Explaining how Donald J. Trump reached the White House!

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2020

Simply put, not up to the task: Last year, in 2019, we began to ask an award-winning question:

What makes you think that we'll even have a White House election this year?

In truth, we didn't quite understand our own question. We were in receipt of imprecise tips from major  experts who report to us from the future—from the years which follow the global conflagration they refer to as Mister Trump's War.

These despondent scholars were glumly suggesting that no real election would happen this year. With Barton Gellman's new report in The Atlantic, we may be starting to see what these despondent major experts may have meant by their vague remarks.

Might this yea's election results be nullified by lawsuits and state-level machinations involving the electoral college? Might that turn out to be the story behind the award-winning question we started asking last year?

Will this year's election results be nullified? We can't answer that question! But the fact that the question is being asked shows how far down a dangerous road we've traveled since Trump descended that escalator after four year serving as king of the birthers.

The nation's headlong descent began with Trump's razor-thin election win. So how did he ever get to the White House? How in the world did he get there?

We can answer that question! In large part, the answer involves the feckless behavior of our own self-impressed liberal tribe.

We were having a ton of fun in 2016 at this time! Our tribunes kept filing reports about how Candidate Clinton couldn't possibly lose, even though it was always clear that she actually could.

Astonishingly, the Maddow Show explicitly took James Comey's side when he trashed Candidate Clinton in July 2016. Maddow rolled over and died about Comey that year, just as she'd done all through the autumn of 2012 as Susan Rice was burned at the stake and the Benghazi narratives took form. 

Comey's behavior, and the Benghazi narratives, each played a major part in sending Trump to the White House. Maddow (and others) took major dives as each of these storms took shape.

Those events were bad enough, but the problem was much more extensive. In April 2015, the New York Times published its crazy Uranium One report. The 4400-word front-page report was based on Peter Schweizer's crazy Clinton Cash book, and it was full of logical howlers.

It was a totally crazy report. When the New York Times published it, major tribunes of the tribe failed to say boo about it.

On the brighter side, Michelle Goldberg ended up with a spot as a regular New York Times columnist. She and Chris Hayes rolled over and died on the night in 2015 when the crazy report—4400 words long!—appeared in the glorious Times. 

Goldberg's ascension testifies to the personal gain which can result from a dangerous silence—from a refusal to tell the truth, from a refusal to fight. We recall that silence every time we read one of her columns.

Our lunatic president reached the White House by beating Candidate Clinton. This followed 24 years of war against Candidate Clinton—a war our compliant tribal tribunes endlessly failed to identify or oppose.

How clueless is our tribe, even today, about this long-running war? Consider a piece which appeared in last Sunday's New York Times Book Review. It ran under this extremely salient headline:

Why Is Hillary Clinton So Hated?

Why is Clinton so hated? To the extent that you can answer that question, you can explain how the grossly disordered Donald J. Trump ever reached the Oval Office, from which venue he now attempts to terminate Roe v. Wade, The Affordable Care Act and the American experiment. 

As such, that question is very important. Needless to say, the answer was missing in action in the book review which ran beneath that headline in Sunday's New York Times.

The review was written by Noreen Malone, who is almost surely a thoroughly good, decent person. Unfortunately, something else is true about Malone, if we assume that her piece for the Times was written in good faith:

If we assume that she wrote her piece in good faith, Malone knows virtually nothing about the reasons why Candidate Clinton was "so hated." In that sense, she knows nothing about the way our disordered and dangerous commander in chief managed to get where he is.

Who the heck is Noreen Malone? According to the Times' identity line, she's "a writer and editor [and] the host of an upcoming season of Slate’s Slow Burn podcast." 

She graduated from Columbia in the class of 2007. According to her LinkedIn page, she still serves as "editorial director" at New York magazine. 

Malone works for New York magazine and for Slate. This suggests that she, like so many others, would never explain why Clinton was so hated, even if she actually knows.

Liberal careerists have avoided such questions for the past 28 years. This largely explains the massive know-nothing political cluelessness which infests our failing tribe.

Why was Hillary Clinton so hated during Campaign 2016? As Malone addresses that question, she points the finger at "right-wing attacks" and at misogyny, and of course at Clinton herself.

She fails to mention the decades of enmity against Hillary Clinton which emerged from the upper-end mainstream press, very much including the famous newspaper for which she penned this review. 

She fails to mention the fact that the Whitewater pseudo-scandals began on the front page of the New York Times. She fails to mention the subsequent, related War Against Gore, which raged in the Times and the Washington Post and all over NBC cable.

She fails to mention the continuing enmity which drove so much New York Times coverage during Campaign 2016. That includes, but is hardly limited to, the crazy Uranium One report the Times cut-and-pasted live and direct from the crackpot anti-Clinton right. 

For the record, Malone was reviewing a new book by Michael D'Antonio, The Hunting of Hillary: The Forty-Year Campaign to Destroy Hillary Clinton.

Malone makes the book sound like major hackwork. That could be a fair assessment.

