Kamikaze McClinton
Tweet
Hillary Clinton and her surrogates sure feel a strong need to echo right-wing attacks versus Sen. Obama. And that’s fine with me. At the end of the day this will teach us that no matter what the Clintons cannot be trusted anywhere near the leadership of the Democratic party in the future. At the same time it also shows us the problems we would have encountered should she have won the nomination. Reacting like a scared ninny to the prospect of Republicans saying bad things about you has been a recipe for Democratic failure for almost half of my life. The Clinton response turns out to be just to echo the right wing without doing anything constructive about it and hope the media gets bored, while the Dean/Obama posture is to return fire until their ships are in Davy Jones’ Locker.
The former strategy does its job in saving the Clinton’s hides while damaging the Democratic party, while the latter defends the candidate and changes the progressive/Democrat brand from one of weak-kneed fainting back to its historical strength of moral character.
So thanks, Sen. Clinton, this has all been helpful in clarifying some things and allowing the scales to fall from our eyes.
From a practical matter no matter what the hyperventilating conservatives and their increasingly similar pro-Clinton partisans wish to believe: Sen. Obama is winning, will win the nomination (assuming likely Clinton-initiated fraud will be nipped in the bud) and will likely win the general election. But we play. We play to win the game.
34 Responses to “Kamikaze McClinton”
GOP Rep. Spencer Bachus Facing House Ethics Probe For Insider Trading
Jennifer Aniston Reportedly Pregnant With Twins
PHOTOS: Tamara Ecclestone At The Langham Hotel
Red Front? “Center For American Freedom” Logo Echoes Communist Style
Romney Calls For Defunding Planned Parenthood, Wife Was A Donor
GOP Fundraising Email Asks Supporters To “Knock Out” Obama
Romney Comes Up Limp In Nevada
Obama Opens Lead On Romney In New Poll
Latest Entries
Why Do Liberals Support Drone Strikes?
Weekly Standard Rolls Out The Iraq Argument For Iran
Equal Polarization, My Ass
Some Crazy Stuff That Happened In World War II
Maryland Republican Campaign Funds Used To Defend Voter Suppression
The Obama Jobs Record In One Graph
Martin O’Malley All In For Marriage Equality
Newt Gingrich, Filled With More Excrement Than Your Average Politician
New Year, Powerline Still Stupid
Thanks Again
Meta
Blogroll
Disclaimer
The views on this site are mine and mine alone, and do not reflect the views of my employer, Media Matters for America
© 2000-2011 Oliver Willis
Just wait for the debate, man. Wait for the debate. She’s going to try and play this on him, and he’s going to get to deliver his Indiana speech again, on national tv, in PA, to her face.
If we’re really lucky, she’ll try and bring up Jeremiah Wright, too.
Oh no, not the briar patch, anything but that.
True! True! And when he reiterates what he was saying about the small town folks being angry and bitter and that politicians have come to them throughout the years with promises while they are still missing tons of jobs and tons of opportunities to rebuild the American Dream within their communities, the only rational thing that will be left for her to do is stand up and announce that he is the best candidate for President of the United States of America!
The ironic thing about Hillary’s attacking Obama is an “elitist” is that if she is to get the Democratic nomination (which, of course is increasingly unlikely at this point), many of McCain’s surrogates (and maybe McCain himself) would peg that label on her.
You know, it’s videos like this that make me wonder if there is some truth to the whole “media loves Obama” meme. The way I hear it, as a lunatic fringe liberal/independent whom loves Obama, this is serious trouble. Politics 101 – don’t say negative things about anyone except your opponent, child molesters, and terrorists, ever. If Clinton had said this, together with her tax returns and monarchistic stature, she’d lose PA and be out of the race within the month. But CNN has 3 talking heads, and not one of them even plays Devil’s advocate and takes Hillary’s side? Obama deserves to take a hit on this, but he’s still miles ahead of Hillary.
