The Selling Out of John Kerry Nov 2004 by Clinton Operatives or

[truedelphi]

Why I would consider slitting my own throat rather than voting for Hillary.

I have posted this many times on DU - it is the morning after the Nov 2004 Presidential election. Carville is whispering into Kerry's ear, that in regards to Ohio, Kerry should concede. Kerry is misinformed: he is told that there are only 250,000 ballots in dispute that could possibly be counted to overthrow Bush's 138,000 ballot lead.

What those of us who hate Carville for this know are the following salient points:
One) there were other matters above and beyond the 250,000 ballots.
Those matters include the suppression of the vote by not allowing enough election machines into heavily Democratic areas, while keeping the Republican districts supplied with surplus of machinery.
The outright flipping of votes: see the most excellent film "Stealing America- vote by vote", by Dorothy Faddiman
The wrongful tallying of votes - as when several dozen districts had more Bush voters than actual registered voters
Two) The lock down inside Warren County's vote counting headquarters, by official Young of the local Emergency Services. Young was claiming that Homeland Security said that there was a threat. After Kerry's concession, it came out that Homeland Security had not ruled that there was a terrorist threat. Nor had the FBI CIA or any other security agency. Kerry should not have conceded at least until charges were levied against Mr. Young. Other wise it sets the stage for any voting official who desires that the vote be counted in secret use this action as a precedent. (Currently, as the National Election guidelines and state guidelines are written, any person(s) who wish to watch the vote count at their local Registrar of Voters office may do so, simply by letting the local ROV know of their intention ahead of time. Failure of the ROV to comply carries legal penalties. Contact yr local County District Attorney if you are denied this right.
Three) Voting activists in Ohio now believe that at the time that Kerry conceded - there were about 400,000 ballots that could have entered into a contested election scenario. Those 400,000 ballots would be more than enough ballots to defeat Bush's lead, especially considering that many of these were provisional ballots - and provisionals are usually from poorer minority voters.

The fact that Kerry conceded sets up an incredibly painful precedent. It shows us that whenever an election is won by illegal means, there is no point in fighting to establish the wrongfulness of said election: after all, Kerry "did the right thing for the country while we were at war."

The fact that Carville was acting, perhaps as much on Clinton's behalf as his own behalf, to secure for her the chance to run in 2008, indicates to me that Clinton is not out for this country but for her own self interests.


Here is a portion of an article which can be read in entirety at

http://tinyurl.com/yrfaqo


Did Carville and Joe Lockhart Sell Kerry Out?



Woodward's book lays it out pretty plainly. No one should be surprised.

One important point, however, is that people have started talking about the Carville - Matalin angle, but everyone stops there. If you read a bit further Mike McCurry comes into the picture. It seals the deal.

Here's a story not in the Woodward book. According to one person I talked to today, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Joe Lockhart, in the middle of a heated presidential campaign, started making new business calls out of the Kerry war room giving out confidential campaign information while he was at it. Obviously trying to hedge his bets, he'd call out, give poll data and other info to people, while trying to drum up business for himself. Class act.

Frankly, it reminds me of what McCurry did on the Net Neutrality stuff.

For DC Democrats it's all about keeping your candidates close, but your business associates and their interests closer.

As for what's said in the Woodward book, one Kerry camp insider I talked to today certainly wasn't surprised by the revelations.


"The fact that the Clintonistas did not truly have JK's best interest at heart in 2004 comes as no surprise to anyone deeply involved in the Kerry camp." - Kerry insider, who would not go on the record.

At some point it got out of control.

The DC Dems hired to fight for John Kerry simply sold him out at the first sign of a fight. Except for a loyal group closest to Kerry, many of the people in his employ simply sucked. I can't say it any plainer. Woodward offers more proof on what's been speculated about for a couple of years now.

But did Carville and McCurry really sell Kerry out? Playing stenographer, because this is important, I offer the whole picture, which goes way beyond Carville. It points to the reality that if our presidential candidate is going to win he or she has to extricate themselves from these self-interested traitors inside our own party who are willing to sell out the Democratic Party cause, which must be to fight and win elections, in support of their own interests.

It's important to hammer this scene out because we are facing a critical election in just a few weeks. Every single candidate must be prepared to stand up and fight back, because it takes more than just counting the vote against Republicans these days. As an aside, if you can vote through absentee ballot, which offers a paper trail that electronic voting does not, do it.

