Blame Hillary: And Again It Begins

Hillary Clinton did the impossible tonight; she did everything she was asked to do by eveyone who asked her to do it, all in a single speech.  The DeaNC wanted her to be a bridge over the troubled waters between her supporters and Barack Obama; her supporters wanted her to show the world why she should be the Democratic Party’s nominee.  She did both.  Will her supporters do as she asked?  Unlikely, but it won’t be because Hillary Clinton didn’t do everything in her power to get them to.  It will be because Barack Obama did not.  Or could not.

Yet, moments after Senator Clinton accomplished this remarkable feat, the criticism began.

“Barack Obama is my candidate,” she said. “And he must be our president.”

But did she mean it? And would it matter?

The Yahoo News article goes on to revisit Clinton’s campaign criticisms of Obama and highlight the McCain camp’s exploitation of them.  It predictably dredges up insults, grudges and slights as well as speculation regarding Bill Clinton’s ability to live up to his “end of the bargain.”  Mainly though, it was HRC’s night and the analysis was mostly aimed at her.  Saying at the end that Clinton

…left Obama in a stronger position than Kennedy left Jimmy Carter in 1980, when the Massachusetts senator extracted platform concessions and shrank from the traditional unity show at the final gavel.

But she did extract her price.

The bill came due Tuesday. The crowd. The applause. The promise of a vote Wednesday, and a speech laced 17 times by some variation of the pronoun “I.”

But the real bitchiness came from Politico’s  Roger Simon:

At her speech to the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday night, Hillary said the right things. Nobody could accuse her of going overboard, but she said the right things.

In response to this quote from Clinton

“To my supporters, my champions — my sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits — from the bottom of my heart: Thank you,” she said. “You never gave in. You never gave up. And together we made history.”

Simon sniped,

It was history. Of a sort. She showed that a woman could win the nomination. But she did not win the nomination. And the guy who did made some history, too.

This schmoo then goes on to further denigrate Clinton’s brave efforts with unnecessary comments like this:

We are now asked to believe that a significant number of Hillary supporters will vote for John McCain in November rather than vote for Barack Obama. That is what some polls show and it has become a major media story line.

To which I say: Hooey. Maybe that is the kind of thing you tell pollsters and reporters, but I don’t think it is the kind of thing that happens in real life.

Obviously, Mr. Simon lacks basic comprehension skills.  No one owes Obama their vote, no matter how much they respect and admire Senator Clinton’s efforts on his behalf.  And we don’t have to vote for McCain, there are other candidates.  Or, we could just stay home.  Yet Simon makes it clear that no matter what we do, or what Clinton did, it will ever be considered to be enough.  Nor will Senator Obama bear any responsibility for his own prospects.   The burden for Obama’s success or failure falls squarely on Clinton’s shoulders.

Tuesday night she said some of the right words. But between now and November, Hillary Clinton can go out and work to heal the wounds or sit back and keep them open.

If this is truly the attitude of Obama and his sycophants, he doesn’t deserve to win.  And he can blame people like Roger Simon.

PUMA

Just Say No Deal

HILLARY! HILLARY!! HILLARY!!!

Barack Obama doesn’t deserve an advocate like you

America does

Thank you

Pelosi – PUMA Meat

Nancy Pelosi was let out alone again, despite the sincere wishes and best efforts of a large portion of her American constituents.  Once again, Nancy Schmancy Pancy found a way to piss people off while talking smack with a foot stuck in her mouth.  It wasn’t mine, but, hey, a girl can dream, can’t she?

I wish I could say that it was the gratuitous, thinly veiled PUMA diss that set me off, but that comes pretty late in the Politco article I was reading.  No, it was the cluelessness associated with her interpretation of the current poll data:

The speaker said Obama and the other Democratic presidential candidates “have attracted millions of more voters — first-voters voters and many more voters who haven’t voted in a long time.

“Many of them are not even reachable by these pollsters,” Pelosi said. “These are polls of likely voters. Likely voters are people who have voted in the last two elections, and they are likely to vote again. They are not the universe of people who will vote on Nov. 4.”

