Christmas In Philadelphia

Obama swiftboats Clinton.  Gosh, can't a person even make up a phony story about their heroism in order to score political points?

MORE:  John Dickerson overcomes Obamamania:

DOWNINGTON, Pa.— At the next train stop, I'm going to stand behind Senator Obama when he speaks. When he's decrying the trivial distractions in politics, I think he may be crossing his fingers behind his back.

As the Senator's campaign train wound from one speech where he denounced tit-for-tat politics to the next speech where he denounced tit-for-tat politics, his campaign hosted a conference call to engage in the practice the candidate was busy denouncing. I suppose it would have been an even greater act of chutzpah for the Obama campaign to host the conference call while Sen. Obama was denouncing that kind of behavior, but not much more of one.

And from an earlier entry:

Obama talked repeatedly about his penchant for truth-telling as a way to contrast himself with his opponent. He was going to tell people what they needed to hear and not what they wanted to hear. This also has been a standard part of the Obama campaign speech, and it's still true that after so many months of promising hard truths, Obama doesn't really force people to accept any. (With the blistering heat, it would have been a great time, say, to tell the truth about the hard choices we're all going to have to make to combat global warming.)

Let's be fair - Obama is confronting people with the hard truth that they can have hope and change, but only if they vote for him.

Comments

[MayBee]

This seems to be a major meltdown to me. I guess the only thing benefiting Obama is the hesitant coverage of his campaign doing this.
(It was on Jake Tapper's blog this morning, but for some reason pulled and put on Political Radar this evening.)

FWIW, I thought Hillary saying she was embarrassed about telling a story she knew wasn't true was a very good response on Thursday. It seems beyond odd that Obama now wants to bring it up.

His internals in PA must look awful.

[clarice]

Must be MayBee--and Gallup has him falling behind in the national poll as well.

[MayBee]

One of the participant's blog on barackobama.com is here

How desperate. This guy is an Obama supporter that hasn't mentioned his horror at Hillary's Bosnia gaffe previously on his blog. He hates the Iraq war. He certainly has a right to speak out, but it isn't like his opinion just changed because of her Tusla story.

[Sue]

I was surprised to see the Obama supporters thrilled at this tactic from Obama. I thought he was all about being above this kind of politics?

[Danube of Thought]

How does the Reverend Wright spell "toast?" How does Michelle Obama spell "toast?" How does Louis Farrakhan spell "toast?" How does Billy Ayers spell "toast?" How does Tony Rezko spell "toast?"

Let us count the ways...

[Ranger]

My guess is that Obama is doing this because it was the only thing that gave him traction against her before the debate. If he is really going back on what he said just a couple days ago about not using this his polls must look terrible. It is all about momentum at this point, and if Hil can beat him by more than 10% it is bad for him, and if she can crush him by 15% or more, the momentum may shift big time.

We may be watching the development of the "perfect storm." The media loves Obama, and make deeply resent Hil's efforts to knock him out. If she pulls it off, she loses the bulk of the black vote and the media may actually work against her and support McCain, who has worked his entire career to build a relationship with the press. And to beat Hil at this poing Obama may have to become the "regular politician" he has been claiming he isn't.

Game On!

[Rick Ballard]

That's his counterpunch? RW has so much damned baggage that she needs two trains and he picks her 'there I wuz' bit about Tusla?

He's a real, no kidding, metrosissy. I sure hope his lead is insurmountable at this point because if it isn't, RW is going to come out of that coffin and turn him into roadkill.

[MayBee]

Look how weird this is:

After Obama media call focuses on Clinton’s misstatement on Bosnia, with retired military supporter Walter Stewart suggesting Clinton now lacks “moral authority” to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, campaign distances itself:

Spokesman Hari Sevugan: “We obviously do not agree with that sentiment.”

Que?

[ben]

Obamamessiah is sooooooo conflicted....in the debate he pretty much lumped the Tuzla issue in with the "distractions" he faced with Wright and lapel pins. With this attack he opened the floodgates again and rendered moot all the whining about the big bad and mean ABC moderators. Hillary, it's your turn, don't take this lying down.

[clarice]

I'm beginning to think that there oughta be a law that any retired military officer who takes a campaign role ought to be denied a military funeral or something.
These creeps are like stupid lice.

[Soylent Red]

Easy Clarice. You're screwing up my upcoming Congressional bid with that kind of talk.

"No sh*t, there I was. Lower Maryland, 2008, when the sh*t was really going down. Nothing but a boot knife and a Ziploc bag of grossly overpriced arugula..."

[ben]

"These creeps are like stupid lice."

I guess in the military its like anywhere else in society there are all types of ideologies. But still, I find it hard to understand how anyone with a career in the military could support Obama. Does anybody doubt the military would be sucking hind tit in an Obama administration?

[Soylent Red]

Ben:

Those who I've met in the military who support Obamessiah have several distinguishing traits"

1. They are very young and naive
2. They were liberal before Obamessiah came along
3. They are not convinced of the mission in Iraq

That's how they can reconcile Obamessiah with military service in their minds.

[clarice]

I've no problem with retired military running for office themselves..I'm backing Lt Col Allen West right now.
It's all the Wesley Clark types. PHEH

[ben]

Funny exchange in the comment section of Hot Air...regarding an article about what TMB will do with all the Obama-Ayers connections...

"Even after Rove has retired, Democrats are still afraid of him. Amazing."
SoulGlo

"My guess is that even after he dies, they’ll still believe his head is being kept alive in some Halliburton laboratory."
Del Dolemonte

[RichatUF]

Rick-

That's his counterpunch? RW has so much damned baggage that she needs two trains and he picks her 'there I wuz' bit about Tusla?

