Today in Fake Scandals

First off, it seems that when Hillary Clinton was a practicing lawyer she took a job as a court-appointed attorney for an indigent client and she sought to advance her client's interests zealously. Newsday wants us to find that sleazy, but it's the nature of the American legal system. It would have been irresponsible for her to do otherwise.

Second, a photo surfaced of Barack Obama wearing some funny-looking (to American eyes) clothing while on a trip to Africa. This led to a bewildering series of charges and countercharges from the Obama and Clinton campaigns, even though the whole thing was likely trumped up out of little or nothing by Matt Drudge to drive traffic.

Comments

even though the whole thing was likely trumped up out of little or nothing by Matt Drudge to drive traffic

How does that explain Maggie Williams' ridiculous comment?

Posted by SoCalJustice | February 25, 2008 4:13 PM

the whole thing was likely trumped up out of little or nothing by Matt Drudge to drive traffic.

Much as the cable "news" networks have revived the lapel pin story from October so they can sell more toothpaste.
.

Posted by Grand Moff Texan | February 25, 2008 4:14 PM

I don't think Obama's camp should be accusing the Clinton campaign of anything here. Whether or not they leaked the photo, the better strategy is to shrug your shoulders and say "yeah, so what?" He wore the local garb on a visit to Kenya. Politicians do that all the time.

Exhibit A:

http://letsgoeverywhere.files.wordpress.com/2006/11/silkysmooth.jpg

Posted by TH | February 25, 2008 4:14 PM

even though the whole thing was likely trumped up out of little or nothing by Matt Drudge to drive traffic

It's certainly possible. However, the Clinton team certainly hasn't done a good job making that point. If anything, some of their comments have been incredibly dense.

Posted by Jake | February 25, 2008 4:16 PM

Could you go and explain how the legal system works to your colleague, Andrew Sullivan?

Posted by Pithlord | February 25, 2008 4:17 PM

Pithlord, Andrew has someone making that point quite nicely on his Dissent of the Day. He's still batshit, mind you, but at least he pointed out a dissenting opinion.

SoCalJustice, I just don't get it. Why not say "well, we don't think this is a smear, as far as we know it's not from our office, but if we find out otherwise, we'll deal with the person responsible"? I don't actually believe the HRC campaign sent the photo, but I can't understand why they're acting so dumb.

Posted by Persia | February 25, 2008 4:24 PM

Under normal circumstances, I'd be inclined to defend Clinton here on the principle that she was just a public defender doing her job.

But I have no doubt in my mind that if it were Obama in this situation, Clinton would quickly be advancing Newsday's story to portray Obama as weak on crime, or a hypocrite, or whatever weakass argument she's trying to make today.

So I hope the media picks up on this story and hammers Hillary for it. Anything that pushes her repulsive campaign closer to its death is fine with me. Karma's a bitch; she's run a nasty campaign so I have no sympathy when something unpleasant happens to her.

Yes, I realize that is an intellectually weak and irrational argument. But her campaign has not been rational for weeks, so I feel that I'm freed from having to form rational opinions about it.

Posted by SDinIA | February 25, 2008 4:29 PM

I don't doubt for a second the Clinton campaign sent him that photo and I'm glad Obama is hitting back. The last thing we need is a candidate who remains silent when hit overtly - or, in the way of gutter politics, covertly - by an opponent.

Posted by evie | February 25, 2008 4:31 PM

Persia,

They are tone deaf, and really have been since "day one."

I do, however, agree that this latest attack on Hillary is wildly unfair. "Doing her job as the law and profession directs/dictates" is not a very convincing, or reasonable, attack.

And Sullivan, yet again, deserves to be knocked down for linking this to her personal life. That was very creepy.

That he posted a Dissent of the Day - fine, but he still claimed this had something to do with her marriage, which is pretty f*cked up and a cheap shot.

Posted by SoCalJustice | February 25, 2008 4:34 PM

Yes, I realize that is an intellectually weak and irrational argument. But her campaign has not been rational for weeks, so I feel that I'm freed from having to form rational opinions about it.

Damnit people, tu quoque is a fallacy, whether you acknowledge that you're being fallacious or not.

Posted by Cain | February 25, 2008 4:35 PM

SoCalJustice,

No disagreement there. He's so nuts on the Clintons you can't really take anything he says seriously.

Posted by Persia | February 25, 2008 4:37 PM

And...?

I don't care. I want Hillary's campaign to die a humiliating public death. And with each passing day, it looks as if they're doing their best to accommodate my wishes.

Posted by SDinIA | February 25, 2008 4:39 PM

Damnit people, tu quoque is a fallacy, whether you acknowledge that you're being fallacious or not.

