Looks Like It’s All Over But the Shouting.*
The New York Times’ report today by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Martin on Clinton’s, Sanders’s and O’Malley’s speeches last night at the annual Iowa Democratic Party Jefferson-Jackson Dinner includes this:
“I’ve been told to stop shouting to end gun violence,” [Clinton] said, repeating a line she has begun using since Mr. Sanders said in the debate that “all the shouting in the world” would not keep guns out of the wrong hands. “I haven’t been shouting, but sometimes when a woman speaks out, some people think it’s shouting.”
I guess she’ll keep this up until Sanders or the mainstream media asks whether Clinton actually can’t recognize figurative speech and can’t distinguish between a statement to her about only her and one about groups of people that include members of both sexes.
Sanders’s comment was clear. If she misunderstood it, that doesn’t speak well for her level of skill in understanding statements by people that presidents need to communicate with. If instead she understood Sanders perfectly well but thinks the public has forgotten, and won’t be reminded of, what Sanders actually said, she’s mistaken.
The NYT article also mentions that by the time Clinton spoke, many of Sanders’s supporters already had left the hall in order to catch chartered buses or to party (or both). That’s too bad, because I doubt that had they remained and heard that comment they would not have cared much for it. In any event, I don’t see how this helps a candidate whose Achilles heel is a perception that she is somewhat dishonest by nature.
I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but I don’t think this horse is even nearly dead. Sanders needs to recognize that apparently Clinton plans throughout the campaign to misrepresent his statements by selecting a clause or phrase and misrepresenting its context. Sleights of hand will be a primary tool in her campaign. He needs to respond to these quickly.
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UPDATE: From CNN:
Sanders on Sunday laughed at her suggestion that his remarks were about gender.
“All that I can say is I am very proud of my record on women’s issues. I certainly do not have a problem with women speaking out — and I think what the secretary is doing there is taking words and misapplying them,” Sanders told [CNN’s Jake] Tapper. [Boldface added.]
“What I would say is if we are going to make some progress in dealing with these horrific massacres that we’re seeing, is that people have got to start all over this country talking to each other,” he said. “It’s not Hillary Clinton. You have some people who are shouting at other people all across this country. You know that. This nation is divided on this issue.”
Indeed. I think Clinton will find that this type of campaign tactic is very much out of tune with large swaths of Democratic voters right now.
Updated 10/25 at 12:22 p.m.
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SECOND UPDATE: The New York Times’s Thomas Kaplan wrote on the Times’ political blog First Draft:
Hillary Rodham Clinton has seized on remarks Senator Bernie Sanders made in the first Democratic debate that “all the shouting in the world” would not keep guns out of the wrong hands, suggesting that Mr. Sanders used those words because of Mrs. Clinton’s gender.
“I haven’t been shouting, but sometimes when a woman speaks out, some people think it’s shouting,” she said at the Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Des Moines, Iowa, on Saturday.
But Mr. Sanders’s past comments about gun control suggest that his “shouting” line is just that – a favored turn of phrase that he has used regularly in the past few months, long before Mrs. Clinton released her plan to address gun violence.
In July, Mr. Sanders, senator of Vermont, said that people needed to “stop shouting at each other” on the issue of guns. In August, he said that “people shouting at each other” about gun control “is not doing anybody any good.” And on Oct. 1, reacting to the mass shooting at a community college in Oregon, he said that the nation needed to “get beyond the shouting” on the issue.
Mrs. Clinton, the former secretary of state, announced her proposals to curb gun violence on Oct. 5, and in recent weeks she has been particularly vocal on the issue of gun control, a subject on which Mr. Sanders has a mixed.
Looks like this controversy is all over but the shouting. Or is about to be. And like her ‘Denmark’ sleight of hand, it’s not a plus for Clinton.
I think it’s a concern for Democrats that Clinton, who remains the party’s frontrunner, has an apparent compulsion to campaign in this way. In this instance, she managed to trivialize sexism by claiming it so obviously falsely—the woman who cried wolf—and cheapen the very process of campaigning. Why does she keep doing this kind of thing?
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*The original title of this post was “Update to: “Hillary Clinton Says the NRA’s Leadership is Comprised Entirely of Women. Seriously.”
This nomination is being served to Hillary on a silver platter. I don’t know what to call a system like ours , but I know it’s not “a democracy”.
The Republicans even helped her out by pitting the troglodyte Trey Gowdy against her in the Benghazi hearings. What a gift !
