The Workday Liberal

Brendan Loy, who blogs as the Irish Trojan In Tennessee, has written the perfect response to the recent hubbub from the Clinton camp surrounding the Michigan/Florida early vote controversy. Loy quotes Clinton wondering why the Democratic party can't reach a decision on this matter, and his reply may be best paraphrased as saying, 'but this has been decided, and the Clinton camp helped decide it, only changing their tune when it became apparent that they needed to have the Mi/Fl results despite the rules breaking'.

Let me be so bold as to expand a bit on this stellar reply by Loy. It is clear that the Clinton camp is trying to break the rules for their own benefit on this issue, and until they decided to make this an issue the matter had been settled. But in making such a huge issue out of these two states the Clinton campaign shows an eagerness to attack the putative nominee of the Democratic party in a way which reflects very poorly upon Senator Clinton's loyalty to her party if she is not the nominee. In fact, in the quote which Loy bases his post upon, this willingness to split the Democratic party and provide assistance to the Republican nominee is self evident. Here is that quote:

"I really don’t understand why the Republican Party very clearly decided what they were going to do [about the Florida and Michigan delegations], and the Democratic Party can’t decide."

By saying this, Clinton blatantly pronounces that she favors the Republican party over the Democratic party regarding an issue which she has harped on for months. In fact she is telling us that Republicans are doing the right thing in counting votes, whereas Democrats are acting wrongly by disenfranchising voters. Time and again, Clinton has cast this as an issue which is fundamental to American democracy. Quite honestly I object to the tone of Senator Clinton as she denounces the Democratic party while upholding the example of the Republican party on an issue which she then paints as crucial to the fall election.

This quote is hardly the first time that Hillary or her shrillagates have crossed this line either. For months they have warned of the loss of the general election as Florida and Michigan voters decide to punish the Democrats, throwing those states to McCain and insuring that he wins, should the Democratic party follow the rules everyone agreed upon. In fact Senator Clinton has been very direct in accusing Senator Obama of wanting to suppress votes. Just yesterday she said:

“He doesn’t want the votes to count, lets not mince words here. Senator Obama has been very, very clear ‘do not count those votes, or come up with some kind of resolution that disenfranchises people by taking away their right to have voted for whom they have voted for and neither of those is acceptable to Michigan and Florida voters and I wouldn’t agree with that either,”

This sort of direct attack upon the putative party nominee, casting doubt upon the legitimacy of his nomination and blatantly favoring the other party on this issue in particular is just not acceptable from one of the leaders of the Democratic party. Barack Obama should... indeed he positively must stand his ground on this. If both sides can find an equitable solution that would be fine, but Obama will show some real strength and character if he does not allow himself to be buffaloed by the patently unfair and dishonest attacks upon his Democratic and democratic ideals from the Clinton campaign. Obama's continued resolve in the face of heat and smoke from his opponent in a time of trial speaks well for what we may expect from a President Obama.

It does not speak well for Senator Clinton. It only reinforces the now rapidly building narrative as another example of how the Clinton's will say and do anything, ANYTHING, to be elected.