As Barack Obama weathers the Reverend Jeremiah Wright controversy, Hillary Clinton misspeaks. Compare and contrast …
Author: William Bowe
William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.
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It almost makes me pine for ESJ, at least on a good day he could string a sentence together!
Kirri
Do you think he’s gone where lower-case ron is?
[Add to that the strongarming of party leaders, not disassociating herself with the slanders like that of Carville, and the claim that she would fight on the convention floor rather than accept a loss make it kind of sad.]
Pancho – absolutely agree. I know comparisons between her and Howard can be overdone at times, but her reliance on such dirty tactics, based on assumptions of the public being gullible fools, is classic Howard, or perhaps classic Rove.
It’s not the Democrat way, so is it any wonder that she has lost ground to Obama?
950
Jen
Yes, Hitch reserves his moral outrage for particular occasions, and yet is quite content to overlook the arrogant abuses of a corrupt administration’s fabricating an entire fallacy with which to invade a country.
Odd.
Jen #950: Hitchens never liked the Clintons. Before he signed his pact with the devil he made part of his name critiquing them from the left. Now he’s a McCain suppoter and he attacks them from the right. I read that article you posted too and my main reaction was that I wished the Serbian mortar gunners in 1992 were more accurate.
Robert and Kirri –
I think Hitchens is a pompous prat who should try and stay off the p*ss before he hits our airwaves with the great sycophant Tony Jones – and his support for Iraq despite all the evidence is amazing.
As I said- can’t stand the tosser, but he`does have Hillary’s measure. Mind you, could be a case of recognition of a fellow tosser.
# 931 Ferny
General comment but specifically not addressed to Ferny
1/ I have been influenced to respond by the decency of a blogger who himself initiated a truce between him & I , after we had traded increasingly harsh ‘barbs’ & I’m responding in the same spirit (below 4/)
2/ I have never complained to my knowledge of variously being called sort of : effective liar , a racist , impersonator , bending the truth , charletan , effectively stupid , traitor , effectively contemptable , bordering deceitful & numerous other insults (& indeed a Howard voter almost the gravest insult)
However I suggest Obamabot is nowhere near as ‘bad’ as the above ‘barbs’ and propose to continue to generally use it , but with an exception.
I still make no complaint or objection to these above ‘barbs’ and do NOT seek or expect either a tissue or a cuddle. Its OK to keep throwing ‘Barbs’ by me.
3/ However , I can not help feeling that many of you would be demanding the Moderator to require me to appologise if I said SOME of the above examples at you !
Whilst you guys are happy to allow the ‘wolves’ among you unrestricted attack space & you sit silent , this is part of the blogospere cut & parry
4/ “you’ve gone and upset Ferny Grover by directly sledging her as some sort of automaton.”
Ferny I appologise to you without qualification for any offense I’ve caused you. It was not my intent to do so , however as clearly I have , sorry. I will refrain from such a comment to you in future & please assume that Blogosphere flowers are in the mail
Ron-
please show evidence of the following- i have not seen any of them to my knowledge
“of variously being called sort of : effective liar , a racist , impersonator , bending the truth , charletan , effectively stupid , traitor , effectively contemptable , bordering deceitful & numerous other insults (& indeed a Howard voter almost the gravest insult)”
however you still have not answered my question- areyou lowercase ron or someone else??
Hitchens makes the same point as many of us have about Hillary. I think we are split about 50/50 on this question.
“This must mean either a) that she lies without conscience or reflection; or b) that she is subject to fantasies of an illusory past; or c) both of the above.”
He also points out that Bill Clinton was the most genocide-friendly President ever; Bosnia, Rwanda and Srebrenica. Just ask Samantha Power, well we would if Billary hadn’t demanded that she be sacked when she called her a monster. 😀
For those intrested the other PB site has a fairly full on debate going on Workchoice versus some “new meat” who have found the site via Andrew Bolt.
Growler-
the Bolta’s cronies are still talking about Workchoices, are they – now there’s a surprise.
Do you think someone should tell them they lost the election , and it’s OVER??!!
That is of course until Andrew steps in to save them .
spare me.
Diogs-
it appears Samantha was being polite.
956
Jen
Although I have difficulty with much of Hitch’s one-eyed moralising, in particular his notion that turning Iraq into an open sewer to save it, he often throws up some fascinating insights. (His reviling the anti-intellectualism of religion is one area where he excels, for example).