That said, why was Hillary Clinton so hated—so hated that a nutcase like Trump actually reached the Oval? Staying within major zones of safety, Malone offers this at one point:

MALONE (9/20/20): D’Antonio does a certain amount of feminist-inflected analysis in his text, particularly in the early biographical chapters...It’s impossible to argue with the substance of this—misogyny is hypermagnetized toward Clinton, not to mention virtually every woman in politics or the public eye—but it’s a comment that’s certainly been made before. And in places, D’Antonio seems a little blinkered from noticing sexism that doesn’t target Clinton herself. He isn’t particularly generous or thoughtful in his assessment of the way the media treated women like Paula Jones or Monica Lewinsky, or Juanita Broaddrick, who made a credible accusation of rape against Bill Clinton that has, in recent years, become the subject of much feminist reconsideration.

Malone inhabits safe harbors. 

It pleases the tribe to be told that misogyny "is hypermagnetized toward Clinton, not to mention virtually every woman in politics." On the down side, it's hard to show that this is true, or even to say what it means.

(Was misogyny "hypermaginitized toward" Senator Klobuchar during the primary campaign? This is the kind of vast overstatement which vastly pleases the tribe.)

That said, Hillary Clinton certainly was assailed by sexist and misogynistic slimings all through her national tenure. This was routinely done at the New York Times, as public editor Clark Hoyt pointed out in a remarkable essay in June 2016.

Hoyt's essay produced exactly zero discussion from major liberal pundits. This has long been exactly the way our tribe's career players have played. 

For decades, Clinton was slimed all over NBC cable, which isn't a part of the right. On NBC cable, she was Evita Peron and Nurse Ratched, but also Cruella da Ville. 

Career liberals knew they mustn't notice or complain. They knew how to play the game.

Today, it pleases the tribe to hear that Clinton was slimed in misogynistic ways, but no career liberal will ever say that the sliming was done by the upper-end mainstream press. Dearest darlings, it just isn't done! Future jobs hang in the balance!

From her sanitized claims about misogyny, Malone moves on to criticize Bill Clinton, who isn't Hillary Clinton. We then reach Malone's most ridiculous passage.

Why was Hillary Clinton so hated? As she continues, Malone offers this:

MALONE (continuing directly): Hillary Clinton’s notorious remark that she “could have stayed at home and baked cookies” offended plenty of women who weren’t on the right, but it is similarly glossed over. The fact of Bill Clinton’s unfaithfulness is mostly used as a launching point for discussing the right’s exploitation of it. D’Antonio can rarely bring himself to admit the couple have legitimate baggage. [Malone's italics]

Hillary Clinton's "notorious remark" was made in March 1992, during her husband's primary campaign. It was a snarky comment. Along with her earlier  remark about Tammy Wynette, it showed the world that Hillary Clinton has a certain tendency toward making politically unwise remarks, as most people do.

That said, does that remark constitute "legitimate baggage" of the type which explains why she was so hated in 2016, and is so hated today? Only in the childish world in which liberal careerists have always remained, in which they agree to disappear the long, puzzling war of the mainstream press against both Clintons and Gore.

Reading Malone, you're told that Clinton was attacked by the right. You're told that she had "legitimate baggage." 

There's a great deal you aren't told. You're also asked to read this:

MALONE: [T]he book is most successful as a work within the terms of its chosen genre: Clinton defense. Just as the Clinton prosecution—in the manner of Edward Klein and Peter  Schweizer—is a recognizable literary category (one to which D’Antonio rightly draws critical attention), so is Clinton defense. (The defense is less given to magical realism; D’Antonio writes factually and journalistically.) For instance, the book’s dramatic title seems to be a riff on Joe Conason and Gene Lyons’s 2000 book, “The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton,” which sought to catalog the “vast right-wing conspiracy” Hillary Clinton so famously blamed for trying to bring her and her husband down.

Did Conason and Lyons seek "to catalog the 'vast right-wing conspiracy' Hillary Clinton so famously blamed?" Yes, they did, but—Shhhh!—they also discussed the assaults on the Clintons by the upper-end mainstream press.

That book followed Lyons' 1995 book, Fools For Scandal: How the Media Invented Whitewater. In the main, the "media" to which Lyons referred were the New York Times and the Washington Post. 

For that reason, Lyons' book—it started as an essay in Harper's—was never discussed by the career liberal press. Malone seems to lump it in with the hackwork of someone like Schweizer, whose Clinton Cash book was cut and pasted for the Times' Uranium One gong-show.

Donald J. Trump squeezed into the White House on the strength of twenty-four years of this journalistic chaos. His opponent wasn't a great politician. But why was she "so hated?"

Liberal careerists have always agreed to disappear a large part of the answer. As they pursued their sacred careers, they greased the path to Gore's amazingly narrow defeat, and then to Hillary Clinton's.

On the whole, we liberals have never complained about this, largely because our tribal sachems haven kept us from hearing about it.  On our own, we  simply haven't been up to the task of seeing how this worked.

We're pleased when our favorites show up in the Times. It's their silence which put them there, and it also put Trump where he is.


102 comments:

  1. Biden is not even campaigning and he is doing better than Clinton and beating Trump in the polls.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Somerby is a dumb, sad lost soul; he dismisses passion and aspiration and encourages a sober approach limited to deductive reasoning, yet he is in a panic over the Supreme Court, and deduction is the least effective and least used method for reaching conclusions in most endeavors.

      Republicans, not liberals, are the ones responsible for Trump, Somerby may find some peace of mind the sooner he comes to term with that reality. Somerby naively thinks persuasion plays some role in electoral politics (he provides zero evidence) when in fact motivating voters is what works. There is nothing motivating about another neoliberal like Clinton offering us crumbs while being a shill for corporations and Wall Street. What is working for Biden is now we ALL know what a disaster Trump is.

