James Carville

[ProSense]

Premise Special Review: James Carville

By chance a couple of months ago I happened to see The War Room for a second time. If you’re not familiar with the documentary, it covers the 1992 Clinton campaign from the point of view of James Carville and other staff at the campaign HQ, as opposed to traveling with candidate Bill Clinton.

In light of recent events that I address more fully below, two moments in the film stand out. The first is an impassioned speech given by Mr. Carville, in which he tears up as he explains why Democrats need to defeat the Republican candidate and end twelve straight years of GOP control of the White House. It is clear from Mr. Carville’s words and his own reaction to them that he cares a great deal about inequities inherent in the Republican Party’s philosophy of governance, and that he believes in more than victory for victory’s sake.

Snip...

Until recently, I confess that’s how I tended to view their union. And had Mr. Carville not brought his own political loyalties into question in several ways, I think I would still believe in that benign explanation of their relationship. But I’m given to wonder now if Mr. Carville’s embrace of Ms. Matalin wasn’t also a rejection or betrayal of the emotions and beliefs that brought him to tears in 1992. That concern has only been exacerbated by recent events in which Mr. Carville seems determined not to support the resurgence and momentum of the Democratic Party, but to derail it.

Snip...

One of the things that has made Mr. Carville an enduring fixture on television and in political circles is his tendency toward bombast and rhetorical excess. It’s part of what makes him unique and effective as a motivator. But comparing Howard Dean, who won the elections he was supposed to win, to recently-fired Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, whose incompetence has contributed to the deaths of thousands of American soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians, seems less outrageous than it does bitter and mean.

Because Mr. Carville is a smart man, however, and well-connected in Democratic circles, speculation turned to the possibility that Mr. Carville might have some other reason for deposing Mr. Dean and replacing him with a hand-picked successor:

Snip...

It is curious that neither Mr. or Ms. Clinton denied that Mr. Carville was on their payroll or working on their behalf, either in preparation for Ms. Clinton’s expected run for the White House, or in some other capacity. It is demonstrable, however, that Mr. Carville is and has been aggressively making the case for her candidacy.

It’s also debatable that spending all available funds would have increased the number of seats captured by Democrats. And oddly, Mr. Carville doesn’t seem concerned that Ms. Clinton blew $36 million herself on her own re-election when she could have easily given a good chunk of that money to the candidates Mr. Carville deemed most needy.

Snip...

Which brings me to a story I didn’t post about when it first came to light, because it seemed trivial at the time. Among other more important revelations in Bob Woodward’s recent book, State of Denial, was an account in which Mr. Carville is seen to obstruct John Kerry’s ability to contest the vote count in Ohio in 2004:

Snip...

While Mr. Carville’s conduct is certainly not what one would hope for when a Democratic candidate’s fate might be hanging in the balance, that’s not why I’m referencing this conversation. Rather, I want to highlight one specific line:

“Carville told her he had some inside news.”

I don’t know what you think about that, but it makes me uncomfortable to think that James Carville is a conduit of information for the Republican Party. I won’t call him a spy because that’s a bit melodramatic, but I don’t think many Democrats would be happy to learn that he willingly passed on inside information to the Republican Party. It’s also troublesome that this one line paints both Mr. Carville and Ms. Matalin as demonstrable liars when they say they don’t talk politics at home. The only question that remains unanswered seems to be who they are working for when they conspire in this fashion, if they’re working for anyone at all.

more...

[MichiganVote]

1. Carville AND his wife are nothing but political perverts

[pretzel4gore]

2. sick and tired of being conned...

hillary should give up on '08...who the hell does she think she is? if carville is scheming to influence the dynamics of the opposition party's actions, while bush remains in power and while mountains of evidence of crimes are being buried, then go to hell jimbo...
fact: all those years of bush/gopig prevalence, the pigmedia nurtured carville and begalla etc as if they were the voices of the democratic party opposition. now we find out carville's trying to pull some undefined stunt! maybe he was pure bushevik all the time! and the fact bush has prospered for so long with jim a bigname opponent says james aint any damn good anyway...the fix was in in '92(?) regan and bush seenior had messed the economy up so bad by '92, a fall guy admin had to be allowed to it clean up(?)
get a job carville (mcdonalds is hiring)

[babylonsister]

3. Carville is appearing just as snakey as Rove. I wish he'd just go away! nt

[MoonRiver]

4. I don't ever want to see that man posing as a "Democratic strategist" again.

He is as much our enemy as his slimy wife. :mad:

[The Count]

6. The word "Democratic strategist" itself smells bad now...

[MannyGoldstein]

9. Democrat Strategist?

Soon he'll start calling himself a "Democrat" strategist.

