Wizblog

In This Corner...

I loved this photo of Hillary seemingly giving Obama "The Look" at the State of the Union address this year. Maybe it had something to do with Obama picking a seat right in front of Hillary, so the cameras could hardly get a shot of her without getting a shot of him too. Curses. And whatever she's giving him, he's giving her right back. The photo is from Time's coverage of the now celebrated verbal volley between the two Democratic front-runners, and it captures the tone of the story wonderfully.

Seems an erstwhile Clintonite, and now a supporter of Obama, has violated the Commandment..."thou shalt not speak ill of the Clintons", and must be taken down. Super-rich Hollywood dude, David Geffen had the effrontery to suggest that the Clintons have a history of playing fast and loose with the truth. (I had not personally heard of this, but it is an intriguing story.) Here's part of the Time article:

...Geffen, a big fundraiser for the Clintons in the past, called Obama "inspirational" and dismissed Hillary Clinton as "overproduced and overscripted." As for her husband, Geffen suggested that his bad-boy days are not behind him: "I don't think anybody believes that in the last six years, all of a sudden Bill Clinton has become a different person." And to top it off, he said this about the two of them: "Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it's troubling."

Even by the legendary rapid-response standards of a Clinton operation, what followed was extraordinary. Her campaign issued a statement demanding that Obama denounce Geffen, banish him from the campaign and return his money. Obama's campaign quickly fired back with a statement declaring it "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." Then the Obama spokesman upped the ante: "It is also ironic that Senator Clinton lavished praise on Monday and is fully willing to accept today the support of South Carolina state senator Robert Ford [an African American], who said if Barack Obama were to win the nomination, he would drag down the rest of the Democratic Party because 'he's black.'" That drew yet another round from Team Clinton: "How can Senator Obama denounce the politics of slash and burn yesterday while his own campaign is espousing the politics of trash today?" As for Geffen, he did what few people in public life ever do: he refused to scurry. He issued a statement that his comments were quoted accurately and "reflect solely my personal beliefs."

There just aren't enough Hollywood billionaires to go around.

Maureen Dowd (who I think used to be a columnist with the New York Times) set this thing off with her published interview with Geffen, excerpted here at Editor and Publisher:

Once, David Geffen and Bill Clinton were tight as ticks. Mr. Geffen helped raise some $18 million for Bill and slept in the Lincoln Bedroom twice. Bill chilled at Chateau Geffen. Now, the Dreamworks co-chairman calls the former president “a reckless guy” who “gave his enemies a lot of ammunition to hurt him and to distract the country.”

---

They fell out in 2000, when Mr. Clinton gave a pardon to Marc Rich after rebuffing Mr. Geffen’s request for one for Leonard Peltier. “Marc Rich getting pardoned? An oil-profiteer expatriate who left the country rather than pay taxes or face justice?” Mr. Geffen says. “Yet another time when the Clintons were unwilling to stand for the things that they genuinely believe in."

Doesn't that last Geffen statement have a nonsensical, even oxymoronic ring to it? Maybe it's a function of using the words "Clintons" and "genuinely" in the same sentence. On the pardon matter, Taranto had this to say today...

We've got to defend Mr. Clinton here. Whatever you may think of Marc Rich's pardon--and we didn't think much of it at the time--at least he didn't murder two FBI agents, as Peltier did.

Indeed.

And Peggy Noonan says this week's events make Hillary's nomination seem less inevitable:

Republicans and conservatives have been trying to sink Mrs. Clinton for years, but she keeps bob-bob-bobbing along. "Oh those Clinton haters, what's wrong with them?"

Only a Democrat could hurt her, and a Democrat just did....

...In her column Ms. Dowd labeled the campaign operation "Hillary Inc." but Mr. Geffen got closer to the heart of it: It is the Clinton "machine" and it "is going to be very unpleasant and unattractive and effective."

He's probably about to find out how true that is.

Mr. Geffen should be braced for a lot of bad personal box office--negative press, searching profiles, strained relations. We're probably about to see if the Clinton Machine can flatten him. Little doubt it will try. John Dickerson wrote in Slate this week of Bill Clinton's generously sharing his campaign wisdom: "Your opponent can't talk when he has your fist in his mouth." Among some Democratic political professionals this kind of talk is considered tough and knowing, as opposed to, say, startlingly belligerent and crude.

But the outcome of the Geffen-Clinton episode is worthy of watching because it is going to determine whether it is remembered as the moment in the 2008 campaign when it became clear you are allowed to criticize Hillary--or as the moment it became clear you are not.

Any discussion of events that occurred in the 90's has been pre-emptively dismissed as "swift-boating" by the Clinton campaign, and as such is beyond the pale of legitimate electoral discourse. So far she has arrogated to herself the right to make her own rules for the game, while sealing herself off from unscripted media interviews as a way to avoid discussing troublesome peripheral issues... like her political track record.

Hillary's insistence that Obama renounce Geffen's remarks and return his contributions demonstrates again how she lacks the political instincts of her husband, to say nothing of how she doesn't "get" basic values like freedom of speech and association. Kind of important for a President, y'know?

Posted by dan at February 22, 2007 11:28 PM