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Monday, April 14, 2008

And Now, “Bitter” as an Attack Ad

posted by on April 14 at 15:39 PM

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1

What a fucking bitch.

Posted by AMB | April 14, 2008 3:42 PM
2

I hate that bitch. Can't wait for the day when she is forced to drop out.

Posted by Suz | April 14, 2008 3:48 PM
3

Still no open comment policy on her YouTube account. *sigh*

Thank god approval isn't required for the star ratings.

Posted by Anon | April 14, 2008 3:50 PM
4

Someone buy that dried-up old cow a tube of K-Y and hire her a hooker for the evening.

Posted by Hillary = Modern Republican Woman | April 14, 2008 3:50 PM
5

Egads! Apparently these people also cling to the ugly stick.

Posted by DOUG. | April 14, 2008 3:55 PM
6

Obama is right about being poor, guns, and faith. Most people generally hate to hear the truth. "Praise Jesus/Allah/Your Deity's Name here and pass the ammunition."

Posted by Sargon Bighorn | April 14, 2008 4:01 PM
7

Why did it sound like all of the people in that ad were reading lines from her speech?

Posted by Mike of Renton | April 14, 2008 4:09 PM
8

obama is not right. he's done a great job trying to explain it. but the choice of "bitter" and "cling" aren't what make it so bad -- they just make it abrasive. what makes it bad is deciding why someone feels a certain way for them, saying they "cling to religion" (a good thing) for the wrong reason (because they don't have good jobs).

Posted by infrequent | April 14, 2008 4:09 PM
9

*sigh*

you know, i don't care for the woman either. and while i don't necessarily think all slurs are created equal, i'm trying to imagine if/when it would be acceptable for somebody to casually drop the N-bomb when referring to obama, and i'm drawing a blank.

Posted by brandon | April 14, 2008 4:11 PM
10

You know why the Democrats in Central PA support Hillary (other than the fact that they would rather vote for a white person - even a woman - than a black man any day)? It's because they like her husband. I lived in PA during Bill Clinton's presidency. After the mess of the Reagan years and the first Bush regime, things really improved in the 90's. The economy was on an upswing, opportunities abounded, life was good. They figure if the elect Hilary, they will be getting more of Bill, that he will basically be her puppet master, and she will just be a figurehead.

Posted by Sheryl | April 14, 2008 4:12 PM
11

infrequent, what he said is that when people become cynical and give up on the government, then they go with the party that at least respects the things they have left. So if they voters feel that neither the Rs or Ds will help them, at least the Republicans say nice things about their church and their favorite hobby. His point was not that they are pathetic. His point was that the Democrats need to break through that cynicism in order to show them that government can work for them, and that Democrats should not allow the Republicans to own church, hunting, and family.

His point was that there is no good reason for the Republicans to be the fall back position of people who have lost faith in their leaders, because after all, Obama is a regular church goer and family man who respects hunting.

It's a very good point.

Posted by elenchos | April 14, 2008 4:20 PM
12

elenchos, do you work for the obama campaign? i mean, come on. do you really believe what your writing?

he might mean that _ after it was highly refined and sanded down in the 'shop' - but what he said in san francisco _ basically i can't get their votes because they "cling" to religion i.e. not "embrace" religion deserves to be just "owned" for what it is. are you kidding me? are we still having this oonversation? lets just take the quote for what it is...

Posted by raymond | April 14, 2008 4:27 PM
13

The good people of PA, the ones that deserve so much better, don't seem to be buying into Hillary's slant on this issue.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/14/need-headline_n_96578.html

Posted by JC | April 14, 2008 4:29 PM
14

elenchos, i agree. that's what he wanted to say, and he's right. unfortunately, it's difficult to show that you will work for people when you don't speak their language. and he did not communicate that using their language.

how i thought his statement could be interpreted is exactly how the people in this ad display it is being interpreted -- even when the full context is considered.

coming from a fundamentalist background, i cringed when i first read about this. it's not speaking the language, and it's missing the point.

Posted by infrequent | April 14, 2008 4:30 PM
15

I'm not clinging to my religion out of frustration and bitterness, but because MY religion is very uplifting. In other words, it helps me feel better when I'm bitter and frustrated.

Posted by pox | April 14, 2008 4:31 PM
16

Their language, infrequent? For fuck's sake. You must know somebody from one of these small towns. Do you have even one friend or relative there?