Ms. Matalin will be pleased.

[blm]

31. Matalin's a war criminal, and he's protecting her - that makes him a war criminal

and he knows it.

[smoogatz]

5. Carville: RNC mole?

He's certainly a tool of Hillary and the DLC--and if he speaks for them regarding Dean's winning strategy for '06, it's just a further indication of their duplicitousness. It's the corporate/Republican wing of the "Democrat" party versus the Democratic wing of the Democratic party. The "Democrat" party is just a slightly more articulate, better-dressed version of the Republican party, IMO.

Hi ProSense! Great post!

[blm]

33. That's why I call them the coverup wing of the Democratic party -

and look at the protection they give BushInc at every crucial turn.

[wilt the stilt]

7. In any relationship one is dominant

and prevails even only slightly. There is no way that Mary matalin isn't dominant in this relationship. I maintain that Carville is talking Mary's line. The repubs know that Dean is smarter than rove with a better long range plan and that Hilary as our nominee would be a disaster for us.

[MannyGoldstein]

8. Why is Mrs. Clinton Getting Off the Hook Here?

If one person shoots another, we don't hold the gun responsible - we blame the party that aimed and pulled the trigger.

Mrs. Clinton, who was so quick to jump on Kerry for his recent flub, has thus far not distanced herself from Carville's spew: other's have moved away, even Rahm.

Just what's going on here is pretty clear - and it'll keep happening for the next year or so, as the Clinton's seek to destroy actual Democrats. Their many patrons in the Predator Class, for whom they've done many great favors, will give them plenty of backing.

I hope that Dean and the other actual Democrats can withstand the withering attacks to come.

[glitch]

10. Very true but withering attacks only work when you wither. Dean not a witherer.

Calling Dean "Rumsfeldian in his incompetence" would seem a withering attack, but you have to both respect the attacker and have the attackee actually be a witherer for it to all come together.
So far, not so good for the attackers. And the beauty of it is, the attacks just hang in the air then fall back on the attacker like a foul odor.

[Cha]

20. Dean was so cool on his

birthday in Wyoming after the local Dems sang "Happy Birthday" to him. He said, paraphrasing here.."Those are the old dems who complain when we win. The new Dems celebrate their victory and get to work." All the while talking in his fast Northeastern accent with his sleeves rolled up!

http://www.localnews8.com/news/local/4682301.html

[creeksneakers2]

13. Why is Mrs. Clinton ON the hook?

There is no reason to believe she's in any way involved in Carville's outbursts. There is no reason for her to go after Dean. Dean has a four year term and isn't even up for reelection. Why would Hillary want to turn half the party against her to get rid of somebody who is bound to stay neutral until the primaries are over? There is no mention in any of these crazy conspiracy theories of a single individual,other than Carville,who is actively trying to get Dean out. There is no plot to remove Dean. Its all a myth made up by the right wing to split the party.

I noticed the author of the above article believes Ross Perot caused GHW Bush to lose in '92. That's a bit of false RW folklore that generally only righties believe, so I wonder where this author gets his information from.

The Clintons have always been cursed by a public that accuses them based on only the wildest of speculation. Then the public demands the Clintons prove their innocence. When the Clintons do that, like Hillary saying recently that she didn't sign off on Carville's rants, the denial isn't good enough for the accusers. I don't see why Hillary would get involved in this whole mess by making a denial.

Here's an alternative theory:

James Carville likes to think he's a genius so he finds ways to diminish the success of others who succeed where he couldn't. Is this possible?

Oh, and in 2006, the Clintons worked very hard to help other Democratic candidates. They are not working for the Republicans. They are not working to destroy Democrats.

[MannyGoldstein]

24. Mrs. Clinton Distanced Herself From This?

Really? I can find no evidence of this, other than this spirited defense of her by Sir Rupert's birdcage liner.

The Clinton's are hardly pure as the driven snow. They pull all sorts of cryptopolitical stuff, and have no problems using proxies to destroy political opponents.

