Morning Plum: Clinton may be changing minds on Benghazi, e-mails

[DemocratSinceBirth]

We now have our first national poll on Hillary Clinton’s handling of Benghazi and her emails since she faced off against House Benghazi committee Republicans for half a day on October 22nd, and the new survey suggests that Republicans are right to be certain, absolutely certain, that these storylines are certain, absolutely certain, to doom her presidential candidacy.

Oh, wait, no, that’s not what the poll finds. Actually, it finds that she may be changing minds in her favor, though in fairness, the polling is far from a slam-dunk for her.

The new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows a sizable swing in the direction of Americans concluding that the email story is not important to their vote for president, and a smaller swing in the direction of Americans saying the GOP Benghazi probe is unfair and partisan.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/11/03/morning-plum-hillary-may-be-changing-minds-on-benghazi-emails/

[Gothmog]

1. Hillary Clinton did a great job at this hearing and is reaping the rewards

[SunSeeker]

2. K & R

[DFW]

3. A SMALLER swing in Americans saying the Benghazi probe is unfair and partisan?

Fox Noise must be ruling the national dialog still back there.

OK, I'll grant that the concept of "unfair" can be subjective, but partisan? One of the top Republicans in the House came right out and admitted in so many words that the Benghazi "investigations" were partisan! If the Republicans are admitting it on the Sunday talk shows, that's national television, people.

When Republicans admit in so many words, "yes, we did that," and their supporters say they are not convinced they did that, I don't know what else we can do to try to convince them. They must all be clones of Otis Morks.

[ffr]

11. Baffling isn't it.

We just have to accept that there's going to be about 26% of the voting public that will always see what they want to see. They will never vote for a democrat. They like the easy feeling of having FN pump out decisions for them to make everything black or white.

The simple fact that everything the GOP does is politically driven and yet the American public still has to be told outloud by someone from the GOP that in fact their motivations are political before SOME in the public believing that, is astounding to say the very least.

[Cha]

4. KICK!

[nyabingi]

5. The whole Republican witch hunt and e-mail saga

was hyped, promoted, and used by the corporate media (who very much desire a Clinton presidency) to ultimately benefit Hillary's campaign by creating the image in the American voters' minds that she is a woman unfairly under siege. It was done to paint Hillary as a sympathetic figure in stark contrast to her true persona (which is cold, callous and deceitful), and it worked like a charm.

The Republicans are simply too dumb to realize that everything they were doing involving Hillary was actually helping her campaign. Hillary should have been grilled about her support for regime change in Libya, support for covertly arming radical Islamists in order to affect regime change (in Libya and in Syria), and about taking responsibility for the deaths of the many people attempting to flee Libya on boats across the Mediterranean. She wasn't asked these questions because both Democrats and Republicans believe fomenting violence and overthrowing governments abroad is perfectly good and honorable behavior for us to engage in.

The entire media, including the more conservative-leaning ones like the Washington Post and WSJ, are in favor of a Hillary presidency. They crowned her a long time ago and they are doing all they can to make sure the voters know she is going to be president whether we like it or not. What appears to be "negative" media attention only serves to increase sympathy for her (because she's been through a lot with a philandering husband, etc., etc.) and the daily "Hillary is widening her lead" articles serve to create the impression of her inevitability.

The little GIF of her wiping her shoulder is cute, but if you look closer, you can see traces of the blood of the Libyans whose leader she literally cheered about having killed.

[zappaman]

6. Wow.

[nyabingi]

7. Just calling it like I see it

I know this will probably get hidden from view and they'll be moves to ban me, but these pro-Hillary people can't defend or justify her actions and political stances in the least.

I know my response sounds harsh but I'm not a good mincer of words, so...

[zappaman]

8. Why would it be hidden? Just because it's whacky?

So the RW has been attacking Hillary for over 20 years because they want her to be president?

Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds?

[mcar]

10. It's all perfectly logical

[nyabingi]

14. What about my post makes you think it's right-wing lol???

[zappaman]

15. Where in my post did I say that LOL?

[nyabingi]

19. Oh my bad

I saw "RW" and assumed you were saying something else.

The Republicans obviously don't want her to be president, but the conservative-leaning media actually wouldn't be too devastated by a Hillary Clinton presidency because she is a very open supporter of big business (especially in the financial sector). By devoting so much time and energy on beating Hillary down, they are actually just reinforcing the notion that she will inevitably be the Democratic nominee, so much so that in the minds of many people, she's the only person running.

The media is practically saturated with coverage of Hillary, whether positive or negative, and don't think for one minute that this is by accident.

[trumad]

18. No---we allow an occasional whacky post to creep in.

[nyabingi]

20. Another Hillary-lover who can't defend her policies...

[SharpProgress]

9. This post is....

Indistinguishable from your average argument coming from any far right wing teabagger anywhere on the Internet.

This is not particularly good company to keep.

Like a lot of people on this site I've come to the realization that there are probably some right wing posters who do nothing except attack Hillary with every single opportunity. Many of these posts, like this one, use the same sort of logical fallacies, fear mongering, and ad hominem attacks that you see from, say, Second Amendment nut jobs.

This crazy idea that Hillary being president would be worse than anything that has ever happened is stupid and many of us are getting sick of it.

My primary gripe about Hillary Clinton has been her ability to win. After the hearing, after the recent events and the debate, those doubts were pretty much been put to rest. I simply do not believe that Bernie Sanders has a better chance of winning a national election against Marco Rubio than Hillary Clinton does.

Given the horrible nature of what would happen if our Republican Senate and our Republican House were united with a Republican president: I can't afford to be ideologically pure.

[nyabingi]

13. I think you're terribly confused

I'm not attacking Hillary from the right, but from the left. I understand this is your way of trying to avoid dealing with this criticism, but it's not going to work.

There has not been one single Republican who has questioned Hillary's boundless enthusiasm for neocon-inspired regime change because in that regard they are all on the same page. The right-wing doesn't care one wit about Hillary's pandering to Israel or her closer-than-close ties to Wall Street. There's not one Republican alive who gives a sh-t about the deaths of so many Libyans and our unwarranted destruction of their once-stable country.

The average Republican is too plain stupid to realize that Hillary shares many of their core values (pro-business, pro-death penalty, pro-war, etc.). Hillary's instinct is to lean to the right-wing until a poll convinces her and her staff that it's more politically expedient to cater to the left.

If your only criteria for voting for someone is the "electability" then you don't have more to stand on. That's also a very sad commentary on the state of politics in this country.

[DanTex]

17. You're actually attacking her from Area 51...

[nyabingi]

22. C'mon DanTex...

...or anyone else who loves Hillary, let's take a stab at addressing the criticisms I've leveled at Hillary.

If you think I'm an alien, a right-wing nutjob, or whacky, tell me why you disagree and maybe we can have a conversation and debate about it a bit.

I thought this site was populated by mostly intelligent people who can carry on an argument, but I guess I was mistaken. There seems to be nothing here but little bratty children who don't want to engage in serious discussion.

[riversedge]

12. No hiding your RW theme!

[nyabingi]

16. So this is the Hillary Club's new response

to anyone questioning her integrity? Accuse them of being right-wing operatives?

Go ahead and stick your fingers in your ears and say "blah blah blah" all you want, but you absolutely can't deny that your preferred candidate is, at her core, a right-wing person any Republican, if they were intelligent enough, would adore.

The red arrow on her logo is pointing to the right for a good reason...

[firebrand80]

21. That GOP jackass that admitted Benghazi was all political

basically killed any momentum they had on the issue. Her performance at the hearings were the final nails in the coffin