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Yesterday I asked about the bizarre conservative obsession with totally unsubstantiated reports that Barack Obama was about to drop Joe Biden from the 2012 ticket in favor of Hillary Clinton. I can’t exactly tell whether it’s a fantasy based on spin, or spin based on fantasy, but in any event, it looks like its purveyors have finally decided to move on, but via an even crazier and more fact-free claim. This is from today’s “Washington Secrets” column in the Washington Examiner:
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was pressed by her husband and a top Obama aide to consider replacing Vice President Joe Biden just a couple of weeks ago, claims the author of the New York Times bestseller “The Amateur.”
But Clinton, exhausted from four years of international travel and diplomacy, shrugged off the suggestion to lay the groundwork for her own 2016 bid with her husband at her side.
The source for this claim is, as the first graph indicates, none other than Ed Klein, author of a nasty 2005 attack-book on Hillary Clinton that was denounced all over the political spectrum as a pack of inventions and smears. Here’s a take on Klein’s The Truth About Hillary from Politico’s Glenn Thrush:
[H]is Clinton book was strewn with serious factual errors, truncated and distorted quotes, and the overall themes don’t gibe with any other serious accounts of Clinton’s life. The disdain for Klein’s previous efforts haven’t necessarily broken along political lines.
A sampling of literary criticism of the “Real Hillary:” This, from conservative columnist John Podhoretz: “This is one of the most sordid volumes I’ve ever waded through. Thirty pages into it, I wanted to take a shower. Sixty pages into it, I wanted to be decontaminated. And 200 pages into it, I wanted someone to drive stakes through my eyes so I wouldn’t have to suffer through another word.”
So natch, this is the guy, who the Examiner credits with having :”sources deep in the Clinton camp” (yeah, sure he does), who’s the source for this deus ex machina rationalization of why Biden hasn’t been dumped.
It sure is easier to find that perfect groove of spin when you live in a fact-free world.
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Josef K on August 17, 2012 3:00 PM:
I believe there have been serious psychological studies done concluding 'conservatives' don't process ambiguity very well and actively seek to avoid it. Inventing "facts" sounds about par for the course for someone with such a pronounced allergy to the messiness and confusion that is real-life.
BillFromPA on August 17, 2012 3:15 PM:
Twenty two percent of Americans, plus or minus,took leave of the Reality Based World more than a decade ago. They're immune to facts, oblivious to logic and they're as relentless as cockroaches. Every liberal/progressive, hell, every sane American voter, needs to resign themselves to fighting the same battles every election cycle. This crew embodies the very definition of 'Fanatic', which loosely stated is 'a person who, when they loose sight of their goals, they re-double their efforts'.
T2 on August 17, 2012 3:29 PM:
"exhausted from four years of international travel and diplomacy" sound more like Bono.
But really, who would like to name the greatest diplomatic accomplishment of Hillary's four years of international travel?
@TeaPartyCat on August 17, 2012 3:48 PM:
Ed, I think the reason the story of dumping Biden is so persistent is that this version makes Obama look weak. At least to them. Here's what I think they think: Biden is a liability, and Obama knows it, so he naturally would look to replace Biden. See, Obama HAS to replace him, which shows that Biden was a poor choice, another bad decision by Obama-- hey, they're all bad decisions if you're a conservative. Heck, even going after Bin Laden was either a strategic error (bad decision) or something ANY president would do (not a real decision at all).
The best person to replace him with? Hillary. And so if Hillary is turning down Obama, then that shows that she thinks Obama can't win, you know, because he's so morally bankrupt, unlikable, and such a failure. Instead, she'd bide her time for the next election and avoid being sullied by his defeat. This part also fits their Obama is not half the man that Bill was. Hillary is the biggest name Democrat and she's refusing to run with him!
Republicans can only see the world through their own motivations and project onto other people, rather than listening. So you may recall how they desperately wanted SOMEONE ELSE BESIDES MITT ROMNEY through the entire primary, pining for some prominent person to get in the race. But none ever did. THEY were rebuffed in this election cycle by all the prominent people on their side, so of course they would be looking for the same on the Democratic side, right?
Anonymous on August 17, 2012 4:09 PM:
by writing about it, asking about it, you are a part of this gossip cycle. co-dependency of liberal and conservative groups go on.
i notice there are a lot more of these than news stories on this website now that steve benen or whoever his name is is gone. i miss his reports.
T2 on August 17, 2012 4:14 PM:
Steve Benen can be read at Maddowblog.com
Jim Treacher on August 17, 2012 4:31 PM:
You sound upset, Ed. Rough week?
Rick B on August 17, 2012 4:40 PM:
@T2
You can embed a link to the great Steve Benen like this:
<div id=""http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/"">"Maddow Blog with Steve Benen"≤/a>
Assuming this works, of course. The less than and greater than character are normally ignored by HTML.
Rick B on August 17, 2012 4:47 PM:
Well that did not work.
<a=href="http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/">"Maddow Blog with Steve Benen"</a>
Maybe this works.
Rick B on August 17, 2012 4:50 PM:
Better. But replace the first "=" with a space it is will work.
< href="http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/">"Maddow Blog with Steve Benen"</a>>
Jeff McCabe on August 17, 2012 5:18 PM:
Probably the funniest (in a blissful un-self awareness way) column and responses I have read today. Tell you what, it's Friday so I will go out and have some adult beverages tonight. Maybe I can then get into the deluded state you all live in, and I will read this again.
Anonymous on August 17, 2012 6:42 PM:
God, I love the smell of trolls in the afternoon. Let's me know the Romney campaign is really on the skids.
Doug on August 17, 2012 6:57 PM:
What IS it with these idiots? Are they THAT desperate to print anything linked to politics by operating on some sort of political variation of "7 Degrees from Kevin Bacon"? This in the same level as "I know this guy whose wife works with the mother of the man who sells HRC her daily newspaper when she's in DC and HE says..."!!!
After mature consideration however, that guy probably DOES know more than Ed Klein...
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