Hillary Rodham Clinton offers Momentous Change and Partnership

In the 2004 Presidential election, Republicans used opposition to gay rights as a wedge to ensure a second Bush term. Instead of being frightened into a "play it safe" electoral strategy, Hillary Clinton, in a speech in front of the Human Rights Campaign Fund, correctly and courageously announces that she wants a "partnership" with the gay community.

This commitment to the GLBT community is a brave declaration by a front running Presidential candidate and should be noted and applauded.

Please read what Hillary has said about her support for the gay community and then read below about how the Republicans disgracefully used anti-gay prejudice to defeat the Democrats in 2004.

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"We will not stand idly by when anyone tries to write discrimination into our Constitution" - Hillary Rodham Clinton

"We want to make sure that all Americans in committed relationships have equal benefits, from health insurance & life insurance, to social security & property rights, and more. It is wrong that so many people are unable to care for those they love; to leave them their homes & belongings, to ensure they can see a doctor, to visit them in the hospital when they are sick. These are fundamental rights, and we will continue to push until they are equally available."  - Hillary Rodham Clinton

WASHINGTON AP | March 5, 2007

In a speech to the board of directors of the Human Rights Campaign Fund, Hillary Rodmam Clinton announces that she wants a partnership with gays if elected president.

"I am proud to stand by your side," Clinton said in a keynote speech Friday to the Human Rights Campaign.

In the speech, Clinton joked that she shares the same initials as the group, and pledged to maintain the same close working relationship that last year helped defeat the federal amendment which would have banned same-sex marriage.
"I want you to know that this is exactly the kind of partnership we will have when I am president," Clinton told the group. "I want you to know that just as you always have an open door to my senate office, you will always have an open door to the White House and together we can continue this journey."
Clinton's husband Bill Clinton was president when the Pentagon instituted the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, which says gays may serve in the military only if they keep their sexual orientation private. In 1999, as she prepared to run for the Senate from New York, Clinton publicly opposed that policy.
Previous to Bill Clinton's administration, gays were flatly forbidden from serving in the military.
Sen. Clinton said it would be safer for the nation if openly gay soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen could wear the uniform.
"This policy doesn't just hurt gays and lesbians, it hurts all our troops and this to me is a matter of national security and we're going to fix it," Clinton said.

She also attacked the Bush administration for making political appeals based on gay rights issues, vowing that her presidency would mark "the end of leadership that has politicized the most personal and intimate issues."

(See info below on how this was used by Republicans in the 2004 election)

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Same-sex marriage bans winning on state ballots
11 states approve constitutional amendments to outlaw gay nuptials

CNN) -- Six months after gay and lesbian couples won the right to marry in Massachusetts, opponents of same-sex marriage struck back Tuesday, with voters in 11 states approving constitutional amendments codifying marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution.  While the amendments in Mississippi, Montana and Oregon deal only with marriage, the measures in the other eight states also ban civil unions.

According to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, there are roughly 2 million people in those states who live in households headed by same-sex couples and could be harmed by the amendments -- including state university employees whose domestic partnership benefits could be in jeopardy in Michigan, Ohio and Utah.

Voters in Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon and Utah all approved anti-same-sex marriage amendments by double-digit margins.)

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Wedge Issues on the Ballot
Can State Initiatives on Gay Marriage Affect Candidate Races?
by Paul Taylor - Pew Research Center

For more than a century, ballot initiative campaigns have been a way to make public policy at the state level, but in recent years some have also been launched with a secondary motive in mind: to influence the candidate races that share the same ballot.

The most famous example came in 2004, when President Bush owed his reelection at least in part to ballot initiatives to ban same sex marriage in 11 states that helped draw social conservatives to the polls.

Ohio, Ohio, Ohio

The gay marriage ban carried Ohio with 61% of the vote, while Bush eked out the Buckeye State with 51%, his smallest margin of victory in any major state. Had Bush not carried Ohio and its 20 Electoral College votes, he would not have won reelection.

In a state contest that close, any number of factors are potentially decisive. However, one set of Ohio findings from the VNS exit poll is especially intriguing. Even though Bush improved his overall share of the vote in Ohio by just one percentage point from 2000 (50%) to 2004 (51%), he registered much bigger gains among three groups that strongly oppose gay marriage -- blacks (Bush got 16% of the black vote in Ohio in 2004, up from 9% in 2000); those who attend church more than once a week (Bush got 69% of those votes in 2004, up from 52% in 2000) and voters ages 65 and older (58% in 2004, up from 46% in 2000).

