HILL Hath No Fury....
Politico has the story that Obama's VP Vetters never asked for any information from Hillary Clinton, nor has anyone met with her. Team Obama lamely says that they've been vetting her for 16-months in their oppo research. Of course it's always easier to get the 411 when the target is a potental VP instead of rival, but hey, they say they've been vetting...
If O was never considering Hillary, you'd think it would have made sense to just pretend; if only for the CYA. At best it all sounds discourteous; and at worst, plain stupid.
So Hill gets nominated in Denver so that her followers are placated, but the VetTeam never picked up the phone.
I can year the shit picking up speed on the way to its fan, and it won't be pretty.
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The question I have. Hillary's stuff is out there from the primary.
So really they needed to vet Bill and nobody is mentioning that. So I am not reading much into this she wasn't vetted.
August 22, 2008 4:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, but this doesn't fly... when it became clear that Hillary would not win, one of the arguments the Hillary camp put forth was that she didn't need to be vetted because she had been in public life for years and everything anyone would need to know about Hill or Bill was out there.
The Hillary camp also resisted being vetted or releasing any details of the Clinton dealings for Bill's Library, the Clinton Global Initiative because of what was considered to be rather questionable dealings with a Canadian billionaire and a Kazahkstan oil deal, contributions to the Clinton library for foreigners, and other business done by CGI. You will also recall the delay in getting the First Lady's schedules and White House records, the delay in the release of the tax returns and more.
So Hillary can't have it both ways: either you want to be vetted and turn over your records or give access to them or you don't.
All of this talk about whether she was or was not being vetted is brought up by people outside of the Obama campaign.
If today's secrecy about the VP pick doesn't tell you something about the tight ship Obama runs, you don't know jack. We don't know who really is or is not on Obama's list.
August 22, 2008 5:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
My point is that the Clinton backers will be very annoyed if she was not seriously considered. The fact that this is coming out via leaks on the Clinton side is worrisome. The Democratic Party cannot afford division.
All of your points are valid, but the issue isn't about the Clintons. It's about the 48% of Clinton backers who are uncommitted; which could be as high as 8M. That's not a constituency Obama wants to alienate, especially when all it took as a third year lawyer to request some innocuous documents as a fig leaf.
You may think it doesn't fly, but there is a considerable number of Clinton devotees that may think that you don't know jack.
August 22, 2008 7:59 PM | Reply | Permalink