But you have zero proof. You're stating that you have enough proof, but yet you really don't have any proof. You have circumstantial evidence.

I have zero doubts that DWS once in that position helped because she and Clinton are friends and political allies. But that's not quid pro quo. If Clinton hires her to help in her campaign, it isn't quid pro quo if Clinton hired her because of DWS's skills in the area. You have zero proof that's why DWS was hired. You have zero proof DWS did "whatever Clinton asked her to do". You have zero proof Clinton asked her to do anything that broke the rules in the first place. None.

You are inferring every single accusation you made against Clinton. There's absolutely no evidence of any of them at all.

Clinton has zero insights about what the public thinks? You're kidding, right? The woman who was the front runner for the Democratic nomination, who has been in the public spotlight at the national stage for almost 25 years doesn't have any insight about what the public thinks?

Come on, man.

Also, DWS's job wasn't solely to ensure the nominating process was fair. She had a ton of responsibilities, and many of them she did well. That was my point. All you're seeing is the part where she screwed up because it hurt your preferred candidate. Her job was also to protect the Democratic party, and help Democrats win elections, too.

Perhaps a few might say DWS wasn't the reason Sanders lost? A few? You mean like.... ohhhhh, I dunno... Bernie Sanders? How about Bernie Sanders' staff members? But what the hell do they know, AMIRITE?

Dude, Sanders got crushed with minorities. You know where that can allow you to win the nomination? The GOP. Unfortunately for Sanders, he was running for the nomination where minorities are a significant part of the voting bloc. Absolutely CRUSHED. Clinton won 76% of the African-American vote. Before the primaries really began, Clinton was polling at 73% among Hispanics. You honestly think that was because of DWS? Let me put that to rest for you. Hillary Clinton did well among Hispanics against Barack Obama. Was that DWS's doing, too?

That's the thing. I have clear cut FACTS about why Sanders lost. I have the words from Bernie Sanders and his campaign staff. You have speculation about whatever small impact DWS's had on primary votes.

Valarie Plame? No, Bush never named her. It ended up being Karl Rove.

How did I shove Hillary Clinton down your throat? Explain that one to me. I didn't vote for Hillary Clinton in the primaries. In VA, I chose to vote in the GOP primary to do whatever I could to stop Trump, which was vote for Marco Rubio, as he was polling second in VA. I didn't do a damn thing to stop Sanders or help Clinton win the nomination.

Why didn't I vote for Sanders? Because of his lack of foreign policy experience, and he wasn't putting forth enough practical policies that I think would work. I like the guy fine. I'd vote for him as a Senator if he was in Virginia. I like having voices like his in Congress. But Commander In Chief is a big part of the job, and I want someone with foreign policy experience. He doesn't have that.

I also value flexibility in a candidate. The world isn't black and white. I like Sanders' values. It would be nice if everyone could go to college if they had the motivation. I very much think the rich are not taxed nearly enough. But I also think ideologies and ideals help to create ideas for solutions, but the solutions need to be practical, and I don't find his practical unfortunately. Sometimes they're not politically practical. Sometimes they just fall apart on the mechanics of them.

Gary Johnson has more experience? Uhhhhh, no. He was governor of New Mexico for 8 years. That compares well to Sarah Palin. Do you think Palin is more experienced than Clinton, too? Johnson has zero foreign policy experience. Hillary Clinton was an active first lady who proposed Health Care Reform, got children's health care reform passed. She was a US Senator for the short time of 8 years, which is way less than Johnson's 8 years as governor of New Mexico (wait, what?!), was on the foreign relations committee during that time. Then she was Secretary of State.

Sanders is the only one who I'd put in the ballpark, but he's had legislative branch experience only, and he doesn't have much foreign policy experience at all. Interestingly enough, you said he was the most experienced candidate, overlooking his complete lack of executive experience, which you favored when it came to Gary Johnson. Huh?

Clinton can't win? You know, I wouldn't even say Trump *can't* win. Once normalized from the convention bounce, she'll be the favorite to win. Sure, she could still lose, but I wouldn't bet against her.

Clinton supporters have blinders on only. Seriously? Dude, EVERY candidate has supporters with blinders on. Every single candidate. Most voters are ignorant, regardless of candidate. Don't give me that holier than thou stuff. You've got blinders on for why Sanders lost.

