alternative hippopotamus

In comments below eRobin points me to a list put together by eriposte at the Left Coaster with the objective of showing that, like the Clinton campaign, the Obama campaign has gone negative. This is apparently in response to a post by Kos, referred to by the post author as “the crown prince of CDS.” For the uninitiated, CDS is Clinton Derangement Syndrome, a variant of the malady known as Bush Derangement Syndrome, or BDS. BDS was first proposed by (former psychiatrist) Charles Krauthammer, a defender of the Bush administration, who believed that dislike of the 43rd president could be best explained as a psychological disorder. By extension, Clinton Derangement Syndrome has been used to explain criticism in the left blososphere towards Senator Clinton.

Eriposte links to a post at CorrenteWire under the title: “Why won’t that stupid bitch quit?” watch. Lambert quotes Kos here:

Clinton’s license to do harm
by kos
Thu Apr 17, 2008 at 07:21:00 AM PDT

In one of the threads last night, commenter theran made a good observation:

At some point the concept of “Republicans will do X” has turned into a license for Hillary to do all the same things. It’s bizarre, but I don’t really consider her a Dem any more.

Yup.

This, eriposte explains, is what motivated a post detailing “The Hypocrisy of Hope, Change and Unity.” In his/her words: (my emphasis)

Now, Sen. Clinton is no fairy and I do agree that she has perpetuated some Republican style talking points against Sen. Obama - something that I disagree with. However, if that is now the key criterion for inclusion in the Democratic party (according to the Crown Prince of CDS), let’s just say that Sen. Obama would have had to be expelled from the party quite a while ago. (To be clear, I believe Sen. Obama is a Democrat who requires no expulsion of any kind, but I’m pointing out what would have had to happen if we followed the illogic of the Crown Prince of CDS). All I can say is, if the Crown Prince of CDS and his like-thinking friends keep this up, Sen. Obama’s already tenuous support amongst a significant chunk of Sen. Clinton’s base (which is roughly half of the Democratic party) will start depleting even further and become problematic if Sen. Obama becomes the nominee. Their behavior is certainly not the kind that fosters any kind of hope, change or unity and it is sad that fact-free, irrational, hate-filled, blog posts - something that used to be the domain of Little Green Fascists and other lower life forms on the Right - have become part of the mainstream of Sen. Obama’s blogger base on the internets (also see Turkana’s post on this).

The tenor of this spat is a bit over-wrought. It’s difficult for me to look at this as a prelude and take this list that eriposte has put together seriously.

Now, I did look his/her list, and thought it was thin gruel. For example, what was supposed to show Obama going negative on Bill Clinton’s sex life was this letter to the editor in the Denver Post by an Obama superdelegate:

The Democratic Party chairman in Wyoming is predicting that Democratic candidates throughout the Rocky Mountain region will be damaged if his party selects Hillary Clinton for president.

“Every Democratic candidate in Wyoming will be painted with that same liberal, big-government brush. We will also be the target of the locker room jokes that rightfully belong to Bill Clinton,” John Millin wrote in a letter to The Denver Post.

“While I don’t agree with this view of Mrs. Clinton, I have to accept that this is the truth. It has become the dirty little secret in the Democratic Party,” he wrote. “Westerners have an independent, libertarian spirit and Democrats can make Republicans pay a heavy price for years of pandering to the social conservatives. None of this will happen if Hillary wins the nomination.”

This statement is well within the cultural norms of Wyoming. And not from the Obama campaign, but from somebody who plans to vote for him. So, I don’t think it’s fair to say that this is the equivalent of Hillary Clinton linking Obama to the Weather Underground during a televised debate.