Politics is a dirty business. Always has been, always will be. But even in the dirty business of politics, some folks stand out as beyond the pale.
David Brock is one of those sleazy practitioners. Brock cut his teeth as a right wing attack dog, smearing Anita Hill for daring to offer negative testimony about Clarence Thomas during Thomas’ Senate confirmation hearing:
Brock confesses in a Talk magazine excerpt of his new book, Blinded by the Right, that he had printed "virtually every derogatory and often contradictory allegation" he could to make Hill seem "a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty." If that was all Brock did, we might have nothing more than another sin committed on behalf of the vast right-wing conspiracy. But Brock, who has forged a second career as a recovering conservative, makes one admission that implicates Thomas. Brock says he used information that came indirectly from Thomas to force a retraction from a woman named Kaye Savage, who had come forward in support of Hill. Brock threatened to publicize vicious charges made by her ex-husband in a sealed child-custody dispute.
Of course, Brock also made a name for himself by relentlessly attacking the Clintons when he was in the employ of Richard Mellon Scaife during Scaife’s Arkansas Project, including pushing the Vince Foster murder and Paula Jones stories to the press.
Brock famously recanted his nefarious right wing smearing ways and switched sides.
But can the zebra change his stripes? Not likely.
The hopeful liberal narrative about David Brock, peddled by Hertzberg, Rich, Tomasky, and Brock himself, is that the conservative movement made Brock a distorter and a liar, and that the distortions and lies were all in the service of that movement. But Blinded by the Right offers plenty of evidence that for Brock, lying has been a lifelong habit.
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The further one gets into Brock's book, the more one starts to suspect that Brock wasn't a liar for any larger cause, but simply … a liar.
The one consistent thing about Brock, from his college years through the present day, is his reputation for being a liar and a slimeball.
And, yet, this is the guy Hillary Clinton and her campaign have chosen to be their “go-to” attack dog.
In fact, Hillary Clinton and her campaign wanted Brock and his super PAC, Correct the Record, on their team so badly that they found a way to skirt FEC rules so that Brock and his super PAC could coordinate directly with the campaign:
On Tuesday, Correct the Record, a pro-Clinton rapid-response operation, announced it was splitting off from its parent American Bridge and will work in coordination with the Clinton campaign as a stand-alone super PAC.
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That befuddled many campaign finance experts, who noted that super PACs, by definition, are political committees that solely do independent expenditures, which cannot be coordinated with a candidate or political party. Several said the relationship between the campaign and the super PAC would test the legal limits.
But Correct the Record believes it can avoid the coordination ban by relying on a 2006 Federal Election Commission regulation that declared that content posted online for free, such as blogs, is off limits from regulation. The “Internet exemption” said that such free postings do not constitute campaign expenditures, allowing independent groups to consult with candidates about the content they post on their sites. By adopting the measure, the FEC limited its online jurisdiction to regulating paid political ads.
Brock has been a busy boy for the Clinton camp this primary seasonBack in September, he was busy floating “research” tying Sanders to Hugo Chavez and United Kingdom Labour Party leader (and socialist), Jeremy Corbyn.
Last week, Brock floated questions on Sanders health/fitness for office by suggesting he would ask for Sanders’ medical records.
David Brock, founder of the pro-Hillary Clinton super-PAC Correct the Record, confirmed he was planning to go after Sanders over the release of his medical records as early as last weekend, but refrained.
“I was prepared to bring that up,” Brock said on Bloomberg's With All Due Respect, referring to a story published by Politico on the issue. “I was scheduled to do a couple of interviews over the weekend in Charleston, so I was prepared to bring that up.”
John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, attempted to distance the campaign from Brock’s plan once it backfired and led to a huge Sanders fundraising surge. But the distancing effort was humorous.
Brock and Correct the Record coordinate directly with the campaign. It’s safe to say that Brock doesn’t so much as tie his shoes without clearing it with the campaign first.
Two days ago, Brock and Correct the Record upped the ante on their “socialist” smears by labeling Sanders a “communist sympathizer.” The Burlington Free Press noted:
Clinton super PAC offers ‘off the record’ news tips
Hillary Clinton’s super PAC has tried to “flag” stories about Bernie Sanders, but the group does not want its name attached.
Daniel Wessel, Correct the Record press secretary, contacted the Burlington Free Press by email and phone to offer "off the record" story pitches.
And just yesterday, Brock commented on Sanders’ closing Iowa ad, “America”:
Brock, a longtime Clinton supporter who runs several super PACs aiding her candidacy said Thursday that a new Sanders ad was a "significant slight to the Democratic base."
He added, "From this ad it seems black lives don't matter much to Bernie Sanders."
Whether David Brock and Correct the Record ultimately help or hurt Hillary Clinton and her campaign this primary season is a question open to debate, as a piece in this morning’s Washington Post asks. But the larger question may be more important:
Why would the Clinton campaign unleash this sleazy attack dog in a Democratic primary?The answer is simple: that’s the style they prefer.
One need only look at the campaign of 2008 for confirmation. Back then, as she watched her “inevitability” slipping through her fingers, Clinton, her husband and her campaign attacked Obama relentlessly in their attempts to paint him as the “other.” Lest we forget:
For example, before tens of millions of viewers of the April 16 debate in Philadelphia, Clinton again brought up Obama's alleged "relationships with Louis Farrakhan," despite Obama's repeated and unequivocal denunciations of anti-Semitic statements and other controversial actions by the Black Muslim leader.
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During that same debate, Clinton went so far as to link Obama with the radical Palestinian Islamist group Hamas because the "pastor's pages" section of the weekly bulletin of the church Obama attended once included -- as part of a series of opinion pieces reprinted from various newspapers around the country -- an op-ed column from the Los Angeles Times written by a Hamas leader.
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Hillary Clinton has even attacked Obama for having served on the board of the Chicago anti-poverty group known as the Woods Fund at the same time as former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers.
And let’s not forget the race-based insinuations from Hillary, Bill and her campaign as Obama continued to rise, from Hillary’s “hard-working white people” comment in Pennsylvania, to Bill’s racially-tinged swipes at Obama (“fairy tale” and comparing Obama’s run to Jesse Jackson’s failed bids), to exploiting the historical racial tensions between blacks and Hispanics in Nevada.
I know many Clinton backers admire her for being a “fighter.” Many have written here that one reason they support her is because she will not back down from Republicans and will take the fight to them, using precisely the kinds of tactics David Brock is known for.
But what we have also witnessed from Hillary Clinton, her husband and both of her campaigns is an ugly recklessness when they feel threatened. This is a primary, not a general election.
As Democratic political strategist Jamal Simmons said in this morning’s Post piece on Brock’s latest mudslinging:
“The danger for the Clinton campaign is that so many voters think of her as being too political that when overly political things happen, it reinforces that negative. So the danger for her is that her negatives get reinforced more than the opponent gets defined.”
Whether or not David Brock ultimately helps or hurts her campaign is irrelevant. In a campaign where experience and “electability” have become her calling her cards, the hiring of Brock — and the efforts expended to bring him and his organization inside the tent of the campaign, itself — raises serious questions about Clinton’s judgment.
David Brock and his antics are merely symptoms of a more serious disease.