      What explains Republicans? Wealth, power, corporations, capitalism, racism, sexism, xenophobia, evangelicals, and most importantly, unresolved trauma from child abuse (which explains why they get so excited running around falsely accusing everyone of being a pedophile).

      Delete
    2. Bad news, Anonymouse 4:40pm.

      The traveling BLM protest snack van has been stolen.

      Delete
    3. I came here looking for a good spell caster and all I got was quasi racist snark. Enjoy the debates. I am certain that the guy who was asked to identify the silhouette of a zoo animal on a mental status test last year and who bragged about doing well on it will surely come through for you. Of course if he loses the election we will know it’s because of the rampant voter fraud that his hand picked commission spent months investigating before disbanding empty handed.

      Delete
    4. “Quasi racist snark”.

      You win then. Your post was completely generic.

      Delete
    5. Republicans derive pleasure from others' suffering, which is why they enjoy inciting and triggering those they feel inferior to. They need therapy from trained professionals. Best not to engage such lost souls, god bless them.

      Delete
    6. In Portland this weekend, Proud Boys held a rally. They predicted attendance of 20,000 but only 500 showed up. They still managed to attack a journalist streaming their rally, perhaps because he was black. If anyone stole the BLM snack van, I'll bet it was one of these guys, since they are the ones who attack the volunteer medics and other non-combatants. Even the nazis rarely bombed red cross hospitals.

      We are holding you responsible for egging these guys on, Cecelia.

      Delete
    7. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve triggered a proud boy.

      Delete
    8. Only a troll brags about triggering someone.

      Delete
    9. And only an Anonymouse is this concrete.

      Delete
    10. Cecelia, deliberately misspelling someone's name is a sign of disrespect. Until you get it right, I think I will call you Cecil.

      Delete
    11. You don’t have to think of it like that.

      Mice are usually cute and endearing.

      Delete
    12. You don't get to decide how other people feel about your mangling their names.

      Mice are what you call exterminators to get rid of.

      Respond to what commenters say and stop mocking people's names. It isn't cute or funny.

      Delete
    13. "triggered" a Proud Boy? What do you mean? They love guys like you.

      Delete

    14. “Respond to what commenters say and stop mocking people's names. It isn't cute or funny.”

      You don’t have a name. What you have is your choice to be nameless, thus giving anyone the option to use any designation.

      You get a nym and I’ll use it, Anonymouse.

      Delete
    15. Cec,
      Hopefully "Anonymouse" won't cry about political correctness, like Right-wingers do, wen you tell them the truth about themselves.

      Delete

    16. LOTTO, lottery,jackpot.
      Hello all my viewers, I am very happy for sharing this great testimonies,The best thing that has ever happened in my life is how I win the lottery euro million mega jackpot. I am a Woman who believe that one day I will win the lottery. finally my dreams came through when I email believelovespelltemple@gmail.com and tell him I need the lottery numbers. I have spend so much money on ticket just to make sure I win. But I never know that winning was so easy until the day I meant the spell caster online which so many people has talked about that he is very great in casting lottery spell, . so I decide to give it a try.I contacted this great Dr Believe and he did a spell and he gave me the winning lottery numbers. But believe me when the draws were out I was among winners. I win 30,000 million Dollar. Dr Believe truly you are the best, all thanks to you forever


















      LOTTO, lottery,jackpot.
      Hello all my viewers, I am very happy for sharing this great testimonies,The best thing that has ever happened in my life is how I win the lottery euro million mega jackpot. I am a Woman who believe that one day I will win the lottery. finally my dreams came through when I email believelovespelltemple@gmail.com and tell him I need the lottery numbers. I have spend so much money on ticket just to make sure I win. But I never know that winning was so easy until the day I meant the spell caster online which so many people has talked about that he is very great in casting lottery spell, . so I decide to give it a try.I contacted this great Dr Believe and he did a spell and he gave me the winning lottery numbers. But believe me when the draws were out I was among winners. I win 30,000 million Dollar. Dr Believe truly you are the best, all thanks to you forever

      Delete
  2. Boohoo, dear Bob, we're all so distraught about the Psycho-Witch not being glamorized by your zombie media passionately enough.

    As for Demigod Comey, you're certainly wrong about his role in 2016 Psycho-Witch's affairs.

    He was always the loyal minion. He had to announce reopening the case in order to seize and sanitize a certain laptop from the NYPD. The laptop of one Anthony Weiner, once a rising star of your liberal cult, and, incidentally, a convicted pedophile. Tsk. Oh well, quelle surprise.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They felt they needed to erase the pictures of Donald Trump being double-teamed by Bill Barr and Jeffrey Epstein from the laptop, but they were mistaken. Folks who think TV acting is real life, don't care that Trump is Bill Barr's (not so secret) lover, anymore than they care that he ran a fraudulent university.

      Delete
    2. Trump voters don't care about Trump being Bill Barr's lover because, like Trump running a scam university, it doesn't keep Trump from being a bigot.

      Delete
    3. HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA
      TRUMP IS A BROKE ASS LOSER LIAR!!!!

