THE PLANK JUNE 6, 2008
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Mugabe's latest crimes:
Two people were killed, their bodies badly burnt, and three injured in
an attack on an office of the Movement for Democratic Change in a
remote area in south-east Zimbabwe, witnesses in the area said on
Wednesday.
Yup, Senator Clinton, just like your plight in Florida and Michigan. I hate to rub it in after she's given up and all, but this whopper continues to gall.
--James Kirchick
10 comments
I think by saying it she's reserved us the right to scratch our heads at it for a while longer.
- rozenson
June 6, 2008 at 1:46am
Would I be engaging in an exercise in futility if I dared remind that her analogy referred to votes cast but not counted, not body counts? Oh, nevermind...
- jkolic
June 6, 2008 at 1:50am
The specifics of her remark are besides the point. Mugabe has earned himself the "distinction" of a kind of Goodwin's Law corollary: even to cite what's happening in Zimbabwe as a parallel instantly delegitimizes any argument that comes after.
The Zimbabwe comment was the moment I lost all respect for Hillary. And I started out supporting her.
- emigdio
June 6, 2008 at 6:31am
Who are you and what have you done with James Kirchick?
Like I believe James is thinking, I want to move on, but some of her quotes were just way out there. Take solace in the fact, though, that Clinton is an amateur compared to what the Republicans will do as they watch their power start slipping away. It really won't take long for the Democrats to unite because of the Repugs.
- anonevent
June 6, 2008 at 9:15am
James - I thought her comments were detestable, but for God's sake get a grip. The analogy was inapt and in fact blew up in her own face, but sure not even the most cynical of Hillary-doubters would think, for one moment, that this is what she was talking about.
Harp on Zimbabwe and Carter and Hamas and whothefuckever - but please, some sense of proportion.
JEEZ.
- icarusr
June 6, 2008 at 10:09am
I am with emigdio, Howard Dean deserved better, I would even say the DNC deserved better if it were not the fact that her own people wrote the stupid solution. Ickes, the guy who was truly for it before he was against it. To equate Zimbabwe in any breath with Howard Dean is reprehensible, especially since Dean could not fight back at all. After he is no longer party chair, expect to hear a scream from him louder than Iowa.
- blackton
June 6, 2008 at 10:55am
I'm with Kirchick on this one. If this was new behavior from Mugabe, I would side with ircarusr, but this is what Mugabe has been doing for years. So Hillary absolutely deserves to have her nose rubbed in it for this, especially since she is now trying to strong-arm her way in the VP slot.
I lost my las shred of respect for her at "hard-working Americans, white Americans". But if there had been any left, this analogy would have finished it off.
- JEFF FREY
June 6, 2008 at 11:34am
The Hillary-haters and James dovetail on this post. I stopped supporting Hillary after her egregious Zimbabwe remark. Robert Gabriel Mugabe is a vicious thug and the Floridians don't quite measure up
- liberal reformer
June 6, 2008 at 1:41pm
James, as badly as I want to tell you to drop it because the primary is over, using Zimbabwe to make her argument really was beyond the pail, and I cannot, in good conscience, begrudge anyone the right to be bitter over the comparison, nor can I begrudge them the right to vent that bitterness.
- GSpinks
June 6, 2008 at 2:30pm
GSpinks: I love your "beyond the pail" trope. Hillary's preposterous equation was beyond the airsickness bag, too.
- liberal reformer
June 6, 2008 at 5:28pm