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Harry Reid: "Things Are Being Done"

26 Mar 2008 10:47 am

Check out this brief Q and A with Majority Leader Harry Reid and the Las Vegas Review Journal's Molly Ball:

Question: Do you still think the Democratic race can be resolved before the convention?

Reid: Easy.

Q: How is that?

Reid: It will be done.

Q: It just will?

Reid: Yep.

Q: Magically?

Reid: No, it will be done. I had a conversation with Governor Dean (Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean) today. Things are being done.

Comments (42)


Do the things being done involve giving Hillbilly melanin injections and perhaps a quick and dirty sex reassignment so she can grab all of OBammBamm's delegates?

Probably trying an intervention to get Hillary back on her meds. Something to stop the delusions caused by post-traumatic stress disorder from when she was taking out Serb snipers in Bosnia.

TN Gov. Phil Bredesen, who hasn't endorsed either candidate, recognizes reality and says there would be "hell to pay in the party for a long time to come" if the superdelegates nominated Clinton despite Obama's lead in pledged delegates and popular vote. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9217.html


Here is my bet as to how it is going to unfold:

- Hillbilly cannot quit now with a whopping campaign debt.

She will quietly cut costs (ads, etc.) while still raising funds and pretending all is well until her $2m debt is covered. Ideally she will build a small surplus to handle the headaches like refunding the contributions to the Presidential campaign.

- The announcement of her withdraw will come April 15th or one split second before she is committed to releasing her tax returns.

Drop dead date: April 15.

1 round of drinks in DC for up to 5 people offered as my wager.

Before Pennsylvania?

JBS,

Yup.

Not having the tax returns scrutinized is worth a lot to her.

If she discloses, she will almost certainly immediately come under immense pressure to disclose the Clinton Foundation stuff....

That is where the bodies are.

The wager stands.

I think there will probably be an intervention and that if HRC doesn't stop with the outright insanity that the party will kneecap her with some quiet leaks. It's no secret, for instance, that Bill has been tomcatting around for the last seven years, and all it would take is one insider blowing their stack over this and whispering in the right reporter's ear to destroy her candidacy. A Monica sequel any time in the next few weeks would be the 90s freak show on steroids.

Re: poster "D" above...

My thoughts exactly -- a few days a go, it dawned on me that Clinton might drop out just before April 15, and then refuse to release her income tax returns.

So, that's just 20 days from today (!)


Sex scandal with Hillbilly?

You mean that they will have one less bedroom to rent out because they are going to keep separate bedrooms?

Hey, we want a real sex scandal.... who has Hillbilly been seeing.... her girlfriend(s) or boyfriend(s) as the cases may be!

We can't have a President that don't have a misteress!

Let's start thinking of potential interns to service her.

Face facts:
1. who quits with 1200 delegates? It has never happened that I know of.
Stop trying to invent new rationale to force her out. People carry their delegates to the convention and go for broke until the other guy really wins it or makes a deal.
2. Obama has problems still with wright. The east and west coast of media and crazy bloggers want to believe that if it isn't a problem for them then wright isn't a problem for anyone. I grew up with posters of king and malcolm x and my wall and have read james cone's books but wright's hate speech is a whole other animal.
3. Hillary is in it to win it. simple. her ego is no different than obama's ego. her reasons are as earnest as his reasons. she isn't playing for second, she isn't changing the rules, she isn't playing for next time.
4. A convention fight will be cathartic for the party not destructive. If it gets that far it is because Obama didn't get it done and the process and infighting will produce a real answer.
5. If Hillary stays in and fights it all the way through convention she will not be damaging her future. Ted fought through till the convention and he is one of the greatest senators either. It didn't rip the party apart. He tried to stop the party from picking the wrong person and his best efforts failed and the party might've been better off listening to him. He tried to save the party (however ego driven he might also have been) and he almost succeeded. If she fights on she is a warrier whose people help control the platform fight and rules fight that happens at every convention. If she fights on then Obama has to treat the 1000s of party faithful who stuck with her and her donor base and her voters with conciderable more carefulness than if she caves in now for no reason. Is it because she is a woman that people expect her to curl up in a ball and give in? grow up, all of you. She represents a huge portion of the dem party and dismissing her or her strength is just dumb.

