Current Events > The DUmpster
"DC elite, in fact, never liked Bill..."
Lauri:
--- Quote ---DeepModem Mom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Tue Jan-29-08 03:58 PM
Original message
Washington elite lead Clinton backlash: D.C. elite, in fact, never liked Bill Updated at 5:22 PM
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The Politico: Washington elite lead Clinton backlash
By: John F. Harris
Jan 28, 2008
....Bill Clinton...botched a big one — at a moment when Hillary Clinton can afford it least. It is striking how many people around town seem to be loving it. But it should not really be surprising. Clinton spent so long as the dominant personality in the Democratic Party that it is easy to forget: Lots of elite Democrats never liked the guy that much. Or, perhaps more precisely, their feelings of admiration were constantly at war with feelings of disdain...
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The toxic relationship between the Clintons and Washington was always one of the main paradoxes of the Clinton administration — and one of its main mysteries. Here was a couple who devoted their lives to making establishment connections and scaling establishment institutions...Clinton’s policies embraced elite assumptions favored by Wall Street and Washington think tanks — against budget deficits, for instance, and for free trade.
But there was never love at the personal level....From Bill Clinton’s perspective, Washington is a city of cynics. His critics may think he is a brazen phony. But Bill and Hillary Clinton both believe devoutly in their own pure motives. As one who has covered them for 13 years, I can say that he does not see himself — and certainly not Hillary — as calculating or insincere, even when pursuing tactics that look transparently political to outsiders. (For what it’s worth, my own take on his presidency was that however irresponsible Clinton was in his personal life, at the end of the day he usually made responsible choices in his public life.) It enrages him to see his own motives dissected or taken at anything less than face value. The dissection of motives and tactics, needless to say, is Washington’s main industry....
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In some moods, the Clintons also like to imagine that they are victims of Eastern snobbery against Arkansans. There is probably a whiff of truth to that....
From Washington’s perspective, to judge by the most common criticism heard over the years and again in recent days, the problem is not that Bill Clinton is Bubba but that he is Eddie Haskell — smug, smarmy, self-absorbed. When he first arrived in Washington (I did not start covering him until a couple years later), many journalists seemed to be hoping for another JFK, a politician detached and ironic about his own performance, who shared reporters’ love of gossip and process and style. They hoped for too much....
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=C2DDFA95-30...
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http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4270202
well, well, well.. :popcorn:
Wretched Excess:
--- Quote ---DURHAM D Donating Member (1000+ posts) Tue Jan-29-08 05:55 PM
Response to Reply #1
27. And the main source of this story is Rahm Emanuel.
That former Clinton White House staffer who is close to both candidates (the one whose wife has switched to Obama) is not close to Hillary at all. He is David Axelrod's best friend and he is from Chicago and is a total slime ball. Hillary wanted him fired from the W.H.
Everyone remember how they hated the DCCC under Rahm's direction? Remember how everyone stopped giving money to the DCCC because they were over investing in races for Blue Dog candidates? Remember the fights between the DNC and DCCC.
If you get Obama you will lose Dean. Is that the change you want?
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I thought I knew a lot about the inner workings of the dem party, but this makes no sense.
Lauri:
i think its been fractured for a long, long time... we just didnt have any way of knowing who was loyal to who.
now a few of the big cheeses are abandoning Hilary in such a public way.. and is Howard Dean dead? where is that guy?
Wretched Excess:
--- Quote from: Lauri on January 29, 2008, 10:50:39 PM ---i think its been fractured for a long, long time... we just didnt have any way of knowing who was loyal to who.
now a few of the big cheeses are abandoning Hilary in such a public way.. and is Howard Dean dead? where is that guy?
--- End quote ---
hillary still leads in committed superdelegates, who are primarily members of congress. the MSM is just reinforcing the "obama is inevitable" theory, which they created after the SC primary to take the place of the "hillary is inevitable" theory after NH, which they created after their "obama is inevitable" theory, which . . . .
they don't have any more of a clue how this thing is going to turn out than you or I do.
Lauri:
--- Quote from: Wretched Excess on January 29, 2008, 10:55:36 PM ---
--- Quote from: Lauri on January 29, 2008, 10:50:39 PM ---i think its been fractured for a long, long time... we just didnt have any way of knowing who was loyal to who.
now a few of the big cheeses are abandoning Hilary in such a public way.. and is Howard Dean dead? where is that guy?
--- End quote ---
hillary still leads in committed superdelegates, who are primarily members of congress. the MSM is just reinforcing the "obama is inevitable" theory, which they created after the SC primary to take the place of the "hillary is inevitable" theory after NH, which they created after their "obama is inevitable" theory, which . . . .
they don't have any more of a clue how this thing is going to turn out than you or I do.
--- End quote ---
gotcha :-)
now... is Howie tied up in a closet somewhere?
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