and unpredictably) I appear in the newspapers or on TV with a reference to my book Fugitive Days, a memoir of the revolutionary action and militant resistance to the Viet Nam War--the years of miracle and wonder--and some fantastic assertions about what I did, what I said, and what I believe. The other night, for example, I heard Sean Hannity tell Senator John McCain that I was an unrepentant terrorist who had written an article on September 11, 2001 extolling bombings against the U.S., and even advocating more terrorist bombs. Senator McCain couldn't believe it, and neither could I.

My e-mail and my voice-mail filled up with hate, as happens, mostly men with too much time on their hands I imagined, all of them venting and sweating and breathing heavily, a few threats--"Watch out!"; "You deserve to be shot"; and from satan@hell.com, "I'm coming to get you and when I do, I'll waterboard you"--all of it wildly uninformed. I've written a lot about the Viet Nam period, about politics, about schools and social justice, and I read and speak about all of it. I encourage people to argue, to agree or disagree, to discuss and struggle, to engage in conversation. I believe deeply in the pedagogical possibilities of dialogue--of listening with the possibility of being changed, and of speaking with the possibility of being heard--and I believe in revitalizing the public square, resisting the eclipse of the public and expanding the public space, searching for a more robust and participatory democracy. Talking to one another can help.

So in that spirit here is another attempt at clarity:

1. Regrets. I'm often quoted saying that I have "no regrets." This is not true. For anyone paying attention--and I try to stay wide-awake to the world around me all/ways--life brings misgivings, doubts, uncertainty, loss, regret. I'm sometimes asked if I regret anything I did to oppose the war in Viet Nam, and I say "no, I don't regret anything I did to try to stop the slaughter of millions of human beings by my own government." Sometimes I add, "I don't think I did enough." This is then elided: he has no regrets for setting bombs and thinks there should be more bombings.

The illegal, murderous, imperial war against Viet Nam was a catastrophe for the Vietnamese, a disaster for Americans, and a world tragedy. Many of us understood this, and many tried to stop the war. Those of us who tried recognize that our efforts were inadequate: the war dragged on for a decade, thousands were slaughtered every week, and we couldn't stop it. In the end the U.S. military was defeated and the war ended, but we surely didn't do enough.

2. Terror. Terrorism--according to both official U.S. policy and the U.N.--is the use or threat of random violence to intimidate, frighten, or coerce a population toward some political end. This means, of course, that terrorism is not the exclusive province of a cult, a religious sect, or a group of fanatics. It can be any of these, but it can also be--and often is--executed by governments and states. A bombing in a café in Israel is terrorism, and an Israeli assault on a neighborhood in Gaza is terrorism; the September 11 attacks were acts of terrorism, and the U.S. bombings in Viet Nam for a decade were acts of terrorism. Terrorism is never justifiable, even in a just cause--the Union fight in the 1860's was just, for example, but Shernan's March to the Sea was indefensible terror. I've never advocated terrorism, never participated in it, never defended it. The U.S. government, by contrast, does it routinely and defends the use of it in its own cause consistently.

3. Imperialism. I'm against it, and if Sean Hannity and others were honest, this is the ground they would fight me on. Capitalism played its role historically and is exhausted as a force for progress: built on exploitation, theft, conquest, war, and racism, capitalism and imperialism must be defeated and a world revolution--a revolution against war and racism and materialism, a revolution based on human solidarity and love, cooperation and the common good--must win.

We begin by releasing our most hopeful dreams and our most radical imaginations: a better world is both possible and necessary. We need to bring our imaginations together and forge an unbreakable human alliance. We need to unite to transform and save ourselves as we fight to change the world and save humanity.

This entry was posted on April 6, 2008 at 6:38 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Clinton Aide Met on Trade Deal Clinton Opposes

By Sally - Apr 4th, 2008 at 10:33 am EDT

Also listed in: Jensen Beach for Barack Obama 2008 | Saint Lucie and Martin County for Barack | Treasure Coast Citizens for Obama

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120726769569388303.html?mod=hps_us_whats_news

The Wall Street Journal

Clinton Aide Met on Trade Deal
Penn Held Talks
On Colombia Pact
Opposed by Senator
By SUSAN DAVIS
April 4, 2008; Page A3

Hillary Clinton's chief campaign strategist met with Colombia's ambassador to the U.S. on Monday to discuss a bilateral free-trade agreement, a pact the presidential candidate opposes.

Attendance by the adviser, Mark Penn, was confirmed by two Colombian officials. He wasn't there in his campaign role, but in his separate job as chief executive of Burson-Marsteller Worldwide, an international communications and lobbying firm. The firm has a contract with the South American nation to promote congressional approval of the trade deal, among other things, according to filings with the Justice Department. (Please see related article.)

Clinton strategist and public-relations specialist Mark Penn, pictured here after a Democratic debate in New Hampshire in January, met this week with Colombia's ambassador to discuss a bilateral trade deal.
Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, Mr. Penn's campaign-consulting firm, received more than $10 million in payments from the Clinton campaign as of the end of February, according to federal election filings.

Mr. Penn declined to comment. Howard Wolfson, communications director for Sen. Clinton's campaign, said in an email that "Mark was not there on behalf of the campaign" and referred further questions to Burson-Marsteller. "Sen. Clinton's opposition to the trade deal with Colombia is clear," Mr. Wolfson added.

A Burson-Marsteller spokesman didn't return calls or emails seeking comment.

A spokesman for Colombia's President Álvaro Uribe said the ambassador met with Mr. Penn to discuss the bilateral agenda. "There have also been meetings with the advisers to the campaigns of Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain," he said. "It's the embassy's job to explain Colombia's reality."

The spokesman said he didn't know if Mr. Penn was representing Sen. Clinton or Burson-Marsteller, which signed a $300,000, one-year contract with the Colombian Embassy in March 2007 to work on behalf of the trade deal and anti-drug-trafficking initiatives, according to the Justice Department filings.

A spokesman for Sen. McCain, the likely Republican presidential nominee, said a team of policy advisers met recently with 20 Latin American ambassadors, including Colombia's. An Obama spokesman and the Colombian Embassy spokeswoman both said the Colombian ambassador had never met with an Obama representative.

Both Democratic presidential candidates have taken criticism for positions and private statements of their advisers on trade and other matters.

Sen. Clinton's victory last month in Ohio was credited in part to reports that Sen. Obama's economic adviser had raised doubts with Canadian officials over Sen. Obama's opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement.

