Hillary Returns to Her Sleazy Campaign Tactics

It's taken quite a while for Hillary Clinton, in her 2016 presidential run, to remind me of her most deceitful, dishonest moments of her 2008 presidential campaign against Barack Obama.
Yet, within the past several days, the "old" Clinton has re-emerged in her Democratic primary battle against Bernie Sanders.  What happened? Sanders, simply, began to catch up to Clinton in a couple of polls in Iowa and closed the gap significantly in a national poll.  The resulting pressure prompted Hillary to begin using her more sleazy approaches, which we saw in 2008.
Yes, Hillary has reasons to be more worried about losing Iowa now.  That would hurt her campaign and embarrass her and remind people of her 2008 experience - when Obama came back and defeated her in the Iowa caucuses.
But....Hillary still has the same huge advantages in her race with Sanders.  She still is very equipped to win Iowa and New Hampshire.  She has far more of a chance to win South Carolina and a host of other states.  She has loads of money, endorsements and the Establishment with her.  Plus, Sanders has to overcome the "small" difficulty of convincing people to vote for him despite his being a Democratic socialist.

So, why has Hillary and her campaign chosen to suddenly distort Sanders' positions and get sleazy?  Why not just rely on Hillary's considerable strengths in debating and describing the differences between her positions and Bernie's?

I don't know.  She doesn't have to do it.  But, consider just a few different ways she's gone after Sanders:  First, she keeps attacking him on his position on gun control.  Now, Clinton, without question, has a stronger anti-gun position than Sanders.  She has been far more outspoken about her concerns about gun violence....but, in recent days, in a number of television interviews, she has tried to paint Sanders as being terrible on gun safety.  One would think - from listening to Hillary - that Sanders was like a Republican opposing any and all gun safety proposals.  That is not at all true.
As Bernie has pointed out, the NRA once gave him a D- for his record.  Yet, Hillary keeps harping on a vote Bernie took in 2005 that concerned the liability of gun manufacturers in the event of hypothetical gun violence.  Sanders voted against it and I have no problem with Hillary criticizing him for it......but, in the midst of her "panic," recently, Hillary has taken all this further.  In an interview, she claimed that Sanders had been "a pretty reliable vote" for the NRA (or in words very close to that)  That remark was simply false and unnecessary. (Sanders called it "mean-spirited.")  And, while Hillary can and should try to distinguish herself from Sanders on gun safety, she should keep their differences in context.  Bernie Sanders is not an NRA "supporter."  He has supported some measures aimed at improving gun safety, including President Obama's recent executive actions. 
Second, Hillary's daughter, Chelsea, was incredibly misleading about Sanders' overall position toward health care.  In remarks to a New Hampshire audience, Chelsea said one false thing after another:
"Sen. Sanders wants to dismantle Obamacare, the CHIP program, dismantle Medicare, and dismantle private insurance," Chelsea said.  "I don't want to empower Republican governors to take away Medicaid, to take away health insurance for low-income and middle-income working Americans.  And I think very much that's what Sen. Sanders' plan would do."
Sanders advocates what he calls a "Medicare for all" plan and wants the country to evolve to using a single-payer system.  That would involve much work and many stages and steps.  Chelsea - and later, Hillary - made it seem that those steps would involve stripping away programs when that is clearly NOT Sanders' intent.

Memo to Chris Matthews: Hillary Was More Than an "Enabler" of Bill Clinton's Infidelities;

Has the truth ever played a smaller role in a presidential campaign than in the current one?

The news media coverage, particularly on television and the Internet, has been overwhelmingly driven by entertainment.  That's why Republican Donald Trump has thrived. Trump "gets" how superficial television coverage has become and he aims to attract attention accordingly.  That's why he's been able to say the most reckless, bigoted, mean, crazy things and keep leading in most polls.
Distortions, half-truths, out-of-context statements and lies have always been a big part of presidential campaigns, but, in 2016, larger falsehoods go uncovered by the press than ever before.  While the Republicans have made, by far, the most misleading statements, I noticed a recent example of distortion - this time on a popular political TV talk show - regarding Democratic frontrunner, Hillary Clinton. 
Chris Matthews on his show, "Hardball," last week, was discussing Trump's recent criticisms of Clinton and her role as her husband, Bill Clinton, engaged in various sexual indiscretions in the past.  Trump had claimed that Hillary had been "an enabler" of Clinton's infidelities.
Matthews said emphatically that he didn't think Hillary had ever been "an enabler," and, he went on to praise how well Hillary had emerged from the Monica Lewinsky episode in the 1990s from the White House.

I know Matthews likes the Clintons, but, I thought, this was ridiculous.  What about in 1992?  Didn't Matthews recall how Hillary had assisted Bill when his entire quest for the presidency was on the line?

I remembered, very clearly, the events of early 1992, when Bill Clinton was campaigning before the New Hampshire Primary.  Suddenly, out of nowhere, came Gennifer Flowers and her allegations that she'd been involved in a 12-year affair with Bill.  Clinton and his campaign staff immediately began aggressively denying Flowers' allegations, which had first appeared in an article in a tabloid newspaper.  "It's cash for trash," said Clinton's top aides, who went on an all-out offensive to
try to destroy Flowers' credibility.

In the instance or two when members of the media spontaneously asked Clinton himself directly about Flowers, he gave the briefest of denials, but, I remember thinking:  "He's not acting like a guy with nothing to worry about."

Then, in a desparate move, the Clintons lined up an appearance on "60 Minutes," immediately following the Super Bowl.

Steve Kroft of "60 Minutes" interviewed both Clintons, and Bill denied Flowers' allegation of a 12-year affair or any affair with Flowers.  He did acknowledge he had "caused pain in my marriage," but avoided volunteering  specifics about his relationship with Flowers or any alleged extramarital affairs.  (Flowers had a press conference the next day and brought excerpts of tape recordings of phone conversations she had had with Bill, including a few vague references to their relationship).  

Hillary, who sat by Bill's side during the "60 Minutes" interview, contributed comments occasionally that backed up, or, supplemented, Bill's account.  At one point, she said she had spoken to two different women (to show her empathy or support) who had been linked to Bill somehow.  At another moment, Hillary said, by what she and Bill had been willing to discuss, they had "gone further than anybody we know of and that's all we're going to say..... and we're going to just leave the ultimate decision up to the American people, " Hillary told Kroft.

Clearly, Hillary's role in this 1992 instance amounted to far more than "enabling." She helped Bill defend himself against explosive allegations at the most important press appearance to do so.  And, by doing so, she helped Bill Clinton lie about Gennifer Flowers.  I say lie because six years later, in a deposition related to the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit vs. Bill Clinton, President Clinton admitted he had had a sexual relationship with Gennifer Flowers. (In the deposition, he stated that he'd had a one-time encounter with Flowers rather than the 12-year-affair she claimed)

His lie in 1992 had helped him become President.  Shortly after the "60 Minutes" appearance, Bill Clinton, though he lost the New Hampshire Primary, called himself "The Comeback Kid" because of his better-than-expected second-place finish, and, a few  months later, Clinton was nominated for President.

I have no idea what Hillary's role has been every time Bill Clinton has faced allegations of infidelities.  There have been many times.  And, I know that Chris Matthews, in his comment last week, seemed to be focusing primarily on Hillary's role during and after the Monica Lewinsky affair.   However, because Trump's labeling Hillary "an enabler" seemed to apply to more than one affair, it seemed to me that Matthews's comments amounted to quite a broad defense of Hillary also.

It's a defense that - when you consider her key role in her husband's 1992 campaign - is badly flawed because it is simply not true.