There are candidates who are threats if elected. There are incompetent candidates. There are competent candidates. There are great candidates. Sorry, but there aren't great candidates every election. I've voted in enough presidential elections to know you should be grateful to have at least one competent candidate who has a shot of winning. Sometimes there aren't any. Sometimes there are a few.

In your mind, I'm a Hillary supporter with blinders on. I'm not beholden to any party. I'm not beholden to any candidate. It's just not in my nature. This is the first presidential candidate from a major party in my lifetime that I felt was truly an existential threat to the US and the world in Trump. I'm a level headed person. Hillary Clinton has an astounding lack of charisma for a politician who won a major party's nomination. I don't find her particularly inspiring. I think it's a legitimate criticism to say she sometimes bends to the political winds too much. She sometimes doesn't handle things like the email thing like she should, as she flees to secrecy from a paranoia from the press and the other party, which is often a mistake, but you have to understand at some level why. She's a part of a major political party, which has a lot of "this is how the sausage is made" in every party out there, and she operates within that system.

If she were a meal, she'd be an unseasoned microwaved chicken breast, with broccoli, with too much salt on it to pander to people some to get them to want to eat it. And you wouldn't want to see how the chicken was killed. But you need to eat. Sure, there's too much salt. Sure, it's not drawing you to the table, but it's nutritious mostly, and you need to eat. It's a meal made of real food.

Let's go along with you thinking Sanders is SOOOOOOOOOOO much better. He was a perfectly prepared steak dinner, but it's lean steak, and lots of organic veggies, perfectly seasoned, and low salt. It's a masterpiece meal that the restaurant no longer offers, and you gotta eat.

Donald Trump is a plate of deep fried oreos. While a surprising number of people find that tasty, it also turns out the cream filling was contaminated with salmonella.

Gary Johnson looks like a better meal than the chicken, but you're told immediately if you order it, you're gonna get contaminated deep fried oreos or the chicken, and you have absolutely no say which it will be.

You can bitch and complain all you want about Clinton. But Sanders is out.

As Bill Maher would say, eat the chicken.

I'm not voting for Clinton solely because I hate Trump. She's a competent candidate. At least we have one to choose from who can actually win.

And I'm sorry, but I don't understand your comparison of Trump to Clinton. One of them has far more governmental experience. One of them isn't unhinged. One of them is clearly not racist or sexist. You would at least agree with that, right? Clinton, for all her warts, is not racist, sexist, bigoted, and actually knows how government works. To equate them is insane to me. I'm sorry.

And this is coming from someone who voted for Nader in 2000. I totally get voting for a third party candidate in some situations. This isn't the time.

Edit: You know who else is considering voting for Clinton? Penn Jillette, one of the most vocal Clinton haters out there, and outspoken libertarian. Even he is saying if the election is close enough, he'll have to vote for her.

"“My friend Christopher Hitchens wrote a book called No One Left to Lie To about the Clintons,” Jillette says. “I have written and spoken and joked with friends the meanest, cruelest, most hateful things that could ever been said by me, have been said about the Clintons. I loathe them. I disagree with Hillary Clinton on just about everything there is to disagree with a person about. If it comes down to Trump and Hillary, I will put a Hillary Clinton sticker on my fucking car.”

But he says he hopes the race will turn out well enough that he feels safe casting his vote for Gary Johnson, who is running on the libertarian ticket, and who he believes is the best choice."
http://www.newsweek.com/penn-jillette-terrified-president-trump-431837

I, like most, don't need absolute proof, proving that kind of thing unless it's ridiculously done in writing is impossible. The appearance is enough, but more than that, it's clear, I have no question about it and would require some incredible evidence to the contrary to think differently at this point. It looks like a duck, it quacks like a duck, it swims like a duck, it flies like a duck, it lays eggs like a duck...I'm just going to go ahead and call it a duck. DWS cheated and lied to force a Clinton nomination. The DNC purged it's voter rolls, gave Sanders zero support and actually worked against him while doing whatever the Clinton campaign asked them to, no matter how biased it was, under her leadership, then she was given an important job in the campaign and will likely get a cabinet position for her immoral, unethical work done for Clinton's benefit. If that's not quid quo pro, it doesn't exist.

