Maureen Dowd plays the fool in column on Hillary Clinton "foolery"

 

 

 

 

 

In a recent column called "Can We Get Hillary Without the Foolery", Maureen Dowd puts on display every aspect of dishonest journalism, distortion, and personal lack of integrity that is driving mainstream journalism out of business. She either has a very short memory or doesn't have the professional integrity to admit she and everyone like her who supported Obama in the 2008 Democratic primaries and those few who still do, were the ones made fools of by the foolery of Barrack Obama who took the press for fools, along with the kind of cocktail party liberals Lenny Bruce used to tear to pieces in his routines on race, and Obama was amply rewarded.

Dowd, in her column wrote:

"Did she (Clinton)  learn, from her viper’s nest and money pit of a campaign in 2008, how to manage an enterprise rather than be swamped by rampant dysfunction? Did she learn, when she wrapped herself in an off-putting and opaque mantle of entitlement in the primary, that she’s perfectly capable of charming reporters and voters if she wants to, without the obnoxious undertone of “I’m owed this"?

Dowd has obviously forgotten the movement she joined and championed in 2008 the news media's  "it was time for a black president" campaign, the mantle of entitlement that accompanied almost every article written during the primaries, the purpose of which was to create an atmosphere of entitlement and inevitability regarding Obama's nomination, something that continued to the floor of the Democratic National Convention in Denver in the form of political threats and extortion that Dowd either knows nothing about or doesn't want to talk about.

She also seems to be suffering from short term memory loss when she talks about Clinton's "money pit of a campaign". Given Dowd's state of mind perhaps we should forgive her for forgetting that it was Obama, on at least three public occasions including the debate moderated by the late Tim Russet,  who publicly pledged that he would only use public financing in his presidential campaign if he was the nominee in keeping with his theme of bringing "change" to Washington politics, then promptly reneging on the promise as soon as he got the nomination and raised record amounts of money while John McCain stuck to his promise to use  public financing and was outspent 5-1.

Never mind that Obama has proved to be the most underhanded, deceitful two faced politician since Richard Nixon to go along with probably being the least qualified in the history of the Democratic party. Never mind that the groups that supported him are now showing up at the White House with petitions signed by millions of people telling Obama not to sell them out again, this time on the budget.

Never mind that Obama promised to close Gitmo, something Colin Powell called a stain on the United States, in the first month of his presidency and to this day hasn't found the guts to stand up to the right wing and close one of the worst cases of human rights abuses in American history after slavery and the Japanese internment camps during WWII. When you have a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a former Secretary of State supporting the decision and you still don't have the political courage to do it, you get the first four plus years of the Obama presidency.

But Dowd, seemingly oblivious to the candidate she supported in 2008 gives us more. She writes:

" The other side (of Clinton)  is darker, stemming from old insecurities; this is the side that causes her to make decisions from a place of fear and to second-guess herself. It dulls her sense of ethics and leads to ends-justify-the-means wayward ways. "

"Ends- justify- the-means wayward ways"?  Does she mean like the time Obama was caught lying to the unemployed in Ohio  during the 2008 primaries,  telling them the cause of their high unemployment was NAFTA ( a lie proved by Politfact.org) and that if they voted for him he would get rid of NAFTA while at the same time sending Autan Goolsbee to the Canadian embassy in Chicago to tell them to ignore everything Obama says publicly in Ohio about NAFTA, he has no intention of getting rid of it? That kind of "ends-justify-the-means wayward ways"?

 

 And by darker side, did she mean like Obama lying for seven consecutive days about the incident, saying at first Goolsbee didnt even work for the campaign, then when that was proved a lie, admitted he worked for the campaign but that they never sent him to the embassy and when that was proved a lie said ok, he works for the campaign and they sent him to the embassy but never told him to say that, which was then proved a lie when someone in the Canadian embassy fed up with Obama's duplicity released the minutes of the meeting which proved he indeed sent Goolsbee there to tell them to ignore what he is saying about NAFTA publicly.

