Like Trump, Tulsi is for Tulsi and nothing else. And like Trump if the Russians can help her up the ladder I’m sure she’d happily climb up rung by rung on their behalf. Why would we think it was a legitimate do-called anti-war visit to see Russia’s favorite ally and co-murderer of 500,000 Syrians, Bashir Assad? Looks like grooming to me. But back in this country that is the kind of stink you can’t wash off. In this case, remembering the Simpson trial, the Russian glove fits...we can convict.
3
Liberals being intolerant, stereotyping others, and accusing those who disagrees with them of being traitors ...
Situation normal.
7
As usual, Hillary has done irreparable damage to the Democrat party. By voicing her unhinged allegations, and worse that the majority of Democrats agree with her, the Democrats are proving to the American People that they are dangerously unstable and detached from reality.
11
Sorry guys, HRC is a private citizen thanks to your fetishizing her emails and pandering to Donald Trump (cameras trained on empty podiums jar a memory?). Tulsi has the support of Russian Bots on Twitter. HRC knows it and so does everyone else. But by all means, let's criticize Hillary some more. She is such a convenient scapecoat.
4
As Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Minister of Propaganda well understood, "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." As arguments get weaker and stakes higher, reason is discarded, more vicious ad hominem attacks ensue.
This absurd accusation leveled against Rep. Gabbard did not start with Hillary, but she is highest profile to put it forth. This started after second debate when Tulsi asked Kamala to explain record as a prosecutor in California: she blocked release of exculpatory evidence of an innocent on Death Row until ordered to do so; insisted on cash bonds which kept poorest in jails the longest; kept persons in jail past their release dates, using them as cheap labor; and jailed 1,500 for marijuana violations. Instead of answering legitimate questions, Kamala smeared Tulsi in post debate interview with Anderson Cooper, calling her an "Assad apologist."Following that, others, mostly Kamala or Hillary supporters with possible vendetta, jumped on smear campaign against Tulsi.
We seem to be entering a new Dark Age where ad hominem attacks and bizarre conspiracy theories abound.This is what McCarthyism must have felt like in the beginning. It is bizarre to characterize Major Gabbard as a cross between the Red Sparrow and the Manchurian candidate. Have we become the monster with whom we do battle? Have we become Russia?
12
Gabbard is the darling of RT (Russia Today - Putin's TV network - just google RT and Tulsi), has traveled the world with Putin's favorite congressman, Dana Rohrabacher, and routinely benefits from the Russian Troll-Bot factories that push and amplify her memes. Tulski also visited Syria's Assad on the dime of a shadowy Arab group know for it's anti-semitism, thus legitimizing a brutal dictator and his genocidal actions, all the while pleasing Putie even more. Tulski is also an inveterate homophobe and that makes her even more appealing to Putin. Tulski is in the Democratic primary race for one reason only - to divide, polarize and weaken the Democratic party. One only has to notice that tRUmpTV aka Fox news is also her newest big fan base for that very reason as well. Time to wake-up dude! She claims that she is no Jill Stein, but let's take a wait and see approach shall we?
4
Obama is too busy hanging out with billionaires and raking in the big bucks to be bothered by the dumpster fire caused by his eight years of total failure, warmongering and grift.
So, who better to take up the mantle of warmongering, corruption and McCarthyism 2.0 than his bloodthirsty sidekick Hillary.
After all the destruction they caused, they should be too ashamed to say anything to anyone.
But Ellen Degeneres will surely have them out for lunch, so it's not a total loss for them.
11
Anybody who got paid $600,000 for a 20 minute talk by Arabs shouldn't be talking about Tulsi being groomed by foreign powers!!
51
Clintonism is the new McCarthyism.
"McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term refers to U.S. senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisconsin) and has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting from the late 1940s through the 1950s."
Like McCarthyists in their day, today's "Clintonites' use accusations of 'aiding the enemy' to attack anyone, left or right, whose power, politics, or position they oppose. McCarthy began by attacking anyone who professed socialist or liberal politics and he ended by attacking officers of the U.S. army as secret 'communists'.
Similarly, Clintonites in corporate media sinecures, 'bravely' attack - as 'agents' or 'assets' of Russia or China - Major Tulsi Gabbard and Jill Stein who they see as 'left' and Donald Trump who is assuredly 'right'.
Absolutely disgraceful.
12
Fair-minded column raising specter of Dark Ages; McCarthyism; our fall into bizarre conspiracy theory and ad hominem attacks substituting for reason and tolerance; and the unmasking of some Dems and media personalities who appear to resemble the face of the monster with whom we do battle: Russian propagandists. Glad to read because my comments since commenting on this event have been censored.
I do disagree regarding what Rep. Gabbard's vitriolic diatribe is reminiscent of: Instead of the "Iliad" and "Game of Thrones" I would say Sylvia Plath's poem,"Daddy," and the wizard in "Wizard of Oz." The diatribe has the cadence and feeling of outrage and grief echoed in"You do not do/anymore black shoe/....There's a stake in your fat black heart/Daddy, Daddy, you bastard, I'm through." This reflects Tulsi's break with establishment politics when she stepped down as vice-chairwoman of DNC who was supporting Hillary's candidacy, to throw her energy behind Bernie.
Tulsi's exhortation for Clinton to step out from behind the curtain is reminiscent of the wizard in Oz, who appeared in many different guises like a ball of fire, a disembodied voice, to dazzle and confuse and remain as leader. He is revealed to be just an ordinary conman who has been using elaborate magic tricks and props to make himself seem great and powerful.
