Josh Marshall Sounding Bitter

As things in the primary continue to spiral out of control, Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo has been a steady journalist laying down what has been a tremendous track record for insightful analysis through out this campaign. Well today he wrote this piece on "bittergate" that is just brutal to Hillary Clinton who has been banging the "Obama is elitist" drum relentlessly since Friday. Many pieces like this have been written, but coming from someone like Marshall who is first and foremost an activist for the Democratic party is certainly not a good sign for Hillary. Keep in mind she is trying to win the Democratic nomination first, and she needs movement Democrats to get behind her to do so.

... So speaking for myself I've spent too much time over, what, 15 years now? ... defending both Clintons from similarly ginned up nonsense to have much energy left to help out as they pull the same puffed up outrage act against another Democrat. I guess I'm just not feeling it.

With the Wright business and now with this, the more nuanced version of the Clinton line has been that what 'we' think is not really the point. It's what Republicans will do with it in the fall. And that's a real concern that I definitely have. I won't deny it. I've never thought Obama was a perfect candidate. But as we get deeper into the primary calendar, increasingly so, this 'what the Republicans will do' line has become more of a simulacrum, or a license, if you will, to do what Republicans actually do do. That is to say, to grab for political advantage by peddling stereotypes about Democrats and liberals that are really no less offensive than the ones we're talking about about Americans from small town and rural America.

And seeing Hillary go on about how Obama has contempt for folks in small town America, how he's elitist, well ... no, it's not because I think she's either. I never have. But after seeing her hit unfairly with just the same stuff for years, it just encapsulates the last three-plus months of her campaign which I can only describe as a furious descent into nonsense and self-parody. Part of it makes me want to cry. But at this point all I can really do is laugh.