Yes, Clinton and her campaign have had zero insight on how they appear, and are still indignant about people not just loving her because....woman.

Clinton helped put her in position to help win the election, then hired her when that work got her fired. her job WAS to regulate elections to be fair, and her complete and utter failure in doing that job is why she has a job as the head of Clinton's campaign today....and is one reason Clinton will lose.

Perhaps a few might say that, they're wrong. It was stolen by every means possible, no matter how unethical it was to purge voter rolls in poor areas but not affluent areas, or to close most polls in poor areas and limit the hours of the few left opened, but actually increase the hours and number of polls in affluent areas. He lost for a number of reasons, but largely because the DNC did their job for Clinton and worked actively against him the entire election while smiling and lying to our faces about 'fairness' and 'impartiality'. No leap at all to make that claim, my feet don't have to leave the ground.

Yes, since she REWARDED DWS's guilt with a top level position in her campaign and a promise of more important jobs to come, that guilt transfers to Clinton. Had she come out publicly and said 'this behavior is inappropriate, unethical, and I won't have anything to do with a person who clearly has no respect for the rules/laws' she might not be so guilty...but she did the opposite.

Um...didn't Bush himself say her name in a public interview? That's how I recall the Valerie Plame incident.

I'm talking about a person who's job it was to be impartial who was clearly heavily biased and lied about it for a full year publicly....and the person she performed these unethical acts for that rewarded her after it became public.

You're helping Trump win because Clinton can't, and shoving her down our throats as the DNC and her supporters have guarantees a Trump win. She's unelectable, and her supporters have blinders on to her myriad of faults and flaws.

In this country, we are supposed to vote for a person we want to win, not against someone. If people did that, there might be a chance at not having Trump, but because Dumbocrats and Retardicans both vote against the other, and every idiot follows along, we get this.

"Most qualified? Most experienced?" Not more so than Johnson, who has more experience actually governing than she does by far. You might not agree with his policies, but he's not immoral, not unethical, not hated by a majority of Americans, not batshit crazy, and is a candidate. he only has less chance of winning because people think like you and want to vote for someone who sucks ass because they're against someone who is an ass. That leaves us all covered in shit, no matter who wins.
Sanders has far more experience governing than she does. What the hell are you talking about? She has one thing going for her, her stint as Sec of State, but her record there is abysmal and not a positive for most Americans when seen as a whole. She has no experience in domestic policy beyond her short time as a senator, while Sanders has been one for how long? Again, what the hell are you talking about?

Rewarding incontrovertibly unethical behavior with a top position says everything that need be said.

OK, if you want the most reliable president, why didn't you vote for Sanders, who actually keeps his stated positions and votes on them, completely unlike Clinton.

I agree with your characterization, but it's the Clinton campaign that's the rolling dumpster fire and the Sanders campaign that was a Honda Accord that got hit by the rolling dumpster fire and pushed off the road. Now it's a rolling dumpster fire VS a leaky 40000 gallon septic tank, and they're both poised at the top of the hill with all of us stuck in the danger zone.

You have ZERO proof she was hired quid pro quo. Absolutely zero. Do you honestly think Clinton would risk any bad optics whatsoever if she thought DWS wouldn't help her win? That was the Rodman analogy. Clinton hired her to help win the election, not to regulate elections to be fair.

And even Sanders supporters said the nomination wasn't stolen. He lost. He lost mainly because he didn't appeal enough to minority voters. You have to take a massive leap of cynicism to make that claim.

You're making it sound like Clinton hired Alan Grayson. That's my point.

Then you magically transfer DWS's guilt directly to Clinton. Did Clinton do that, or did DWS? I'm pretty sure it was DWS. I hated George W. Bush as president. That didn't make me magically transfer guilt about the Valerie Plame incident directly to him because there's no evidence he was responsible for outing her as a CIA operative.

And again, you're also talking about the leader of the Democratic Party favoring a lifelong Democrat over a dude who just decided to join for a Presidential run. When I think of a candidate who is personally corrupt, I think of Nixon. He broke a law. Clinton didn't break any laws whatsoever. NONE! She didn't even do anything. DWS didn't break any laws for that matter. She shouldn't have done what she did, but good lord, you're blowing this way out of proportion.

