The Democratic race got even hotter this week when Hillary Clinton decide to pronounce Tulsi Gabbard a “Russian asset.”
As CNN reported, Clinton alleged that the Russians, using “sites and bots”, are grooming a female Democratic candidate, which must be Gabbard, for a third-party run. Gabbard, as is her wont, struck back:
Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a …
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) October 18, 2019
… powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose.
It’s now clear that this primary is between you and me. Don’t cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly.
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) October 18, 2019
And lo and behold, some sense from Marianne Williamson:
The Democratic establishment has got to stop smearing women it finds inconvenient! The character assassination of women who don’t toe the party line will backfire. Stay strong @TulsiGabbard . You deserve respect and you have mine.
— Marianne Williamson (@marwilliamson) October 19, 2019
Now there’s no doubt who Clinton was referring to. As CNN reported:
Responding to Gabbard’s attacks, Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill said, “Divisive language filled with vitriol and conspiracy theories? Can’t imagine a better proof point than this.”
Asked earlier if the former secretary of state was referring to Gabbard in her comment, Merrill told CNN, “If the nesting doll fits.”“This is not some outlandish claim. This is reality,” Merrill said. “If the Russian propaganda machine, both their state media and their bot and troll operations, is backing a candidate aligned with their interests, that is just a reality, it is not speculation.”
Below is a video of Van Jones, liberal commenter for CNN, arguing that Hillary Clinton is playing a “very dangerous game” by accusing Gabbard (and Jill Stein) of being “Russian assets.” Jones argues, and I agree, that this is an unevidenced smear of Gabbard
Clinton, who is acting for all the world like Donald Trump, should either put up or shut up. Where’s her evidence that Gabbard is an “asset”? If Clinton has none, then she should apologize. But it’ll be a cold day in July when that happens.
Truly, I am baffled why Clinton’s mouthing off right now; I voted for her, and would again, but it’s stuff like this that made me hold my nose when I voted.
“…I voted for her, and would again…”
And that, my dear host, is exactly why Trump can, and very well might, win again.
Sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Were Clinton to run against Trump again, I would vote for Clinton again.
So please enlighten me about why my unwillingness to vote for Trump against Clinton will somehow help Trump win in 2020. I’m all ears.
And knock off the patronizing “my dear host” business.
A strongman argument would that voting lesser evils has led to a situation where a Trump emerged in the first place. In 2016, the lesser evil was not attractive enough overall to bring out enough voters to defeat the greater evil.
“…I voted for her, and would again…”
“And that… is exactly why Trump can, and very well might, win again.”
I don’t know what you’re reading, but to me those are the words of someone who votes for the best candidate still in the race with a shot at winning even a single electoral vote, even If though his preferred candidate didn’t make it to the end. That is, someone who does want to keep the likes of Trump out of the White House.
I must say I am baffled by HRC’s comments on this, unless she’s just lost it. It’s not like Gabbard’s numbers make her a likely spoiler. Perhaps there are some Gabbard comments about HRC that we’re missing? I did ask a lawyer friend, who considered this slanderous, even for a public figure.
Clinton still resents Gabbard for stepping down as the vice chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to endorse Bernie Sanders in 2016. A lot of establishment Democrats thought Gabbard would be a bright young face of the party, and they felt that she bit the hand that fed her, while Gabbard complained that Debbie Wasserman Schultz, then the chair of the DNC was violating her neutrality and using the organization to promote Clinton in the primaries. It looks like Clinton is trying to settle an old score.
That makes sense to me. There has always been a discernible rift between the DNC and the Bernie Bros, which was never dealt publicly with. But still…
Sorry, didn’t mean to be snarky. For every plug-my-nose and vote for Hilary voter, there is a corresponding plug-my-nose and vote for Trump voter.
I don’t know how to achieve it, but voters deserve better candidates on both sides of the aisle.
It ain’t much better in Canada. We’ll find out more on Tuesday morning.
You haven’t yet explained why my statement is going to help Trump win next year’s election.
Plug-my-nose and vote is how trump won the first time. The Republicans are way better at it than the dems. To be fair, they have much more experience at it.
