The faux kitchen sink

Media invented the "kitchen sink" with help from Obama's camp
to trash Hillary for trying to drown Barack's presidential bid.

Joseph of Cannonfire explained with facts the fictional kitchen sink chapter on Hillary's campaign:

Although Bob Somerby probably does not read Cannonfire, he has picked up on the absurdity of the "kitchen sink" line, which has been the subject of two previous posts here. The "sink" motif still sees frequent use throughout prog-land and the mainstream media. First, Somerby quotes Joe Klein's anti-Clinton hit piece in Time:

Even as he spoke, the former President was in the midst of a tiny, self-inflicted absurdity, having claimed in a radio interview that the Obama campaign had played the "race card" against him. And that was the least of the damage.

That is, in fact, precisely what happened. As we have seen in many previous columns, the Clintons never -- ever -- used the race card. They had no reason to do so: Such a strategy would have no appeal to any segment of the Democratic electorate, and would serve only to alienate black voters and others. Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe accidentally deep-sixed the O-bot propaganda line when he confessed that no Democrats would make a decision to vote for a presidential candidate based on anti-black antipathy, because the racists all went over to the Republican side long ago. (The exact quote appears in a recent post; scroll down.) An internal Obama campaign memo [emphasis added] revealed that the Clintons-are-racists meme was a deliberate ploy. At the time when the Obama campaign made the calculated decision to spread this unforgivable smear, most black voters favored Hillary....

...Back in February, Clinton gave a round of speeches in which she referred to five reasons not to vote for Obama -- as opposed to, say, two or three reasons. That, friends, is the "kitchen sink."

To which I say: Big deal. I refuse to accept the O-bot redefinition of the term "negative campaigning" to mean any statement which does not acknowledge Obama as the Messiah.

If you look at what Hillary was saying in those days, her commentary was entirely concerned with policy disagreements and Obama's lack of experience. Since when are those considerations out of bounds in a political campaign? [Emphasis added.]

Go read Joseph's entire post for further history and the "highly unreliable" originator of the "kitchen sink fusillade." For now, turn attention to another Cannonfire entry about the internal Obama memo, the dirty tricks played by Barry's team on those allegedly "racist" Clintons. Of course, the Hillary-hating media hyped the race card and the Obamasphere lit bonfires to incinerate Hillary's bid for the nomination. Seriously, I wonder: does the blog of WKJM and the Orange Sippy Cup™ King have dedicated email accounts to receive Obama talking points and distribute 'em?

From Cannonfire:

This memo proves that the Obama campaign has -- since January -- been behind the vile attempt to insinuate that the Clintons are racists. Before the Obamoids embarked on this propaganda strategy -- negative campaigning at its very worst -- Hillary Clinton had the majority of the African American vote. With cool and calculated deceit, the Obama team racialized statements such as Bill Clinton's "fairy tale" remark.

The Obama campaign always knew that this assault was deceptive, as this interview with campaign manager David Plouffe confirms:

I mean the vast, vast majority of voters who would not vote for Barack Obama in November based on race are probably firmly in John McCain's camp already.

Plouffe was caught between a rock and a hard place here. He gave this response after being asked if America's racism rendered Obama unelectable in the general. His answer directly contradicts the Bot Party Line that Clinton has sent out "dog whistles" to those imaginary hordes of Democratic bigots.

Thank you, Joseph. I've argued repeatedly that it is Malignant Absurdity™ to accept that the Clintons are "slobbering racists." Here:

Why liberals fall for this specious propaganda, one can only speculate, but none of the answers are good when allegedly intelligent people follow the plot lines our morally-bankrupt news media concoct. If the Clintons are such super-smart politicians, why the hell would they commit electoral suicide undermining Hillary's chances of winning? It defies logic...

And here:

See The Daily Howler on the racially-concocted dumb-assery of Patterson. Pro-Obama fans, surrogates, and Villagers have screamed race/race/race so often that the accumulated expulsions require a dumpster-sized pooper scooper. The Clintons have played the race card! Oh, puh-leeze, spare me. Think about it: "[I]ndulging in racial politics would be a sure-fire way for the Clinton campaign to shatter its own coalition," a tactic that defies logic, that would invite political suicide. For someone who allegedly "would do anything to win," the accusation makes zero sense.

I'm unsurprised that there is an Obama memo painting the Clintons as racists. Courtesy Joseph, Sam Stein in January 2008:

Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign has prepared a detailed memo listing various instances in which it perceived Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign to have deliberately played the race card in the Democratic primary. [See the full memo here.]