Why depend on reliable people to vote, huh, when you’ve got limitless numbers of “shadow” people at your disposal?  Pollsters can’t find these people, but Pelosi and the Boyz can get their hands on them and, what, make them go vote?

Yup.

“We will own the ground Election Day,” she said.

Tell me, anybody, why are we not supposed to be frightened by this?  Or this?

Pelosi said she sees McCain’s initial inability to name the number of houses he owns as “emblematic of the differences between Democrats and Republicans.”

“Democrats have wealth, too — we salute wealth,” she said. “But let me tell you this: This election is about the economy. It always is, and it’s a question of who has the leverage. And for eight years, the wealthiest 1 percent has had the leverage.”

What the flour does that even mean?  Who has leverage?  Who has wealth?  The guy with the most houses?  Pat, I’d like to buy a vowel, because there’s obviously a few letters missing.  Vanna start touching.  Gratuitous PUMA reference next:

The speaker said Democrats are tough on national security but were rightly skeptical of the real threat from Iraq.

“Think of me as a lioness — you threaten my cubs, you have a problem,” she said.

WTF is she talking about?  More, in her own words:

She said that with — “God willing” — a President Obama, the country also would speed the withdrawal from Iraq.

Pelosi said: “That’s not a full 100-days agenda. It’s more like 100 hours.”

On the Democrats’ domestic agenda, she said she wants listeners to think of four words: “Science, science, science and science.”

“I think that could take up the 100 days,” she said.

We’ll be out of Iraq in 100 hours but we’ll be spending the first hundred days doing what, baking soda explosions with Bill Nye?  There’s a few other lines in this story but, you read it.  I have to…decontaminate my computer screen.

PUMA

Just Say No Deal

Denver: The New Twilight Zone

We have entered a dimension, a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of…utter foolishness.  The Democrats are certifiably batshit insane!  What mental deficient giant would actually try to sell a big game of “Let’s Pretend” as a reality show, and then have the sheer audacity ( yeah, I said it ) to get miffed when people balked at playing along?  And could there really be a whole so-called “upper echelon” of party leaders conspiring on this?  Fluck the flipping dog!

Donald Fowler, of stupid e-mail fame, had the nerve to say he didn’t see this level of disunity coming!

“It seems to be a little more of a problem than I anticipated,” former Democratic Party chairman Don Fowler told The AP. “All you need is 200 people in that crowd to boo and stuff like that and it will be replayed 900 times. And that’s not what you want out of this.”

Well, that confirms what we thought about ol’ Donny.  But he’s not the only inmate running this Marx Brothers version of a “rest home,” nuh-uh:

Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen encouraged Clinton to use her speech to give Obama a full-throated endorsement.

“What Obama has to have Hillary do is stand up and say — not only in words but it’s got to be almost method acting — and say it in a way that’s believable that she wants Barack Obama to be president,” Bredesen told The AP. A classy backing “frankly goes toward any future political considerations she may have.”

A script, artistic direction, and a threat in one short paragragh.  Wow, way to go Phil!  Maybe you and Donnie can sit together on the little bus to the looney bin convention.  Even though, when I think about it, you’ll both probably have to stand because there are no seats left.  It’s SRO or straight under from here on in:

Even some of Clinton’s most loyal allies — New York Democrats — are increasingly frustrated by the silence from her and her advisers on how to proceed. New York delegates would likely play a key role in the roll call salute to Clinton but they still have no idea what it is they are supposed to do, according to several Democrats who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are supposed to be publicly backing Clinton.

What are you, a bunch of freaking first graders?  Is this the first time you’ve ever been out alone?  Come the fork on, people, do your damned jobs!  Wake up!  Hasn’t it sunken into those hatracks of yours that it doesn’t matter what Obama or Clinton say or do?  At, last, it’s up to the Obamabots and the Clintonistas.  Go for it!  Duke it out! Last one standing wins!  If you’re on Clinton’s side you’re not going to have a job for long anyway.  You might as well take a shot.  Party Unity My Ass!

Geez, where’s Rod Serling when you need him?