I defy anyone to read that appraisal of Hillary’s self-serving tosh in the context of the historical facts he reveals without it turning their stomach.
Hitch is on the money this time; the Clinton’s have no place in the Whitehouse again, and judging from her consistent high negatives in the polls, there’s an awful lot of Americans who agree with him.
“Workchoices”?
Oh, thrill me!
I think what’s happened to Hitchen’s is painfully sad. I have fond memories of being at a dinner party which ended prematurely after I espoused his views on Mother Teresa to an all-Catholic group. Talk about sacred cows people! The book was “The Missionary Position”. Those were the good old days.
GG- I think it’s funny that Bolt buckets PB and his acolytes drift over here. I hope some stay. As you say, more fresh meat for the wolves. I actually came to this site during the “poll wars” when the GG/OO sooked about PB. It was the best thing reading the GG ever did for me, and now I no longer read it.
Junior senator at 936 and Noocat at 940, cheers, that WAS a bottler of an essay by David Sirota. He’s now in my pol. fav. column.
Jen at 950, the Hitchen’s piece on Brutusina was vituperation-lite compared to the number Chrissie did on Mother Theresa when he had more focus ie before he got sh*t-faced on a daily basis before sundown. He also wrote some wonderful prose on Orwell back then too.
Sad really, despite taking the king’s schilling on the Iraq fiasco, Hitchens was still a formidable thinker and writer until early this century, but you can only pound your brain and body with turps that potent for all those years before the telltale signs begin to be seen as etched. Might be OK if you’re Chucky Bukowski, but Hitchens had the finest of literary pedigrees before he p*ssed it all up against the Great GOPper Wall and settled into bland pieces for Slate and spouting second rate neocon agitprop at the likes of Tony Jones and other global graveyard shifters to pay his Manhattan rent.
Nothing “odd” about it for me, Kirri, Hitchen’s Faustian pact has been long sealed with crates of Glenfiddich and vats of perfidy.
And Ron, jolly decent of you at 957. Despite our often polar differences, always happy to argue the toss with one who has generousity of spirit. Well done, son.
EC keep your toga down, the pinguid bits are showing.
Can someone PLEASE stop this idiot from becoming President. I don’t care if it’s Al Gore, Billary, Nader, Bloomberg or Obama but this dangerous moron NEEDS to be stopped.
McCain ‘Surprised’ by Iraq Developments
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/mccain-surprised-by-iraq-developments/
This guy is hard to stop watching and listening too.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/us/politics/01obama.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Rodger, codger.
Dio at 968: “Can someone PLEASE stop this idiot from becoming President.”
I’m sorry, Dio, I’m afraid I can’t do that.
“We have a new type of rule now. Not one-man rule, or rule of aristocracy or plutocracy, but of small groups elevated to positions of absolute power by random pressures and subject to political and economic factors that leave little room for decision.
They are representatives of abstract forces who have reached power through surrender of self. The iron-willed dictator is a thing of past.
There will be no more Stalins, no more Hitlers.
The rulers of this most insecure of all worlds are rulers by accident. Inept, frightened pilots at the controls of a vast machine they cannot understand, calling in experts to tell them which buttons to push.”
—William S. Burroughs, “No More Stalins, No More Hitlers,” from Dead City Radio, Island Records, 1990; and Interzone, Viking Books, 1989.
Diogenes
I’ve suggested we know his weakness’s but his comments here how a guy who thinks Iraq is part of the US:
McCain:
“Maliki decided to take on this operation without consulting the Americans,’’ Mr. McCain said on his campaign bus as it rolled through downtown Meridian, saying that the move showed independence but that he had expected the military to focus on Mosul.
“I just am surprised that he would take it on himself to go down and take charge
(as PM in his own Iraqi Country)
968
Diogenes
It could be completely disingenuous, since McCain is hardly likely to tell anyone that he backs Cheney’s little purge of the south before the southern Shiites get to vote in al Sadr in October. My goodness, wouldn’t that upset the applecart? Imagine if pro-US al Maliki got turfed out and the very anti-US al Sadr took control in Basra and Baghdad?
It’s pretty hard to imagine that Cheney was there recently to talk about the weather, so my guess is this was calculated to oust the Mahdi army now before they got too entrenched.
