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Let me say first that while I didn't support Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee, I could certainly understand why her supporters did. She's tough, she's arguably one of the smartest people in Washington and she's extremely capable. And even her detractors must admit that it was a very tough primary season, made worse by the media's need to fill up 24/7 with content that appeared to relish pitting Democrats against one another, usually quite unfairly.
That being said, if any Hillary Clinton supporter actually goes through with this suggestion from Bill "I'm not right about anything, but I still get my regular TV gig to screw over the national discourse" Kristol, you are being played, big time. This is Operation Chaos in all its nakedly partisan glory.
Kristol (who, by the way, is NEVER right about anything, have I said that recently?) is clearly scared of Obama's pick of Joe Biden for the vice president slot, because as he admits, Biden has the foreign policy experience, the alleged lack of which they are so fond of attacking Obama. So in the only battlefield that Kristol has the gonads to scale, he challenges Clinton supporters (naturally, it's easier to be brave when others are the soldiers, isn't it, Billy?) to launch a protest by nominating Clinton as the Vice President at the convention, forcing a roll call vote.
KRISTOL: Look, Senator Obama is going to be the nominee, there's no point in contesting that roll call. What I would encourage Hillary supporters to do...
WILLIAMS: Oh boy...
LIASSON: No!
KRISTOL: ...is to express their outrage over the pick of Senator Biden over the better qualified Senator Clinton as the Vice Presidential pick by putting her nomination for the vice presidency. That would be a good roll call vote, don't you think? Clinton and Biden. Although I'm not sure she wouldn't beat him. And that would be exciting and that would be a ben...it would be a favor to Senator Obama. Because the truth is Obama/Clinton is a much stronger ticket. It is a stronger ticket than Obama/Biden. Does anyone seriously doubt that Hillary Clinton would bring all the Clinton voters over? Whereas Biden I think is going to have a tough time doing so.
WILLIAMS: It would be drama. But I think that you make
that suggestion as a subversive act...KRISTOL: You think? [laughs] No...no...
Listen up, for those of you considering this: THIS IS A SUGGESTION FROM SOMEONE WHO THINKS THE IRAQ INVASION AND OCCUPATION WILL MAKE GEORGE W. BUSH A GREAT PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY BOOKS.
Can I possibly reiterate how wrong Kristol ALWAYS is?
I don't care how unfairly you think Clinton was treated during the primaries (and frankly, I might agree with you on that) nor how great a VP you think she'd make (she'd be great and it would be a historic administration with an African-American and a woman leading the country--I'll stipulate the whole to you for the sake of argument), it is simply bad for the party, bad for the country and insulting to our collective intelligence as Democrats and/or liberals to do anything that the leading neo-con cheerleader for the Worst. President. Ever. suggests.
Don't even think about it.
Full transcript of his pathetic tactics below
WALLACE: Bill, let me ask you--and Mara brought up it seems to me two central points-does he help, does he really help people who are concerned about Obama's foreign policy lack of experience? Will he shore that up and ease their concerns about that and on the flip side, change. Does this blunt the message of change and shaking up Washington to have a guy who is a six-term-if he doesn't win the vice presidency, about to be a seven-term--U.S. Senator?
KRISTOL: Well, it's a pick made from weakness. Now that's not necessarily a foolish thing. If you've got weaknesses, you want to try to correct them. But it is a pick that in effect acknowledges, "I-was-being-wounded-on-the-Commander-in-Chief /lack-of-foreign-policy-experience issue. And I picked the most experienced Democratic senator in foreign policy." But he's picked someone with no military experience and no executive experience. He didn't pick Hillary Clinton, who got 18 million votes in the 2008 Democratic primary campaign. Joe Biden got, I think, 2,000 Iowans who were willing to caucus for him and then dropped out. When he ran in 1988, Biden didn't even make it to Iowa, as I recall. So, I'm dubious about the pick. I would have...I think...and I think we should save the tape of your interview with Tom Kaine (sic) just fifteen minutes ago, because I think...
HUME: Tim Kaine...