      Delete
  3. As a media critic blogger, you should know it's because the corporate-owned media is Right-wing.
    "From hiring the "Clinton Cash" folks, to pretending they cared that Republicans were pretending to care about Hillary's email protocols, to their silence about money in politics (because huge ad buys helps their bottom line), etc., it's because they are the propaganda arm of global corporations.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The main problem with Trump is his incompetence or willful negligence or whatever you want to call it has left scores of thousands of innocent Americans dead.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Trump has ebullient tastes.

      Delete
    2. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

      Delete
    3. Trump loves women and women love him Trump because of the ebullience of his tastes.

      Delete
    4. His wife doesn't even love him, except in a monetary sense.

      Delete
    5. Trump has repellent tastes.

      Delete
  5. Nobody is saying that there won't be an election except Trumpies.

    Nobody is still talking about Hillary except Trumpies.

    Trying to excuse his blighted thinking by attributing it to future whoevers living in caves doesn't excuse Somerby's idiocies.

    ALL Democrats, liberals, progressives, and quite a few Republican exiles are spending all of their moments trying to get Biden elected, but Somerby is writing filth. He is as evil as whoever he serves.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Somerby spends an extraordinary amount of time telling us why Hillary was hated and about the campaign against her, but he spends no time telling us why she lost the election in 2016. Nothing about Trump's collusion with Russia, the hacking and the coordination with Wikileaks via Assange and Roger Stone, nothing about the Russian disinformation campaign aimed at suppressing African American and progressive voters (aka Bernie supporters), the subversion of Jill Stein and the Green Party, the funneling of Russian money to campaigns (incuding Bernie's) via the NRA, and nothing about Comey and his statement right before the polls opened that hurt Clinton's reputation with voters by lending credence to all those slurs. Somerby has never acknowledged why Clinton lost the election, leaving us only with the thought that she was a very hated woman.

    Somerby writes about Clinton's problems with such loving care that you'd almost think he enjoys telling us about how hated she was, even though it was ostensibly the media's fault for going along with those right-wing haters. But Somerby himself never has a kind word for Hillary, not even when it was crucial that she be elected president. As a consequence, even though others are blamed today, we are left with the impression that a better person, someone like Bernie or Biden, might have overcome the sliming and won anyway.

    Somerby disappears most of the reasons why Trump won, including the reasons why Republicans all fell in line behind him despite his corruption, the reasons why they refuse to challenge him today, when he disregards every tradition and law affecting his office and threatens to throw out the election results. Disappeared. Vanished. Like dust on the wind.

    Somerby doesn't care about discussing Trump and how he won and how he continues in office despite breaking every rule. That's because Somerby only wants to rehash Hillary Clinton's manifest flaws, her snarkiness and her legitimate baggage, as though that negated every qualification and bit of experience she brought to her senate and state department career. Because, gosh darn it, Somerby doesn't like Hillary very much, and it shows.

    ReplyDelete
  7. "On the whole, we liberals have never complained about this"

    Of course we have complained, over and over and over.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymouse 8:11pm, No, Somerby consistently complains about the treatment of HRC by the media.

      Look up at the post immediately ahead of yours.

      Somerby is the only thing Anonymices complain about “over and over and over”.

      Delete
    2. Somerby does complain about media treatment of HRC, usually as a lead in to complaining about media treatment of Al Gore. He also damns Clinton with faint praise and calls her names, such as a failed candidate or a poor campaigner. He has never given her wholehearted support, even when she was all that stood between the nation and Trump, much as he has been failing to support Biden in this runup to our election.

      Somerby would be entitled to all of his opinions if he did not STILL label himself as liberal, which he manifestly is not. That is why I complain -- cannot speak for the other Anonymous commenters (who you demean by lumping them all together, as if we were all saying the same things).

      Delete
    3. No he’s only advocated for the kind of support that would have helped to win more states.

      Just as he’s advocated for the sort of tailor-made criticism of an eccentric like Trump that (as expanded into a cultural meme) would cut him off at the knees.

      Learn to see the forest and the knees.

      Delete
    4. You aren't making any sense. First, who are you talking about? Second, what are you talking about?

      Delete
    5. That Somerby has faulted liberal media members for not advocating for Clinton in a way that would be most helpful to her and has criticized nonaligned journalists for hyping what he thinks were dubious scandals concerning her in order to garner ratings.

      That’s not the rah-rah advocacy that Anonymouse 11:40am thinks is the requirement of true liberals, it’s simply the sort of political strategy that might have put her in office.

      Delete
    6. No, Somerby didn't scold the media for not advocating for Clinton. He scolded them for reprinting far-right hit pieces against her. He himself never advocated for Clinton and he didn't tell the press they ought to either. He stuck to "factual" criticisms, nitpicks about who owned which uranium when and whether or not liberals were treating Comey like a God.

      Somerby is no liberal. He is likely not even a Democrat. He may be a Bernie supporter who thinks that blowing up the party and starting over will get us to a populist revolution. But he has never supported Hillary or recommended a strategy for putting her into office. He wanted Bernie to win the primaries and he spent the time before the general election telling us that Trump could win.

      He also blamed feminists for not criticizing Chris Matthews sexism against Hillary (even though they did complain about it) and he blamed Hillary for running a bad campaign (disputing that Trump stalked her during the debate, for example). He blamed Hillary for her emails (even though she did what everyone else did at that time, and now apparently). He pretty much conveyed the opinion that she deserved what she got from Comey. He never told anyone to vote for her, even when she was the last hope for stopping Trump.