The memo, which was obtained by the Huffington Post and has been made public elsewhere, is believed to have been given to an activist and contains mostly excerpts from different media reports. It lists the contact info and name of Obama's South Carolina press secretary, Amaya Smith, and is broken down into five incidents in which either Clinton, her husband Bill, or campaign surrogates made comments that could be interpreted as racially insensitive.

The document provides an indication that, in private, the Obama campaign is seeking to capitalize on the view - and push the narrative - that the Clintons are using race-related issues for political leverage. In public, the Obama campaign has denied that they are trying to propagate such a perception, noting that the document never was sent to the press.

If you click the link to read Sam Stein's column at HuffPost, the entire memo falls below the fold and outlines five talking points:

1. Clinton, Criticizing Obama For Promising "False Hope" Said That While MLK Jr. Spoke On Behalf Of Civil Rights, President Lyndon Johnson Was The One Who Got Legislation Passed: "It Took A President To Get It Done."

2. Bill Clinton Implied Hillary Clinton Is Stronger Than Nelson Mandela

3. Clinton's NH Campaign Chair Raised The Youthful Drug Use Of Obama And Said It Would "Open The Door To Further Queries On The Matter."

4. Mark Penn, In Trying To Defend His Campaign Over Bill Shaheen's Obama Drug Use Comments, Used The Word "Cocaine," Drawing A Rebuke From Edwards Adviser Joe Trippi.

5. Donna Brazile Lashed Into Bill Clinton For Comparing Obama To A "Fairy Tale" And Said "It's An Insult... As An African-American" And That His Tone And Words Are "Very Depressing."

Have you noticed the silence in the Obamasphere about Barry's memo? Well, except that they used it to smear Hillary relentlessly. Had it not been for Joseph Cannon, I wouldn't have known of its existence in my avoidance of HuffPost, which tilts most of its commentary against Hillary, a wasteland of pro-Obama propaganda with a patch of true blue here and there.

Between the false narratives about Clinton's so-called kitchen sink, the sexist dog whistles out of the mouths of Obama and his co-chairs, the character assassination of Hillary, and the campaign secretly promoting the Clintons as racists to the press, I whole-heartedly agree with Cannon's conclusion:

Barack Obama has run the filthiest campaign in the modern history of the Democratic party. We cannot reward such tactics with success, or they will be repeated.

Can I get an amen? I absolutely refuse to be guilt-tripped into voting for Obama if--gawd forbid--he wins the nomination and then loses to McCain in the fall because people like me will not vote for The Fraud. And I'm not voting for Bush III. I will write in my candidate's name or vote for the Green Party whose candidate will likely be an African-American woman. Just try and call me a racist.

POSTSCRIPT: Obama quoted in Klein's hit piece, "She's got the kitchen sink flying, the china flying — the buffet is coming at me." Waah! What an act.

CREDITS: WKJM via Corrente. See their glossaries for the definition.

The delusional based community

The Orange Sippy Cup™ King audaciously claimed he's part of the reality-based community because, yo! He criticized Obama for appearing on Faux News. Moulitsas pronounced:

"Yo people, Obama isn't beyond reproach or criticism. I want him to win the primary and the general, but I ain't gonna keep my mouth shut and carry his water when I disagree with him. If you have a problem with it, you might want to go elsewhere, because this is the reality based community, not the 'Obama can do no wrong' community...."

Reality based? Then explain why the Kiddie King got his facts all a-jumbled with Obama talking points advanced by Axelrod that are wrong, wrong, wrong. Sipping that BO Kool-Aid again, eh, Kos?

Several liberal bloggers are criticizing Clinton for supporting a gas tax holiday that she opposed during her 2000 Senate campaign:

Moulitsas slams "Clinton's shameless hypocrisy on the fuel tax": "Honestly, why take the 18 cents out of the federal budget? Why not take it out of the oil company profits? The $10 billion in revenue the federal government would lose, at a time when our roads are crumbling and bridges literally collapsing, is only a quarter of Exxon Mobil's annual profits. [...] And that's just Exxon Mobil, excluding every other Big Oil company. Add them all up, and $10 billion would be but a blip in their balance sheet. So why do McCain and Clinton want to penalize the federal government at a time of record oil profits?"

Oh, nice spiel associating Hillary with Republican McCain on the issue. Don't expect a CDS sufferer like Kos to be able to fact check himself. The 2000 propaganda advanced by--Surprise! War-profiteering General Electric's NBC!--is wrong (with emphasis):

NBC's First Read implies that Hillary's plan for a gas tax holiday contradicts her position in 2000. This is false.

