The Slash-and-burn Clinton Campaign

Los Angeles, CA (April 25, 2008) -- Finally, after all these months, the apt description of Hillary Clinton’s political modus operandi as “slash and burn” has made it into the ’08 campaign lexicon. It’s about time.

In a pre-Pennsylvania Huffington Post column, Robert Creamer bashed Hillary Clinton for bashing Barack Obama. His column was titled, “Why Hillary Clinton’s Slash-and-Burn Politics May Hurt Her More Than Obama.” Notably, her tactics did not hurt her more than they hurt him, as she won Pennsylvania, likely by the double-digit margin she coveted.

How did she do it?

While both Clinton and Obama ran attack ads in Pennsylvania, Hillary saw to it that Obama wasted his money—even though he spent nearly triple her budget for the state. He didn’t get his money’s worth, but she did.

While Obama speaks for himself, Clinton uses surrogates. While he speaks direct from his gut, Hillary’s comments are veiled. And while he merely attacks, Hillary takes no prisoners. To her, political strategy is not gamesmanship, but war. And her goal is to finish off her opponent, not to join ranks with him in the general election. Hers is a cutthroat approach—and it runs deep.

Remember her buddy, Sid Blumenthal? According to Hillary biographer Carl Bernstein, she hired Blumenthal after he wrote a New Yorker column in which he argued that, in politics, “Humiliating one’s prey, not merely defeating one’s foes, is central to the process.” Subsequently, in 1997, Blumenthal became a special presidential assistant. And assist he did. By the time the Clintons were up to their eyeballs in Whitewater and Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky and me, “Sid Vicious” collected extensive research on every Clinton opponent, including Bill Clinton’s sexual victims and our advocates, and including information about our private lives. Then, he used the information to slash and burn.

Blumenthal wrote in The Clinton Wars that he needed to “suggest information, ideas, and leads to writers willing to examine them...” He justified his dissemination of “ideas” and suggestions, particularly about Lewinsky and me, when he described Monica as a “stalker” and when he and Hillary broke federal law and released my private letters to the president—after telling reporters that I would have no credibility by the end of the week. He was right. For a while, I was not merely defeated, but humiliated.

Another Clintonista, Bruce Lindsey, was also involved in releasing my files. Lindsey revealed in an interrogatory that, when he learned that I had spoken off the record to Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff in January of 1997, Lindsay mentioned it to Clinton’s secretary, who gave my letters to Lindsey! Thus, the Clinton White House began preparing to discredit me a year before I was dragged into the public eye!

The recent revelations and attacks on Obama no doubt emanated from the Clinton camp. Remember, these people use layers and layers of surrogates, not just to voice claims about their enemies, but to hire private investigators, to conduct background checks and do opposition research, to tap phones, break into homes, and worse. In my case, they also killed my family pet and threatened my children, because I opposed Bill Clinton. And it was Hillary Clinton, not Bill, who had ties to the private investigators and thugs.

Old news? Hardly.

The war room is geared up for the fight against Obama. Hillary’s longtime shady soldier, Harold Ickes, for example, is twisting arms, calling in chits, and tasking aides with conducting background checks and opposition research aimed at swaying superdelegates’ votes. According to a recent Los Angeles Times article, Ickes’ “enthusiasm for no-holds-barred politics sometimes rattles friends and foes alike.” And Sid Vicious is also actively involved, as an unpaid advisor to Hillary. Bruce Lindsey, too, is still in the picture, and as CEO of the Clinton Foundation, he’s the one withholding the Clinton White House documents.

Yes, the Clintonistas’ attack plan is in place and their hand is on the “Go” button. While I warned Obama a few weeks ago to watch out, he hasn’t seen anything yet. Bigger bombs will drop and the hand that’s on the trigger is Hillary’s. This is the essential Hillary Clinton, the woman who has aspired to the presidency for thirty years, the woman whose fight-to-the-death mentality is behind the negative advertising, behind the revelations about Obama, behind the slash-and-burn tactics. This is the real Hillary. Watch out, America.


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Kathleen Willey is the author of Target: Caught in the Crosshairs of Bill and Hillary Clinton published by WND Books in November, 2007.

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