Self-Inflicted Wounds
Posted at 2:37pm on Jan. 13, 2008 First Rule Of Holes: Stop Digging
By Pejman Yousefzadeh
Really, someone has to tell Bill Clinton to quit this. He is only making himself look bad, increasing tensions between the Clinton campaign and the African-American community and making it easy for others to be sympathetic towards Obama. The controversy in question is quite easily resolved. Obama has been against the Iraq war from the outset. He said that if he were in the Senate at the time that it was voted on, he might have felt differently but that from where he stood at the time the debate on the war raged, he thought that going into Iraq was the wrong thing to do. I disagree with Obama's judgment, but at the very least, I do him the courtesy of reporting it in full.
Not Clinton. He leaves out the italicized part and makes it seem as if Obama might have waffled on the issue of the war and that he is not adequately representing his waffling nature to the voting public simply because Obama entertained the hypothetical that if he were a U.S. Senator in 2003, he might have taken a different position on the war. This is comical and the outrage against Obama's supposed double-talk is especially rich coming from Mr. "I guess I would have voted with the majority, if it was a close vote. But I agree with the arguments the minority made." And it is unbelievably unfair to Obama and insulting to the intelligence of the voting public to boot. More people should call the former President on this verbal flim-flam and while I realize that verbal flim-flam may be par for the course from the former President, it doesn't make it any more acceptable when it happens. And as the former President himself might say, this is the biggest fairy tale I have ever seen. A number of high-ranking Democrats--including Senate Majority Whip (and Obama supporter) Richard Durbin--agree and are now criticizing the former President for his comments.
The Obama campaign must be thrilled with all of this. Clinton is made to look whiny and petulant, Obama has mastered the art of dismissing the former President and appearing above the whole thing while at the same time firmly rebutting Clinton's arguments and Hillary Clinton--who has her own propensity to get involved in verbal trainwrecks--is likely mortified on an hourly basis the longer this goes on. I'm not sure that David Axelrod of the Obama campaign needs to spend any money on negative ads against the Clintons. The Clintons appear to be giving him his material for free.
Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | Bill Clinton | Hillary Clinton | Self-Inflicted Wounds — Comments (7)/ Email this page » / Read More »
