Friday, May 30, 2014

HILLARY: YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME?

I'm impressed with what Hillary Clinton is doing now -- giving Politico an advance look at her forthcoming memoir's Benghazi chapter, scheduling a June 17 Fox News interview with Bret Baier and Greta van Susteren, a disproportionate percentage of which will undoubtedly be devoted to Benghazi.

She's taking it to the right. She's saying, "You want to talk Benghazi? Fine, let's have that talk." The excerpt, as Politico summarizes it, makes clear that she has answers to everything the right howls when it howls about Benghazi; none of them are going to be answers that satisfy the right, but they're answers that, for reasonable people, will rebut the overheated case the right is making: that this was an incident without precedent in American history, that it was a deliberate betrayal rather than a failure, that those who had responsibility to try to prevent it are not fit to walk among decent people. (Because, y'know, no embassies are ever attacked when REpublicans are in the White House.)

Whatever you think of Hillary Clinton, she knows how to take a punch. I'm enjoying the fact that she's daring the right to take its best shot.

4 comments:

Victor said...

"Whatever you think of Hillary Clinton, she knows how to take a punch."

Not only that, but she knows how to counter-punch!

And if she runs, she'll kick them in their tiny quarter-of-a-roll-of-dimes and two Tic-Tacs in a leather nickel bag, that is their privates.

Hillary - can be the POTUS, AND, UFC Champ!

BKT said...

It's smart politics to talk about it now, way in advance of any actual campaign. She can set the narrative among the independent voters that Benghazi was not the crime of the century portrayed by the Right.

And frankly, once the air is let out of that balloon, Conservatives don't have much else. They have pinned their hopes to taking down Clinton on that single incident, as evidenced by their relentless pursuit of pointless investigations into it. If they had something else to attack her with (and there are things, but they would concern moderates and liberals, not the GOP base), they would already be pushing them, trying to gain traction.

Jer said...

It's smart politics to talk about it now, way in advance of any actual campaign.

This is what I was going to post - this is actually perfect timing for her to get it out there. She's not running for anything this fall, she has two years until the Presidential elections, and if she gets it all on the record now every news channel other than Fox News will be considering this a nonstory by 2016.

They have pinned their hopes to taking down Clinton on that single incident, as evidenced by their relentless pursuit of pointless investigations into it.

This, though, is wrong. They have no strategy here - it's all "throw as much shit to the wall and see what sticks" all the time now. If Benghazi doesn't work, they'll move onto something else no matter how stupid.

Remember back in 2008 when Obama said something about keeping your tires inflated to save on gas and the right wing for a week or so thought it was brilliant to wave around tire pressure gauges and mock him for that? Benghazi is pretty much the same thing. If it doesn't stick there will be something else that they'll try.

And we should all get used to it. It's the only thing they have left and it literally does not matter who the Democrats run for President - the GOP will be in shit-slinging mode 24x7 for the entire campaign no matter who it is, and if the Dems win then they will just keep it going for the following 4 years. They're in campaign mode all the time now, and campaign mode is shit-slinging mode.

aimai said...

This is why a lot of people support the idea of a Hillary candidacy. Politics is a tough slog and you need a hard campaigner--she is that.