Why didn't Hillary just unequivocally say "yes"?

[drokhole]

Scarborough pressed Clinton three times if she believed Bernie was "qualified" to be president, and each instance was meant with insinuation, aspersion, manufactured doubt, deflection, and innuendo. Just like Fox News, they lead you up to the point of what they want you to think/believe, and then 'let' the "viewer/voter decide." In addition, she stated flatly she's "not sure he even is" a Democrat, which would, in fact, suggest that he isn't qualified to run on the Democratic ticket (and would disqualify him from doing so). Where's the (manufactured) outrage from the Hillary camp there?

Here, how simple the exchange could've been:

"Secretary Clinton, do you believe this morning that Bernie Sanders is qualified and ready to be President?"

"Yes."

If she wanted to boost her own bona fides (as any candidate is wont to do), could've went with "Yes...but I'm the better option, and here's why..." Instead, we get a shiny new distraction featuring a fresh set of talking points for the day, ever so predictable righteous indignation, and after-the-fact high road-ing...all which will be forgotten in a week's (if not few days) time. So, congrats to the Clinton camp for getting the ball rolling and having something new to latch on to...squeeze as much juice out of it as you can and enjoy it while it lasts.

[Buzz Clik]

1. Blaming the victim? Wow, that sucks.

[daleanime]

9. Victim-in-chief...

nice title.

[Buzz Clik]

12. Meanwhile, somebody is extending his lease back in Vermont.

[Prism]

47. My favorite Hillary clip of all time

So her M.O.

[nadinbrzezinski]

49. Quelle surprise

Expected. I see the talking point of the day is out...ah so 2008.

[CoffeeCat]

53. The victim?

Is that how you see her?

Well, I guess that explains everything.

Oh lordy...how much longer is the Clinton campaign going to be in full bullshit mode?

[Buzz Clik]

60. She certainly is the target of an unprovoked attack in this instance. That FACT is undeniable.

Spin it however makes you feel better.

[CoffeeCat]

62. Clinton fired the first set of shots

The Clinton camp leaked to CNN on Tuesday night that "Defeat him and disqualify him" would be their new push against Sanders.

So, yesterday--as they said they would--the Clinton camp made the rounds.

Hillary spent a great deal of time suggesting that Bernie wasn't a Democrat and that his plans to break up the big banks were inadequate.

Her surrogates were on a roll as well.

The Clinton camp certainly provoked all of this. That is fact.

Bernie was simply responding to non-stop attacks and mud slinging during Monday from the Clinton camp.

[Mother Of Four]

64. What I think is really interesting -

Is she didn't have a problem with his qualifications until he started winning primaries back to back.

Now all of a sudden this crap happens.

Prediction: This is going to blow up in her face big time because it once again has the appearance of waffling and flipping opinions with how well she's polling/winning.

[TM99]

56. Man you fucking crack me up!

It is like performance art with you.

Yes, poor little old Clinton is the victim.

[Buzz Clik]

59. Glad you are enjoying yourself, but I'm dead fucking serious.

Sanders launched this unprovoked attack, and the OP suggests that it's HRC's fault for not caving into Scarbrough's ridiculous question. Bullshit.

You guys have elevated Sanders to some bizarre sainthood level, but, now that his flaws are glaring, the only way to maintain the saintly aura is to throw as much shit on Clinton as possible. We see it for what it is. Give up the charade.

[TM99]

66. Sorry son.

The cult of personality is the Clinton camp alone.

Hey the media is just vetting her, right?

She questioned Obama's qualifications in 2008 as well. We remember. We don't forget. We are dead serious as well so that is why we fight this bullshit tooth and nail.

No charade here, keep up the bullshit, and we will push right back at ya!

[Buzz Clik]

67. "The cult of personality is the Clinton camp alone." Delusion.

Look around you. Maybe this place is so thick in Sanders insanity that you've lost track of what sanity is.

Have the last word.

[Avalux]

63. Why do you think Hillary is a victim all the time?

Is it because she's a woman?

[Buzz Clik]

68. Hillary Clinton is her own worst enemy. Most of the time, she is the victim of her own decisions.

Not in this case. Sanders shot off his mouth in anger, and now he gets to live with it.

[Motown_Johnny]

70. Is she really that weak? I thought she was a fighter?

How will she stand up to ISIS, or Putin... or girl scouts selling cookies???

[Buzz Clik]

71. Holy crapoli. Another ridiculous non sequitur.

You people are spending a bazillion calories defending this foul temepered, mouthy, pedestrian career politician.

You want him as your hero? He's all yours.

[Motown_Johnny]

72. I want the most honest candidate, the most progressive candidate.

That sure as hell isn't Hillary.