As the fight turns to the April 22 Pennsylvania primary, both Democrats continue to campaign against trade agreements.

"We've got to have new trade policies before we have new trade deals," Sen. Clinton told the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO on Tuesday. "That includes no trade deal with Colombia while violence against trade unionists continues in that country."

Sen. Obama also opposes that deal.

The spokeswoman for the Colombian Embassy, Sandra Ocampo Kohn, confirmed Thursday that Mr. Penn met Monday with Ambassador Carolina Barco Isakson, as talks have intensified over passage of the trade deal. Ms. Kohn said she wasn't authorized to provide details.

President Bush has signaled that he could send the trade deal to Congress next week despite opposition from congressional Democrats and labor unions.

It is unclear how involved Mr. Penn has been in promoting the trade deal. Ms. Kohn said another Burson-Marsteller employee, Jano Cabrera, has been the primary contact with the firm on the communications strategy to promote the trade agreement.

Burson-Marsteller is part of an outside effort working on behalf of the Colombian government that includes Glover Park Group and Johnson, Madigan Peck, Boland & Stewart, both of which are contracted to lobby for Colombia on behalf of the deal, Ms. Kohn said.

Mr. Penn has been scrutinized over the dual roles he holds with his firm and the Clinton campaign. Burson-Marsteller's contract advising the Colombian government is one of several examples of the firm advising clients on causes Sen. Clinton has opposed.

--José de Córdoba contributed to this article.

Write to Susan Davis at susan.davis@wsj.com

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Loyal Clinton Supporter Turns in His Badge (AN excellent Article!)

By Sally - Mar 10th, 2008 at 7:10 am EDT

Also listed in: Jensen Beach for Barack Obama 2008 | Saint Lucie and Martin County for Barack | Treasure Coast Citizens for Obama

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-grahamesmith/the-monster-a-loyal-clin_b_90632.html

The Monster: A Loyal Clinton Soldier Turns in His Badge
Posted March 9, 2008 | 03:37 PM (EST)

She has no idea how many times I defended her. How many right-leaning friends and relatives I battled with. How many times I played down her shady business deals and penchant for scandals -- whether it was Whitewater, Travelgate, Vince Foster, Cattle Futures, Web Hubbell, or Norman Hsu. She has no idea how frequently I dismissed her husband's serial adultery as an unfortunate trait of an otherwise brilliant man. For sixteen years, I was a proud soldier in the legion of "Clinton apologists" -- who believed that peace and prosperity were more important than regrettable personality traits.

And then she ran for president.

After seven years of George W. Bush, America is hungry for change. Big change. And let's face it -- Hillary Clinton, the party standard-bearer and former White House denizen -- isn't it. But even after voters coalesced around Barack Obama, handing him eleven straight primaries (twelve, if you count Vermont), she refused to accept the possibility -though math, money and momentum were clearly against her -- that the Bush/Clinton Family Band might not be #1 on America's Billboard chart anymore.

So, rather than step aside and become the hero of her party, she made a strategy decision to go negative in advance of Ohio and Texas. Not just negative -- personal. She cynically chided Mr. Obama's message of hope. She played the victim card. The gender card. The Muslim card. She cried "shame on you, Barack Obama" for his campaign tactics, while (if we're to believe Matt Drudge) simultaneously floating a picture of him in Somali garb to stir up questions of his patriotism.

She accused Mr. Obama of his own shady business deals (the irony of which nearly ripped a hole in the fabric of space/time). She accused him of being two-faced on NAFTA, when it was her campaign that had winked at the Canadians. She demanded that he "reject" the endorsement of Louis Farrakhan, but remained silent when Rush Limbaugh stirred up votes for her in Texas. And she crafted the now-infamous "3am" attack ad -- which used scare tactics to highlight Senator Obama's perceived lack of experience in foreign affairs. Straight out of the ol' Atwater/Rove playbook. Of course, all of this paled in comparison to her husband's patronizing, racially insensitive comments earlier in the primary season.

Was this the same Hillary Clinton whose husband ran on the idea that hope was more powerful than fear? The wife of a president who had less foreign policy experience than Barack Obama when he was elected? And exactly which crisis is she referring to when she claims to have more experience? And while we're at it, where the hell are those tax returns?

It's clear that Hillary's back in this thing, at least for the time being. But at what cost? Short of some cataclysmic event, there's no way either she or Mr. Obama can reach 2,025 delegates in the remaining contests. That means she's accepted the inevitability of a brokered convention. A convention she'll almost certainly enter with fewer delegates than her opponent. That raises some important questions:

Will she subvert the will of the voters? Will she turn Denver into a series of shady back-room deals and arm twisting? Will she dispatch her husband to pressure superdelegates into switching allegiances at the last minute? Are we in for, as one pundit put it, a good ol' fashioned "knife fight?"

And if she does manage to secure the nomination, what about the scores of disenfranchised Obama supporters (many of them young people with little loyalty to the Democratic Party)? How will she bring them back into the tent? Hillary seems confident that this can be remedied by offering Mr. Obama a spot on her ticket. Really? And what would his motivation be for accepting? Playing third-fiddle to Bill?

However, if Mr. Obama goes on to secure the nomination, she'll have handed his rival a treasure trove of sound bites. All John McCain has to do between August and November is play clips of Hillary questioning Obama's experience and belittling his platitudes. In a way, she'll have become Mr. McCain's second running mate.

She's proven that she cares more about "Hillary" than "unity." More about defeating Obama than defeating the Republicans. She's become a political suicide-bomber, happy to blow herself to bits -- as long as she takes everyone else with her.

On Friday, one of Barack Obama's foreign policy advisors, Samantha Power, resigned after calling Senator Clinton "a monster" during an off-the-record exchange. It was an unfortunate slip, but one that echoed the sentiments of many Clinton apologists like me -- who've watched Hillary's descent into pettiness and fear-mongering with the heartbreak of a child who grows up to realize that his beloved mother has been a terrible person all along.

Are the conservatives right about the Clintons? Will they do and say anything to get elected?

I don't know.

All I know is...I'm through apologizing.

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Clinton's Got Money from Rezko Co-Defendants

By Sally - Mar 10th, 2008 at 6:56 am EDT

Also listed in: Jensen Beach for Barack Obama 2008 | Saint Lucie and Martin County for Barack | Treasure Coast Citizens for Obama

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/3/6/123948/7839/356/470517

Clintons got money from Rezko co-defendants
by First Amendment
Thu Mar 06, 2008 at 10:59:18 AM PDT
"You reap what you sow."