But when the end isn't certain there is only one thing to do: declare victory and fight it out.

It's clear Carville and McCurry had their eyes on something else entirely. With Democrats like Carville and McCurry helping us out on election night we hardly need Karl Rove.


After 1 a.m., Card called Cahill.

Cahill said the Kerry campaign felt confident.

Card was caught off guard. ... --Is there going to be a phone call?"

"We won't be calling you," Cahill replied. She seemed to be half asking whether Bush would be calling Kerry to concede.

(snip)

Matalin is married to James Carville, a Democrat who had been chief political strategist for Bill Clinton in 1992. ... ...

"Look, I know this is hard for you," she told him sympathetically.
Did Carville and Joe Lockhart, and McCurry Sell Kerry Out?



<end of snip>

[Lucinda]

1. Oh please. Now you're blaming Hillary for Kerry's concession?

[truedelphi]

6. No, actually John Kerry was a grown man at the time of his concession.

But the fact that Carville did what he did speaks for itself. And the fact that Clinton still relies on Carville speaks for itself.

Kerry betrayed everyone who voted for him when he conceded.

The political maneuvering of Carville/Clinton speaks for itself.

[blm]

30. Clinton loyalists did undermine the campaign as they did to Gore's and as they did Lamont's

in their effort to protect Joe.

Historian Douglas Brinkley noticed enough to make this observation in April2004:
http://www.depauw.edu/news/index.asp?id=13354

And Carville DID sabotage Ohio Dem voters on election night:

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2006/oct/07/did_carville_tip_bush_off_to_kerry_strategy_woodward

[peacetalksforall]

36. I believe the DLC led everything - blame it on McAuliffe and then take it from there.

The DLC fought againt Gore when he fought the counts in 2000 and they had Kerry rolling over within 24? hours, in fact just a few hours after Edwards promised us a fight.

Ask the DLC what they were trying to do and you will know everything if you get an answer.

Look where McAuliffe has been for over a decade?

[blm]

37. DNC - McAuliffe ran the DNC into the ground and never secured election process

even after the blatant election fraud in 2000. 2002 and 2004 were throwaways for DNC under McAuliffe - his job was to sit on his hands and keep 2008 free for Hillary.

Part of that was making SURE that RNC controlled vote count and that Kerry wouldn't HAVE the evidence needed to contest or any cooperation from the DNC.

[midora]

67. Kerry Was My Candidate in 2004

And I would gladly vote for him again. With populist John Edwards at his side, I am confident they would have transformed this country and rescued us from the Iraq quagmire. Kerry's problem in 2004 was that he took the "I won't dignify that with a response" approach toward the ludricrous charges launched at him in those Swift Boat stories. I remember I couldn't believe that anyone could take that Swift Boat crap seriously, but I suppose I underestimated the intelligence of many Americans.

Anyway, sorry to get off the track, but I feel if Kerry is so against the Clintons, then there's something there. From what we saw back in 2004, he's not really the type to speak out negatively against people.

[leftofcool]

2. The Clintons did it

The only person who gets more blame than the Clintons for shit in this country is God. Clintons are in good company, I would say.

[Cha]

24. clintons run with the devil and

if you're in their way back to the white house..you better get the fuck outta the way.

[JimGinPA]

3. K&R

[NoBushSpokenHere]

56. Kick for nightshift nt

[DJ13]

4. They couldnt allow Kerry to win

The Clintons always planned on a 2008 Hillary run, couldnt do that if we had a Democratic President running for reelection in 2008.

Why they didnt just run Hillary in 2004 is that part I'll never understand.

[Lucinda]

9. Bullshit. Bill went out and actively campaigned for Kerry following his surgery.

[burythehatchet]

42. That's not correct. Bill was promoting his book and defending Bush's war at every turn. n/t

[karynnj]

60. Also in his book, still being edited AFTER Kerry had the nomination

Clinton had two curious pages on the 1996 MA Senate race. He says many positive things about liking Weld, the popular Republican MA governor - even saying he would be a good addition to the Senate. But Clinton decides he doesn't want to lose Kerry because he was a top expert on technology and the environment. He also mentions - but says there are no votes in it - Kerry's decades long work to help underprivileged youth. Two things to consider - he didn't include this "should I support him" garbage with the others Senators up for re-election and why the hell was it even a thought - the Senate ended up with 55 Republicans - and Kerry had no scandals or any reason not to support him. (I bet Weld might even have voted "yes" on impeachment.) He also seemed to have forgotten that Kerry helped him enormously in 1992 when he was in trouble on the draft question.

