He’s put the knock on her for how close she is to the health-care insurance industry. And that’s not a republican talking point either.

Since he’s running for president, and wants to win, and since Clinton is EXTREMELY vulnerable on the issue of her electability, he’ll probably bring that up soon. He should.

But I’m pretty sure that the republicans would LOVE for the democrats to nominate her, and I don’t think they want to belabor anything that will interfere with that, so I don’t think that’s a GOP talking point, either.

Which GOP talking points did you have in mind?

Edwards was my second choice for the nomination. But after his attacks on Hillary, of a personal nature, not policy or ideas, he lost me. Desperate man made a desperate jab and lost many who thought he was more than just another selfish pol. He may well help Dems lose the election because he really doesn’t mind using right wing talking points against another Democrat. Well, the joke will be on you if he succeeds in killing the messenger. So, would Rudy be good for you ?

Edwards did not make any personal attack on Hillary at all. None of them did. That’s ludicris to even say. The issue with Hillary is that she voted to give bush the saber rattling Okay to do Iran….. just like she did Iraq.

She might could claim incredible stupidity about not seeing bush was lieing to them them for Iraq, but she cannot do it again for the current lies about Iran. Edwards pointed that out, as did Obama, Kucinich. Fairly and correctly so.

If this Hillary nonsense continues, it just means you want Rudy because they both want to ramp up the fear factor in the general. Edwards and Kucinich want this nonsens stopped.

It all is a moot point if Congress doesn’t start gettin’ after bushco and we see some damn frog marching. Right now they’re losing any hope for any Democratic candidate.

And you cannot possible even be considering Rudy as a contender…. the most he can get is 27%. However, if Congress doesn’t turn it around with their namby pamby attitude right now, the most the dem candidate can get is 11%.

Joanne you say all the right things you’re against in your previous posts….. and Hillary’s actual actions don’t match up. I don’t know how you can square the two.

Lurking Mod – Who is the sockpuppet on this string?

Hi, I’m a long time lurker and this is my third post here, so slowly but surely I am being sucked in. ;)

I think that Hillary Clinton’s driver’s license “gaffe” is not only not going to hurt her, she will be able to turn it to her advantage. It reminds of Rick Fazio’s “sign this pledge” stunt when he debated her. At first, it was considered a devestating blow to Hillary (the Repugs were practically dancing in the streets over it). then the poll numbers came in. Suprise, suprise, it turned out that voters were turned off by what Fazio did, and that women were leading the anti-Fazio charge. Hillary’s people have always been able to transmute any attack on her to an attack on women in general. (Already we are seeing this argument develope across the blogosphere and in the comments – see the “gang rape” comment up thread). I have no doubt that we will see interviews where women disgustedly describe John Edwards as reminding them of “that ex-boyfriend I had that seemed so nice but actually a passive-aggressive creep – always manipulating me into looking like a shrill, hysterical bitch whenever I tried to call him on his shite.” It’s a toll in Hillary’s arsenal that she has been able to deploy very effectively. (In some ways, the over-15 years of right-wing hate frenzy over her works in her favor – she can always cast critics into the same unreasoning “HillaryHatuh” mold as them). It will be up to the other candidates to figure out how they can point out Hillary’s very real flaws as a candidate without getting ju-jitsued by her strong ‘I’m Every Woman” undercurrent.

Great post! It is exactly why she hurts women, real women, and the progress we have made. She gives women a bad name using it in this way. It shouldn’t be an issue. She is, thanfully, not “Every Woman”.

Well said!!

Here’s Dolly and EmmyLou and Linda, gettin’ into that fine, slow, torchy, bluegrass tune, “Those Memories”, by Allan O’Bryant, of the Nashville Bluegrass Band.

Sorry about the little glitch in the middle. Still worth the price of admission.

You go, girls. :o)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9tDJ0Fenes

(On the other hand, having a few truth “cops” around for THIS election is not a bad idea.)

:o)

Thank you for the discussion. I would reverse the Kucinich/Edwards ticket, because I think that too many people perceive Kucinich as a bit of a left-wing kook, and because I believe that John Edwards populist streak is a mile wide and a mile deep. I wish you could have heard him speak in Georgetown, S.C. with me a few months ago.

I walked out of the building and went straight to his table and got some Edwards stickers.

When he said: “If I win the election the first day I’m in office I will close the prison in Guantanamo.” the roar and applause from the crowd in red-state South Carolina was a revelation to me.

He said the things he’s been saying: How trading one bunch of politicians on the corporate dole for another bunch makes no sense.

He pointed out that Clinton wants to make sure the insurance industry is involved in any health-care system overhaul, and then he said:

“I want them OUT of it.” His emphasis, not mine.

