Politico Turns To AEI's Pletka To Attack Clinton

[Purveyor]

Politico turned to the American Enterprise's Institute's Danielle Pletka, a former aide to Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) with a history of smearing Democratic appointees, as one of the "smart foreign policy thinkers in both parties" cited to judge Hillary Clinton's diplomatic legacy as Secretary of State.

Politico Magazine's December 8 profile, which is now making the rounds of the pundit class, claimed that Republicans can easily dismiss Clinton's foreign policy achievements -- and question her viability as a candidate for President -- by following Pletka's lead and attempting to smear her with the deaths of four Americans during the 2012 attacks in Benghazi:

What does that Republican take look like? For sure, there will be a focus on Benghazi, where the GOP has questioned whether Clinton and other administration officials were activist enough--and truthful enough--about responding to the attack in Libya on Sept. 11, 2012, that led to the deaths of the U.S. ambassador and three other American personnel; a case summed up by the American Enterprise's Institute's Danielle Pletka as "unwillingness to take risks, unwillingness to lead, willingness to stab a lot of people in the back. And dead people." Pletka's broader view of Clinton's record is a harsher version of what I hear from many Democrats: "the Washington consensus," Pletka says, "is that she was enormously ineffective ... [though] no one was quite sure whether she was ineffective because she wanted to avoid controversy or because she wasn't trusted by the president to do anything."

Pletka has a long history as an ideological partisan dating back to her time as an aide to Helms' Senate Committee on Foreign Relations from 1992 to 2001. Despite his history of racism and extreme conservatism, Pletka defended his "conviction" and "old fashioned" values following his death in 2008.

As vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at AEI, Pletka is a top advocate for neoconservative policies. She has backed military strikes in Iran while dismissing the news that the U.S. reached a historic deal with Iran over their nuclear program in exchange for reducing the sanctions. Military experts have warned that such an action could have dire consequences. Pletka has also defended torture, saying that while she's "not a big fan," she still thinks it's necessary in wartime.

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http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/12/09/politico-turns-to-aeis-pletka-to-attack-clinton/197202

[MADem]

1. Let's be CLEAR who owns Politico, as well!

Any time one links to that as a source, it should be with a caveat and a clothespin for the nose. That website is a spinoff of Albritton Communications, their effort to "get on the web" after years sticking their dirty beaks in old media efforts. When the old man died (his son carries on), Nancy Reagan issued a personal press release going on and on about how much Ronnie and she loved the old buzzard.

These were the shitheads who fired Bill Maher, in essence--they had the flagship ABC franchise in the Washington DC market (where--surprise surprise--all the legislators and power brokers live) and they BANNED his show after he made that comment that the airline hijackers may have been assholes but they weren't cowards (total paraphrase, there, but you get the sense). Without that market's (and a few other's) advertising dollars coming in, ABC caved and dumped the show.

The bright spot was that Maher got the HBO gig--no censorship and a longer format. Blood was shed, though, to get where he's at today.

But POLITICO? Always be on the lookout for an agenda with those turds.