Sunday, March 09, 2008

Pyrrhic Victory, Anyone?

Amid two tiny wins yesterday--in the Wyoming caucuses and the taking of Dennis Hastert's House seat by an Obama admirer--his supporters and Hillary Clinton's were hard at work to snatch defeat from the jaws of expected Democratic victory in November.

After the candidate's claim this week that only she and John McCain had crossed "the commander-in chief threshold," Clinton's campaign generalissimos were e-mailing journalists a memo headed "Obama's Iraq Plan: Just Words":

"Once again, it looks like Senator Obama is telling voters one thing while his campaign says those words should not to be mistaken for serious action...

"Senator Obama has made hard end dates about Iraq a centerpiece of his campaign and has repeatedly attacked Senator Clinton for not being clear about her intentions with regard to troop withdrawal.

"It turns out those attacks and speeches were just words. And if you can't trust Senator Obama's words, what's left?"

His campaign fired back: "The Clinton campaign has publicly admitted that the only way they can still win this election is by tearing Barack Obama down. They have called their attacks the 'kitchen sink strategy'...The result has been a constant barrage of attacks about Senator Obama's record that they know full well aren't true. And yet they repeat them, over and over again, day after day, in an attempt to deceive the American people..."

Well said, word warriors. Those people taking notes are from the Republican swiftboat squad, who will be happy to immortalize them, no matter which Democrat wins the nomination.

3 comments:

GiromiDe said...

About that Hastert seat... we in the Chicago area had to endure a barrage of terrible attack ads from both candidates for such a long time. What was frustrating was that Oberweis had no chance. He has tried several times to run for public office and has come up short. He just comes across as a doofus. He should stick to selling expensive dairy products.

Watch 'n Wait said...

You're right there. I would so much rather see Obama and Clinton discuss solutions rather than Clinton continually attack Obams to the point he has to sink to her level and attack back in his own defense. Which the media loves. As they say, "If it bleeds, it leads" so they want blood. Not good for the nation.

Anonymous said...

If Clinton would get out of the race, we could avoid this. She can't overtake Obama's delegate lead without changing the rules. Hillary would make a good Senate majority leader. Much better than Reid.