Donna Brazile runs the bus over Hillary Clinton — on the way to the bank

Who left the tire tracks on Hillary?

No, former temporary Democratic National Committee interim Chairwoman Donna Brazile did not find some new fount of honesty when she spoke to Politico and left tire tracks over Hillary Clinton and her campaign. If she had, she would have said something a week ago about the hacks that Tom Perez selected to various DNC positions last month.

Instead, in politics, the first rule is always follow the money.

And the money is, in this case, sales of the book she is flogging, in part through a pseudo tell-all.

(Speaking of, feel free to vote in one or both of the "biggest sheepdogger" polls at upper right of this post.)

In that sense, Brazile is simply being true to the Democratic Party that she briefly helped steer into presidential defeat.

I mean, this is the person who admitted to getting advance information about questions for a Democratic primary town hall, and a second debate, and passing that on to the Clinton camp. And, it took her 5 months after Wikileaks said that for her to admit it. Sure, it's possible she's a truth-telling horse whisperer driven by the highest ethics values.

Or, it's possible she's still just another grifter. Or Just.Another.Politician.™, non-elected division.

Also note that her March admission date on the questions tip-off? Her book was surely already in progress by then.

Another "tell"? She said she started crying AFTER ending the phone call with Sanders. Ergo, nobody to deny.

As such, she did drive that bus over Hillary.

And, given new Hillbot pushback, who deserves a bus to be driven over her more?

That pushback includes this self-contradicting piece from NBC.

Alex Seitz-Wald, adding to reputation as a Clintonista hack, claims that the agreement only went into place for the general election. However, lower in the story, it says the DNC had to hire a communications director from one of two Hillary-vetted candidates no later than Sept. 1, 2015. That's LONG before the general. (And, I'm sure that somebody in the upper circles of Hillary 2016 sent him the memo behind the piece as soon as they saw Prima Donna's Politico interview.)

Points two and three in the full memo of the agreement between Hillary for America and the DNC specify further Clinton control over other DNC hirings, without any "general election" timetable. There's more there to refudiate Seitz-Wald.

Point 4 would appear to indicate that state Dem parties getting an offer to partner with Hillary Fucked America had to do so on an exclusive basis. If Bernie had decided to sign off on a similar agreement it would have been for crumbs only, even if the Clinton one was not exclusive.

As for Seitz-Wald claiming to have a smoking gun undercutting Prima Donna? There's Mack truck-sized loopholes in this paragraph.

Nothing in this agreement shall be construed to violate the DNC's obligation of impartiality and neutrality through the Nominating process. All activities performed under this agreement will be focused exclusively on preparations for the General Election and not the Democratic Primary.

Oh, sure ... forcing a Hillbot communications director down the DNC throat, and giving Team Clinton vetting over other hires? No "construing" that the barn door is being shut after the partiality horses have already been stabled inside, to twist an old cliche.

Julian Assange lovingly confirms timeline issues.

Kein Silverstein confirms that Bernie got no such offer himself, along with other details.

Who dat? It's Donna and the cash bus, schooling Hillary.

Given that she's far and away from the first to drive it over Debbie Wasserman Schultz, no photoshopping needed there, for Brazile to run her over.

However, Prima Donna's head-fake "tell all" does raise one question.

We know Dear Leader thought Dancing with the Schultz was little more than bupkis. Brazile may really think so, personal pecuniary reasons aside.

Hillz allegedly, while being kinder to her than Barackabama, didn't hang the moon on her either.

So why the hell was she running the DNC that long? I mean, Dear Leader kept her there 5-plus years. Barack and Hillary, as well as Donna, all three, will probably keep lips zipped.

The Intercept offers part of the answer. Dear Leader had Organizing for America, his own grifting HQ, so with both Kaine and DWS, he kicked the DNC to the curb.

So, I don't totally blame Hillary for actually wanting to help the DNC.

However, as Ken notes, there were other ways of doing that. Like, No. 1, scheduling more debates.

