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Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 5945
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 01:58 pm: | 
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Clinton Launches Obama Attack Web Sites
Clinton Campaign Registered Names of Two Web Sites to Attack Ill. Senator
By JAKE TAPPER
DES MOINES, Iowa, Dec. 20, 2007 —
ABC News has learned that the campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., has registered the names of two Web sites with the express goal of attacking her chief rival, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.
It's the first time this election cycle a presidential campaign has launched a Web site with the express purpose of of launching serious criticisms on a rival.
Votingpresent.com and Votingpresent.org are domains hosted by the same IP address as official Clinton Web sites, such TheHillaryIKnow.com, which was launched with much fanfare this week.
The Clinton campaign intends to use these new Web sites to paint Obama as cowardly.
Clinton has attacked Obama for having occasionally voted "present" as an Illinois state legislator when it came to contentious legislation.
It was a legislative maneuver that was sometimes part of a plan by Democrats to give cover to vulnerable colleagues, though in some instances it appears that Obama voted present to avoid taking a position with some political risk -- such as with a bill that would have allowed children as young as 15 who committed crimes with firearms on or near school property to be prosecuted as adults.
The Obama campaign referred to the websites as "politically motivated attacks in the eleventh hour of a closely contested campaign" and defended Obama's "present" votes.
"Over more than a decade in public office, Barack Obama has successfully led the way on difficult issues from welfare reform, to the reform of a broken death penalty law in Illinois to a battle for long-overdue ethics reforms in Washington," said spokesman Bill Burton.
"Among the thousands of votes he cast in the Illinois Senate, he used the present vote on occasions when he believed bills were drafted in an unconstitutional manner. On other occasions, he voted present as part of legislative strategies, such as ones crafted by pro-choice forces in Illinois to thwart maneuvering by the opponents of a woman's right to choose."
Clinton has used these present votes to paint Obama as full of words but not action.
"I don't think people want a lot of talk about change," she told Iowans early this month. "I think they want someone with a real record -- a doer, not a talker. After eight years of incompetence, they don't want false hope, they want real results."
The Clinton campaign disputed the notion that its pending attack websites will be the first, noting that after it was revealed that Clinton had taken questions from supporters at events, Sen. John Edwards, D-NC, in November launched the short-lived website PlantsForHillary.com, purporting to be from various forms of flora supporting the New York senator, though that website was taken down after a day.
A Clinton campaign official argued that Obama's campaign has a website called HillaryAttacks.BarackObama.com, which catalogues criticisms Clinton has made about the Illinois senator. (Not to be confused with the anti-Clinton site HillaryAttacks.com, which is not affiliated with the Obama campaign.)
Clinton's campaign has also introduced, quietly, a Web site called Attacktimeline.com, which Clinton officials say chronicles the ways Obama and Edwards were criticizing her publicly long before she began returning fire.
Copyright © 2007 ABC News Internet Ventures
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Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 2897
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 02:08 pm: |
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Yawn....................... |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 5950
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: 
Votes: 2 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 02:17 pm: |
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Yawning again? Time for a watermelon break? |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 10938
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: 
Votes: 2 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 04:46 pm: |
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I guess some people expect Hillary to tip-toe around and attend coffee klatches with a bunch of prim housewives and just sit back while her chief rival basks in the glow of his growing popularity. Puleeze. She has said she's "in it to win it". She's taking off her gloves, ready to hit below the belt. She's a ruthless b i t c h. Which makes her great presidential material.  |
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 6236
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, December 21, 2007 - 12:37 am: |
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GET IT RIGHT CHRIS!
Obama Camp Registers Anti-Clinton Web Sites
Campaign Plays Semantics Over Whether Sites Are Personal Attacks
Though Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has pledged to keep criticisms of his rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, focused on the issues, ABC News has learned that his campaign secretly registered an internet domain name called desperatehillaryattacks.com, a Web site that may seem to insult the former First Lady personally.