I was thinking the same thing. The problem looking over the list that DoT provided though provides a clue-BHO could drop a picture (for Rezko and Wright), mention Clinton's terrorist pardons (and RW's brothers compensation for same [takes care of Ayers]), or produce a murder of former Clinton officials to get some nuanced anti-Clinton spin (Richardson, Reich, Rice, Lake et al) . RW can't attack BHO on character, judgement, or leadership-she's a good liar, but not that good...

The only thing both of them have left for the primaries are gaffes on the trail unless they want to start dropping the bombs and really wreck the party, which puts downticket races in jeopardy too.

Also saw this curious bit via Drudge about the Clinton's and loyalty. Almost like Nancy Larson is having second thoughts about jumping off Broom One...

[Lesley]

A.J.Strata has a thoughtful post up on Clinton and the Dems Face the Monster They Created

"After decades of the Democrats feeding the far left incredible propaganda, including how the GOP wants to starve people by throwing them out of welfare and school programs to the idea Bush and Cheney invaded Iraq for oil based on forged documents and 9-11 was actually committed by them, we have the expected results. An angry out of control mob, which has been told for decades the GOP is trying to kill people (while giving tax cuts to the “rich”). They are backed up by a military industrial complex which has been compared by democrat leaders to the Nazis, Pol Pot and Stalin relative to GITMO, have been accused of terrorizing women and children in the night, have committed acts reminiscent of Genghis Khan."

Karl Rove is part of that propaganda. Just the mere mention of the man's name, despite the face that his horns and tail are retractable (as he likes to joke), rallies the troops. Its amazing to me how that man has been villified.

[DebinNC]

FLDS fake-tipster is Obama delegate?

lol

[Porchlight]

There was a semi-rumor that Hillary had a bombshell she was sitting on until after the debate (so she wouldn't have to answer debate questions about it)? Maybe this Bosnia thing is his attempt to light an escape fire.

Still, after reading MayBee's link above, even that seems to have been botched.

[narciso]

This attitude isn't unique to American retired military officers either. Gen. Michael Rose, the former Special Forces
veteran turned UN peace keeping chief in Bosnia where he ended up watching over the
massacres at Srebenica; has a book on insurgencies comparing the Iraqi jihadis to the American revolutionaries. Now he was beat to it, by William Polk, a former Kennedy State Planning Chief (I know there
was planning in the State Department, I was surprised too, just slightly more than Lake under Carter)turned paleocon, insurgent enthusiast.

[Topsecretk9]

Posted by: Lesley | April 19, 2008 at 11:57 PM

Thanks for that link...just don't have the time to surf ALL the blogs anymore.

I've been thinking along theses lines since the beginning, that Hillary should have shunned the nutjobs and stood firm in her war vote (of course she couldn't because of the nutleftroots - such a conundrum)

But the left created their monster so they must deal with it. Lay down with Joseph and Valerie Wilson bullshit fleas because you think it might work? Can never get rid of the fleas.

[Topsecretk9]

Posted by: ben | April 19, 2008 at 11:40 PM

True that. The conspiracy sites that will evolve...have the Democrats wondered if putting this much power into one republican makes Bob Shrum look bad?- I keeed. I keed.

[ben]

Question is, if Obama does gets slaughtered in the Electoral College, say an almost-landslide like Bush 41 against Dukakis, will there be a revolt in the Democratic party against the nutroots for squandering such an "opportunity", or has the far-left become so large a majority in the party that it won't matter, extreme liberals are all we will continue to see as nominees.

[Topsecretk9]

will there be a revolt in the Democratic party against the nutroots for squandering such an "opportunity", or has the far-left become so large a majority in the party that it won't matter, extreme liberals are all we will continue to see as nominees.

Ben

I think (oh I've been so wrong before) but I think that Hill WILL bolt the party and run independent.

I think we are seeing Lamont/Lieberman national.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Ben, if the situation you're talking about happens, there will either be a revolt or a new party --- after something like that, all that'll be left is the MoveOn folks. One acquaintance of mine was recently bragging that there were 3 million people involved in MoveOn. The thing is, that means about 297 million who *aren't*.

[ben]

"One acquaintance of mine was recently bragging that there were 3 million people involved in MoveOn. The thing is, that means about 297 million who *aren't*."

Well they can form a nutaxis with DailyKos and HuffPo and get a few more votes.

[Topsecretk9]

*Well they can form a nutaxis with DailyKos and HuffPo and get a few more votes.*

I don't think Huff Po readers are exclusive. Same with Kos and DU.

Think I'll go with Charlie and assume the MO people click on the same pages and many of them are the sam people.

[M. Simon]

The Anarchists are already planning a riot at the D convention (Recreate '68). If Obama gets knocked out of the race (ostensibly by a bunch of "unfair questions") this would add blacks to the mix.

ABC better up armor its mobiles and issue flack jackets and kevlar helmets for all its personnel in Denver.

I just love it when a plan comes together.

[M. Simon]

BTW Obama is planning a rally in Philadelphia.

Here is a warning given:

For security reasons, do not bring bags and please limit personal items. No signs or banners permitted.

Things must be getting tough out there.

[M. Simon]

Ben in case you want to go A Rovin I have a little ditty for you:

A Rovin

[Jane]

I think if Obama loses the nomination we will have a weatherman redoux. (Bill Ayers can lead it.) His supporters are rabid enough to destroy the democrat party.

Oh goodie!

And good morning everyone!

[Charlie (Colorado)]

I just love it when a plan comes together.

Dude, I *live* in Denver.

[boris]

Dude there just aren't many things to do in denver when you're "dead".

Mornin' Jane.

[M. Simon]

Charlie,

Sacrifices must be made. I think it is your turn.

Seriously. Stock up on food. Ammunition and plot your escape routes.