I voted for Hillary twice. I do not see her that way. However, she is wrong here, should woman up, and apologize for her cruel, unwarranted transgression.
8
Initially, I was somewhat upset that Hillary Clinton had added another twist to a crucial Democratic campaign where losing is not an option. I happened to watch an interview of Tulsi Gabbard by CBS News where she was asked whether she thought Russia interfered in the 2016 US elections. Gabbard did not answer that question... and the interviewer did not press her. That was so odd that now I am thinking maybe Hillary is on to something... Russia cannot and should not be underestimated.
3
A sane and measured response to Clinton's attack would have shown that Gabbard was made of stern and logical stuff but she came completely unglued and immediately went ballistic.
I learned more about Tulsi Gabbard in her response to the Clinton situation than I ever would have in a dozen debates.
I read that Gabbard said "Clinton personifies rot that has sickened the Democratic Party" and I thought "Whoa, girl, save something for the second round."
Gabbard does not have the temperament for the presidency. Period.
134
@Sparta480 Agree and, frankly, her wording in her response to Hillary reminded me a little too much of Trump's use of incendiary rhetoric.
20
@Sparta480
Most of us who live in this small island state and interact with Tulsi and other local politicians share this assessment. Tulsi has a very compelling personal story, cares about her constituents and certainly has the courage of her convictions....many find these rare qualities very attractive in a candidate for national office.
However, most in the Aloha State will tell you that Ms. Gabbard is in no measure a suitable or qualified candidate for the presidency....not at least in 2020....
13
@Diane B Agreed, and likely proving Hillary’s initial point that Gabbard, like Trump, is a Russian asset.
7
Either the Russians are interfering in our elections or they're not. If they are, I assume from everything I've read in this paper over the last three years, that they'll do anything. I listened to this podcast, a serious conversation between two people with a history of political literacy about what presidential candidates have to face in modern politics, and how much it's changed even since 2008. Among many other obstacles to Democrats, HRC made the point that Trump would need a third-party candidate to draw votes away from the Democrat and that she believed, as in 2016, the Russians might be targeting such a candidate. She did mention the gender, but not the name. She did very clearly call out Jill Stein as a Russian asset, who certainly didn't help herself being pictured at a dinner table with Putin and Mike Flynn. She also said that Trump was Putin's puppet, which he validated standing next to him in Helsinki. My point is, it was a very sobering and intelligent conversation that illuminated the perils that candidates should be aware of. She should know.
136
@Alex
I don't follow. Why is making the reasonable that as the Russians interfered last time (as has been established by numerous investigations) without punishment there is a good chance they will do so again "committing to a paranoid line of reasoning?"
Why is making the accurate observation that third party candidates on the left help candidates on the right win close elections (as happened in 200 and 2016) "committing to a paranoid line of reasoning?"
9
Ms. Gabbard's response, as you point out, was an insult. Contribute it to the "Iliad", if you like, but she sounded to me, in her tweet, and in her interview from Iowa on CBS, much like a more eloquent President Trump. Mrs. Clinton's suggestion is one I wish she could take back, but Ms. Gabbard's reply merely fortified the assertion.
280
@Willoughby
*Attribute” it to the Iliad. He wasn’t doing that, either, just noting the parallels.
Ms. Gabbard’s well-founded repudiation of Clinton’s outlandish ad hominem attacks — insults — in no way suggests she is a pawn or instrument of the Russians. She is a military veteran and a Congresswoman, who has repeatedly over the past couple of years denied she would ever mount a 3rd party run.
She has an issue with Hillary’s militarism and U.S. imperial foreign policy — and Clinton is, just as Trump does, still refighting the 2016 campaign.
Hillary lost and she needs to get over it — or, at least, leave her assessment to her book and let it go. It just makes her bad.
35
@Willoughby, It is surprising that Mrs. Clinton would accuse a combat veteran Congresswoman, to be groomed by the Russian government; she is the one acting like President Trump villifying his opponents. Why should we be outraged that Ms. Gabbard answered in kind?
34
@Willoughby I cannot stand Tulsi Gabbard and find the Russian support and kissing up to right-wing Republicans down right scary. How is she a Democrat? I too wish Secretary Clinton hadn't traded in conspiracy and hope that she stops weighing in at all.
12
This is probably the gaffe that proves why Hillary was too narcissistic to be a real opponent of Trump, a fact perceived to her detriment by sevveral tens of thousands of voters in the MidWest.
If you think a candidate is a Russian asset, you take your proof to the FBI. You don't slander them in the Press. Wrapping it with similar slurs about Jill Stein is a contemptible replay of the bad loser face Hillary has too often shown. I cannot believe that this would come from any Democratn not named Clinton. Put a sock in it.
9
Hillary has become what Trump would have been had he lost. This is pathetic, destructive, and toxic. It doesn't benefit anyone except for Trump because he feels perfectly at home in the sewers. What the heck happened to "unity?"
No thank you, Hillary. I once admired you; now I am in regret.
7
Oh Hillary. Please just stop. This does not look good on you. Can’t you and Bill just —I don’t know — take a vacation to Paris or something? It is way past time for you both to join Carter building houses or something. Enough.
10
Not a conspiracy theory folks. Clinton is correct. The russians favor Tulsi Gabbard. Just look at the social media trolls. she is a definite favorite!
26
HRC just needs to go away. She didn't win and needs to get over it. Obama beat her, Trump beat her, she isn't helping our country, only hurting it. Her nomination in 2016 put the Democrats in very bad standing as she was pushed through in a way that was silencing democracy. She's no better than the people she points her fingers at.