Here's what he DIDN'T mention:

Anything that would have relevance because we were at war on :
- Kerry's work on terrorism - where he was pretty much alone in Congress in the 1990s speaking of non-state terrorism. He also wrote legislation that was incorporated into the Patriot Act to deal with international money launderings - and has been the key to the only successes we had in fighting Al Quaeda.
- Kerry's decades of support for veterans - including a lot of legislation with McCain. (Factcheck excluded a lot of this as well because it was McCain/Kerry.) He ignores that Kerry fought for him on gays in the military and even was sworn in to testify on Agent Orange, when Admiral Zumwold's son, also a swiftboat skipper, was too ill with cancer to do so.
- Kerry work on both the POW/MIA committee and the re-establishment of relations with Vietnam (in other sections, McCain is given all the credit). In 2007 when a SFRC staffer retired, she mentioned in her RI paper speaking of things she worked on - that she, Kerry and Vallery (sp ?) drafted the treaty that re-established the relationship between Vietnam and the US and included an agreement on Vietnam's part for a major effort to find and repatriate American remains. (This helped Clinton)
- Kerry brokered an agreement on how to hold the war crimes tribunal on the Pol Pot years in Cambodia. (This reflected well on the US when Clinton was President.

These were the basis of Kerry's credentials on terrorism, foreign policy, and veterans issues.

Mysteriously, he didn't mention Kerry's work on health care - though it was an issue in that election. Weld had VETOED the MA children's health care program that was implemented when the MA legislature overrode his veto. Kerry used ideas from that progam to write legislation that he and Kennedy sponsored in 1996 to do the same nationally. Kennedy took that bill and agreed to various compromises to create S-CHIP with Hatch. (Kerry stayed involved as an original co-sponsor and was one of 4 people who spoke when it was introduced in the Senate.) This is now HRC's most common answer on something she did. Her role was to insure that Bill Clinton included the program in the budget after it passed as a program. Odd that her lesser involvement is a keystone of her claim to experience and Clinton didn't even address it by adding ONE word in this comparison of Weld and Kerry. (One word - add healthcare to environment and technology in the existing sentence.

This is passive aggressive behavior. It damns the person he KNEW was the Democratic nominee with intentional faint praise. Consider there is even the suggestion that he considered not supporting him in 1996. Contrast that to the praise he lavished on Leiberman when he supported him in the 2006 primary. It is also covert enough that it is tough to call him on it. It takes writing a list of what is missing. It also risks the response of - It was BC's autobiography. It was not his job to promote Kerry. The problem is that BC wrote what could be taken as his overall evaluation of Kerry's performance as a Senator - and he left out two major areas that Kerry was involved in since he joined the Senate - foreign policy and veterans issues.

Fortunately, there was likely little damage. Clinton's book is nearly a 1000 pages long and it is not all that interesting. (IMHO) the media - even with the upcoming convention - was far more interested in what he had to say about Monica, not Kerry. The true damage was more the timing - sucking up valuable oxygen that Kerry/Edwards needed and turning the conversation to the Republicans' favorite topic , Monica.

[burythehatchet]

61. Thanks, Karennj, good work. n/t

[AtomicKitten]

5. I was in denial about this for years .... but I got better. ;)

The Clintons are ruthless pols.

[BooScout]

7. Yea right...........

Now ya'll are blaming Clinton for Kerry's fuck ups? You are beyond delusional.

[russian33]

11. to read this discussion, it's like Kerry was a dimwited dope..

...and everyone just pushed him in a direction that was right for them...geesh

and again, so sad to hear the repub line of "clinton's fault" parroted on DU...sad

[karynnj]

15. No Kerry was an exceptionally good person who did his part very well

His debates were excellent as were his rallies.

