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Sunday, September 07, 2008

Hillary Clinton Won't be 'Attack Dog' Against Sarah Palin

When word came out that Barack Obama planned to "dispatch" Hillary Clinton and other prominent women Democrats to counter the energy Sarah Palin injected into the presidential race, Clinton insiders said she would not be anyone's attack dog.
Clinton insiders vowed, via The Politico, that Hillary Clinton would not be anybody's attack dog when it was first announced by The New York Times that Hillary Clinton and other prominent Democratic women politicians would be dispatched and deployed to counter the energy which Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has injected into the race.

Diehard Hillary Clinton supporters against Barack Obama immediately reacted asking Hillary to not attack Palin, to not allow herself to be used in that way.

One plea came from Riverdaughter, who made a few points, the first being, "Let me get this straight, Sarah-cuda beats you up and steals your lunch money and instead of standing up for yourself, you write a little note about how she hurt your feelings as a community organizer and you send out another girl to fight your battle. Er, OK. Will you also be sending her out to do business with the Russians, the North Koreans, the health insurance biggies? How about if she does all the debates for you too? Because if you need Hillary to do all the fighting on your sorry ass behalf, then maybe she should be nominee."

Later they made their plea with to Hillary saying, "If Hillary is out there reading, don’t do it for him. Or if you must, stick to the Conflucian rules: No character assassination and no rumormongering without evidence. Actually, we can trust you to behave honorably but it’s the creeps you are promoting who won’t. So, ask yourself, where do you draw the line?

For us, this is it."


Others, such as PUMA PAC, headlined that very day with "Hey, Precious! Fight Your Own Damn Battles. Seal Your Own Damn Deal."

These are representative of what was being said when the Times ran their article.

According to The Politico piece, Clinton would continue to yoke McCain and Palin to Bush's pocketbook issues and the insider said the Obama campaign never asked Clinton to directly attack Palin.

Today's report from the LA Times' Top of the Ticket, that Clinton remained true to her word and even when given ample opportunity, refused to take "easy swings" at Sarah Palin, not once.

"No Way. No how. No McCain." This time she added, "No Palin."


The Ticket reports that while Clinton did make the comparison between McCain and Bush, she avoided saying anything harsh against McCain himself, whom she has a friendship with since he welcomed her so warmly into the Senate in 2001.

What do you think? Gender solidarity? Friendship for McCain despite their disagreements? A sign of waning enthusiasm for her own party's ticket? So much joy over the New York Giants defeat of the Washington Redskins in the NFL opener Thursday night?


Some wonder if Clinton is simply not willing to alienate her diehard supporters that she will count on if she decides to take a run at the presidency in 2012.

Whatever the reason, the Clinton insider appears to have been correct, Clinton will not run interference as anybody's attack dog against Palin.

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