Nationally, by contrast, his percentage of the black vote grew only modestly (by two percentage points) from 2000 to 2004, his percentage of the vote among more-than-once-a-week church goers by even less (one percentage point) and his percentage among older voters by 5 percentage points...this closer look at Ohio -- where (not incidentally) the Bush campaign invested heavily in get-out-the-vote activities organized in part through black and evangelical churches -- suggests that the gay marriage ban initiative might have played a pivotal role, after all.

So many people posting here seem absolutely positive that they know who will (and who won't) win the the 2008 elections, I thought I would post the odds (as of 3/2/07) from the five largest British betting houses taking bets on the 2008 US election. (as listed with readabet.com)

So, if your one of those people who KNOW that Hillary CAN'T Win -its your chance to back up your words with $.  If your right (and so many people seem to be oh so sure), its FREE MONEY!  By the way, they take credit cards!  You dont have to bet for her - you can bet AGAINST her!  (Now doesnt that sound like fun?!) So go to it!  You can tell the future - remember, you dont know ANYONE that likes Hillary, so what possibly could be the Risk?!

I just suggest you save enough money for the mortgage..and the kids college fund...and maybe, groceries...

USA: Democratic Candidate 2008
Tuesday 4 November 2008
Related events...President 2008Winning Party 2008Democratic Candidate 2008Female PresidentRepublican Candidate 2008

Best odds/All odds      
Clinton, Hilary         5/6 4/5 4/5 5/6   1.24/1
Obama, Barack           9/4 9/4 5/2 13/5  3.2/1
Edwards, John           9/2 4 5 4         7.4/1
Gore, A                 6/1 6/1 9/1  8/1  7.2/1  

Richardson, Bill        20/1 16/1 16/1 20/1 27/1                
Dodd, CJ                50/1 33/1 - - -
Kucinich, Dennis        50/1 40/1 - - -
Biden, Joseph           50/1 16/1 25/1 -    
Clark, W                50/1 40/1 40/1 -    

USA: President 2008
Tuesday 1 January 2008
Related events...President 2008Winning Party 2008Democratic Candidate 2008Female PresidentRepublican Candidate 2008

Best odds/All odds      
Clinton, Hilary   5/2   1/1   7/4  2/1   5/2
McCain, John      9/2   4/1   9/2  7/2
Obama, Barack     4/1   5/2   5/1  9/2   4/1
Giuliani, Rudolph 11/2  4/1   9/2  7/2
Edwards, John 7   9/2   6/1   9/1  10/1
Gore, Al          9/1   6/1   10/1 8/1   10/1
Romney, Mitt 10 - 9 10 9

Part Two of Why Al Can't Run.

March 2, 2007  Salon -  | Why do journalists suddenly love Al Gore?

After they tempt him into the presidential race, they'll probably try to destroy him again. And he knows it.

By Joe Conason

As a man who has  long endured more than his share of nasty, unwarranted abuse from journalists, the philosophical Al Gore must be amused by the happy transformation of his clippings. The same press corps that once snarled for his blood is now smooching his boots -- an implicit apology that might be gratifying to the former future president, if only he were still naive enough to value their esteem.

The sudden fashion for favorable comment won't influence any thoughtful American's opinion of Gore, but it should remind us of the dismal media performance that did such a terrible disservice to him and to the nation. Although Gore himself certainly deserves a measure of blame for the catastrophic conclusion of the 2000 presidential election and the events that led up to it, his hateful treatment by the press slanted the campaign against him from the beginning. (Perhaps only Ralph Nader is more culpable for the irreparable harms of the Bush era, but that is an arguable proposition.)

Had the recent adoration of Gore been accompanied by any sign of healthy introspection among those who once savaged him, there might be reason to hope that they've learned something from this extraordinarily costly lesson. But as usual, mainstream commentators prefer to write as if they suffer from severe amnesia (as well as database deprivation) -- and to pretend that everyone else does, too.

