Why is the magazine the Nation getting hysterical about Hillary's staff?

[papau]

The May 16th and June 4th issues of the Nation run articles by Ari Berman that attempt to take down Hillary - they read like the same article - just repeated. The GOP via the NY Post and Fox News started this game a while back, and now one of the better magazines on the left seems to have fallen for their game plan of getting the left to discuss staff rather than issues. Indeed the next step will be Rudy's game plan of making the election about "bluster about 9/11 and security with a little tax cuts create jobs and the Dems will end the tax cuts and cause you to lose your job" will become the media's mantra for the general election - but we have a few months before that begins.

Meanwhile Ari Berman gets into print - twice - in the same magazine - with a staff means Hillary is no liberal or progressive story (http://www.thenation.com/doc//berman called Hillary Inc. by Ari Berman in the June 4, 2007 issue that says about Hillary that if she really wanted to curtail the influence of the powerful, she'd start with the advisers to her own campaign, and
http://www.thenation.com/doc//berman called Spinning Hillary Centrist in the May 16th edition where Ari wants us to know that Hillary has a "coterie of influential advisers" that includes a pollster that "not only polls for America's biggest companies but also runs one of the world's premier PR agencies."). Of course this analysis can be done on the staff of any candidate running for president, and indeed I did one in a post on DU about Obama's advisers( http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id= ).

The question is, of course, is this election going to be about issues, or about staff?

[Trisket-Bisket]

1. Well, why are you surprised?

That magazine upholds the twin pillars of the loser Left.

1.Self Righteousness.

2.Self Destruction

[Warren Stupidity]

3. That magazine is one of the oldest and only independent

progressive leftist publications still publishing. They are not too fond of corporate-compromised clinton, oh well.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[papau]

5. Self Destruction by buying into GOP slogans is indeed a problem - but the Nation never has bad data

and the Nation does articles that our right wing press refuses to do.

I realize you may not be of the left, but I have to agree that some of us in the left do at times, rarely thank God, seem to prefer self destruction based on self righteousness, as in the 3rd party Nader of 2000.

[illinoisprogressive]

2. It is a series and he is not going after Hillary. don't be paranoid. he is

going after penn and wolfson

[papau]

6. the "paranoid" does hit home a bit after 6 years of Bush - and I do need to trust a bit more - but

as to Mark Penn - he has zero reason to go after him because of a client list that indicates he really knows the business of proper framing of a position.

Wolfson's personality seems not one you'd use for a spokesperson - and I think Hillary would be wise to move him to another job - but what does he do that influences her as to policy?

I am solely interested policy - of which little other than generalities has been forthcoming from any of the candidates. But it is early.

[provis99]

7. Of course they'll attack Clinton. She's a Lieberman-model centrist!

It was Bill Clinton and his prostitute-toe-sucking pollster Dick Morris who came up with "triangulation": be in the Democratic Party but advocate issues the Republicans like.

[wcepler]

8. The Hillary Clinton Doll

Hmm, so criticizing handlers of the DLC Hillary Clinton Doll is off limits? Sez who? EVERYTHING about Happy Hillary is Republican light, so why not say so openly?

[wyldwolf]

9. They're slanted and biased anyway

When discussing the 2005 bankruptcy bill, for example, Ari Berman tries to build a case for Sen. Clinton being in favor of that legislation because she voted for a similar bill in 2001 that did not pass and because she missed the vote on the 2005 version. What the author either neglects to mention (or just did not know) was Clinton not only opposed the 2005 bill as indicated in a speech the day before, she was also one of only 29 Senators to vote against cloture on it. Few faulted Clinton for missing the vote - she was by her husband’s side during his open heart surgery.

And of course, Berman fails to mention John Edwards who voted for the 2001 bill and voted for cloture on the 2005 bill. Why is this important to note? Because John Edwards has quickly become the favored candidate on the left.

Compounding Berman’s misrepresentation of Clinton in regards to her position on the 2005 bankruptcy bill is his flat out lie about her concerning the 2002 welfare reform legislation. Berman writes that Clinton “backed a harsh position on welfare reform reauthorization that put her at odds even with conservative Republicans like Orrin Hatch.” But that isn’t the whole story. According to the NY Times:

“Mrs. Clinton, the New York Democrat, has joined a group of moderate and conservative Democratic senators in supporting a bill to increase the work requirement for welfare recipients to 37 hours a week, a significant increase over the current 30 hours. Mr. Bush would require 40 hours.

“In an interview this afternoon, Mrs. Clinton acknowledged that she had initially been reluctant to back the new work requirements. But she said she decided to support them after the bill’s two main Senate sponsors, Evan Bayh of Indiana and Thomas R. Carper of Delaware, agreed to tie them to $8 billion in child care funding.

“Mrs. Clinton and her aides also noted that she had secured more money for Medicaid, immigrants’ benefits, and education and training for welfare recipients. In addition, Mrs. Clinton noted that the Senate bill maintained limited exemptions from work requirements for mothers of children under 6.

“…Mrs. Clinton pointed out that the Senate bill was far better than one that the Republican-led House had advanced at Mr. Bush’s urging. The House bill imposes a work requirement of 40 hours a week, and does not provide nearly as much money for child care. ‘It’s a vast improvement,’ she said. ‘It’s not even comparable.’” (The New York Times, May 22, 2002 - - tip to nodular at dailyKOS.)

Remember, in 2002 the GOP controlled both houses of congress and the presidency. A welfare authorization bill was going to be passed. Clinton, working withing the political system, was able to compromise and get a bill much better than what the House proposed. Should Clinton be faulted for that? Only if you subscribe to black or white thinking.