Obama's momentum takes a "bitter" turn

Predictably, Hillary Clinton swiftly released an attack ad seeking to capitalize on Barack Obama's recent gaffe:



In the days leading up to the Pennsylvania primary, we can be sure that Clinton will continue to make an issue of Obama's poorly phrased comments, using the incident to increase her advantage among rural voters. The timing of this error is terrible for Obama.

The Bosnia story was especially harmful to Clinton because it highlighted a key weakness of her candidacy: voters' hesitation to trust her considering her reputation for manipulating facts to her own benefit. Similarly, the "bitter" comments by Obama bring his shortcomings as a candidate into sharp focus, namely, notions that he is an elitist "latte liberal" who fails to connect with the working class just as John Kerry did. Further, Obama has been an optimistic candidate whose campaign is fueled by small donations from "regular" people; these comments seem to patronize average Americans, even striking a cynical note with the "cling" part.

What's worse, this fiasco fits into an unfortunate pattern for Obama: first his wife's comments about being proud of America for "the first time," then his pastor's comments damning America, and now comments by Obama himself seem to raise doubts about his attitude toward America. Especially in a matchup with a war hero, even a hint of a lack of patriotism is not something Obama can afford to have stick to his candidacy. It is somewhat ironic that the candidate of hope finds himself blasted for being negative about his country.

Personally, I think the argument Obama was trying to make is reasonable, but as a presidential candidate, he should have known better than to use such phrasing that would open him up to attacks. He should have avoided making negative, almost stereotypical generalizations about entire groups of people, and instead emphasized broader terms ("frustration"), focusing on sympathy and solutions for small-town Americans. It must be difficult not to slip up when speaking constantly, but Obama must know that any misstep will be exploited by his opponents to his detriment.

Senator Clinton has stayed up way past her bedtime

Last Thursday in Boonville, IN, former President Bill Clinton attempted to promote his wife and addressed the incident when Senator Hillary Clinton “misspoke” regarding her arrival under sniper fire in Bosnia in 1995. He made excuses for her, explaining that she had been speaking late at night (around 11 PM), was exhausted, and had apologized for her mistake immediately after. Unfortunately, these excuses did not alleviate the situation because of a number of mistakes in his argument and some unintended inferences.

-Senator Clinton’s trip to Bosnia was in 1996, not 1995.
-She did not make the sniper fire claim just once at 11 PM, but a number of times, and had exaggerated the story each time.
-She did not immediately apologize for it and only acknowledged the mistake once the video of her not-so-dangerous arrival was released.

It’s unfortunate as well that Senator Clinton misspoke at 11 PM, especially since she promises to be alert and ready for duty at any time- specifically at 3 AM, which is only 4 hours later.

Well, Senator Clinton. With all due respect, I believe you’ve stayed awake past your bedtime. Please get some rest and drop out of the race! You’ll thank me in the long run.

Hillary's Achilles Heel

Noted journalist Carl Bernstein called Clinton's recent Bosnia episode a "watershed moment" in her campaign. He argues that Clinton has never had a reputation for being honest and open; having written a biography of the senator, he suggests a pattern in her political career of bending the truth to suit her purposes. This tendency has been evident in the way she has shifted her view of certain features of the campaign to favor her current position; for example, she had accepted the DNC's decision not to count votes in Florida and Michigan until it turned out she desperately needed those votes, at which point she suddenly opposed the DNC's stance vehemently. It's one thing to spin an issue in your favor, but when you do it too much you begin to appear self-serving or disingenuous.

The Bosnia story has highlighted Clinton's deficit in the trust department. As Obama grapples with the fallout from Rev. Wright's comments, Clinton could have used his ordeal as an opportunity to close the favorability gap. Instead, she also finds herself dealing with a damaging story--but she has to defend her own character and not just that of a supporter.

As I consider the vast multitude of events, trips, and meetings that Clinton has attended over the past several years, I find it conceivable that Clinton could have embellished a story and actually begun to believe a wholly different account upon continuous reinforcement. It is plausible that she did not initially intend to deceive. However, once the discrepancy was brought to light, Clinton's subsequent explanations were unsatisfying. Frank Rich of the New York Times pieces together an excellent case for why Clinton's reaction to the debacle is as disturbing as the false story itself. Why did Clinton stubbornly continue to repeat a story that had been publicly proved to be untrue? Why would she later claim she "misspoke" when the story was scripted and consistently unfactual over multiple tellings?

The whole incident paints Clinton as calculating and prone to obfuscating the truth. These unflattering traits will hamper her ability to chip away at voters' negative perceptions of her and will stall her quest for a miraculous comeback. I think hesitation among voters to trust Clinton has been a fatal weakness of her candidacy, and this embarrassing fiasco suggests those fears are not totally unjustified.