Eugene Robinson Calls Bullsh*t On Hillary

[rdolan]

You know the funny thing about this whole "bitter" "controversy" is that the only people that seem that upset are politicians and tv pundits. I have yet to see or hear a story where Joe America was appalled.

Anyways, Wash Post's Eugene Robinson wrote a column, "Shot and Chablis (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/14/AR2008041402449.html?hpid=opinionsbox1)," ridiculing Hillary's behavior this week. (Registration required.)

Clinton also made a point of telling audiences about her deep religious faith. The topper -- or the chaser -- came at Bronko's Restaurant and Lounge in Crown Point (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Crown+Point?tid=informline), Ind., where Clinton threw back a shot of Crown Royal whiskey and followed it with a beer.


Clinton bristled, though, when a reporter had the temerity to ask at a news conference when she last attended church or fired a gun. "That is not a relevant question for this debate," she said. "We can answer that some other time. This is about what people feel is being said about them. I went to church on Easter. I mean, so?"



***
Oh, wait, I just found this (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/04/16/bitter/) on salon.com. They finally asked some people in trailer park in Pennsylvania. Shock of shocks, they are freaking angry....and agree with Obama.

A guy name Shawn Efram leads off the piece.

"It's fucking true," he said Monday night. "Everybody's bitter for one reason or another. So they're crucifying him because he spoke the truth? Cause he's not saying something that's going to suck up to people and kiss ass? Because, what, he slipped and accidentally spoke the truth, instead of kissing butt?"

I'm glad the press finally started asking people. God, I hate them sometimes.

[Hendo]

I used to sneak into Bronko's when I was growing up in CP. Now those memories will be forever tarnished.

[robbersean]

The idea of most presidential candidates accusing other presidential candidates of being elitist is so beyond me. With rare exception (John Edwards comes to mind) these are people from money who went to Ivy League schools and have probably never had a friend in their lives who had a job with a title like "Mechanic" or "Garbage Truck Driver" or even "Soldier (non-officer)". It's always funny to watch politicians attempt to act how they think "Regular Joes" act. There was this awful ad campaign for Mitt Romney's gubernatorial campaign in Massachusetts that showed him doing "regular jobs" like working at Dunkin' Donuts or riding on the back of a trash truck (while the narration of the commercial talked about how Romney was going to "Clean up" Massachusetts). Hilarious.

I was happy when Hillary got booed when she started taking potshots at Obama over this.

[Biddle]

The Daily Show did a really nice cover of this whole "Bitter" vs "Guns and Booze" discussion point. I'll see if I can't post a link to it here.

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It makes me really, REALLY angry with Hillary Clinton, that she's engaging in this base level of discourse. NONE of this has anything to do with the actual issues of this election. It feels like the same old manipulation techniques that we've been dealing with for the past eight years.
Someone says something that sounds reasonable and not-particularly inflammatory and their opponent "acts" upset, angry and insulted and tries to focus the punditry on this non-issue, in order to inflame anger and hostility towards the person who dared to actually say anything of value.

I don't care about Obama's "bitterness" or Hillary's "fictional Sniper fire".

I care about ending the war in Iraq and rebuilding our army to fighting force, with a focus on national defense, as opposed to international peace-keeping.

I want my president to monitor the inevitable violence that's going to spring up in the Middle East, when we withdraw from Iraq and prepare our own defenses to deal with the inevitable repercussions.

I want my president to focus their attention on the economy, to return jobs to the US, to focus on manufacturing and exporting, to introduce legislation that will regulate the currently unregulated playground that corporate America is enjoying and I want them to put legislation in place to maintain that control into the next two presidencies.

I want them to regulate the insurance industry. Talk about an industry that has run rampant in the Free Market. That needs to be gotten under control.

If there is time, after those three big goals, I want them to look at restoring the educational system, exploring universal health care and reversing the damage on the environment.

All of that should go a very long way towards lessening the bitterness of Pennsylvanians...

Everything else is bullshit obfuscation. The only thing THAT tells you is that the person who is willing to engage in those sorts of back-handing tactics, is ambitious to a fault, willing to trade ethics for power consolidation. And haven't we suffered eight years of that, already? Isn't that enough?

[Hendo]

Here's the thing with Hillary... she's behind and not likely to catch up unless she completely destroys Obama. So that's her goal. She doesn't give two shits for the Democratic party. It's her or no one. I think she thinks this is her last chance at the brass ring. Inside her campaign, they call it the "kitchen sink" approach. It's pretty slimy.

As far as equating the escalation of this "bitter" business to her lying about sniper fire... the two issues are not the same.

Obama basically spoke truth to power. Hillary lied.

And that's the problem. Both her and her husband have a real problem with telling the truth... and I'd kind of like to have a President that didn't lie to me 24/7, like we've had for the last 8 years.

I voted twice for Bill, even though I knew he played fast and loose with the truth. It was kind of endearing then. But lies cost lives now. And Hillary is a flat-our liar.

Also, she apparently has no sense of irony, drinking Canadian whiskey after that flap with Canada her campaign had not that long ago. What, Kentucky bourbon's not good enough for Hillary? What a fucking ELITIST!