Clinton and Obama Have Their First Tiff–And the Press Eats It Up

Hillary Rodham Clinton, presumptive front-runner for the 2008 Democratic nomination, has a problem named Barack Hussein Obama. Since Obama’s announcement, he has steadily been gaining fame and fortune in his bid for the presidency, which is cutting in on Clinton’s action, particularly among African-Americans and the Hollywood set.

Then movie mogul David Geffen, a former Clinton backer who is now supporting Obama, raised the stakes by telling Maureen Dowd in a now infamous New York Times column,

“Everybody in politics lies, but they [the Clintons] do it with such ease, it’s troubling.”

Clinton’s team struck out–at Barack Obama, not Geffen. Beth fouhy at Associated Press wondered if this was especially wise:

A Hollywood-style brawl with the campaign of rival Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) is the latest in a series of speed bumps tripping up Hillary Rodham Clinton’s early presidential moves.

From the Clinton team’s decision to criticize — and therefore publicize — producer David Geffen’s complaints about both Clintons to increasingly skeptical questions about Sen. Clinton’s nuanced explanation of her 2002 vote authorizing the
Iraq war, it became apparent even a battle-tested front-runner can fall prey to missteps.

On top of that, voters were reminded of the downside of the first Clinton presidency.

“Her explanation for her Iraq vote sounds like the bad old days of Dick Morris triangulation,” said Marty Kaplan, a political communications professor at the University of Southern California. Morris, once an influential adviser to both Clintons who has since turned against the couple, urged
President Clinton to make policy decisions by splitting the difference on opposing views.

Kaplan added, “She may have overreacted to Geffen in a way that showed she’s potentially thin-skinned. And the whole thing was a reminder that the issues of Monica Lewinsky and Whitewater are still out there.”

The latest spat began Wednesday, when Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson called on Obama to disavow comments Geffen made in a New York Times interview.

Radio Iowa’s O. Kay Henderson reported:

According to Obama, he cannot be responsible for everything that’s said by every one of his supporters. “I mean we’ve got thousands of people who are contributing, some who may have real differences with the other candidates,” Obama said. “…My suspicion is that the voters of Iowa are probably more concerned about what both myself and Senator Clinton think about Iraq and health care and jobs and the issues that matter to them.”

The Clinton campaign had local supporter Bonnie Campbell, the former Iowa Attorney General who worked in the U.S. Justice Department during the Clinton Administration, speak with Iowa reporters about the flap. According to Campbell, it is especially insulting for Geffen to ridicule Hillary Clinton for being “ambitious.” “That is a standard sort of comment that people make to somehow suggest that women are doing something they shouldn’t be doing,” Campbell told Radio Iowa.

During an appearance in the state of Nevada Wednesday afternoon, Mrs. Clinton was asked about the flap. “Well, I want to run a very positive campaign and I sure don’t want Democrats or the supporters of Democrats to be engaging in the politics of personal destruction. I think we should stay focused on what we’re going to do for America,” Hillary Clinton said. “You know, I believe Bill Clinton was a good president and I’m very proud of his record of two terms.”

But speaking of Senator Clinton and apologies, here refusal to apologize for the vote authorizing the war in Iraq has become a sticking point in her campaign as well (something Obama doesn’t have to deal with because he was not in the Senate at the time). Slate’s Will Saletan on her “sorry non-apology”:

Five years ago, Hillary Clinton supported a Senate resolution authorizing President Bush to use force in Iraq. So did I. It took me four years to admit this was a mistake. I’ve been wondering when Clinton would admit it. Now, from campaign insiders quoted in the New York Times, comes the answer: never. As she told voters a few days ago: “If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from.”

This is an amazingly stupid and arrogant position. If she sticks to it, it will probably kill her candidacy. And it should.

According to Clinton’s advisers, she has taken this position for several reasons. She believes in “responsibility” and would want congressional deference if she’s president. She wants to look “firm,” because that’s what voters want. She thinks an apology would look like a gimmick and a flip-flop, repeating the mistakes of Al Gore and John Kerry. That’s the “box” she’s trying to avoid.

http://www.slate.com/id/2160238/

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