Pity it went pearshaped, and McCain has to play ‘dumb’ or get implicated in another disaster.
In fact Dio, the whole “look, an Iraqi PM who can act on his own” smells like a pea and thimble trick to me.
al Maliki was elected with al Sadr”s numbers, but he’s Uncle Sam’s puppet now. Once again, the old imperial games emerge, divide and conquer, keep a minority in charge etc etc…god, it smells like Saddam all over again!
Kirribilli ,
You jest again. McCain is implicated in Iraq because he tied his whole political future to Iraq “stability” and any disaster beomes his political disaster & the Presidency.
The US can not exit without civil war with a further oil shock further damaging the Wall Street meltdown and they can not stay & be involved
used my real name , naughty.
This is Vietnam exit problem but without losing 57,000 dead but not being able to control who controls the oil or worried about Iran’s increasing influence
and Kirribilli
you completely misread my original post this morning
893 Kirribilli Removals Says:
True to type, the new era of financial ‘regulation’ will be no such thing. In a word, it’s business as usual.
Or in other words, Bush isn’t going to interupt his time on the ranch to fix a colossal mess that he can pass on to the next Prez. Just stick it on the pile, along with Iraq, healthcare, social security, New Orleans and a trillion other little things.
Bless ‘im, for he is a retard.
894 Ron Says:
# Kirribilli Removals
what sort of analysis is that , just ignore the Democrat controlled Congress sitting on their hands & not putting in more regulation , whilst Rome burns
Of course Bush was lazing at his ranch but he wouldn’t know how to fix it
anyway (“whilst Rome burns”). but the Congrss have also sat on their hands for over a decade as well and not been interested in any regulation controls because of their ‘free market’ philosophy. The only surprise to me is that the meltdown has not been more rapid but the cards will fall…and the debacle is big enough for the blame to shared around by all Pollies in Washington including Congress
Something for the Obama fans. I’d prefer Hillary myself but Obama to give him his dues has said some nice things about our Kev
http://www.allamericanpatriots.com/48744971_barack-obama-senator-obama-statement-us-visit-aust
and Vera , how could he not do so to our own Kevin07 !
yeah i know ron our kev is a real cutie
EC @ 934
BLOODY ‘ELL EC!! How long have I been on this site and you haven’t worked out that Ferny Grover is a BLOKE – with boy bits and everything!!!!
Ron @ 957 – Obamabot is innacurate, Ron. It’s offensive to our intelligence. I’m not personally aggrieved, so flowers are not necessary…..seein’ as how I’m a BLOKE an’ all!
An’….how about them Broncos huh?!
I don’t normally enter the fray on the US threads, but British commentator Harry Hutton is worth reading on the subjects of Christopher Hitchens and Hillary Clinton: here and here.
Ferny I thought you WERE a bloke until EC’s blog !
So I typed “Ferny I did not even realise you were a beautiful lady…”
then on second thought I deleted it thinking well if you are a lady , me not realising it meant I was insulting you even further !
Am relieved you are not a lady after all.
As to offensive , I’ve had my share of compliments here
havee read allittle too much of Christopher Hitchens and seems to get his political axis confused 7 could qualify for a fox contributor I suppose
Maybe this will encourage them to go a bit harder at dealing with Global Warming.
American West Heating Nearly Twice as Fast as Rest of World, New Analysis Shows
http://www.allamericanpatriots.com/48745017_american-west-heating-nearly-twice-fast-rest-world
Capital letters, eh, Ferny. Just as well Ron did the right thing by you then. Clearly, as a menschkeiting schlemeil, I’ve failed miserably. But jeez them Broncs are playin’ some top footy. (Lands one in spitoon and lunges for fresh Bundy & Coke.)
Takes one (1) large brown paper bag.
Places over head.
Mortified, shuffles off blogsite in self-imposed exile for indeterminate period.
Just one last cartoon for old time’s sake.
http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/tomtoles;_ylt=Ao79CL31atnZT0gDbJg9Vxwl6ysC
(Indeterminate period has now been determined, this stuff is too good to hang-off on)
The Kid is a Political Freak:
“Rasmussen: Clinton Slipping in Pennsylvania
Sen. Hillary Clinton’s once commading lead in Pennsylvania is shrinking, according to a new Rasmussen Reports poll. Clinton now leads Sen. Barack Obama by just five percentage points, 47% to 42%.”