      Delete
    7. Actually, exhorting the media not to lie about Clinton or to publicize opposition pieces against her, is advocating for the lady.

      Adjuring feminists to defend HRC from sexists attacks qualifies as advocacy too.

      Somerby critiqued Clinton’s handling of the fallout from what he considers to have been a tempest in a teapot email scandal, but he didn't give credit to the scandal by blaming her.

      Somerby spent tons of time telling liberals here not to trust “Comey the God” and Comey proved him right.

      Delete
    8. "what he considers to have been a tempest in a teapot email scandal"

      Yeah, that's another thing. Pretending that public official using, against all norms and rules, private email system to avoid the possibility of public oversight, -- pretending that it's a non-scandal, for a humyn being it would take some serious mental gymnastics. But liberal zombies do it without missing a beat.

      Delete
    9. Bill Barr is that you?

      Delete
  8. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  9. You have to be asleep not to know that the US corporate-owned media is a vicious and despicable source of lies on important issues, and especially on US war crimes. Unfortunately, most Americans are asleep to that vital fact as well as most others. I broadly support Somerby’s attacks on the corporate-owned mass media. However, I certainly don’t ever expect that they will decide to join the side of truth since corporations depend on lies for their very existence.

    ReplyDelete
  10. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Also, it's very naive to expect that candidates and leaders of political parties will not be viciously attacked by a large segment of opposition voters. FDR, the Kennedy's, Nixon, Reagan are all politicians that we think of as being petty popular during most of their careers, but you can find evidence of vicious attacks on all of them.

    ReplyDelete
  12. It’s particularly naive to think that Trump supporters won’t put out doctored memes and suggest his opponent is a pedophile, in ways that are novel to modern media and did not exist years ago. Because it is particularly naive to think that a vocal segment of Trump supporters are anything but mendacious scum, this of course including his son, who posts such garbage.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The car full of evil clown operatives has already careened into Twitter and started on the Barrett family.

      The balloon they seem to be floating is that Barrett’s children of Haitian descent are “quasi” servants to the rest of the children and that Barrrett is an absent mother.

      A bloody circus of Pennywises will be calling out from the gutter.

      Delete
    2. Of course she is an absent mother. She works. But these are criticisms that will appeal to the right, not to Democrats, most of whom are or have working mothers and wives. I assume that Barrett has had other servants to help raise those 7 kids and doesn't need to turn the kids themselves into servants.

      Delete
    3. You’d be wrong. Speculation on Barrett’s ability to care for children and be on SCOTUS is quite the topic among liberals on twitter. In a way that was not the case with Scalia’s nine kids.

      Think a little bit and perhaps it will dawn on you as to what their reasoning is on this.

      Look for the argument on a blogboard near you. Specifically, this one. As soon as you get the memo.

      Delete
    4. I would imagine they are criticizing her hypocrisy not her ability to pay for someone to care for her kids.

      Delete
    5. Did that finally come from your head or your inbox?

      Delete
    6. I don't do twitter. You could have told everyone what was trending there, instead of being coy about it. I'm not going to check.

      Delete
    7. I stated exactly what was trending on Twitter from my first post.

      "The balloon they seem to be floating is that Barrett’s children of Haitian descent are “quasi” servants to the rest of the children and that Barrrett is an absent mother."

      Delete
    8. Actually, those who have grown up in large families know that the older kids generally take care of the younger ones and all kids are expected to help around the house.

      Delete
    9. Barrett is an absent thinker.

      Delete
  13. What does Somerby fail to quote from Malone’s review? This:

    “In the almost four years since Donald Trump won the presidency, those of us who weren’t in favor of that particular outcome can sometimes appear to have sorted into two equally vocal camps. The first group thinks that Hillary Clinton deserves some significant portion of blame for the election result because of the campaign she ran, or indeed for running at all, given the decades-old, baked-in political weaknesses she somehow persuaded the Democratic Party to ignore. The second group sees that kind of thinking as antifeminist and anti-establishment, and attributes the Clinton loss almost entirely to external forces: misogyny, conservative dark money, media manipulation, conspiracy theorists — the same forces that have unfairly dogged her throughout her years in public life.”

    Given that Somerby has called Hillary a weak candidate, which group is he in?

    Malone also says this:
    “This book goes over a lot of familiar biographical terrain but is at its most interesting when it relates the details of the complicated, twisty scandals that have been hyped up and then boiled down into catchphrases: Whitewater, Benghazi, the email server. Still, anything that happened in Clinton’s career between the moments when she was most fervidly pursued by the right is skirted over quickly, unsatisfyingly.

    ReplyDelete
  14. What does Somerby fail to quote from Malone’s review? This:

    “In the almost four years since Donald Trump won the presidency, those of us who weren’t in favor of that particular outcome can sometimes appear to have sorted into two equally vocal camps. The first group thinks that Hillary Clinton deserves some significant portion of blame for the election result because of the campaign she ran, or indeed for running at all, given the decades-old, baked-in political weaknesses she somehow persuaded the Democratic Party to ignore. The second group sees that kind of thinking as antifeminist and anti-establishment, and attributes the Clinton loss almost entirely to external forces: misogyny, conservative dark money, media manipulation, conspiracy theorists — the same forces that have unfairly dogged her throughout her years in public life.”

    Given that Somerby has called Hillary a weak candidate, which group is he in?