Just Say No Deal

Not Hillary Supporters, Barack Rejectors

Oh, how the media loves to lie.  They frame everything in a way that includes the salient facts, while weaving a tale of their own invention.  Take the “Hillary factor,” for instance.  Somehow, she must, I tell you, must convince those who voted for her in the primaries to vote for Obama.  But what about the people who didn’t vote for her, and also won’t vote for Obama?  What about the people who didn’t vote at all?  What about the people who left the party because of the way Obama was “selected.”  Like me.  How are we factored in?

It only stands to reason that the majority of Democratic voters who decided early on that they could not accept an Obama candidacy under any circumstances, would then turn around and vote for Hillary Clinton.  After all, for the bulk of the contest, they were the only two Democrats running.  So, can those voters fairly be called “Hillary supporters?”  No one in their right mind would suggest that all registered voters turned out for the primaries and caucuses.  So, how do we know who the stay-at-homes support, if they didn’t vote?  Are polls limited to people people who actually voted?  Or do poll numbers reflect registered voters?  What about currently unregistered, hoped-for voters?  How many of them support Hillary?  Obama? none of the above?  Could that be why they’re unregistered?  Again, how many people voted for Hillary Clinton because they just couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Barack Obama?  Is there a separate category for them in the polling?  Barack rejectors?

In a Yahoo News article today about Hillary Clinton’s role at “Obama’s convention,” a CNN poll was quoted:

An opinion poll showed how much work remains for Obama. A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll said he and McCain were running even at 47 percent — but only 66 percent of Clinton supporters backed Obama, down from 75 percent at the end of June.

Twenty-seven percent of Clinton supporters said they would support McCain, up from 16 percent in late June.

How many of those voters were always out of the reach of Obama?  Twenty-seven percent, maybe?

In an early July CNN poll, the numbers looked like this:

In a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey completed in early June before the New York senator ended her White House bid, 60 percent of Clinton backers polled said they planned on voting for Obama. In the latest poll, that number has dropped to 54 percent.

In early June, 22 percent of Clinton supporters polled said they would not vote at all if Obama were the party’s nominee, now close to a third say they will stay home.

In another sign the wounds of the heated primary race have yet to heal, 43 percent of registered Democrats polled still say they would prefer Clinton to be the party’s presidential nominee.

That number is significantly higher than it was in early June, when 35 percent of Democrats polled said they preferred Clinton to lead the party’s presidential ticket.

Clinton can ask her “supporters” to vote for Obama until she’s blue in the face; won’t matter a whit.  In fact, it seems to make things worse for him.  First of all, anybody who votes for anybody just because somebody tells them to is a fool.  So are people who refuse to face facts.  As they head into his Really Big, Historic Coronation Ceremony, the Obamacrats need to wake up and realize that Hillary Clinton is not the problem; a lot of people just don’t seem to want to vote for Barack Obama.  Until somebody in the media, the DeaNC, or the Obama campaign starts asking why Democrats would rather vote for the other party’s nominee, or somebody who’s not in the race, would rather not vote at all, or worse yet, defect from the party, the media schmoos will keep looking for the easiest scenario that fits the facts and makes their preferred candidate look good.  But they won’t be doing him any favors.

PUMA

Just Say No Deal

Earn Your Own Damned Votes, Barack!

I have had just about enough of Obama supporters, DeaNC shills, Mainstream media pundits, and any and all other assorted apologists for The Chosen One, yelling and screaming from here to there about how Hillary Clinton has to do everything she can to help The Delicate Flower win.  Why?  Why should she lift one well manicured finger to help him do anything?  Isn’t he The Great and Powerful Dragon Slaying Conqueror?  Didn’t he defy all odds to defeat the omnipotent Clinton Machine, obliterating the entitlement of the heinous aristocracy Hillary arrogantly believed herself to be rightful heiress to?  Or did I miss something?

Day after day, hour after hour, minute aft…oh, hell, you get the idea.  But haven’t we all been fed the tediously repititous tripe that Barack Obama is the best thing since Oreos and milk, and in the eyes of the majority of his countrymen and women, nay, citizens of the world, can do no wrong?