The vetting of the Clinton's is just beginning. This was a risky strategy by the Clinton's in the first place, because the boomerang effect will expose much more of their shenanigans to the American people.

Hey, but they wanted this vetting process right?

The MSM needs to start reporting truthfully about Rezko's influence. His network of corrupt associates touched many politicians and operatives, including the Clinton's and their supporters.

First Amendment's diary :: ::
http://www.margieburns.com/...

Since the name of Chicago defendant Antoin 'Tony' Rezko has come up in national debate, it seems fair to look at donations from other defendants in Chicago's "Operation Board Games."

Of the other five defendants, three have donated to the Clintons or to Clinton supporters, three have donated mostly to Republicans, and at least two have donated to Obama's political opponents. None have donated to Obama.

Rezko's trial is scheduled to begin March 3. The legal cases comprise several indictments of Chicago political and business figures on multiple counts of fraud, extortion and kickbacks. Rezko's co-defendants include Chicago businessman Stuart Levine; construction executive and Chicago Medical School trustee Jacob Kiferbaum, who is cooperating with the investigation, and Bear Stearns executive P. Nicholas Hurtgen; and attorneys Joseph Cari and Steven Loren, doing business for the Teachers' Retirement System. Mr. Loren has not been a significant donor.

Meanwhile--

That Rezko donated over the years like a political junkie, and may have been one, has already been written about by Buzzflash. Rezko himself gave mostly to Dems, with the largest amts going to central committees, other donations to national figures incl GWBush ($4000), and frequent contributions over the years to IL politicians incl Rod Blagojevich, Luis Gutierrez, and former senators Carol Moseley-Braun and Peter Fitzgerald as well as the donations to Barack Obama that Hillary Clinton pointed out.

Predictably, the Chicago Sun-Times reports that the national co-chair of Mrs. Clinton's presidential campaign, Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigo, also got Rezko donations.

Here is the rundown on his fellow defendants, from FEC data via www.opensecrets.org, in descending order by amounts donated:

* Stuart Levine: 210 donations for federal candidates, totaling $255,350, mostly to Republicans. Biggest contributions to Illinois Republican Party and to National PAC. One $5000 donation to the Illinois Democratic Party. Most individual donations to GOP candidates from GWBush on down, except for a few $2000 donations to Joe Lieberman, Mark Green of NY, who now appears frequently on MSNBC as a Clinton supporter, and Illinois State Comptroller Daniel W. Hynes, whose father, Thomas C. Hynes, was formerly a Cook County Assessor. Dan Hynes was among Barack Obama's primary opponents in the Illinois U.S. Senate race in 2003. Levine donated $1000 to Bill Clinton in 1995. Levine has not donated to Obama.

* Joseph Cari, Jr: pulled out his checkbook 137 times from 1993 on, giving $193,836 under Joseph and $8958 under Joe to candidates for federal office, mostly to Dems. Further donations from family members incl $1000 to Bill Clinton in 1995. Biggest Cari donations went to the DNC and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Individual donations, usually $1000 apiece, to Dem candidates across the country incl the natl figures--Gore, Kerry, Kennedys--and others incl Robert Torricelli in NJ, Chuck Robb in VA, and even the late Paul Wellstone in MN ($250). Cari donated $2000 to Bill Clinton in 1995, another $1000 to Clinton campaign manager David Wilhelm, $500 and $1000 to Hillary Clinton in 2000 and 2003, and donated twice to HILLPAC in 2002. The Hillary Clinton campaign has apparently returned the $1000 but not the other donations. Cari also donated several times to Southern Wine & Spirits, a PAC donating to both major parties which has also donated to both Clintons. Cari has also donated to several Illinois Democratic candidates including Gov. Blagojevich and former Congressman Dan Rostenkowski. No contribution to Obama individually is listed, but the Obama campaign has returned $1439 from apportioned committee contributions.

* P. Nicholas Hurtgen, former Bear Stearns manager in Chicago: 48 federal contributions from Hurtgen and his wife in recent years, totaling $47,787, almost entirely to GOP candidates--$5000+ to the Republican National Committee, $4000 to GWBush, most of the rest to other Republicans. However, the Hurtgens have also donated $2000 to Rahm Emanuel and $7000 to Mark Green of NY, a Clinton supporter.

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Nifty Nugget of NAFTA Info

By Sally - Mar 7th, 2008 at 8:44 am EST

Also listed in: Jensen Beach for Barack Obama 2008 | Saint Lucie and Martin County for Barack | Treasure Coast Citizens for Obama

http://beertap.wordpress.com/

HRC is just getting to unbelievable for words....

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Clinton By Far Worst Abuser Of Earmarks (fantastic article)

By Sally - Jan 31st, 2008 at 1:08 pm EST

Also listed in: Jensen Beach for Barack Obama 2008 | Saint Lucie and Martin County for Barack | Treasure Coast Citizens for Obama

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-k-wilson/clinton-by-far-worst-abus_b_84102.html

Clinton By Far Worst Abuser Of Earmarks
Posted January 30, 2008 | 03:27 PM (EST)
by John K. Wilson

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Read More: 2008 Election, Offthebus, Breaking Off The Bus News

In the fiscal 2008 omnibus appropriations bill Hillary Clinton received 261 earmarks, more than five times the number of any other presidential candidate. According to Taxpayers for Common Sense, Clinton obtained 360 earmarks worth $2.2 billion from 2002 to 2006. This record establishes her as by far the worst abuser of earmarks among all presidential candidates in both parties.

Clinton's earmarks are an important issue for Democrats who worry about the growing corporate control over their party. But the earmark issue may be even more important in the general election because it could become the swing issue this fall allowing the presidency to remain in Republican hands.

In the fiscal 2008 defense authorization bill, Clinton pushed for more earmarks than any other senator except the chair of the Armed Services Committee. Clinton received 26 earmarks worth about $148.4 million (by contrast, Obama had only one earmark, requested with several other senators, to help children with severe disabilities). Clinton has been particularly active in obtaining earmarks for defense companies in New York, helping them sidestep the normal competitive system for contractors. She's also raised more than $270,000 for her campaigns from these defense contractors.