They are not stupid. They are not stupid. Ten thousand times, they are not stupid.

You have either gotten on a plane and gone there and talked to them, or you haven't. If you haven't, take my word for it. They are not stupid. Don't believe me? Go and see for yourself.

Raymond: I get your point. You think the whole story begins and ends with that one carefully cut out soundbite quote from SF. It get what you are saying. You are wrong. The end.

Posted by elenchos | April 14, 2008 4:46 PM
17

I'm in Pennsylvania right now, I just arrived today to campaign for Barack Obama and wow, they're playing this commercial right now. It's not very powerful and obviously is meant to exploit the people. She sucks. Hillary Clinton is no better for it and she would not have the guts to say something half as harsh or whatever the fuck. She'll do what it takes to fake her way into the presidency. Shit, now I'm on the verge of bitterness. Drop out, Hillary.

Posted by Deacon Seattle | April 14, 2008 4:50 PM
18

elenchos. let me be more specific. i was offended by it. i am not trying to speak for the people of some other state. but coming from a christian home, there is a language. and if they are anything like me or my family, they might also be offended by it.

Posted by infrequent | April 14, 2008 4:52 PM
19

note: i am an obama fan, and don't consider this a big deal. i think clinton reaction over-the-top and might actually hurt her. but this sort of attack worked for her in ohio with the nafta thing, so it might work here. i hope it does not.

Posted by infrequent | April 14, 2008 4:54 PM
20

I had to suppress my gag reflex watching this video. Those are some horrible actors (and they ARE actors...you know they all took a couple Benjamins on the side). Ugly, too.

Posted by Matthew | April 14, 2008 4:54 PM
21

Well OK then, infrequent. I guess we will just have to wait and see how it plays out. I predict that this will play out the same way it did on previous occasions where Obama was supposedly on the defensive for making the electorate uncomfortable (Rev. Wright, blacks and the gays, Jews and Islam). He was able to confront a deeper truth by respecting their intelligence rather than just pandering.

Posted by elenchos | April 14, 2008 5:00 PM
22

@9:
"i'm trying to imagine if/when it would be acceptable for somebody to casually drop the N-bomb when referring to obama, and i'm drawing a blank."

I don't think gender and race are really equivalent in this respect. Calling Obama a prick would certainly not be considered unacceptable, would it? Or a bastard? It's quite common to use insults that are genitalia based. I've referred to many men as pricks, for example.

And in this case, I think it's perfectly defensible to call Hillary out for using right-wing tactics.

Posted by AMB | April 14, 2008 5:00 PM
23

elenchos, so what - Im wrong. who cares. the point is all the same - your getting away from teh comment explaining notions that are indirect and at times entirely disenfrachised from the quote. just like him your not addressing the quote itself. did he say it? ok he said it. so what? hes trying to write it off from a shitty comment into something where people can scratch their chin and say "oooohhh thats what he meant" and that's the issue.

so what - Im wrong. so is the wsj, the cs monitor, the nytimes, the latimes, the national review, fox/cnn/ charlie rose etc blah blah blah. their ALL wrong for talking about this "carefully cut out soundbite".

thats the biggest joke you've managed to write all day - "carefully cut out" - yeah guy -they had to be really careful and clever to cut that one out. thats like him runing out in the street and taking a dump and being like "dude, your taking it out of context - he had to go and he didn't have a bathroom key and he didn't know you know...that people were watching and he forgot for a few moments he was running for president. whatever. he shits all the time. so someone CAREFULLY CUT out this event and now your actually talking about it...out of context...how dare you!"

Posted by raymond | April 14, 2008 5:02 PM
24

THIS is why we call for Hillary to drop out of the race. This ad does essentially nothing to advance an argument for her. It does nothing to bring issues Hillary deems important to the face of the campaign. It's just pure Rovian character defamation. She's likely to lose now, and given that, all she's doing is just perpetuating right-wing frames and poisoning the well.

Posted by manohman | April 14, 2008 5:17 PM
25

@11 Elenchos??

So Obama is a "regular family man who respects hunting"???

The man sponsored, co-sponsored or voted for 11 ANTI-gun bills. He has a borrible reputation for wanting to uphold the second Amendment. He barely conceals his glee for the opportunity to ban hunting via gun control proxy.

Get a clue.