Having financially helped Obame campaign abd ready to sport the blunt to carry him to the WH, I feel free to say that true, he was not at his best speech in Ca; but at the same time, I understand what he said. It may cost him the nomination, -he may cost him the PRes. but at the end, he said the truth. Clinton and McCain are carrying on the same old politics odf denial i.e. if we carry on the masquerade, we are looming not recession but second rate power or worse the bully state everyone is waiting to take a fall. Our economy is really unwell, we cant sustain a third war- afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and whats next Syria ?
We keep on missing the point that AlQaeda IS in Pakistan/Afghanistan, our allies dont feel compel to fight ther because they feel we are carry on the charade in Iraq and certainly they will not follow us in Iran. We could do so much during WW2 because the Britsih empire and France colonies were opening happily their doors, I doubt in 2009 the world is ready to follow suit.
So indeed Clinton is a kamikaze she is willed to save her world, a world long gone and she does not care wheter Hell opens its doors on us . because Oliver it will.Our economy is on its last dregs , our army can do so much , our foreign policies are appaling and the world is looking at us waiting for the final move. In 2009, we shall learn soon enough if God has mercy on us . Lets pray Obama is around to pick up the peices of the mess and restore order, because it is not going to be pretty.
Gee, what an astonishing coincidence. I first wrote about the “kamikaze” aspect of the Clinton campaign back on December 20. And I mentioned it here on January 12.
But I’m sure it’s just an astonishing coincidence that now in April, you come up with the same idea. Of course, I’m certain you didn’t see my article, or read my comment, and came up with it all on your own, independently of my piece.
Because a fine, outstanding progressive like yourself would never lift an idea from some nobody like me and not give credit. That would be wrong.
Besides, you didn’t even develop the “kamikaze” aspect, explaining how you draw the parallels. In fact, if you stripped away the title, “scorched earth” or “cannibalism” or “fratricide” or “friendly fire” might be better militaristic analogies, because there’s no mention of the “I’m going down, but I’m taking you with me” that is synonymous with the World War II kamikazes.
And you couldn’t have meant a reference to the original kamikaze, a typhoon that came out of nowhere and swept the seas clear of the invading hordes.
That’s why I’m not calling plagiarism here. You might have stolen the title idea (which I don’t think you did), but the title is utterly divorced from the substance of the article.
It’s obvious you don’t understand much about the military and military history, Oliver. Leave the metaphors for those who actually have a clue or two about them.
J.
Oliver’s confidence in Obama’s campaign, the numbers and the process scare the hell out of me. I voted for Bill twice, his Republicrat policies being better than the available alternatives, but he and his wife have recently morphed into nothing I recognize. They’ve given evidence that they value this nomination more than decency, honesty, even reason; and they know all the tricks, the party insiders, and will stop at absolutely nothing to try for it. Hillary views Obama’s “bitter” comment as a last-ditch opening and will twist herself into a pretzel to capitalize. In this country the low road has won too often, and she knows it as well as I do.
Lmao, it amazes me how many Democrats like Somejackass are always so afraid of
The honest fact is, nobody seems to care about this outside of the Clinton and McCain campaigns. People know what he was saying, and very few people see a problem with it. Those of us on the lower end of the economic spectrum ARE bitter and angry and those of us who live in these areas of continued economic malaise ARE sick and tired of politicians like Hillary and Bush who pretend to try to do something about it, but never really gave a damn about people who make under 100k a year. Hillary promised she’d revitalize the upstate region of NY (where I live) and she never even tried. Not once in 8 years.
