Donna Brazile -- Fair And Balanced with Attitude
There are some Hillary Clinton supporters are out on the Internet attacking Donna Brazile for what they see as her support for Obama in an her op-ed calling on Hillary to stop throwing elbows.
Bloggers from Politico.com, MyDD.com and Hillaryis44.com, Taylor Marsh have been brutal in their attacks. If you read some of their comments you would think that Donna was a supporter of terrorism or something similar. They weren't even reporting all the facts with their attacks, just cutting and pasting what 'they' felt needed to be printed.
I would like to take the time to remind Americans just who Donna is and what’s she’s done for American voters and the Democratic Party during her young life. To make it easier for myself, I’m going to repeat the ‘About’ section of Donna’s own website.
She is the Chair of the Democratic National Committee's Voting Rights Institute (VRI) and an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University, is a senior political strategist and former Campaign Manager for Gore-Lieberman 2000 - the first African American to lead a major presidential campaign.
Prior to joining the Gore campaign, Brazile was Chief of Staff and Press Secretary to Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton of the District of Columbia where she helped guide the District's budget and local legislation on Capitol Hill.
Brazile is a weekly contributor and political commentator on CNN’s Inside Politics and American Morning. In addition, she is a columnist for Roll Call Newspaper and a contributing writer for Ms. Magazine.
A veteran of numerous national and statewide campaigns, Brazile has worked on several presidential campaigns for Democratic candidates, including Carter-Mondale in 1976 and 1980, Rev. Jesse Jackson's first historic bid for the presidency in 1984, Mondale-Ferraro in 1984, U.S. Representative Dick Gephardt in 1988, Dukakis-Bentsen in 1988, and Clinton-Gore in 1992 and 1996.
In addition to working on political campaigns, Brazile has served as a senior lecturer and adjunct professor at the University of Maryland and a fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics.
Brazile is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including Washingtonian Magazine's 100 Most Powerful Women in Washington, D.C. and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's Award for Political Achievement.
That is just a short resume. Read her book, Cooking With Grease, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised to hear the things she’s done throughout her life.
Now, let me return to the issue at hand. Hillary supporters seem to think that Donna is supporting Barack Obama and is trying to hurt Hillary’s campaign with some comments that she’s made.
If folks would evaluate ‘all’ of Donna’s interviews on CNN and ABC’s 'This Week', I’m sure they would find she’s given equal time to both Democratic candidates.
I’m an Obama supporter. I’ve found myself disagreeing with Donna on many occasions over the past few months about something she’s said about the Obama campaign, only to later hear her something about Hillary's camp that I agreed with. Donna's what I call, “Fair and balanced”.
Over the past months and years I’ve emailed Donna about issues of the day. In 2006, Bill Clinton had an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox. Here’s Donna’s response to me, to what he said/did during that interview, “Yes indeed. Clinton made me so proud yesterday. I am so glad he stood up, pointed his finger and fought back.”
On January 8, 2008, I attacked Hillary’s tearing up as a political ploy, Donna didn’t take my bait, she defended Hillary’s choking up before the New Hampshire primary. After Hillary won there, Donna said, “Notice I never wrote her off”.
On January 19th during Nevada's caucuses and South Carolina’s primary I was bragging about Obama’s chances, Donna said, “Women are supporting HRC. She’s whipping ass in Clark County as well. She has strong institutional support.”
These are just a few comments she’s made in support of Hillary directly to me in emails. I don’t have access to CNN or ABC’s show logs or I am sure I could come up with a well documented list of supporting arguments Donna has made for Hillary Clinton.
Yes, of course Donna will say good things about Obama’s campaign; but she also says bad things, believe me, I know. All political pundits and strategists do that.
For example, I once wrote to ask Donna that if she had direct contact with Obama, whether she would pass him something I said, her response was, “I am not interested in passing along comments to Obama. They have to learn from their mistakes. Have a good evening.”
That doesn’t sound like a ‘I support Obama’ statement to me.
None of us have a clue what it's like to be in Donna's shoes. To attack her so 'bitterly' after what she's done for her Party and her nation, is not only wrong, it's plain stupid. We need more people like Donna that are willing to go above and beyond for the rest of us.
As Hillary once said, "Shame On You, Bloggers" for taking you frustrations out on Donna Brazile.
