Refereeing Clinton Versus Obama
by sarabeth at 6:00 am on February 22nd, 2007 in 2008 Presidential, Democrats, Obama Uber AllesYesterday, this almost managed to distract MSNBC and Headline News from the Trial Hearing of the Century, so it must be a huge story. (I think FDL is making a huge mistake by not live-blogging this hearing, by the way.)
The presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton went a few rounds.
Probably the only thing both sides — and the supporters of both sides — agree on is that the opening bell was some extremely ill-chosen remarks by entertainment mogul David Geffen. (Apparently, “entertainment mogul†is part of his legal name, and the media signed a consent decree sometime in the last century agreeing that the first mention of his name in any media piece has to include this prefix. But this is a hallowed tradition, and should not cause any raised eyebrows. In the blues world, for example, it has always been obligatory to refer to Robert Johnson as “the late great Robert Johnsonâ€.) In these remarks, he tarred and feathered both Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, calling them consummate liars among many other mean-spirited comments which we may as well not dignify by repeating them here. After all, both sides are willing to stipulate that he spewed some serious bilge. If you do want to read said bilge, you better go here.
Round one was clearly won by the Clinton campaign, which launched an immediate counter-attack. Clinton spokesperson Howard Wolfson:
While Senator Obama was denouncing slash and burn politics yesterday, his campaign’s finance chair was viciously and personally attacking Senator Clinton and her husband.
If Senator Obama is indeed sincere about his repeated claims to change the tone of our politics, he should immediately denounce these remarks, remove Mr. Geffen from his campaign and return his money.
While Democrats should engage in a vigorous debate on the issues, there is no place in our party or our politics for the kind of personal insults made by Senator Obama’s principal fundraiser.
A bit over-the-top in terms of the suggested remedies, but if Shakespeare was a political blogger today (instead of his sister), he would surely have gone: “A hit, a very palpable hit.â€
Campaign finance chairs simply have no business making vicious personal attacks on other candidates and/or their spouses. I started writing this post in my head. And, boy, was I going to give it to the Obama campaign if they didn’t swiftly (oops; poor choice of words right there) denounce Geffen’s remarks.
Round two was equally clearly lost by the Obama campaign. Their response to the round one onslaught came from the mouth of communications director Robert Gibbs (they not only lost the round, they also lost face; the response has to come from someone of exactly equal rank):
We aren’t going to get in the middle of a disagreement between the Clintons and someone who was once one of their biggest supporters. It is ironic that the Clintons had no problem with David Geffen when he was raising them $18 million and sleeping at their invitation in the Lincoln bedroom. It is also ironic that Senator Clinton lavished praise on Monday and is fully willing to accept today the support of South Carolina State Sen. Robert Ford, who said if Barack Obama were to win the nomination, he would drag down the rest of the Democratic Party because he’s black.
Come off it, guys. You’re running the high and noble campaign, and you not only refuse to criticize Geffen for his outrageous remarks (outrageous, you understand, for a campaign finance chair) but you respond to the Clinton campaign’s entirely justified complaint by taunting them? And hitting back with an unrelated broadside?
I started to sharpen my knives. Critics of Obama were no doubt jumping up and down, seized by a delicious mixture of rage and glee (though I was not personally present to witness this behavior, so this should not be construed as a first person report).
The Clinton campaign, to its eternal shame, decided to hit the Obama campaign while it was down. Wolfson’s response to Gibbs:
By refusing to disavow the personal attacks from his biggest fundraiser against Senator Clinton and President Clinton, Senator Obama has called into serious question whether he really believes his own rhetoric. How can Senator Obama denounce the politics of slash & burn yesterday while his own campaign is espousing the politics of trash today?
When one of Senator Clinton’s supporters made an inappropriate statement, her campaign disavowed it immediately and the supporter apologized for his words. Why won’t Senator Obama do the same?
Just as I was getting ready to call an “ungentlemanly behavior” foul, it turned out that political prizefights are conducted under very different rules from other spectator sports. Anyone can call for a non-instant replay at any time, including dark horses and outsiders. So Arianna Huffington, who knows all the rules, did. She called for a replay of round 1:
The thing is, Geffen is not Obama’s “finance chair” nor his “principal fundraiser” as Wolfson also claims. Indeed, as Geffen told me this morning: “I have no official role in the campaign. None whatsoever.” Which makes it kind of hard for Obama to “remove” him.
Geffen was merely one of three co-hosts of a single event — an event that is now over. Obama’s actual campaign finance chair is Penny Pritzker of Chicago.
She did, however, go on to forfeit any claim for respect by perpetrating a really egregious example of partisan hackery on behalf of the Obama campaign:
In the Dowd interview, Geffen said of the Clintons: “Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it’s troubling.”
And this morning’s dust-up proves him right.
Hey, lady! If you don’t know the difference between a totally stupid honest mistake and a lie, you really should stop appearing in public in print. “This morning’s dust-up proves him right” is plain stupid. (See, I know the difference between a stupidity and a lie.) And if a lie by a Clinton campaign spokesman is the same as a lie by the Clintons, then surely a stupidity by such an ardent Obama supporter is a stupidity by the great and glorious Obama himself?
At this stage, of course, this political prizefight has turned into a WWF (or whatever they’re calling it these days) brawl, since Arianna is right there in the ring with the two campaigns. (I do apologize for whatever painful images that conjures up in your mind.)
Now the funny thing about the political prizefight non-instant replay rule is that after the replay, referees are required to go back and re-score the fight.
I had to take round 1 away from the Clinton campaign. To get the basic facts wrong like that, unforgivable.
That did, of course, mean I had to take round 2 away from them too. Once the premise laid down by the Clinton campaign was false, the inadequacies of the Obama response became moot. But there’s no way I could justify awarding the round to Obama. These guys didn’t realize on their own that Geffen was not the campaign’s finance chair? So I had to give the round right back to Clinton.
By this time, round three had swallowed its own tail, so it couldn’t be re-scored. (Of course, it hadn’t been scored in the first place; maybe it was just very shy.)
But in the interests of topicality, I’ll go ahead and present a closing argument, as a bonus.
Given that Geffen has no official connection to the Obama campaign, there is of course no question of firing him from his campaign post. Returning his money was never a serious demand anyway, it was clearly just tossed in for rhetorical effect. Which leaves one proposition on the table—that the Obama campaign should disavow Geffen’s remarks (I have taken the liberty of toning down the rhetoric from denounce to disavow).
It strikes me that the sensible thing for the Obama campaign to have done was to put out a mild little statement to the effect that of course Geffen’s remarks were a little extreme but he is a private individual, and even in the time of Bush he’s allowed to say whatever he wants.
To have Senator Obama respond personally was a mistake, I think. And to have him say I can’t be expected to apologize for someone else’s statement was not only stupid, in my view, but stupidly Bushian. He was never asked to apologize for what Geffen said. Only to disavow it. And he chose not to. Which was not the high and noble response. But to stand there and say that he will not do what no one has called upon him to do — a play that comes straight from the Bush playbook — only makes it worse.
I think if you talk the talk, people are going to fault you when you don’t walk the walk. I hereby do.
University Update on 22 Feb 2007 at 11:28 am
Refereeing Clinton Versus Obama - by: sarabeth…
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