Consider Maureen Dowd, a perceptive and often witty columnist who understands very well how destructive the Bush presidency has been to her beloved country. Just the other day Dowd acknowledged in the New York Times that we and the world would be in considerably better shape today had Gore -- whom she described as "prescient on climate change, the Internet, terrorism and Iraq" -- ascended to the Oval Office instead of the current occupant. But she neither noted the guilt of the media in that travesty nor recalled her own starring role. This compilation of her past columns on the subject of Gore, replete with false accusations and trendy sneering, is must reading.

Particularly catty and revealing is a quote from a 1999 column in which she suggested that Gore's environmentalism raised questions about his masculinity. But that was simply one episode among dozens that continued well after the 2000 election cycle. When the former vice president dared to voice his anger about the bloody debacle in Iraq two years ago, the Times columnist sweetly lumped him in with "the wackadoo wing of the Democratic Party." He had to be nuts to be upset about the lies that led us into war, didn't he?

Dowd was not alone, of course; she merely reflected the conventional idiocy of the times (and the Times), along with many, many others. A similar syndrome can be found in the writings of Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, for example, and there are literally hundreds of other examples that can be dredged up from the archives of the Daily Howler, which debunked the Gore-bashing canards in real time and is still taking no prisoners. Even the New Yorker magazine, where the current editors have tried to give Gore his due for years now, used to publish awful junk about him. Obviously it isn't responsible for the 1994 profile of Gore by Peter Boyer, for instance, which was then recycled into perverse mainstream coverage, but the echoing effects of bad journalism can last for decades.

Historians will someday ask why the United States entered a century of enormous challenges under the stewardship of a man who was so manifestly unsuited to high office -- and why he prevailed over a man whose judgment, experience and courage were so clearly superior. False images and phony stories created by the media will certainly figure in their answers.

Those historians may also wonder why the better man declined to seek the presidency again -- even after many of his detractors had been forced to confess that the rejection they helped engineer was a mistake of enormous proportions. They may wonder why he passed up the opportunity to redress the injustice done to him and done to his country and his planet, which is clearly of such great concern to him.

The answer may be found, of all places, in the Note, that snarky weblog on the ABC News site, which often betrays the true emotions roiling the minds of mainstream journalists. Said the Note, in explaining the recent spate of positive coverage of the old press nemesis: "Basically, the political press wants to tempt Al Gore into the race, and then they will destroy him as a flip-flopping, exaggerating, stiff loser. And Gore knows this."

Sad, small, pitiful and quite probably true.

For more, please read Thursday's posting on Dowd and Cohen at the incomparable Daily Howler (www.dailyhowler.com )

If you love Al Gore, read the Daily Howler folks.   (www.dailyhowler.com ) It is written by Al's college roommate, friend and defender, Bob Somerby. He can explain it all for you.  Al isnt going to run, he can't. When the entire media -political CW was attacking Gore, Bob was there, almost alone, de-mytholizing the attacks. It is the most important blog on the internet, by far.  It tells the truth about the political and media world that we live in, with no fear, no favor.  Bob's not looking for position, he doesnt run ads or ask for money.  He stands like a modern day Diogenes trying to tell truth to power.  (Both big and the small)

Al's not running.  He cant. His negative numbers are way to deep. Bob shows how attacks on Al during the primary season in 2000 (started by some of the same people that are attacking Hillary now, by the way)set up the vast right wing-MSM attack machine that kept him out of the WH and worked to deny him his chance during the recount.  This all started with `Progressive Leaders' calling Gore a Liar during the 2000 Presidential primaries and then, of course, led to the much repeated message that Bush = Gore.  The media then ran with this narrative and the lies about his lies - invented the internet, farm chores, love canal, doggie pills, canoe trip, union label, love story...followed neatly the false charge that Gore was a "liar" intoduced by Bill Bradley during the NH primary.

Al Gore would have been the best President ever.  But he never will have that chance.  And some of the same folks that are "leading" you now, made sure that would never happen.

Read Bobs post last week called "Revenge of the 90's" if you want to understand how we got to where we are today.  Lok through the archives, they're vast and were written in real time.  Read, learn, be sad, get mad.