The dems seem to be more of a stay-home-not-vote type of party. (I know Hillary won the popular vote, just not the votes where it mattered.) Get the candidates to stop attacking each other, put up a slightly left of center nominee, and win at the ballot box.
That takes an active and engaged party membership. More than just plug-my-nose and vote.
Sorry, but now you’re saying that I’m facilitating Trump’s victory not because I held my nose and voted for Clinton, but because I wasn’t “active and engaged enough” in the election? Unfortunately, that’s not what you originally argued and, in fact, it’s offensive. You have no idea how “active and engaged” I was.
He’s saying that Democrats’ willingness to accept bad nominees win led to a candidate too many people couldn’t hold their nose and vote for in 2016. The Republicans, being better at doing this than Dems, voted Trump into office because the Dems put forward a bad candidate assuming everyone would vote for her because of her party affiliation.
I might not agree with the argument, but that (I believe) is it. If we continue to accept bad nominees who we say we’ll vote for anyway, we might end up with nominees that not enough other people can hold their nose and vote for. If we stand up and say no to such candidates, perhaps our future candidates will be better.
You are not making much sense. It is exactly people who plug their nose and vote for the candidate with the best chance of winning that will beat the likes of Trump.
It is because not enough voters did that, that Trump got in.
I am not American but I wanted Hillary to win, despite her shortcomings. And would again.
Politics is a dirty game but you need pragmatics if you want your party in power.
I think you’re giving Republicans too much credit. They didn’t hold their noses when voting for Trump. Polls show they really like his behavior.
It is almost like Clinton has been vaccinated by the same conspiracy bug that infects Trump. Without better evidence she is really up the wrong tree. And doing this just based on the on-line crap from Russians or whoever?? Here is the thing…Russia may be getting just what they were after here and Clinton took the bait. She attacks another democrat and now we are off to the races. Again Clinton is getting beat by the internet.
Yeah and now the argument can be made that this Russia stuff is all a conspiracy and we can’t trust anyone.
Yes, and I am the first person who would say this candidate is a strange person. She seems more like someone from the libertarian party. Certainly nothing about her says democrat. But for Clinton to jump on this is really crazy. I suspect the Russians are just laughing as they have for the past four years. People have let the internet platforms turn them into really stupid people.
We are almost there. In various Web discussions, opponents disliking my opinions have called me a Russian troll. Once the label can be put on anyone you disagree with, it becomes meaningless.
I actually agree with Clinton. It’s very clear Gabbard is a Russian asset, consciously or not. Gabbard is popular with extremists on both left and right and especially on social media. That is not a coincidence: thousands of Russian bots pump her up on there relentlessly. She has also already accused the whole DNC of being ‘rigged’ which is a ludicrous assertion. A good article is here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/us/politics/tulsi-gabbard.html
That is just more conspiracy BS unless you have something that ties her to the Russians. You know, something like evidence. She has said that she is not going to run as a third party candidate so what do you have? It is just nonsense.
Alex Rowell, Tim Mak and Michael D. Weiss traced Gabbard’s trip to Assad’s Syria escorted by the fascist Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party here: http://www.thedailybeast.com/tulsi-gabbards-fascist-escorts-to-syria
The anti-Semitic Greater Syria conspiracists, the SSNP, are also the group which tried to kidnap Hitchens. Gabbard has since then consistently offered US foreign policy ideas entirely in line with Assad’s, Russia’s and Iran’s interests. That is why no serious ME analyst takes her word.
The confusion over whether she is left or right wing reminds me of the differences between William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal. They were more apparent than real. Both, as America isolationists, ended up with very similar prognoses for US foreign policy: Tulsi Gabbard is in that tradition.
You’ve just set two “best of enemies” spinning in their graves with that line, Dermot. 🙂
Could it possibly be that sometimes those interests actually align? (For example, smashing Syria into the ground is not in anyone’s interest, really – at least long term.)
And yet that is exactly what Assad, Iran and Russia did. Plus the mercenaries from nine other countries who helped them. With friends like these who’d need integrity?
She did not just say she would not run as a Third party or independent candidate, that is putting is weakly. She stated it explicitly and repeatedly, before and after Ms Clinton’s smear (so yes, Randall, I agree).
What is Clinton’s evidence?
