Dana Milbank - Would we be better off under a President Hillary Clinton?
As I sat in the East Room last week watching a forlorn President Obama account for his shellacking, I listened with concern as he described the presidency as a “growth process” and suggested that the midterm setback was somehow inevitable. “You know, this is something that I think every president needs to go through,” he said.
It brought to mind Hillary Clinton’s 3 a.m. phone-call ad from the 2008 campaign, and her withering criticism of Obama: “When there is a crisis … there’s no time for speeches or on-the-job training.” I wondered whether Democrats would be in the fix they’re in if they had chosen a different standard-bearer.
Dana Milbank can STFU. As I started to read what he said about the 3am call, I wondered to myself, “gee, I wonder what he was saying at the time that ad ran.” And sure enough - he even links approvingly to what he was saying then: she had no chance and should get out. No previous Democrat running unsuccessfully for president - not Ted Kennedy, Gary Hart, Jesse Jackson, or Jerry Brown - was subjected to the heckling to get off the stage that Hillary was. All of those candidates took it to the convention. And she did have a chance - the superdelegates and uncommitted delegates could have given her the nomination; the popular vote was evenly divided and she was racking up victories from April through early June. Obama was getting creamed during that period, so his desperate backers in the press like Milbank desperately crunched their “delegate math” to prove Hillary couldn’t win. And they won the day, by making it politically impossible for unpledged delegates to support Hillary or to take her late victories into account. And by demonizing her as someone who was detached from political reality.
Now they are second-guessing themselves. Just shut the fuck up and support Obama instead of sniping about how Hillary would have been better.
I mean, Dana Milbank is the guy who did a video saying that Hillary would drink “Mad Bitch Beer” at a beer summit.
Bolded for my emphasis. BRAVO.
(Source: wooliebear)
