"Some Democrats" set their sights on Senator Boxer

[beachmom]

I KNEW this would happen and it just did. You can read all about this feigned outrage non-issue launched by the White House (oh, yes, Snow got involved) that somehow Boxer had insulted Condi's singlehood and childless status on the Greatest Page. But here is a NY Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/12/washington/12cnd-rice.html?ei=5065&en=08c1ef9c52861b52&ex=1169269200&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print

Of course, Condi, who was not offended at the time, suddenly became offended after reflecting on it. Boxer explains her position. It discusses all the RW blogs' outrage, who all suddenly are for feminism after being against it. And then there's this quote at the end of the article:

Some Democratic Senate staffers complained privately that Ms. Boxer’s exchange with Ms. Rice allowed the Bush administration to turn the tables on Iraq critics and sidestep the larger issue of the almost uniform opposition to the president’s new plan to send an additional 21,500 U.S. soldiers to Iraq.

(emphasis mine)

So who are these turncoats is what I'd like to know . . .

[ClassWarrior]

1. And the whore media is telling the truth this time...why??

:eyes:

NGU.

[beachmom]

3. No -- they interviewed staffers for this. I am sure of this.

But I'd like to know who. I'm tired of these anonymous sources. If there are certain Senators intent on stabbing Sen. Boxer in the back, then do it in the broad daylight, not through "some Democratic staffers".

Sorry, this has happened so many times in the past, this is not the media lying. Somebody turned on Sen. Boxer and I want to know who.

[ClassWarrior]

5. You're SURE of this? How?

NGU.

[beachmom]

11. Because they have turned on Kerry a million times, and then

when the joke happened, they came out of their shadows, and they were revealed to be . . . the DLC wing. Of course.

[ClassWarrior]

13. Whatever you say...

:eyes:

NGU.

[nini]

8. Don't buy it....it's more bullshit to keep this non-story going

Boxer can handle herself just fine.

[beachmom]

12. Some Democrats don't want to cut off funding for the surge.

Some Democrats want us to sit on our hands, let more troops die, so that some Democrats won't be blamed for losing the war. Some Democrats don't stand for anything, but only seek power.

Sorry, I wish we could chock this all to RW dirty tricks. It's not. It's coming from our side.

[karynnj]

20. This is the NYT

and they are very connected to the DLC type Democrats. What they are likely hearing are staffers who are hyper-sensitive about the RW twisting Boxer's comment and blowing it up as an issue. They then listen to Boxer's comment - which I did't react to when she said it and I saw no one comment on that here in the official threads on the hearing - in the context of the RW twists (that extend to them saying that she is saying that Rice is not qualified to be President because she is single).

Their annoyance is then spread between the RW and Boxer, who - in retropect they say shouldn't have said this. They then come up with ways to say what Boxer said that would not have been twistable. The problem is that it is always possible to take a line or two someone says and twist it - especially if you have an echo chamber of voices that will make connections that people would not independently make.

These same staffers though would have fought back if this were said by Hillary or Bill Clinton or Chuck Schumer. I just wish that they would fight back for all Democrats - at least by demanding the comment be put back into context.

[Kadie]

2. Some Democratic Senate 'staffers'?

'staffers'?

That is probably a very large group. Probably 2 people somewhere down the chain made a comment they were not happy.

[blm]

25. That's usually been the cover used by Dem senators to undermine their own.

If the boss didn't want it in the news, they wouldn't have said anything.

You saw attacks like this used against most left and antiwar Dems.

[rodeodance]

4. snooty tony snow made it worse! -Boxer’s comments were anti-feminist.

Ms. Rice replied, “I can never do anything to replace any of those lost men and women in uniform, or the diplomats, some of whom ...”

Ms. Boxer cut her off. “Madame Secretary, please, I know you feel terrible about it. That’s not the point. I was making the case as to who pays the price for your decisions.”

During the hearing itself, Ms. Rice did not appear to take issue with Ms. Boxer’s comments. During the interview, she addressed them only in response to a question. But the White House spokesman, Tony Snow, had suggested earlier today that Senator Boxer’s comments were anti-feminist.

In the interview, Ms. Rice said that at first, she didn’t understand what Ms. Boxer was saying. “It didn’t actually dawn on me that she was saying, ‘you don’t have children who can go to war,’ ” she said. “Which seems a rather strange comment, to be quite frank.”

[rodeodance]

9. “They’re getting this off on a non-existent thing that I didn’t say,”

..During the Thursday hearing, Ms. Boxer told Ms. Rice: “You’re not going to pay any particular price, as I understand it, with an immediate family.”

