Hillary Clinton's empty rhetoric and deceit

It is becoming increasingly apparent to Democrats across the country that Hillary Clinton is engaged in a campaign to win the Democratic nomination at any cost, and that she cares not for the future of the party or the progressive movement, but only the fulfillment of her own ambition to become president.

Clinton herself is deceiving and misleading voters, and engaging in the very same kind of behavior that she has unfairly condemned Barack Obama for.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, then please follow along in a quick rhetorical exercise of Then & Now. You'll see what I mean.

All the text in bold that follows is my emphasis.

Then:

"Well, I think that if your candidacy is going to be about words, then they should be your own words. That's, I think, a very simple proposition...And, you know, lifting whole passages from someone else's speeches is not change you can believe in, it's change you can Xerox."

- Hillary Clinton, February 21st, 2008 (Texas Democratic Debate)

Now:

"This is America. And we do believe you can be anything you want to be. And we want our sons and our daughters to dream big. I have big dreams for America’s future. The question is not whether we can fulfill those dreams; it’s whether we will. And here’s our answer: Yes, we will."

- Hillary Clinton, March 4th, 2008 (Ohio Victory Speech)

Then:

"Well, you know, these are the rules that are followed, and you know, I think that it will sort itself out. I'm not worried about that. We will have a nominee, and we will have a unified Democratic Party, and we will go on to victory in November...And, you know, no matter what happens in this contest -- and I am honored, I am honored to be here with Barack Obama. I am absolutely honored."

- Hillary Clinton, February 21st, 2008 (Texas Democratic Debate)

Now:

"I have a lifetime of experience I will bring to the White House. I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience he will bring to the White House...And Senator Obama has a speech he made in 2002."

- Hillary Clinton, March 3rd, 2008 (to reporters)

“I think that since we now know Sen. (John) McCain will be the nominee for the Republican Party, national security will be front and center in this election. We all know that. And I think it's imperative that each of us be able to demonstrate we can cross the commander-in-chief threshold...I believe that I've done that. Certainly, Sen. McCain has done that and you’ll have to ask Sen. Obama with respect to his candidacy."

- Hillary Clinton, March 6th, 2008 (to reporters)

Then:

"If you come to Ohio and you go give speeches that are very critical of NAFTA... and then we find out that your chief economic adviser has gone to a foreign government and basically done the old wink-wink – 'Don’t pay any attention, this is just political rhetoric' -- I think that raises serious questions."

Peering at the 50 or so reporters packed into a small hotel conference room here, she added: "I would ask you to look at this story and substitute my name for Sen. Obama’s name and see what you would do with this story...Just ask yourself [what you would do] if some of my advisers had been having private meetings with foreign governments."

- Hillary Clinton, March 3rd, 2008, (to reporters)

Now:

The leak of a confidential diplomatic discussion that rocked the U.S. presidential campaign began with an offhand remark to journalists from the Prime Minister's chief of staff, Ian Brodie.

[...]

Mr. Brodie, apparently seeking to play down the potential impact on Canada, told the reporters the threat was not serious, and that someone from Ms. Clinton's campaign had even contacted Canadian diplomats to tell them not to worry because the NAFTA threats were mostly political posturing.

- Globe and Mail, March 5th, 2008

The Canadian government contacted Goolsby [the Obama aide] to clarify Obama's position on trade, not the reverse. Although Goolsby did meet with Canada's Chicago consul general George Rioux (not, as was reported in the original leak, Ambassador Michael Wilson), there's no evidence that he ever described Obama's position as mere political posturing.

Instead, Goolsby responded to Canadian questions by clarifying that Obama wasn't pushing to scrap the agreement entirely, but that labor and environmental safeguards were important to him.

The memo was simply inaccurate, as even the Harper government now acknowledges after a firestorm of criticism by opposition parliament members, calling the leak 'blatantly unfair,' and saying 'there was no intention to convey, in any way, that Senator Obama and his campaign team were taking a different position in public from views expressed in private, including about NAFTA.'

- Paul Rogat Loeb, March 6th, 2008 (The Smirking Chimp)

Then:

“We haven’t ruled out rerunning these contests,” said Harold Ickes, a top adviser to Mrs. Clinton and her chief delegate hunter.

“We’ve said we think it should be settled. We believe some configuration could be devised that each party is not happy with but each party is willing to accept.

- New York Times, March 6th, 2008 (published in March 7th edition)

Now:

"I would not accept a caucus...I don’t think that there should be any do-over or any kind of a second run in Florida. I think Florida should be seated."

- Hillary Clinton, March 6th, 2008 (U.S. News & World Report)

See the pattern? It's pretty simple: the Clinton campaign is blatantly contradicting itself and failing to practice what it preaches. In short, Hillary Clinton is fueling her campaign with empty rhetoric, deceit, and mean spiritedness (of which there are nearly endless examples, plenty coming from her surrogates, especially Communications Director Howard Wolfson).

She chastises Obama for her own campaign's behavior. She puts herself and John Dubya McCain on an equal footing while insulting Barack Obama, despite having previously talked about the importance of unity in the Democratic Party.

Unity? Hillary Clinton's campaign could care less about unity. All Hillary Clinton's campaign cares about is Hillary Clinton. And that's reason enough for any Democrat to decline to support her candidacy in the primary.

Hillary Clinton's campaign has become so divisive and unfair that her behavior was described by Keith Olbermann on last night's Countdown telecast as "nuts".

We already get empty rhetoric and deceit delivered to us by the truckload every day and every week from the Republican Party. It's bad enough that Democrats in Congress can't stand up to the administration. It's appalling and disgusting that Hillary Clinton is bloodying the Democratic presidential contest to selfishly put herself ahead at not only her competitor's expense, but that of her party's.

UPDATE: Here's a long list of Clinton quotes insulting Democrats in most of the states won by Barack Obama. How many states has Clinton dissed?