KRISTOL: Tim Kaine, I know. Tom Kaine (Kean) is the former governor of New Jersey. Tim Kaine is my own governor! Oh my God, I'm gonna have to make it up to him now for the next several months.
WALLACE: Oh you have in the last couple of months.
KRISTOL: I've been very pro-Tim Kaine, but I'm telling you, I believe if Barack Obama was watching that interview, he thought, "You know what? Tim Kaine could have handled the foreign policy issues adequately in the debate with McCain's vice presidential nominee and he's giving off an articulate, younger spokesman with executive experience who'd represent change to take a long time-serving senator with a lot of experience, but incidentally, what is that experience? He was against the Reagan defense build up, against the first Gulf War, for the Iraq War, this is the experience that Tim...that Barack Obama...that's the change that Barack Obama wants us to believe?
[snip]
WALLACE: All right, all right. I have one more question I want to ask Bill Kristol. You've got less than a minute. Does the choice of Biden at all affect McCain in his choice of a running mate?
KRISTOL: Yes, I think that there's nervousness in the McCain camp about putting Tim Pawlenty, the governor of Minnesota, who's otherwise a very attractive pick, up against Biden in a debate, with Biden's ability to toss around all the places he's been-he's been to Iraq seven times. Gov. Pawlenty's a governor. And he doesn't have a lot of foreign policy...
WALLACE: In other words, what McCain wants to do to Obama, he's worried that Biden could do to Pawlenty.
KRISTOL: Right.
WALLACE: So if Pawlenty is weakened by this, who's strengthened?
KRISTOL: Anyone with extensive experience, which I would say is Romney, to some degree. He ran for President, and is a serious, grown up guy. Or Tom Ridge or Joe Lieberman.
[snip]
LIASSON: ...in terms of her, them angry about her not being vetted [Clinton supporters angry over Hillary Clinton not being considered for the vice president position], she said to the Obama campaign, "If I'm not going to be chosen, I don't want to go through the vetting process." And so she didn't.
KRISTOL: Look, Senator Obama is going to be the nominee, there's no point in contesting that roll call. What I would encourage Hillary supporters to do...
WILLIAMS: Oh boy...
LIASSON: No!
KRISTOL: ...is to express their outrage over the pick of Senator Biden over the better qualified Senator Clinton as the Vice Presidential pick by putting her nomination for the vice presidency. That would be a good roll call vote, don't you think? Clinton and Biden. Although I'm not sure she wouldn't beat him. And that would be exciting and that would be a ben...it would be a favor to Senator Obama. Because the truth is Obama/Clinton is a much stronger ticket. It is a stronger ticket than Obama/Biden. Does anyone seriously doubt that Hillary Clinton would bring all the Clinton voters over? Whereas Biden I think is going to have a tough time doing so.
WILLIAMS: It would be drama. But I think that you make that suggestion as a subversive act...
KRISTOL: You think? No...no...
[snip]
WALLACE: ....You see a kind of pivot in the last couple of weeks, and certainly, with Biden's speech yesterday, to a much more conventional-no pun intended-traditional Democratic message of economics.
KRISTOL: Right, which I think makes a certain amount of sense. It's going to be a Democratic year, if you can make it a Democratic/Republican race, Obama wins. If Obama is a generic Democrat, he wins. His problems are that people aren't certain if he's experienced enough to be President. So I think the temptation will be to do endless Bush-McCain-I think by the end of these four, next four-five days, we will think that the last eight years was the Bush/McCain administration, not the Bush/Cheney administration. And that the next four years will be the McCain/Bush administration. They'll be tempted to do that, they'll do a lot of it. I think it doesn't answer the fundamental problem, which is doubts about Obama. Meanwhile, I predict that Sen. McCain today is calling Hillary Clinton to commiser...they're very friendly, to commiserate with her you know, about the injustice...
WALLACE: He's [unclear-ripping?] this wounds...
KRISTOL: No, and don't you think incidentally, I was thinking, what woman could McCain put on the ticket to really appeal to the Clinton voters? What about Hillary? I think McCain/Hillary...McCain/Hillary
[cross talk]
WILLIAMS: Forget Lieberman...