What hurt him was that many of the Democrats on tv were Clinton people. They did attack Bush - but can you remember either Carville or Begala ever focusing on Kerry's agenda or any of his Senate (or LT Gov) accomplishments. Carville has spoken often of HRC and S-CHIP. If he thinks it such a great HRC accomplishment, why was it not worth a mention in 2004 For Kerry who was far more involved in initiating that legislation. Why was nothing made of his alternative energy/environmental plank - several people found Kerry's connecting alternative energy to stopping our dependence on the middle east - funding both sides of the war on terror (not just DEms, but every Rep is saying that this time). When people ask why Kerry didn't get his message out - think about it. It was not lack of ideas - every Democrat included many of them this time. It wasn't lack of eloquence - he beats HRC and Edwards by miles. It was that the media didn't propigate it. It was the old if a tree falls in an uninhabited forest does it make a sound.

[Cha]

27. Always enjoy the posts from you,

blm and the others who were some of Kerry's best supporters on DU ..after the 2004 primaries, of course. :)

[karynnj]

31. Thanks

[truedelphi]

65. I very much remember the contrast between

The coverage that Kerry got on the internet, and the coverage he got on TV.

The weekend before the election, the M$M stations showed a weary Kerry getting on or off a plane at 6 Am. He looked like the dickens. They ran that shot again and again.

The internet showed a truer tale - Kerry in a standing-roomonly stadium in Madison WI. The man stood invigorated, jubilant, Presidential in appearance.

Madison only has a quarter of a million folks or so in town and the surrounding burbs- to fill up that stadium meant a whole huge percentage of the populace was there that day.

Somehow mainstream media failed to have any footage of that.

[karynnj]

66. I loved those internet and CSPAN videos

It was an amazing campaign hidden from most people.

[Fabio]

51. we (democrats) lost the campaign.

Could John Kerry have run a better campaign? Yes. Did he try to run a high minded campaign that set the foundation for dem success in 2006 and hopefully 2008?...i think so. Did Hillary Clinton cause him to loose? Most certainly not. I was in rooms watching the Clintons help with donors and voters for the 2004 campaign (i live in NYC).

Does Carville cause himself trouble because he is fundamentaly a political animal and has a (famous and funny) big mouth? Of course. But outcomes were not changed by these actions IMHO.

[ryanmuegge]

8. Woodward, Carville, Shrum, Matalin: they're all a bunch of spineless, self-serving twits.

It wouldn't surprise me if this turned out to be true. They're all in it together, working to further a right-wing agenda (with slight disagreements about degree).

Shrum, Mr. Television Democrat, was on Meet the Press surreptitiously yesterday shilling for McCain.

[NoBushSpokenHere]

10. Okay since someone finally said it here

That is the main reason I have chosen Obama over Hillary. Those of us that followed the election fraud of 2004 believe Kerry was sold out so Hillary could win in 08. Yes, it would be great to have a female as President, but not Hillary after what went down in 04. I, for one, will never forget.

[karynnj]

12. From other accounts that John Kerry himself has told

I think that the election eve stuff is not completely right. Kerry and people he could completely trust (his brother and best friend) were in contact with many people in Ohio. By the next morning, the numbers just weren't there.

I think the comments of the Kerry staffer likely refer to the campaign as a whole. The Primary campaign run by Kerry and people loyal to him was incredibly well done. The media wrote him off in December - the only stories were lending himself money and when he would drop out. He was almost not included in end of the year guesses - two months later he was the all but certain winner. (He clinched this time 4 years ago) The momentum never changed. The campaign raised an unprecedented amount of money. His ground organizations were good everywhere. He won all but SC, OK and VT before he mathematically had the nomination. There were very few campaign gaffes. They fought back the swiftboat people and an attack possibly from other Democrats that claimed he had an affair with an intern. The latter was especially well handled - she was not an intern, there was no affair and the campaign did not at any point attack the woman. (I was happy to hear Shrum's account that one of Kerry's first reactions was concern for the young woman - a contrast to another Democrat accused of affairs that actually happened. It is likely that his reaction set the tone.)

Then there was the general election - where suddenly you had Begala and Carville daily complaining about how "insiders" in the campaign were unhappy with things. There were even leaked Bill Clinton comments. The beautifully run primary campaign was not like that - and it likely was the people added when they had to expand - as all campaigns have to. Many of the Kerry people are supposedly working for Obama - I hope they learned who to trust. I thought for the last several years as these stories gradually came out, that the Clinton people sabotaged the campaign. Looking at the mess of HRC's campaign - I actually don't think they intentionally did - I think they are dysfunctional and they are hurting her just as much.