Connecticut for Lieberman candidate Hillary won’t stop until she can run again in 2012. It doesn’t matter how many anti-choice and anti-labor, and anti-Constitution judges McCain appoints as long as her thirst for power can be quenched
JayTea: You are an idiot. An idiot who wants so badly to have the approval of others. If you listen to radio you’ll hear it regularly said that each DJ always claims credit for creating one radio gimmick or another. My readers, unlike yours apparently, are not the sort of idiots where I have to hand hold them through the history of WWII to explain what a kamikaze is or why I’m comparing Sen. Clinton to one. I feel pretty secure in my knowledge of military history, and even more so in my grasp of the issues at hand. I regularly give credit to others who I’ve learned about an issue from, and trust me, on my mother’s soul, I have never learned a goddamn thing from your blog other than just how stupid and jealous conservatives can be. So, please, keep running around screaming that you created the kamikaze analogy and we’ll all have a good time laughing at your ass.
Wah wah wah!
somejackass: “…and not one of them even plays Devil’s advocate and takes Hillary’s side? Obama deserves to take a hit on this,…”
It isn’t their job to play Devil’s advocate. What Obama said is true, people are frustrated and to acknowledge that truth is not insulting. It is not saying people aren’t hard working. It is saying their lives could be better if politicians did more than just pay them lip service.
I was actually quite please, but even more suprised, to see none of the talking heads mindlessly jump on the Clinton/McCain (Hey, let’s push THAT as the “dream ticket”. They’re certainly very close on their political positions) demonstrably false claim that Obama insulted someone.
Please explain, exactly, why he “deserves” to take a hit on this?
I never said I created it, Oliver. Only that I used it before you did, and I used it more accurately.
So, enlighten all us benighted wretches here. Where is the “kamikaze” element you cited? I spelled out precisely what aspect of the metaphor I was using, and gave actual examples (with names and stuff) to back it up. You, on the other hand… not so much.
Yeah, you talked about how Hillary is echoing right-wing attacks on Obama, and causing damage to the Democratic machinery, but how exactly does that parallel the kamikazes exactly?
I said I didn’t think it was plagiarism. I said you were too inept with this piece to be plagiarizing. To be perfectly blunt, it’s simply too lousy a piece (at least, under the headline) to be much of anything, even a stolen piece.
And if you DID steal it from me, you screwed it up so bad that I can’t even recognize it any more, so I’m not gonna complain.
It’s your mess, your crappy posting, your pointless headline, and I want nothing to do with it.
Apart from pointing and laughing, of course.
J.
“Gee, what an astonishing coincidence.”
Congratulations, Jay Tea, on being the first person EVAH to use kamikaze pilots as a metaphor. There the term was, just sitting there for 50 years, waiting for some ingenious blogger to apply it to something other than what it literally refers too. So startlingly fresh was your metaphor, it’s not surprising that in your Dec 20th post you had to first explain to your readership what kamikaze pilots were and did. Without such a set up, it’s certain that your brilliant linguistic turn would have gone noticed. “Uh, what? Hillary Clinton is a japanese fighter pilot?” your readers would have puzzled. Why, it was such a brilliant move, I’m surprised you didn’t “deliberately” misspell kamikaze to catch Oliver and others in a “google trap.” Now you’ve got your work cut out for you alerting everyone that you were teh firstest to use it. Look out Johnathan Chait! You owe Jay Tea an apology!
Jesus. Congratulations also on the single most self-important and paranoid comment I have ever read.
“I spelled out precisely what aspect of the metaphor I was using …”
Oh this is just too rich. So you had to spell out “precisely” to your readers how and why your were using the metaphor? Are your readers really that fucking stupid? Trust Oliver on this, Jay Tea. Opening up a post with this:
Towards the end of World War II, the Japanese were growing desperate. They had lost the best of their pilots in the first year or two of the war against the United States, and had never instituted a first-rate program to replace them and fully train new ones. As a last-ditch effort to get some use out of half-trained young men who were most likely going to die anyway, they convinced them to pilot planes converted into “flying bombs” and deliberately crash into American and British ships. They were called “kamikaze,” or “Divine Wind,” after the storms that twice wrecked Mongol invasion fleets in the 13th century.
