Hillary Clinton has frequently resorted to distorting Obama’s statements and positions during the campaign. Lawrence Lessig has an excellent video (posted with transcript here) which summarizes how Clinton has run her campaign. Now she has the nerve to make an issue of an Obama mailer which, while it does appear to have faults, is a minor issue compared to what Clinton has been doing.
Obama’s mailer could be faulted for the manner in which a third party quote appears to be from Clinton. I would prefer that even this degree of error not be present, but this is quite trivial compared to how Clinton has campaigned.
While misleading with regard to a quote, Obama’s mailer is correct with regards to the facts concerning Clinton’s support for NAFTA.
In contrast, Clinton has sent out mailers which were totally misleading regarding Obama’s positions on issues such as Social Security, abortion rights, Iraq, and health care. Clinton’s distortions on abortion rights led Lorna Brett Howard, the former President of Chicago NOW, to drop her support for Clinton and back Obama. Clinton has also raised bogus charges such on plagiarism, distorted the meaning of voting present in the Illinois legislature, and distorting Obama’s references to Ronald Reagan in an interview.
Clinton objects to Obama’s criticism on health care mandates but this is a legitimate objection. Many believe that mandates are both a bad idea as well as opposing them on philosophic grounds. There is a tremendous difference between Obama’s view of government in terms of helping those who desire assistance and Clinton’s view of forcing her ideas upon everyone. Clinton relies upon the idea of imposing her views with the support of 50% plus one. Besides her repeated reliance on Rove style attacks, this is the aspect of her views which most makes me fear that she is the candidate who is far too much like George Bush.
Campaigning based upon differences of opinion is legitimate, but Clinton supporters often falsely equate this with the dishonest mailers Clinton uses which outright distort Obama’s positions.
Ron, see my proposition on the matter: http://kevinsullivan.poligazette.com/?p=347
I’m not as sanguine on Obama’s resistance to mandates, but I’ll admit that there’s a lot of disagreement on the matter even among experts. I still haven’t decided which I prefer, but I will say this about the liberal bloggers I often read and admire: they seem to have made mandates into an article of liberal dogma and simply won’t brook any skepticism on the matter. They may be right, but demagoguery doesn’t make it so.
But what gets me about unhinged attacks by Clinton and her more, er, passionate supporters is that if Obama really was the kind of pol who wanted to go negative, there is a mountain of scandal from which to choose. That he hasn’t gone there says a lot about his character.
Also, the man is almost unnaturally unflappable. It’s obvious the Clinton camp wants to put him under sustained negative attacks — which might be good, since it will show he can handle attacks. I don’t see him buckling, though.