She seems to come off like the way Fox used to play Benghazi. And it’s the kind of thing I expect of l’orange.
This is all BS unless Gabbard actually does run as a 3rd party candidate. If that happens, then I’d have to give HC’s comments more credibility.
I will say I found it troubling that Gabbard backed up Barr’s summary and said the Mueller report exonerated Trump and she wasn’t in favor of impeachment. Maybe she’s changed on the impeachment part.
Gabbard has said many troubling things that make her sound as if she is sympathetic to the Republicans and or has long since bought into the bullshit “both sides are just as bad” rhetoric. Luckily I don’t think there is any chance that I will have to hold my nose and vote for her, but I will if I have to.
The thing that struck me about this is that everyone knew who Hillary was talking about without having to name names…
Of course, Hillary warned about Trump being a Russian asset back in the debates and no-one took it seriously back then either.
My own view is that it is super odd that Gabbard appears to repeat some pro- Russia views. Her response seems super nasty and conspiracy theory-level as well.
HRC was out-of-bounds to make the specific allegations she did, but concerns in this regard are not entirely unjustified. The same Russian media outlets that meddled in the 2016 US presidential election have actively promoted Tulsi Gabbard’s candidacy. And Gabbard has an inexplicably cozy relationship with Vladimir Putin’s vicious Syrian puppet, Bashar al-Assad.
Given Donald Trump’s consistently dismal approval ratings, his appalling performance in office, and his mounting scandals, it is highly unlikely that he could win a straight-up head-to-head two-candidate race. One of his few paths to victory would be for a third-party candidate to siphon off support for the eventual Democratic nominee. (In the 2016 election, third-party candidates Jill Stein and Gary Johnson received enough votes to make the difference in the three key swing states — Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin — that Donald Trump won by a total of 77,000 votes to prevail in the electoral college.)
As the US intelligence community has warned, Russia is intent on meddling in our 2020 election to an even greater extent that it did last time. Its most effective means of doing so may be by promoting a third-party candidate.
The thing is that for 2016 at least the idea that third party candidates swung the election rests on the assumption that potential Green and Libertarian votes could have been Dem votes. And I’d put money on the Libertarian candidate sucking up more never-Trumper Republican voters than never-Hillary Democratic ones.
All the people I know who voted Johnson were never-Trump Republicans.
And as we see, our own reactions make the work of the Russians so much easier. This candidate from Hawaii could be a card carrying communist but for Clinton to go after her is just stupid. There are 20 or more democrats running for the office out there and they should be the one’s going after this person. Instead, no, they are all over Warren as if she were the evil one. More and more everyday, I see a line of democrats running that are just as dumb as the line of republicans 4 years ago.
Why the vicious retort from Tulsi though.
Why the vicious retort? Hillary publicly called Tulsi, who is an Army major and served a year in Iraq, a traitor to America.
Ever heard of “spirit of the law”? Well you’re ignoring the “spirit of my question”. Obviously I already know Hilary said things about her.
I think you’re ignoring the “spirit of his answer.” I would react pretty viciously too if I was an American patriot in the army who fought a year in Iraq and was then called a traitor by one of the biggest faces of my party.
A “never Trumper” is someone who, by definition, will never vote for Donald Trump. The key to getting them to vote for a Democrat in 2020, especially in swing states, is to give them the stark option of doing so or staying home.
In much the same way that the key to winning at Texas Hold ‘Em is to put your opponent to the choice of going “all in” or folding their hand.
I’d like to know why Gabbard pretends to be a good-faith Democratic candidate while she spends her time bashing the party and pulling publicity stunts like the one around the most recent debate. Coincidentally, most of her criticisms and talking points pretty much align with Putin’s agenda. I don’t know if that makes her an asset or just a useful idiot.
A “useful idiot” can also be an “asset to Russia”. Proof of active cooperation with Russia is what people here seem to be asking for. I might be a (very minor) asset to physicists who support the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics, but I’ve never had any contact at all with any of them.
It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Clinton were correct. It’s not like the Russians are going to stop trying to influence our elections. No doubt they are working hard at it. And it’s not as if Gabbard would need to be complicit in it or that their goal would be to actually get her elected if they could. More likely their goal would just be to stir up as much trouble as possible among the Democratic candidates, to make them look bad enough that some potential voters decide not to vote Democratic in the general election.