9
I've never considered Hillary Clinton to be a conspiracy person, she was labeled a crook, and dishonest among many others, and she took the high road, knowing what the Russians were up to. We ignored her then, and instead elected a real crook and Russian asset as president, with a significant hand from Putin to sew discord in every ethnic / racial group in our country. Clinton was wronged then, and deserves her voice now.
Saying that, I believe rhetoric has value only if it's valid, and therefore Hillary should substantiate her accusations with something factual or let it go.
For the record, Hillary Clinton is better suited in national security, foreign policy, human rights, all the important functions to right this ship than anyone in the Democratic line up - hands down! Compared to Trump, at least we'll have someone in the USA corner. Trump says "America First", but his actions are geared to making Russia great again. Pack Sand Drumpf
4
I welcome Hillary’s despicable remarks about Tulsi Gabbard and Jill Stein, because it makes it clear that the warmongering CIA-pawn party, the Democratic Party, doesn’t deserve my vote any more now than it did in 2016.
I’d vote for a Bernie/Tulsi ticket. The rest, forget it.
10
What is this? - Are we now back in the 1950's? - Has McCarthyism returned?
The Russians, the French, the Israelis, whoever can say whatever, but it is *impotent* compared to our own major media outlets by not telling the whole story. Which in itself is a form of propaganda.
I am talking about Bernie Sanders who has raised more money than any of the other candidates and has done such with small donations. Yet his name, and his policies, shall not be mentioned unless it is an attack of some kind.
Hillary Clinton should know better yet she insists on muddying the waters by spreading wild rumors and foul innuendo's of other Democrats who are running for the high office of the President.
Hillary Clinton has reopened a lot of old wounds with her return to the air ways. She has restarted the Democratic Party's Civil War. I have had it with the Corporate Democrats. If the Corporate Democrats can't bend then the Democratic Party is doomed.
Hillary Clinton; you are hurting the Democratic Party. - Just stop it.
--
5
Since when did acting in a way that happens to please an enemy of ours become grounds to condemn that person? Many commenters here loathe the Russians like they loathe our president, not considering for a moment that they have been whipped up into this state. It is VERY unclear how SIGNIFICANT the Russian facebook and twitter activities of 2016 were to the outcome of the election. It's clear that they targeted BOTH campaigns and sought mainly to create discord. (Which they did with phenomenal help from our mainstream media, which had phenomenal earnings over this time.) Our media's REACTION to these online activities within the universe of the internet was (and is) clearly NOT minor. Most mainstream media-fed Americans - and that's a lot - believe Donald Trump knew about and aided Russia's involvement in the 2016 election. The extent to which this untruth is believed throughout America is tangible evidence of REAL public relations manipulation that has no signs of letting up.
2
@carl bumba
The outcome of the 2016 election was not as close as many like to think here. Post hoc calculations of the minimum number of perfectly-placed votes needed to change the outcome is a great mathematics exercise. But it's about as meaningful as is Hillary's 3 million popular vote spread (which was really an artifact, having occurred mainly in regions that were effectively never part of the race due to their time-zone and our media's insistence on calling election results in a play-by-play manner.) And even IF the the 2016 election was an exquisitely tight one, the Russians, Bernie, Ralph Nader or ANYONE can not, rationally, be held responsible for anything they might have done which would have affected this unique outcome. They could be held responsible for the ABSOLUTE number of votes that they may have affected - but not for the OUTCOME. This is more lazy, post hoc reasoning... and judgement.
1
Hillary is desperate. This is quite evident by her baseless, off-the-wall attack on Tulsi Gabbard. H's DNC is in trouble considering their 3 front-runners (Biden, Harris, Warren) have shown some glaring deficiencies in judgment. Whereas Tulsi has demonstrated a sterling record.
Since I first voted as a young soldier in 1968, I have never seen a congressional or presidential candidate with the level of integrity which Tulsi has. In addition to her high moral stature, she is physically, mentally, and emotionally fit for the Presidency beyond any of the other current contenders in either party.
If I could advise Hillary, I would say, "Drop this baseless, false attack on Tulsi. Admit your shortcomings and put all of your support toward Tulsi. Plead mea culpa for the 2016 election results. Consider the future of the U.S. instead of your own personal empire." In other words, "Tulsi 2020!"
7
Your clear and well written caveat is much needed and greatly appreciated.
It reminds us that just as NO ONE, whoever s/he IS,identities, roles, statuses, ranges of types, levels and qualities of transparent and more hidden behaviors, their temporary and more permanent implications and outcomes, NO ONE is above personal accountability.
For their words- written, twittered, voiced- and their done-deeds.
As well as for their as yet-needed, but untransmitted, unwritten, unvoiced words and not yet carried out actions. Secy Clinton, included!
And this includes each of US, who have by intent, or not, by complacency as well as complicity, contributed in some manner to current uncivil human interactions. Increased mistrust. Infectious lack of respect of kin, ken as well as strangers. The creation and anchoring of manmade barriers, rather than inviting, passable, bridges, to menschlichkeit and equitable wellbeing and health for ALL.