I knew I had seen this guy Gowdy somewhere before :
http://www.politicsplus.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Trey-Gowdy_Banjo-Kid_Deliverance.png
I actually disagree that the hearing on Thursday was the huge gift to Clinton that everyone else thinks it is, Marko. I didn’t watch any of the hearing, but by all accounts she handled it very, very well, and certainly showed a lot of stamina. And also by all accounts, most of the hearing amounted to really asinine questions by the Repub committee members that showed those members for the stupid, uber-partisan pols that they are.
But ultimately this election, at least for most Democrats, really isn’t about Hillary Clinton. It’s about policy positions. And about the effectiveness of the Dem candidate’s responses to Republicans not just in their attacks on Hillary Clinton but in what their policy positions are and what facts they claim support those positions. And what facts refute them—starkly and clearly.
As for the actual substantive questions that the Benghazi situation does raise, Maureen Dowd had what I thought was a very good column yesterday about Clinton’s testimony and the questions she was asked, at http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/opinion/sunday/the-empire-strikes-back.html?_r=0
After summarizing the idiocy of most of the questioning, and Clinton’s masterful handling of it, Dowd said this:
“According to Republicans on the committee, there were 600 requests from J. Christopher Stevens’s team to upgrade security in Benghazi in 2012 and 20 attacks on the mission compound in the months before the Sept. 11 siege.
“In a rare moment of lucidity, Representative Mike Pompeo of Kansas said to Clinton: ‘You described Mr. Stevens as having the best knowledge of Libya of anyone,’ but ‘when he asked for increased security, he didn’t get it.’
“As Hillary kept explaining, that job was the province of the ‘security professionals,’ four of whom were later criticized for providing ‘grossly inadequate’ security at the Benghazi compound and removed from their posts.
It just makes my skin crawl when I hear/see a dem using repub gorilla tactics. Just makes them seem so untrustworthy just like the repubs.
Gosh, there she goes again: Mean Hillary saying things about Bernie after his supporters have left the J-J dinner. My question is, why were they so rude to leave bfore she spoke? What kind of idiots are they/
It is fine to talk about issues, and in fact I tend to agree with Bernie more than I agree with HRC, especially on foreign policy. But the hard fact is that we are electing a president, and that is a person. It matters a great deal how that person behaves and what they are capable of. Hillary has been regularly outsmarting him in all kinds of venues. He does not seem able to keep up, and that is not impressive. You really should not say squat about the hearing if you did not see any of it, Beverly. It was an impressive slam dunk. She was totally presidential, showing that she can keep her cool and her wits about her for 11 straight hours. Can Berine do that? Sorry, but I doubt it, much as I like the guy.
Regarding the stupid bit you quoted from Dowd, those were requests for security upgrades in Libya, both Tripoli and Benghazi, not just Benghazi. Tripoli has the embassy where all the classified stuff is, which is far more importan that than the facility (not a “consulate,” less than that ) in Benghazi, where nothing was stored, and where Stevens was only for a couple of days, unlike in Tripoli, where he was most of the time, and which is as dangerous if not more so than Benghazi. Sorry you and Dowd fell for GOP propaganda. This is just embarrassing. You should be ashamed of yourself.
If you want to criticize a performand, then watch it. Do not quote half-baked columns that present false information. This is really contemptible on your part.
Barkley:
HRC did show well in answering the Repubs and remaining calm during there pointed and mostly make-believe points. I like the part where she cracked a sh*t eating grin while the committee was arguing amongst themselves. She is definitely a politician and a strong one who can withstand an onslaught of mostly nonsense.
Barkley,
The admirable traits of Hillary you cite are common in psychopaths , e.g. , the ability to remain unflustered while shamelessly flip-flopping or outright lying. Her husband was similarly gifted.
You apparently disagree with Hillary on foreign policy , where she sides with the hard-core neocons. I’d think another psychopath ( in a long string ) would be the last thing you’d want for your next President.
Yes , Bernie probably would have become flustered under the pressure of the Benghazi hearings. He would have become angry as he shouted the truth at his accusers. That’s how a normal , non-psychopath would react.
Bev,
Recall that the real danger facing the nation is the possibility of a Republican presidency. You know, the Supreme Court for example. Bernie likes to argue from principle but apparently has a problem when confronted by an opponent doing the same on a topic where he is vulnerable. Bernie’s position on guns is a problem for him and he has no right to think Hillary should give him pass on that. Beyond that, ultimately, is Bernie’s insistence on calling himself a socialist, whatever he may mean by that. I doubt the voting public is going to listen to his definition. We really do need to concern ourselves with who has the best chance to win.