Hillary Clinton's $1 million earmark for a museum to celebrate the 1969 Woodstock music festival could become one of the biggest issues of the 2008 campaign. Not only does it anger the culture conservatives who see Woodstock as nothing more than a bunch of pot-smoking naked hippies, but even the people with fond memories of the rock festival must acknowledge that a museum is not exactly the best symbol of its meaning, and that a million dollars should be spent by pandering politicians for this project. The Woodstock earmark was voted out, 52-42, on October 18, 2007, making it one of only two earmarks to be voted down (the other was $129,000 for the home of the perfect Christmas tree project in North Carolina).

The Woodstock earmark raises further questions about the corrupt system of obtaining earmarks. On June 21, 2007, Clinton and Charles Schumer's $1 million earmark for the Woodstock museum was approved by a Senate committee. Nine days later, billionaire Republican Alan Gerry, the driving force behind the museum, donated (with his wife) the maximum of $9,200 to Clinton's presidential campaign. That same week, Gerry and his family gave $20,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee run by Schumer. Since 2005, the Gerrys have donated $18,600 to Clinton.

This wasn't the only Clinton earmark in 2007 to raise questions about timing. On June 27, 2007, Clinton and Schumer earmarked $900,000 for the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where James D. Watson was the chancellor until he resigned in October 2007 for making racist remarks. Watson has donated more than $70,000 to political candidates and PACs, and gave $3,000 to Clinton's presidential campaign on May 17 and June 25.

The Los Angeles Times reported how Clinton had supported government funding for a major campaign contributor's plan to build "a mega-shopping mall complete with 10 Broadway-style theaters, an indoor river, a Tuscan village and a 39-story luxury hotel" called "Destiny" near Syracuse. Clinton arranged a $5 million earmark for transportation access, and $1 billion in federal bonding authority.

The Los Angeles Times also found that at least eight of Clinton's biggest fundraisers who brought in more than $100,000 in donations are affiliated with the beneficiaries of her earmarks. By contrast, Barack Obama had only gotten $10,000 in donations from some trustees of the Shedd Aquarium, which received one of his earmarks.

In mid-January 2008, Clinton received an important endorsement from Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church of Harlem and a prominent black leader. But this endorsement is tainted by the fact that Clinton provided $1,431,500 in earmarks in the 2008 federal budget for Butts' Abyssinian Development Corporation and its youth and social service programs. Earmarks create at least the appearance of political patronage for nonprofit groups. In order to get money from politicians, these organizations must play the political game of offering their endorsements. Because earmarks are the arbitrary decisions of members of Congress, leaders of nonprofit groups are reluctant to risk losing a valuable source of free money.

Keith Ashdown, research director for the Taxpayers for Common Sense, told the Los Angeles Times that "Clinton has made aggressive use of the pay-to-play earmark game. According to the Los Angeles Times, New School University received $1.6 million in this year's defense budget and $6 million in previous years. Its president, former Sen. Bob Kerrey, once called Bill Clinton an unusually good liar, but since then Kerrey has endorsed Clinton in her senate and presidential campaigns. Three of the New School trustees have raised more than $100,000 for Clinton's campaign, and a former New School trustee is Norman Hsu, the infamous and now indicted Clinton fundraiser.

While Clinton has exploited earmarks for political gain in New York, Obama has led the fight to expose earmarks and change the system. Reason magazine noted that Obama's role in passing the Federal Funding and Tranparency Act "can't be overstated."

Obama, unlike Clinton, refuses to endorse any earmarks that directly benefit a private corporation. Since coming to the Senate, the Los Angeles Times discovered, Clinton had gotten $500 million in earmarks specifically benefiting 59 corporations, and she received donations from employees at 64% of those companies.

Obama was one of only two senators (with Republican Jon Kyl of Arizona) to release his requests for earmarks. Clinton and other legislators only have to reveal the earmarks that are approved, not all of their requests, and Clinton has opposed Obama's efforts to require open scrutiny of these requests. Obama's website offers his promise, "Obama will slash earmarks to no greater than year 2001 levels and ensure all spending decisions are open to the public." This may not sound like much, but it would result in a massive decline in earmarks.

Earmarks were one critical factor in the devastating decline of the Republican Party in recent years. The 2006 elections were a landslide for Democrats, largely because the Republican-controlled Congress was seen as corrupt and wasteful. The scandals of Reps. Randy Duke Cunningham and Jack Abramoff both involved earmarks and the payoffs from the beneficiaries. Cunningham was convicted on charges of taking millions in gifts from a military contractor in exchange for earmarks.

Republicans, after being burned by earmarks in the 2006, will try to turn the tables in 2008. In November 2007, 72 Republicans without the support of their leadership called for establishing a Joint Select Committee on Earmark Reform. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) noted, I get standing ovations when I talk about earmarks."

Although the media have ignored this issue in the Democratic primary race, the Republicans are likely to nominate a candidate who will make political corruption and earmarks a key component in the campaign. And Clinton's past record will give her no credibility to rein in the escalating use of earmarks, making it unlikely that she will be able to afford to fulfill many of her promises.

The Republican presidential candidates are unanimous in their condemnation of earmarks. Mitt Romney declared in a Dec. 21 press release, As President, I pledge to use every available method to eliminate wasteful earmarks in the federal budget."

John McCain declared during a Republican presidential debate on October 21, 2007, "I have fought against out-of- control and disgraceful spending that's been going on and I have saved the American people as much as $2 billion at one stroke. In case you missed it, a few days ago, Senator Clinton tried to spend $1 million on the Woodstock Concert Museum. Now, my friends, I wasn't there. I'm sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event. I was tied up at the time."

McCain observed, "No one can be president of the United States that supports projects such as these. And I believe that wasteful spending has got to be eliminated. And I will have this debate and win because she is a liberal Democrat and I am a proud, reliable, consistent conservative Republican." McCain is right. Columnist Robert Novak noted that "Sen. John McCain on the campaign trail...is cheered for promising to veto bills with earmarked pork." Unless the press continues to ignore the corruption issue for the next year, any Republican presidential candidate could make a devastating critique of Hillary Clinton if she is the Democratic nominee.

But it's not just Republicans who hate pork barrel politics. The Boston Globe editorialized that earmarks "bring the whole appropriations process into disrepute."(Dec. 30, 2007) Markos Moulitsas Zniga, founder of Daily Kos, noted: "It's this sort of abuse, repeated many times over by many congresscritters, that drives the public's disillusionment with our Congress. Real reform on this front needs to happen." Ryan Alexander, President of Taxpayers for Common Sense, noted on Bill Moyers' website: "the earmarking process is a breakdown in democratic decision-making in the Congress."

