Those Dems Fight Like Cats and Dogs, Especially Hillary

Tonight I watched the Democratic debate from South Carolina. For anyone who didn’t see it, Hillary and Barack were scrapping like wild and Edwards was piping in with his usual warmed over class warfare spiel. Most striking were Hillary’s fierceness, even ruthlessness, and an intriguing comment on the part of Obama.

One of the bones of contention between Hillary and Barack was the comment, supposedly uttered in recent days by Obama, that Reagan was a transformational figure because he was able to get Democrats to cross the aisle to vote for him. Hillary contended that Obama had said Republicans had some good ideas – which Obama vociferously denied having said. My question is, given that the country has elected Republicans for 5 of the last 8 elections, what is so terrible about acknowledging that Republicans have some decent ideas? Just how far do these people have to go to appease the loony Left? It’s not as if acknowledging that one of the greatest Republican Presidents of all time may have had a decent idea or two makes you a rabid right-wing zealot. If anything, Obama’s strident rejection of such an idea, and Hillary’s attempt to use it as a smear, could be viewed as insulting to the general electorate, whom one might assume these folks regard as morons for apparently electing presidents who are devoid of a decent idea among them.

Barack took a swipe at Hillary by saying that she did some work for Walmart. Given that Walmart is based in Arkansas, it’s no wonder that Hillary had some involvement with this company at some point. It’s a huge and influential corporation. But what, once and for all, is so scandalous about Walmart? No one has ever been able to explain to me what constitutes the evil here. They aren’t polluting the environment, they aren’t enslaving people. They are employing large numbers of people who seem generally happy to be working there, in my observation. What is the root of this liberal obsession, other than that Walmart is successful? I guess that must be it.

Anyway, Hillary delivered the lowest blow of the evening by accusing Obama of working for a “slum lord.” Granted I am not an expert on Obama’s career, but apparently while working for a law firm called Davis Miner Barnhill & Gallard, Obama did some work for a landlord of questionable ethics, Antoin “Tony” Rezko of Rezmar Corporation. But according to the Chicago Sun-Times, Obama did a grand total of five hours work for this client as a junior attorney. Also, although Obama apparently maintained a friendship with Rezko and accepted a $1000 campaign contribution from him, there doesn’t seem to be any evidence thus far that Obama was aware of how bad conditions at this landlord’s buildings eventually became. We’ll see what develops, if anything. My hunch is probably nothing will—why, after all, would Obama risk association with a known slumlord for a measly $1000? On the surface it looks bad, though. Ah, nothing like a good smear. That Hillary sure does fight like a dirty street-fightin’ cat.

Obama’s most intriguing comment came during an exchange about special interest money, in which Hillary accused Edwards of being clever and trying to get around taking money from lobbyists, instead taking money from lobbyists’ relatives, like it was some kind of shell game on Edwards’ part. For his part, Edwards did not really even deny taking the money, and defended it by serving up his warmed-over porridge about defending the little guys from the big baddies. Hillary just kept feeding on the same carcass, and Barack made what amounted to a stunningly refreshing acknowledgment, saying, “You’re right, Hillary, nobody’s hands are totally clean in politics.”

Wow. Did he really say that? And are we to assume that includes him?

Given that Hillary is perceived as more of the special interest money-taker than Obama, it seems like in making this statement he was minimizing his advantage. But on the other hand, in the context of the whole debate and Hillary’s below-the-belt, slumlord comment, Obama comes off as more reasonable, honest and magnanimous for having made it. Very clever – could Barack have read Krauthammers’s “A Sneer, a Tear, a Comeback?”

This entry was written by Heather Robinson and posted on January 22, 2008 at 3:16 am and filed under Blog. permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Keywords: 2008-election. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL. */?>