Coakley would fit right in
If Sarah Palin had said what Martha Coakley did, it would be headline news everywhere, and Saturday Night Live would devote at least one program to it, maybe several.
Here’s the quote from Coakley’s debate with Brown:
“I think we have done what we are going to be able to do in Afghanistan. I think that we should plan an exit strategy. Yes. I’m not sure there is a way to succeed. If the goal was and the mission in Afghanistan was to go in because we believed that the Taliban was giving harbor to terrorists. We supported that. I supported that. They’re gone. They’re not there anymore.
Coakley has never held national office, but she’s also never held any office except Middlesex DA and Attorney General for the state of Massachusetts. I would imagine that her background on foreign affairs is abominable, and unlike Sarah Palin she’s probably not felt the need to bone up because Coakley did not foresee a high level of scrutiny in this race. But even for an intelligent layperson with a modicum of interest in the foreign policy of the US for the last couple of years, her level of ignorance is shocking.
Coakley’s treatment of subsequent questions about her Afghanistan/Taliban response is congruent with the current “transparent” climate in Washington, however:
A reporter asked Coakley about that [Taliban] claim after a Capitol Hill fundraiser on Tuesday. “Do you stand by that remark?” he asked.
Coakely, standing before a small cluster of reporters and cameras, listened to the question, then quickly looked in a different direction.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Did anybody else have a question?”
Coakley then went on to mention, in response to the next question;
We are facing a candidate from Massachusetts who is being supportive by extreme right groups including many Republican groups who are pouring money into Massachusetts attacking my record and distorting my record. I’m doing everything that I need to be competitive in this race.
It’s almost comical that Coakley accuses others of “distorting her record” while at the same time she distorts who those others are. Much of Brown’s support is from independents, as her polling must tell her, not “extreme right groups.” Much of it is from individuals and small donors rather than groups, as she also must know. And as for distorting the record, it’s Coakley who has tried to do that to Brown, in a fairly egregious manner (i.e. she flagrantly lied about it; see this).
I hope Coakley never gets a chance to sit in Ted Kennedy’s seat—or anyone else’s seat—in the United States Senate. But if she does, unfortunately she’ll fit right in.
[ADDENDUM: Here’s some video of a Weekly Standard reporter getting roughed up while trying to question Coakley (hat tip: Bill West).
Michael Meehan, Boston Democrat and Obama appointee, was the shover to reporter John McCormack’s shovee. And—no surprise—Democratic spokesperson Eric Schultz says it’s all a Republican dirty trick. Nothing to see here, move right along.
Here’s a thought-provoking comment to the “Republican dirty tricks” article above (can’t do a link, but it came in today at 11:29 AM):
The new tone in Washington DC, ”¦good old fashion Chicago thuggery. Physically attack a reporter if you do not like their line of questions, and then blame it in the opposition. These bullies have the balls to cry foul and blame this on GOP dirty politics. The GOP had nothing to do with this Democratic staffer, Bostonian, and Obama appointee to the Broadcasting Board of Governors shoving that reporter to the ground. This is the stuff of Saul Alinsky. These liberal thugs if they cannot whine their way of their dirty deeds, then shift the focus of their dirty deed and blame the opposition. This is truly pathetic. Can you imagine if a GOP staffer had shoved a reporter to the ground? The fact is the liberals are being who they always have been; they have just taken things up a notch since Obama has been elected, because they have been emboldened by this president’s thugocracy that is operating out of the White House.]
When the reporter, an editor of the Weekly Standard, pressed the question a beefy PR guy pushed him into a metal barrier and the editor went down. After getting up, the editor tried to follow Coakley, but the PR guy got in the way. It’s at the Weekly Standard, NRO and Politico with links to the Video on Youtube.
If Dems don’t like the questions, they let thugs answer.
Bill West: yes, I saw that, here.
Coakley’s answer is defensive and so out of line with anything the ‘Mossiah’ would say that even I, the eternal pessimist, have hope for change.
Not only is she ignorant, she’s practically incoherent.
I hope Scott Brown is “being supportive by” the check I sent him today.
Coakley was also up to her ever-lifted nose in the Amirault false-conviction and imprisonment scandal. I was involved in trying to free “Tookie”; and in his honor sent a donation to Scott Brown. Google this reprehensible past mess and see the kind of person Coakley – and her sidekick Harshbargar – truly are. If she is defeated or even wins just narrowly and is a laughingstock and symbol of worse to come for the Democratic party, it will be sweet, sweet indeed.
WOW !
Seems perfectly suited as Clueless Lib-Dem from Mass. GO, Scott ! Break the damned tradition of Useless Clueless Feckless Senators from Mass for the last 48-years.
