Attacking Obama for teen drug use....was Obama's idea...?

[suston96]

Sure. Preemptive, self-serving strike to bait other campaigns to retort in kind? It worked.

Why else would he have publicly related something already published in his book, a book not that widely read?

[Forkboy]

1. Oy vey. I'm getting dizzy just reading this.

:eyes:

[sniffa]

17. i know

i'm trying to follow circuitous logic.

[DS1]

2. this thread

[Colobo]

3. Wow... that's some spin right there.

[BeyondGeography]

4. I doubt he thought a fellow Democrat would make an issue of it

[TwilightZone]

5. Then, he's naive.

This is politics. The candidates are dissected by the media and by opposing campaigns daily.

If he thought that it wouldn't become a matter of public discussion, then he's not very politically savvy.

[BeyondGeography]

6. So that explains those

"Vote for the naive and politically stupid guy" chants that I've been hearing around the country.

Thanks for clearing that up.

[TwilightZone]

8. It was your presumption, not mine.

Personally, I'm sure that he wouldn't have brought it up unless he understood that it would become a topic of discussion. Pretty much every word uttered by our candidates becomes campaign fodder.

You apparently disagree.

[BeyondGeography]

10. How about this

I'm sure he thought that no Democrat would be stupid enough to bring it up.

There was a misjudgment here, and it wasn't his.

[TwilightZone]

12. "no Democrat would be stupid enough to bring it up"

Including Obama? At last report, he's a Democrat.

Bringing it up before someone else did so was a politically savvy move on his part. If you really believe that he did so believing that no one would make it an issue, including his Democratic opponents, you don't know your candidate very well.

[BeyondGeography]

16. As an attack point...

:eyes:

[RaleighNCDUer]

11. What's his preferred approach?

Put it out there now so that it will be discussed and dissected, then burned out; or, play it close to the chest, only to have the reuke candidate spring it on the public two months before the election?

This was not naive - it was a very savvy approach to something that might be problematic, should he get the nomination.

[TwilightZone]

15. I didn't say he was naive, nor do I believe that he is.

My point was that if we take what the poster said at face value, the only way that's possible is if Obama is politically naive.

Obama knew what he was doing in addressing the issue before someone else could. He most certainly understood that it would become a matter of discussion and very likely would be made an issue in the primary process.

[MethuenProgressive]

7. Why is ObamaNation so upset?

And why pretend they never thought the GOP would use this as an issue in the general?

[Adelante]

9. Nobody pretends or even thinks the GOP would not use this issue

ObamaNation is upset that a Democratic candidate for President of the United States and United States Senator would be portrayed by a national co-chair of another Democratic candidate for President of the United States and United States Senator -- as a lowlife drug dealer. And don't say Shaheen didn't say it, he asked it, because that's just how the politics of personal destruction works, we all well know.

[MethuenProgressive]

13. "national co-chair"?

Just one of several New Hampshire co-chairs, actually.
But, if promoting him somehow helps you self-justify your 'outrage', there's no one stopping you.

[Adelante]

20. So it says here

Bill Shaheen, a national co-chairman of Clinton’s front-runner campaign, raised the issue during an interview with The Washington Post, posted on washingtonpost.com.

If his promotion 'outrages' you, you might drop MSNBC a note of correction.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22226198/

[TwilightZone]

22. It's an AP story, quoting the Washington Post. The Post, however, identified...

Shaheen as a "Clinton N.H. Official", not a national co-chair, so it appears that the error is in the AP's reporting of the story, not MSNBC or WaPo.

[maddiejoan]

14. Bob Shaheen didn't write the article

Nor did Hillary Clinton.


It was an article framed as an attack on Obama by the interviewer.

What was the context of Shaheen's comment? How big a part of the interview was it?


The ONLY attacking I see going on is Obama's continued screaming of foul if anyone dares to comment on him.


He's following Rove's Hillary attack plan as laid out in his his Times editorial --and everybody is falling for this shit?

un-fucking-believable.

[Cameron27]

18. Is there a transcript of the whole interview?

Shaheen was talking about electability, vetting, what we don't know about Obama, and what the GOP will use against him. He didn't make anything up, but the GOP will ask all the questions that he used as examples.

I wouldn't have taken it there, but I don't see what the big uproar is all about either.

[maddiejoan]

19. The Obama camp loves to make flip comments

into accusations of "attack"

It's the "Audacity of Victimhood"

[suston96]

21. There once was another candidate.......

....with a drug and alcohol addiction problem in his youth. Regrettably. that history was not explored early or deeply enough to make a difference.

He managed to become president - twice - and we are all so fortunate for that, eh?

Look at what we would have missed if his addictions had become universal knowledge

[Adelante]

23. Except Obama is not addicted to drugs and never has been

Unless you have proof otherwise, which you do not or it would be plastered all over DU. He is addicted to cigarettes and has been breaking that habit. Millions of people have done drugs at some time in their life, including me, without being addicted. Don't throw that loaded term around in such ignorance, please.