Hillary, thy name is.... (Part Six)

Part Five of this series1 focused upon Mark Penn's 2008 primary campaign strategy of portraying Obama as "The Other" (my term),2 lacking American roots, thinking and values (Penn's words, my emphasis).3 This Part focuses upon (1) an article that some believe began the birther movement; and (2) the role, if any, of Hillary campaign in that article.

As a preface: in my opinion, the line of thinking behind Penn's memo (and both Hillary Clinton's Presidential primary campaigns) would occur only to (1) a bigot or (2) someone out to use the worst kind of identity politics, knowing bigotry is wrong. (Which is worse?) Would the "not American" strategy have occurred to Penn if Obama, Sr. had been a wealthy WASP from abroad who earned a master's degree in economics from Harvard University, rather than the atheist son of a Muslim African goatherder? Would Hillary's campaign have deemed a WASP U.S. Senator born and raised in the U.S. to a mom born and raised in the US to be vulnerable to that strategy? Xenophobia, racism and Islamaphobia waft from the Penn memo, as they did from Clinton's 2008 primary campaign. (Prefatory rant over.)

We know about the March 19, 2007 edition of Penn's weekly campaign strategy memoranda only because The Atlantic happened to acquire a copy. Most likely, the March 19, 2007 memorandum was not the first nor the last mention within the Hillary campaign that Obama is NOKD ("not our kind, dear").4 For example, references within Hillary's campaign to Islam seem highly likely, given Penn's POV. In any event, two months before the March 19, 2007 Penn memorandum, Insight Magazine, then owned by Reverend Moon, published an article strongly suggesting that Obama had attended a "madrassa," which the article characterized as a Muslim "seminary."5 The date of the story was January 17, 2007, the very next day after Obama announced forming a committee to explore a run for the Presidency.6 The title of the Insight article was Hillary's team has questions about Obama's Muslim background.7

As its sources, Insight cited people within the Clinton campaign and the Clinton campaign's research, along with the two books that Obama had written. The more sensational parts of the article suggested that Obama's alleged religious schooling in Indonesia marked the start of his lifelong "relationship" with Islam. The article stated that U.S. intelligence had determined that most "madrassas" teach Wahabbism, a fundamentalist strain of Sunni Islam. The story noted that Clinton team was searching for evidence to determine whether Obama was "still" a Muslim.8

Sources within the Clinton campaign supposedly told Insight that they were looking into Obama's alleged secret ties to Islam to show Obama's dishonesty. (No politic Democrat would admit to poking into whether or not someone was a Muslim for any other reason.) In that connection, I note that the Penn memo of March 19, 2007 describes Obama's references to his mother's ties to Kansas as "nonsense" that Obama uses, "nonsense" because--wait for it--Stanley Ann Dunham had lived in (gasp) several U.S. states. Penn implies that Obama "fudged" truth to seem more American. This, of course, begs the question why anyone born and raised in America to a mom who was born and raised in America needs to do anything, honest or dishonest, to seem more American.

The Penn memo also stated that one of the hurdles that Hillary faced was the perception that she was dishonest. That being the case, it would have been typical of a Hillary campaign to want "news" of Obama's alleged dishonesty to reach the voting public. While such news would not have affected perceptions of Hillary's dishonesty, it might at least have caused Democratic primary voters to see Obama as dishonest as well. However, I assume the Clinton campaign would not have been disconsolate if some Democratic primary voters also happened to falsely associate Muslims with foreigners and/or terrorists.