Al Gore cannot and will not be running for President in 2008.  The mythos of Gore as a false, wooden liar has prevented him from being given another chance.    The MSM is willing to tell you why.  ABC's the Note on Friday explained:

The Note 2/23:
Making it tougher still to break in: the media's obsession with the man who would make the Big 6 the Big 7. Basically, the political press wants to tempt Al Gore into the race, and then they will destroy him as a flip-flopping, exaggerating, stiff, loser. And Gore knows this

Also on Friday, Gore friend (truth teller to the mob and enemy to the GOP-MSM script writers) Bob Somerby wrote in the Daily Howler about present days, and how some of our own liberal leaders helped set up  the narrative that keeps your (and my) favorite elected and non serving President from running again:

The Daily Howler: 2/23:

THE REVENGE OF THE 90's: Luckily for the average American, Arianna is always there to tell us who the Biggest Liars are. Yesterday, in several posts, she directly affirmed David Geffen's statement on the subject. So you'll remember, here's what the insightful mogul had said about Bill and Hillary Clinton:
GEFFEN: Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it's troubling.
Arianna directly affirmed this statement. Luckily, she's always willing to name the Biggest Liars.

Of course, Arianna managed to spot the Big Liar in 1999 too. Just so you'll recall how brilliant she was, let's revisit her deathless wisdom--the wisdom which sent George Bush to the White House. But please--hide the eyes of the children and pets! Here's what the sooth-saying savant once said, in her nationally syndicated column:
HUFFINGTON (2/6/00): [Bill] Bradley has warned voters to watch for Mr. Gore's "tricky" way with words, going as far as to compare him with Richard Nixon...In fact, not only this campaign but Mr. Gore's entire career has been laden with untruths--all demonstrating a pattern of serial abuse of language, truth and reality.
He invented the Internet, discovered Love Canal and was the inspiration for "Love Story." He lives on a farm, was "always pro-choice" and claimed that, "unlike Sen. Bradley," he had co-sponsored the original McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill--even though Mr. Feingold was not elected to the Senate until Mr. Gore had already left to become vice president.
Good God, that's awful! "Gore's entire career has been laden with untruths." Back then, Gore was the world's Biggest Liar. Today, Arianna keeps busy by kissing Gore's ass--and she now says that it's really the Clintons! The Clintons are really the world's Biggest Liars! As always, Arianna is there.

We say this to note an obvious point--yesterday was "Revenge of the 90's." Suddenly, thanks to Geffen and Dowd, that decade's top story-lines were back--and Arianna ran to affirm them. As a result, Democrats and liberals face a Big Question: Do we believe that decade's prime narratives? Do we believe that Bill Clinton was a Big Liar? Do we believe it about Hillary?
For ourselves, we'll have to say no; no, we don't believe that. We don't believe that President Clinton displayed himself to be a Big Liar; nor did we ever find this was true about Big Liar Gore. At THE HOWLER, we don't believe that decade's prime tales because we endlessly checked them out. We endlessly checked the claims against Clinton, and we endlessly found that the claims were just bogus. These tales were largely political inventions, ginned up by the RNC and pimped by its handmaidens in the mass media. Some of those handmaidens knew they were lying. Many were simply butt-stupidAnd yes, we kept getting the same results when we checked the claims about Big Liar Gore. No, he hadn't said he invented the Internet (or inspired Love Story; or discovered Love Canal), and the things he had said were completely unremarkable. But a Deception Machine was now in place, and the Ariannas bought their story-lines from it. She disgraced herself in 1999 and 2000, indeed, in 1999, she couldn't even manage to count up the buttons on Gore's troubling suits. (See THE DAILY HOWLER, 8/19/05. Cover the eyes of the children.) Result? George Bush sits inside the White House--and Arianna is sooo upset by all the bad things he has done.

So yesterday was The Revenge of the 90's. It's mightiest themes were back in place, thrilling a nation of pundits again. But before we note the saddest of facts--the fact that many liberals still believe these great themes--let's note the way a (truly) dazzling Democrat also promoted the package.

OBAMA, MAN OF THE 90's: Good God! We've been seeing Obama described as "The Change!" But how seductive are the themes of the 90's--the nasty themes dreamed up by the RNC's gang of thugs and dissemblers? Yesterday, a dazzling young Democrat vouched for an iconic old RNC charge:
OBAMA CAMPAIGN (2/21/07): We aren't going to get in the middle of a disagreement between the Clintons and someone who was once one of their biggest supporters. It is ironic that the Clintons had no problem with David Geffen when was raising them $18 million and sleeping at their invitation in the Lincoln Bedroom.
Good God! That came from Robert Gibbs, of Obama's campaign. The idiot Dowd had cited the Lincoln, three separate times, in her column about Geffen's comments. Now, Obama--and truly, his book is just dazzling--was pimping this stale bullsh*t too.