I think you're missing the point here. It doesn't do liberals any good for this primary to drag on any longer, esp with Clinton pulling up dirty argument to use against Obama and potentially drive up his negatives. Some Clinton dead-enders disagree, but I think they might be biased.

I'm not the one who came out with this story. But I can look at, see it benefits the liberal cause by helping to end the Clinton campaign, and be quietly happy about it. And Clinton has earned it at this point. That doesn't make it right for me to advance the argument. But it means I don't have to feel sorry for her or defend her on it. So I think SDinIA's position is fine.

Posted by mpowell | February 25, 2008 4:50 PM

Huckabee must be pissed. He's supposed to be the "miracle" candidate, but this week, Providence is really smiling on McCain.

Posted by heedless | February 25, 2008 4:51 PM

Cain, 'Intellectual fallacy' is just a an educated way of saying 'really useful debate trick'. This isn't highschool debate club kiddies, and you all really need to learn that.

Persia, because the photo won't do any damage. Obama can make a big stink out of this without fear, and it makes him look strong. It also highlights the hypocrisy of Clinton's 'Shame on You' tirade.

But people around here pretending this didn't come from the Clinton, give me a break. They are acting like this came from them. They have never REALLY denied peddling this, and have used the lame 'maybe it was a junior staffer' line campaigns always use when they get caught on this BS.

Maybe some of you should think about how much we do all hate Clinton now. Most of these people didn't start out Clinton haters. They were made that way. The 'If you don't vote for Clinton, you must hate women' lines did this. The 'Black voters don't count, and neither do white ones' statements did this. The 'Why bother voting? We're just going to rig the game at the convention' statements did this. the 'Barak Obama is the black candidate' statements did this. Stop trying to blame everyone else for this anger, and start taking some responsibility for what you've done. You all sound no different than GWB circa 2004, whining about Bush Derangement Syndrome and how unfair your critics are.

Posted by soullite | February 25, 2008 5:00 PM

"Because the candidate I favor is currently in the lead, this primary process should be brought to a close. Although I understand my position doesn't have any logical consistency, la-di-da."

OK, got that.

Posted by Andrew | February 25, 2008 5:05 PM

It would have been irresponsible for her to do otherwise.

More than that, it would have been a violation of her ethical duties per the ABA.

Posted by Steve Balboni | February 25, 2008 5:08 PM

When Putin visited the U.S. and tried on the local garb, he went home with a New England Patriots ring. American politicians should hold out for better schwag.

Posted by phil | February 25, 2008 5:08 PM

If Hillary is going to spend the remainder of the race going Kamikaze on the Democratic party, it really should be brought to a close.

It's starting to look like Hillary just wants to prevent Obama from being elected so she can have another shot in 2012.

Posted by soullite | February 25, 2008 5:10 PM

Just as I was thinking there was no hope for mixing politics and the internet tubess...

Bravo! Way to go, Matt Ygelias!

Puhleez consider making this a regular feature.
You could save many of us from stopping to check out oceans of garbage, so much eaiser to skim over with your guidelines.

Posted by artappraiser | February 25, 2008 5:17 PM

Matt,

It would be a fake scandal . . .

IF THERE WAS NOT A STEALTH CAMPAIGN TO SMEAR OBAMA AS SECRET MUSLIM AGENT!!!

Posted by Jon | February 25, 2008 6:11 PM

Jon @ 6:11

Nice semiological neurotransmitter twister with the fake/stealth/secret thing, caps included. I have suddenly become dizzy. Must have something to do with the term "spinning oneself silly."

Posted by artappraiser | February 25, 2008 6:21 PM

Although the "blame the victim" defense is nasty, and a lot of women's rights groups have railed against it, Clinton was just doing her job. Attorneys don't often get to pick clients.

Now, I wish she and her supporters would think back to a debate a month or so ago, when Clinton attacked Obama for him doing his job as a junior associate working on a memo in his firm's representation of a client organization that involved Rezko . . . .

Posted by Jennifer | February 25, 2008 6:41 PM

Obamabots everywhere! No matter where you look , idiots have drunk the koolaid. No matter what he does, everyone (especially the press) LOVES him (anyone see SNL with the truth ??). This man is an empty suit. If he wasn't "black", no one would look at him twice. He's an arrogant airhead and his supporters are very much like him.
He's a disaster waiting to happen and he hasn't a prayer against McCain.

Posted by Ruth Kaplan | February 25, 2008 7:20 PM

going Kamikaze on the Democratic party

soullite is worried about the party now. How precious. Obama has little to do with the Democratic party. He runs away from liberal any chance he gets, he never mentions that he is a Democrat (yeah I check the website) or reasons to vote for Democrats, he attacks from the right whenever it suits him and he has based much of his outreach to Republicans and Independents. Obama is not running as the proud standard bearer of the Democratic Party.