Posted by Ryan | April 14, 2008 5:21 PM
26

i love the way obama handled the wright situation -- but have we really seen how that played out yet? is it naive to say that some people won't vote for obama because he's black? probably not, but then is it naive to say that even more people won't vote for obama because of his pastor? this new cling incident is much like the latter, in my mind. i doubt it will be the deciding factor.

but, yeah, have fun talking with the other people in this thread about it!

Posted by infrequent | April 14, 2008 5:25 PM
27

I'm NEVER offended by the Truth. Lots of "Christians" are often offended by the Truth. "obama is not right." AND "that's what he wanted to say, and he's right" Infrequent what are you saying? One place you say he's wrong the other place you say he's right. You don't like Obama do you?

Posted by Sargon Bighorn | April 14, 2008 5:27 PM
28

easy: what he actually said was not right. what he wanted to say (as being described) is right.

but while discussing this, one of the principle arguments is the question of if he is now spinning it: did he really mean what he originally said.

Posted by infrequent | April 14, 2008 5:31 PM
29

@25

He's upholding the entire Second Amendment, not just the second half of the sentence. And he probably thinks people in depressed towns are smart enough to know you don't need an assault rifle to hunt deer.

Seriously. Obama is actually working to undermine years of pandering by the GOP, the NRA, and even the Democrats. He's speaking grown up talk to grown ups.

Posted by elenchos | April 14, 2008 5:31 PM
30

It's so obvious that none of Hillary's supporters really believe the half-assed arguments they throw out. They just try anything and see what will stick.

Posted by Miles | April 14, 2008 5:37 PM
31

infrequent (@8): Obama's choice of words was horrible, but he wasn't giving a fireside chat to the American public on the ills of the rust belt, he was responding to a perfectly natural and specific inquiry from supporters in San Francisco, supporters who were wondering why they should cut him a check if he couldn't get the support of voters in Pennsylvania. He he was trying to explain the situation on the ground in Pennsylvania (as he saw it) to those supporters. I suppose he could have said, "I'd prefer not to decide why those people feel a certain way for them" but even if he had prefaced his explanation with that, FOX News, McCain and Clinton (I see them now as a single-purpose three-headed entity) would have edited it out.

At this point, Obama knows what to do, and he's doing it. As elenchos notes, these people are neither stupid nor easily offended. Obama just needs to keep using these twists and turns in the campaign as opportunities to speak more with the American public. Because the more he talks, the more most people are going to like what they hear, especially when they consider the alternatives.

John Kerry would be president if he'd just stepped up to the plate a couple of times with some zingers. ("I voted for paying cash before I voted against putting it on our grandchildren's credit card.")

Posted by kk | April 14, 2008 5:56 PM
32

that's all i'm saying. the word choice was horrible. horrible because it made sense in a way that is offensive to some. so he's now explaining what he meant by that statement in context. explaining it might not be enough. then again, i think this is only an issue for those already against him -- they are the ones not buying his explanation.

Posted by infrequent | April 14, 2008 6:05 PM
33

Randi Rhodes said it best "Hillary Clinton is a huge fucking whore!!"

Bless you Randi, bless you....you speak truth!!!

Posted by Andrew | April 14, 2008 6:48 PM
34

Bitch and the N-word are not the same.

Posted by Suz | April 14, 2008 6:49 PM
35

he demeaned people's religion and values.

the people he wants to vote for him.

this is a huge negative in the general election.

he should be glad HRC doesn't come down even harder on him. A real attack ad would string this together with Rev. Wright hating America and quotes from Michelle about never feeling proud to be American and saying ballet and piano lessons and summer camp just costs tooooo much.


Which is what the GOP will do.

Come on. He's dug his own grave and crafted the coffin himself.

This is 1,000 times stronger and hurtful than Kerry windsurfing.

@1 your arguments is so refined.

Here's the argument to which you seem incapable of formulating an adult, thinking response:

Obama runs a real risk of losing to McCain for the SAME reason Democrats almost always lose the general election: they pick urban elite liberal candidates who lose the Reagan Democrats/Archie Bunker/Dogpatch voters. Call them Jacksonians, too.

These voters don't like anything that sounds anti American, anything that sounds like anti god or anything that is antigun but most of all:

they don't like people who don't like them, or who look down on them.

The way Obama apparently does.

The way most Slog readers apparently do.