Hillary's plan today is financed exclusively with a tax on windfall profits from oil companies. She opposed a plan in 2000 for a gas tax holiday because it was financed with transportation funds:

"Clinton, whose daughter, Chelsea, joined her on the campaign trail for the first time yesterday in Manhattan, contends that getting rid of the gas tax would eliminate the funding stream for important transportation projects in New York and elsewhere…" [Newsday, 6/27/00]

"While New York sends $300 million a year to Washington in gas taxes, Clinton said it gets back $477 million in highway funding annually. The first lady said Lazio's plan would have a 'damaging impact' on the state." [Associated Press, 6/27/00]

The OSCK must have a dedicated email account for Obama's chief political/media advisor and Chicago Daley's former PR strategist David Axelrod. The Kiddie King can disseminate BO's BS quicker than projectile diarrhea. The facts:

This afternoon [4/28] on Hardball, Obama's chief strategist, David Axelrod, falsely claimed that Hillary's plan to suspend the gas tax this summer would be financed by diverting funds for federal transportation projects:

He'll invest in our infrastructure, which badly needs it. We know that. That's one of the reasons this diversion from the federal highway trust fund that Senator McCain and Clinton have proposed makes no sense.

This is false. Hillary's plan is financed by a tax on the windfall profits of oil companies. Details here.

To summarize Hillary's plan:

• Imposing a windfall profits tax on oil companies and using the money to suspend the gas tax for the peak summer months;

• Closing $7.5 billion in oil and gas loopholes and using the funds to provide assistance for lower-income families to pay their energy and grocery bills;

• Cracking down on speculation by energy traders and market manipulation in oil and gas markets that are driving up the price of oil by at least $20 a barrel;

• Pressuring OPEC to increase oil production, including by filing a WTO complaint against OPEC countries

• Stopping new additions to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and standing ready to release oil to counter market spikes and reduce volatility.

Details at the link with this opening line: "Hillary will impose a windfall profits tax on oil companies and use the money to temporarily suspend the 18.4 cent per gallon federal gas tax and the 24.4 cent per gallon diesel tax during the upcoming peak summer driving months."

The OSCK falsehoods are a disgrace to the reality-based community. Pro-Clinton bloggers deserted the the Orange Sippy Cup™ for a saner environment "sick and tired of being sick and tired over the hate, ignorance and hostility directed at Hillary and her supporters." Former diarist alegre called for writer's strike stating she would "refrain from posting [at DKos] as long as the administrators allow the more disruptive members of our community to trash Hillary Clinton and distort her record without any fear of consequence or retribution."

Distorting Hillary's record... wonder where the Kossacks got that idea? The Kiddie King sets the standard.

Obama Talking Points Memo

Bob Somerby of The Daily Howler has written at length about the misleading commentary authored or endorsed by Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo. If you search Somerby's archive, you can find examples of Josh's lackluster performances and blatant wankery over the years. Also, check this archive at TalkLeft, where Armando (Big Tent Democrat), an Obama supporter, demonstrates how to blog fairly about both Clinton and Obama.

Two recent examples via Somerby's passing observation yesterday, when taken together, document TPM's favoritism of Obama and bias toward Clinton deceitfully honed. A caveat: Josh can endorse whomever he wants. What is problematic is how he presents his "reporting" as factually correct, when actually he distorts information to fit his point of view. Such misleading tactics one would expect from the sleazy wingnutosphere. Evidently, the liberal blogosphere has its own share of propagandists.

Monday, Josh tasked the notoriously fallacious Bill Kristol for citing Newsmax in his column that stated Obama had attended Rev. Jeremiah Wright's controversial service:

Bill Kristol forgets that fact-checking is important, even in a hit piece.

Later on Monday, Greg Sargent posted an update to the story:

In his latest column, Bill Kristol falsely claimed -- based on reporting by Newsmax, of all things -- that Obama had attended Trinity Church last July 22nd, when Wright blamed blamed [sic] the “arrogance” of the “United States of White America” for much global suffering.

The Obama campaign responded with an aggressive fact-check last night, saying that, no, in fact Obama was not at the service.

Somerby recalled that last month on the morning of February 25, Marshall used an unsubstantiated allegation from right-wing Matt Drudge as a source to smear the Clinton campaign as if fact-checking isn't important for him, but it is for Bill Kristol. Interesting double standard, no?