The Democratic Congress has taken some steps to scale back earmarks. The first senate bill of the new Congress in 2007 focused on corruption, and the Democrats have turned back the rise in earmarks. According to a new website from the Office of Management and Budget tracking this information (created because of Obama's legislative proposals), there were 13,491 earmarks in the 2005 baseline for $18,942,858,000. After rising close to $30 billion in 2006, earmarks in the 2008 House/Senate conference bill dropped to 11,737 requests for $16,871,939,000.

But if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee, then it is certain the Republican candidate will rail against her as a symbol of corruption in Washington. All but one Republican presidential candidate comes from outside Washington DC, and Sen. John McCain has strong credentials in attacking earmarks and government waste.

In an election when Democrats should be able to win easily by denouncing the corruption and waste of the Bush Administration, the reverse may occur if Clinton is the nominee. The anti-Washington sentiment raging across the country could easily turn against the Democrats (Congress already has ratings lower than Bush) unless their nominee is a clear reformer.

One reason why earmarks dominate our political system is the failure of the press to hold politicians accountable. In many cases, the media has actually embraced earmarks, such as the routine stories in local media about the grants acquired by legislators. A 2007 article in The Hill newspaper seemed to celebrate Clinton's ability to get more earmarks than many of her colleagues with more seniority. An Oct. 12, 2007 Washington Post article on the topic was headlined, "Earmarks Put Candidates On the Spot; Obama, Clinton Camps Defend Requests Made for Constituents." The article treated Obama and Clinton as if they had equivalent records on earmarks, noting that Obama had supported an earmark initiated by Sen. Dick Durbin to fund brain research at the University of Chicago, where Obama's wife had worked. Clinton arranged for a $3 million earmark to benefit hydrogen-fuel and hybrid technology at General Motors, and a lobbyist for GM is one of Clinton's biggest fundraisers.

However, the primary approach of the press toward earmarks his been complete silence. The Woodstock museum earmark got some coverage, especially in the conservative press, when it was first revealed last summer and then voted down in October. CNN's Situation Room featured a short report on Clinton's earmarks on November 9, 2007.

But nothing has ever been asked about earmarks in the Democratic debates or candidate interviews. On Dec. 23, 2007, Tim Russert lectured Ron Paul on Meet the Press for putting earmarks in bills even though he's opposed to them. Russert told Paul, "When you stop taking earmarks or putting earmarks in the spending bills, then I think you'll be consistent." However, neither Russert nor any of his colleagues have ever discussed the issue with regard to Hillary Clinton. Dan Morain, co-author of the important Los Angeles Times article on earmarks, told me: "No one in broadcast [media] spoke to me about the topic. Others have written about earmarks, but I have not seen much done in the context of the presidential campaign. I'm not sure why."

Last summer, Anderson Cooper promised on CNN (June 21, 2007), "We're going to continue to ask members of Congress about their earmark spending, seeking the truth, no matter how long it takes." Yet Cooper hasn't ever mentioned earmarks in covering the presidential race.

Considering how much media coverage has been devoted to bizarre misconceptions about race or gender, or the vast number of "horserace" stories about the latest polls, the failure of the media to mention earmarks is startling. Earmarks have a real impact on expanding the budget deficit by billions of dollars every year. And as part of the earmarks industry, lobbyists are hired to obtain the billions of dollars at stake. Washington now has almost 35,000 registered lobbyists, more than double the number in 2000.

Earmarks are much more than a symbolic issue about corruption in Washington. They represent a decisive difference between the two leading candidates in the Democratic race, and if Hillary Clinton emerges as her party's nominee, her embrace of earmarks could be a critical issue helping Republicans retain the presidency.

John K. Wilson is the author of two new books, "Barack Obama: This Improbable Quest" (obamapolitics.com) and "Patriotic Correctness: Academic Freedom and Its Enemies" (collegefreedom.org). He can be reached at collegefreedom@yahoo.com.

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Clinton sat silent as Wal-Mart fought Unions

By Sally - Jan 31st, 2008 at 9:27 am EST

Also listed in: Jensen Beach for Barack Obama 2008 | Saint Lucie and Martin County for Barack | Treasure Coast Citizens for Obama

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4218509&page=1

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A MUST READ. MUST MUST MUST-

By Sally - Jan 25th, 2008 at 7:18 pm EST

Also listed in: Jensen Beach for Barack Obama 2008 | Saint Lucie and Martin County for Barack | Treasure Coast Citizens for Obama

http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20080124/EDITORIAL/774081954

Front Page > Editorial

A GOP ace in the hole?
By Mark Goodman
January 24, 2008

Beyond the melodrama of Sen. Hillary Clinton's tears-on-her-pillow triumph in New Hampshire and her gaming victory in Nevada lies the profoundly disturbing question of the Clintons' hidden record of suspected crimes.

It's that very record which likely prompted Sen. John Kerry's sudden endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama just two days after Mrs. Clinton's first primary win, followed by two more supportive votes from ranking congressional Democrats.

Their swift response was a clear sign that ranking Democratic colleagues are determined to derail Mrs. Clinton. Why? Because there exists a vault of information American voters are not aware of concerning the Clintons -- information which should have been brought to the nation's attention well before the kickoff of the 2008 presidential campaign.

The bedeviling problem is that party leaders on both sides of the congressional aisle conspired two years ago to bury the telltale documents. I'm referring to the 120 missing pages of the Barrett Report which, by all accounts from Washington insiders, former press secretary Tony Snow among them, contain sufficient evidence of Clinton misdeeds not only to furl Mrs. Clinton's presidential flag but quite possibly to send her and her miscreant husband straight to the courtroom dock. Yet the papers have lain moldering in some deep Capitol Hill tomb with no one daring to dig them up though they can be exhumed on demand by any member of Congress.

How could this happen? Let's go back to January 2006, when the 684-page report was finally released absent the incriminating pages. David Barrett, a Washington lawyer, had been appointed by the D.C. Court of Appeals to investigate allegations of misconduct on the part of Henry Cisneros, President Clinton's Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Mr. Barrett then spent nine frustrating years watching his inquiry blocked at every turn by the IRS, the Justice Department and Clinton attorneys.