The Clinton campaign denied that it had been the source (surprise!) and characterized the Insight article as a right wing attack on both Obama and Clinton.9 Bless her heart! Even though she is not playing with a full deck, any more than were Machiavelli, Strangelove or Nixon, she never seems to run out of victim cards! Anyway, I am not sure how much of an attack it is to claim that a political campaign has questions about its opponent. As an aside, I can't resist noting that the Penn memorandum actually referred, with a straight face font to a "vast left and right wing conspiracy"against Hillary in which media was participating.10

Whether or not the Hillary campaign planted the story with Insight, as best I can tell, the Insight article focused solely on Obama's ties to Islam, real, speculative and imaginary. If that is so, I don't think the article either started or fanned the birther movement. It may, however, have helped spread the notion that Obama was "still" secretly a Muslim. In relation specifically to birtherism, The Donald--the person whom The Hillary has tried to portray as the quintessential birther, cited a tape recording of Obama's step-grandmother11 made in connection with a story done by Tim Jones, national correspondent for the Chicago Tribune (with Kirsten Scharnberg and Laurie Goering contributing).12

Next, the Tim Jones story


Obama in Indonesia


Obama, after returning to Hawaii to live (shown with grandfather, Stanley Armour Dunham, mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, and half-sister, Maya Soetero)

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1 Links to the first five parts of this series: http://caucus99percent.com/content/hillary-thy-name; http://caucus99percent.com/content/hillary-thy-name-part-two; http://caucus99percent.com/content/hillary-thy-name-part-three; http://caucus99percent.com/content/hillary-thy-name-part-four; http://caucus99percent.com/content/hillary-thy-name-part-five-0

2 http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2008/08/penn-strategy-memo-m...

3 I emphasized "American," because of controversy over whether the Hillary campaign sought to portray Obama as not American, thereby seeding the birther nonsense, or "only" as Muslim, thereby seeding the "Obama is a (secret) Muslim" nonsense. Or both.

4 The Official Preppy Handbook (Jonathan Roberts, et al., Lisa Birnbach, ed., New York, Workman Publishing, 1980); True Prep, It's a Whole New World (Lisa Birnbach and Chip Kidd, New York, Random House, 2010)

5 I know a bit of basic Arabic. "Madrassa" is a poor transliteration of an Arabic word that means simply "school." ("Medderrseh," with a rolled "r," plural, medarress, is closer.) Nonetheless, most Americans believe the falsehood that all "madrassas" are religious schools that teach Islam. Many sources, from government officials to PBS's Frontline, get it wrong, but wikipedia got it dead naught on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrasa; http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saudi/analyses/madrassas.html

6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_presidential_primary_campaign...

7 In 2004, Insight Magazine became solely an online publication and may may then have operated as Insight Online or insightmag.com. It ceased all operations in 2008. Most of the references to the Insight story that are "findable" online now appear in articles that are so focused on trying to "debunk" that most don't even mention the title of the article. Links within those stories now lead to unrelated websites or to a 404 error notice. However, I did see the title I used above in two sources, both in lower case. If I am mistaken about the title, I apologize. The most I found online of the story itself were excerpts from the Insight article contained within a post from (gasp!) Free Republic. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1770215/posts?page=41 (Link given only for access to the excerpts.)

While the claim about Obama's having attended an Islamic religious school was investigated, the Clinton's camp's own denial was the only "debunking" of the claim that the campaign had been the source of the story. Some "debunking" stories pointed to refusal by editor Jeffrey T. Kuhner to name the people within the Hillary campaign who spoke to Insight. This is ridiculous: reporters have gone to jail rather than name sources to whom the reporters have promised anonymity. Moreover, Insight did not even name its own writers, supposedly on the theory that this made it easier for them to get at and write the truth. From what I read, Insight at one point claimed to have had the last word in the debunking flurry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insight_on_the_News; http://obama.wikia.com/wiki/Muslim_and_madrassa_school_rumors; https://www.pbs.org/now/shows/401/political-smears.html; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_religion_conspiracy_theories; http://mediamatters.org/research/2007/06/13/months-after-last-word-insig...

"His (Penn's) colleagues were firmly opposed to running attack ads; the press showed little interest in the dirt the Clinton press shop was peddling under the table; and Hillary refused to rule in favor of strafing Obama." (Game Change, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, New York, Harper Collins 2010, describing Penn's frustration as the Iowa Caucus approached.) Game Change does not link this quote specifically to the Insight article, but it does tell us that the Hillary campaign was planting "dirt" attacks on Obama with media. FWIW, after considering everything I've read, I think it very likely that the Hillary campaign was Insight's source. However, I have no way of proving indisputably involvement by sources who wished to remain anonymous.

