<p>Well, let me say that Hillary was distorting her record and Thatcher’s record by comparing herself to Thatcher. Speaking as a former denizen of Thatcher’s constituency, though not being a Brit, I did not vote.</p>
<p>marite: When one is trying as hard as Obama is to separate himself from the past, and to place himself as the candidate of the future, to compare himself to a president from ~50 years ago, is questionable. Considering, too, that one of the major issues of this race is the Iraq War, to compare himself to a president who helped escalate the Vietnam War, is also questionable. Certainly, JFK put together the Civil Rights Act, but he’s also the same guy who had his brother wiretap MLK’s home, wasn’t he? Mainly, I think it’s stupid to compare himself to both JFK and MLK, given how each of those men tragically died. Where’s Lloyd Bentsen when we need him?</p>
<p>Why is it stupid to compare himself to two people who died tragically and therefore are seen by many as martyrs or nearly so? I take your point that it might give some people ideas, but most Americans do not entertain murderous intents toward their leaders!</p>
<p>So you think making comparisons with historical figures is unwise? hmmm… I’ll stop making mention of Demosthenes and Cicero. They’re even more ancient than JFK and MLK. History is indeed bunk.</p>
<p>Further regarding the ludicrousness of the Clinton-Thatcher comparison. Thatcher acted according to her beliefs and conscience no matter the outcome. Hillary acts according to what she thinks will further her career.
And Thatcher most definitely wouldn’t have stooped to having a ‘Hillary moment.’</p>
<p>What stands out to me regarding the contrast between Obama and Clinton are their stances before the war. I don’t believe for one minute that Hillary, when supporting the war, was necessarily voting her conscience. She was voting for what she thought would get her ahead. Obama on the other hand, had the courage to speak out forcefully and inspirationally against the war and he showed extraordinary prescience.<br>
I can’t imagine Hillary ever having that sort of depth as a figurehead. Which leads me to any comparison of Obama to MLK or any other strong leader. What they both had/have is a deep inner conviction as opposed to being a shallow opportunist.</p>
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<p>Uhhh, would that be the same “courage” that led him to vote “present” on abortion bills and rape shield laws when he was a part-time state legislator? Took a lot of “courage” to vote “present” on a bill that would have outlawed strip clubs and porno shops within 1000 feet of a school, huh?</p>
<p>Would that be the same “courage” of conviction that made him vote for EVERY Iraq war funding bill between the date he entered the Senate and May 2007?</p>
<p>Would that be the same “courage” of conviction that made him decide to vote for John Roberts confirmation until his handlers talked him out of it because it would be bad politics for his presidential run?</p>
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<p>It will be in the close-out bins gathering dust next to Bernstein’s book. Have you heard this woman pitch her pscyhobabble nonsense? She should stick to writing about Princess Diana.</p>
<p>There are better hit-job books on the Clintons.</p>
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<p>Not to let facts intrude, but the campaign event where Hillary talked about Margaret Thatcher is available on C-SPAN.</p>
<p>She mentioned Thatcher in the context of an answer about global warming, the Kyoto treaty, and so forth. Clinton was talking about an international flourocarbon emissions agreement that was enacted in the late 1980s, but languished with no enforcement until Thatcher gathered world leaders in a room and told them she wasn’t going to let them leave until they all agreed to enforce the environmental standards in their countries.</p>
<p>Clinton did NOT compare herself to Thatcher, except to make two humorous quips during her story:</p>
<p>1) “She was a woman, you know.”</p>
<p>And, a minute or so later:</p>
<p>2) “I don’t know if she was likeable.”</p>
<p>Both quips got a round of laughter from the people at the event.</p>
<p>You can find the entire hour and half Q&A on [C-SPAN’s</a> Campaign Network](<a href=“http://www.campaignnetwork.org%5DC-SPAN’s”>http://www.campaignnetwork.org) site if you are interested in finding out what candidates really say instead of the nonsense characterizations that pass for political media coverage.</p>