One things for sure, or rather two. The Russians are meddling away for all they’re worth and they are working multiple lines of attack, not just one.
Sorry, but the accusation was that the Russians were “grooming” Gabbard, and that is a very clear accusation of complicity–a willingness to be groomed. It’s that tacit accusation of complicity, I suspect, that really pissed off Gabbard.
Yes, and I do think that even if there is some truth to Hillary’s claim it was dumb or worse for her to make the comments she did.
Doesn’t the term ‘grooming’ imply manipulation and as such cannot imply complicity? It’s very clear the Russians are definitely propping her up to make more chaos in the Democratic Party. I read it as Clinton saying the Russians are using her as a tool, just as they used Trump.
Does ‘grooming’ really imply complicity? I’m not 100% sure about that. The victims of ‘sexual grooming’ are innocent victims, most certainly no complicity is implied there.
There appears to be some evidence that the Russian trolls are indeed supporting Ms Gabbard, but I do not at all believe Ms Gabbard is complicit (unlike Ms Stein and, of course, Mr Trump).
I fully agree a ‘honourable’ Ms Clinton should have made that very much clearer, unless she has evidence of complicity, which she apparently does not have.
Maybe Clinton just laid down a sacrifice bunt. She has no political future and saw that there was some chance that Gabbard would throw a wrench into the Democrats’ plans so she made a pre-emptive strike to prevent it. Or it is simple payback.
Yes, what PCC said. Further, Gabbard served in Iraq and Kuwait so I can only imagine how incensed she would be by being called a traitor publicly by Hillary Clinton. Tulsi Gabbard is the Manchurian candidate? This is a Trump-style accusation from Clinton. Maybe Clinton has become deranged by the president and having spent too much time in her own sensory deprivation, echo chamber has impaired her judgment.
There really are some strange things about Gabbard. Read the NYT article. It is a Trump-style accusation as you suggest but that doesn’t make it wrong. That Clinton should make the accusation does seem like poor judgement though.
“Gabbard served in Iraq and Kuwait so I can only imagine how incensed she would be by being called a traitor publicly by Hillary Clinton”
Sure, but I’m kind of tired of putting everyone who was ever in combat on some kind of pedestal. They still must be held accountable, especially if they run for office. At most it means that they are likely brave and motivated to serve. It should not be any kind of free pass.
I in no way implied the Gabbard (or anyone who has served in the US military) deserves special treatment when it comes to scrutiny or accountability. I’m suggesting that if one actually gave years of their life to actually fight on behalf of the US, that’s a level of commitment that deserves some respect (I can’t claim it). My point is why the hell is Clinton herself going for Gabbard’s jugular and publicly and with such a baseless claim and now?
If Clinton wanted to tarnish Gabbard’s reputation, she would leak such an accusation to the press and let the truth out. But this story seems to lack a certain plausibility, no?
Clinton couldn’t leak it to the press as the evidence, what little there is of it, has already been reported by reliable sources. Clinton may be unwise to repeat it but she didn’t create it.
I don’t know why people on the right like David Duke would support Gabbard and I don’t know what the Russians could have done to make that happen or why they would want to, except perhaps to just create confusion.
I don’t like Hillary and did indeed “hold my nose” (or something) to vote for her against trump. But she is not alone in slamming tulsi. I am willing to support every Democrat currently running except Tulsi, and if she were the nominee, I would be obliged to vote for the Prohibition Party, or the Socialist Workers, or Lyndon LaRouche, or whoever is the current voice of hapless, hopeless protest. And my question to her defenders is: Would you still support her as “nevertheless a Democrat” if she advocated nominating trump on a “unity ticket”? As JFK once said, “sometimes party loyalty asks too much.”
Voting for the Democrat in 2020 isn’t about Party loyalty; it’s about anybody — absolutely anybody — but Trump.
As Ret. Admiral William McRaven said in his editorial in The Times the day before last, as president, Donald Trump is “a danger to our Republic.”