Josh correctly says Obama is a flaming liberal. This is true: he does not feel kinship with these voters he just disparaged. So, he sees them the way an anthropologist sees them. He's not "one of us" to them. Just like Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, etc. were so totally fucking strange to these voters...just like those hippies burning a flag were so totally strange to these voters...as were the liberal politicians who didn't condemn that back in 1968 or 1972 (McGovern).

Some folks may be so honestly out of touch they don't get this. I understand that. In fact, I feel that some folks cling to their elite belief systems and values in which they just can't get that other folks are real people too and don't want to be objectified. But what I don't get is the vastly over the top elitist attitude that just because Hillary rightly makes an issue out of this, she is a

bitch.


It's rather elitist and arrogant to presume someone has won when they haven't won the requisite number of delegates, or that someone is entitled to win without a fight or is beyond any criticism.

This is exactly what elitism is, and it's exactly the disease of many in the Democratic party, and it's exactly why we have a long track record of losing the presidency. "Those dumb voters out there in America, why don't they think like us?"

Posted by unPC | April 14, 2008 6:58 PM
36

God, Hillary is a bitch. Menopause does that to women. It has something to do with vaginal dryness.

Posted by Hillary is a bitch | April 14, 2008 7:19 PM
37

unPC: News flash! Clinton is also an "urban, elite, liberal candidate." But she is despised by the right wingers even more than Obama. So if we're supposed to choose the Democratic nominee based on how well they will do in combating the "vast right-wing conspiracy," I vote for Obama. At least he comes back swinging. He called McCain and Clinton out on saying he was "out of touch" by pointing out McCain's inability to figure out the mortgage crisis and Clinton's vote on the bankruptcy bill. He stood up to criticism of Wright by giving a pretty good and thoughtful speech. How did Clinton handle her dissembling on the trip to Bosnia? Poorly. She even had to tell her husband to shut his piehole when he started in lying about it. Bottom line: the GOP is going to trash whoever the Democratic nominee is, but Obama is playing much better defense than Clinton.

Posted by kk | April 14, 2008 7:42 PM
38

Despicable, opportunistic...so many words. If she somehow, with all this Machiavellian horseshit, manages to clinch the nomination by destroying Obama, she is making it REALLY hard to vote against McCain. I don't think I can bring myself to check that box. Sorry. This kind of heedless ambition is really scary.

Posted by Grant Cogswell | April 14, 2008 8:11 PM
39

KK - dont even bother with UnPC. That asshole suffered irreperable brain damage when the HRC bandwagon crashed and burned on Super Tuesday. Trust me, you can just go ahead and skip all of his desperate and tiresome diatribes on that vapid bitches behalf in all these threads.

Posted by longball | April 14, 2008 8:44 PM
40

Wow. Just wow. I will never believe Clinton is committed to a Democratic victory in the White House--she is committed only to her own gain. This makes me sick.

Posted by Dominic Holden | April 14, 2008 9:56 PM
41

Well, it's sad when women get old, isn't it? Not that she ever really had any looks, but still..... I guess she was quite bright in school - had quite a head for figures and ciphering - and the bright ones are the ones who always have issues about their looks to begin with.

If only Chelsea would give her some grandbabies, she might stop being so shrill and settle down and be a woman, instead of this female she has become.

Posted by Christian Grandmother | April 14, 2008 10:14 PM
42

The Flying Spaghetti Monster will bring steel back to Pennsylvania, and give the NW lumberjacks wood.

Posted by NapoleonXIV | April 15, 2008 10:26 AM
43

I think many of Hillary Clinton's campaign tactics are despicable, including this ad, but none of them are as despicable as calling a powerful woman a bitch just because you don't like her. Everyone who's done that has discredited the integrity of their opinion--you all just look like misogynist assholes to me.

Posted by Cascadian | April 15, 2008 2:29 PM
44

agreed... what is the deal with some of you? it's crazy. i'm appalled. i take some solace in not recognizing any of the names of those sexist posters above.

it does, however, make me wonder why it's still okay to be openly sexist, but not openly racist. and which is worse? is it easier to deal with the problem when people make their bigotry known, or when it is hidden?

Posted by infrequent | April 15, 2008 4:11 PM
45

Ladies get worked up over things, and that's usually because of something having to do with their naughty bits: Time of the month, etc.

That's why we wouldn't want a woman in the white house. They might have a hot flash, or be PMSing and hit the button, and we'd all be dead.

Posted by Womyn can be such bitches | April 15, 2008 9:15 PM

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