Edited to add the consensus:
Last night wasn’t a good debate for Obama. Period. But it wasn't a great debate for Clinton either.Really? She was stumped, confused, and forced to concede that Obama can win the GE.
When her Wright argument was going nowhere, Hillary played the Farrakhan card:
SENATOR CLINTON: Well, I think, in addition to the questions about Reverend Wright and what he said and when he said it, and for whatever reason he might have said these things, there were so many different variations on the explanations that we heard. And it is something that I think deserves further exploration, because clearly what we've got to figure out is how we're going to bring people together in a way that overcomes the anger, overcomes the divisiveness and whatever bitterness there may be out there.
It is clear that, as leaders, we have a choice who we associate with and who we apparently give some kind of seal of approval to. And I think that it wasn't only the specific remarks, but some of the relationships with Reverend Farrakhan, with giving the church bulletin over to the leader of Hamas to put a message in. You know, these are problems, and they raise questions in people's minds.
And so this is a legitimate area, as everything is when we run for office, for people to be exploring and trying to find answers.
linkBosnia:
SENATOR CLINTON: Well, Tom, I can tell you that I may be a lot of things, but I'm not dumb. And I wrote about going to Bosnia in my book in 2004. I laid it all out there. And you're right.
On a couple of occasions in the last weeks I just said some things that weren't in keeping with what I knew to be the case and what I had written about in my book. And, you know, I'm embarrassed by it. I have apologized for it. I've said it was a mistake. And it is, I hope, something that you can look over, because clearly I am proud that I went to Bosnia. It was a war zone.General Wesley Clark is here in the audience with me as one of my major supporters. He and I were talking about it before I came out. You know, our soldiers were there to try to police and keep the peace in a very dangerous area. They were totally in battle gear. There were concerns about the potential dangers. The former president of Bosnia has said that he was worried about the safety of the situation.
So I know that it is something that some people have said, "Wait a minute. What happened here?" But I hav e talked about this and written about it. And then, unfortunately, on a few occasions I was not as accurate as I have been in the past.
But I know too that, you know, being able to rely on my experience of having gone to Bosnia, gone to more than 80 countries, having represented the United States in so many different settings gives me a tremendous advantage going into this campaign, particularly against Senator McCain.
So I will either try to get more sleep, Tom, or, you know, have somebody who, you know, is there as a reminder to me. You know, you can go back for the past 15 months. We both have said things that, you know, turned out not to be accurate. You know, that happens when you're talking as much as we have talked.
But you know, I'm very sorry that I said it. And I have said that, you know, it just didn't jibe with what I had written about and knew to be the truth.
linkWeather Underground:
SENATOR OBAMA:
I'm going to have to respond to this just really quickly, but by Senator Clinton's own vetting standards, I don't think she would make it, since President Clinton pardoned or commuted the sentences of two members of the Weather Underground, which I think is a slightly more significant act than me --
AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Applauds.)
MR. GIBSON: Please.
SENATOR OBAMA: -- than me serving on a board with somebody for actions that he did 40 years ago.Look, there is no doubt that the Republicans will attack either of us. What I've been able to display during the course of this primary is that I can take a punch. I've taken some pretty good ones from Senator Clinton. And I don't begrudge her that. That's part of what the political contest is about.
I am looking forward to having a debate with John McCain, and I think every poll indicates that I am doing just as well, i f not better, in pulling together the coalition that will defeat John McCain.
And when it comes to November, and people are going into the polling place, they're going to be asking, are we going to go through four more years of George Bush economic policies; are we going to go through four more years of George Bush foreign policy?
And if we as Democrats and if I as the nominee have put forward a clear vision for how we're going to move the country forward, deal with issues like energy dependence, lower gas prices, provide health care, get our troops out of Iraq, that is a debate that I'm happy to have and a debate that I'm confident I can win.
MR. GIBSON: And Senator Clinton, I'm getting out of balance in terms of time.
SENATOR CLINTON: I've noticed. (Laughs.)
MR. GIBSON: And you're getting shortchanged here. And so if you want to reply here, fine. If you want to wait, we'll do it in the next half hour.
SENATOR CLINTON: We can wait. linkCan Obama Win the GE:
MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: But the question is, do you think Senator Obama can do that? Can he win?
SENATOR CLINTON: Yes. Yes. Yes.Now, I think that I can do a better job. (Laughter.) I mean, obviously, that's why I'm here. I think I am better able and better prepared in large measure because of what I've been through and the work that I've done and the results that I've produced for people and the coalition that I have put together in this campaign, that Charlie referred to earlier.
Obviously, I believe I would be the best president, or I would not still be here, standing on this stage, and I believe I'm the better and stronger candidate against Senator McCain, to go toe to toe with him on national security and on how we turn the economy around.
MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Obama, do y o think Senator Clinton can win?
SENATOR OBAMA:
Absolutely, and I've said so before. But I too think that I'm the better candidate. (Laughter.) And I don't think that surprises anybody.
Let me just pick up on a couple of things that Senator Clinton said, though, because during the course of the last few days, you know, she's said I'm elitist, out of touch, condescending. Let me be absolutely clear. It would be pretty hard for me to be condescending towards people of faith, since I'm a person of faith and have done more than most other campaigns in reaching out specifically to people of faith, and have written about how Democrats make an error when they don't show up and speak directly to people's faith, because I think we can get those votes, and I have in the past.The same is true with respect to gun owners. I have large numbers of sportsmen and gun owners in my home state, and they have supported me precisely because I have listened to them, and I kno w them well.