Gabbard is fast becoming a useful fool for Russia. Like Stein and Sanders were, in 2016. I do disagree with the peace-at-any-cost isolationism of Gabbard. Too much like 1930s America first-ism. Wu is dead wrong. That isn't "anti-war." That would make war, ethnic cleansing, and genocide more rather than less likely. I agree with all three of these folks that health care is part of our inalienable right to life, liberty, happiness. I disagree with them in that I think we must get there incrementally. In any case, the policy stuff mostly isn't what we're talking about here. We're talking about running as a third party or making wildly inflammatory claims about rigged this and that--all of the things that Russia really wants, and Trump really wants. Does that sound just a little like St. Bernie, too? You bet. And Mueller in one of his indictments told us so in no uncertain terms: The aims of the Russian sabotage included helping the Sanders campaign. Clinton could have been just a tiny bit more diplomatic but she was right. Had Gabbard been a more fit candidate, she would have responded just a tad more constructively--that is, she would have taken just a minute or two to consider the wellbeing of our democracy and nation, in light of the present context.
2
@Robert
If the Russians had it out for Hillary and/or wanted to help Bernie they would have released the damaging DNC and Podesta emails when they (apparently) had them, in the spring of 2016 (well before she cinched it with the delegates). If you remember just how tight the race was then you would know that those emails would have been curtains for Hillary - far damaging than an Obama or Warren endorsement would have been. In truth, Hillary supporters should THANK the Russians for giving her the nomination - and we all could, to some extent, thank them blowing the whistle on our own corruption. If they really had it out for Hillary they probably would have embellished, just even a bit, on all those damaging files they had (apparently) acquired.
1
@carl bumba
Your argument isn't with me, it's with Mueller, who told us the Russians helped the Sanders campaign. Please take a moment and listen to yourself. You are claiming here that the Russians did not act to hurt Clinton's chances.
This time, apparently, it’s the work of the vast Russian/Hawaiian conspiracy rather than merely the vast right-wing conspiracy. What’s even more interesting, my sources tell me, is that the custom of wearing a lei originated in Siberia. And the word “aloha” means “I am the Manchurian candidate” in Russian. Suspicious? You betcha!
5
I was stunned at her ridiculous remarks. What is she trying to do? She’s now become an embarrassment.
5
Perhaps Clinton should seek some therapy.
12
Who let common sense into the New York Times Editorial room ??
9
"The administration has its own constitutional duty to defend the United States electoral system from foreign attack."
Not only does the administration have its duty. The Congress does, too. And Moscow Mitch seems reluctant to do his duty to protect the electoral system from any attacks that may call into question the integrity of the ballot count.
In fact, though, his party has been doing everything it can, via the courts, via gerrymandering, and via weakening, not strengthening the promise of the Voting Rights Act.
Our system of voting is under attack from the Republican Party. Their idea is that they win no matter how much of the electorate votes against them.
3
I supported Jill Stein because I preferred her proposed policies to anyone else running in the 2016 election. I would have voted for Sanders, but remember what the DNC did to him? Why look to the idea of Russian interference when our own candidates have the ethics of a turnip?
7
You seem like the very voter the Russians targeted to give us Trump.
3rd party candidates are election spoilers and Russia knows this. Russia put a lot of effort into sowing the Bernie Bro divide and promoting Sanders and Stein in order to help Trump.
PS: the bi-partisan Congressional Report confirms this.
1
@Jess Darby Really, so no one has thoughts of their own? Many people disagree with policies, have for years. 3rd party candidates are absolutely NOT election spoilers. We have had 3rd parties before in the USA, and hopefully, we will soon have them again. I think morality is low in both democrats and republicans, and a 3rd party could help inject intelligence and compassion.
5
@Kathy Barker
Your vote for Stein was a de facto vote for Trump. Surely you knew that even at the time. Why open your eyes at all when your head's in the sand? Mueller in his indictment of the 13 Russians told us the Russians also interfered to help the Sanders campaign. Why was Jill Stein at the RT dinner, sitting between Putin and Flynn?
1
Congratulations on an article that is balanced, not the Times usual fare for Gabbard.
5
I have neither sympathy nor respect for Tulsi Gabbard. She is as dishonest as Clinton in obliterating nuances and also as historically illiterate.
Gabbard's current pet phrase is "regime change wars," which she often uses inappropriately. She applied it to Libya, implying that the revolt against Gaddafi was an American initiative. It was nothing of the sort. Libyans in Benghazi were sick of him and revolted on their own initiative. All Obama did was use American air power to prevent Gaddafi from using his own air force against the Benghazi rebels. Obama had no way of knowing at the time if the rebels would or could actually overthrow Gaddafi.
Gabbard uses it again referring to the war in Syria, also dishonestly. The US did not start this conflict either, and all US support has been aimed at is defeating ISIS and preventing the annihilation of the Syrian opponents of Assad. Calling it a US regime change war is despicable.
Also, Gabbard is apparently learning "history" from Oliver Stone documentaries. Stone is as biased and incompetent an "historian" as one can possibly be. He is a left wing nut case. Her endorsement of his so-called documentaries should disqualify her from serious consideration all by itself.
2
@publicitus
The U.S. was in the Syrian War before there was an ISIS.
1
@WestSider I disagree. Obama was "pushed" by Clinton who was in turn influenced by Samantha Power, an official in the Clinton State Department who is also the author of a book on genocide (A Problem from Hell). Both women wanted to avoid a massacre of Libyans in Benghazi. Clinton also remembered the criticism her husband received for not intervening in Rwanda in 1994 before the slaughter of 800,000 Tutsis and did not want Obama or herself to receive similar criticism.
Either way, the fact remains that the revolt in Libya was in no way an American "regime change war" and that Tulsi Gabbard is completely wrong when she says it was.