Reid is being offered an Obama cabinet position, Clinton will be offered Senate President.

the idea being floated, like a giant turd, by Clinton supporters that somehow dragging this on until August is "good for the party" is pretty pathetic. we've already seen Obama's numbers drop slightly under the combined attacks of McCain and Clinton (yes, they are for all intents and purposes on the same side). this drop isn't permanent, of course, but without the consolidated weight of the Democratic party behind him, and taking hits from both the Republicans and from a candidate ostensibly within the same party it is inevitable. John McCain is, of course, getting a pass in the press on his proposals and statements (see the non-action speech he gave on the economy and the "Al Qaeda is being trained by Iran!" fiasco) while the media is busy detailing the daily scuffles of the Clinton and Obama campaigns.

furthermore, it is giving John McCain the precious time he needs to collect support from all the disparate and disaffected elements of the Republican party that initially have opposed his nomination.

so no, this is NOT good for the Democratic Party. it's not even good for Hillary Clinton. the only person it is helping is John McCain.


Of course, OBammBamm can renege on the deal after he becomes President.

Hillbilly can be made Ambassador to a charming country with a great night life, fantastic cultural assets, within easy reach of the best shopping in the world, with great recreational activities like skiing, waterboarding, opps, I mean water skiing, and on top of that, dirt cheap gasoline!

Name her Ambassador to Iraq.

Michael C. I congratulate you on your loyalty. I really have nothing against Clinton supporters and will vote for her if somehow she wins the nomination.

However, I would like you to point to any "hate" speech given by Wright, and I don't mean one line, I mean with all the words before and after that are relevant to the context he used the words you point to in.
Secondly, Hillary has already damaged her future. The only chance she has to redeem herself is to come out strongly for Obama once he is the nominee. Anything less and she is done as far as the Democratic Party is concerned.

Ted Kennedy did not make scurrilous personal attacks on his opposition. He did not compare the Republican candidate to his opponent in a way that made the Republican opponent appear to be better.

The person to ask is Jon Ronson, author of "Them: Adventures With Extremists". Assuming we want this resolution conencted with some sort of conspiracy theory (and I'm certain we do).

Personally, I'd prefer either Skull and Bones or the Bilderberg Group to be involved, although I suppose I'd settle for David Icke. Or the writers for Dr Who. Is Billie Piper free to make the announcement?

(And yes, I expect Harry Reid offered to give up his position of Majority Leader if that would resolve the issue.)

It is strange that no one is discussing the open secret that Bill has had a number of sexual affairs while living apart from Hillary during her Senate career. You think the Wright controversy is bad? Everyone, the media, the campaigns, everyone but the general public knows this. The media don't think it's fair game at the moment and there is no way the Obama camp are going to float it, particularly since they've already won on paper.

But you can bet that in a general, maybe two weeks before election day, the Republicans are going to let the cat out of the bag. Once it's in the open air, the media will consider it fair game because "people are talking about it" and that will end the Clinton candidacy. Ignore all the corruption potential of the foundation and tax returns and any other thoughts; the Clinton campaign was born of Bill's marital indiscretions. If it survives into the general (and can do so only by nuking the party and its backbone of activists) the Clinton campaign will die by those indiscretions.

And we'll have at least four more years of White House madness.

Maybe I'm wrong though. Maybe Bill, living alone in that great big manor, isn't having the dalliances that the entire chattering class is chattering about. Maybe it can't break into the public because it's all just an illusion and Bill, a serial adulterer with the obvious tacit blessing of his postmodernist Senator wife, has changed his ways and it's all just speculation.

But anyone who cares about the fate of the Democratic nominee in the general would do well to consider whether the rumors might be substantiated in even the most seemingly innocuous way. I don't know.

But given that we've got a choir boy with a once-in-a-lifetime affinity for politics, with a natural intellect that rivals that of any president since Wilson, with a pen that matches Lincoln and a heart that obviously weighs with the needs of Americans of every kind, why would the party even consider going with our mediocre Nixon impersonator?

This all goes by way of saying: the superdelegates are not going to break for Hillary. Her plan isn't merely impractical; it's coherence demands a complete departure from reality.

Although I would not vote for McCain if Clinton steals the nomination (I will abstain), I will be so psyched to vote against HRC in her next senate primary, even if her challenger is a goat playing a motherfucking banjo. I used to be ok with her, but now she dead to me.