You have been an Obama partisan for months but your long slide into absolute hackery was surprising nonetheless. I thought your railing about the Clinton campaigns supposed voter suppression at Tapped was a one off but apparently that is what you have been reduced to.

Posted by Obama is not the party | February 25, 2008 7:24 PM

"No matter where you look , idiots have drunk the koolaid. No matter what he does, everyone (especially the press) LOVES him (anyone see SNL with the truth ??). This man is an empty suit. If he wasn't "black", no one would look at him twice. He's an arrogant airhead and his supporters are very much like him."

I no longer need to love Obama. It is enough to hate you.

It really takes the edge off the OCS watching Hillary Clinton and her minions be such poor losers. It's really too bad; I wanted to like her.

Posted by nice strategy | February 25, 2008 8:44 PM

[Obama]'s an arrogant airhead

Wow, I knew Obama was a lawyer, but I didn't realize that he's Legally Blonde.

McCain ranked in the bottom 1% of his class, and Obama was the President of the Harvard Law Review. I guess I'm just an idiot for thinking Obama might be the more capable guy.

Posted by Luke | February 25, 2008 8:48 PM

"Obama has little to do with the Democratic party."

Good point!

You know what would really be smart would be to define the Democratic party just narrowly enough to be a permanent minority party. That way, you can be the victim forever. Jeebus.

Back in the real world, Obama is bringing tons of new voters into the Democratic coalition without becoming a Gergen/Broder split baby monstrosity like Hillary did on the war and other issues.

Posted by nice strategy | February 25, 2008 8:55 PM

Obama’s efforts to connect to the Republican Party, specifically Bush, and Dick Chaney, of the Halliburton Company, dates back to the Presidents Grandfather, Prescott Bush, and indeed Chaney was once an executive officer of Halliburton.

The American military pounds Iraq with Artillary, bombs, and the like, destroying large sections of cities, and infra-structures, then Halliburton comes in to rebuild. Halliburton and Halliburton associated companies have raked in ten’s of billions.

Obama is just like the BIG HALIBURTAN. Haliburton has contracted to build detention centers in the U.S. similiar to the one in Quantanammo Bay, Cuba. Halliburton does nothing to earn the Two Dollars for each meal an American Serviceman in Iraq eats.

http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/

Halliburton was scheduled to take control of the Dubai Ports in The United Arab Emiirate. The deal was canceled when Bush was unable to affect the transfer of the American Ports.

Now we see what some might suspect as similiar financial escapading from the Democrats.

Two years ago, Iraq’s Ministry of Electricity gave a $50 million contract to a start-up security company - Companion- owned by now-indicted businessman (TONY REZKO) Tony Rezko and a onetime Chicago cop, Daniel T. Frawley, to train Iraqi power-plant guards in the United States. An Iraqi leadership change left the deal in limbo. Now the company, Companion Security, is working to revive its contract.
Involved along with Antoin “Tony” Rezco, long time friend and neighbor of Democratic Presidential hopeful Barack Obama, and former cop Daniel T. Frawley, is Aiham Alsammarae. Alsammarae was accused of financial corruption by Iraqi authorities and jailed in Iraq last year before escaping and returning here.

LIKE FATHER LIKE SON --
Obama should be vetted and disclose his connection to the criminal money generating underworld. Besides, his connections to the REZCO MAFIA types, his up-coming tax fraud charges — Obama needs to disclose why he is a MUSLIM "PATWANG-FWEEE" and stop suppoting our intervention in IRAQ. It’s time to introduce this false, fake Xerox - X box Obama and invite the self-indicting thief plagiarizing pipsqueke "GLORK" Xerox - X box to meet the Buffalo "GAZOWNT-GAZIKKA" Police Department Buffalo Creek. He is MAD!!! --

OBAM YOUR NO JFK --
"GLORK" Obama looks like Alfred E. Newman: "Tales Calculated To Drive You." He is a MUSLIM "Glork" He's MAD!!! Alfred E. Neuman is the fictional mascot of Mad. The face had drifted through American pictography for decades before being claimed by Mad editor Harvey Kurtzman after he spotted it on the bulletin board in the office of Ballantine Books editor Bernard Shir-Cliff, later a contributor to various magazines created by Kurtzman.
Obama needs to disclose why he is a MUSLIM "PATWANG-FWEEE" and stop suppoting our intervention in IRAQ. It’s time to introduce this false, fake "GLORK" Xerox - X box Obama and invite the self-indicting thief plagiarizing pipsqueke Xerox - X box to meet the Buffalo "GAZOWNT-GAZIKKA" Police Department Buffalo Creek.