Bernie isn't my hero, he is just the one who has earned my vote.

[Lizzie Poppet]

2. What? Without running it past a few focus groups?

Are you insane???

[Else You Are Mad]

26. Maybe...

Hillary would do better without her focus grouped advice. They give her some really awful advice lately...

[Lizzie Poppet]

33. Agreed.

I have a sense of not really knowing who Hillary Clinton actually is. Not exactly confidence-inspiring...

[Else You Are Mad]

37. Exactly.

And I blame that on her advisors more than Hillary herself.

[JimDandy]

50. So she picks bad advisers and she's still qualified to be president?

Wow. What other bad advisers will she pick, if she becomes president?

[Else You Are Mad]

51. That was my point. nt.

[JimDandy]

52. Good you made that clear.

[nichomachus]

3. Please tell the last time Clinton said anything "unequivocally" except

Her demands for her speeches to Wall Street banksters.

[daleanime]

10. +1

[bvf]

73. No one's asked her yet whether puppies are cute.

On second thought, she'd waffle on that, so as not to risk losing the puppy-hating demographic.

[Vattel]

4. This is the truth. Her hypocrisy and sleaziness is jaw-dropping.

[Jitter65]

45. Perfect example of what is going wrong in this campaign. GOP is going to have a field day.

It is really sad.

[Buzz Clik]

61. -1

more smears.

[BeyondGeography]

5. Context

The question was posed in the context of his painfully inept Daily News interview. She can be excused for not stepping on that story by saying he's qualified. It was well done; she made her points without saying, quote/unquote, that he is unqualified.

It's not her job to prop him up in hard times.

[bbgrunt]

6. the interview was clearly stage managed to

repeatedly ask that question and let H "artfully dodge" responsibility.

[Lucinda]

18. Oh please. You think Joe S was in any way part of helping Hillary?

That is just too crazy for words.

[bbgrunt]

20. no, it's not.

[Else You Are Mad]

27. Except...

The people that cut Joe's extremely large paychecks have donated millions over the years to the Clintons and are, therefore, invested in having her elected. If you think the higher ups wouldn't use Joe to boost the Clintons & that Joe wouldn't do it, you haven't been paying attention to MSNBC lately.

[Lucinda]

29. You think media moguls want Clinton over the GOP?

Uhm...ok.

[Ken Burch]

31. Supposedly MSNBC's moguls do. n/t.

[Else You Are Mad]

36. Comcast not MSNBC nt

[Else You Are Mad]

35. No...

They want Hillary over Sanders because he is a threat to their profits. Hillary is a corporatist and will help them in the long run. They know that any Democrat will defeat the GOP in the GE. If they didn't think so, why have the executives of Comcast donated so much to her campaign as individuals and her PACs as a corporation, if they weren't backing her?

[Lucinda]

38. How does Hillary help them when even seated GOP members have said they would vote for her

before letting Trump become the POTUS?

[Else You Are Mad]

39. Simply put...

Why would Comcast and that corporation's executives have invested so much money if they didn't think they would get a return on their investment. Sure, you can say that the executives, as individuals, may just support Clinton. But Comcast, has a fiduciary duty to earn money for its shareholders -- which makes it hard to explain why Comcast would donate to her PACs if it wouldn't earn the Corp money.

[Lucinda]

42. They hedge their bets by investing in both sides. But that doesn't mean they are

going to go out of their way to assist someone who could beat their preferred candidate.

[Else You Are Mad]

46. Except...

If you look at MSNBC's history of firing the talking heads that don't stick with the company lines indicates to me otherwise. See, e.g., Phil Donahue (for speaking against the Iraq War), Ed Shultz (for speaking out against TPP), etc.

[DookDook]

43. I remember hearing that the donor class would have been happy with Rubio, Jeb, or HRC. eom

[LexVegas]

7. Why the fuck is the female candidate held to a higher standard than the male? Jesus.nt

[morningfog]

13. She isn't. No matter how hard you try to make it so.

[Jackie Wilson Said]

15. I dont think that is it, to be honest. But this road they are on is not good.

[Ken Burch]

32. A male candidate who did what she did to Bernie there would have got the exact same treatment.

The Sanders campaign has never been about opposition to the idea of a female president.

[libdem4life]

57. Victim??? Indeed. Absurd.

Yet, she artfully plays either card. Strong Feminist or Female Victim. Both seem to somehow fit into her repertoire as needef.

[Sky Masterson]

8. Because she didn't know what the polls suggested she would say.

Being that she lacks foresight and courage to act without seeing them.

[whatchamacallit]

11. Lies of omission

[anotherproletariat]

14. She didn't have to...if a thinking person examines Bernie's experience, it's obvious that he's not

qualified. She was just trying to point people in that direction.

