Hillary Wins on Debating Point But Loses On Integrity

There she goes again. After the recent Democratic debate, Hillary’s campaign released a statement stating, “Hillary was the candidate who demonstrated that she would know how to respond if the country was attacked.” The implication apparently is that none of her opponents would know how to respond. That is not how I viewed the debate, and not how I would characterize her opponents.

This comment is perceived as being directed most at Barack Obama, who dismissed this attack as “a sign of nervousness.” Obama might not have gone into attack mode in his initial answer, but he raised valid points, and made it clear that he would know how to respond to an attack during the debate. Hillary might have won a debating point on this issue, but she lost far more by again demonstrating her lack of integrity and willingness to make use of the tactics of the “vast rightwing conspiracy.”

This attack is reminiscent of Hillary’s previous statement that, “Some people may be running who may tell you that we don’t face a real threat from terrorism. I am not one of those.” She never did identify which Democrats running don’t see the threat.

I’m not calling for an 11th Commandment such as Ronald Reagan had against attacking members of his own party. Politics is a contact sport. However, some attacks are counterproductive. Republicans have taken advantage of the 9/11 attacks, despite their long standing failures on responding to terrorism, by claiming Republicans would be stronger in defending America. Just last week, Rudy Giuliani used such scare tactics to argue against voting for a Democrat. It harms the chances of all Democrats, incuding Hillary, for winning in 2008 if such smears are allowed to continue. When Hillary Clinton makes unsubstantiated claims such as these against the other Democratic candidates, she only continues to reinforce these right wing talking points.

A candidate such as Clinton who reinforces these smears does not deserve to lead her party, and does not deserve the presidential nomination.

2 Comments

  1. 1
    vwcat says:

    hillary and her band of sleazy henchmen have been dying since october to play in the mud and do their best imitation of karl Rove. this is the kind of crap that the American people are weary of. We do not need more sleaze. We want a campaign where the mud is contained and to get back to some form of civility in politics.
    Hillary is so 90s. She demonstrates she is part of the problem and not the solution. She is part of the era of dirty politics that have brought us to the point we are at now.
    It’s time for democrats to turn their back on this and move on to a new era. let Hillary stay in the 90s with her sleazy tactics and be a part of yesterday. We are looking to the future and to a breath of fresh air like Senator Obama brings.

  2. 2
    pen says:

    Hillary’s debate performance is another reason why the democratice party needs to cut the gangrene limb that is everything clinton off before they sick any further.

    The clintons love to play dirty like rove and when any decent person comes along, they smile and say nice things in front of a camera but behind the scenes they and theri cronies do everything to destroy anyone in the dem party that won’t do what they want. Ask Gore and Kerry.

    As for the rest of the dems all of them did poorly except kucinch.

    I’m no fan of Kucinich but he had more guts than the rest of them combined.

    Obama is sounding like all the other DC politicans big on promises no record to back it up and no details on how to pay for the things he wants.

    I can understand why the GOP is in the dumbs about their choices. If only the dems could see their current choices are barely any better.

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