“Get away from me, you peasant!”
I read somewhere that she has been going after women’s garden clubs for not filing proper financial reports. That says a lot about the kind of opponent she is willing to take on.
The money quote: “But if she does, unfortunately she’ll fit right in. “
This charge of being supported by “extreme right groups” is pretty Orwellian. Coakley made an issue of the groups supporting Brown during Monday’s debate, but the only one she mentioned by name was Right to Life. Is Right to Life an EXTREME right-wing organization? I’m not even sure it should be categorized as right wing. It’s a single-issue organization, and the single issue it cares about is sui generis. I don’t think being pro life logically requires that you hold right wing views on other issues. In any event, isn’t being anti-abortion well within the mainstream and therefore not “extreme”? “Extremist” IMO connotes a willingness to engage in violence, sedition, and/or other lawlessness in pursuit of a particular political agenda.
I realize that Coakley is trying to whip up her base a little, but to the independents, this kind of hyperbole can only make her seem more shrill and partisan, which I don’t think is in her best interests at the moment.
If she doesn’t make Senator, I’m sure the Dems will be glad to have her succeed Hillary at Secretary of State. We want someone in there who knows the Taliban are gone.
This just out.
nebraska is going to push the civil war button.
nebraskalegislature.gov/FloorDocs/Current/PDF/Intro/LR289CA.pdf
Obama may be more like lincoln and states rights than he ever thought…
sorry for this distraction…
just read new section 31 to article I
here is the ballot language
(no wonder they dont like voting not in their control)
with the following ballot language:
5 A constitutional amendment to provide that no law shall
6 be passed that restricts a person’s freedom of choice of
7 private health care systems or plans of any type, that
8 interferes with a person’s or an entity’s right to pay
9 directly for lawful medical services, or that imposes a
10 penalty or fine for choosing or declining health care
11 coverage or participation.
OBAMA Appointee is the DC ‘Coakley Shover’
Meehan is an Obama appointee to the Broadcasting Board of Governors
Glenn’s one-on-one with Fox News contributor Sarah Palin (today?)
http://www.nationalreview.com/onthenews/?q=MWZiMjgxNWFjNDBjYTM2M2ExYWU4MDYwOGEwYjhkN2Q=
Take This Job and Shove It
Coakley’s bodyguard is connected all the way to the top of the Democratic party.
Meehan is not mere campaign muscle, but a well-connected political operative who worked for a number of high-profile national Democrats. According to a POLITICO bio, he has held top communications posts at the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). He has also worked as an adviser to Sens. John Kerry (D., Mass) and Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.), as chief of staff to Sen. Maria Cantwell (D., Wash.), and as political director for former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.
According to his LinkedIn profile and a web bio at Virillion Strategies, where he serves as senior vice-president, Meehan worked for NARAL Pro-Choice America in 2003, as “Vice President of Strategy and Politics.”
Meehan was reportedly on-loan from the DSCC to “assist the Coakley camp with messaging.”
Message delivered.
Sounds like Meehan is angling for a job as “Goon Czar.”
He provides muscle for Boxer? Great. I’ll probably meet him in the next few months, when I am going to do everything in my feeble power to get that moron kicked out of office.
Standard fare in blue cities. Load up and defend yourselves.
Coakley’s tactics seem to be typical for democrats don’t you think? Accuse your opponent of what you are doing and in most cases the press is glad to go along.
artfldgr…Dude…Carefully put the lithium vial down. There..Gooood…Now, step away from that tube… Goooood…
I love that complaint about Scott Brown taking money from out-of-state Republicans. (This, mind you, right after she went to DC to milk the lobbyists. So far as I know, she did not insist that the lobbyists all be Massachusetts residents.)
And I think it’s a non-issue in the first place, except that she had the gall to bring it up. Didn’t President Obama accept campaign funds from overseas, with a Web site designed to accept any amount of money from anybody? This was glossed over by the media and by nearly all Democrats, even though it’s technically a crime — while collecting money from Americans for an American political race is not. So we ignore the former and demonize the latter? How is that supposed to make sense?
Give ‘er hell, Mr. Brown. Mrs. Coakley deserves to lose.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
Something bad happens in states where powerful men or women serve as representatives or senators for too many years. A sort of talent vacuum is created, but instead of pulling in worthy successors, they are kept out. I don’t know if this is a democrat or republican problem. I can think of some recent examples besides massachusetts. Clinton’s senate seat failed to attract any quality. When Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash days before what would have been his election to a third term, the best the dems could offer as replacement was a senile Walter Mondale. Now the same has happened in the peoples republic of massachusetts–at least on the dem side. I can’t think of a less qualified organism than coakley, and I am including trees, earthworms and crows when I say organism.