Letters to the Editor
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Salon WAY out of step
Nagourney at NYT, Huff Po (the excellent Barbara Ehrenreich article mentioned by some posters), DailyKos, The Nation, Slate, CounterPunch, Durst at The Progressive (Durst took Clinton-loathing Molly Ivins' place) etc. All other progressive news sources are telling truths about Clinton (both her right-wing fundamentalist politics and her dim electoral prospects) that Salon won't touch. It's getting embarrassing.
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Hillary Clinton's "kitchen sink" approach -- a growing list
This is a list I've been compiling for the last 2 weeks or so. If you have any additions, let me know.
HILLARY CLINTON'S "KITCHEN SINK" APPROACH
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(1) With Obama in a clear lead, Clinton and surrogates say that Obama isn't qualified to be president, but then turn around and say he would make a great Vice President in a "Dream Ticket." The idea is to make voters think that by voting for Clinton they'd be getting a 2-for-1 deal. The tactic is deemed so offensive that Nancy Pelosi makes a point of discrediting it.
(2) Clinton's campaign releases a "3 a.m." TV ad, with an idea lifted from Walter Mondale's campaign over 20 years earlier. The ad shows children sleeping and suggests that they won't be safe unless Clinton is president. (Conversely, they'll be in danger if Obama is elected.) As a side note, it turns out one of the children is now grown up and volunteers in support of Obama.
(3) Clinton and surrogates denigrate the states in which she has lost, saying they's small states, red states, the caucuses are undemocratic, they're mostly black states, they're not blue-collar (i.e. the Obama supporters are "latte liberals"). For Louisiana, Hillary Clinton says, "You had a very strong and very proud African-American electorate, which I totally respect and understand." In South Carolina, Bill Clinton compared Obama's win to Jesse Jackson's, which many interpreted as if he were diminishing Obama's win.
(4) The Clinton campaign refers to Obama as "Ken Starr" after he calls for the release of Clinton's tax records. As it turns out, Hillary Clinton pressed her senatorial opponent on his tax records in 2000.
(5) Hillary Clinton uses the late Ann Richards in a TV ad in Texas, suggesting that Richards would have endorsed her. The Clinton campaign runs the ads in spite of the fact that Richards' sons had objected to the use of their mother's images and memory for political purposes.
(6) Hillary Clinton pounces on three sentences from a Barack Obama speech. It turns out the lines were offered to Obama by a colleague, who backs Obama up on this. But Clinton presses forward with plagiarism charges anyway, attempting to score "gotcha" points with the debate quip, "That's change you can Xerox." The crowd audibly boos, and Clinton never brings up the matter again. During one of Clinton's pre-debate attacks on Obama she uses the line, "You campaign in poetry, you govern in prose," which turns out to be an unattributed quote from Mario Cuomo. (Source: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08011/848437-176.stm) It is also noted that Hillary Clinton had ghost-written her books, and the writer for "It Takes a Village" was upset with Clinton after she moved to have the writer removed from the book's credits.
(7) Hillary Clinton ends the same debate with a warm "I'm honored to be here with Obama" moment, then just 2 days later Clinton mocks Obama with a sarcastic mocking of his speeches: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfaZRAdyEHM
(8) On the same weekend as the above, Campaign Clinton complains for nearly 5 minutes about an Obama mailer, concluding with a loud, "Shame on you!" line. Video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_X-RoRghAY
(9) The Monday after the two instances above, the Drudge Report posts a years-old photo of Obama in Somali garb (the type that creates a Muslim association) and claims that it was circulated by Clinton staffers. The Clinton campaign does little to repudicate Drudge's claim, though issuing vague denials. (A New York Times piece from October 2007 establishes that Clinton's campaign has a relationship with Drudge and had leaked him information on other occasions.)
(10) During the following week's debate, Clinton attempts to win a point against Obama by claiming that his statement of "denouncing" the views of Louis Farrakhan isn't as good as "rejecting" them. (To which Obama replies that he is happy both to denounce and reject.)
(11) Campaign Clinton releases a long memo directing reporters to ask a series of misleading questions about Obama's involvement with Rezko -- on the day the trial starts, which is also the day before the Ohio/Texas/etc. primaries. Reporters respond in kind, in spite of Obama not being implicated in any wrongdoing. (See Media Matters for America for additional information about this subject.)
(12) Clinton's campaign aggressively pursues a non-story about the Obama campaign's conversations with some in the Canadian government, coining the phrase "NAFTA-gate" to suggest something unethical occurred. It later turns out Clinton's campaign did the same sorts of things Obama's campaign did. (More information at FactCheck.org.)
(13) Clinton says during a speech, "I have a lifetime of experience. McCain has a lifetime of experience. Obama has a speech he made in 2002." Thus she mocks Obama's experience while touting McCain's, giving McCain what amounts to a quotable endorsement should Obama get the nomination.
(14) Hillary Clinton releases a memo touting her foreign-policy experience in various locations throughout the world. One of those is Bosnia, where Clinton claims she ran ducking across the tarmac to dodge sniper fire after her plane landed. A video reveals the story to be a tall tale, with Clinton walking calmly and stopping to listen to a poem from a little girl.
(15) Clinton's surrogates go hog-wild attacking Obama and his campaign. Geraldine Ferraro says that Obama is "lucky" and that he wouldn't have gotten anywhere if he weren't black. James Carville calls Bill Richardson "Judas" because Richardson has the gall to endorse Obama. A steady stream of other nastiness spews from the Clinton campaign headquarters, all designed to take down Obama. The campaign's promotion of Clinton's positive attributes and skills are almost an afterthought.
Those are a few of the "kitchen sink" attacks. Some are worse than others. Prior to Hillary Clinton's 11 losses in a row, her campaign was much more above-board, spending most of its time trying to tout Clinton's accomplishments and experience.