If obama can't win this thing without Hillary quitting doesn't that say more about Obama than it does about Hillary?
If Obama can't produce a win in the primary cycle before the convention it damages him. If his message and his money and his organization and a media bias that favors him can't get him over then maybe nothing can.
Will the obama supporters ultimately blame hillary for that or their own candidate?
Lets look at history:
1. do we blame bush for gore's losing or do we secretly think Gore blew it by picking leiberman, by being a bad candidate, by screwing up the debates, by distancing himself from clinton, by not being further ahead so that bush couldn't "steal" it? Clearly we blamed gore for most of it because we all hoped against hope he wouldn't try to run again in 04.
2. John Kerry: do we blame him for being a weak candidate? yes we do.
3. John Dean? Do we blame him for his scream?
yes we do.
4. Jimmy Carter? McGovern? Dukakis?
5. Do we blame bill buckner or the guy who hit the ball between his legs?
Will we blame Obama for not getting it done or Hillary for being the one who showed us he couldn't get it done?
Face facts. Suck it up. She is not much of a quitter. The question might soon be, is he?

Michael C - Oh, please. Hillary's ambition has been to be POTUS ever since her husband made it. She will damage her chancese in the Dem party. Just because Teddy went on to become a successful senator doesn't mean she'll be able to salvage her chances at POTUS and be able to run again. Not to mention, there's the Internet now! Hillary is going to get hell from the dailykos crowd.

And Carter's loss to Reagan had nothing to do with Clinton and Obama now. Your argument is that, because Clinton's losing, she's going to be the only candidate that can win the general? that's fucking stupid.

AIR FORCE PILOT WHO FLEW CLINTON TO BOSNIA TELLS HIS SIDE OF THE STORY

"No evasive maneuver. I tell ya, I will give to to the commander of Air Base Eagle... Not only were there no bullets flying around, there was no bumblebee flying around," Retired Colonel William "Goose" Changose said.


http://www.breitbart.tv/html/68124.html

I think Hillary is so completely delusional that she will take this thing all the way to the convention unless the supers step in and stop her - which I doubt they will do under any circumstance.

D - I'll take that wager. I work in downtown DC and drinks are always good when purchased by someone else!

John M. I think obama supporters want to prove it is not hate speech by asking every concerned voter to go listen or read a book of his sermons and a few new yorker articles and dissertations about the contextual truths and styles of liberation theology. Or Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann or Anderson Cooper should just be able to reassure folks that this is okay and nothing to worry about.
But I think the truth is that the clips are as close to hate speech as any of us are willing to be. We see not only Wright saying hateful stuff or using hateful language but see his parish responding in the affirmative every step of the way. We see how he gave 27,000 dollars to the church, that he stayed there 20 years, but that he denies ever hearing these speeches, or being aware of them until last January. Yet we find out the clips were from DVDs bought off the church's website. He says former pastor but only as of a week or two ago, and only because the preacher retired, not because Obama left the church. We see that he didn't go at Easter to save himself another dose of reality, to avoid reminding us that we don't like this connection.
It's hate speech because it is jarring, troubling and ill-timed. Who says that crazy shit 5 days after 9/11? When other crazy people said similar crazy shit (religious right blaming it on permissiveness and gays) we all were shocked but no one came out and pretended there was a broader context we all had to study and grasp to understand such hate. And when those phony haters from the religious right said their crazy hateful shit they and their churches lost face and we thought less of them ever after. But it was front page news.
The crazy obama supporters who rushed to their computers last week to say they actually agreed with most of what wright's clips said on so many of these blogging sites was ridiculas. That was an echo chamber.
I grew up left, I am left, I am against censorship, I loved the rainbow coalition, Ii love many of the ideas in liberation theology even though I am not christian but folks who don't get that obama's long involvement with a guy who gave Louis F a medal last year means something to a lot of us are just clueless. This jars with what we thought we knew about Obama big time. It seriously undermines any argument he had to make about his fine judgement.
When you say listen to the context of it you are ignoring the reality of it.
Imus used to play malcolm x's speeches on his show. he played King's speeches on King Day every year. But he had to go. Even Obama said so.
The hateful content of the wright clips is the real context. He entertains his parish with extreme statements delivered with showmanship. He damned America repeatedly in one speech. He blamed aids on our government. I cannot find a context for that in his speeches when I read their complete texts on line.
Louis F. is regularly defended (including by wright and Obama) for the Good worrks he does with Black men. And Louis F. defended Hitler in this same way. but for me good works are a very cheap defense for hate speech.
I think Obama's campaign is just like hamlet near the end of the play: already defeated. Obama destroyed his hopes with this strange affiliation.

