Fatal attraction: the problem with Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton's planned, orchestrated and calculated personal attack on Barack Obama is Exhibit A revealing why she would be the weakest possible Democratic nominee and why so many Democrats and independents feel such extreme distrust of him.

Hillary Clinton is lying about Obama. She knows very well that Barack Obama would not recklessly rush into diplomatic negotiations with any nation.

George Bush has held diplomacy in contempt for his entire presidency. Diplomatic moves will be eight years late when the new President assumes office, hardly rushing into anything.

Hillary Clinton's attack on Obama was personal and the kind of smear tactic reminiscent of George Bush and Richard Nixon. To falsely claim Obama is naive, etc., is not only factually wrong but represents the low road politics that Democrats and Americans loathe about George Bush.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brent-budowsky/fatal-attraction-the-pro_b_58233.html

but I have the feeling that after she gets the nomination she'll get all nicey nicey and not say shit about the people who have really fucked up the country. I think she's listening to the wrong people. If she wusses out on bush after getting the nomination she's gonna have trouble getting elected. So we better find out before we trust her with our nomination, eh?

to find out now how tough they are. Cause the Presidential race will be a bloody one for sure.

it will be her turn!

right off the ballot. Works for me.

far to the right for my liking.

You are constantly and everylasting posting negative remarks about Hillary Clinton. YOU ARE not going to make people like Obama better,because of your constant bashing, I am beginning to think Obama is less than what he is, if he has to have bashers to make his approval rate climb. Why don't you post all the good things you have found about Obama instead, it would help him more than you bashing Hillary.

Avoid threads started by the original poster ....

I can state honestly that I cannot ever be friends with some of the cutthroats who inhabit this space .... It will be hard to forget the incessant negativity and personal attacks waged against our own here ..... I have cultivated a deep memory all my life: It isn't going away come Dec 2008 .... All will not be forgotten ...

This OP is one who takes the vitriol to new, amazingly ugly heights .... I got sick of that one many months ago .... and he/she is one of a few here who put our opposition to shame with the depths of viciousness they exhibit ....

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Obama. Now if you were Genuine about something you would say it to both sides. However, I feel you want people to just bash Obama and no one to take up for him. That will not happen. I like Hilary less and less. She did not have to go a personal attack.

What does it accomplish?

never mind.

in the first place. If nothing else, diplomacy is a stall tactic to keep the enemy occupied trying to win concessions and unwilling to do anything to endanger possible FUTURE concessions.

Fuck these people seem so clueless sometimes.

edited to add the word "into" into the post title. You can recklessly rush negotiations, but I don't think you can recklessly rush INTO negotiations.

are likely to turn into big fights where there are no fights to begin with. Peace gets talked into war. Career diplomats would never advocate such a thing.

I don't think pledging unconditional talks with Fidel Castro or Amadinijad is going to help Obama in the general election. Sounds like something they'd beat him up pretty bad over. Hillary was smart not to fall into it. Obama showed he's a beginner.

The whole thing just smacks of semantic "gotcha" from both sides.

Okay, so he shouldn't promise any specifics; it's silly to do so simply because nobody knows what circumstances will be in the future. What he's right about is that diplomacy and engagement are very important and sorely lacking of late.

What she's right about is the reckless giving away of guarantees, but not because we're "doing them a favor", because the future is uncertain and guarantees are a bad idea. (The "doing them a favor" reeks of arrogant privilege, by the way, and we've pushed the world around enough of late; other countries deserve to be treated with respect instead of as inferiors we tolerate when forced to.)

What he was really trying to say was that he'd reach out and talk. This is good, and she knows that he misspoke. Still, words are important and a president has to be scrupulous when using them. Remember what a deserved furore Junior raised when he talked about a "crusade"? Words matter and they can be very unforgiving. Mr. Obama seems to have real problems on this count.

They're both playing games, and it's pretty tiresome. I prefer my tea without the tempests.

The lesson he needs to learn is that he's got a creeping Deanishness of speaking off the cuff and a habitual difficulty explaining his missteps.