While I view Hillary Clinton off in implying that Gabbard is a Russian asset, I don't much care. Gabbard is a non-starter and should drop out of the race. She has no concrete plans I can find on her website, just lots of videos of her hugging people or pablum voice overs.
Obama was on the fence about whether to overthrow Gaddafi, Hillary provided the necessary shove to make it happen and is responsible for the continual humanitarian catastrophe that has resulted.
Queen of the Warmongers is an apt description of her.
10
Clinton is a war monger. It's not rumor. It's her participation in overthrowing the Lybian regime. As for Gabbard, she's an example of 'consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds'. I too am against wars of regime change. But !,00 troops protecting the Kurds wasn't a regime change war. It was simply a warning to Turkey not to attack the Kurds.
6
Gabbard backed Stein in the last election and to Hillary that is an unforgivable sin. What is even more telling is that the media is repeating Hillary's talking points by saying that Gabbard never denied being a Russian asset, as if that is truly necessary.
4
Take Hillary Clinton out of the equation and just consider the question: "Are the Russians grooming Tulsi Gabbard as a third-party spoiler for 2020? The answer is clearly yes.
In 2016, Russians spent a lot of time and energy promoting the candidacy of Jill Stein in order to siphon votes away from Hillary Clinton. For those with a scholarly bent, a good summary of their disinformation efforts in this regard is chronicled in "Cyberwar" by Kathleen Hall Jamieson. Their efforts paid off as Stein's Green Party vote was the crucial difference in the three states that put Trump over the top. Stein may not be an asset, but the Russians have always treated her that way -- witness the infamous RT anniversary dinner in Moscow, where she sat at the head table with Putin and soon-to-be-disgraced General Michael Flynn.
Now, the Russians appear to be covering their bets, on the off chance that Stein does not run again, and are warming up ideological soul-mates like Tulsi Gabbard in the wings. As Julia Davis noted yesterday: Russia's state TV program hosted by notorious propagandist Vladimir Soloviev—who is close to Putin and has special access to the Kremlin—spent 30 minutes extolling Tulsi Gabbard, arguing she should be "the face of the Democratic party" and obsessively bashing Hillary Clinton. As Russians would say, "this is not by coincidence."
Tulsi Gabbard is one of the Kremlin's back-up spoiler candidates. This is not a conspiracy theory, it's a fact.
5
@James, In other words lets bring back McCarthyism. Hillary Clinton should know better yet she insists on muddying the waters by spreading wild rumors and foul innuendo's of other Democrats who are running for the high office of the President.
Yet here we are. What is this? Are we now back in the 1950's?
The Russians, the Israelis, whoever can say whatever, but it is *impotent* compared to our own major media outlets by not telling the whole story. Which in itself is a form of propaganda.
I am talking about Bernie Sanders who has raised more money than any of the other candidates and has done such with small donations.
2
Hillary has a right to express her concerns and views without being skewered by the press. She wasn't taken seriously before. Her accusations of Russian interference were proved to be true yet nothing has been done to protect our information streams and voting system. Gabbard's response was exceedingly nasty, exaggerated, and why she is a perfect target for GOP and Russian support.
7
HRC has terrible political instincts.Her tainted history should suggest to someone that the messenger ideally would be someone in her circle but not her to show potential Russian interference.
When I look at the terrible candidates ruing now I SEE WHY SHE WANTS A THIRD TRY.WE NEED SOMEONE WITH EXPERIENCE AND A CLEAN SLATE TO BE PRESIDENT AND THAT AIN'T HER.
3
If a "Democrat" does not run a 3rd party campaign, Hillary will be proven wrong. If one of them does run as an Independent... Hillary will be proven right.
The evidence points to Russia playing both sides on EVERY issue to divide us and it's worked because we are ripe for the taking. Republican VS. Democrat, Democrat VS. liberal democrat, cat lover VS. dog lover... it does not matter.
The divide is now visoiral. Facts, logic, precedent, laws and even the Constitution are flexible now. If my side says it's OK, the other side is wrong... Period.
Lincoln was right in 1858 "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
No matter what happens next Nov. our, great democratic experiment will continue its death spiral.
If someone has a theory on how we can come together again as a country I'd love to hear it.
1
@Bill H Maybe you could limit the number of people running for president, by say only allowing one person to run. That way, it's impossible for voters to be confused or swayed into voting wrong.
That Russia would (again) make use of a "useful fool" (such as Stein, and it APPEARS perhaps Tulsi) does not mean that that fool is necessarily a compromised and active asset (as Trump appears to be). In addition, Tulsi is the only direct party (as opposed to external commentators) in this matter who has identified Tulsi as the targeted candidate.
1
I dunno Tim. The last time Hillary told us about a conspiracy, a "vast right wing conspiracy," as she put it, she was right and we should have have paid more attention. See, e.g., confessions of David Brock.
2
Ms. Clinton has embarrassed herself enough and does not need to do Trump impersonations.
5
Yes, it would bring closure if Hillary ran again. It's not too late. She has an organization, the DNC. Lots of her friends would pour trainloads of cash into her candidacy.
Yes, Hillary, run again.
1
Just get over yourself, Hillary. (Try real hard.)
7
Remember that in 2016 polling, Trump was deemed basically honest by 32% of respondents, but Clinton was the only candidate below that figure at 27%.
Once your credibility is gone, you can shout fire and people will not listen. She could be right or wrong, but if she is wrong she has given the Russians an idea that they can use.
5
Actually, the problem is that Clinton’s stupid and conspiratorial remarks came in response to Gabbard’s conspiratorial and stupid remarks.