Just so you can say this:
A little over sixty years ago, the Kamikaze corps inflicted a terrible toll on the American and British fleets — but, in the end, had a negligible effect on the outcome of the war. I suspect that Hillary’s Divine Winds will have even less of an effect.
Is about the very definition of pedantic, extraneous, overwritten crap. Then to argue that it somehow makes you a superior writer? Classic. Just classic. I pity the readership of wizbang.
fafaroo, you kind of skipped the part where I cited the string of Clinton campaign officials who had fired vicious attacks at Obama, then had to resign or were fired — you know, the whole POINT of the “kamikaze” metaphor. Tell me, was the omission ineptitude or dishonesty? Around here, I can’t tell the two apart.
And I’m still waiting for someone to explain just what about Oliver’s use of “kamikaze” means in relation to his article.
J.
“fafaroo, you kind of skipped the part …”
Yeah, I also skipped the part where you threw in a Meat Loaf lyric in a dazzling crash of mixed metaphors.
Typically, Jay Tea, all one has to say is “Clinton is running a Kamikaze campaign” and people will know what you’re talking about. Oliver said in a freaking headline what you took a whole paragraph to set up and then conclude with a flourish of purple prose.
Whether you made “the case” that Clinton was in fact running a “kamikaze campaign” is irrelevant to your hamfisted execution of the metaphor itself.
Oliver is obviously arguing that Clinton knows she’s going down and is willing to use any tactics to take Obama down with her.
All in all, I think we’ve identified why you’re such a pedantic writer: You are a profoundly pedantic person.
Shorter Jay Tea:
Waaah! Read my blog!!!!
Again, my readers are not idiots. I do not need to write a paragraph explaining the history of WWII and the role of the Japanese in it in order to hold their hands. I’m sorry writing for a conservative readership requires dumbing down your writing so.
Furthermore, I think its hilarious that you’re seeking recognition for inspiring something you now claim is a crappy mess. I guess this is the same attitude that requires you to write thousands of words on your site writing about me discussing why you don’t think I’m important.
Get over yourself.
[...] CNN’s “Best Political Team” actually challenges a meme. Bask in the lack of suck (h/t O-dub): [...]
When WAS the last time I wrote about you over at Wizbang, anyway?
Short answer: too recently.
And the reason why I write explaining things and you don’t: I respect my audience. I don’t expect to just say things without being ready to explain why I think them, and back them up.
In school terms, it’s called “showing your work.”
The opposite school is usually called “laziness” or “guesswork” or “arrogance” or “taking things for granted.”
But I do find it vastly entertaining to see you parroting the right wingers who’ve been saying all these things about the Clintons for nigh on two decades, usually to great derision. They are the same people they were in 1992, and have been since — you were just too blind to see it then.
Whether that blindness was ideological (you had no problems as long as they were Clintoning the “right” people) or sheer ignorance (you just couldn’t see what was flagrantly obvious to so many of us), it’s refreshing to see the realization dawn in your eyes.
So, how long will it take for you folks to realize Obama’s an empty suit who pals around with whoever will best help him achieve his ambitions, whether it’s a paranoid, race-baiting minister or a real estate con man or anyone?
I’ll bet on 2018.
J.
it’s called “showing your work.”
It’s called being pedantic and boring. I write for adults, not children. You should compare the amount of times you write about me to the times I’ve written about you guys.
“And the reason why I write explaining things and you don’t: I respect my audience.”
Dude, explaining to your audience where the term kamikaze derives from is not respecting them — it’s treating them like children. The term kamikaze, what it means and where it comes from, is common knowledge. It’s become a part of the language, like blitzkrieg. Writers stopped having to explain what blitzkrieg meant in 1939, pretty much the same year it became a regular part of war reporting.
As for the rest of your post, I don’t think anyone on the left thought the Clinton’s were political innocents in the 90s. Suggesting, however, that they had Vince Foster murdered, however, was entirely worthy of derision. The problem people have with the Clinton’s now is that they are training their sites on a fellow democrat and thereby reinforcing right wing talking points and attacks. As Oliver correctly points out, given the no hope position of the Clinton campaign, continued attacks on Obama is akin to a kamikaze strategy — killing yourself to take the other guy down.
