Saturday, February 23, 2008

Clinton Expresses Faux Outrage About Obama Fliers

One of my favorite movies in the world is Casablanca. I especially love the part when Captain Renault closes down Rick's Cafe.

Rick
: How can you close me up? On what grounds?
Captain Renault: I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
[a croupier hands Renault a pile of money]
Croupier: Your winnings, sir.
Captain Renault: [sotto voce] Oh, thank you very much.
[aloud]
Captain Renault: Everybody out at once!

What makes that funny is that Renault is shutting down Rick on the same grounds that he himself has derived benefit.

For months now Clinton has falsely sent out fliers against Obama accusing him of being weak on reproductive rights in New Hampshire. There were robocalls in South Carolina that claimed that democrats had no good ideas, and recently sent fliers with pictures of people Obama's plan won't cover. Hillary has shown herself to not be above Rovian tactics that she is now accusing Obama of.

Obama's fliers are about Hillary's Health Care Plan and her support of NAFTA.The Clinton campaign has been very vague on how she will enforce the mandates.

Clinton has claimed that she has 35 years experience including being in the White house and being part of the Clinton Administration. One of the signature accomplishments of the Clinton administration is fast-tracking NAFTA through Congress and signing it. The Clintons have supported it. I have always thought that they were grossly naive to think that they could re-negotiate labor and environmental protections AFTER they passed NAFTA. By signing this into law, they signed away any leverage to make those changes. Hillary now says that if she becomes president she will fix the NAFTA after we have lost bargaining power.

These fliers have been out for awhile, why Hillary picked this time to make a complaint is kind of questionable. Obama was far more cool headed in the face of Clinton's attacks than she is now. Her outrage is disingenuous given her behavior during this campaign. Her outrage over a democrat going after a democrat is really laughable. She can dish it out but she can't take it. How is she going to survive the republicans if she cannot properly explain and defend her plan enough to rebuff attacks from her opposition?