Discussion for article #245676
Oh Jesus H. Christ, are the “speech transcripts” now going to be a thing? The Clinton rules are in effect. Things other politicians do, like give paid speeches, must automatically be evil when a Clinton does it.
She gave speeches in front of auditoriums full of employees. She was paid, very handsomely, so the employees could feel in the know and probably get a selfie taken with Hillary Clinton. What nefarious thing is implied that she said at these speeches? It’s like the emails - release the emails, she must release her emails, they must be hiding something. Turns out it was her inability to program her Tivo.
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But I think it would be you know a positive thing for the American people to know what was said behind closed doors
Sounds like a big yes to me.
This is a kind of “inverse condemnation” a popular tool of career politicians; the sort that goes something like:
“Well, it’s not for me to say whether or not X should do/say/admit this or that. That’s between X and his/her conscience, but I will say that the public has a right to know; blah, blah, blah, transparency, glasnost, let the voter decide…”
Coy, much?
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Yep…the BernieBros are convinced that she committed some great horror in this speech, and out for blood over it right now. They’ve seen her speeches to Wall Street leading up to the 08-09 collapse, but no…the real evil is being hidden in the speeches she have 4-5 years later.
What I find interesting is their antics have now hit the point where Bernie himself has had to weigh in and tell them to knock it off.
I doubt it will have much impact however.
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Of course he doesn’t want her to release the transcripts. Right now he’s putting forward straw man arguments to his heart’s content. If it turns out that there is nothing nefarious in her speeches (as I suspect is more likely than not) then he can no longer beat her over the head with it.
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As always, the ball is in Hillary’s court. Team Clinton should have learned long before this that the perception of stonewalling only adds to the negative “trustworthy” rating. It’s a really stupid tactic if what Hillary said is innocuous. Perhaps the Team Clinton sees this as playing to her long suit of alleging conspiratorial persecution.
Senator Sanders is correct not to call for their release. What do Hillary supporters expect him to say: “No one cares about your damn speeches”?
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Day late an a dollar short. This isn’t going to change anything. It’s going to take other Bernie supporters to call out there own and I’ve yet to see it. This morning I made a comment on a news article and was called a “Cunt for Shillary.” Nice, huh? Not a single Bernie supporter called this guy out on what he’d posted.
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I’ve said it before, and I will say it again…Bernie’s campaign is going to be laid low by his own supporters. We are quickly moving into the territory where Bernie is already captive to them, be it voluntarily or not. And it will only get worse.
I mean, keep it in perspective. His campaign has already been caught cheating by searching through Hillary’s voter database and downloading the info on her voters. Their response? To sue for being caught breaking the rules.
They have already been caught impersonating union leadership to lie to union workers and say the union was endorsing Bernie…when the union was not, and had not endorsed either candidate. The campaign’s response? To accuse Hillary of doing the same thing in 2008, when clearly she didn’t.
They have been caught sending their female staff on to dating sites to lure people into conversations and even dates…so they can do the hard sale on Bernie. Hooking Up for Bernie??? Really?
They have been called out for “implying” that they had a newspaper endorsement in NH, when clearly they did not. Bernie tried to dance around that, but the fact it is, they were clearly trying to mislead. Oh, and the name of the ad? “Endorsements”
Certainly giving a whole new meaning to running a principled campaign. And its only early February.
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Pravoslavnye. Russian for “orthodox (true) beliverers.” And you are an apostate.
Not really. After all, the emails thing has turned up exactly NOTHING with which to flay her. And I feel certain that “delaying” the transcripts–if it becomes some kind of loud demand–will turn out to be nothing as well. But the shouters will start to look as stupid as the GOPers.
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I don’t know the issues involved in releasing a paid speech to a private entity. But after listening to two Cinton speeches, nasdaq and Goldman sachs, she would be well served by releasing them.
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Thank you so much for this GS speech. 
Its actually a pretty darn good speech!
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First, calling not releasing private speech transcripts “stonewalling” is overstating things a bit, and itself insinuates that she must be hiding something. Is it normal to call for a politician to release all of their private talk transcripts? I don’t recall that ever being required for any other politician, but I guess that because it’s Hillary that the rules are different. Hmm, maybe there’s something behind the allegations of persecution?