He said: “I was wrong to vote to authorize the invasion and it’s something I have to live with for the rest of my life.” which is a pretty good indication of the importance he attaches to what is happening in Iraq.

What possible reason can Clinton have for not making a similar apology?

You say: “Hillary says that we are safer in america now because we know the threats against us now.”

Which is precisely the same kind of retroactive time-distortion that bush and his coterie of idjits have been peddling. When they invaded Iraq, they manufactured a much more serious threat, and then, in a time-loop worthy of the mad-hatter, they point to the resurgence of Al Queada there, and the legitimate resistance of the Iraqi people to a foreign occupation and say:

“See! Look how dangerous they are! That proves we were right!”

It’s obscene in it’s distortion of truth and of time, and I don’t care WHO says it.

Are you/she saying that Bush had to invade Iraq to “know the threats against us”? Or that if Bush had NOT invaded Iraq that we would have been in ignorance of them? I find that bizarre, after 9-11.

Also, as I said earlier, you and she ignore the fact that the “threats against us” have undoubtedly increased greatly as a RESULT of the invasion. Pre-invasion, the numbers of people threatening us was not nearly as high as it is now. Do you agree or disagree with that?

At any rate, for her to say that we’re safer now, is EXACTLY what the bushmasters are claiming. How can you second it?
I think it’s arrant bullshit when they say it, and I think it’s arrant bullshit when she says it.

And do I need to point out that when the candidate whom you support says it, she is playing right into the hands of the people whom, if she wins the nomination, are going to beat her like she was a rented mule? How can you possibly try to whitewash a piece of bushspeak like that?

Your explanation of Hillary’s refusal to state flatly and unequivocally that the invasion was a mistake, is just…lame; and every time someone defends her, it’s a perfecty legitimate question that begs to be asked.

“She never said that going into Iraq has made us safer.” This is nothing but legalistic hair-splitting.

Perhaps not, but with worldwide terrorism having at least doubled as a result of the invasion, she has never troubled herself to say that the invasion has made us less safe, and the evidence is piling up that it has. Or do you disagree with that?

“Why not focus your truth police on going after him?”

All in good time, and I’m already doing it, on a conservative bluegrass site where I have 12,000 posts over the last five years, with approximately 10,000 of them being political in nature, and practically everyone of them critical of bush and his supporters and the kneejerk conservative worldview which they espouse.

But right now, the critical thing for us is to get a candidate who can go after bush and the republicans with both barrels on the issue on which they are most vulnerable. And that is Iraq.

And for Hillary Clinton, since she won’t even pronounce the war in Iraq for the miserable debacle it is, and since she has steadfastly refused to apologize for helping to authorize it, that is simply not possible. If she tries it, they will point to her votes and her statements and that will be that, as far as our having Iraq to beat them with, goes.

It’s an issue that we HAVE to have to win this election, and Clinton has voluntarily abdicated her right to use it, and whether you realize that or not, doesn’t make it any less true.

There is a rank irony in your begging us to give Hillary a pass on her statements and positions, and to go after bush and his policies, when she has so miserably failed to do the exact same thing.

If there weren’t so much riding on this election it would be laughable to hear that.

I support John Edwards. For me, it’s his nomination to lose. I’ve seen him speak, and it was impressive. He didn’t split hairs or dance around his authorization vote. He ate it. He’s done it numerous times, and here’s the capper, Jo-Ann; he’s going to have to do it some more, too, because if he doesn’t, he won’t get either the nomination or the presidency. That’s how important Iraq is, and he knows it, and unlike Clinton, he isn’t ducking it.

It’s too late now, but riddle me this; why could she not state simply; “I made a mistake, and I regret it.”?

If she does it now, it will re-inforce the growing and entirely justified perception that her positions have little or nothing to do with convictions and leadership, but instead, are just a matter of she and her campaign advisers watching the polls to see which way the wind is blowing, and THEN, pointing that way, herself.

I’ll call her out on her intelligence.

It was a boneheaded political move to “triangulate” to the right…a huge slap in the face to her natural progressive constituency, and that gigantic mistake is the reason she got 236 of 2309 votes cast on a rock-solid progressive site.

While she was oozing to the right, I, and I think a more erstwhile admirers of hers were like:

“My God! What is she thinking?”

The answer, of course, is that she was thinking that she could gain more votes by sliding to the right, than she would lose. If I had been on her staff, I would have been frothing at the mouth, and finally, I would have resigned.
Now, I, and a lot more people, ARE “resigning”. I hope, that in the interest of winning the white house next year, and of keeping control of the House and Senate, that you will resign, too.

Oops, Tanbark, is what I meant to spell.

How about anybody who trully represent our values. Kucinich/Edward ticket is decent enough for me. Tactically it will be the best democratic ticket because the angle of attack for the rethugs will be much more narrower.