Is a foreign country lending its support to a specific candidate, considered meddling in our electoral system?
Don't we encourage free speech?
2
@Raz Not by foreign countries in our elections
Another possible response from Gabbard would have been for her to show concern about Russian support of her campaign. Clinton is the politician who understand how this Russian machine works the best, after being a victim of its propaganda in 2016. Gabbard's response was very disrespectful of an elder stateswoman, who understands the political territory with a greater depth of understanding, having run for President, and having it robbed from her. By taking it personally, and viciously calling Clinton a derogatory name, we all got to see how Gabbard would respond under stress. Gabbard could equally have been horrified to hear this information, and could have agreed to meet with Clinton about it. She just blew any chance of candidacy.
6
@K.M
Wow, just, Wow! You blame Gabbard for her response? Not Clinton for accusing her, without evidence, of being a Russian Agent? Any blame for Jill Stein? I have never been more glad of my vote Against Ms. Clinton than I am at this moment.
6
If the accusation were based soley on Gabbard's views, I would agree with Wu. But the accusation has less to do with Gabbard's views and more to do with the sources of her funding. A great deal of her funding appears to be channeled from Ukrainian and Russian sources; the Russian television network RT has been launching initiatives on social media supporting her. Gabbard needs to address these charges.
5
well, clinton (once again) may have chosen the wrong messaging. but there are questions about gabbard's funding and about why russian sources seem to be supporting her.
we all are very sensitive to the possibility of russian efforts to de-stabilize the 2020 election. supporting a democrat to run as a third party candidate could be a recipe for trump's re-election--that's how bill clinton won in 1992, after all.
1
Why do we spend more time admonishing the failed Presidential candidate from 2016 for trafficking in conspiracy theories than we do on the CURRENT President?
4
@Jennifer she's not trafficking in conspiracy theories. We should be talking about the CURRENT president, but you right in there playing the game also by employing the hysteria you pretend to argue against.
There are conspiracy theories and there is evidence. Yes Russians interfered in 2016, yes they’re doing it now. Yes they are pushing Gabbard. She didn’t say that Tulsi was in on it.
7
@LFK
Pushing? Don't you mean "grooming"? And what about Jill Stein? Wasn't that explicit enough? She mentions Stein after Tulsi, saying "... she's ALSO a Russian asset". Her interview couldn't be much clearer. Bending it to a more favorable configuration is irresponsible, imo.
3
Wow, with all the right wing Democrats commenting on this article, who needs Republicans? But do go on, keep shilling for the military industrial complex. Clearly it's not enough that 60% of all federal spending is being squandered on the war profit machine while the planet burns.
14
You can see the success of Russian contamination in the overwhelming conspiracy addled responses to this Op-Ed. So many readers are convinced that Tulsi Gabbard is under the influence of Russia. This is the point. Foment distrust. Divide. Confuse.
Sober up people.
6
Except that Mrs. Clinton did not call Tulsi a Russian Asset. This is the fever dream of the Anti-Clinton Industrial Complex, which should be treated with a dose of truth.
Here is what Mrs. Clinton actually did say:
"I'm not making any predictions, but I think they've got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate. She's the favorite of the Russians."
Where is the lie? Russian trolls come for anyone who comes for Ms. Gabbard. She delights the denizens of sites that are most vulnerable to Russian controlled bots, like 8chan and Breitbart message boards. It's a sad thing that she cannot say a negative thing about a brutal dictator and Putin sycophant in the middle east (pun intended). I'm afraid that Professor Wu is playing into the anti-Clinton Industrial Complex's fever swamp.
1
@Max Harris
This is way off base. Did you see, hear or read the full interview? The two sentences that you chose don't say that she's an asset, but much of the interview you neglected to mention does. She specifically says Tulsi is being "groomed" by the Russian government. She then goes on to mention Jill Stein, specifically saying "... she's ALSO a Russian asset". Please look at the full interview - it won't take long. If this isn't black and white we're in trouble.
Please try not to infer causality were there is nothing but correlations due to shared interests. Until I see hard evidence, I will assume that members of the military industrial complex or certain foreign powers were not grooming Hillary for her many activities as Sec. of State that surely pleased them to the core. Without empirical evidence, their pleasures are beside the point.
6
@Max Harris :"Where is the lie?"
"and are grooming her"
I am a fellow veteran like Tulsi Gabbard though from the Vietnam War. Professor Tim Wu has his eyes wide shut to history as liberal academics often do when he tries to whitewash Hillary Clinton's scurrilous attack on Gabbard. Hillary acted just like Sen. Joe McCarthy did in the fifties who perfected the fine art of character assassination with the Red Scare. What adds irony to Hillary's Chernobyl meltdown is her husband Bill. He was also attacked as a fifth columnist during his first run for president. I disregarded that attack on him and voted for him, because I have no real animus against baby boomers who avoided military service. Uncle Sam trained me as a medical corpsman and assigned me to a base hospital. So I am simpatico with Tulsi who was an officer in the medical corps during her two tours of duty. When Hillary ran for president, her supporters attacked me online, because I told them I couldn't vote for her since I had had it with unnecessary wars which the Iraqi War obviously was. I was a sexist. I was an old Vietnam veteran trapped in the past. I was a professional white male Hillary hater. But it never dawned on them that the Iraq War was just as illegal and criminal as my war was. The road to hell is paved with good intentions was the painful lesson I learned from the Vietnam War. Tulsi scares this permanent war lobby at Foggy Bottom. They should be diplomats yet act like handmaidens for the DoD. I admire Tulsi, a warrior for peace. She is a profile in courage.