Yes we should concern ourselves with winning. And how much it might cost us. http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/10/elizabeth-warren-on-how-clinton-backed-student-loan-and-mortgage-debt-slavery-with-2005-bankruptcy-reform-vote.html
First, I apologize to Bev for my last sentence. It was over the top, although I have never had much respect for people who announce that they have not read a book or seen a movie and then proceed to provide their own overweening review of it. And in this case, it really was important to actually see what was going on for even a small portion of that 11 hour marathos interrogation.
Which brings us to the silliness of Marko. Um, sure, some psychopaths have such characteristics, which does not mean that someone exhibiting those characteristics iss therefore a psychopath. Are you a psychopath, Marko? Did you actually watch it, or are you in there with Bev, making inappropriate and stupidly nasty comments?
I disagree with her on more than just foreign policy, although that may be where she is the worst in my view. Thus one thing that Maureen Dowd did reasonably take her to task for was her hawkishness on the whole getting into Libya business in the first place, although I recognize that this was a very complicated and difficult situation, and I shall not comment on it further than to note that the GOP positions on it were utterly incoherent, with some politicians within a single sentence declaring that we should both have “boots on the ground” and do nothing at all. I do worry that she may do something too hawkish, especially when she first gets in, to show how tough she is. Hopefully after a round or two of that, she iwll moderate.
Regarding this matter of changing one’s position or mind, I would note that in her supposedly psychopathic performance, I did not see Hillary changing her mind during that performance, but she certainly has to fo fit popular opiinion as she has seen fit. While this can be annoying, this is also not the worst thing in the world. Our greatest presidents have all changed their minds when in office about things they said they were for. FDR said he was going to balance the budget, and Abraham Lincoln said he was not going to challenge slave ownership.
On that matter, indeed Bernie might have a problem. While many praise the consistency of his views, if he becomes president he will almost certainly face a GOP-controlled House of Representatives and foreign leaders who will not necessarily go along with what he wants. Will he be able to deal with that? I do not know, but presidents do need to have a certain amount of flexibility. If he does become POTUS< I hope he will know when to change his views.
Jack, there’s no question that Sanders has no right to think Hillary should give him a pass on the guns issue; it’s clearly a very important issue, and there are differences between the two of them on substance and on the manner in which to try to legislate on the issue. But Clinton habitually takes phrases and such out of their context, as well as others’ voting record and what such things as the actual provisions of statutes and policies that her opponent supported or opposed, or supports or opposes.
“Denmark” is one example. Her claims about certain parts of Sanders’ record on guns, and certainly her claim about what the gun manufacturer and gun dealer immunity statute provides, what the status of the law was when it was enacted, and whether other manufacturers and retail sellers have immunity or not for the things she claims they do.
But beyond that, her claim that Sanders was using the word “shouting” literally rather than figuratively and that he was talking about her and only her and that his comment was sexist is ludicrous. William Saletan posted a terrific article on Slate yesterday afternoon titled “Hillary Clinton Is Smearing Bernie Sanders as a Sexist” and subtitled “It’s ridiculous. Bernie’s record as a feminist is as good as Hillary’s.” It’s at http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/10/hillary_clinton_is_smearing_bernie_sanders_as_a_sexist_it_s_an_insult_to.html.
The first paragraph says:
“Hillary Clinton has found a new wedge issue against Sen. Bernie Sanders. The topic is gun control, but the angle is gender. Clinton is framing Sanders as a sexist who accuses women of shouting when they try to speak up. It’s a lie. She’s manipulating women and abusing feminist anger for her own advantage.”
The last paragraph says:
“Enough. Sanders’ record as a feminist is as good as Clinton’s. No honest reading of his career or his comments about guns can construe him as a sexist. Clinton is trying to connect with women who have felt bullied by men, and to turn them against Sanders, by smearing him. And what’s true of racism and anti-Semitism is just as true of sexism: The more seriously you take the real thing, the more you should revile people who use it as a fraud.”
Danial Becker has it exactly right. This is what Republicans do; it is not what Democrats should do. It does not make her a more attractive candidate; it makes her a more vulnerable candidate, in the primaries and, if she wins the nomination, in the general election. It is really, really unappealing.
I strongly disagree that Sanders would be a weaker general-election candidate. Three or four weeks ago, the NYT had a lengthy article saying that, surprisingly, Sanders has a pretty good following in West Virginia, of all places, among white blue-collar voters. The ones the article quoted who had attended a Sanders rally there were middle-aged, and Republican. And last summer at Sanders’ rally in the Phoenix area, one of the attendees was a 29-year-old stay-at-home mother who told a reporter that she had not voted for president before because she didn’t think there was any reason for her to do so, but will vote for Sanders. She was wearing a T-shirt that said “Bernie f***ing Sanders.”