As to the candidate - HRC has already made more gaffes than he did in the entire campaign. She already has had at least to financing scandals - he had none. In April 2004, he released details of every lobbying meeting he had since 1989 - because he could defend all of them. Do you see HRC doing that? She has already run the dirtiest DEMOCRATIC primary campaign I ever saw.

[high density]

13. Yeah this was a bit too obvious in 2004

I guess she didn't want to wait until 2012.

[truedelphi]

14. Andy Card was key in this - Andy took it upon himself to declare

That the matter was settled.

It really was not "settled" until Andy said so - the networks were trying to sign off on the story by 2:45 Eastern Time.

Had Andy not pulled a bit of fortitude into his tired persona and blasted out the following across the nation's airwaves, our country might have gone to bed not knowing who won the election, and in the morning perhaps the outrage of those who had mobilized for Kerry might have triggered such massive protests that the Ukrainian revolt would have looked like a picnic.

But the hours of three to five Am are key - it is why every fascist regime on earth arrests their opponents during the moments when the body rhythms are at their lowest.

So Card takes to the national stage circa 4:30 Am and announces:
"I'm Andy Card. I am President Bush's chief of staff. We are convinced that President Bush has won re-election with at least 286 electoral college votes. And he also had a margin of more than three and a half million votes. President Bush's decisive margin of victory makes this the first Presidential election since 1988 in which the winner received a majority of the popular vote. And that in this election, President Bush received more votes than any other presidential candidate in the history of our county In Ohio, the President has a lead of at least 136,000 votes. The Secretary of State's office has informed us that this margin is statistically insurmountable So President Bush has won the state of Ohio."

May I point out something new about this election that no other election had in its deck of Cards? Sixty one million votes were counted on machines that would allow for no paper trail.

When Card said that Blackwell said that the vote was insurmountable - he was putting words into Blackwell's mouth. He probably never said that. So Card said it for him.

And Card knew things that John Kerry did not. What piece of information was loudest in Card's cerebrum?? Card knew who Kerry's real opponent was.

Kerry thought his opponent in this election was George W. Bush. His real opponent was the rigged voting machines. If we the people of the United States possessed an election system with the integrity of Canada's paper ballot and pencil system, Kerry would be President. He was defeated by a modern technology so tamper friendly that major alterations to any district's vote tally could be made within 90 seconds and without leaving a trace.

.

[NoBushSpokenHere]

21. kick nt

[LittleClarkie]

16. I've often thought that, even back n 2004. Kerry was screwed by people he thought were on his side

And it's one of the reasons I would have a hard time voting for her too.

[FogerRox]

17. Lets all not forget that Kenneth Blackwell

..... as SOS of Ohio was responsible for the actual numbers Kerry was given. IMHO opinion Mr Blackwell lied to the Kerry campaign. As Robert Kennedy Jr wrote in his Roliing Stone article, and my fuzzy memory remembers, the number of votes in play was something like 450k to 500k.

>

Click on the Donkey.

[Richard Steele]

18. K&R

[Dogmudgeon]

19. Hillary is mean. And she killed my dog.

--p!

[MnFats]

35. And She ordered Bill to go make some teens snort mountains of coke

and then had them thrown under a train to cover it up....


oh, wait. Falwell is dead, isn't he?

but don't get me wrong, I am sick of her too, which is starting to cause a lot of friction at home.
go, obama!

[NJSecularist]

20. Thanks for this.

It absolutely sickens me that the Clintons and their associates sold out Kerry in 2004.

[denem]

22. I didn't believe it before. I do now.

How does she sleep at night.

[blm]

38. Thanks - hard to see the manipulations before. Once you see them unmasked

and acting OUTWARDLY you begin to realize what they are capable of BEHIND the scenes when they think no one will hear about it.


http://www.depauw.edu/news/index.asp?id=13354


http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/06/19/clinton.iraq/


http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2006/oct/07/did_carville_tip_bush_off_to_kerry_strategy_woodward


Yes - they protected Bush to defeat Kerry and all of us who worked so hard to get rid of Bush.

[Cha]

23. The Grim Reaper of what they Sowed

will collect one day.

