REDSTATE ON TALK SHOWS: TERENCE MCAULIFFE ON FNS. On FOX News Sunday, host Christ Wallace's first guest was Hillary campaign boss Terence McAuliffe, who spent the first 8 ½ minutes of the show being grilled about Hillary's comment that RFK was assassinated in June of 1968.
"What she was talking about, was the timeline."
She never apologized for speaking of assassinations in reference to her opponent, but McAuliffe argued that this had nothing to do with Barry or his campaign. She was not going to apologize to him, "nor should she." She expressed regrets, which McAuliffe equated with an apology, and Wallace asked to whom. To the Kennedy family, McAuliffe answered, and RFK had bitten the hook.
This was an issue, McAuliffe argued, because it was a slow news weekend. Hillary had said that she had the Kennedys on her mind because of Teddy's illness, but Wallace pulled up a quote from the March 6 issue of TIME infotainment magazine in which Hillary had made the point that Robert Kennedy was assassinated in June of 1968. So Hillary was lying, right? McAuliffe argued that Hillary has given a lot of interviews, which is a lot like her excuse for telling her rapt audiences that she and Chelsea dodged sniper fire in Tuzla.
On to other matters, McAuliffe would, of course, like to see all the Dem delegates seated, including those from Florida and Michigan. This rules out plans offered to the Dem convention rules committee by those two States separately which would seat delegations with partial votes. The rules committee will decide what to do on Friday, McAuliffe, at which time the Clinton campaign will decide what to do next, such as fight this all the way to the convention if need be.
The thrust of the Hillary campaign, McAuliffe said, is that Hillary would fare better than Obama in the Electoral College, having won all the swing States. He said he speaks to Bill Clinton all the time, and reports that Bill was pushing Hillary for veep are "all false."
VAN HOLLEN AND COLE ON FNS. Next up for Wallace on FNS were the two Congressional campaign committee bosses: the DCCC's Chris Van Hollen and the RNCC's Tom Cole.
Cole was quick to point out that the Dems now run "the least popular Congress in history." The Democrats want to spend more money, while the Republicans want to spend less, he argued. Wallace asked him about the bloated Farm Bill, for which Cole had voted, and Cole argued that this farm bill cost less than a previous one and that he had decided that it just was the best time to get a deal done.
Asked about the Dem Congress, Van Hollen argued that the Dems had not diminished the President's ability to fight terrorism; rather, he argued, they had refused "amnesty for phone companies which collaborated" with the Bush Administration. (The word "collaborated" was probably carefully chosen by the Dem Van Hollen, as it evokes thoughts of the old Nazi collaborators.)
Cole argued that the Dem Congress has "done nothing on energy issues," mentioning that they refuse to address the supply of oil.
Wallace asked Cole if he would agree to a total ban on earmarks, and Cole said that this is what the Republicans had proposed, met with Dem silence. Wallace suggested that the Republicans could refuse earmarks on their own, and Cole argued that it takes both parties to make things happen in Congress. Republicans cannot do it alone, he said Van Hollen argued that earmarks had quadrupled during the Republican Congress, and it was the Dems who brought "transparency" to the process. He also argued that the Democrats want to stop 527s from participating in our elections.
AXELROD ON TW. Obama advisor David Axelrod was host George Stephanopoulos first guest on ABC's This Week this morning. MSNBC sportscaster Keith Olbermann has evidently been whining about Hillary's mention of RFK's assassination, and Axelrod distanced himself from both the words and the sportscaster. He dismissed Olbermann by saying that he's entitled to his own opinion.
On Hillary's claim to the lead in the popular vote count in the Dem Presidential race, Axelrod responded: "It would take some tortured math and tortured logic to say she's ahead in the popular vote." He then argued that Florida and Michigan don't count and that the popular vote is meaningless: "This isn't American Idol. (Was he comparing McAuliffe to Sanjaya?)
When Steph presented the argument that his old boss, Hillary, would win the swing States, Axelrod responded that Obama could beat McCain in Colorado, Virginia, and North Carolina. You know, the "new electoral map" thing.