This is a no-win and the best thing from the perspective of the campaign is for the media to get bored and move on. Otherwise, it remains a “story” in some regard since the media will almost certainly won’t just go “Oh, these are innocuous…nothing to see here”. The transcripts will be stories of their own right for a few days at least, then we’ll be treated to an endless stream of cherry-picked, out of context “quotes” to juice up attacks on her.
So, it’s not a “stupid” tactic, and the campaign isn’t covering up anything when they don’t immediately dump all of the (private) information that their opponents decide to demand.
EDIT:
Gosh, I see from the thread after this that shockingly, the speech that was released/leaked has been the subject of cherry-picking to misrepresent it. I’d love if we had a better press, but this is utterly predictable, and again makes not providing the reams of info that your opponents demand reasonable behavior.
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I guess you haven’t bothered to watch the link @JCS provided of one of those GS speeches?
Pretty damning stuff, what with wanting to increase women’s involvement in the economy. I mean, 12% global economic growth if women reach the same level of employment as men? So very damn establishment of her.
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Calling to release her speeches is a red herring. If there were smoking gun – a quid quo pro – I doubt it would be something she’d ANNOUNCE in a speech. I think Sanders people think they can find something like what Romney said – some statement that suggests identification with the despised wall street crowd and against working people. I do not think she is against working people. We might think she goes too far in accommodating the monied class, but she thinks she engages them as a means to an end. The real question is, does she think there is a problem with campaign finance — and if so, how is she is proposing to change the situation. From what I can tell, both candidates are proposing changes to regulate wall street. Bernie leads by example by not accepting wall street donations – Clinton takes their to assure she will be well funded to do battle with the GOP on a range of issues.
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When will the Repubs be asking for Jeb, Rubio, Cruz, etc. speeches?
Bernie should have included the Repub field and put them on notice.
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“Release the speech transcripts!” has become the new anti-Clinton buzzphrase of the week. Do they even exist?
ETA: apparently, yes
Of course money in politics is rarely about quid pro quos, it’s much more about relationship-building, access, and donors rewarding and supporting candidates who they see as having supported their interests in the past, and/or being likely to support their interests in the future. Hilary knows that , Bernie knows that, most people know that, and I assume you do as well.
“You won’t find any quid pro quos” is a dodge, and not a bad one as dodges go, as it allows her to both assume the victim stance, and obfuscate the very real issues of big-donor influence in politics. Still, I doubt too many Democrats buy the idea that so many millions of dollars poured into her campaigns, speaking fees, and the Clinton foundation all add up to zero influence on her or those around her. That just doesn’t pass the laugh test for most people. At least that’s my guess. But she’s doing a good job of playing a weak hand, I’ll give her that.
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Thanks for these. And I’d actually argue (contra @DaveyJones64, I guess) that the first link, to the Vox piece, is especially worth passing around to Clinton skeptics: as Yglesias notes, this really does reveal her to be closer to Warren than Obama – and before the financial crisis hit. (And it probably doesn’t surprise anyone familiar with her actual, full history, as opposed to the GOP/MSM caricature.) I don’t expect it to sway committed Sanders supporters, but it could be useful input for any undecideds (along with the great speech in your second link).
Maybe even more important, given how acrimonious things are getting, I’d hope it would make Sanders supporters rethink their image of her, which has been shaped by that caricature to a massive degree, well beyond the candidates’ actual policy differences. Not to change their primary choice (though obviously this Hillary supporter would welcome any switch 
); but to make them less resentful, and perhaps even fairly comfortable, voting (and maybe more) for her if she’s our nominee. As I will for Bernie.
Because notwithstanding each side’s concerns about the other’s electability, it’s crucial that we all acknowledge, as most here do, the chasm that exists between either of them and even the most “moderate” of the Republicans, and the consequences for the foreseeable future of GOP control. Acting on that awareness, especially knowing that our guy/gal really is better than simply the lesser of two evils, will go a long way toward improving our nominee’s chances, whoever it is. So please, everybody, save that article, and share it whenever you see an opening to do so.
Thanks again, JCS, for the link.
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It’s starting to sound like “show your birth certificate”.
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