So will the pious Democratic factota now lining up to join in at running that bus over Dancing with the Schultz as well as Clinton. That's even though, between her and Barackabama, Congressional Dems, after going  over a cliff in 2010 under Dear Leader plus Tim Kaine at the DNC, made but a slight recovery in 2012, and slid lower than 2010 in the 2014 midterms. Maybe Barackabama kept her there as an easy scapegoat.

Update, and speaking of them and Clinton-Kaine? Prima Donna also sez that she contemplated a coup of sorts, replacing them with Biden-Booker. First, who had the power to try to do this? Second, the idea that this could even be seriously contemplated should be instant ammo for the appeal of the DNC fraud lawsuit. Third, Booker probably would have tried to poison Biden.

Irony alert: The Hillbot pushback against "Patsey the Slave" claims that Brazile got bamfoozled by Putin propaganda.

And she is right that Dear Leader, along with Ms. Cattle Futures and Dancing with the Schultz, were three "titanic egos."

At the same time, per that new link, the idea that Prima Donna took over the DNC "reluctantly"? Uh, sure. Second rule in politics? "Follow the power after you follow the money."

Speaking of? Per Ken, Brazile retweeted this Tweet that claims the insider deal between HFA and the DNC had zero election effect. Upshit? If she's in it for the book money, she'll get it. If she's in it for the power, she's burned too many bridges in too many directsions with insiders now.

Sidebar: Hillary Clinton not only ran a suck-ass campaign, she had with her a suck-ass former DNC head as her Veep nominee. And, as much an insider eminence as Stanley Greenberg talked about the suck-ass campaign in as much an insider spot as The American Prospect. I mean, older members of the party establishment should have looked back to Hillarycare in 1993-94 to see she had a tin ear for retail politics.

And, yet, this all went on. The Democratic Party is both inept and corrupt at the national level. Kaine/Barackabama let slide the 50-state strategy of Howard Duck Dean, to the degree it was successful. And, Pelosi and lieutenants in the House didn't pick up the ball when it was clear that Preznit Kumbaya was doing his own mellifluous version of triangulation. Plenty of blame to go around.

OK, we're done with questions and commentary?

Wait, another question.

How did Elizabeth Warren not avoid getting semi-pinned down by Jake Tapper? Oh, this is a two-parter. How did Tapper not ask her if her answer wasn't talking about the horses after Tom Perez opened the barn door last month?

Speaking of, Tom Perez sure learned well from his former boss, Barackabama. Almost word for word, "moving forward not backward," when asked about Dancing with the Schultz.

And, one other question.

If Hillary's campaign had THAT BAD of a burn rate, doesn't this reinforce just how "lucky" she got with her cattle futures?

Actually, one other question.

"Shattered" was a fake tell-all, but as told to, not by a player.

"Hacks" is now a fake tell-all by an insider. Sorry, Stan Greenberg, but it didn't go that much deeper than what the MSM already had, and the authors started with the Putin Did It line.

Will we get a more real tell-all at some point?

And, if you don't believe me on "Shattered"?

Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign by Jonathan   Allen
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Inside baseball book strikes out in first at bat.

That strikeout occurs at the end of the introduction.

The authors talk about a "Kremlin-based campaign" against her and the failure of the media to get Trump's tax return while it "scrutinized her every move."

The first is factually incorrect. The second is narratively incorrect.

The most we know the Kremlin did right now was to try to hack into Iowa and Arizona state voting offices. Other activities believed to have been done by Russian individuals have not been tied to the Kremlin. As in, could be individual hackers, etc. More important, yet, the best intelligence indicated the DNC email leaks given to Wikileaks had their physical transmission done in the US and not over the Internet. More than that we can't say for certain, but it seems pretty clear no Russkies were involved.

The media? Wrote plenty of stories about Trump's taxes. Remember David Cay Johnston? I do. Wrote plenty of other stories about him. That said, it's not a CRIME for a presidential candidate to hold tax returns and, if it were, the media is not a grand jury or a district attorney.