In other words, michael c, you can't come up with any hate speech.

Apparently it's "hate speech" because it's "hateful". That makes sense, I think.

I guess Hillary also landed in Bosnia under sniper fire because she says she did. Or something like that.

It is Time to Shut Down Hillary Clinton
With Democratic race getting nastier by the day and Republican nominee wandering the world looking Presidential, it is time that Democrats brought an end to the nomination race.

Hillary Clinton is stretching her experience claims each day. She and her camp are trying to dig up dirt on the front runner so much so that it could damage the Democrats in fall. Hillary's trip to Bosnia under hail of fire has been discussed much in the media. Last night on Larry King Live, the renown journalist Maureen Dowd who accompanied Hillary put paid to Hillary's peace claims in Ireland. She said that apart from having tea with old ladies, Hillary had no contribution towards the Irish peace on that trip.

There is no mathematical possibility of Hillary Clinton winning the nomination. She is likely to win Pennsylvania, but she is 21 points behind Obama in North Carolina according to latest opinion polls.

It is time that a large number of Democratic Senators, Congressmen/women and party officials step forward and endorse Barack Obama in order to shut down Hillary Clinton before she does more damage to the party. Perhaps this is what Harry Reid was talking about yesterday.

I don't know john m and Jake saying that the "U.S. government created AIDS to kill black people" and "God damn America" etc. etc. sure as hell sounds like hate speech to me...

But if you don't think so I am sure the 30 second attack ads in October where they show those clips of things that are not hate speech in Ohio and Florida you both will be sooo right. Hey that is not hate speech! What is fellas?

Morons.

I'll hazard a guess. I'm guessing the majority of super delegates do have some form of "primary", but not until after June 3 when all the other primaries are done (per the recommendation of the governor of TN). This way even Hillary can't whine that the nomination was "stolen" from her because South Dakota didn't get a chance to vote. The super delegates would simply exercise their votes earlier than the convention date, but after the people have all voted.

I don't think they'll allow her to run it out until the convention.

I like Michael C's comment: "John Dean? Do we blame him for his scream? yes we do."

I would _like_ to blame John Dean for his scream, but he never screamed at his boss Richard Nixon. Oh well, but let's give 'em a -"yes we do"- anyway in Michael C's honor.

HOWARD Dean, on the other hand . . . he was yelling over a loud, fired up crowd of supporters after the primary. Oddly (or maliciously if you are conspiratorial), a separate feed of that yelling (or "scream") was released that removed the crowd noise that he was trying to be heard over; that sleight of sound made it seem like Howard Dean was yelling for no reasonable purpose. At that point, enter the media echo chamber, and flambe candidate Dean.

So, do we blame Misters Deans? Um, yes we do, sure, okay, whatever. I blame Nixon for John Dean's trevails and I blame Little Nixon (aka Hillary Clinton) for her own current shenanigans.

Dear john m. and Jake: don't be delusional. watch the clips. all the ones they showed on t.v.
If you agree with wright's politics then maybe you just won't hear it but if you have a sensible bone in your body you will understand that this is not how most of us talk about our country. I am not a flag waving fool. I am far to the left. But I am not so irrational that I think hateful speech is hard to spot. Do I criticize my country? but this is of a whole other order.
I have no problem with anything I've ever read in cone's books but this is of a whole different dimension. And yes I lean towards the view that obama's long association and involvement with wright disqualifies him. These things said by wright in these clips are strange enough to many voters to disqualify barack.

Dear john m. and Jake: don't be delusional. watch the clips. all the ones they showed on t.v.
If you agree with wright's politics then maybe you just won't hear it but if you have a sensible bone in your body you will understand that this is not how most of us talk about our country. I am not a flag waving fool. I am far to the left. But I am not so irrational that I think hateful speech is hard to spot. Do I criticize my country? yes, but this is of a whole other order.
I have no problem with anything I've ever read in cone's books but this is of a whole different dimension. And yes I lean towards the view that obama's long association and involvement with wright disqualifies him. These things said by wright in these clips are strange enough to many voters to disqualify barack.

And to samsinister: my fault. i did mean howard and yet the scream disqualified the guy and would so today too. and its him we blame for letting it happen.