8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahhabism

9 http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=2822061&page=1 Hillary denial

10 If I worked for Hillary, I would never risk reminding her of that humiliating experience. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vast_right-wing_conspiracy Then again, I'd never work for Hillary. Of course, during the 2016 primary, Hillbots mocked as "conspiracy theories" claims by supporters of Sanders that establishment Democrats and media were both being unfair to Sanders.

11 http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/apr/07/donald-tr...

12 http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2007-03-27/features/0703270151_1_sen-... .

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to me. Not shocked, just numbed out.

I guess when HRC was in law school and the professor talked about professional ethics, she was the one who raised her hand and asked if this would be on the final exam.

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"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

deny Nixon a right to counsel during the Watergate hearings and either got fired or almost got fired for that. I am not sure how a kid just out of law school could deny a POTUS a right to counsel, anyway. IIRC, he had a law degree of his own and would have known better. On another board, someone who said he had worked for the DNC at the time told me the story in a pm. I googled and saw it was hotly contested. Anyway, it was a long time ago.

On the bigotry, though, had someone suggested to me what Penn suggested in that memo, I would have fired him on the spot. She did not. That speaks volumes. As stated, though, Penn and Bubba were on the same side about going negative. I wonder how much of that memo was Penn and how much was Bubba. Penn was not part of the 2016 primary, but we got anti-Semitic dog whistles from Hillary's supporters. IMO, it's Bubba and Hills as much as Penn.

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to further her career goals - is clear and Clinton is not worthy of being president. That she is the front runner with little time to go shows dereliction on the parts of both parties for not nominating people who are fit for office. However, the point you emphasize, deeds over words, puts her in a worse light in my opinion.

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"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

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want to vote for her, then the next war is on THEM! And if it goes nuke, well, we All be in a pickle. But I'm pretty sure sovereignty goes out the window regardless.
Nice series, HW, good picking at this to find what's underneath. Not that $hillboughts will listen, but at least it's out there.

peace

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Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .

Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .

If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march

she and her husband have done everything she accuses Trump of; they did it first; and they did it, not simply bloviated about it: xenophobia, racism, homophobia, Islamophobia, birtherism. You name it.

I would like to collect it all in one series so that, when I finish, I can just link the last installment when someone says she is the lesser evil. She is not.

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Hillary is a psychopathic, shilling, traitorous liar. The lying got them elected. The shilling got them obscenely rich. They have a lot in common but only one is crazy.

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riverlover's picture

That list now looks like scum, not pond scum, mostly algal, but septic tank froth. $$$$$ is the connection.

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

spineless. I see them both as ambitious and self-promoting. That doesn't mean I am right, but it is how I see them. Also, both as sociopaths.

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Lily O Lady's picture

from the time he addressed the Democratic Convention. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

I'm not sure how genuine the 2008 primary was, but if it was, the bigwigs of the party seem to have decided on public spectacle and private decision-making this go-round.

Anyway, I'm in high cynic mode now.

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"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

Durned if I recall at the the moment who on here had provided a link to a wonderful blog which showed data that indicated that Obama had won the election despite Hillary's massive cheating, although at a far lower rate than he actually was intended to actually get by the fired-up voters. He really was convincing...

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up.

Despite believing that, I thought I had learned some very hard, expensive lessons 2007-08, but dipped if I didn't make similar ones 2015-16. Anyway....

Very often, the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention has been identified as someone with a shot at the Presidency in the relatively near future, as with Obama and Clinton. It doesn't always pan out later, though. I've seen some clips recently of 2004. Obama was still speaking as TV news anchors were cutting in and talking about him as suited for the Presidency. In hindsight, it's freaking unreal.