In a separate interview, Senator Boxer said her comments had been misunderstood and were now being turned against her by the White House and other Republicans. “What I was trying to do in this exchange was to find common ground with Condi Rice,” Ms. Boxer said, adding that “my whole point was to focus on the military families who pay the price.”

“They’re getting this off on a non-existent thing that I didn’t say,” Ms. Boxer said. “I’m saying, she’s like me, we do not have families who are in the military. What they are doing is a really tortured way to attack a United States Senator who voted against the war.”

The exchange between Ms. Boxer and Ms. Rice came during a hostile Senate hearing on Thursday in which Ms. Rice, seeking to sell President Bush’s new Iraq plan to a skeptical Congress, faced an almost solid wall of opposition from both Democrats and Republicans. Ms. Boxer several times repeated the question, “who pays the price?”

[rodeodance]

10. look here. Condi is really playing this up also!

....WASHINGTON, Jan 12 — A passing exchange during a Senate hearing on Thursday turned into a political flashpoint overnight as Senator Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accused one another of insensitivity in comments about motherhood and the war in Iraq.

In an interview this afternoon with The New York Times, Ms. Rice suggested that the California Democrat had set back feminism by suggesting during the hearing that the childless Ms. Rice had paid no price in the Iraq war.

“I thought it was okay to be single,” Ms. Rice said. “I thought it was okay to not have children, and I thought you could still make good decisions on behalf of the country if you were single and didn’t have children.”

During the Thursday hearing, Ms. Boxer told Ms. Rice: “You’re not going to pay any particular price, as I understand it, with an immediate family.”

[TankLV]

19. It IS OK not to have children, you repuke whore condi.

what's NOT OK is being a token, lying, criminal, hypocritical WHORE and a disgrace to her race and sex...

...let's see if I have this correct - so NOW you're a "feminazi"?

...riiiiiight...

[nini]

6. Since they have nothing else of substance to say..

they'll try and make an issue where none exists. They're good at that - remember what got us into this war in the first place?


I doubt 'staffers' are all that upset - it's BS.

[babylonsister]

7. Boxer had every right to say what she did, despite what Faux

or the NYT contends; both are making mountains out of molehills. THIS is what they're concentrating on when there are so many really serious issues they could write/talk about? :eyes:

[Missy M]

14. The strange part is the real issue Boxer was talking about...

and that is the soldiers who die and their families who lose them and her and Rice won't have that happen to them. Somehow this has become Boxer insulting Rice for not being married. Go figure.

[Warren Stupidity]

15. The Rove warroom sits around sifting through

the various statements of various Democrats looking for anything they can use. They find something that they think they can get an angle on to exploit and off they go. Within hours the greek chorus of teeth gnashers and self-flagellators inside our party, ever ready to agree with any criticism, ever ready to find fault and join into the attack, are out demanding apologies.

Boxer observed that both she and that hideous vile Rice woman do not have children in the Iraq war. There is nothing there to apologize for. Our troops our dying, Iraqis are dying, so that Bush can save face, so that the Republican Party can salvage some political advantage from this disaster that they put us into. That is what needs to be dealt with, not some imagined insult to Ms. Rice's barren womb.

[beachmom]

16. I think you captured it 100% correctly. n/t

[ClassWarrior]

22. But we fall for it when we second-guess ourselves. We need to...

...realize that they'll find something to exploit, no matter what we do, and we need to exploit it right back at 'em. As Madam Speaker Pelosi said, "We'll just go back at 'em."

Don't ignore 'em, nor don't let 'em get to ya. Just throw it back in their sneering faces.

And laugh.

NGU.

[karynnj]

21. Wonderful post - you said it exactly

What the people in our party don't realize is that as they move to condemn it - they give it credibility it doesn't deserve and it hurts the entire party.

[Libpocalypse]

17. Media Distortion

Her comments were clearly distorted by the media.

[babylonsister]

18. Same as it ever was, and welcome to DU, Libpocalypse!

:toast:

[R_M]

23. The New York Times and Fox can say what they want to.

Reality it, Americans oppose this increase in troop build up in Iraq. Also, who are these "staffers" that the Times spoke to?

[sallyseven]

24. condi didn't bitch

when laura mentioned that condi was not married, had no children and no parents so she couldn't run for president. Need a big support group. Staffers sometimes forget their place. Their member should shut them up.

[mitchtv]

26. I smell James Carville a judas dem

I know Sen Boxer is related to the Clintons, but still, once a traitor... Asshole Bergala also.