[seabeyond]

25. another BIG reason i won't support clintons. reap what you so n/tw

[mod mom]

26. I agree 100%! Carville is a traitor to the party. If Kerry/Edwards would have won,

then it would have probably been 12 or 16 years before Clinton (who assumed she would have a cakewalk) could run.

[Hutzpa]

28. Somebody need to put that

muthafucka out of his misery......him and his wife are fuck toe rags whom got lucky.

Why does the democratic party keep peddling to these asswipe is beyond me.

:grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr:

[Hutzpa]

29. .

:grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr:

:grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr:

:grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr:

[superkia]

32. The sad part is that most people have no idea about the games...

that were played to win that election. No different than now, keep the polls and votes close so when the election is stolen, Americans just get a little upset because hey...it was close?

[Kurovski]

33. K&R. (nt)

[idovoodoo]

34. It seems to me that any DUer who wouldn't vote for Sen. Clinton

if she were the nominee, is a chickenshit.

[stillcool]

39. the saddest thing I've watched today...

Larry King with John Kerry 2004
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk1k0nUWEQg

[seabeyond]

40. he is the one i want to be voting for. n/t

[stillcool]

43. He has taken such a beating..

here. I don't understand it at all. I feel very much the same way about my candidate this time around as I did then. He looks really good these days as he's campaigning. I love seeing him more relaxed and at ease when he addresses crowds and does the Q & A. In many ways it seems to me that this election is the last gasp for the Democratic Party I've known and believed in.

[seabeyond]

44. ya. i hear ya. n/t

[MonkeyFunk]

41. oh, this old crap again?

Woodward supplies a couple of facts, and Clinton haters concoct a whole story around those slim reeds to make it seem that Carville betrayed Kerry.

OF course, nobody in Kerry's camp has ever made that claim - not even his famously outspoken wife. Not a word about it.

and nobody answers some basic questions, like who told Carville? He wasn't part of the campaign. Why did the Kerry campaign let him know about their supposedly secret plans?

What was the difference between the White House finding out at 2:00am vs. finding out at 7:00am?

And there are plenty more - there's no story there other than one entirely made up of whole cloth.

[stillcool]

45. I don't know if you've seen this...

It's a clip from Larry King in 2004. It's kind of prescient.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk1k0nUWEQg

[MonkeyFunk]

47. Yeah, I've seen it

Kerry botched it. Clinton was asked about it, and she answered. She didn't put out a press release - somebody asked her about it.

[stillcool]

54. so you agree with her...

okay. I know where you stand.

[MonkeyFunk]

57. You don't agree that Kerry botched the joke?

Even he admits it.

[karynnj]

58. He did botch the joke - leaving out a 2 letter pronoun when reading from a teleprompter

With anyone else - that moment would have passed very quickly and been what it was a fumbled joke. I'm sure it's not the first time Kerry has had a joke fail, and as he speaks in public all the time, it won't be the last. The Kerry people had the entire event on their web site in the wake of the outroar. The crowd understood exactly where he was going in that series of comments on Bush - there was absolutely no negative reaction - if there were, he likely would have responded in some way immediately.

Kerry actually handled the aftermath as well as he could. His people had the text - given to local media before the appearance - to all media within hours of it being an issue. So, his intent was completely known. He then spoke early Seattle time - about 3 -4 hours from when Drudge and others started to twist his words.

Yes, they twisted even the words misspoken. As misspoken what he said implied that students who didn't study ended up in Iraq. Anyone who passed a single logic course knows this does not say that everyone in Iraq didn't do well in school (or a further reach - was stupid). The other thing is that I can think of NO other example where a person was held to a misstatement after he explained what he intended to say and had the text to prove it.

My problem was not that HRC did not defend him, though that would have been gracious and could have helped her, but that she bought the Republican spin on it. It is NOT inappropriate to missread from a teleprompter - she's likely done it as well. The word "inappropriate" is NOT neutral and it has very negative connotations. I would have had no problems if she had said he stuck his foot in his mouth or even said he was too gaffe prone. It is fair to exaggerate an opponent's perceived flaws - but that is not what she did. The fact that it dealt with the troops and veterans who he has supported and cared about for 4 decades - back into the time frame when Bill Clinton wrote the snarky letter to the ROTC guy who saved him from the draft saying "some people loath the military" - made it disgusting. This was kicking someone in the face when he was down on something that was intregal to who he is - for political points.