By JAKE TAPPER
Dec. 20, 2007 —
The domain name -- and another one, Desperationwatch.com -- connects to a known Web site where the Obama campaign catalogues Clinton's attacks on the Illinoisan, hillaryattacks.barackobama.com But DesperateHillaryAttacks.com has not been known until now.
"Apparently nothing says 'hope' like an attack Web site," quipped Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson.
But Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton denies that his campaign is calling Clinton "desperate." Rather, he insists, they are calling her attacks "desperate."
"Hillary Clinton has been launching desperate attacks on Obama for many months now and our Web site has carefully detailed and refuted each one," Burton told ABC News.
During the primary season, candidates often keep criticisms of rivals within their own party targeted on their actions rather than their character.
Obama, for instance, sent a fundraising e-mail to supporters earlier this month in which he said he would "respond to each of the Clinton campaign's desperate attacks directly and honestly."
It's an odd semantic kabuki, and whether the Obama campaign crossed the line gets subjective.
It boils down to this:
In the URL, is the adjective "desperate" modifying the noun "Hillary" followed by the verb "attacks," as the Clinton campaign sees it? (And as may be implied by the Web site name the Obama campaign publicized, HillaryAttacks.BarackObama.com.)
Or is "desperate" is modifying "Hillary attacks" as one noun (as with "shoe store"), as the Obama campaign maintains?
Earlier today, ABC News reported that Clinton has registered the domain names of two Web sites with the express goal of attacking Obama -- the first time this election cycle a presidential campaign has launched a Web site with the express purpose of launching serious criticisms on a rival.
Votingpresent.com and Votingpresent.org will be used in a Clinton effort to paint Obama as cowardly since he occasionally voted "present" as an Illinois state legislator when it came to controversial legislation.
Copyright © 2007 ABC News Internet Ventures
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=4036024&page=1 |
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 6237
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, December 21, 2007 - 12:43 am: |
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Obama’s Vote in Illinois Was Often Just ‘Present’
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ and CHRISTOPHER DREW
December 20, 2007
In 1999, Barack Obama was faced with a difficult vote in the Illinois legislature — to support a bill that would let some juveniles be tried as adults, a position that risked drawing fire from African-Americans, or to oppose it, possibly undermining his image as a tough-on-crime moderate.
In the end, Mr. Obama chose neither to vote for nor against the bill. He voted “present,” effectively sidestepping the issue, an option he invoked nearly 130 times as a state senator.
Sometimes the “present’ votes were in line with instructions from Democratic leaders or because he objected to provisions in bills that he might otherwise support. At other times, Mr. Obama voted present on questions that had overwhelming bipartisan support. In at least a few cases, the issue was politically sensitive.
The record has become an issue on the presidential campaign trail, as Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, his chief rival for the Democratic nomination, has seized on the present votes he cast on a series of anti-abortion bills to portray Mr. Obama as a “talker” rather than a “doer.”
Although a present vote is not unusual in Illinois, Mr. Obama’s use of it is being raised as he tries to distinguish himself as a leader who will take on the tough issues, even if it means telling people the “hard truths” they do not want to hear.
Voting present “was a standard practice in Illinois,” Mr. Obama said Thursday in an appearance on ABC’s Good Morning America show.
Speaking from his campaign headquarters in Nashua, N.H., he described the votes a tactical maneuvers. “Often times I would strategically vote present because we were negotiating a bill or because there was some element in the bill that was unconstitutional or had problems that needed to be tweaked.”
Mr. Obama’s aides and some allies dispute the characterization that a present vote is tantamount to ducking an issue. They said Mr. Obama cast 4,000 votes in the Illinois Senate and used the present vote to protest bills that he believed had been drafted unconstitutionally or as part of a broader legislative strategy.
“No politically motivated attacks in the 11th hour of a closely contested campaign can erase a record of leadership and courage,” said Bill Burton, Mr. Obama’s spokesman.