Posted by Janet Reno | February 25, 2008 9:38 PM

Obamabots everywhere! No matter where you look , idiots have drunk the koolaid. No matter what he does, everyone (especially the press) LOVES him (anyone see SNL with the truth ??). This man is an empty suit. If he wasn't "black", no one would look at him twice. He's an arrogant airhead and his supporters are very much like him. He's a disaster waiting to happen and he hasn't a prayer against McCain.

Keep it up, Ruth, you'll put the last nails in your own candidate's campaign coffin soon enough, as long as you don't have a stroke first.

Posted by Kevin | February 25, 2008 9:40 PM

Would someone like to translate "Janet Reno"s comment from loonie into English?

Posted by Kevin | February 25, 2008 9:46 PM

Would Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama please explain why they voted against Bill 1348 on 6/6/07 declaring English the official language of our country. It makes me sick that the people we send to Washington to represent the American people don't have guts enough to do their job. Thirty three Senators voted against this Bill, among them Biden, Clinton, Dodd and Obama. I'm no fan of McCain because I don't want a repeat of the past 7 years so I fear the way it's going I have no one to vote for.

Posted by Maj | February 25, 2008 11:30 PM

um, Drudge and Hillary are tight. her campaign talks to him regularly. this was documented in 'The Nation' months ago. Obama has every right to be pissed about yet more race-baiting and fear-mongering.

Posted by onceler | February 25, 2008 11:39 PM

"Would Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama please explain why they voted against Bill 1348 on 6/6/07 declaring English the official language of our country. It makes me sick that the people we send to Washington to represent the American people don't have guts enough to do their job. Thirty three Senators voted against this Bill, among them Biden, Clinton, Dodd and Obama. I'm no fan of McCain because I don't want a repeat of the past 7 years so I fear the way it's going I have no one to vote for.

Posted by Maj | February 25, 2008 11:30 PM"

Considering that English has never been the official language of the US, which is why this legislation was introduced in the first place, then by your logic every American politician in DC ever in history has been a traitor. Why is it the right wants to borrow the dumbest French policies and ditch the smartest?

Posted by Reality Man | February 26, 2008 12:24 AM

Now I see why you don't trust other Matts

Posted by B | February 26, 2008 12:58 AM

What bullshit. Billary is a proven racist. Racists do racist things. Why would anyone want to deflect blame from her? Mr. Yglesias appears to be just another corporate Clinton shill.

Posted by hart | February 26, 2008 1:40 AM

Much as I criticize Josh Marshall, I think he has it basically right. The Clinton campaign simply didn't address this one correctly, which immediately leads to the conclusion - albeit unsupported by any direct evidence - that they were behind it.

"Tone deaf"? Maybe. Incompetent? Maybe.

Behind this picture? Maybe.

The problem is the long list of "maybes" the Clintons have been involved with over the last couple months vis-a-vis Obama's race.

So, yeah, they set themselves up for being blamed for this.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | February 26, 2008 3:03 AM

As onceler said, the Clinton campaign built up a relationship with Drudge. Just google "Clinton Drudge connection."

If the HRC campaign weren't behind this, why are they defending the photo's use and being disingenuous about the intent? Why won't Clinton just say if anyone in her campaign did it, they'll be fired? Instead she's saying, ""Why is anybody concerned about this?"

Her own communications director endorsed and parroted the talking point of Drudge's source:

"Wouldn't we be seeing this on the cover of every magazine if it were HRC?" questioned one campaign staffer, in an email obtained by the DRUDGE REPORT.

"Wolfson did say, however, that the campaign agreed with part of the message in the email -- that if the same photo had appeared of Hillary, it would have been a big story: "It is a common view among this campaign and our supporters that there is a difference in how the media covers our campaign and how it covers Senator Obama."

--

Of course there is nothing wrong with the photo itself, but that is not a defense for its release here - just a red herring. The intent was clear. Just as there's nothing wrong with being Muslim, but the intent to paint Obama as one is wrong and should be attacked with force by Obama and anyone else unwilling to abide propaganda.

Posted by Eric | February 26, 2008 4:58 AM

I disagree that the defense Clinton chose of an accused rapist was "her ethical duty". Lawyers are obligated to use a defense that fairly represents their clients, but like anyone else, they are also obligated to be ethical about it.

Instead of trying to prove that her client didn't do anything wrong with the girl, she invented a narrative that the girl herself was at fault, and that the event that left her with rape-indicative injuries was somehow the fulfillment of her juvenile fantasies. She didn't make the case that her client was innocent; she blamed the victim.

I submit that it is not ethical to hurt someone unnecessarily, even in the service of a noble cause, and that Clinton's choice to attack the girl went beyond her professional obligations.

Posted by Steven the all-knowing | February 26, 2008 1:49 PM