+1
I believe Michigan was the only one of those three states in which Jill Stein’s candidacy (with 51,463 votes) clearly helped Il Donaldo eke out his 10,704 vote victory.
But the principle is clear, and the Green Party helped Russia’s favorite candidate in this respect, whether intentionally or not. I would fault HC’s comment only in using the word “asset”; “useful idiot”, a charming term invented by Lenin, would be more appropriate. The Russian propaganda outlets, such as RT and Sputnik, are no doubt well aware of the matters Ken Kukec refers to, and have been making their preferences known.
Nasty words. It is as if Gabbard wants to be the Trump of the Democratic party.
‘President Romney’ sounds good to me now.
To Hillary: Trump is certainly a Russian asset and the evidence is measured in pounds to show it. But to call this candidate from Hawaii an asset also requires evidence. You have to put up or shut up.
Couldn’t agree more. (Well I could ) HRC needs to go on a 14 month around the world cruise on a ship with no internet. The dems are already eating themselves alive without any outside “diners’. Show us the evidence HRC or STFU.
Maybe it’s not “evidence,” but there have been some interesting analyses the last few days in, e.g., the NYT. It’s not all baseless.
I think there’s something to this. I have a friend whose mind has been polluted by toxic web theories, and he told me that he thinks all the Democratic candidates except Gabbard are delusional. I didn’t ask how he decided he liked her. Now I’m curious. How did he pick her out of 20+ to focus on?
I would have expected Putin to support Bernie, but perhaps his people have become more cautious since discovering that Putin supported him in 2016.
Unevidenced, yes. Also idiotic, given the current polls. Gabbard isn’t going to win the primary if the status quo around her candidacy continues. Clinton doesn’t want her to win. So what is Clinton’s strategy? To upset the status quo around her candidacy.
Brilliant. Hilary, could you please go look up “the Streisand effect” on wikipedia? And then stop calling media attention to candidates?
Putin’s puppet was correct.
There are plenty of rumors about Gabbard and Russia running around. See this recent article in the NYT:
“What, Exactly, Is Tulsi Gabbard Up To?
As she injects chaos into the 2020 Democratic primary by accusing her own party of “rigging” the election, an array of alt-right internet stars, white nationalists and Russians have praised her.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/us/politics/tulsi-gabbard.html
I suspect that reporters will get to the bottom of this but perhaps Clinton’s accusation is not completely without merit. It certainly needs to be investigated. If true, it is better to discover it early in order to discourage Gabbard from running as a 3rd party candidate, thereby making it even harder to beat Trump. On the other hand, if she’s the darling of white supremacists as they say, perhaps Trump will be the one she takes votes from.
Gabbard has denied that she will run as a third-party candidate nor leave the Democratic Party. If she is telling the truth then the whole incident is a tempest in a teapot since she has no chance of gaining the nomination. Clinton foolishly made an ad hominin attack on Gabbard and the favor was returned in kind. The incident will be quickly forgotten.
Gabbard reminds me of Congresswoman Jeanette Rankin that Wikipedia describes as “a lifelong pacifist, she was one of 50 House members who opposed the declaration of war on Germany in 1917. In 1941, she was the only member of Congress to vote against declaring war on Japan following the attack on Pearl Harbor.”
I assume Gabbard is not a pacifist since she served in the military, but as Rankin, she is a lonely voice.
https://www.towleroad.com/2019/10/tulsi-gabbard-hillary-clinton/
What’s depressing is the defense of Gabbard by the left in the last 2 days, people like Yang, et.al. Gabbard, whom the neo-nazi site Daily Stormer takes credit for getting in the debates, who’s a favorite on Tucker Carlsen’s Fox News show, who was an anti-gay activist for years, who never met a Russian talking point she didn’t like, this is who they’re defending.
Her Russian sympathies are nothing new. When Trump was considering her for UN Ambassador the Washington Post ran a piece
detailing her years-long support for Assad and support for what amounted to Russian war crimes in Aleppo, and more.
Instead of taking the opportunity to pile on Clinton once more, perhaps people should look at who they’re defending.
Uh-oh. The wrong people like Gabbard. Russian asset!
You’ll need a little more to call an Army vet who served in Iraq a traitor to her country (because that is what she would be if any of this BS is true). All the things you mentioned are just “look, some of the baddies said nice things about her” stuff. That doesn’t make her a Russian asset, or anything close to it.