<p>Clintons have the courage to keep on doing what they are doing and what they believe in. During the NH debate Edwards and Obama ganged up on her. They have been the punching bags for lots of people specially the press. The ultra liberals, and the conservatives. Take this board as an example. The venom thrown against Clinton by Xiggi, 1sokkermom, Zoosermomand mini (I like mini a lot) are unparalleled. Every thing in their closet is known. Obama on the other hand is getting lots of free passes. It seems that press is afraid to write anything negative about him or investigate deeper in his background for the fear of being labeled racist. The conservative news outlets like Drudge and Fox are very gentle to him - even positive (specially when they have a picture of Obama). They want to project the image that they are conservatives not racist conservatives. Pretty soon race will be injected in this race, and not by anyone else but by Obama camp itself. I was on the business trip last week and had time to watch TV. After the NH loss there were at least four occasions when Obama supporters/surrogates tried to say that Obama lost NH because many whites did not vote for him because he was black.</p>
<p>There is no difference between Edwards and Obama - they both give empty talks. As Xiggi have coined the phrase,‘Empty barrels make lots of noise’.</p>
<p>Having said that, I will vote for either of them over any Republicans running.</p>
<p>1sokkermom: "You wrote in post # 15,“simba, I tend to disagree. I think that Hillary owned the media, until Iowa”</p>
<p>Here are the facts:</p>
<p>"The liberal watchdog Media Matters for America counted more than eight negative remarks Chris Matthews made about Clinton for every positive one during September, October and November.</p>
<p>Another study, by the Center for Media and Public Affairs, found that 58 percent of stories on Clinton on the main ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox News Channel newscasts from the beginning of October to mid-December were dominated by negative comments. By contrast, 61 percent of the comments about Barack Obama were positive, and so was 67 percent of the John Edwards coverage".</p>
<p>[Chris</a> Matthews a target for Clinton fans - Yahoo! News](<a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080112/ap_po/matthews_vs_clinton]Chris”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080112/ap_po/matthews_vs_clinton)</p>
<p>Did Edwards and Obama gang up on Hillary? Maybe. I certainly saw Edwards siding with Obama. I actually was dismayed that he did so in such a ham-fisted and repetitious way. He made his point several times over. I did think, however, that Hillary tried to co-opt the mantra of change and that Edwards was not wrong to point that out. I disliked the bullying way he made that point.</p>
<p>What about the patronizing way Obama was behaving? For example, at one point he said,“Hillary you are likable enough”.</p>
<p>Simba, is Obama being condescending because he used the word “enough?” or is it the whole statement? Because it was in response to Hillary saying that Obama was “likable.”</p>
<p>when listening to the NH debates, I didn’t find Obama’s comment (H you are likeable enough) to be patronizing. I took it as his chance to make a quip/joke that just bombed, big time. Up until that time, he and Edwards had been a little rough on H, and, IMO, he appeared extremely stiff, so I took his comment as a chance to loosen up and lighten the air, but it failed. But, nevertheless, on our local TV feed, the audio of his comment wasn’t even that clear.</p>
<p>“Not to let facts intrude …”</p>
<p>idad, we care much more about out-of-context quotes than we do about facts. We will decide which candidate we favor based on the twisting of a single word. We will quote whichever survey favors our candidate. Don’t bother us with facts.</p>
<p>Facts are easier to alter than quotes.</p>
<p>“What about the patronizing way Obama was behaving? For example, at one point he said,“Hillary you are likable enough”.”</p>
<p>I’ve been meaning to ask about that. I watched the debate and I didn’t find it patronizing to Hillary. At the time, my interpretation was that Obama was impatient that she even had to answer such a questionl. Like “sigh, you’re likeable enough HIllary.”</p>
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<p>seems like a comparison to me!</p>
<p>It seems that the return of the fair-weather supporters is as impressive as the return of the comeback “kid” last Tuesday. HRH Clinton’s polls must be up from a near-death prediction. :)</p>
<p>are you worried?</p>