Samantha Power [photo] lost her cool the other day and uttered a glaringly obvious truth about Hillary Clinton, describing her as a "monster" who will do anything to win.Astute observers have known this for a long time. But astute observers are not welcome in the Obama camp, where fantasy reigns supreme. Thus,
Mr Obama's spokesman, Bill Burton, said the remarks were not in keeping with the senator's views: "Senator Obama decries such characterisations, which have no place in this campaign."And that's the end of the line for Samantha Power.
Hillary Clinton, as you may realize, has been relentless in lowering the bar that allegedly restrains her and the sleaze-mongers running her campaign.
Thus she finds it perfectly acceptable to say, over and over, in public:
"I know I have a lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House, I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience that he will bring to the White House, and Senator Obama has a speech that he made in 2002."That's ok, you see. Nothing wrong with that, is there? A donkey candidate endorsing an elephant over a fellow donkey? You see that all the time, don't you?
Well, you'll never see anything like that from the Obama camp. Or almost never.
Why? Obama's campaign -- just like the campaigns he's campaigning against -- is based on a lie. And that means that -- just like those other campaigns -- it must constantly be embellished with more lies. And all the candidate's horses and all the candidate's men (and women) must continue to tell those lies, come what may.
For some candidates, this is a pragmatic approach. They do it because it works. But Obama's chosen a bad lie, and now his lie has him trapped, and he can't abandon it without showing his entire campaign to have been false.
Obama started out selling warm fuzzies, and that means he and his aides have to keep on selling those warm fuzzies -- and never a cold prickly.
Hillary herself can throw cold pricklies at Obama all she likes. But if anybody who so much as volunteers for Obama says anything cold and prickly about Hillary, an apology and a resignation are in order.
As for the substance of the argument, here's James Fallows:
I have reached the point of wanting to scream every time I hear about the primacy of "experience," knowing how skillfully the 46-year old Bill Clinton waved that argument away when it was used against him 16 years ago by a sitting President who simply dwarfed him in high-level experience. But to pose it in a form that is poison for the party should Obama be the nominee??? To produce a clip that the McCain campaign could run unedited every single day of a campaign against Obama? That is something special.It sure is. Yours to enjoy, right here, at the frozen blog.