13
@George Hoffman I don't admire Tulsi as much as you do but am waiting to see if she is serious about her views since she came to many of them recently. She, as far as I know, is still very pro military and votes for the military budgets which other democrats are criticized for. For a long time she opposed gays and their getting married. I know the right wing loves her and would like to understand why.
Yeah, I'm a veteran too but I don't support someone because they are veterans. I met many great people in the service but I also met crazy ones. Being a vet doesn't carry much weight with me.
Since you didn't vote for Clinton, did you vote for trump? He was a far worse choice and is also known as Cadet bone spurs.
@George Hoffman
This is one of the finest forum comments that I've ever read.
One thing for sure, NYT editorial staff know little about courage. Thank you, so much.
It's gratifying to see that our paltry lessons from Viet Nam are still held by those who learned them firsthand. I was pushed down State Street in a buggy at the march down to the '68 convention, so my lessons about Viet Nam were given to me. You've earned yours. You have my deep respect.
3
"The problem is not just paranoia."
So the alternative to Trump in 2016 was a paranoid conspiracy theorist?
That was quite a choice!
5
Some of you may have seen this picture from 2017: Mike Flynn and Jill Stein sat at a table with Putin in Moscow before the 2016 Presidential election. That picture was not widely distributed before Jill Stein started a campaign to do recounts of votes. 2016 was also the first year that the Green Party and the Libertarian Party managed to get on the ballot for all 50 States. Were there enough support for these smaller Parties to get on the ballot on all 50 States without any assist from Parties unknown?
2
This newspaper is also guilty of piling- on against Tulsi Gabbard. She is not my candidate and I find her positive spin of Assad strange and unarticulated... beyond that I don't see any problem with her views. Never-the-less there are endless pokes and jabs at absolutely everything Gabbard does and it all smells of click bait.
The NYT, as well as others, are using a legitimate need to scrutinize every element of a truly dangerous personality like Trump as license to foment hysteria, provoke the conspiracy nuts, and reap the dividends, against any slightly problematic candidate. It's dangerous and it's irresponsible.
7
1.) Tulsi Gabbard ought to be so far beneath notice that she is completely irrelevant as anything but a Congresswoman from Hawaii and a formerly dedicated anti-gay bigot and religious hack. 2.) I agree with Robert Reich that it's time to flush out the Democratic primary field of anyone still polling in single digits so that we can get to useful interchanges among 3 or 4 candidates who actually have some chance of winning the presidency in Nov. 2020.
We need to stop wasting debate time and press ink on nonentities like Tulsi Gabbard.
3
"...Hillary Clinton Shouldn’t Trade in Conspiracy Theories About Tulsi Gabbard" unless they're true.
2
"Mrs. Clinton’s assertions, backed only by innuendo, verged on the conspiratorial, yet it is a sign of the times that it was hard not to wonder at least for a moment whether to take her seriously."
Really...this is delusional...
2
So Trump talking disparagingly about the Khan family is an „outrage“, but Hillary smearing and red-baiting a soldier still serving in an illegal regime change war she instigated and helped engineer is just swell because she is so smart and qualified.
That‘s Clintonism in a nutshell.
11
Hillary has no credibility and should be ignored.
13
Calling for an end to wars of regime change gets you labelled a Russian stooge by the Queen of Corruption.
Go figure.
For sure, the deep state is grooming Hillary for an entry into the race.
The remaining Democrat candidates can’t be reliably counted on to continue useless, yet profitable, wars.
9
I’m not sure Tulsi Gabbard is a Russian asset, but she may be a DINO. I think it’s more likely that she is really a Republican, embedded in the Democratic Party. But then again, if that were actually the case, I guess she WOULD be a Russian asset anyway, since they all seem to have some oily strings attached to Russia.
3
@Frau Greta
You mean that opposition to wars of choice means you're not really a Democrat? Thanks for clearing that up for me. I'll keep that in mind when voting.
3
Her platform is liberal all the way. I’m not sure how she could be labeled a DINO.
1
If Hillary Clinton has hard evidence that Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is a Russian asset, she should disclose it or relay it to the FBI. Otherwise, her tactics smack of McCarthyism.
8
I'll be your huckleberry Mr. Wu. How do you know that it's a conspiracy theory? If it was a "conspiracy", then by definition you wouldn't know whether there was a conspiracy or there wasn't. See what I did there?
1
In 2018, two reports commissioned by the US Senate found that Russia used Facebook to support Jill Stein.
In February 2019, NBC News published a detailed report on how Tulsi Gabbard was favored by the same Russian news organizations that meddled in the 2016 election.
Crickets!
Jump ahead to October. Hillary Clinton repeats the same information and the internet blows up.
Kudos to the NY Times for limiting their involvement to an "Opinion" piece.
2
@Chromosome2 - you nailed it.
1
There is a wonderful line in the film "The Ghost Writer" (2010) in which Pierce Brosnan as an ex-British Prime Minister who did some amateur acting at university, is defeated and the pundits tell him to "Kindly leave the stage."
I wish someone would tell that to the Clintons. They did their damage to this country-- now, I suggest they each kindly leave the stage before they do more.
5
Gabbard is openly supported by white supremacist. Enough for me to give the thumbs down.
2
Why didn't Hillary just arrange a private meeting with Tulsi Gabbard and express her views in a confidential manner? She could have provided information to Tulsi that might support the conspiracy theory. But to humiliate Tulsi in front of the Nation and to put her in such a defensive position was very inappropriate and unprofessional.
