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{1} "Hillary Clinton won a convincing victory in Pennsylvania, but it came at a significant cost to the Clinton family’s reputation and to the Democratic Party. She won by throwing the ‘kitchen sink’ at Obama, as her campaign aides described it. Her campaign had been an assault on Obama’s character flaws, real and imagined, rather than on matters of substance. Clinton also suffered a bizarre self-inflicted wound, having reimagined her peaceful landing at a Bosnian airstrip in 1996 as a battlefield scene complete with sniper fire. After six weeks of this, according to one poll, 60% of the American people considered her ‘untrustworthy,’ a Nixonian indictment."
--Joe Klein; Shrinking Democrats; TIME; May 5, 2008; page 20.
At the beginning of the democratic primary, Senator Clinton was considered the "inevitable" nominee of our party. Although the mere mention of her name was enough to cause the republican right-wing to growl like dogs mad with rabies, she was popular enough with the democratic base that she seemed to be destined to win the November 2008 election. A day before the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, things have changed. The democratic base is divided; Senator Obama has a lead in the primary contest; and some of the more vocal Clinton support is coming from right-wing sources including Fox News and MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough.
As a supporter of Barack Obama, I have mixed feelings about both Senator Clinton and her campaign. Hillary has an impressive record in areas such as health care and as an advocate of the environment. But she also voted to allow the Bush-Cheney invasion of Iraq, and has taken positions that raise concerns about her views on Iran. Her campaign has solid endorsements from people I respect, such as Robert Kennedy, Jr., and General Wesley Clark. But her campaign has also included offensive behavior by people including Mark Penn and Bill Clinton.
Perhaps the most unsettling aspect of her campaign came on May 1, when it was reported on The Huffington Post that Sidney Blumenthal was coordinating attacks on Barack Obama which use the same tactics as the right-wing opponents had used against President Clinton.
{2} "He said Dick Morris had called him that day and he said that Dick had told him that Nixon – he had read the newspaper and he said, ‘You know, Nixon could have survived Watergate if he had gone on television and given an address and said everything he had done wrong and got it all out in the beginning.’ And I said to the president, ‘What have you done wrong?’ And he said, ‘Nothing. I haven’t done anything wrong.’ I said, ‘Well, then, that’s one of the stupidest ideas I’ve ever heard’."
--Sidney Blumenthal; testimony to grand jury, released by House Judiciary Committee in October, 1998.
Before Sidney Blumenthal became a senior adviser to President Clinton, he was a respected journalist. He wrote for The New Republic, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and Vanity Fair. Blumenthal was a strong advocate for the democratic party.
In August, 1997, Blumenthal went to work for President Clinton. His duties included advising the president on public policy, and assisting in White House communications. It was at this time that he coined the phrase "vast right-wing conspiracy," which First Lady Hillary Clinton used to correctly describe the campaign to destroy her husband’s presidency. Blumenthal understood how the right-wing "think tanks" coordinated efforts with politicians and journalists, to "massage" certain messages that came from the far right, to be inserted in the national discussion.
Blumenthal was believed to have engaged in a counter-offensive, leaking information about Ken Starr and his supporters, to his network of contacts in the media. He would be one of the White House staff called to testify before the grand jury and, after the House impeached Clinton, on videotape for the US Senate.
Blumenthal was the target of an ugly attack when blogger Matt Drudge accused him of domestic abuse. Drudge attributed the smear to "top GOP sources." Blumenthal filed a multimillion dollar libel suit against Drudge. It was settled out of court. Drudge made a public apology, and Blumenthal reportedly had to make a small payment as a result of missing a deposition.
{3} "This campaign pits two parties running on diametrically opposite ideas of the presidency and the constitution. There has not been such a sharp divergence on the foundation of the federal system since perhaps the election of 1860. Two models of the presidency are at odds, one whose founding father was George Washington, the other whose founding father was Richard Nixon. Under the aegis of Dick Cheney, who considered the scandal in Watergate to be a political trick to topple Nixon, the original vision has been entrenched and extended. …
"Like Nixon, Bush and Cheney act on the idea that the more they operate outside the constitutional system, the stronger they are. … In Bush’s imperial presidency, neo-conservativism meets Nixonianism, the ideology providing the high concept of low politics."
--Sidney Blumenthal; November, 2007.
During the Bush-Cheney years, Sidney Blumenthal authored some of the most important articles that exposed the criminal activities and abuses of power relating to the Plame scandal. These wonderful articles exposed the vast right-wing conspiracy that had operated out of the Office of the Vice President, which resulted in the outing of CIA analyst Valerie Plame. He helped document the role that Karl Rove played in feeding information to "journalist" Robert Novak.
At a time when the President showed utter contempt for the federal courts, and the vice president behaved in a manner that indicated disdain for the Constitution, many of us felt betrayed by the role of the corporate media in the Plame scandal. For me, Sidney Blumenthal stood out with a few others (including Joe Conason and Will Pitt) as representing what is most honorable in journalism.
