I just saw this post over on another site and thought I'd share it with y'all:
By Stonecipher - Sunday, March 9th, 2008 at 6:30 AM
Much like the Bush Administration declared victory in Iraq almost five years ago, the Clinton campaign reached into its deep bag of dirty tricks and pulled out this gem, delivered by Clinton campaign manager Maggie Williams: "We are thrilled with this near split in delegates and are grateful to the people of Wyoming for their support."
Williams is implying one of two things here.
The first could be that she is stating it really was a close call, that a 61% - 38% victory for Barack Obama is a near miss on Clinton's part. That's a tough sell. A 23% difference isn't really that close.
The only alternative is that Williams is implying that even though the overall vote totals were lopsided in Obama's favor, the delegates broke in a much more even way.
After last Tuesday's results in Texas and Ohio, this seems like a perfectly logical scenario. The problem with this implication is that when you introduce those pesky little things that get George W. Bush into trouble so often, the facts, the latter implication sounds even more absurd than the first.
The fact is; as it stands Obama won seven pledged delegates and Clinton won four. That means Obama picked up 63% of the delegates compared to Hilary's 36%, an even more lopsided result than the popular vote.
In Clinton's defense, there is one more delegate out there to be counted. Wyoming had 12 pledged delegates up for grabs. However, even if Hilary wins this last delegate the break is 58% - 42%, still not a close call. If Obama picks it up, of course, it gets even uglier for Clinton. The split will be 67% - 33% in favor of Obama.
What bothers me about this goes a lot deeper than a little white lie, or a complete lack of competence on the part of Maggie Williams.
It goes deep down into my gut and reminds me of the dark days after September 11th, when the USA Patriot Act was somehow written immediately and then passed by a Congress that had little idea of what was actually in it. It reminds me of the build up to war with Iraq, when Dick Cheney repeated lied about links between Saddam and Bin-laden. It reminds me of those dark days when I truly began to fear that our reality might imitate George Orwell's "1984" where inconvenient news was shoved down the memory hole, two plus two equaled five, war was peace and Big Brother was always watching.
Maybe it seems extreme to go bring all of this up because of one person's "fuzzy math", but Maggie Williams knew exactly what the math was and exactly what she was saying when she made that comment last night.
Her intention was to mislead and deceive, in other words, to lie.
What makes this worse, however, is that Williams didn't outright lie. She didn't say "We won Wyoming." That would be too obvious. Instead she told a subtle lie that is much more difficult to catch. It is calculating in its nature and its sole intent is to confuse and mislead the very people she is supposed to be fighting for.
The Clinton campaign has developed a pattern of telling these subtle mistruths. There are dozens of examples to choose from, and this is just the latest.
As a nation we have spent the past seven years dealing with this type of communication from our leaders. It is time we put an end to it because all we have to show for it is a massive national debt, $4/gallon gas, a tanking economy, a dwindling middle class, almost 4,000 dead soldiers, and billions and billions of dollars spent on an unnecessary war. Oh, and Bin-laden is still free.
It is time to change this pattern.
We are fortunate to have come as far as we have from those miserable pre-2004 days in this country. We're lucky to have the option to change directions. It is time to reject the old politics of the Bush years and move forward to a new type of politics, the politics of transparency, honestly and integrity. If we don't take a stand against this now, we may not have another chance.
With that said, I'll step down from my soap box. Sorry, Maggie Williams just struck a nerve with me. I intended to write an entry about the general election match up and how Obama as the nominee will help the Democrats gain a larger majority in the Senate. We'll have to cover that next time. Stay tuned...
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