    Malone also says this:
    “This book goes over a lot of familiar biographical terrain but is at its most interesting when it relates the details of the complicated, twisty scandals that have been hyped up and then boiled down into catchphrases: Whitewater, Benghazi, the email server. Still, anything that happened in Clinton’s career between the moments when she was most fervidly pursued by the right is skirted over quickly, unsatisfyingly.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Some of us felt that the Republicans ought not to be allowed to pick our candidates for us.

      Some of us felt that if you allow Clinton to be torn down by lies and made up scandals lacking in substance, then this tactic can be used against anyone the Democrats might nominate. Look at how John Kerry was swiftboated and Al Gore was tarred as a fatuous liar! Hillary wasn't the only one targeted yet she is the only one who is considered to have contributed to her own problems in some nebulous way.

      When they talk about Clinton's competence, they are referring to her many accomplishments. Would anyone else's career be boiled down into such a word?

      With the entry of Russia into American politics, welcomed by Republicans, this will be standard treatment for all Democratic candidates. There will be no one clean enough to withstand these cooked up attacks. The first step to dealing with this new reality is to recognize that our candidates have not brought this on themselves, including Hillary.

      Delete
  15. I’d surmise that Somerby thinks that Clinton had some liabilities that made it crucial for liberal opinionizers and journos to not have grabbed at scandals that Somerby argues were obviously bogus or unsubstantiated.

    That’s not a stance that contradicts his argument.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Your surmise and a dollar will get me a dollar.

      Delete
    2. Step slowly away from the keyboard, never mind those men with the nets.

      So Somerby agrees with his own argument. Interesting! Frankly, his argument is shit, and offered with no evidence.

      Trump University may offer an ESL class, enroll before the Great Urine Flood wipes us out from laughing so hard at your ridiculous non sequiturs.

      Clinton's main liabilities were that she was a neoliberal shill for corporations and Wall Street, combined with a fairly hawkish foreign policy outlook. Dems want people's needs met, only Republicans care about Clinton's so called scandals and they were never going to vote for her anyway.

      Delete
    3. “Given that Somerby has called Hillary a weak candidate, which group is he in?”

      You asked.

      Delete
    4. "Clinton's main liabilities were that she was a neoliberal shill for corporations and Wall Street, combined with a fairly hawkish foreign policy outlook. Dems want people's needs met, only Republicans care about Clinton's so called scandals and they were never going to vote for her anyway."

      Thank you for so succinctly summarizing Bernie's position. His failure to support Clinton was noted among the reasons for Clinton's loss. The Clinton Foundation has done more to address people's needs worldwide than all of Bernie's armwaving. Despite his talk, Bernie has nothing to show for his years in the Senate. He impressed a lot of kids who enjoyed the ratfucking during the primary and then wouldn't support the nominee. That's your revolution and it helped put Trump into office.

      Meanwhile Cecelia cannot recognize a rhetorical question when it bites her on the ass.

      Delete
    5. “Meanwhile Cecelia cannot recognize a rhetorical question when it bites her on the ass.”

      Even rhetorical questions engender responses.

      Delete
    6. If one's party is led by a neoliberal shill for corporations and Wall Street, one should expect a fair amount of ratfucking from all sides and intense competition from populists, faux or otherwise.

      If one's party is led by a neoliberal shill for corporations and Wall Street, one finds oneself in a difficult position, electorally speaking. Especially at this particular point in history.

      Delete
    7. Cecelia, for the record, I agree with Somerby about the media’s irresponsibility in their coverage of Hillary.

      I agree that the media’s behavior is part of the problem. But Somerby says “the answer was missing in action” and then says “Liberal careerists have always agreed to disappear a large part of the answer.” “Journalistic chaos” can’t be THE answer, and yet merely a part of the answer.

      Somerby’s analysis almost never involves noting the anti-Clinton left, who stayed home or voted third party in states where that mattered. Perhaps he would say that it was the media that caused them to dislike Hillary and the Democratic Party, but I contend that they had genuine non-media-driven ideological differences. Given Somerby’s incessant bashing of liberals, his pinning the blame solely on the media starts to look like an excuse for his own disdain for Hillary.

      To her credit Malone, in her review, notes this group.

      Whatever Trump’s flaws and odiousness, the GOP coalesced around him.

      Delete
    8. I think you make some good points, but I don’t see how blaming the media could be a cover for Somerby’s own antipathy to Clinton.

      I don’t see how not blaming certain liberals for Clinton’s loss, makes Somerby’s feelings about Clinton suspect, since he has readily pointed the finger at libs when he thinks they’re amiss.

      I think that’s self-referential thinking. Somerby may not see Bernie folks as having had that sort of effect upon the election results.

      Delete
    9. Clinton-schminton. Look at your liberal cult, dear mh. What it is, is what's important. Who your money-bag sponsors hire to bullshit on TV, all those ludicrous characters - Clinton, Pelosi, Schiff, Schumer, Nadler, Biden - that's merely a consequence of what it is.

      Delete
    10. Obama received more money from Wall Street than Hillary ever did.

      There was never any evidence that Hillary was a shill for any corporation (other than representing the constitutents affected by 9/11 when she was senator). This was a Bernie meme and it was debunked but no one seems to listen to debunking, certainly not those supporting her opponent in the primaries. Hillary got the same speaking fee as ALL male politicians get, and she didn't promise anything special in any speech she made to any corporation.

