Reading Jerome Armstrong's attack on Oprah today made me laugh. Jerome cut his teeth penning poison pen letters to the DLC. And kos and Jerome made disemboweling the DLC a central tenet of their book, "Crashing the Gate."
Then along came Mark Warner, the big-toothed DLC poster boy. Mark bought a shower of martinis and a fountain of chocolate at the first YearlyKos convention, and next thing you know, Jerome is on the payroll. When Warner and fellow DLC poster child, Evan Bayh, dropped out of the presidential race to clear the way for the Queen of the DLC, Hillary Clinton, Armstrong did what any good soldier would do: He went, hammer and tongs, after the Queen's closest competitor, Barack Obama.
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Thus, the bizarre attack on Oprah.
But Jerome is not alone. The Klinton Kamp Krew has gone nuts on the Oprah thing. Diaries here and at MyDD have ripped Oprah for all kinds of reasons, from claiming that she is anti-union (false), to Jeromes' silliness that she aided and abetted Bush's 2000 win. Of course, Jerome and the rest of the hacks fail to mention that she gave face time to Gore in 2000, Kerry in `04, Hillary in December `06 and Bill Clinton in September `07.
But that didn't fit the narrative.
Me? I'd be just as happy with Edwards or Obama. Probably Edwards first, but I could live with Obama.
But I have also long railed against the DLC as a force that is antithetical to Democratic Party principles. Jerome and some of the other hacks seem to have decided that cash is cash.
How very Terry McAuliffe of them.
Anyway, the desperation emanating from Kamp Klinton is palpable. And I think the surrogate attack on Oprah will be just as good for the Clinton campaign as the "We-were-just-kidding" attack on Obama's childhood ambitions.
So to someone like me who would enjoy nothing more than watching the AUMF-supporting, Kyl-Lieberman-backing Hillary go down in flames, I say, "Keep it up! Attack Oprah!"
Desperation is an ugly thing. And Oprah's eight-million-plus viewers-a-week are not likely to be swayed by the likes of Jerome Armstrong or the pathetically compromised Taylor Marsh.
Hillary said the attack phase of the campaign would be "fun."
Three weeks to go, and it looks like Mark Penn continues to push all the wrong buttons.
After all, Oprah is Satan, right?
Update [2007-12-9 11:2:5 by Bob Johnson]:
Of course I knew that my use of "Klinton Kamp Krew" was incendiary, but after seeing the despicable work of Armstrong and Taylor Marsh's use of "cannibal" to describe Obama, I felt that some folks needed to be snapped awake at what is going on -- because it is only going to get worse in the next three weeks if Clinton's numbers in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina continue to tail off.
Hell, look at the attacks on Oprah just down in the diaries list. I am sure some folks are going to make sure that Oprah understands what it's all about to "cross a Clinton."
I wrote this diary on October 28:
Advice for Obama, Edwards: copy the Clintons - leave vicious attacks to surrogates
In it, I wrote:
Meanwhile, when the Clinton camp wants to -- in my old ice hockey parlance -- "lay the lumber" to its opponents, it trots out its thugs to do the damage. Whether that's James Carville, Terry McAuliffe, Evan Bayh, Al From or "anonymous sources" quoted by our leading rags -- or even the supporters here who regurgitate these talking points -- the real dirty work is always left to surrogates, allowing the candidate to float above the fray.
...
This is an old Clinton campaign tactic from way back, and if the Obama and Edwards camps can't find their own surrogates to do the dirty work that needs to get done (sadly) in modern day campaigns, they are doomed to fail to a team that could put Karl Rove to shame. And if Obama or Edwards really wants to win, then they better be prepared to fight as hard -- and as dirty -- as the Clinton crew fights.
I discussed the Dean campaign:
Without surrogates, Dean had to respond to every attack himself. And, of course, the charge quickly became the `04 version of "So much for the 'audacity of hope.'" In Dean's case it was, "He's angry." But it played out along almost the same fault lines we now see from the Clinton surrogates every time Obama or Edwards take on Clinton publicly.
Obama and Edwards need to find their own surrogates to attack Clinton's ridiculous assertion that her vote for Kyl-Lieberman was an effort to ratchet up diplomacy. They need surrogates to rip the arrogance of Penn's "inevitability" strategy. They need surrogates to whisper to the major rags that there are more fundraising scandals to come from the Clinton campaign.
And I finished with this:
Don't be gentle. You'll end up eating your own teeth.
There are no more vicious political infighters than the Clinton team. And the viciousness, particularly that from surrogates, will ramp up as January 3 nears.
But the Armstrong and Marsh pieces were truly despicable.
I'm sorry if my "Klinton Kamp Krew" was disgusting and upsetting. I hope it got your attention. I'd love to see the racist crap stop. But I suspect it will only get worse.
We'll see if I'm right.