[creeksneakers2]

25. NYT 11/16/06

"Aides to Mr. and Mrs. Clinton said Mr. Carville had not cleared his attacks on Mr. Dean with them."

Your article also points out that the Clintons have nothing to do with any attacks on Dean.

Nobody is as clear as the driven snow but the idea that the Clintons are constantly engaged in sinister plots to control everything is a right wing manufactured fiction. The evidence that the Clintons scheme is based on other accusations that the Clintons scheme which in turn are based on other hoaxes. I can't think of a time anybody ever proved the Clintons did anything backhanded, unless you count "The Clintons must be guilty because everybody knows they do things like this" as evidence. (Which is the sum total of evidence here)

Hillary is depicted as a woman who is consumed by lust for power. Many books have been sold with stories about how Hillary conspired to run for president in 2000 and 2004. She didn't, but she easily could have. I believe she would have done better than John Kerry. Anyway,those books go to show how there is an entire industry that makes up hoaxes about the Clintons scheming. There's an article in Richard Mellon Scaife's rag today alleging Hillary is behind the attacks on Dean. (Which side is Richard Mellon Scaife on and why would the article run in his paper?)

For contrast,compare Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan ran for president four times, once against an incumbent of his own party. If there ever was anybody who was insane with the desire for power it was Ronald Reagan. Yet, no stories are ever told about Reagan scheming. That goes to show who writes the narrative about Hillary, who as of yet, has not run for president once. It all starts with the vast right wing conspiracy.

[MannyGoldstein]

26. That Sounds Like An Admission of Guilt!

That's not a distancing. That's careful parsing - and not even by Mrs. Clinton. Given how easy it was for her to jump on Kerry's latest gaffe, how difficult would it be for her to issue a one- or two-sentence statement re: Dean as others, even Rahm, have done?

Remember the missing Rose Law Whitewater records that mysteriously appeared in Mrs. Clinton's space in the White House? Think it was aliens that dropped them there? Remember how Mrs. Clinton legally sodomized the good folks in the WH travel office just to put Bill's cousin in charge?

[creeksneakers2]

29. How much proof of innocence do you want?

First you said the Clintons didn't distance themselves. Now the denial isn't good enough.

To answer your question about why more denial didn't come from the Clintons, its because the more they engage these right wing smears the bigger the smears become. If the Clintons say anything that can be crammed into a 30 second news segment it becomes big news, and then the speculation will create accusations which will lead to conclusions of guilt by all those who reason: "The Clintons must have done it because they do things like that." Also, if the Clintons denied every RW lie that was made up about them they'd do nothing else.

You must have been misinformed about the billing records. The billings record hoax first starts with the false premise that the billing records were a possession that the Clintons paid a great deal of attention to, and were important to the investigations into things the Clintons never did in the first place.

The billing records were packed up with hundreds of boxes of other records which were kept in no particular order when the Clintons moved from Arkansas. Somewhere along the line they were misplaced. If I subpoenaed 100,000 documents from somebody important like the Clintons I'd be amazed if they could produce 90% of them. Records get lost, just like some of George Bush's and John Kerry's military records were. This happens everywhere, all the time. If the billing records contained any evidence of wrongdoing I'd be more suspicious. In fact, the billing records were exculpatory. There was no reason to hide them.

The billing records were found by Mrs. Clinton's secretary. Aliens did not drop them there. The secretary wasn't clear about where she found them. If Mrs. Clinton had intended to hide them, she would have put them where they wouldn't be found, or better yet, just destroyed them. Why not?

Mrs. Clinton didn't sodomize anybody. Its unfortunate that the entire Travel Office staff was labeled with the misdeeds of the director, who stole at least $600,000. (Unless you believe his story that he put the money in his own bank account to repay loans he'd made and he never kept records of any of it.) The Clintons would have gone to prison if they didn't remove the director. (Unlike Bush and Reagan who covered it up and were never asked to explain.) Hillary was totally within her rights to appoint friends to run that travel office, since the positions are under the patronage system. The idea that Hillary made up false accusations to remove personnel that she was perfectly entitled to remove without cause is ludicrous. Its another of the 1000s of lies the RW made up about the Clintons, who if you noticed were never criminally prosecuted for anything.

I don't know how one can hang around DU for this length of time and be so misinformed.

[blm]

37. I agree the Clintons WERE lied about constantly, so why did Hillary JOIN the liars and

scold John Kerry as if the lie created about him by BushInc was TRUE?