How exactly am I helping Trump win? Because I'm gonna vote for Clinton over Trump, Stein, and Johnson?! You're gonna have to explain to me how I should help Trump lose. Do I vote for Trump?! Do I vote for some other candidate who has absolutely zero chance of winning?

And all evidence does not argue against Clinton being the most qualified candidate out of the remaining candidates. She is BY FAR the most experienced candidate in government. You can sit there and rail about the hiring of DWS to help campaign all you want, but there is no possible way you can possibly make the claim that she isn't the most experienced out of the remaining candidates. She was the most experienced candidate among all primary candidates, too. That's an undeniable fact. All evidence at the very least doesn't say she isn't the most qualified. None of the 2016 primary candidates came remotely close to her experience in foreign policy. None of them came close to her experience in domestic policy.

This isn't to say experience is everything. But you're making a very flimsy argument about her being personally corrupt, and then claiming the ridiculous assertion that all evidence says she's not the most qualified candidate, even though she's clearly the most experienced.

And yes, we don't know how good or bad a President she would be. You also can't know if a specific Honda Accord will be more reliable than a specific Chevy Corvette either. That doesn't stop me from buying the Honda Accord without batting an eye if I want the most reliable car.

Only in this case, it's more like a Honda Accord vs. a lit on fire dumpster on wheels.

^The smear-scandal technique feels similar to me. Scott Ritter and Valerie Plame got similar treatment. Perhaps efforts were made to keep Assange from releasing his info - blackmail, bribery - and the sudden urgency came about when it was clear that those efforts had failed?

The urgency to get Assange seems to have intensified greatly over the last month. Other than the B of A announcement, there were also a number of embarrassing (but not super damaging) leaks released: Karsai = 'paranoid' Ahmahdinijad = 'Hitler'. I wonder if there is more to that round of leaks than meets the eye. Perhaps the source(s) of those more innocuous leaks are connected to much more dangerous information, sending vulnerable parties into a panic?

>> ^quantumushroom:

The left is scared sh!tless of Palin because she can win. Unlike the community organizer who had a communist papa, she isn't demanding a radical leftist overhaul of freedom. Remember freedom?


Leftists like Trotta who suggested Obama be assassinated and Judith Miller who served jail time for the exposure of Valarie Plame. Those damned liberals.

The Wall Street Journal actually wrote an editorial comparing the CIA torture revelations to the Valerie Plame outing, and accused the liberals of hypocrisy for wanting to keep Plame's cover but wanting to out the CIA people responsible for the torture.

With sound logic like that, is it any wonder that Wall Street's doing so well?

Wait ... I just checked. Clinton wasn't impeached

You must not have checked very well, because Bill Clinton was formally impeached by the House of Representatives on December 19 - 1998 in HR 611 with the charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. As far as I can determine, Bill Clinton was never once charged by congress with having 'sex' with Monica Lewinsky. All charges and impeachement articles stemmed from his rather famous lies under oath.

Neolibs try to minimize the reality, but if George Bush was brought into a hearing and lied under oath about so much as whether he chewed his fingernails they would want him impeached and/or prosecuted to the full extent of the law. The whole Scooter Libby charges were the same exact thing. Libby lied under oath about the Plame thing & got convicted for perjury even though he had committed no crime. That's the thing about perjury. It doesn't matter what you lie about. It just matters that you lied under oath.

Unless you're a Democrat...

You have been awarded 1 Power Point for fixing the embed code for Dead Pool video Joseph Wilson on Olbermann talks about Plame and Libby. Thank you for helping maintain VideoSift's reliability.

Wow Rove, you have a great memory recently! Can you tell us what happened to the e-mails that were requested by the special prosecutor regarding your involvement with the Valerie Plame ousting? Or were they not 'noted'?

edit: P.S. Karl Rove looks like a penis.

Were this a Bush kerfuffle and Team Bush did its own investigation, do you think there's a moonbat within 3000 miles who wouldn't call FOUL?