The lesson she needs to learn is that being the most cocksure, tough-as-nails, no-nonsense champion of specificity is tiresome and rather dishonest.

What a ridiculous waste of time.

Everybody is going to make a mistake, but they have to be able to recover appropriately. I think Clinton got the best of this episode, but they may have both gotten something out of it. And the final chapter may not have been written yet.

I hate to gripe about it so much, but a front-loaded primary season is a disaster for this very reason. It screwed us in '04 and it REALLY screwed us in '84. With a long season, we get to see who can take it and who can dish it out, and virtually everyone will have missteps here and there.

This isn't just important to see who can come out ahead in the general election, but who can be the best president; presidents get caught in nasty and unexpected situations and need to be flexible as they keep their priorities straight, and need to be able to roll with the punches and recover from blunders big and small.

We shall see how this sorts out, but it seems to me like Obama's going to come out less worse-off (not really "better") on this one: Clinton sounds like she's twisting the words a bit and she also comes off as another chip-on-her-shoulder tough-guy, which has worn a bit thin of late. His malleable stances on things keep coming back to bite him in the ass, but except for some heated name-calling, he hasn't parried this one too badly so far.

I say "so far", and it's already been "too far". Unless one of them really loses it in this chickenshit game of chicken and either gets too nasty or something, they've each gained about as much as they can by now; it just seems a little worse for her.

It reflects badly on both of them already, and if they can't drop it, they'll just dig themselves deeper into the pettiness pit with each outraged quip. Since I don't want either as a candidate, some would say I should be happy, but I'm not. The whole thing makes me wince and makes them both look blockheaded and small.

Somehow we need to keep our valuable leadership pool from looking too childish; there are many important posts to be held in the future and there are very few "stars" out there these days.

Your point is very important, and with such a quick season, split-second mistakes will happen, but to dwell on them like this is unseemly and leaves a bad taste in one's mouth.

A great post from your link says just enough about this issue

He did. He called her on her vote for the war and her decision not to talk to leaders. She is the one who said no. She is the one who answered the question wrong. Hillary is not ready to be President and people need to start calling her on her inexperience. IF she was experienced per se she would not have attacked him in the first place. Since it is backfiring on her now she wants to whine. The people listened to the same debate as you and came away with a different conclusion.

the correct response.

whoever gets the nomination will get my vote.

Same thing as Bush was saying at the time. I hate the "Bush lite" line, but Hillary does not have a good foreign policy track record and it has been closer to the right than I'd prefer. That's the truth. You just posted a cut and paste sent out by the Clinton campaign.

In the end all will be OK, and they'll make a great team.

If she didn't want her foreign policy opinions questioned, she shouldn't have made it an issue.

She consistently, manipulates, maneuvers and deceive only for the sole purpose of Hillary and the American public be dammed. America needs to wake up. You know, I kinda feel sorry for Bill at this moment because if he has to deal with this bullshit day in and day out, I see why he was looking for comfort elsewhere. I guess Blll is always thinking..... :wtf:

what they're made of, how they'll handle and re-institute American policy much destroyed by the Bush gang.

How the hell would you do that? What does that even mean?

As opposed to the wise, careful decision to give madman Bush a loaded gun.

the republican field that HRC will not take any chit from anyone. She has handed Obama his ass on a plate two times thus far and on this latest over meeting leaders, Obama will get it handed to him again. Thus it will be three times and HRC has done it with such style and grace to leave Obama to save face, but we all can rest assured that HRC will be a damn grizzley when she goes after her Repub opponent.....
I do thank you
Ben David

HRC is loathed by a good segment of this population. The only people scared of her are the ones afraid she'll somehow get the Democratic nomination.

in decades to do something about the fucked up health care system in this country...

I like, generally, what she stands for...

But there is something not copacetic about her...

but actually say nothing.

She can't say if she likes spagetti without couching it in legalese.

As a result, her supporters she what ever they want to see. She's a blank page in which voters can paint their own image . . . and all those images would be equally valid.

It's not what Hillary stands for that we leftists hate -- it's the fact that she stands for nothing.