Ironically, the detours led him into a thicket of apparent Clinton crimes and misdemeanors largely revolving around the misuse of the IRS and Justice Department to punish their enemies -- abuses that apparently persisted even after Bill Clinton's term of office ended in 2000. Before Mr. Barrett could release the report, three Democrats, Mr. Kerry, Sen. Dick Durbin and Sen. Byron Dorgan, North Dakota Democrat, managed to redact the potentially damaging pages by attaching a rider to an unrelated appropriations bill. Furious, Mr. Barrett issued a statement saying, "An accurate title for the report would be, 'What We Were Prevented from Investigating.' "

What indeed. The papers must have been devastating. Why grasp at the desperate straw of redaction? Still, the Democrats had to realize they were merely buying time. Suppressed evidence cannot remain suppressed forever and the Republicans are well aware of the wild card they have in the hole. Odds are that's why no Republican congressman has as yet unearthed the missing pages: The Republicans are banking on Mrs. Clinton, the scenario goes, to win the Democratic nomination so they can bake her in Mr. Barrett's oven in the election campaign.

If there is any doubt about Democratic fears, witness the timing of Mr. Kerry's lightning sweep into South Carolina to trumpet his support for Mr. Obama. It's fair to conclude from this that Mr. Kerry, the party's premier spokesman as well as the principal sponsor of the redaction rider, threw his weight behind Mr. Obama at this pivotal moment because he knows, better than anyone else, where the lethal poppy fields lie along Mrs. Clinton's winding yellow-brick road.

On cue, California's Rep. George Miller, a 33-year Democratic veteran of the House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's devoted confidante, quickly echoed Mr. Kerry's support for Mr. Obama. Next, Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, a 33-year veteran of the Senate, rang in with his Obama endorsement. So, the picture sharpens into focus: The Democratic establishment, which considered it too risky to put its chips on Mr. Obama in 2006, plainly reckons that it need not -- indeed dare not -- gamble any further on Mrs. Clinton in 2008.

The Clintons do not suffer rejection gladly. The collective rebuke Mrs. Clinton sustained surely explains why, as Mr. Clinton ratcheted up his Obama-bashing in South Carolina on Monday, she followed in the evening's debate by cross-examining her worthy national rival as if he were an unworthy county defendant. It seemed poor local politics to beat up in open forum on a black opponent in a state filled with black Democrats; backroom bets say she was letting her colleagues know, before a television audience, that their preferred candidate was in for a nasty 15 rounds.

The long view is that Mrs. Clinton and her loose-cannon regent have slid by far too long on foul play aided by diminished expectations (they're supposed to be ruthless). Now they're pointed on a collision course with political disaster. It's therefore time for Mr. Kerry and his Democratic colleagues to redress their misbegotten rescue of two years ago by opening up the concealed evidence on the Clintons for inspection by American voters.

Mark Goodman is a veteran journalist and author of the novel "Hurrah for the Next Man Who Dies."

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Bill & Chelsea Clinton Need to Fact-Check their speeches on Darfur

By Sally - Jan 25th, 2008 at 10:23 am EST

Also listed in: Jensen Beach for Barack Obama 2008 | Saint Lucie and Martin County for Barack | Treasure Coast Citizens for Obama

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/01/bill-and-chelse.html

Bill and Chelsea Clinton Might Want to Fact-Check Their Speeches
Email
Share January 24, 2008 6:32 PM

Sarah Amos and Z. Bryon Wolf report: Former President Bill Clinton and Chelsea Clinton are the best surrogates Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., could hope for in this election. They are well loved by Democratic voters, know Hillary better than any two people do and believe she has the right ideas to help fix the issues voters care about.

Of course, being good doesn't always mean you are accurate. And as tensions between Sen. Barack Obama and the Clintons rise over every discrepancy and twisted fact, accuracy has become the name of the game.

So perhaps the President and Chelsea need to go back to the record books before they start talking about Sen. Clinton's record on Darfur.

President Clinton has been touting his wife's commitment to Africa on the campaign trail by telling interested voters that "Hillary was the first U.S. Senator to call Darfur genocide." He used that exact line with voters in Aiken, S.C., yesterday, and it has been pointed out more than once over the course of this campaign.

The usually shy Chelsea also touted her mother's record on Darfur, telling a group at Stanford University earlier this month that she was "really proud that my mom was the first Democratic senator to call it genocide in May of 2004 and put a lot of pressure on the Bush administration to recognize it as genocide."

Problem is, the statements simply aren't true.

Sen. Clinton's presidential campaign Web site states: "Hillary has been a forceful and consistent advocate for a more robust response to the violence in Darfur since May of 20004." All of which IS true. She was one of the senators who supported the May 6, 2004, legislation condemning the government of Sudan for its actions in Darfur. Her Senate website has an entire page detailing her involvement in the issue.

But being involved in solving genocide and being the first to call it genocide are two very different things. Turns out that the honor President Clinton and Chelsea are bestowing on Hillary actually belongs to Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, and Sam Brownback, R-Kansas.

That legislation -- the one Clinton's Senate Web site uses as the first marker for involvement -- was actually led by Feingold.

In a floor speech that very day Senator Feingold said "...crimes against humanity have been and continue to be perpetrated in Darfur and the criminals responsible for these atrocities -- the planners directing this horror at the highest levels -- should be brought to justice."

On June 15, 2004, Feingold continued his push at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. "There seems to be some disagreement about whether what is happening in Darfur is or is not genocide. Frankly, I believe that to argue over the semantics is to miss the point," Feingold said. It was the first time the argument over whether what was happening in Darfur was genocide was brought up at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The Congressional Record documents that on June 24, 2004, DeWine became the first U.S. Senator to call the situation in Darfur genocide on the actual Senate floor.

In a floor speech on July 22, 2004, Feingold followed DeWine's lead, becoming the first Democratic Senator to use the term genocide, stating "all credible evidence indicates that what is unfolding in Darfur is genocide."

And finally, the first time any legislative action was taken to call the crisis in Darfur genocide was in S. Con Res. 124 -- introduced by Brownback on July 27, 2004. That resolution had 20 cosponsors and Clinton was not one of them.

In fact, Clinton's first press statement referring to Darfur as "genocide" wasn't until March 16, 2006. When Clinton's Senate office was e-mailed to get a clear date for her first use of the term genocide, spokesman Philippe Reines responded, "She has been a leading voice in calling for U.S. leadership in ending the genocide in Darfur."

So yes, Sen. Clinton has been devoted to the situation in Darfur, a fact voters have the right to know. But "first" and "devoted" are two very different things, and some would argue that voters have just as much right to know that as well.

