Wednesday Open Thread [6.18.14]
ABC US News | ABC Celebrity News
If you had any doubts that Hillary is running, these past few days have put that to bed. She is absolutely masterful in that video above. That is how you defuse stalking embeds from other campaigns. You don’t attack them, like Christine O’Donnell’s thugs. You don’t call them “Maccaca” or whatever the hell slur George Allen used back in 2006. You do with Hillary did. Brilliant. Her interview with Fox News yesterday, with was more like a deposition, and her Town Hall with CNN, went very well too. The Fox appearance went so well for Clinton that Fox News Viewers are furious at the network for giving her a softball interview. I suppose they wanted Brett Baier and Greta Van Susteren to impale Hillary with a sword and remove her head a la Ned Stark on live television. But instead she was pressed on Benghazi. And here is the thing about ginning up a tragedy into a scandal and trying to pretend that there was this massive conspiracy and incompetence, if not willful malfeasance at the heart of the Obama Administration where the attack was concerned… it tends to collapse like a house of cards when reality answers fantasy questions. My favorite moment was when Bret Baier feverishly demanded to know where the President was that night, and Hillary answered that he was in the White House, in the Oval Office itself, managing the crisis with his national security team, as this picture, available for two years on the White House Flickr account, demonstrates.
Meanwhile, a new poll released by PPP found that by a nearly two to one margin (54%-28%), the American people are strongly siding with President Obama’s decision not to have sent combat troops back into Iraq. When you go into the internals, though, you find President Obama’s position on Iraq to be far more popular than that:
— Only 16% of Americans would support sending combat troops to help deal with the crisis in Iraq, compared to 74% who are opposed.
— There’s a bipartisan consensus on that issue with with Republicans (28/57), Democrats (10/86), and independents (9/86) all strongly opposed to sending combat troops.
— Regarding the 54-28 margin above, the question that garnered that result was whether the respondent agreed with Obama’s actions (withdrawal from Iraq and not sending troops back in) or McCain’s vision (troops should have remained in Iraq after 2011). that is even more condemning of McCain and Cheney. Independents break down 53/28 for Obama, and even Republicans do as well (49/30).
— 67% of Americans think the conflict is rooted in centuries of internal conflict that was exacerbated by the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq.
— Americans overwhelmingly support providing intelligence to the Iraqi government (56%-30%), and a major international diplomatic effort (52%-30%) to stabilize Iraq.
It turns out that the American people aren’t about to get fooled again by the same lies that got the country into Iraq in the first place. The Republican Party is playing a politically dangerous game by trying to blame President Obama for the wave of violence in Iraq. Instead of blaming Obama, the Republican attacks are reminding the American people that it was the GOP who lied and got the nation into a war of choice. Indeed, having the next months dominated by a reminder of all of Bush’s mistakes is not necessarily what the GOP had in mind.
NORTH CAROLINA–SENATE–Public Policy Polling: Sen. Kay Hagan (D) 39, Thom Tillis (R) 34, Sean Haugh (L) 11.
IOWA–SENATE–Quinnipiac: Rep. Bruce Braley (D) 44, Joni Ernst (R) 40.
“The Fox appearance went so well for Clinton that Fox News Viewers are furious at the network for giving her a softball interview.”
Bret Baier and Greta Van Susteren are part of the coverup. Does anyone think that the timing of this interview was a coincidence?
Despite repeated requests, I’m not waving the pom-poms.
Yes, she’s running. But as ‘brilliant’ as she was with the squirrel, all the old Hillaryisms were present during the Gross interview, which was, um, less than brilliant.
Including the semantic game-playing, one area where Bill has is it all over her. Why can’t she just bleeping give a straight answer to those questions?
In fact, I don’t give two shits about the squirrel. I don’t want an interventionist foreign policy, and I don’t want a return of corporate domination to the White House. That’s the stuff I need to hear from her. Otherwise, I’m looking for the best alternative.
For me, the CNN interview/town hall was simultaneously boring and infuriating. She weaseled on racism, weaseled on immigration and even had the audacity to cite “American Exceptionalism”. Little also on a failing economic system. I mostly heard how hard it was to be President. I intensely believe we’re long overdue for a female President. But a repeat of Margaret Thatcher? For me, it would be a lesser of evils unless she adopts a much more progressive policy point of view.
El Som – Yes, but no. While Clinton is a corporatist Dem, the Clinton’s are above all else practical. Bill Clinton passed NAFTA, but had the good sense to raise taxes on the wealthiest individual and corporations in order to pay off our debt and create conditions for (at least some) middle class prosperity.
I don’t think President Hilary would leave poor and middle class people out in the cold because it is character building. At least I hope not, and as a Dem – do I have anything to base my vote on other than hope?