Friday, February 02, 2007

More Dirt!

Hillary to Donors: “No Money to Anyone Else” is the title of a new “article” on The Huffington Post.

Hillary Clinton is personally putting out the word that she has no intention of sharing the wealth: "She's calling all the big-hitter fundraisers and saying, 'I want you to understand: NO money to anybody else. You cannot play both sides of the street,'" in the '08 presidential race, says a longtime Democratic operative who has worked for the Clintons in the past but turned down a role in the current campaign, and is so far sitting this one out.
And what's the reaction been? "People don't like it, but they're afraid of her." Yet the far more palpable fear for Democrats, discussed constantly, is that she'll have so much money she'll sail to the nomination
.

There is no verifiable attribution to this 'report". Both 'quotes' are paraphrases from an anonymous source. Democrats are really afraid of Hillary Clinton! (if Democrats are afraid, imagine how shit-scared Republicans ought to be!).

Who is this “longtime Democratic operative who has worked for the Clintons in the past but turned down a role in the current campaign, and is so far sitting this one out”? We aren’t told. Maybe it’s the author or the source who are scared.

And how is this source who isn’t involved in the campaign, privy to Hillary’s (or her staff’s) calls to major contributors?
Why is this person “sitting this one out”, when Hillary already has a huge campaign chest and the Democratic Party is favored over the Republicans; where win or lose this well-connected person could still make a useful living from working on the campaign?

It is impressive how this story fits the Obama Madrassa/Hillary Political-Hardball sham; anonymous author, anonymous source "close to Clinton", NO evidence and Clinton painted as a manipulative calculating ambitious bitch.

And then there is this NewsMax post, from September 21, 2003:

Dick Morris: Hillary Discourages Donors to Other Dems

"U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton is actively discouraging potential donors from contributing to any of the announced Democrat presidential candidates, so they'll have political cash on hand if she decides to run next year.
So says Dick Morris, who pointed to a meeting two weeks ago between Bill and Hillary Clinton and 150 party fat cats held at the former first couple's mansion in Chappaqua, N.Y."


Dick Morris worked for Bill Clinton on his 1996 re-election campaign but resigned on the day Bill Clinton accepted the Democratic presidential nomination due to Morris’s extra-marital affair with prostitute Sherry Rowlands. The vast majority of his political consulting work had been for Republican governorship candidates, but since the Rowlands affair he has not actively consulted US politicians.
He has however made a partial career as a Hillary Clinton critic in the print press and as a frequent pundit for FOX News where the vast majority of his insights and predictions about Hillary Clinton’s political career have so far proven to be wrong.

The anonymous Huffpo piece may not actually be Dick Morris's work--after all he's been publicly gunning for Hillary for years now--but any like-minded person can plagiarize him for their own coincednetal poltical purpose.
Crtiticism and dissent ought to be based on reasoned and substantiated argument, not unexamined rumor and emotional manipulation. But these days "debate" is not chaired by a disinterested obudsman but by partisans where unsubstantiated utterances are not only given the same consideration as carefully developed arguments but are actually promoted with zealous deference.

This story might actually be true, but if so it should be able to stand the test of open debate and disclosure. Truth is defined by the tests of disagreement, lies are revealed by them. But until the champion of this story stands up to be tested, it remains only a story a particle of the common soil, deserving of disinterested until its quality is revealed and houses might be built from it.

But thus far this looks like dirt to me, not clay.

7 comments:

Peacechick Mary said...

It's amazing how hard and heavy they are coming out against Hillary and Barak - I think they are scared of them both.

InternetJunkie said...

So many republican operatives, so few targets!

Frankly, the first thought that came to my mind was James Carville. Oh, Morris was a close second, but Carville has done just as much damage to the Party. His smackdown of Howard Dean in the last election cycle was his own special way of telling the Dems that the direction they were taking was folly. Thankfully Dr. Dean put his advice in the circular file.

Having said that, we all know about Richard Mellon Scafe and his attempts to take down the first Clinton presidency. It won't be long before Vincent Foster's name is back on the front page. Frankly, I'm surprised that the frightwingers haven't brought it up yet.

The Republicans are definitely scared. But considering the damage they've done the past 6 years, they should be.

Anonymous said...

it gives the phrase "dirty rotten liars" a whole new meaning.

sumo said...

I agree with you on this. I also thought of Carville.

5th Estate said...

Sumo...
Carville. Rove.
Nelson now on McCain's team.
All these people and their professional ilk are soulless opportunists, mercenaries that pollute the selection process of policy-makers by always turning what should be reasoned policy debate into a street fight with sucker-punches kicks to the balls.
They all make me sick.

InternetJunkie said...

Soulless opportunists is right on the mark.

Things in the American political venue will never change so long as there is no public financing. Campaign finance reform is the only way to prevent millionaires from buying their way into office, and multi-millionaires from buying politicians.

Until we limit the amount of money that can be spent on a campaign, only the richest of the rich, or those who can be bought, will win elected offices. And the common man will have no way to win.

Thomas Jefferson must be loving this fiasco.

Dardin Soto said...

As always, you bring to light stuff I ask myself all the time. The "press-by-whispers" culture that exists in today's journalism is prone to way to much subjectivity to even call it news. Great posting 5th.