I and MILLIONS of Democrats defended Clinton for years for dropping his pants, and Hillary jumped on scolding Kerry for dropping a PRONOUN?

[MonkeyFunk]

35. Why should she distance herself from anything

somebody else says. It's the silly Tim Russert game - make someone affirm or deny what somebody else said. It's dumb. I wish people would just say "Ask me about things that I said, instead."

It's infuriating, and it's Russert's main mode of interviewing. He doesn't ask people probing questions about their own positions - he asks them about somebody ELSE'S position in an effort to make somebody seemingly agree with something objectionable, or have them disavow a regular ally. That's not interviewing, it's gamesmanship.

Senator Clinton doesn't have to say ANYTHING about what James Carville or anybody else said.

[Jade Fox]

11. I've just never understood ....

how a person can go home at night and crawl into bed with someone whose values are (supposedly) totally the opposite of one's own. Carville's wife works for the Whitehouse for cryin' out loud! She isn't just a Republican, she is in the belly of the beast.

The only explanation for their marriage that makes sense is that one of them doesn't take their values seriously. And that person doesn't appear to be Mary Matalin.

[blm]

12. Matalin became a WAR CRIMINAL in that WH. BushInc NEEDS the Clintons to coverup

for them AGAIN the way Bill did for Bush1 when he took office in 1993.

Carville needs to make that happen, too, as his wife is most certainly a war criminal as part of the Iraq War Group who was manipulating the intelligence and the almost all information that led to war.

An anti-corruption, open government Democrat will open the books on BushInc and that will expose EVERYONE, incuding the Clintons' role in the original coverup.

[Auntie Bush]

16. I'll tip my tinfoil hat to that idea. Very possible and reasonable theory.

[sillyparty]

14. Netroots hated Kerry as well

So who cares.

[Auntie Bush]

15. I'm sorry but netroots didn't hate Kerry. Certainly not after he won the primaries.

[Cha]

18. Don't be silly...the netroots did

not "hate Kerry". We loved him. I was a Dean supporter but when Kerry won the primary we all got behind him. My friend and I even went to New Hampshire to hear him speak on Nov 2, 2004.

[mtnsnake]

23. That's true. I remember Netroots being pissed at Kerry last summer

[sendero]

28. He didn't win..

.... did he.

[Clark2008]

17. FINALLY! Finally someone makes it clear why Carville telling

Matlin that Kerry may contest the race pisses people off so much.

I could never understand it. What difference does it make if Carville said this? If the Bush team didn't know, they soon would have had Kerry contested the results in Ohio.

But, now I understand. It wasn't WHAT he told - it's that he has a conduit in Matlin to tell ANYTHING.

Got it.

[blm]

22. Because when Carville TOLD Matalin, Kerry's camp believed there were 250,000 ballots to

contest to make up the 120,000 difference. AFTER Matalin told Cheney and Bush and a call went to Blackwell, Kerry's camp was told by the state of Ohio there were only 150,000 ballots that were provisional, making it virtually impossible to reach 120,000.

Kerry's camp didn't know that Carville told Matalin and that prompted the number change - of course, I also believe that there were those in the DNC like McAuliffe who weren't making decisions based on Kerry's interest either, there in Ohio, and like it or not, Kerry WAS dependent on these people to do their structural duties at the state level.

[Catchawave]

19. Carville in 2000 and 2004 ?

:shrug:

So why does his opinion matter to me today?

[Cha]

21. This is an amazing Premise

by Mark Barrett! Thank you, ProSense.

[blm]

30. The Premise seems to have no problem pointing fingers where they belong -

and certainly not at Dean, Kerry or Murtha like the coverup wing of the Dem party prefers.

[Cha]

32. Dean, Kerry, and Murtha are

to go to guys for Smear the Messenger. Right out of rove's playbook via goebbels ..on loan to the dlc.

[wicket]

27. K & R

:kick:

[ProSense]

34. Scooter defense fund

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

36. Hillary was dumb...

no other way to put it. Sitting on an enormous war chest and with only token opposition, she didn't share the wealth. When you're running for president, you need to call in a lot of political favors from coast to coast. She could have made "friends" in nearly every congressional district had she the forsight to invest in a Democratic Congress. She didn't, which means that the instead of being on the inside track, she's simply a member of the pack.

Dumb move. Very, very dumb.