The rest of the book generally slouches toward Gomorrah from there. The first time Bernie's "white liberal" backers is used of him, it's semi-sneering. The book doesn't cover either Clinton's OR Sanders' failures in foreign policy issues. The problematic nature of the Clinton Foundation, and Hillary Clinton's lies about donors to it — including lies to President Obama — get unmentioned.

And, even the inside baseball doesn't have that much new stuff for regular campaign watchers, especially those who saw a moderate variant of 2008 repeating itself.

The book in general reads as clearly coming from an inside-the-Beltway pundit duo.

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And, don't believe a fake-reform, fake-improve-all book, either. Especially not when it comes from a guy who set up a totally non-transparent think tank, foundation, and likely eventual lobbying shop. Instead, take note that some of his fakery was called out 30 years ago.

Add in that real Democrat Bernie became part of a suit against the state of Arizona for not running a primary well — which theoretically hurt Republicans, too — but refused to sue the Iowa Democratic Party for putting its thumb on the scale for Clinton in the Democratic caucus.

Oh, and that fake-reform book? Reviewed it for you too.

Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In by Bernie Sanders
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Don't get sheepdogged

Several problems with this book.

One is that Bernie's a real Democrat, and has been a real Democrat for 25 years, despite the "I" that comes after his name on paper on a ballot line. And, he'll never tell you that. Nor does he support true options in general. There's no index, but I can tell you that you won't find a phrase like "Green Party" in this book.

Second is that, speaking of that, this book is all about domestic issues. Yes, ALL. Every chapter is about a domestic issue.

Why? Yes, he voted against the Iraq War. So did other Democrats, even if they were a minority. That said, Bernie in general, and the duopoly in general, have supported most American imperialism and American interventionalism. Bernie's no real friend of the Palestinians, for example. And, some of us know that. And we know that if he wrote enough about foreign policy, he eventually couldn't hide that.

Third is that, contra most 1 and 2 star reviews, while he called himself a "social democrat," he's not an actual socialist.

Fourth is that this is not a well-written book. It's the print version of Bernie's one-note trumpet, which eventually does become tiresome. And, as noted above, it was a quick-enough knockoff that there's no index.

(Update from original review: I think it was hastened to print to function as a lead-in and promo for the kickoff of the Sanders Institute. Once again, follow the money.)

The "Our Revolution" organization, at least from what I can see at the state level in my state, appears to be targeting entirely Dems on the left hand of the state Democratic party. Greens, Socialists, left-liberal independents need not apply. The book was written to further that; hence my headline.

Hence the header. (Combining points 1 and 2 above, in the one Dem debate, when Bernie discussed coups, he only mentioned Republican-sponsored ones. He ignored Diem in Vietnam, Hillary Clinton's coup against Honduras, and the semi-coup against Ukraine, for example.)

I don't like being lumped with disgruntled Hillbots and wingnuts, who make up all the 1- and 2-star reviews. But, Bernie could have done something different than he did from June on.


View all my reviews

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Finally, a pro tip. With that big of a "get" in the Politico interview, I can guarantee you the rest of Brazile's book will be thin soup. And, per the title, a fair chunk of that thin soup will be "Putin Did It" BS. We probably won't even get either John Podesta's risotto tips or Putin's borscht with wild boar recipe.

Pro tip 2: Per Hank Kissinger, "Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac." After money, it's what to follow next in politics. Brazile isn't yet done with the Democratic world, and she's triangulating into a post-Hillary future. For the same reason, I suspect "Shattered" didn't deliver as much deep dish as promised, and what it had wasn't any tastier of deep dish than Papa John's. Tipsters didn't want to burn too many bridges, or to destroy piers along with the bridge crossings.

Pro tip 3: If we want to see the money game, let's see how many copies Hillz, Prima Donna and Bernie the not so Socialist sell in a year's time.