GOP tactic: Ignore issues, pound Hillary

[norml]

Monday, June 20, 2005
GOP tactic: Ignore issues, pound Hillary
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If Hillary Rodham Clinton indeed decides to run for president in 2008, more power to her. What man or woman could remain standing after the barrage of unproven personal attacks this public servant has already endured? What other person would willingly enter a political fire that promises to be hotter than anything else she's walked through?

It would have to be a person with steely courage. Maybe that's just what this nation will need to undo all the damage to our world reputation, plummeting incomes of middle- and lower-class Americans, and plundering of our national parks by the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. We need a strong person to undo the worst national debt in our history, save our falling dollar, use our National Guard for its true purpose -- defending America -- and restore some personal freedoms lost to the Patriot Act.

If there's anything GOP attack dogs are good at, it's flinging mud at Hillary and former President Bill Clinton to distract attention from national issues we should be paying far closer attention to.

Case in point, the right-wing Web site newsmax.com's push for America to read Ed Klein's trash-up The Truth About Hillary. This waste of a forest sinks lower than those GOP-floated Swift Boaters. Media Matters for America points out several false claims in the tawdry tome (such as animosity between the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Hillary -- which his daughter Maura categorically denies) and uncredited "borrowed" passages from Sidney Blumenthal's book The Clinton Wars.



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http://www.pressconnects.com/today/opinion/stories/op062005s173718.shtml

[Oversea Visitor]

1. I think Boxer can do a good job

[norml]

6. Here's an archived thread of mine that has some more thoughts on this.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=1837428

[wisteria]

2. First, Hillary and Former Pres. Clinton love this attention.

Second, I don't buy the Hillary is tough she can take on anyone or anything and the repubs want to do her in so we should support her as our candidate junk. They want to see her run in 2008, they know they can beat her and raise a lot of money doing so. Its a win win for them.

[norml]

3. My theory is they want to build their 2006 election strategy around

bashing her, when they run Rudy against her in the Senate race. They want to make all of the 06 races nationwide a referendum on Hillary. That she's running for President has always been right wing propaganda to paint her as power mad, and to take away from her accomplishments.

[wisteria]

4. I had read that the repubs were running Cox, a Nixon son in law

against her for her senate seat in 2006. I think Rudy isn't after a Senate seat, he wants and thinks he deserves the big prize the, White House. I don't give Rudy much of a chance though. By 2007, 9/11 will be remembered as a place in history and his star won't shine so brightly.

[norml]

5. Time will tell if I am right or I am wrong, but I'd put money on it.

Cox is just a dodge, while Rudy plays coy. He knows this republican party would never give him the nod to run for Pres, but a cabinet post might be to his liking, if he's a good boy for them.

[Linette]

7. They're just getting an early start...

I'm not sure Hillary can turn their attacks into an advantage the way her husband did. Maybe if she reads James Kroeger'sThe Republican Nemesis she'll have a chance. Far too many Democrats (including Bill Clinton) believe that Bill Clinton's success had more to do with his "centrist" stands on the issues than it did on his personal charm. Without it, he would have been toast.

Linette

[OKNancy]

8. here is a snip from Maura Moynihan's debunking

http://www.observer.com/pages/generic.asp

Smears and Lies: Klein on Clinton
by Maura Moynihan

It is sorry proof of the national decline of standards and the perversion of priorities that Senator Hillary Clinton isn’t getting coverage in Vanity Fair magazine—a New York–based publication—for her work in the U.S. Senate. Rather, the magazine’s editors have decided that it is more newsworthy and relevant to excerpt a tawdry new book that hits a new low in Hillary-bashing.

Ed Klein, author of the book in question, The Truth About Hillary, alleges that New York’s late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan "despised" Mrs. Clinton, that he once hid in a cloakroom to terminate a conversation with her. Nonsense. I think I know Senator Moynihan better than Mr. Klein, because he was my father. Mr. Klein also claims firsthand knowledge of a meeting between my parents and Mrs. Clinton that took place in their apartment in Washington. It was during this meeting that Mrs. Clinton, then the nation’s First Lady, discussed the idea of running for the seat my father was about to vacate.

Mr. Klein puts quotes around statements that were never uttered. I can confirm this because the only other persons present during this meeting were myself and our Tibetan cook, who speaks about 10 words of English. Mr. Klein has now gone on the record to say that he spent "several hours interviewing Mrs. Moynihan." Puzzling indeed, in that Mrs. Moynihan—my mother—hasn’t seen Mr. Klein in over 20 years. I’d like to see the transcripts or hear the tapes of his on-the-record talks with Mrs. Moynihan. And it would have been difficult for him to interview Senator Moynihan, because he’s dead.

Mr. Klein has an established record of slandering Democrats and using dead people as sources: Remember his book about John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette—New Yorkers and private citizens—also excerpted in Vanity Fair? If Mrs. Clinton were merely a movie star, one could shrug off the Klein book as tabloid trash, but she is the junior Senator from New York and former First Lady of the United States of America. So when national publications offer legitimacy to smear artists who attack our elected officials, the consequences are real, as it further degrades the profession of journalism and injures our public servants and the institutions they serve.

[Gyre]

9. Too bad Hillary's a DLC puke

Because of that and her voting record she'll never get my vote.

Gyre