So the problem that we have in our politics, which is fairly typical, is that you take one person's statement, if it's not properly phrased, and you just beat it to death. And that's what Senator Clinton's been doing over the last four days. And I understand that.
That's politics, and I expect to have to go through this -- this process.
But I do think it's important to recognize that it's not helping that person who's sitting at the kitchen table who is trying to figure out how to pay the bills at the end of the month.
And Senator Clinton's right. She has gone through this. You know, I recall when back in 1992, when she made a statement about how, what do you expect, should I be at home baking cookies?
And people attacked her for being elitist and this and that. And I remember watching that on TV and saying, well, that's not who she is; that's not what she believes; that's not what she meant. And I'm sure that that's how she felt a s well.But the problem is that that's the kind of politics that we've been accustomed to. And I think Senator Clinton learned the wrong lesson from it, because she's adopting the same tactics.
What the American people want are not distractions. They want to figure out, how are we actually going to deliver on health care; how are we going to deliver better jobs for people; how are we going to improve their incomes; how are we going to send them to college?
That's what we have to focus on. And yes, they are in part frustrated and angry, because this is what passes for our politics in terms -- instead of figuring out, how do we build coalitions to actually move things forward?
SENATOR CLINTON: Well, could I --
link Massive retaliation:
SENATOR CLINTON: Well, in fact, George, I think that we should be looking to create an umbrella of deterrence that goes much further than just Israel.
Of course I would make it clear to the Iranians that an attack on Israel would incur massive retaliation from the United States, but I would do the same with other countries in the region. You know, we are at a very dangerous point with Iran. The Bush policy has failed. Iran has not been deterred. They continue to try to not only obtain the fissile material for nuclear weapons but they are intent upon and using their efforts to intimidate the region and to have their way when it comes to the support of terrorism in Lebanon and elsewhere.
moreNot everyone in the media had blinders on:
by turneresq
Wed Apr 16, 2008 at 10:33:12 PM PDT
The response to the awful ABC debate from various internet blogs and commenters has been
overwhelmingly negative. Now, the MSM is getting in on the act.
From Tom Shales at
WaPo.
When Barack Obama met Hillary Clinton for another televised Democratic candidates' debate last night, it was more than a step forward in the 2008 presidential election. It was another step downward for network news -- in particular ABC News, which hosted the debate from Philadelphia and whose usually dependable anchors, Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, turned in shoddy, despicable performances.
Wow, you can't really go anywhere from there, can you? Oh yes you can.
For the first 52 minutes of the two-hour, commercial-crammed show, Gibson and Stephanopoulos dwelled entirely on specious and gossipy trivia that already has been hashed and rehashed, in the hope of getting the candidates to claw at one another over disputes that are no longer news. Some were barely news to begin with.
Case in point, Ayers and Rev. Wright.
The boyish Stephanopoulos, who has done wonders with the network's Sunday morning hour, "This Week" (as, indeed, has Gibson with the nightly "World News"), looked like an overly ambitious intern helping out at a subcommittee hearing, digging through notes for something smart-alecky and slimy. He came up with such tired tripe as a charge that Obama once associated with a nutty bomb-throwing anarchist. That was "40 years ago, when I was 8 years old," Obama said with exasperation.
Obama was right on the money when he complained about the campaign being bogged down in media-driven inanities and obsessiveness over any misstatement a candidate might make along the way, whether in a speech or while being eavesdropped upon by the opposition. The tactic has been to "take one statement and beat it to death," he said.
No sooner was that said than Gibson brought up, yet again, the controversial ravings of the pastor at a church attended by Obama. "Charlie, I've discussed this," he said, and indeed he has, ad infinitum. If he tried to avoid repeating himself when clarifying his position, the networks would accuse him of changing his story, or changing his tune, or some other baloney.
Preach it, Brother Shales! He makes no bones about the bias of the moderators.
To this observer, ABC's coverage seemed slanted against Obama. The director cut several times to reaction shots of such Clinton supporters as her daughter, Chelsea, who sat in the audience at the Kimmel Theater in Philly's National Constitution Center. Obama supporters did not get equal screen time, giving the impression that there weren't any in the hall. The director also clumsily chose to pan the audience at the very start of the debate, when the candidates made their opening statements, so Obama and Clinton were barely seen before the first commercial break.
At the end, Gibson pompously thanked the candidates -- or was he really patting himself on the back? -- for "what I think has been a fascinating debate." He's entitled to his opinion, but the most fascinating aspect was waiting to see how low he and Stephanopoulos would go, and then being appalled at the answer.
Couldn't have put it any better myself.
Update: Will Bunch get
in on the action.With your performance tonight -- your focus on issues that were at best trivial wastes of valuable airtime and at worst restatements of right-wing falsehoods, punctuated by inane "issue" questions that in no way resembled the real world concerns of American voters -- you disgraced my profession of journalism, and, by association, me and a lot of hard-working colleagues who do still try to ferret out the truth, rather than worry about who can give us the best deal on our capital gains taxes. But it's even worse than that. By so badly botching arguably the most critical debate of such an important election, in a time of both war and economic misery, you disgraced the American voters, and in fact even disgraced democracy itself. Indeed, if I were a citizen of one of those nations where America is seeking to "export democracy," and I had watched the debate, I probably would have said, "no thank you." Because that was no way to promote democracy.
Update 2: Video from Keith Olbermann.Update 3: Crooksandliars has a video mashup
of the most egregious trash from ABC and reports that the comments section may have been shut down.
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