He just couldn't help himself in citing the spurious Mr. Drudge. The story was too juicy to hold up, insinuating that the Clinton camp was out to get Obama, reinforcing errant gossip that Barack might be a Muslim. He didn't "want to take Drudge as a fact witness for anything." But, waah! Waah! He just had to do it. Who or what made him post a Matt Drudge allegation?

Why it was those darn Clintons running "a terribly inept" campaign and the pressure of inquiring readers who were to blame. Not Josh. Heaven forbid.

He "pushed and pushed"--Bless his heart!--to get what he needed, a Clinton campaign response before he posted the specious Drudge allegation. When the Clinton camp didn't meet his idea of what he "knows" campaigns should say to unequivocally deny an allegation, to disavow that they had anything to do with the Obama dressed in Muslim garb photo, Josh plunged ahead to spread a Matt Drudge "hit piece" as if he was a victim of circumstance.

Of course, none of TPM's readers have any idea how Josh phrased his inquiry to the Clinton campaign before he posted, That Drudge Headline, because he didn't tell them. He didn't publish his line of questioning for transparency's sake--we're to trust his unfailing integrity--because he knows his readers don't come to TPM "to get insights into our editorial process." Odd, that he mentioned that last point.

Without verifying sources for hard evidence, he linked to the Greg Sargent's 9:50 AM posting of the Obama campaign's "David Plouffe condemning the Hillary campaign and saying it's part of a 'disturbing pattern' from Camp Hillary." Yet, no high-level Obama staffers offered "any evidence or info as to what happened beyond what appeared on Drudge."

Later on February 25 at 2:36 PM, Greg Sargent posted:

On a conference call with reporters just now, Hillary spokesperson Howard Wolfson strongly denied any official campaign role in pushing the photo of Obama in a turban and Somali garb.

Drudge reported this morning that Clinton staffers had "circulated" the photo. He didn't say who circulated it, what level of Clinton staffer had circulated it, or to whom it had been circulated. Drudge is the sole source for this email's existence. Nonetheless, the media has been all over the story today.

Josh couldn't wait to post a Matt Drudge "hit piece" on Clinton but what did Josh say in his afternoon follow-up to his rancid "reporting"?

On a conference call, Howard Wolfson just made pretty much the kind of 'loosely categorical' statement about the Obama picture that I said in the post below that we were surprised not to have heard. Here's our report on the conference call.

Not a hint of how Wolfson "strongly denied any official campaign role"--the type of explanation Josh expected for a campaign to provide when he "pushed and pushed"--and he described the denial as "loosely categorical." He merely offered a link to "our report on the conference call" without correcting his original erroneous "report."

Bob Somerby of The Daily Howler is right:

Incredibly, Marshall eventually linked to Sargent’s story—while pretending that Wolfson’s statement didn’t go beyond what had already been said. Not being stable-boys ourselves, we won’t bother to scoop Josh’s piles; you can limn his posts for yourself. But go ahead: Read his original post, then his update, then read his link to Sargent’s report. There’s nothing new here, the moo-cow said, as he linked to a report which opened like this:

“On a conference call with reporters just now, Hillary spokesperson Howard Wolfson strongly denied any official campaign role in pushing the photo of Obama in a turban and Somali garb.”

If you didn’t click on Josh’s link, you wouldn’t know how absurd his characterization was. But certain types have long played this game. The assumption: You rubes won’t bother to click on that link! Therefore, you won’t see that what has been said is pure, Grade A, moo-cow nonsense.

Fact-checking is important for Bill Kristol, "even in a hit piece." The right-wing, fact-challenged Newsmax isn't a reliable news source as Media Matters have repeatedly documented. The same is true about Matt Drudge.

But it's OK if you're Josh Marshall to use Clinton-hating, right-wing Drudge as a source without checking facts. Josh called his post "reporting." That's a quaint term for sophistry.

When the dubious wingnut Bill Kristol doesn't get his facts straight, using a proven unreliable source, Josh and Greg pounced on the "hit piece." Why? Kristol had linked Obama with the Rev. Wright controversy. Damage control had flung into full throttle.

Does Josh commit to the same level of diligence when the Democratic candidate is Hillary? No. Not as "a generally subtle, practitioner of Clinton Derangement Syndrome." He's been silent on the sexist crap. And that leaves plenty of doubt about his objectivity when his misleading spin and the "slide-toward-propaganda" thoroughly undermines and discredits "Josh Marshall’s once-superlative work."

Tell me why I ought to ever consider TPM a credible blog on news stories in the future?

Shilling for Obama must pay well. Isn't it time for a name change? Obama Talking Points Memo sounds about right.