Then why can’t he get his own damned votes?

If the Clintons, the Democratic party, and the mainstream media truly believed at the start of the campign that Hillary Clinton was a shoe-in, then she did not, could not be the one who divided the party.  Barack Obama did.  So, if he broke it, how come nobody expects him to fix it?

What kind of leader runs a campaign whose subtext is, “how can we get her to quit?”  Is it a sign of strength to have your paid and unpaid surrogates constantly chide your opponent to get out of the way so you can win without competing, only to step in when your ploy backfires and graciously deign to let her continue?

The Drudge Report called for Clinton to quit after Iowa:

Meanwhile, Democrat hopeful John Edwards has confided to senior staff that he is staying in the race because Hillary “could soon be out.”

“Her money is going to dry up,” Edwards confided, a top source said Monday morning.

In March, Patrick Leahy:

Sen. Patrick Leahy, who supports Barack Obama, is calling on Sen. Hillary Clinton to quit the presidential race.

Jimmy Carter, in late May, feigning neutrality, gave Clinton until June 3:

“I have not yet announced publicly, but I think at that point it will be time for her to give it up,” Carter said.

Media Matters reported on April 30:

History continues to unfold on many levels as the protracted Democratic Party primary race marches on, featuring the first woman and the first African-American with a real shot at winning the White House.

Here’s another first: the press’s unique push to get a competitive White House hopeful to drop out of the race. It’s unprecedented.

“Clinton is being held to a different standard than virtually any other candidate in history,” wrote Steven Stark in the Boston Phoenix. “When Clinton is simply doing what everyone else has always done, she’s constantly attacked as an obsessed and crazed egomaniac, bent on self-aggrandizement at the expense of her party.”

These are but a few examples of the pressure put on Clinton to allow Obama to win.  It’s hard to see how this bodes well for a man who wants to negotiate with foreign leaders on his country’s behalf.  Will he mount a p.r. campaign to get Iran to give up it’s nuclear program?

Now that he has “wrapped up the nomination” without winning it, he wants to make sure that everybody agrees to pretend he did.  And rather than take responsibility for pulling off this farce, he places the burden on the victims of this con.  Who would read a fairy tale if the brave knight slew the dragon and then told the dragon to get up and go tell everybody about it?  The story the Obamacrats are trying to spin makes just as much sense.  And to make matters worse, now they want to blame the dragon for not trying hard enough.

From CNN June:

She urged the cheering crowd to support Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, in his bid for the White House, saying she and supporters should “take our energy, our passion and our strength and do all we can to help elect Barack Obama … I ask all of you to join me in working as hard for Barack Obama as you have for me.”

In Unity, Jun 27:

“Unity is not only a beautiful place as we can see, it’s a wonderful feeling, isn’t it? And I know when we start here in this field in Unity, we’ll end on the steps of the Capitol when Barack Obama takes the oath of office as our next president,” Clinton said just after she and Obama took the stage together.

Yesterday, Aug 25:

In her 9-minute speech, Mrs. Clinton used the word unity at least a half dozen times.

“Let there be no mistake about it. We are united. We are united for change. We are, after all, Democrats. So it may take a while, but we’re not the fall-in-line party,” she said.

Just a few days ago, however, it was being reported that Ms. Clinton wasn’t doing enough:

Minutes after pushing through the rope line to thank Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton for “all that you do,” Robin Shaffer said she was worried. She feared that the senator she respected and admired for being tough and experienced had not done all that she could to unify Florida’s fractured Democratic Party while campaigning here on Thursday for her former opponent.

And now:

Democrats opened their national convention on Monday, seeking peace in the family as they pursue victory in the fall for Barack Obama and his historic quest for the White House.

C’mon, Barack, your campaign manager is a p.r. guy.  We all know that he’s “massaged” the press on your behalf, pushing the narrative most favorable to you.  Okay, that’s politics today.  But don’t you think it’s time you took the bull by the horns and stood up for yourself?  You want unity?  You want to be a hero?  You want to be president?  Then be a man.  And for once in your life, earn your own damned votes.

PUMA

Just Say No Deal