“For Clinton, that five-point edge is down from a ten-point lead a week ago, a thirteen-point lead in mid-March and a fifteen-point advantage in early March.”
http://rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/pennsylvania/pennsylvania_democratic_presidential_primary
Quote of the Day
“If I had to make a prediction right now, I’d say Barack Obama is going to be the next president. I will be stunned if he’s not the next president of the United States.”
Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver (D-MO), a superdelegate and Clinton supporter, in an interview on Canadian Public Radio. (Pol Wire)
“It could have been different. As I have said before, character is fate, and that is what we are witnessing, as her campaign falters. Let it go on until all hope is exhausted. Those of us who look at the Clintons and see the full dimensions of the failure of their promise to America will also feel some sense of loss when she withdraws. She shied away from greatness, so as to hold on to power. Character is fate.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robbie-baitz/not-until-the-fat-lady-si_b_94360.html
Ferny, just joined Gender Blunderers Anonymous. There’s a Chapter convenes at our local Community Hall. Meetings are top heavy with trannies and David Bowie types, but so far the support has been terrific. Ab fab, really.
Not if Fox can help it.
I just heard the Fox crew in discussion/debate over Obama’s questionnaires. They were sharpening knives, not much pretension to balance there. The Fox woman compare seemed to have sharp pointy teeth.
I just listened to Obama’s 24 minute talk in Pen. and can understand why he is winning them over.
Do Americans ever elect a President based on their policies or is always a charisma competition?
#986
Enemy Combatant
Narrowing down to just a 5% difference is down right impressive – but one needs to remember that this is just one poll and if we look at the RCP Average for Penn we see something around 14.2. Yes – I would guess that things are moving on the ground faster than things are moving on the rolling average. But all the same we should not be breaking out the champaign just yet – but the more interesting figure to watch is the 11% undecided. Earlier contests have suggested that Obama is the strong favourite for the undecided voter which would suggest that a major upset in the pipeline – but everyone is saying that Penn is a Clinton slam-dunk.
Something interesting to note is that the leaked Obama projections for the state are for a 5% difference advantage Clinton.
(repost with corrected link)
#986
Enemy Combatant
Narrowing down to just a 5% difference is down right impressive – but one needs to remember that this is just one poll and if we look at the RCP Average for Penn we see something around 14.2. Yes – I would guess that things are moving on the ground faster than things are moving on the rolling average. But all the same we should not be breaking out the champaign just yet – but the more interesting figure to watch is the 11% undecided. Earlier contests have suggested that Obama is the strong favourite for the undecided voter which would suggest that a major upset in the pipeline – but everyone is saying that Penn is a Clinton slam-dunk.
Something interesting to note is that the leaked Obama projections for the state are for a 5% difference advantage Clinton.
Today is 2/4/08. Yesterday was dead and gone. This one is for the mathematical geniuses of this blog.
Projection: Clinton Wins Popular Vote, Obama Wins Delegate Count
March 28, 2008 02:31 PM ET | Michael Barone
“This would eliminate Obama’s current popular vote margin, without including Florida and Michigan totals and even if you use imputed vote totals for the four caucus states (Iowa, Nevada, Maine, and Washington) where Democrats did not disclose vote totals. The current popular vote margin for Obama on realclearpolitics.com is, under those favorable assumptions, 827,498. My spreadsheet numbers would give Clinton a 106,186 margin. The Obama margin if you don’t give him his imputed margin in those four caucus states is 717,276. My results would convert that to a Clinton popular vote margin of 216,408……………….
Even so, that reduces Obama’s current lead among “pledged” delegates (those selected in primaries and caucuses) from 1,414-1,247 to 1,655-1,565………………..
These two projections, if they come to pass, seem likely to cause maximum pain among the superdelegates. Clinton will be able to claim a lead in popular vote. But only because of Puerto Rico—and because Puerto Rico this month replaced its caucus with a primary. Obama will be able to claim a lead in pledged delegates. But only because he gamed the caucuses better. His lead in caucus-selected delegates is currently 125, as best I can calculate it; that would mean Clinton would have a 35-delegate lead among delegates chosen in primaries. Both sides will be able to make plausible claims to be the people’s choice.