Steph presented Dianne Feinstein's argument that the Dem Party is split into two constituencies which could be united by THE DREAM TICKET. Axelrod responded by relating that the campaign is getting plenty of unsolicited advice.
ROVE ON TW. Next up on TW was FOX News political analyst Karl Rove. Rove argued that since Obama has done nothing in his three years in the Senate, he must try to do something which shows his leadership in his campaign, such as say he will pick Republicans to sit on his cabinet.
Rove argued that Obama need not break with President Bush; rather, he must create "a clear image[of himself] among the American people." He must run his campaign with authenticity, not triangulation.
Steph sneered that the Republican brand was garbage at this point, and he asked Rove what went wrong in the path to a "permanent Republican majority." Rove countered that the country was still center-right; the party, he argued, must get back to talking about this, not about other things.
Steph asked Rove about the trouncing the Republicans took in 2006, and Rove responded that it was a fairly typical off-year election. He backed this up with the stats and concluded that the GOP had suffered a "very narrow defeat." The war, he argued, was not the deciding issue.
WOLFSON ON FTN. On CBS, Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer's first guest was Hillary's chief mouthpiece, Howard Wolfson. First up, the RFK assassination, which Schieffer characterized as "one of the reasons she [Hillary] is going to stay in the race." Wolfson argued that Hillary meant that elections have lasted a long time in the past. He called it an "historical reference." He complained that "her remarks have been blown out of proportion." He asserted that Hillary apologized, and Schieffer argued that she did not. Schieffer played Hillary's excusing her self in the New York Daily News, saying that she was blaming others. Wolfson accused the news media of being "wrong" and "misleading." Wolfson agreed with McAuliffe that Hillary needn't apologize to Obama.
He said Hillary was concentrating on the "twin goals" of winning and unifying.
Wolfson accused the Obama campaign of "inflaming" the situation.
Wolfson said that Axelrod had changed the tone from the Obama campaign's initial attacks on Hillary.
Schieffer pushed that McAuliffe's remarks this morning that Hillary need not apologize to Obama were wrong. He chuckled when Wolfson stood pat on agreeing with Terence for the umpteenth time.
Schieffer asked Wolfson is Hillary would take this to the convention to be settled on the second or third ballots. Wolfson said that he expects Hillary to be the nominee before that, not ruling out taking this through several votes at the convention.
Wolfson said that rather than harming the Democratic Party, what Hillary is doing is brining more people to the polls for the Democrats.
LINDSEY GRAHAM AND DICK DURBIN ON FTN. Schieffer next spoke to McCain supporter Lindsey Graham and famed Nazi hunter Dick Durbin, an Obama supporter.
Schieffer opened by asking about McCain's little party in Arizona. Graham said that McCain was like a "kid at Christmas, showing off his new ranch out here," with some fifty species of birds. He said that the event was "purely social."
Durbin wants to put the Hillary RFK-bit behind them.
Graham said that McCain will make the case that we had the "wrong strategy" in Iraq for four years; McCain was calling for more troops when others wanted to get out. He said that President Bush accepted McCain's argument. McCain gets credit for the Surge. He challenged Obama to go back to Iraq and talk to General Petraeus and Prime Minister Maliki, as much has changed since Barry's last visit in 2006. Schieffer asked if McCain and Obama could go together, and Graham though that would do the country good, to go together and have the same briefing.
After a quick commercial break, Durbin said that he would not set Obama's schedule but that McCain ought to meet with our returning veterans, who ought to get the same treatment as those who returned from World War II, meaning that supporting Jim Webb's partisan political gimmick is more important than knowing what is really happening in Iraq. Durbin argued that Obama had met Petraeus and asked him questions – really, he did – "in committee." (Not one-on-one.) He accused the McCain campaign of being behind a negative ad put out by an outside org.
Graham repeated that Obama had not been to Iraq since 2006: "How can you make an informed judgment [on Iraq] if you haven't been there in two years?"
A PANEL ON MTP. On NBC, host Tim Russert deigned to fill his time on a holiday weekend with one of his panels, this time with six media types yapping politics at the same time: CBN's David Brody, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, the Washington Post's Ruth Marcus, Jon Meacham of one of the infotainment glossies, and Gwen Ifill of PBS. (Ifill was on instead of the promised sixth-wheel, Michelle [MEE-shell] Norris of PBS.) Russert joked that the rest of America was barbecuing while this group was "talkin' politics," which shows that he expected his show this week to be watched by no one but me.