Were this a Bush kerfuffle, he'd refuse to "comment on an ongoing investigation". See how he handled Fitzgerald's (the same Fitzgerald, in fact) investigation into the Valerie Plame mess. Unlike this case with Blagojevich, people in Bush's camp were directly targeted by that investigation, and not only did he not disclose any information publicly (exculpatory or otherwise), he actively stonewalled the investigation. There's suspicion, voiced by Fitzgerald himself, that that includes the perjury of Scooter Libby, a suspicion deepened by Bush's commutation of Libby's prison sentence.

If some Senator from Texas had gotten involved in a bribery scandal after the 2000 election, I doubt Democrats, or their netroots, would try to tie it to Bush, especially if there was actual evidence that made such a tie unlikely (like we have in the Blagojevich case). Probably there would still be moonbats making the accusation, but they wouldn't be supported by the mainstream of either the Democratic party, or the progressive movement -- we'd call them moonbats ourselves.

NetStumbler, the Party of Barney Frank, Gerry Studds and now this Blago criminal scumball thank you for your ad hominem attacks, but face it, trying to be witty, you're no Al Franken. Don't let your keyboard write checks your monitor can't cash.

So let me get this straight, I am the one making ad hominem attacks?

Didn't you just threaten violence right there?

I'm still waiting for you to prove your innocence of the sodomy charges I assume you're involved in.

BTW, ad hominem would mean that I'm making an argument by attacking the character of the speaker. Read my comments on this again, and you'll notice this gag is a counterexample putting you in the seat of the accused, not an attack on your character. I don't think there's anything wrong with being homosexual, and it certainly doesn't make your arguments weak; your arguments are weak because they're based on ad hominem attacks, now directed at me. In a Rovian twist, you're also "projecting", and saying I'm doing what you in fact are doing yourself.

So, prove your innocence, as you want Obama to, or I'll yell to every media outlet that'll listen how you're queerer than a three dollar bill. If people start thinking you're gay, it's your fault for not being forthcoming enough with evidence.

It's okay, liberals will still welcome you with open arms, at least until you start calling them names for being who they are.

Hacking Palin's email: felony.

Exposing Valerie Plame: no biggie.

Blowing off a congressional subpoena: no biggie.

Lying a country into war: no biggie.

Gundam, you make some good points. There is a possibility that both women committed suicide.

However, I cannot blame anyone for having conspiracy on the brain these days, because the biggest conspiracy of our time - the deliberate LIES told to the world to justify a war in Iraq - turned out to be TRUE. Also, the outing of covert agent Valerie Plame as retribution against her husband Joe Wilson turned out to be TRUE. So even though I don't believe in 9/11 conspiracies, I certainly don't fault anyone else for believing them, nor would I fault anyone for believing a conspiracy in these suicide cases. Let's not forget how Republican operatives tried to peddle the Vince Foster suicide as a murder, even though separate investigations clearly indicated that it was a suicide. Therefore the pundits and the media in general will probably try to say that Ms. Palfrey's suicide is nothing more than Vince Foster's was, regardless of any differences in the cases. I'm afraid that unless we catch someone, with evidence, AND with a confession, we will never know for certain what happened one way or another.

The huge fucking elephant in the room is that the Iraq War was based on lies, 4000+ Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dead, and yet all the perpetrators of this crime against humanity are free. How sad and disturbing is that?

who knew that Novak would go on to commit treason in the disclosure of Valerie Plame?

And why no mention of Howard Zinn at the end? upvote for Matt Damon's neighbor, Howard Zinn!

Eh, Wikipedia does have a liberal bias. When I tried to put the (verifiable) fact that Joe Wilson (the husband of Valerie Plame, and instigator of that whole mess) was part of the Kerry Campaign, it was removed repeatedly as "Well Poisoning". Meaning, of course, that it would give a reader a negative opinion of Wilson as the result of a fact.

Actually, checking the article on Joe Wilson, it's in there now but doesn't appear on any of the related articles on the Plame Affair.

you'd get a lot further around here if you'd provide sources for your assertations.

In reply to this comment by tbarney:
I guess the "Lies" tag is to set the record straight that the White House did NOT out Valerie Plame. A reporter named Corn did in the New York Times with the information from Plame's husband Joe Wilson. and After that Bob Novak wrote about it.
Keep drinking the Kool-aid that CNN, MSNBC, and the others are feeding you....