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The Clintons’ Patronizing Strategy (Newsweek.com 1/24/08)

By Sally - Jan 24th, 2008 at 3:14 pm EST

Also listed in: Jensen Beach for Barack Obama 2008 | Saint Lucie and Martin County for Barack | Treasure Coast Citizens for Obama

http://www.newsweek.com/id/101173

BETWEEN THE LINES Jonathan Alter

The Clintons' Patronizing Strategy

The latest attacks on Obama insult voters' intelligence.

Jan 24, 2008 | Updated: 11:29 a.m. ET Jan 24, 200
Bill Clinton Barack Obama Hillary Clinton

The last major presidential candidate from Illinois, Adlai Stevenson, was approached by a voter in the 1950s. "Governor, you have the vote of every thinking American," she said. "That's nice," Stevenson replied. "But I need a majority."

Politics, as Bill Clinton said Tuesday in South Carolina, is "a contact sport." And while Barack Obama is trying hard to shed his professorial and all-too-Stevensonian air, he's just not a good enough eye-gouger at the line of scrimmage, especially with two people teaming up against him.

Obama's best hope is that Democratic voters aren't as dumb as Hillary and Bill Clinton think they are. The outcome of the primaries depends on whether, amid their busy lives, voters can get a general fix on who is more often telling the truth about the barrage of charges and countercharges.

This is ironic, because the way Bill Clinton survived impeachment was by betting on the intelligence of the American public. Now he's betting against it.

In South Carolina, Hillary is airing a radio ad that goes back to a theme she pushed in the debate there Monday night: that Obama liked Republican ideas. As Obama pointed out in his response ad, this is "demonstrably false," as referees from ABC News to the Washington Post to factcheck.org have established. (The Obama response ad ends with a new tag line that Hillary will "say anything and change nothing.")

The Republican story goes back to an interview Obama did with a Nevada newspaper in which he praised the way Ronald Reagan communicated with the public and changed "the trajectory of American politics." He added that, unfortunately, the Republicans had some fresher ideas than the Democrats in recent decades.

These are completely ordinary comments. In fact, as Obama pointed out in the Myrtle Beach debate, Hillary is considerably more effusive about Reagan in Tom Brokaw's new book, "Boom." Bill has also made many statements over the years that were much more complimentary toward Reagan. Nobody paying attention thinks either Obama or the Clintons likes Reagan's right-wing politics.

But instead of moving on to another line of attack with more grounding in what Bill Clinton called "indisputable facts," the Clinton campaign decided to bet that this Reagan horse could be flogged for more votes among less educated voters in South Carolina who might be inclined to believe Hillary's preposterous version.

Less educated? Yes, downscale voters are their target group. Obama is stronger among well-educated Democrats, according to polls. So the Clintons figure that maybe their base among less educated white Democrats might be receptive to an argument that assumes they're dumb. Less well-educated equals gullible in the face of bogus attack ads. That's the logic, and the Clintons are testing it in South Carolina before trying it in Super Tuesday states. They are also road-testing major distortions of Obama's positions on abortion, Social Security and the minimum wage.

I'm all for aggressive, even negative, campaigning, but I'm not so sure this patronizing approach will work for Hillary down the stretch. Let's take the battle in New Jersey, a delegate-rich state that votes on Feb. 5. Hillary will almost certainly win there, in her backyard, but the question is by how much. New Jersey delegates are awarded proportionally, which means that if Obama can come within five or ten points, he's ahead of the game in the delegate hunt.

As the Reagan ad aired in South Carolina, Hillary was campaigning in New Jersey. That gave the Obama campaign an excuse to assemble a rapid response team to create a little backlash in the Garden State.

Cory Booker, the inspiring mayor of Newark, is especially popular with white liberals in the suburbs. Here's what he said about the Clinton ads, beyond calling them "outrageous" and "dishonest":

"We're trying to offer an alternative to the Republicans' fear and smear campaigns, and now we're being dragged down to their level by the Clintons."

I live in New Jersey and can attest that plenty of Democrats there will be responsive to Booker's argument, as well as that of New York-area newspapers blasting Hillary for the Reagan shot. Disgust with this kind of thing may help bring Obama closer than expected.

Bill Clinton rightly complained in the 1990s about the politics of personal destruction. In both 1992 and 1996 he managed to run general election campaigns against George Bush and Bob Dole that mostly stayed on the high road. Then, in 1998, he survived a withering assault by relying on the common sense of average people.

On the day his testimony about his sex life was being replayed on TV--arguably the most embarrassing day in the history of the presidency--I slipped into a reception for Clinton in New York.

He was amazingly serene. With enough time and information, the president told me, the American people figure out the truth. They aren't as dumb as [former House GOP strategist] Tom DeLay thinks, he suggested. "The people always get it right," Clinton said.

They did then, supporting Clinton against a witch hunt. But will they now?

© 2008 Newsweek, Inc.

Email the Author- webeditors@newsweek.com

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Clinton's Use Alinsky Tactics on Obama (a great article!)

By Sally - Jan 24th, 2008 at 7:29 am EST

Also listed in: Jensen Beach for Barack Obama 2008 | Saint Lucie and Martin County for Barack | Treasure Coast Citizens for Obama

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/01/hillary_and_bill_use_alinksy_t.html

January 24, 2008
Hillary and Bill Use Alinksy Tactics To Bring Down Obama
By Kyle-Anne Shiver

Obama was up; now he's down. Even though Obama seems to be harnessing the South Carolina black vote that will give him that state's delegates, he has been feeling the brunt of the Clintons' mastery of the tactic of polarization, taught decades ago to Hillary by Saul Alinsky.

Obama is being forced into the position of being the black candidate. Successfully polarizing Obama, who has attempted to run as the anti-polarity uniter, a man in the middle, has not been a lazy-day walk in the park for the Clintons, and surely would not have been attempted if Obama hadn't trounced them in Iowa.
Alinsky's 13th rule for radicals

Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.

Saul Alinsky taught his eager disciples that the establishment despised conflict. He blamed this perverse malady upon the dual forces of organized religion ( those turn-the-other-cheek folks) and the Madison Avenue advertising culture, which he said "emphasizes getting along with people and avoiding friction." Alinsky deemed avoidance of conflict as not only disgusting, but contrary to the betterment of a "free and open society."

The polarization of American politics that has occurred since the Clintons first forayed onto the national scene has been notable. Stirring the pot of constant agitation has been the Clintons' signature political accomplishment.