[karynnj]

59. Bill Clinton's actions with Monica were inappropriate

Inappropriate is too weak a word for all that Bush and Cheney did.

In fact, to my eyes (and ears), this comment by HRC is inappropriate. Kerry's skipping a word reading from a teleprompter isn't - it was a mistake - and he explained and gave out the correct version of what he intended to say.

Kerry misreading a telepromter likely says just that he had over scheduled himself and he was exhausted. Just like everyone out there now - and every one of them has made mistakes - and been allowed to correct them. It shows nothing bad about his character or his positions.

[DUyellow]

64. It should piss all dems off. how can you support this?

[truedelphi]

53. Actually I have other information that supports this and goes deeper but

My source died in 2005.

However one way to judge if this may havehappened is to consider this: Hillary's last several years. Think about this:

"Like her mouthy crony, Sen. Mikulski, she´s been complicit in many of the wrongdoings of the White House´s boy-ohs. (2) Clinton voted for the illegal and immoral Iraq War, voted to continually fund it, voted for the insane "Surge," and voted for the draconian USA Patriot Act. She has also, mostly, let slide the widespread spying on U.S. citizens by the Bush-Cheney Gang, the evils of the Abu Ghraib scandal and waterboarding. (3) When that repulsive "Turncoat Joe" Lieberman (IND-CT) said that he approved of waterboarding, Sen. Clinton, (and windbag Mikulski, too), remained silent. (4)"

[wisteria]

46. This is difficult to read- even now and I don't doubt the Clinton 's sold out Sen. Kerry

in 2004. It is difficult to believe a Democrat would sell out another Democrat, but Senator Clinton is very capable, but very much focused on nothing more than the power the office of President carries. Senator Kerry was in the way of her grab for future power in 2004 and again in 2006. She and Bill Clinton and their "friends" found ways to get him out of the way.

[midora]

48. Well, It's Certainly Easy to Understand why Kerry endorsed Obama isn't it?

And I can't stand that alien head Carville with his corny accent. He needs to start acting in horror movies. He'd be great in "Hostel III".

[Apollo11]

62. Strongly agree!

I caught a few minutes of last Sunday's Meet The Press.

Couldn't decide which thought was the more repulsive:

Mary Matalin consenting to sex with Carville?

Or Carville consenting to sex with Matalin?

Tough call! :eyes:

[KoKo]

49. I'm a Kucinich supporter TWICE....(*sad me* but I think you are focused on the

wrong thing about Carville. It's our own Dems that sold us out...and that's those on both the Left/Right and Middle who did it.

Carville is kind of irrelevant. He works for DLC/Repugs. It's "Our OWN" who kill off the good candidates. Kucinich was an "elf"...he couldn't win...because of that...YEAH? The McMedia can turn an Elf into a GIANT who SLAYS ALL if they get enough support from "Powers that Be" to do it.

It's that without "Money/Power" our Dems won't move to support their "supposed principles." Or, maybe some don't have any principles in the first place but "pander" to those who do? :shrug:

[midora]

50. Any Time We Get a Good Candidate

They either get assassinated or the media or the opposing political party comes up with some "scandal" about them. It sucks. I guess we should be resigned to lousy candidates and mediocre presidents.

[KoKo]

52. You got it...after all these years (and I've been through many elections) it's what I finally see...

it always comes down to..."The Powers that Be" who control it all. The rest is "Dog & Pony Show."

One day they won't win...though...and it's coming sooner...than we think. They've played themselves out for so many years...there's not much else they have to work with since they might lose their WEALTH...and their "Creds" with the coming Economic Meltdown that they were instrumental in causing.

How the mighty fall...and what they take with them. It's not something anyone would have wanted who had any moral conscience...or principles..to have happen. :-(

[NoBushSpokenHere]

55. I sure hope we can for once beat the corruption......nt

[Diane R]

63. And don't forget when she stabbed him in the back Oct 2006 (botched joke).

Hillary saw her opening that day, and she pounced. Never mind that Kerry had been working his tail off to get Democrats elected, never mind he was sick and was exhausted.

She saw an opportunity to pile on and kneecap his potential 2008 presidential run, and ... as we are seeing today, Hillary put her own selfish wants above the needs of the country.

I wrote her off that day. Nothing I've seen this political season has surprised me; this is fundamentally who the real Hillary Clinton is.