Obama was the pick of Reid, Kennedy, Kerry, Daschle, Pelosi and others. According to Game Change, Reid was the first one who asked Obama to run, but also asked him to keep quiet about being asked. I saw an interview of Daschle in 2008, in which Daschle said he had urged him to run, even though Obama thought he needed more time in the Senate. Daschle told him lack of a record might be an advantage, that Daschle's own record had tripped him up when he had run for POTUS. (Somehow, I think Obama knew that. He had voted "Present" 112 times in the Illinois Senate.)

The Party PTB thought Hillary had too much baggage, but didn't want to take her and Bill on directly, so they went behind their backs. I guess it hadn't occurred to them at that point to get the world's worst Presidential candidate to run against her, so they thought they had to run someone more electible.

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"No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up."
- Lily Tomlin

My head is spinning!

Stein - Baraka
2016

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She doesn't care. She doesn't have to. She's The Hillary!

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by old friend L. Froman (sp?) about this time. (Don't have source at hand)

The very same guy delivered Citigroup picks for cabinet in Oct. 2008. Podesta papers!

Stein - Baraka
2016

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If I worked for Hillary, I would never risk reminding her of that humiliating experience. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vast_right-wing_conspiracy

What you regard as a "humiliating experience" is acclaimed as one of the central articles of faith at TOP.

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ggersh's picture

the actions of her heinous will speak louder than her words. That is why she will always accuse her enemy of the very same actions that she herself has actually done. She is evil personified from where I sit. her heinous scares the living daylights outta me.

#jillneverhill

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

Wed, 10/26/2016 - 5:26pm — ggersh

Nice series HW

the actions of her heinous will speak louder than her words. That is why she will always accuse her enemy of the very same actions that she herself has actually done. She is evil personified from where I sit. her heinous scares the living daylights outta me.

#jillneverhill

Pretty big club of people scared to death of Her Ruthless Craziness, covering much of the informed world. Too bad that no club seems to be big enough to beat her, going by the claims of those supporting her and evidently serving the same masters and always lying for her... always lying for her.

Why do I feel that there's a hint in there somewhere?

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Because Democrats will never impeach her and Republicans are getting ready to do that.

I have a feeling that's why she's segued into campaigning for down ticket candidates.

I've never voted Republican in my life. Not that my vote is going to swing anything anyway.

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ThoughtfulVoter's picture

Trump is no fool, and IMO he is trying to capture the interest of progressives with his comments on holding Hillary accountable, sending her to jail, etc.

My guess is that many feel as you do.

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have been prosecuted; and I don't think he'd even seen the wikileaks stuff. He should be fired.

MSNBC has been busy for the last couple of days pointing out no one has proven a quid pro quo. They're a disgrace, too. No, no quid pro quo. Bubba's speeches just got twice as good as soon as his wife became Secretary of State. Ergo, they were worth twice as much.

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ggersh's picture

there definitely has to be a hint in either, sycophant nirvana doesn't exist, does it?

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

Very true, no more than any Clinton suitability for public office exists - nothing but reality-defying bullshit to them both or to Hillary's propaganda campaign/inevitability claims. As they say, there's no 'there' there - not the perfection of nirvana, just emptiness where a soul ought to be, a black hole eternally unfilled even by their insatiable greed.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

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ggersh's picture

and the sad part is us the people are going to pay the piper for her heinous
"it's my turn" hubris.

"As they say, there's no 'there' there - not the perfection of nirvana, just emptiness where a soul ought to be, a black hole eternally unfilled even by their insatiable greed."

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

Pod people; some other type of alien, caricatures of corrupt, evil politicans, anything like that. Just, you know, not the same species as we are.

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solublefish's picture

"This, of course, begs the question why anyone born and raised in America to a mom who was born and raised in America needs to do anything, honest or dishonest, to seem more American."

And footnotes! You make a compelling case for the persistence (vitality, even) of race as a factor in American politics. (Not to mention your great case for the hollow soullessness of the current incarnation of the Democratic Party.) And footnotes!

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