Reply #1: There's an annoying trend to be quiet when they should speak, and pipe up when they should be quiet [View All]

[PurityOfEssence]

There was no reason to slag Richardson and his people except to make themselves look like victims. With something like this coming to light, any sane and fairminded person would think that they hadn't delved deep enough into Richardson's current affairs. They should have just said that they regretted his withdrawal or something even more noncommital. Instead, they had to remind everyone of their perfection, which seems to be pretty important for them to have everyone thinking.

Here's what's disturbing: after a studied career of ducking controversy and avoiding tough issues, this team realizes that they're going to have to stand up and be specific now and then. For some reason, though, they seem to pick fights that are best left alone. This is an example, and the Burris situation is an extreme example. At least they got the Feinstein flap right and tweaked the story so it looked like they had just been a little unaware of or insensitive to protocol; by apologizing there, they did themselves a world of good. This, however, is just silly.

Richardson's a fool, and an embattled fool is a dangerous one. It's best to just leave that and let it run its course; if they engage in some blame-gaming, it just makes both sides look incompetent, petty and deceptive, and that's ruinous. He's bumbled along as an embarrassment throughout the process, and now he looks not only disloyal to the Clintons, but is starting to look like that to the Obama team.