In many ways, the Lincoln Bedroom was the 1990's prime pseudo-scandal. We spent a lot of time on the Bedroom too; it was the second major topic which led us to start up THE HOWLER. And what did we find when we worked on this story? Fairly ordinary political behavior by the Clintons--and bald-faced lying by the Washington press corps! People! Who were the 90s' Biggest Liars! You'll never hear it from Arianna. But the Biggest Liars were the pundits themselves--and Arianna keeps pimping their tales.

By the time we got THE HOWLER started, Miss Lewinsky had replaced the Lincoln Bedroom. We finally posted the facts in 2005, when USA Today's Judy Keen reported an intriguing story (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 5/16/05). Keen's story? The pattern of Bush's overnight guests was much like that which obtained with the Clintons! But you know the rules! (Or maybe you don't.) In the 1990s, this story was beaten within an inch of its life--when the target was the vile Clintons. When it tuned out that Bush had a similar pattern, no pundit said two words about it.

But so it has gone, throughout an era which sold you on Bill Clinton's "lies."

Today, we strongly advise you to click that link to May 05, and read about this prime pseudo-scandal. Again, here's what you'll be reading about: Fairly routine political conduct--and outright misconduct on the part of the press corps! But that was the shape of the 1990's--although many of our fiery "progressives" still don't seem to know it.

We know, we know! We say that we hate the corporate media--but God almighty, how we love their Big Narratives! Inevitably, their stories will worm their way into our heads, and we often don't even know how they got there; even as we denounce these media, we end up repeating their tales! For ourselves, we especially see this at Arianna's site, where so many commenters have bogus ideas about the conduct of Campaign 2000, for example. (We tend to read HuffPo comment threads about Gore.) They think Al Gore didn't fight in Florida, for example. And how did that notion get into their heads? Largely, it came from Jeffrey Toobin's extremely odd book, Too Close to Call. Jeffrey Toobin? Oh yeah--of the corporate media! Even as we progressives denounce this monster, we recite its members' odd tales.

So there you have it--The Revenge of the 90's! Even in the age of Bush and Cheney, Geffen and Arianna are now insisting that nobody lies quite like the Clintons! (Could you possibly get more clueless?) And the campaign of a truly dazzling new Democrat recycled that old Lincoln Bedroom tale. Good God! Among other things, the press corps even counted Chelsea's friends as scandalous "overnight guests"--and our brightest new Democrat bought it!

Can we tell you a dirty secret? We progressives don't play this game very well. We thunder about that corporate media. But we've heard their tales again and again, and we're often too weak and too dumb to resist them. Inside their board rooms, fixers laugh hard as they watch their tales pop from our heads."

  We risk everything if we allow this narrative to be used again in 2008.  It cost as the WH in 2004, as other lies cost us the WH in 2004.  They will always create a new lie, a new narrative to hurt your interests.  We cannot be enablers in this process.  Thats why I believe Obama campaign communications Director, Robert Gibbs, must be forced to resign for introducing this scripting in use of the`Lincoln Bedrom' canard into the Democratic campaign.  This mythos ( see the daily howler for the facts on this) has been disproved - but was used  in 2000 to keep Gore from being where he should be today.  This lie was used to hurt all Democrats and it did its damage.  This false language  has no place in our dialogue and will allow the MSM to continue their frivolous scoffing at Democratic candidates.  We've proven these tales untrue and now our own campaigns are  using these same lies to what - to win a press release battle?  No!   We must say no to this. We cannot allow the myths and the lies that we fought so hard to disprove to be used by the campaigns just to get a momentary gain or to `win' an argument.  That hurts us all and allows the press to pretend that these lies are acceptable topics for their endless amusements. These lies, not the Clintons or Al Gore, cost us the election in 2000.  New lies cost us the WH in 2004.  Lets not enable the media and GOP to use this rehashed BS in 2008.  Please.

As Jerome pointed out in his post last Friday, Robert Gibbs in 04 cost Dean his chance for the WH with his ugly and vile Osama ad and now this same man intros hated Chris Matthew lite language and images into our campaign and we arent outraged?  Well, we should be.  That kind of politics and politicos like Gibbs should just go away.