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HILLARY’S GAFFE
With this post I clearly support Obama. This does not mean that I intend to begin to participate in the uncalled for Clinton bashing that I have read entirely too much of here (there is a comparable amount of uncalled for Obama bashing that is equally unhelpful). But if I'm going to be supporting Obama I may as well declare why, and if this one post is unfavorable to Hillary Clinton, I believe she earned it.
February 23, 2008
Two nights ago Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama debated each other in Texas. One clip, copied and rebroadcast, shows a portion where Hillary got booed.
What is significant is not that she got booed, but why.
The clip showed Obama speaking first on the issue of a phrase first used by another politician. To my mind (and evidently in the perception of others as well) Obama had effectively defused the “issue.” He had persuasively argued that the great bulk of his speeches were his own—and effective speeches using his own words, and he did so while working in specific points on policy that went beyond mere rhetoric and made substantive points. Then he acknowledged that he had used some words that had been used before, stating that they were the words of his own campaign manager that he had used at his campaign manager’s suggestion. He then closed by stating that we should be discussing issues rather than merely trying to tear each other down, and stating that it was things like this that brought campaigns down to a level of silliness.
After this presentation, Hillary Clinton, had she understood how effective Barrack Obama’s defusing of the issue had just been, would have left well enough alone, and moved on some other issue. Instead, using clearly prepared language which one must presume had been prepared by someone else she mechanically attacked him saying that words matter, and that the words candidates use in campaigns should be their own, and used the phrase “change you can Xerox.”
Hillary’s attack was well within the bounds of what has become accepted and expected in the realm of (cheap) political debating. What is important to note was that it was a cheap political shot—although it was—or that she was doing what she was accusing Obama of doing by using the words of others (to attack him)—which it certainly appears to me that she was, but rather that after having heard Obama, she nevertheless walked right in with a premeditated attack which was clearly going to be counterproductive.
This shows a limited, perhaps politically challenged, ability to think on her feet for herself. Obama had just shown himself highly capable, high minded, and capable of dealing with substance at the same time. Hillary Clinton, in contrast, then walked right in and looked shallow, cheap, mean spirited, and without substantive point.
I know very well that this was far from the totality of the debate, and that at times Hillary Clinton did much better. Indeed, at the end of the debate she delivered a line encouraging unity and mutual good will that drew a standing ovation—a line that had first been delivered by John Edwards.
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