I'm an Obama supporter, but I gotta say, those of you throwing around accusations of "Bill's not-so-secret secret" should put up or shut up. Openly questioning something like that is just as wrong as people openly questioning Obama's patriotism (which is really just a back-handed reference to the Hussein/Muslim rumors with a dash of allusion to black nationalism)

The most interesting part about the AIDS speech is that rappers have been saying this, in very, very readily available songs for the white community, as opposed to private church gatherings, for years. I've never found such an assertion particularly harmful; it's silly and extremely unlikely, but I've never felt the need to smash all of my Kanye West CDs.

I'm an Obama supporter, but I gotta say, those of you throwing around accusations of "Bill's not-so-secret secret" should put up or shut up. Openly questioning something like that is just as wrong as people openly questioning Obama's patriotism (which is really just a back-handed reference to the Hussein/Muslim rumors with a dash of allusion to black nationalism)

I agree it's a difficult thing, but if it turns out to be true and the Republicans bomb Hillary with it right after the convention, whom do we get to blame?

But yeah, it could all be gossip, I agree. And it's weird that no one would have done the story yet, if only because of how competitive the media are.

Socctty, not only does literally everyone in the press and politics simply assume that Bill has been dipping his wick in college age girls for the last seven years, it's even made print: the New York Post (I know, I know) has been writing up Bill's trips on Air Burkle for years. At the very, very least, Hillary should be made to answer serious questions about Bill's zipper now, because if Obama is hit by lightning, Republicans are going to start bringing the issue up about two seconds later. It's part of the testing and vetting process. If Hillary can't stand up to a few questions about her philandering husband, how is she going to stand up to Hugo Chavez???

What is wrong with you people? I have heard the GOP media talk about about left wing liberals for years. You folks must be those of whom they speak. I am a blue dog democrat second and a patriotic American first. No one I know or associate with will vote for Obama. The democratic party may think that they can jam Obama down our throats but his association with Wright and his choice of Michelle and her un-American comments show who Obama really is.

I am a blue dog democrat second and a patriotic American first. No one I know or associate with will vote for Obama.

I've been a fiscal conservative all my life. I first registered Republican, back when they at least gave lip service to being fiscally conservative and long before Dick "Deficits Don't Matter" Cheney. I am currently registered Dem but I'm really more anti-Republican.

I'm voting for Obama. He really is the only one of the 3 remaining candidates who hasn't said something completely and utterly hammerheaded. (See anything McCain has to say on the Iraq war or Hillary's lies ... or her socialist doozy on freezing all ARMs from re-setting for 5 years.)

Some of his positions are certainly left of mine, but I believe he is intelligent, has good judgment, won't measure every issue by political gain/loss, and will probably govern nearer the center than many expect. (That may be a minus for the true left-wing of the Democratic Party.) In fact, I think he's the best I've seen from either party in my approximately 30 years of voting.

Cathy:

It makes me sick to read posters like Cathy. So you won't vote for Obama because he fell in love with the wrong woman?

I grew up in London, although my parents are American and I'm a citizen and live in the States. I am so glad I didn't grow up with the phony patriotism of people like Cathy. This kind of third rate moronic flag waving is a mind infection that is choking this country's capacity to evolve.

Pity Cathy and her impoverished notion of this country's true potential.

Why is one campaign playing on fear while the other is praying on hope?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=7s9ubMQX7WE

The superdelegates should land on Obama's side in a big bloc if he gets any big wins coming up. Indiana and NC would be the most opportune times, I think. And of course if Obama by some miracle pulls off a win in PA.

LFC:
As an independent and fiscal conservative: huzzah.

Saying the government created AIDS to kill dark people is more a conspiracy theory than hate speech. Hate speech is attacking people for their race, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, gender, etc. It's not paranoia born of the Tuskegee experiment in which the US government spent decades watching black men with syphilis die while preventing them from being treated with penicillin. Hate speech goes beyond racism. Saying, for instance, "white people are dumb" is racist. Saying "white people should all die" is hate speech. One is much more extreme than the other.

As an independent and fiscal conservative: huzzah.

When the heck did the GOP become the party of rampant fiscal irresponsibility? I can't really put my finger on the defining moment, but they just seemed to drift away from this issue pretty quickly.

You might try to blame it on the politicians, but some months back I saw a poll of Republicans asking them to rate what issues they felt were important. Balanced budgets barely got 50%. Borrow and spend is now a part of the Republican DNA. Dick Cheney was right. Deficits don't matter ... to Republicans.