      But no one ever seemed to mind it that Bernie was being funded by the NRA. Bernie had more FEC violations than anyone except Trump and said "so what?" when asked about the possibility that too many of his small donations were coming from Russian oligarchs. But Hillary is the shill?

      Delete
    11. How many Russian oligarchs are there? So many that each could give a "small donation" and meaningfully impact the election?

      Delete
    12. Hillary has no one to blame but herself. All this scapegoating is sad.

      Delete
    13. You dembots need to decide if, according to your Holy Liberal Scripture, the Russian Federation is an oligarchy or it's ruled single-handedly by The Almighty Dark Lord Putin.

      Meh. Never mind, carry on; doublethink is your normal condition anyway.

      Delete
    14. They also frequently use the language of the Bolsheviks when implying someone is a Putin stooge.

      Delete
    15. The good news is Trump really is a multi-billionaire.







      Oh wait, actually, he's not and never was.


      Actually he has like a million dollars in the bank.





      Maybe Obama and Clinton can teach him how leverage the power of the office to make cash so Trump doesn't have to pathetically lie about how much money he never had.

      Delete
    16. "And within the next four years, more than $300 million in loans — obligations for which Trump is personally responsible — will come due."

      Gawd - no wonder he lied to the public about the severity of the coronavirus which left 10's of thousands of Americans dead. He's knows winning could stave off bankruptcy court for 4 more years.

      "4 MORE YEARS!!!!"

      Delete
    17. He would rather kill 10's of thousands of Americans than be caught in his big lie about his success and money.

      But now we got both. :(

      Delete
    18. Moa: #TrumpIsBroke trending. Total propaganda. He lied about being a billionaire and could be bankrupt again soon. (He's no stranger to bankruptcy as we all know.) But "broke" is a little harsh. Soros did it probably right? It's Sorosian gibble gabble woldnt ya say?

      Delete
    19. Soros made Trump lie about being a billionaire.

      ALL of Trump's money came from The Apprentice.

      Delete
    20. The best news for Trump is that he won't have any problems with the IRS in the future.

      Delete
    21. "How many Russian oligarchs are there? So many that each could give a "small donation" and meaningfully impact the election?"

      Don't be silly. But many small donations without proper reporting and accounting are a perfect way to infuse money into a campaign from an illegal source.

      Delete
    22. You don't have any source to back up your claim.

      Delete
    23. How is the fact that Trump has less wealth than a High School Junior with an after-school job at MacDonald's "news"?

      Delete
  16. From Rectification of Names blog (Yastreblansky)

    "Right now
    in a number of states
    the laws allow
    a baby to be born
    from his or her mother's womb,
    in the ninth month.
    It is wrong,
    it has to change."

    Donald J. Trump said this, verbatim.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Born, torn - dembots are so easily excited. Just like retards.

      Delete
    2. Now they are acting like Trump being a total loser businessman, who needs to borrow cash from a guy who parks cars for a living is 'news".

      Delete
    3. It’s classic. Can you get me his accountant’s number?

      Delete
    4. Sorry, Dixie. He's not taking calls right now.

      Donald Trump’s tax returns show that he paid his daughter Ivanka as a consultant, even though she is a member of the company which is against IRS rules.

      Ms. Trump reported receiving payments from a consulting company she co-owned, totaling $747,622, that exactly matched consulting fees claimed as tax deductions by the Trump Organization for hotel projects in Vancouver and Hawaii.

      How droll, eh Dixie?

      Delete
    5. Whoa, Hillary, you uncovered the crime of the century! Allegedly.

      Call a social worker immediately, my dear.

      Delete
    6. Good morning Mr. Gay Mao! How are you? Do you feel like a billion dollars today there in your country?

      Delete
    7. 4 MORE YEARS!!!!

      Mr. Gay - did you really believe Trump's lies about his success? Your stupid cult is easily fooled!!

      Anyway, Mr. Gay, it's an American thing.

      You wouldn't understand.

      Delete
    8. Don't commit suicide Mr. Gay! You will survive Trump's forthcoming loss.

      Delete
    9. Just like any conman, Trump was looking for his next mark to keep his con going. Unfortunately, US voters were his target & it got him elected. (US voters and foreign agitators like Mr. Gay (Mao).)

      Have a nice day Mao!!

      Delete
    10. Mao - It's true Democrats suck but Trump is a TOTAL FUCKING LYING LOSER. Maybe that doesn't come through there in Vilnius but whatever!!! Faggot Mao!!!!!!!!!!

      Delete
    11. There is a Presidential election coming up, why is the NY Times wasting front-page space on a story (Trump is broke) everyone has known about since the 1980s?

      Delete
    12. why is the NY Times wasting front-page space on a story (Trump is broke) everyone has known about since the 1980s?

      David in Cal doesn't know yet.

      Delete
    13. Haha. We get the joke, it's hilarious!!

