Tension At The Convention

As one might expect, things are not all sweetness and light at the Convention (and I will freely admit, up front, that I plan to watch very little of it. No way in HELL do I want to watch Michelle Obama speak, or even Barack, for that matter. I don’t need to hear Michelle’s arrogant patronizing speech or Obama’s patronizing arrogant speech. No thanks. There are really only two people I do want to hear speak: Bill and Hillary Clinton.

It seems, though, according to John Harris and Mike Allen of Politico.com that there are some major tensions between the Obama and Clinton camps. Now, really, did any of us HONESTLY think it would be any different? Obama treated both Clintons like pure crap, and denigrated one of the best presidents we have had in 40 years, so, uh, YEAH, they might still be a little peeved. Especially Bill:

One flashpoint is the assigned speech topic for former president Bill Clinton, who is scheduled to speak Wednesday night, when the convention theme is “Securing America’s Future.” The night’s speakers will argue that Obama would be a more effective commander in chief than his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.).

The former president is disappointed, associates said, because he is eager to speak about the economy and more broadly about Democratic ideas — emphasizing the contrast between the Bush years and his own record in the 1990s.

This is an especially sore point for Bill Clinton, people close to him say, because among many grievances he has about the campaign Obama waged against his wife is a belief that the candidate poor-mouthed the political and policy successes of his two terms.

Well, he DID poor-mouth them - every chance he got! Obama praised REAGAN and BUSH I, but made every effort to NOT praise Bill CLinton. The lengths to which he went sometimes to avoid that woud make a Cirque Du Soleil performer envious!

And what, you might ask, was the Obama camp’s response to all of this? Get ready - I think you might get a good chuckle out of this one:

Some senior Democrats close to Obama, meanwhile, made clear in not-for-attribution comments that they were equally irked at the Clinton operation. Nearly three months after Hillary Clinton conceded defeat in the nomination contest, these Obama partisans complained, her team continues to act like she and Bill Clinton hold leverage.

Hahahaha!! Isn’t that hilarious? A former TWO TERM President and a two term senator, who, by the way, received the largest number of votes of any presidential candidate EVER, think they have any leverage??? And people wonder why there are “tensions.” Well, SOME people do, I don’t. I am pretty clear on why there are. Oh, you know they didn’t stop there. Here’s more:

Some senior Obama supporters are irritated at how they perceive the Clintons fanned — or at a minimum failed to douse — stories that she was not even vetted as a possible vice presidential nominee. This is because she told Obama she preferred not to go through the rigorous process of document production unless she was really a serious contender, an Obama associate noted.

One senior Obama supporter said the Clinton associates negotiating on her behalf act like “Japanese soldiers in the South Pacific still fighting after the war is over.”

Well, golly gee - imagine that. Some of us actually do still care about not engaging in vote theft, fraud, and disenfranchisement! Some of us actually do still care about not co-opting caucuses in ways that border on, if they are not, illegal. Some of us actually care about the POPULAR VOTE WINNER. And some of us still give a damn about the democratic process, something of which we have seen blessed little this election season.

And really, witht this kind of attitude, is there any wonder why so many of us just plain do not LIKE Obama?

A prominent Obama backer said some of Clinton’s lieutentants (sic) negotiating with the Obama team are “bitter enders” who presume that, rather than the Clintons reconciling themselves to Obama’s victory, it is up to Obama to accommodate them.

Holy crap. Did you notice the part about Clinton and the vice presidency? She said if she was not a SERIOUS contender, she did not want to go through the vetting process. Evidently, then, she was never seriously considered, thus proving the point of so many who felt she was being dissed. She WAS (not that I ever, for one skinny second WANTED her to be the VP choice. That, to me, would have been far worse - her having to prop up Obama from a subservient position would have been too much to take. So, I’m with some of the “senior veterans” of the Clinton campaign:

In fact, some senior veterans of Clinton’s presidential campaign do believe this.

“He has not fully reconciled,” said one political operative close to the Clintons, “and he has not demonstrated that he accepts the Clintons and the Clinton wing of the party.”

I think most of us can concur that is indeed a problem for Obama. He, and the other DNC leaders, seem hellbent on eradicating the Clinton wing (”dang Washington outsider interlopers!”). But there is more on President Clinton:

While Bill Clinton remains angry about how he and his wife were treated by both Obama backers and the news media — and he is particularly resentful at what he sees as unfair allegations that he tried to exploit racial divisions for political advantage — he has made the decision that he will put forward a positive face for Obama’s benefit at Denver.

It is harder to do that when the topic is foreign policy and national security, which lends itself to restrained, rather than boisterous, partisan rhetoric.

“That puts him in a terrible bind, because you can’t give a ringing endorsement when you’re talking about foreign policy,” a longtime Clinton adviser said. “Obviously, the hard thing to talk about with Obama is commander in chief, of all his many talents.

“You don’t rah-rah about commander in chief. You rah-rah about hope and change and a new party and all that. So no matter what he does, somebody will find fault with it.”

I sure cannot blame President Clinton for being angry that he was portrayed as a racist by the Obama camp, AND the media. For someone who has worked so hard on behalf of the African American community, it wasn’t just a slap int he face. It was a slap in the face AND a knife in the back. Repeatedly. Rep. Jim Clyburn twisted that knife on more than one occasion (and thus leads to my problem of voting downticket, because I am not voting for Obama/Biden, or Clyburn. I don’t like any ONE of them, and feel Obama has done tremendous damage to the DNC. I know - you would never have known that about me before this, right??).

Apparently, the good senator is looking at the convention with a more positive eye:

Hillary Clinton, who associates said seems more at peace with the results of the nomination battle than her husband, is treating her speech preparation as an all-hands-on-deck exercise, bringing back longtime aides who worked with her during the White House years and in her Senate office.

Jim Kennedy, a veteran Clinton press hand and now an executive at Sony studios, was recalled to work on a speech draft, as was former White House speechwriter Lissa Muscatine, according to Clinton associates.

Many of Hillary Clinton’s negotiations with the Obama team, aides said, have been led by former White House lawyer Cheryl Mills — a fiercely loyal associate of the Clintons who is known for her relentless and sometimes combative advocacy on their behalf.

Another longtime associate, former White House chief of staff John Podesta, said he has little doubt that Hillary Clinton will easily meet her political challenge in Denver. He predicted that her supporters will “blow the roof” off the convention center with cheers for her, and that she will in turn make a rousing appeal for Obama.

See, another reason why I love Senator Clinton. She is, without a doubt, a class act. She is a Democrat through and through, even to her own detriment. I admire her for that (though I no longer call myself a Democrat - I do not recognize this current party. To me, it looks more like the RNC than the DNC to which I have always belonged.). I hate what the DNC leadership have done to both her and President Clinton. I cannot stand that this unqualified man, with exceedingly POOR judgment rather than the “good” judgment he claims to have, with the numerous questionable associates, who engaged in documented intimidation, fraud, and corruption of the caucus system, and whose secrecy makes George Bush look like an open book, is the one the DNC is pushing. Wow.

So, enjoy the convention, those of you who will actually be watching it. I am going to let my DVR do the work for me so I can just fast forward through until I reach the Clintons. And you can BET it will not be set to record Obama’s “victory” speech.