Speaking Thursday, Mr. Obama said: “I understand we are in the last two weeks in the campaign, people are going to be calling over everything from my kindergarten records,” in a reference to Clinton campaign references to his early presidential ambitions.
An examination of Illinois records shows at least 36 times when Mr. Obama was either the only state senator to vote present or was part of a group of six or fewer to vote that way.
In more than 50 votes, he seemed to be acting in concert with other Democrats as part of a strategy.
For a juvenile-justice bill, lobbyists and fellow lawmakers say, a political calculus could have been behind Mr. Obama’s present vote. On other measures like the anti-abortion bills, which Republicans proposed, Mr. Obama voted present to help more vulnerable Democrats under pressure to cast “no” votes.
In other cases, Mr. Obama’s present votes stood out among widespread support as he tried to use them to register legal and other objections to parts of the bills.
In Illinois, political experts say voting present is a relatively common way for lawmakers to express disapproval of a measure. It can at times help avoid running the risks of voting no, they add.
“If you are worried about your next election, the present vote gives you political cover,” said Kent D. Redfield, a professor of political studies at the University of Illinois at Springfield. “This is an option that does not exist in every state and reflects Illinois political culture.”
The vote on the juvenile-justice bill appears to be a case when Mr. Obama, who represented a racially mixed district on the South Side of Chicago, faced pressure. It also occurred about six months before he announced an ultimately unsuccessful campaign against a popular black congressman, Bobby L. Rush.
State Senator Christine Radogno, a Republican, was a co-sponsor of the bill to let children as young as 15 be prosecuted as adults if charged with committing a crime with a firearm on or near school grounds.
The measure passed both houses overwhelmingly. In explaining his present vote on the floor of the Senate, Mr. Obama said there was no proof that increasing penalties for young offenders reduced crime, though he acknowledged that the bill had fairly unanimous support.
“Voting present was a way to satisfy those two competing interests,” Ms. Radogno said in a telephone interview.
Thom Mannard, director of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, said political calculation could have figured in that vote.
“If he voted a flat-out no,” Mr. Mannard said, “somebody down the road could say Obama took this vote and was soft on crime.”
Mr. Obama’s aides said he was more concerned about whether the bill would be effective rather than with its political consequences. They did not explain why he did not just vote no.
Lawmakers and other Illinois officials said the present vote was devised to enable lawmakers to recuse themselves from voting on bills that present personal conflicts. It can also be used in the routine day-to-day wrangling in the legislature.
In at least 45 instances, Mr. Obama voted with large numbers of fellow Democrats as part of the tactical skirmishing with Republicans over the budget.
Seven other times, he voted that way as part of a broad strategy devised by abortion rights advocates to counter anti-abortion bills.
Pam Sutherland, president of Illinois Planned Parenthood Council, said Mr. Obama was one of the senators with a strong stand for abortion rights whom the organization approached about using the strategy. Ms. Sutherland said the Republicans were trying to force Democrats from conservative districts to register politically controversial no votes.
Ms. Sutherland said Mr. Obama had initially resisted the strategy because he wanted to vote against the anti-abortion measures.
“He said, ‘I’m opposed to this,’” she recalled.
But the organization argued that a present vote would be difficult for Republicans to use in campaign literature against Democrats from moderate and conservative districts who favored abortion rights.
Lisa Madigan, the Illinois attorney general who was in the Illinois Senate with Mr. Obama from 1998 through 2002, said she and Mr. Obama voted present on the anti-abortion bills.
“It’s just plain wrong to imply that voting present reflected a lack of leadership,” Ms. Madigan said. “In fact, it was the exact opposite.”
In other present votes, Mr. Obama, who also taught law at the University of Chicago while in the State Senate, said he had concerns about the constitutionality or effectiveness of some provisions.
Among those, Mr. Obama did not vote yes or no on a bill that would allow certain victims of sexual crimes to petition judges to seal court records relating to their cases. He also voted present on a bill to impose stricter standards for evidence a judge is permitted to consider in imposing a criminal sentence.