      Delete
  17. Get Your Husband Back and keep him permanently” Dr.unity is a true and real love spell caster.
    I just got my husband back through the help of Dr Unity love spell Experts.
    My name is Emily Sarah am from Tx,USA. My husband left me for another woman, This was just 3 years of our marriage. The most painful thing is that I was pregnant with our second baby. I wanted him back. I did everything within my reach to bring him back but all was in vain, I wanted him back so badly because of the love I had for him, I begged him with everything, I made promises but he refused. I explained my problem to my friend and she suggested that I should rather contact a spell caster that could help me cast a spell to bring him back , I had no choice than to try it. I messaged the spell caster called dr unity, and he assured me there was no problem and that everything will be okay before 11 hours. He cast the spell and surprisingly 11 hours later my husband called me. I was so surprised, I answered the call and all he said was that he was so sorry for everything that had happened He wanted me to return to him. He also said he loved me so much. I was so happy and went to him that was how we started living together happily again.thanks to dr unity . if you are here and your Lover is turning you down, or your husband moved to another woman, do not cry anymore, contact Dr.Unity for help now..Here his contact,
    WhatsApp him: +2348055361568
    Email him at: Unityspelltemple@gmail.com
    His website:https://unityspells.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  18. I just want the whole world to know about this spell caster I met
    two weeks ago, wisdomspiritualtemple@gmail.com I cannot say everything he has done for me my wife
    left me 3 years ago left with my kids I was going through online
    when I meant this wonderful man's testimony online I decided to
    give it a try and my wife is back to me now and we ar1e happily
    married again cause is too much to put in writing all I can say is
    thank you very much am very happy .and does alot of spell
    including Love Spell
    Death Spell
    Money Spell
    Power Spell
    Success Spell
    Sickness Spell
    Pregnancy Spell
    Marriage Spell
    Job Spell
    Protection Spell
    Lottery Spell
    Court Case Spell
    Luck Spell etc. In case you need his help contact him on this email
    address wisdomspiritualtemple@gmail.com he is a good man
    thanks.whatsapp number +234813 648 2342

    ReplyDelete
  19. Did the idea that Trump had a nickel of wealth come from QAnon?
    Because you'd have to be clueless, mouth-breathing moron (i.e Right-winger) to believe something so stupid.

    ReplyDelete
  20. I am so happy to be writing this article in here, i am here to explore blogs forum about the wonderful and most safe cure for HERPES SIMPLEX VIRUS . I was positive to the deadly Virus called HERPES and i lost hope completely because i was rejected even by my closest friends. i searched online to know and inquire about cure for HERPES and i saw testimony about Dr Okiti online on how he cured so many persons from Herpes Disease so i decided to contact the great herbalist because i know that nature has the power to heal everything. i contacted him to know how he can help me and he told me never to worry that he will help me with the natural herbs from God! after 2 days of contacting him, he told me that the cure is ready and he sent it to me via UPS DELIVERY SERVICES and it got to me after 4 days! i used the medicine as he instructed me (MORNING and EVENING) and i was cured! it's really like a dream but i'm so happy! that's the reason i decided to also add more comments about him so that more people can be saved just like me! and if you need his help, contact him via email drokitiherbalhome100@gmail.com or WhatsApp +234 705 067 0365

    ReplyDelete
  21. I want to thank Dr Emu a very powerful spell caster who help me to bring my husband back to me, few month ago i have a serious problem with my husband, to the extend that he left the house, and he started dating another woman and he stayed with the woman, i tried all i can to bring him back, but all my effort was useless until the day my friend came to my house and i told her every thing that had happened between me and my husband, then she told me of a powerful spell caster who help her when she was in the same problem I then contact Dr Emu and told him every thing and he told me not to worry my self again that my husband will come back to me after he has cast a spell on him, i thought it was a joke, after he had finish casting the spell, he told me that he had just finish casting the spell, to my greatest surprise within 48 hours, my husband really came back begging me to forgive him, if you need his help you can contact him with via email: Emutemple@gmail.com or add him up on his whatsapp +2347012841542 is willing to help any body that need his help.

    ReplyDelete
  22. I want to testify on how I got cured from Herpes. I have been living with this disease for the past 11 months, i have done all i can to cure this disease but all my efforts proved abortive until i met an old friend of mine who told me about a herbal doctor called Dr Oniha, she told me that Dr Oniha have cure for all kinds of diseases, though i never believed in it because my believe was that there is no cure for Herpes disease. But I decided to give it a try when I contacted Dr Oniha, he told me he has a cure for herpes that he cured with herbal medicine. I order for the herbal medicine, which Dr Oniha sent to me through a courier service which i make use of and now behold the herpes is gone and i now have my life back,if you are out there living with this disease i will like you to also contact Dr Oniha and get this disease cured out of your body. I am a living testimony of Dr Oniha herbal cure. Thanks once again Dr Oniha for you are God sent. contact Dr oniha through his contact information.
    Email:drjohnsonlovespellcaster997@gmail.com
    Whatsapp number: +2347057052206

    ReplyDelete

  23. LOTTO, lottery,jackpot.
    Hello all my viewers, I am very happy for sharing this great testimonies,The best thing that has ever happened in my life is how I win the lottery euro million mega jackpot. I am a Woman who believe that one day I will win the lottery. finally my dreams came through when I email believelovespelltemple@gmail.com and tell him I need the lottery numbers. I have spend so much money on ticket just to make sure I win. But I never know that winning was so easy until the day I meant the spell caster online which so many people has talked about that he is very great in casting lottery spell, . so I decide to give it a try.I contacted this great Dr Believe and he did a spell and he gave me the winning lottery numbers. But believe me when the draws were out I was among winners. I win 30,000 million Dollar. Dr Believe truly you are the best, all thanks to you forever

    ReplyDelete