Also, Clinton didn’t support gay marriage (in fact, was deeply opposed to it!) until the polls said she should.
Why does being an army vet or even a current member of the armed forces make a person immune from criticism?
Armed forces members are no different from anyone else, they have bad ideas (and actions) too. There have been armed forces members who were sympathetic to Russia. There is a sizable contingent of dominionists in the armed forces, people who would make the US a theocracy.
I don’t believe Clinton called her a traitor, she called her an asset, which are two very different things. As pointed out by others, an asset can be merely a useful idiot.
Gen. Michael Flynn had a stellar military career (at least until near the end) — and he became an actual, literal, self-acknowledged “foreign agent” (albeit one who failed to register as such until after-the-fact).
And Col. Benedict Arnold was the hero of the Battle of Fort Ticonderoga.
I would be extremely suspicious of her. There’s a reason there’s such widespread suspicion about her motives, and it’s not a ‘conspiracy theory’ to look at the things she says, and her policy proposals, and wonder why exactly they seem to align so well with Russia’s geopolitical aims. (And yes, it should set off alarm bells when so much of a candidate’s support comes from the isolationist far-right and the Putinist far-left.)
Another commenter has said HRC was wrong only insofar as she used the word ‘asset’ rather than ‘useful idiot’ to describe Gabbard. That sounds about right to me.
Having said that, the Democrats could do with Clinton taking a vow of silence for the next twelve or so months. She has, unfortunately, become interesting at just the wrong time.
Clinton’s comment may border on conspiracy theory, but Gabbard does hold some bizarre and (IMO) repugnant points of view. Whether or not Russia is “grooming” her, it is an interesting alignment of perspectives, and the Russian effusiveness of Gabbard should raise eyebrows. I can’t really fault HRC for pointing it out, though it was done in a ham-fisted way. And, as usual, she’ll garner 10,000 times the opprobrium than that for any of 10,000 Trump comments each of which are 10,000 times worse.
Deep deep down, Jerry is a religious person. His devotion to the a political party (Democrats) is as rabid as any true believer in God or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. He says this all the time. Can he or anyone describe a circumstance that he would vote for the Republicans over the Democrats? He states that no matter what he would vote Democrat and hope that things would turn out ok. If that’s not religion I don’t know what is.
I think that is a low aspersion on our host, I’m sure if a Republican like Mr Rooseveldt (Republican Teddy that is) would be Republican candidate, Jerry might consider voting Republican.
It is just that at present the Republican party is repugnant, the dregs, and will not come up with a candidate a decent center left person could remotely possibly vote for.
What that is, is nonsense. How belief in g*d would have anything to do with political party selection is a bridge too far that was never constructed. To vote democrat regardless of who the lucky candidate might be only confirms belief in a set of principles that are the foundation of this party. And also understands how revolting the foundation of the other party truly is. Has nothing to do with personalities or g*d.
“If that’s not religion I don’t know what is.”
You don’t know what is.
So any time someone has strong, confident opinions it must be religion? Be gone, sir!
Misery guts is right: I see you’re not only a Trumpie, but a rude person. My statement that I would vote Democratic is based on the existing candidates. Here’s when I would vote for a Republican: if Trump ran as a Democrat and Mayor Pete ran as a Republican.
I don’t insult readers very often, but you’re no longer a commenter here. You are a rude man, a jackass, and your penchant for Trump shows your equine nature.
Who wrote this garbage?
From the second paragraph: Clinton alleged that the Russians … are grooming a female Democratic candidate, which must be Gabbard.
Clinton DID NOT say that. CNN DID NOT say that
This article is worthy of FOX News.
A lot of people here seem to have a very peculiar definition of the simple word “asset”, a sort of ‘conspiracy-soaked’ one.
And, though as a non-USian my opinion may be ignorable, all this bullshit about being a military veteran being somehow a slam dunk proof of US patriotism, that is all of pathetic and predictable and typically USian. Among the convicted felons who worked at a high level for Drumpf, you may easily find at least one of many counterexamples.