On the sex crime bill, Mr. Obama cast the lone present vote in a 58-to-0 vote.
Mr. Obama’s campaign said he believed that the bill violated the First Amendment. The bill passed 112-0-0 in the House and 58-0-1 in the Senate.
In 2000, Mr. Obama was one of two senators who voted present on a bill on whether facts not presented to a jury could later be the basis for increasing an offender’s sentence beyond the ordinary maximum.
State Representative Jim Durkin, a Republican who was a co-sponsor of the bill, said it was intended to bring state law in line with a United States Supreme Court decision that nullified a practice of introducing new evidence to a judge in the sentencing phase of the trial, after a jury conviction on other charges.
The bill sailed through both chambers. Out of 174 votes cast in the House and Senate, two were against and two were present, including Mr. Obama’s.
“I don’t understand why you would oppose it,” Mr. Durkin said. “But I am more confused by a present vote.”
Mr. Obama’s campaign said he voted present to register his dissatisfaction with how the bill was put together. He believed, the campaign said, that the bill was rushed to the floor and that lawmakers were deprived of time to consider it.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/20/us/politics/20cnd-obama.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1 &ref=politics |
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 6238
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, December 21, 2007 - 12:56 am: |
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"Long before it was the popular thing to do," declared Oprah. . .Obama "stood with with clarity and conviction against this war in Iraq." It was the biggest applause line in her speech up to that point and good one. Trouble is,
it just wasn't true
When Barack Obama was a state legislator running for the U.S. Senate in Illinois in 2003 opposition to the war in Iraq was extremely popular in African American communities and among the progressive voters he needed in order to win. Brother Obama was on the case, doing what he had to do to sew up that vote early, showing up at local antiwar meetings and rallies, and making speeches like the one opposing "a dumb war" which is now trotted out as evidence of his fervent and prescient antiwar stand.
Bush invaded Iraq in March 2003, and by late May declared "mission accomplished" and victory in "the battle of Iraq" from the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln. With the president riding high in national polls, this reporter checked Obama's campaign web site and noted that all the evidence of and references to candidate Obama's prior opposition to the invasion of Iraq had been deleted. The visionary Barack Obama appeared to be leaning rightward with the prevailing wind, distancing himself from his prior opposition to the war.
After calls to Obama's campaign office yielded no satisfactory answers, we published an article in the June 5, 2003 issue of Black Commentator effectively calling Barack Obama out. We drew attention to the disappearance of any indication that U.S. Senate candidate Obama opposed the Iraq war at all from his web site and public statements. We noted with consternation that the Democratic Leadership Council, the right wing Trojan Horse inside the Democratic party, had apparently vetted and approved Obama, naming him as one of its "100 to Watch" that season. This is what real journalists are supposed to do --- fact check candidates, investigate the facts, tell the truth to audiences and hold the little clay feet of politicians and corporations to the fire.
Facing the possible erosion of his base among progressive Democrats in Illinois, Obama contacted us. We printed his response in Black Commentator's June 19 issue and queried the candidate on three "bright line" issues that clearly distinguish between corporate-funded DLC Democrats and authentic progressives. We concluded the dialog by printing Obama's response on June 26, 2003. (For the convenience of our readers in 2007, all three of these articles can be found here.)
Four years after senatorial candidate Barack Obama had to be summoned back into open opposition to the war in Iraq, scant weeks after his admission that he would not bring the troops home before the end of 2013, and in the face of dozens of public statements between 2003 and the present advocating an extra hundred thousand bodies to the Army and Marines, a higher Pentagon budget than even Bush is asking for, and the bombing of Iran and Pakistan, history has been rewritten to make Obama an early, consistent and principled voice for peace. This history is written, of course, by the same media that sold us the lies which enabled the war to begin with.
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=469&I temid=1 |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 5957
Registered: 03-2004
Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, December 21, 2007 - 12:55 pm: |
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The trouble with Hillary
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0751,tomorrow,78682,9.html
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