Russert led with a clip of Hillary and the RFK assassination bit. Goodwin said that neither of Hillary's historical allusions were true, as Bill had locked up his nomination before June and Bobby Kennedy had gotten into the race only six weeks prior to his assassination. Goodwin further suggested that Obama might have another "gaffe" or be assassinated between June and the convention in August. MoDowd said that Hillary's timing was bad, as it followed the anniversary of MLK's assassination, came just prior to the anniversary of RFK's assassination, and came right after we learned of Teddy Kennedy's cancer. She accused Bill Clinton of orchestrating a "hostile takeover" of Obama's veep selection process and Hillary of "giving delegates the creeps." Meacham sat there and smirked. Ifill recommended that people never speak of Hitler or assassinations in politics. She spoke also of poking sores.
Meacham said that though Obama didn't have the number of delegates needed to secure his party's nomination, this was a "technicality" and the delegates were "irrelevant." He asked, mocking the Clintons, "What is the meaning of June?" Several on the panel laughed. Meacham said that Hillary's campaign knows that Obama is moving toward the nomination while Hillary herself was delusional about it. He said that Hillary was waiting for something bad to happen to Obama and that this was lousy for a Dem Party which by every measure "should be burying John McCain." (Another assassination reference.) He compared Hillary in '08 to Reagan in '76 and Kennedy in '80, running a strong challenge in the primaries but failing in the end, also representing part of the reason their parties lost in the general.
David Brody said that Obama was very close to victory, and that Hillary was hoping to see from Obama as "Bill Buckner moment… 1986, the ball goes between the legs." He pointed out that there were two oppo research teams going after Barry at the same time now.
Ruth Marcus said that Hillary's RFK remark hurt her chances to be Obama's veep.
And so this went for half an hour, too numbing too transcribe, with the dunderheaded Meacham doing about 44.8% of the talking with his rambling, meaningless answers.
HARMAN AND DREIER ON LE. Leading off CNN's Late Edition, host Wolf Blitzer spoke to Congress critters Jane Harman and David Dreier. He started them off with Hillary's RFK assassination remarks, and I got to see the clip for the umpteenth time plus one. Harman said that Hillary had "regretted those remarks, Wolf, and so do I." She said that the race has to be over soon, and that the loser will concede gracefully.
Wolf played for Dreier the audio clip of Obama saying that people make "careless" statements when campaigning" "As a Republican and a strong supporter of John McCain, what do you think?" Dreier thinks that if RFKJr is okay with it, so is he. He said that Barry's class warfare rhetoric is a non-starter, while McCain is pro-growth and wants to reduce the size of government.
Harman, a Hillary delegate, says that she plans to support the Dem ticket, because of Iraq, Katrina, and, specific to McCain, "three words: the Supreme Court."
Wolf argued that the government has exploded, as has the national debt, under a Republican president: "What kind of track record is that?" Dreier said that McCain is committed.
Blitzer asked for Harman's reaction to the delegate county. "Is it too late for her to find the math to salvage her race?" Harman admits that she doesn't know the math but she suggested compromises on Michigan and Florida, seated both, and the Super Delegates will then commit. The loser, she said, has to fight for unity.
Harman wants to end the combat mission in Iraq and "move the troops to more dangerous parts of the Middle East."
Wolf asked Dreier about "talking to our adversaries, the way Ronald Reagan talked to the former Soviet Union." Dreier said that the talks between Israel and Syria were failing because Syria refused to distance itself from Iran. "We can't reward this kind of behavior."
Harman argued that 500 Californians have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. She then saluted the Iraqis for doing much better and argued that this means that we should leave and let them take care of everything. She further argued that we have made Iran stronger by not negotiating with them.
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Wolf was big on getting ready to break to Obama's speech, subbing for the ailing Ted Kennedy, to the commencement at Wesleyan U. This is a direct snub to Hillary, who is a graduate of Wellesley College, which sounds a lot like Wesleyan
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