 Is that the dulling of a "sense of ethics that leads to ends-justify the means ways"? Or was it Obama's campaigning for the public option, promising it in campaign speeches since 2007, holding town hall meetings supporting it and then  selling it out in a cave-in to the health insurance lobby even though he had ample votes in congress to pass it and  then claimed he never campaigned for it?

Dowd's professional denial ignores the fact that she supported and maybe continues to support a politician who has gotten caught in more lies and duplicity in a week than the average dishonest politician does in a career and lied so egregiously during the 2008 Democratic primaries it would have ended the political career much less  the presidential candidacy of any other politician. But  for people like Dowd and others who made Obama a cause celebre because of a statement they wanted to make on race, they thought it best to ignore the content of his character and focus on the melanin content of his skin.

Dowd then writes: "If Obama is the kid who studies only on the night before and gets an A, Hillary is the kid who studies all the time, stays up all night and does extra credit work to get the A. She doesn't know how not to drive herself into the ground. "

 This is more of Dowd's self-delusion. Obama is the kid who never studies and as a result  knows absolutely nothing about anything he is talking about. What he does know is how to bamboozle some of the  teachers like Dowd.  All it takes is using 250 words to say what a precocious 15 year old could say in 3, and Obama gets an "A" from a fawning Maureen Dowd and others.

 Like the Nobel Peace Prize Obama was awarded for doing absolutely nothing and which so infuriated other winners many publicly said the Nobel committee diminished the value of the prize by awarding it to Obama.  Obama is not the kid who doesn't have to study to get an "A" he is the kid who figured out how to bamboozle his elders, flash an infectious smile, and sell snake oil to those willing to buy. Except millions  who bought  the snake oil are now showing up on the White House lawn with petitions and their empty bottles of snake oil which did nothing to solve their problems and are demanding he make good on his promises since, at this point, a refund isnt possible.

More Dowd: "But many experts feel, as John Cassidy wrote in The New Yorker, that, compared with the work of more geopolitical secretaries,(of State)  her “signature achievements look like small beer.”

Dowd wants to ignore that when you work for a small president with no ideas no backbone, no convictions, no principles not a clue about what he is doing  and doesn't have the respect of leaders around the world, even small beer is a big accomplishment. One can still remember the glow on Clinton's face during the Libyan crisis when she showed up in London to meet with the Prime Minister to discuss what to do about Libya, and was told to her surprise that  British and French fighters were already attacking Ghaddaffi military targets because both the British and French simply got tired of Obama's diddling.

When you work for a president who sees Iranians protesting a rigged election getting shot and killed in the street by an oppressive regime and whose response is to say he "doesn't want  to meddle", small beer is an accomplishment. Like making lemonade out of the of lemons that is the Obama presidency. 

Dowd concludes with: "Her challenge is to get into the future and stay there, adding fresh people and perspectives and leaving the Clinton mishegoss and cheesiness in the past."

After eight years of  having The Cheeze Whiz Kid in the White House, a Cheeze Whiz Kid which Dowd helped sell and still promotes, real cheese of any kind will be more than welcome..

So before Dowd comments on anyone else's foolery much less Clinton's she needs to wise up and own up to Obama's foolery her own foolery and the other foolery in the press not to mention groups like MoveOn, the PCCC, Democracy for America who continue to be made  fools of by Obama but who all decided to look the other way in 2008 every time Obama was caught in his own foolery, a lie or talking out of both sides of his mouth, all of which foreshadowed what was to come.

Its not Clinton's challenge to get into the future as Dowd claims. Its Dowd's challenge to get into the present which other former  Obama supporters seem to be doing as evidenced by  the recent email from MoveOn.org complaining about Obama's attempted capitulation to Republicans on Medicare and Social Security in his budget which began with the words, " He's done it again".

 In a different way, so has Dowd.