RESIST, INSIST, PERSIST, ENLIST.” - HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
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Saturday, December 19, 2015
Michael Tomasky Is Mostly Right Here
What I love about Hillary Clinton is that her mind is lightning-fast
and her heart is pillow-soft. It is not a common combination. Aside
from her mind being quick, her intellect is superior to about 99% of the
population, so when she is thinking fast, you can also be assured that
she is thinking better, more thoroughly, more logically than just about
anybody. Add her compassionate nature to that, and you have the rarest
of leaders. This is why I work my heart out for Hillary - because she
knows her gifts and uses them to work her heart out for all of us.
The
past few days have been a roller coaster ride on the DNC Express.
There has been a lot of emotion and not much cool reason. Social media
has been highly reactive and mainstream media heavily exploitative of
the firestorm. Everyone has felt impelled to ring in. Everyone, that
is, except the principals, and everyone, it appears, has advice for
them.
I tend to bristle when people give Hillary Clinton advice.
The reason I support Hillary and not Joe Blow in some Facebook group or
on Twitter is because Hillary is the person whose positions and
reactions are the ones I agree with and like. She requires no
unsolicited advice from armchair campaign coaches.
Given all of
this front-loaded baggage of mine, I like most of Tomasky's opinion on
the situation except for his impulse to advise Hillary since she knows
exactly what to do. She probably will do what he says, not because he
said it, but because it is the most sensible path. If he had phrased it
as a prediction and used "might" instead of "should" I would be 100% in
agreement here. In that I agree with about 75%, but for a few modals,
it is worth a share here.
Sanders needs to put away his sanctimonious violin and Clinton should be magnanimous in the face of a huge double standard.
So it looks like Datagate calmed down overnight. In case you haven’t heard, the Democratic National Committee is restoring the Sanders campaign’s access to DNC voter-data files, and
in return the Sanders people have agreed to an outside audit to
determine whether any of the Clinton campaign’s confidential information
was stolen. The Clinton camp issued a statement expressing its
satisfaction with the deal.So that’s that? Maybe so. Still, there are
some points worth taking away here.
SNIP
Point one: The Sanders movement
really has seething contempt for the Democratic Party, and the feeling’s
pretty mutual. Which stands to reason—Bernie Sanders isn’t a Democrat!
... The Sanders people have long suspected that the DNC really wants
Hillary Clinton to win. And of course they are absolutely correct: The
DNC really does want Clinton to win.¹
SNIP
Point two: ... the
Sanders team went way overboard with the self-pity. What the DNC
proposed was no “death sentence.” The Sanders people, no doubt playing
on their supporters’ inherent contempt for and distrust of the DNC, went
around Friday kinda-sorta letting confusion grow around the notion that
the DNC was banning them from using data for weeks. That was never
going to be the case.
SNIP
... the larger point is this. If this Bloomberg piece is
correct, the Sanders campaign stole data: “According to an audit
obtained by Bloomberg, Sanders staffers exploited a temporary glitch in
the DNC's voter database on Wednesday to save lists created by Hillary
Clinton’s campaign.” Save lists? That’s stealing.
SNIP
Point
three: If this situation were reversed, and four Clinton campaign
staffers had made 24 “intrusion attempts” into confidential Sanders
voter files, the media would make this into a massive scandal. I mean
one that could well be fatal to her campaign.²
SNIP
Point four: Clinton should realize that although she has a very legitimate beef here, she can’t really win this one publicly.³
¹ That would be because she actually is a Democrat.
² That cannot be emphasized too strongly.
³ Here is where we come to the "shoulds" and Hillary does not need advice on this. She knows what she should and will do.
While
Hillary really needs no advice on this (I can visualize her right now,
smiling and gliding off to a more substantive topic), Bernie would do
well to read and consider compliance.
'Tis the season, and maybe
even the day in some houses. Mommy baked 26 sugar cookies for your
class and your teacher to have at the party on Monday. If she has to carry in a
tin of 23, you and your two thieving buddies are going to be the ones
without. Just sayin'.