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/barone/2008/3/28/projection-clinton-wins-popular-vote-obama-wins-delegate-count.html
For those interested in perspective, Bill O’Reilly has a take on the media bias favouring Obama.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,344434,00.html
Finns @ 991,
I think this set of numbers was covered here yesterday. The state-by-state projections look very, very optimistic for Clinton (maybe Penn is an exception).
What I got out of it is this: even if you make some very optimistic assumptions for Clinton, she only just gets the popular vote.
She needs the SDs to deliver for her. Based on the last week, that is looking increasingly unlikely.
She’s what?
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/?last_story=/politics/war_room/2008/04/01/obama_video/
…ooh, that’s naughty!
You have to give our Kev07 full mark for his achievements so far in his trip. He has clearly demonstrated his deftness in foreign affairs and policies that would put Dolly to look like, well… a sheep. In this short space of time he has:
1. Fully established his expertise and credential in China as, the only leader outside China that speaks fluent Mandarin. the only other leader that i can think of is Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore. But I have not heard Lee making a full speech in Mandarin like Kev07 did at APEC07.
2. Emphasized the importance of China and yet not be seen as an overtly Sino biased player.
3. Firmly put japan in its right place.
4. Reassured the Yanks about the improtance and solidarity of the US-Australia alliance. At the same time had a shot at JWH for personalising the US-Aust alliance and Australia will not be “arselicker” of the US Administration and “a conga line of suckholes” to Washington DC.
5. Sent signal the multi-lateral institutions like UN will be fully supported and upheld. Aust will be a middle power activist, eg: joining the temp in the Security Council.
6. Softly, softly crashing into the North Asia Security Six (China, Russian, US, Japan, North and South Korea). talking about the audacity of hope. This will be a real coup if Australia gets a look in, even as an observer.
The next big one for Kev07 to tackle and quick will have to be Indonesia and ASEAN, especially the former. Indonesia still has not fully wiped out its suspicion of China and Chinese, internally and externally, eg: Many in Indonesia see Singapore as the fifth China (After the Mainland, Taiwan, HK and Macao).
Kev07 needs to thread softly, softly on this. Japan will be lurking in the background driving wedges between Australia, Indonesia and ASEAN, just like it has been doing with Aust/China.
Right ideas, just wrong time and wrong country. Take this from a McCain speech in 1983 and change Lebanon to Iraq:
“The fundamental question is, What is the United States’ interest in Lebanon? It is said we are there to keep the peace. I ask, What peace? It is said we are there to aid the government. I ask, What government? It is said we are there to stabilize the region. I ask, How can the U.S. presence stabilize the region? … The longer we stay in Lebanon, the harder it will be for us to leave. We will be trapped by the case we make for having our troops there in the first place. I am not calling for an immediate withdrawal. What I desire is as rapid a withdrawal as possible.”
…and it makes perfect sense.
But this guy thinks they lost in Vietnam because they “lost the will to fight”, and somehow he thinks he can replay that war in Iraq. What a curious lot of contradictions.
Hillary makes a Deathwatch resurgence by default:
http://www.slate.com/id/2187886/
Finns @ 991
I’ve already answered that one at 910.
I will recap.
“This article IMHO is the biggest piece of drivel I have seen through the entire campaign. The moron predicts that Billary will win the popular vote. He makes a few assumptions about how much she will win the remaining primaries by, which he does concede may be a bit optimistic. The mathematicians will notice that his guesses are to one degree of accuracy, yet he actually bothers to report them to three degrees of accuracy in a pathetic attempt to make them seem less puerile.”
Now that my gender has been positively asserted, I decided that poor ol’ EC may have been confused by the feminine sounding ‘Ferny’. Ferny Grove is the Brisbane suburb that my bank lets me live in – for now. (Like many others out there, they have my aforementioned ‘boy bits’ well and truly in their tightening clutches).
Anyways, perhaps the confusion will be solved by dropping the Ferny. So, EC, just call me Grover. Blokey enough?
Finns
The only way Billary can win the popular vote is if the mother ship from Planet Clinton lands expunging 500,000 aliens into the remaining states who register as Democrats and vote Billary.
The writer of that “article” had better cash in his cheque from the Hillary Clinton Campaign pretty soon or it’ll be worth as much as a Zimbabwean $1M note. 🙂