Gone Fishing?
Dick Morris predicts that the Clinton campaign will go negative soon against her primary rivals. He predicts that she will use a tried and true method that the Clintons have used for years: send in the private detectives to fish for some dirt, then leak whatever they find to a friendly reporter.
Their favored method of getting out negative material about their foes is to hire private investigators to dig up dirt, which they then release through feeds to friendly journalists.
Consider the Lewinsky scandal. When Linda Tripp got to be a danger, the Clinton people released her Pentagon personnel file to Jane Mayer (then a reporter for The New Yorker). A federal judge later reprimanded two Clinton operatives for this violation, and the government had to pay Tripp more than $600,000 - but the damage was still done.
Meanwhile, Clinton staffer (and Hil- lary favorite) Sidney Blumenthal peddled the line that Monica was a stalker to journalist Christopher Hitchens. And White House operatives told ABC News' Linda Douglas of incoming House Speaker Bob Livingstone's infidelity scandal before it was made public.
In the '92 presidential campaign, the Clintons openly disclosed their use of private detectives to dig up ammunition on women who had accused the presidential candidate of having affairs with them, disclosing that they paid detective Richard Palladino over $100,000 in campaign funds. But, of late, they avoid such embarrassing disclosures by hiding their detective bills in their legal expenses.
Charming MO, isn't it? The problem this time may be that any negative attacks like this could actually increase her rival's stature. Morris points out that things like that have never deterred the Clintons before. He doesn't think it will this time either. But if Hillary starts looking like she needs to attack, she also risks losing the air of inevitability. This could be interesting. Somehow, there would be a sort of cosmic justice to see the negative tactics of the Clintons actually bring Hillary down.
By Mwalimu Daudi, Tuesday, 27 November , 2007 @ 8:52 pm
It may indeed be cosmic justice to see Hilly the Hun destroy herself with the same smear tactics that led to her rise in power, but what will that leave us with? Barak “Genocide is no reason to act” Obama? John “Pretty Boy” Edwards? Richardson? Gravel? The Rt. Rev. Gore? Talk about having to choose among the evils of these lessers! I am not sure that America is any better off if Hilly self-detonates and one of these bozos gets the Democrat nomination - the country will catch hell if any one of them wins the White House in 2008.
Still … the collapse of the Clintons would be an event similar the Berlin wall coming down or Saddam being dragged from his hole by US soldiers. The fall of tyrants is always cause for celebration.
By Al in St. Lou, Wednesday, 28 November , 2007 @ 5:40 pm
Any Dem who can’t attract voters as well as Hillary would be a plus for this nation. Dick Morris has said that twenty million women who never voted before will go to the polls just to vote for the first female presidential nominee. I’m afraid he’s correct. Anything that stops Hillary would be a boon for our country.