Being a long-time relatively unproductive member of congress, who can not clearly articulate the nuts and bolts behind his talking points...and running in a party that he just recently joined are all big red flags.

She has not attacked Bernie at all, and since so many people are willing to buy into his sound bites without doing the legwork required to validate them, he was doing better than expected. Any smart politician would change their approach at this point.

[Fumesucker]

28. "I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience that he will bring to the White House...

And Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002.."

There's a history here of this sort of equivocation from Clinton.

[ecstatic]

41. I was pro-Obama, but she raised a fair point.

At the time, senator Obama's resume was pretty thin compared to hers, but unlike Bernie, candidate Obama was brilliant, thoughtful, and demonstrated intellectual curiosity and competence in almost all areas.

[Myrina]

16. Seriously. Especially when he has said that 'either one of us is 1000x better than the GOP'

.... she can't acknowledge that as well? No, in her little 'it's MY turn' mind, she can't.

SMDH.

[Lucinda]

19. She has said they both are worlds better qualified than the GOP MANY times.

Sad to see you being soo disingenuous.

[Myrina]

65. I'm being disingenuous? That's funny.

SHE SAID IT:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/04/06/clinton-questions-whether-sanders-is-qualified-to-be-president/

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-2016-213560

AND MORE:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/04/clinton-isnt-sure-that-sanders-is-a-democrat.html

[stupidicus]

17. obviously to do the dirty deed with an iota of deniability

so that she could play the victim when anything like reciprocation occurred, for the attention you noted

That's better than dealing with NYDN shit story falling apart, or her hosting the moneyboys at a big fundraiser

[Martin Eden]

21. There is not a clear dividing line between "qualified" and "unqualified"

There are varying degrees of qualifications, and one candidate may be more qualified in one area while another is more qualified in a different area.

On the other hand, certain things should disqualify a candidate -- like any number of things that have come out of the mouth of Donald Trump or Ted Cruz.

[BernieforPres2016]

22. Neither Clinton can acknowledge anybody other than themselves is qualified to be President

Here's Hillary Clinton refusing to say that Obama or Edwards was qualified in 2008, in the first 30 seconds of this video:

Bill Clinton couldn't bring himself to say that Obama was qualified in 2008 even after he won the Democratic nomination.

[Jitter65]

23. She always give qualified answers. Presidential. nt

[BernieforPres2016]

24. But Bill Clinton did say Romney was qualified to be President in 2012

So I need to correct the comment I made in my previous post, it's only other Democrats that the Clintons refuse to acknowledge are qualified to be President.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-campaign-clinton-idUSBRE85003R20120601

<Former President Bill Clinton believes a candidate with Republican Mitt Romney's business success and political background is qualified for the White House, but he said Democratic President Barack Obama would be a better choice for the country.

"There is no question that in terms of getting up and going to the office and basically performing the essential functions of the office, a man who has been governor and had a sterling business career crosses the qualification threshold," Clinton said of Romney in an interview with CNN on Thursday.>

[riversedge]

25. I see Sanders fan have a new meme for the day.

[Dem2]

30. This meme thing that both sides use is hilarious

Since the human animal is imitative by nature, saying that someone is repeating a meme it's the same as describing somebody as a 'human being.' I don't know if you were simply repeating language that a Bernie supporter used, because I've seen it several times today by both sides, but I do think my point stands and this 'meme' accusation is kind of entertaining, don't you think?

[mythology]

34. Because politics can be stupid

She should have said he is. You can argue about his policies or temperament, but he clearly meets the constitutional requirements.

[pdsimdars]

40. More little cutsie, inside the beltway, gotcha games that they think are so clever.

I don't think American workers, working 2 jobs just to make ends meet, are really going to care whether or not she actually said the word or not.
They know which candidate is known for being a liar and which one is known for telling the truth. It's in all those "trustworthiness" polls. Hillary is down at the bottom and Bernie is at the top.

[bvar22]

44. Hillary did the same thing in 2008 when asked if Obama was a Muslim.

Her answer, "He is not a Muslim as far as I know."

[kiva]

48. "As far as I know he's not a Muslim"

Sound familiar?

[Kalidurga]

54. Because Hillary can't unequivocally say anything.

I can though. Hillary is unqualified to be President of the United States. I don't have to couch that in weasel words.

[islandmkl]

55. she wasn't sure if by saying 'yes' she would be lying...or if by saying 'no' she would be lying...

OR if she should tell the truth...whatever it was...

because after the third question, time was up....

[uponit7771]

58. Podium bird says you're right !!!

[Motown_Johnny]

69. That would have been the truth, Hillary doesn't do truth.

Not unless there is no other choice.