We’re in a different political era now, Jack. Finally. There are older people who would never vote for someone who calls himself a something socialist. Until they realize that the Republican candidate would join with a Republican Congress to privatize Medicare and keep reducing Medicare benefits and raising out-of-pocket expenses and such. Etc.
Sanders has huge numbers of supporters among millennials, who will come out and vote for him but may not bother to do that for Clinton. Sanders also has a far better chance to attract white middle-aged men than Clinton has.
What Sanders has that Clinton, it is clear by now, does not have is the ability to actually refute Republican policy proposals with specific facts and clear arguments. Clinton, unlike her husband, speaks almost entirely in soundbites and cutesy zingers that don’t actually say anything about the policy subject. Like, that Sanders told her specifically, and her only, to stop shouting, and did so because she is a woman. That’s not how you refute policy proposals.
As you know, I’d support Godzilla as the Dem nominee over the Republican, and I would not support a Dem for the nomination who might actually lose to the Republican. But the Dem nominee will be running against Marco Rubio, probably, who wants to end the estate tax, end taxes on corporations, and lower capital gains taxes—the latter because he apparently is unaware that most large corporations are holding huge profits rather than investing those profits, and that that is feeding the stock market bubble. (And I won’t even get into Jeb!, since he’s cooked.)
You are right that Hillary is Mean and Unfair to poor old Bernie, twisting his words like that. Shame on her!
Here is the problem. It is fine to say what Dems “should do,” but I remember working hard for George McGovern and quite a few other “virtuous” Dem prez candidates who got eaten for lunch by nasty GOP prez candidates who put out all sorts of total garbage that they were unable to respond to and lost. If Bernie cannot respond to her renarks about Denmark or gun conttorl, how is he going to manage when they really come after him on “socialism” and “honeymooning in the Soviet Union” and a lot of other stuff a lot worse than the relatively weak tea Hillary is pouring on his lap?
Whoa, Barkley. Bernie’s done a fine job of responding to her remarks about Denmark and “shouting” about gun control.
As for George McGovern, please don’t tell me that you think this is still 1972, the Vietnam War debate is raging, and that Americans fear that the Soviet Union and China might hit us with nukes.
Jack, I just saw this: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/nicholas-quinn-rosenkranz-now-supports-marco-rubio-215187.
Guess who would be Rubio’s first Supreme Court nominee. I know a bit about this guy, and he’s about as awful as can be.
I’d LOVE to see Clinton or Sanders–whoever wins the nomination–make a big issue of this guy if Rubio is the Repub nominee. But whoever is the Repub nomiee, it is imperative that the Dem nominee explain and make an issue of the Federalist Society.
Our oh-so-presidential , non-psychopathic Potus-to-be , having a little fun :
Bev, I recall seeing some polling recently (I’ve forgotten exactly where) to the effect that the term, socialist, goes down badly across the electorate. I also noticed the other day that Krugman favored Clinton’s approach to dealing with financial regulation over Bernie’s. Imagine that! Also don’t forget the women’s vote. Like the youth vote for Obama, it could be decisive. Bear in mind too, whatever Bernie may claim, he would be facing a Republican House at least. He really hasn’t said much about how he would approach that little problem.
JackD:
I agree with you. Being called a socialist while running for office does not win elections. The first thing coming to their mind is communist. HRC runs down the middle with the rest of the DLC so her policies will favor big business.
“I also noticed the other day that Krugman favored Clinton’s approach to dealing with financial regulation over Bernie’s. Imagine that! ”
Clinton’s approach is to flip to populist measures when campaigning and then flop to finance sector suck-up when governing.
Who do you trust on the issue of protecting the masses from the vampire squid ? Elizabeth Warren is the first that comes to my mind. Listen to her 5-min story on Clinton and bankruptcy reform :
That said , it’s getting pretty clear the fix is in. Warren and , at the very end , Sanders , will endorse Clinton – must stop the crazy Repubs and all that , you know. And then , no matter who wins the White House , the Money Party will have been victorious , once again.
Soon after , the stories will begin to leak out about the highly-orchestrated , and successful , media campaign to link Bernie’s self-proclaimed Socialist leanings with the worst aspects of Communism. Voters will say : ” I wish I’d known they were doing that , I probably would’ve voted differently. I won’t be so easily manipulated next time.”
The Money Party guys will have a nice laugh about that.
Krugman said that Clinton has presented a detailed plan to bring the shadow banking system under regulation–which is a critical part of regulating the finance industry and reducing its size–and that Sanders has not yet done so.
Point well taken. Clearly, Sanders needs to do this. And, also clearly, he will. Clinton has had a HUGE head start over Sanders in access–financially and otherwise–to the economists and finance-industry experts who can draft detailed policy proposals on this.