Someone...
mood: 
enraged
enragedI actually find this incredibly enraging. This is an excerpt of an e-mail I sent a friend:
It's hit the point where whatever sympathy I have had for her is gone. This "I take him at his word" b.s. on being a Muslim is just off the charts in terms of evil. It's an embarrassment thatAt first I thought it was pathetic, then I got angry, now I'm at rage... this seems almost like the type of thing that should get one shunned from the party like Zed Miller or Joe Lieberman.
it would ever come from the mouth of a Democrat, and disturbing that the Republican nominee is more willing to avoid wallowing in the mud then one of the Democrats. Completely fucking embarrassing.
It's like the John McCain black baby thing.
(If you think I'm going overboard imagine if he said he would "take her at her word" that she didn't kill Vince Foster).
I personally find it extremely disturbing and appalling that the fact that there might be some slight chance that Obama may have once dabbled in Islam has any effect whatsoever on whether people would vote for him. It's like condemning someone for doing Zen meditation once when they were 14. There is nothing wrong with Muslims in general. The ridiculously overblown fear that Americans have of terrorists is due to an extreme sect of muslim belief that is condemned by any reasonable muslim believer. If regular, everyday Americans can't understand that, then we should not be a democratic country because they are too fucking moronic to be allowed the vote.
She could have said 'No'. That would have been fine. Or 'No. I think this is politics at its worse and I will have nothing to do with it' or even 'No, and I don't care either way. You say that like it would be a bad thing.' She had a lot of acceptable options.
It is that she seems clearly trying to have it both ways denying it but also suggesting that she doesn't know for sure and therefore while she can't accuse him herself, careful people should be on guard.
Now, maybe an average person, when confronted with a question like that, could come up with an answer like hers and mean it in good faith, but she's way too smart and way too skilled (and, erm, experienced) a politician not to know exactly what she was doing and it is completely disgusting.
She attacked Obama at the last debate saying he should denounce and reject Louis Farrakhan. Why would Obama have to reject and denounce Farrakhan - because Farrakhan had just endorsed him. So by her own standard, Obama had to forcefully reject the abhorrent ideas of someone who simply supported him.
That's not an unreasonable standard (that she would want him to 'denounce and reject' is a little silly), but it is standard fare for politicians to have to distance themselves from disgusting people and ideas. This is so routine that every politican understands it. Just within the past week or so, for example, John McCain appropriately denounced a campaign speaker who made less appropriate attacks.
The problem here is that Clinton is asked if she believes one of these attacks. The standard thing... hell, the human thing is to simply say 'no.' Instead she got cute and coy and tried to have it both ways, 'denying' it while also suggesting there might be something out there.
If Obama were asked if he believed Hillary Clinton was a lesbian or if he believes he had Vince Foster killed, I would fully expect him to say, firmly 'no' and probably insult the questioner, because those types of questions are fundamentally off limits.
It's standard. She's an experienced politician, who has been doing this for years. She knows the rules and threw them out the window for possible short-term political gain. It's absolutely disgusting.
I just don't like her because her front office staff was snooty to me nearly 7 years ago.
This isn't an issue that's out of nowhere. It's an established smear that has been floating around anonymously. She, of course, is aware of this (and in fact just had a flap in which she was accused of releasing pictures of Obama dressed in traditional Kenyan garb as an attempt to further the smear). So she can't claim ignorance on the issue.
It's similar to the John McCain black baby story promulgated by team Bush. When you are stealing the most disgusting tactics of George W. Bush, you are sinking pretty low.
(Anonymous)
I'm voting for Obama not so much because I think he's substainially better than she is. Their domestic policies are both top-notch, and I think they'll both fight for their legislative initiatives. But this kind of smearing is ridiculous. I could look behind her support of the Iraq War. I can't look beyond this. We don't need another 4 years of this crap.