If anything, HRC is tardy to the party. This article was written in February 2019:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/russia-s-propaganda-machine-discovers-2020-democratic-candidate-tulsi-gabbard-n964261
Ummm. . . I don’t give a rat’s patootie if the Russians celebrate her; what I was referring to is HRC and her spokesperson saying that Gabbard is a “Russian asset” and is being “groomed by the Russians.” That statement is grossly misleading, and I’m baffled by people who think that it’s fine. Clinton should not have said that, for it implies some complicity or conspiracy on the part of Gabbard. It was not proper to say something like that.
If alt-right stars, white nationalists, neo-nazis, Putin lovers, RT commentators and other assorted miscreants really want Gabbard to be the nominee, why would they praise her or even mention her name?
Do they not realize that their endorsements, or even favorable mentions, actually make her unelectable toast? No doubt many in the aforementioned categories are stupid. But are they that stupid?
It all seems a bit fishy to me. Not all rotten things are found in Denmark.
Clinton warned us about Trump’s ties to Russia – and she has been entirely vindicated by subsequent events.
Considering Gabbard’s endorsement by the Russian state media and her highly-suspicious pro-Assad and pro-Putin policies, I see no reason to doubt Clinton on the subject of Gabbard. Is it bad politics to mention it? I don’t know.
Along those lines–
Russia’s state TV program hosted by notorious propagandist Vladimir Soloviev—who is close to Putin and has special access to the Kremlin—spends 30 minutes extolling Tulsi Gabbard, arguing she should be “the face of the Democratic party” and obsessively bashing Hillary Clinton.
Yet people would rather take the opportunity to pile on Clinton one more time than look at the subject matter.
Because it is not yet clear whether Gabbard harms the Democratic campaign, but Clinton almost surely does. Every time when she opens her mouth, I see Trumpet commenters gloating that she has added more voters to their side. Someone above suggested a 12-month vow of silence for Clinton. I second this.
Gabbard certainly harms the Democratic campaign, with her fake candidacy, sowing chaos every chance she gets. She’s the anti-Democrat running for the Democratic nomination. As far as Clinton, maybe you shouldn’t put so much stock in what Trump commenters would have you believe–they’re the same ones that swear impeachment will guarantee a Trump victory in 2020.
I watched the last debate, which was before Clinton’s comments. Gabbard was already playing the victim and attacking the DNC and New York Times for their alleged bias against her. She accused the NYT of calling her a Russian asset (which it didn’t; the article reported that for some reason white supremacists and Russian trolls were backing her campaign, but noted that she had denounced white supremacists publicly and wasn’t welcoming their help).
But it’s concerning that she has followed Trump’s playbook: shoot the messenger reporting on the support she got rather than face the issue and denounce Russia’s involvement. I could almost hear her cry “witch hunt” and, and “fake news.”
Clinton is a distraction here. She was saying all this before Clinton, and Clinton didn’t actually call Gabbard a Russian asset. She called Jill Stein a Russian asset. She had said Russians were “grooming” someone else for a third party run (who we rightfully assume was referring to Tulsi Gabbard), and that they’re doing this because they believe a third-party liberal candidate is the only way to keep Trump in office. Clinton was talking about Russian meddling in our elections, not the Democratic field itself.
All Tulsi Gabbard had to say was that she is not going to run as a third party candidate, and that any Russians hoping for this were wasting their time. Instead she, also following Trump’s playbook, completely tore into Clinton and, implied she’s the big controller of the Democratic Party rigging it against her. I could almost hear a “lock her up”.
And that’s why I went from admiring and supporting Gabbard four years ago, to opposing her nomination now.
According to a correction, the Times misquoted Clinton when she said Republicans (not Russians) were grooming a Democrat as a third party candidate.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/18/us/politics/tulsi-gabbard-hillary-clinton-russia.html
Think of all the hubbub this has caused. The Times messes up yet again. I haven’t regretted the day I gave up my subscription.
Just FYI – even if this is an old post.
See
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/10/22/the-overwhelming-evidence-in-support-of-clintons-claims-about-gabbard/
Showing that once again HRC was right, and the New York Times misreported.
The best assumption to make when the NYT publishes an article on the Clintons is that they deliberately twist things to make them look bad.