Arguing that Obama is a political opportunist now is just as worthy of derision, especially in a campaign that has seen John McCain change his positions on every major policy initiative he claimed to support in the last decade from taxes to immigration to campaign finance reform to win the support of conservatives. Principle be damned, he’s in it to win this thing!
It’s also ridiculous to suggest that Obama’s relationship with Wright is an act of political expediency when Obama, while condemning some of Wright’s inflammatory comments, has refused to reject Wright as a friend and mentor despite the political damage it may do. Obama has similarly criticized Rezko for falling afoul of the law — as well as his own errors in judgment with regards to their real estate deal — without rejecting or denouncing his friendship with the man. In both cases, Obama has shown a lot of courage in not throwing his friends under the bus when it would have been political advantageous to do so. That’s why the right continues to attack him.
On the hand conservatives claim Obama is a political opportunist and the other they attack him for not distancing himself enough from Wright. So which is it, Jay Tea?
“But I do find it vastly entertaining to see you parroting the right wingers…”
Wait a minute. Oliver criticizes Hillary for parroting right-wing talking points and then, in response, Jay criticizes Oliver for “parroting the right wingers.” Huh?
Say, Mr. Tea. Did you catch Oliver on this by deliberately spelling “kamikaze” wrong and then googling it?
I never said I created it, Oliver. Only that I used it before you did,
So if you didn’t invent it, who used it before you? Did you credit him?
[...] the flap dies down, Oliver Willis comes through with an important point — the Clintons are getting disturbingly friendly with the right-wing [...]
JT: I don’t expect to just say things without being ready to explain why I think them, and back them up.
Which is fine, and what one should do. Provide support for your views.
But having to explain the meaning of “kamikaze” isn’t the same as having to explain your opinion on something. Thinking it is necessary to tell someone what “blue” is is insulting. Telling them why it’s your favorite color is not.
Do you really not see that?
If I’m going to call something “kamikaze,” I’m going to explain why I think it’s appropriate. Otherwise, if I were to use the title “kamikaze” and not mention in the body of the piece what the “kamikaze” aspect — the deliberate, suicidal self-sacrifice to inflict greater damage on one’s enemy — has to do with what I’m saying, I look like an idiot who doesn’t know what the word means.
Much like our host, who has STILL yet to tie together the title with the body.
And yes, I do find it ironic and amusing that Oliver says that Clinton is “echo(ing) right-wing attacks versus Sen. Obama” while he himself echoes right-wing attacks against the Clintons.
I’m guessing Oliver was either not in church when those particular sermons were preached, or was distracted about being under sniper fire at the time, or was cutting a sweetheart real estate deal in Chicago at the time. Understandable. Those can be very distracting events.
J.
“… I look like an idiot …”
indeed.
Speaking as a regular reader here, I understood what Oliver’s headline had to do with the body of the article. I did not need to have it explicitly explained to me. Based on what other regular readers have posted, I’m not alone in this regard.
“I look like an idiot who doesn’t know what the word means.”
OK, I’ll grant you that one.
“…while he (Oliver) echoes right-wing attacks against the Clintons.”
Where/when did Oliver echo right-wing attacks against the Clintons?
That’s why I’m not calling plagiarism here. You might have stolen the title idea (which I don’t think you did), but the title is utterly divorced from the substance of the article.
And besides, Oliver spelled Kamikaze right.
Whops, QiaB got there first.
In fact, if you stripped away the title, “scorched earth” or “cannibalism” or “fratricide” or “friendly fire” might be better militaristic analogies,
Dude! Cannibalism is militaristic now?
Classic. Just classic. I pity the readership of wizbang.
Fafaroo, I understand they’re hiring. Get some of that wingnut welfare, delivered straight to your home!