{4} "SECOND ARE YOU PEERSONALLYAWARE OF TH EWORK BRACK DID ON THE SOUTH SIDE WITH COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION S, ETC … WHAT DI DHE DO AFORE HOW LONG AND WITH WHO??"
--Bob Nash; deputy campaign manager; December 9, 2007.
Bob Nash, a former personnel director for President Clinton, then a high-ranking official at the Chicago Shorebank, had joined Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2007. He wrote the above quoted e-mail at a time when the Clinton campaign was beginning to have concerns about the unexpected strength of Brack Obama’s campaign.
In November, Sidney Blumenthal joined the Clinton campaign staff as a "senior adviser."
Around the time of Nash’s e-mail, the Clinton campaign requested the resignation of two Iowa volunteer coordinators, when it was revealed that they had been involved in forwarding a right-wing e-mail that claimed, among other things, that Barack Obama was a Muslim who might be intent on helping to destroy the United States. The e-mail also raised other "concerns," such as Obama’s youthful drug use.
A few days later, Clinton’s New Hampshire co-chair Bill Shaheen resigned after making a remark about Obama’s drug use. Then Mark Penn went on MSNBC’s Hardball, and further "massaged" the message that Obama had used drugs.
In February, a photo of Obama in traditional Somalian garb. The Drudge Report had posted the 2006 AP photo, and claimed that Clinton staffers had been circulating it, along with an e-mail allegedly from one Clinton staff person reading, "Wouldn’t we be seeing this on the cover of every magazine if it were HRC?" Clinton spokesperson Howard Wolfson stated that he was not aware of anyone working for the campaign who was involved.
On March 28, an article by Joe Conason appeared on Salon; titled "Hillary’s team crosses the line," it told of how her campaign had circulated right-wing materials from American Spectator and World Net Daily to attack a top Obama adviser.
{5} "Almost every day over the past six months, I have been the recipient of an email that attacks Obama’s character, political views, electability, and real or manufactured associations. The original source of many of these hit pieces are virulent and sometimes extreme right-wing websites, bloggers, and publications. But they aren’t being emailed out from some fringe right-wing group that somehow managed to get my email address. Instead, it is Sidney Blumenthal who, on a regular basis, methodically dispatches these email mudballs to an influential list of opinion shapers – including journalists, former Clinton administration officials, policy entrepeneurs, and think tankers – in what is an obvious attempt to create an echo chamber that reverberates among talk shows, columnists, and Democratic Party funders and activists."
--Peter Dreier; The Huffington Post; May 1, 2008.
Peter Dreier’s article raised serious questions about Sidney Blumenthal’s activities as an advocate for the Clinton campaign. He notes that Blumenthal "is exploiting the same right-wing network" to attack Obama, that he recognized as part of that "vast right-wing conspiracy" that attacked President Clinton a decade before.
On May 2, Joe Conason had an interesting article on Salon, in which he asked, "Did Sidney Blumenthal cross the line?" Conason is up front about his friendship with Blumenthal. He also acknowledges getting daily e-mails from Blumenthal, including those linking right-wing attacks on Obama. But he does not believe that Dreier can "cite any specific instance that shows Blumenthal’s e-mails influenced the coverage of Obama …"
On the same day, however, Tom Schaller had an essay on The American Prospect in which he told the following: "In January, a week after the New Hampshire primary, I ran into Sid in Rock Creek Park while we were both walking our dogs. Unsolicited, he asked me if I had seen the story out that day or the day before about Tony Rezko, or if I had heard or knew about Rezko. (I hadn’t, at that point.) He continued to press me about whether I really knew Obama, but by the time we said goodbye I simply chalked it up to a guy who really supports Hillary Clinton and believes strongly in her and I didn’t think much of the encounter. But now comes this powerful indictment in HuffPo by Peter Dreier of Blumenthal’s activity behind scenes culling, distributing and trying to induce members of the media to run negative stories about Barack Obama. …. Politics ain’t beanbag, but the fact that Blumenthal is using the same tactics against Obama that he complained about for years when employed against the Clintons – and, worse, trafficking in conservative blogs and magazines to do so – well, it’s disgusting. When is Hillary Clinton going to wake up and realize that many, many Democrats who otherwise like her, support her policy agenda, and respect her commitment and experience, are simultaneously frustrated by her because of the people she associates with or hires, and their conduct on her behalf?"
{6} "I think that what is important for Democratic candidates is to level their fire, their critiques, at Bush, and not bite each other on the ankles. It is natural in a primary season, given the competition, to attack each other. But I have not seen, so far, any candidate advance themselves by attacking another candidate. I have seen candidates advance by focusing on Bush’s accountability for what has been going on. There is a lesson there for all the Democratic candidates."
--Sidney Blumenthal; interview with Will Pitt; TruthOut; December 8, 2003.
Years ago, I remember watching an interview with basketball great Bill Walton on TV. At one point, he warned that we should chose our enemies carefully, because they are often the people we come to most closely resemble.
This has been a long, and at times harsh, primary campaign. We need to get back to the point where we focus on the damage that the republicans in Washington DC have done to our country, rather than imitate republican behaviors.
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