Alinsky knew that in order to force a transfer of power through the use of constantly agitated serial conflicts, there had to be a personal enemy to rally the troops round. Hillary's ill-conceived "vast right wing conspiracy" wasn't nearly personal enough, which is why it significantly failed to keep America on the Clintons' side.

In the broad scope of socialist revolution, identifying one's target for polarization can be a bit tricky, and may involve singling out the CEO of a multi-layered corporation or finding out which person in government holds the seat where the buck truly does stop, or in the impeachment of Bill Clinton, finding out just who was out to get our imperfect but lovable president.

To Alinsky, in the march to nonviolent revolutionary power transfer, identifying one's genuine enemy was entirely secondary to merely pinning the enemy tail on one donkey or another, just as long as it served to rally the Have Nots. Targets needed to be specific, but they didn't need to really be your enemy. A target simply had to be seen as a vile enemy in the minds of one's followers.

Ken Starr understands the Clintons' operational application of this principle, even if he has never read up on Alinksy. In a political campaign, however, less strategic guesswork is required. The enemy is the one running against you, who might actually win, and thereby grab the power prize for himself.

The Clintons employed their now infamous brand of tag-team Alinsky polarization in Bill's 1990 bid for re-election as Arkansas' governor. The race was pivotal to the Clintons' presidential aspirations. Without a sufficient state-government launching pad, his campaign for the 1992 nomination would not succeed.

It's pretty hard to keep a secret in Arkansas and Bill Clinton's opponent was making advertising mincemeat out of the boy governor's planned presidential bid. Many Arkansans wanted a governor; they didn't want to provide office space for a presidential candidate.

When Bill's opponent Tom McRae held a press conference in the state capitol daring Bill to come clean about his presidential designs and agree to an open debate, guess who showed up to crash the conference and attack McRae? Of course, it was Hillary.

And naturally, rather than deny the substance of Bill's presidential aspirations, she instead loudly brought the press' attention to an instance where her husband had been present and accounted for in Arkansas, but McRae had not. "I mean, I think we oughta get the record straight...," Hillary blasted. And McRae stood before her stiff and speechless.

Barbara Olson summarized the tactic:

"The line of attack from this arch feminist (Hillary) was to make a blatant appeal to voters' sexism. If Tom McRae couldn't stand up to the governor's wife, he had to be a very weak man indeed." (Hell to Pay; p. 203)

And again, in 1992, when Bill's campaign seemed in danger of derailment by the accusations of one Gennifer Flowers, it was Hillary who tag-teamed the press into submission, by first acknowledging that her husband had caused pain in the marriage, and then by shaming questioners with female pleas for privacy.

For 2008, the Clintons have simply exchanged positions. They are, however, using the same tactical maneuvers that have kept them out of jail and in public office for 30 years.

Alinsky's 5th rule: Ridicule is man's most potent weapon

Last December, Bill Clinton appeared on the Charlie Rose Show in a long interview that finally got around to the Presidential election. Bill Clinton had very complimentary things to say about all of his wife's opponents, save one.

On Barack Obama, he delivered one ridiculing statement after another, while playing the genteel, elder statesman. Here's a sampling:

"I think a president ought to have done something for other people and for his country when you pick a president.

"I get tickled watching him."

"highly intelligent symbol of transformation"

"And we're prepared to roll the dice."

"It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule." (Rules for Radicals; p. 128)

Personalizing Obama

While Bill handled the ridicule angle from his lofty position as a former president, Hillary dispatched lesser surrogates to begin thinly veiled personal attacks against her chief rival. The pattern was set in the Muslim accusation and the drug-use reminder gambits.

A campaign professional or volunteer made a charge against Obama, either before cameras or in an email. Then, Hillary made a show of firing the person.

Both of these attacks was personal, aimed not at Obama's stand on any issue, but on his character.

A perfect example of Alinsky personalize-your-target tactics.

End Game: Racial Polarization

It is obvious now that the Clintons have seized upon race as Obama's potentially lethal vulnerability. They had probably hoped they would not have to use Obama's race against him to create a white backlash of electoral victories, but that point is now moot.

By attacking Obama's authenticity as a new icon for African-Americans, the Clintons understand full well, I believe, that the black community will rally to Obama, thereby demonstrating to the broader electorate that it's been about race after all.

The first racial blow, of course, was Hillary's. She failed to adequately acknowledge MLK's stature by stating that it took LBJ to get the Civil Rights Act into law. This was confirmation that they would use any and every means necessary to achieve a second co-presidency. Everyone who knows anything about Democratic Party politics of the last 40 years, knows that any slight whatsoever of MLK is tantamount to blasphemy.

Once Hillary secured her victory in New Hampshire by playing the sympathy card with female Democrat voters, she dispensed tag-team champ, Bill, to Nevada. Behind the scenes, Hillary supporters filed suit to have the special casino caucus sites declared illegal. When a reporter asked Bill Clinton if that might have the effect of disenfranchising culinary workers, the majority of whom are minorities, Bill verbally clobbered the guy, displaying his infamous temper. The reporter backed off.

In Monday's SC debate, Hillary invoked Obama's work for a Chicago slumlord, referring to Anthony Rezko, who will stand trial in February in Chicago on several corruption charges. Rezko is indeed a slumlord, and his is another tawdry tale emitting from that veritable cesspool of political corruption, Chicago. Obama's law firm did represent Rezko, Obama did know him and has received a great deal of campaign finance from him, which he claims to have returned.

Her particular use of the word, "slumlord," was a way of accusing Obama of betraying his own people.

Having instigated this quite uncivil conflict, Hillary has gone on to campaign in states with bigger-bang delegate counts, and left tag-team champ Bill behind in South Carolina to schmooze the black citizens, whom they have both done all they could to alienate.

Party elders seem so concerned over the possible fractures to their special-interest coalitions, that some are begging the Clintons - even in public - to clean up their act and cut it out with the low-body blows against Obama.

Here's my advice to the Democrats:

If one doesn't like the sight of blood, but wants to play politics with the Clintons, it might be best to invest in blindfolds.

Of all the amoral things the Clintons have done over the past 30 years, tag-teaming Obama on his race is the most dastardly, in my opinion.

Not only to Obama, but to America.

Kyle-Anne Shiver is a frequent contributor to American Thinker. She welcomes your comments at kyleanneshiver@yahoo.com.

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