Is that Hillary's portrayal of a "Gutsy Woman?"
3
@Mary
"But to humiliate Tulsi in front of the Nation..."
If anything, this was a plus for Tulsi.
Hillary humiliated herself.
1
People comment that she lost she should go away. Others say believes in crazy conspiracy theories (well, except that ones that she believed turned to be true).
Trump gave up trying to be the candidate for the Reform Party in 2000. He lost the Republican nomination in 2012. And he is the king of conspiracy theories (that almost inevitably are shown to be false).
It always amazes me the biggest complaints against Clinton are the greatest assets, or just never-no-mind, for others like Trump.
Truly if anyone has lived the double standard, or more accurately, the one-sided lack of standards, it is Hillary Clinton.
4
This would have been more interesting if the author had actually discussed and evaluated the evidence of Russian support of Jill Stein and Green party in 2016, before dismissing the reference.
He might also have discussed and evaluated the far right support of Ms. Gabbard and examined its origins and purpose.
I credit Clinton for slamming down her unvarnished comment, since nothing else seems to get discussed or examined by the press/pundits. Even this bald accusation only merited a few tut-tuts about 'conspiracy theories.'
But her emails.
5
@Razzledays
The "evidence" presented has already been debunked. All the reports from NBC, ABC, etc. rely on the "analysis" of a DNC-backed firm that was caught making troll accounts in the Alabama race. https://theintercept.com/2019/02/03/nbc-news-to-claim-russia-supports-tulsi-gabbard-relies-on-firm-just-caught-fabricating-russia-data-for-the-democratic-party/
That little idiotic blunder aside, if you're going to claim that experts have analyzed data and concluded X, you should link to that expert report. Why shouldn't people be able to read the expert report for themselves, instead of relying on a one-sentence summary from a press release?
3
Clinton smeared Congresswoman Gabbard, an Iraq war veteran, because Gabbard is the only presidential candidate to expose the fraud of U.S. “regime change” wars - wars which enrich the military industrial complex while diverting resources from our people. I admire Tulsi Gabbard’s courage and hope she keeps fighting for us.
12
Tulsi Gabbard is not just regularly praised by Russian media outlets like RT and Sputnik, she is lauded by Russian bot posts in the comments sections of many newspapers in Europe and the U.S. They consistently say that her low poll numbers are a Deep State conspiracy with the full connivance of the mainstream U.S. news media and American polling firms themselves. Putin apologists such as Prof. Steven Cohen side with Gabbard in criticizing the Atlantic Alliance and underscoring Gabbard's expressed openness to "full dialogue with Putin." Hillary Clinton may have used stronger language against the Hawaii congresswoman than she should have. However, the Hawaii congresswoman's words were far more crude and incendiary. Clinton's were accurate.
3
@Mason :" 'full dialogue with Putin.' "
That just might work out better than that Reset Button thingy that Hillary tried.
Hillary should face the fact that, not withstanding the circumstances of her loss to Donald Trump in 2016, she should do her best to stay out of the headlines now. Advancing herself as a pundit - or worse, inserting herself into the process - can only hurt the Democrats in 2020. One of the reasons that Hillary lost in 2016 was that she wasn't particularly liked, even by Democrats. She should accept that fact with humility and not allow her own bitterness - understandable though it is because of the other reasons she lost - and support the Democrats in an appropriate way.
6
Reminded of Star Wars "Empire" and the line I paraphrase here, "The more the democratic elites tighten their grasp the more democrats slip through their fingers"
3
Why was Gabbard even on the stage ..... and now she’s getting even more (default) exposure.
Saying Gabbard is a Russian "asset" doesn't mean she is colluding directly with them. It simply means she is helping them to advance their goal of undercutting the most likely democrat nominees and putting the focus on corruption with the democratic party. Gabbard is (obviously) a candidate with no real chance of ever winning the dem. nomination. She can, however, use her current position as a nominee to undercut the front-runners to the nomination (Warren & Bidden). In the process she helps to validate the attacks/propaganda coming from the Trump campaign, and its allies. Her usefulness to those who want to see a Trump reelection is obvious. In an election won by close votes in several battleground states every little bit matters.
4
Hillary and I are suffering from the same fantasy.
Tulsi all dressed up in her all National Guard gear breaking into our bedrooms and forcing us to do the most unimaginable things. No doubt, Tulsi has Putin in her ear. He's directing her every move and telling exactly what to do with us very bad Americans.
No cameras, please.
2
@P&L
"Tulsi all dressed up in her all National Guard gear breaking into our bedrooms and forcing us to do the most unimaginable things."
More details, please!
I don't know what the truth is with Gabbard, and probably never will. The fact that we have unending information shared, yet voters didn't know in 2016 that a presidential candidate was in bed with authoritarians around the world is sheer madness.
What I do know is that I have had it with the Clintons & the DNC. They are from the past where democrats also worked for big money. 40 years of trickle-up is enough. Time for the politicians to step away from the lobbyists, the industry magnates, the big bank executives, the hedgefund managers, the movie stars & the musical genius's.
Time for the people to take our government back. Those who were part of the past need to step down, move back & shut up.
5
This is a very naive and smug dismissal of Secretary Clinton’s comments, after which—almost on cue, as if to prove Hillary’s point—social media practically boiled over with indignant outrage that was laughably disproportionate to Tulsi Gabbard’s actual support. Why is the author so quick to scold Clinton for what he haughtily labels as unfair accusations, when she, of all people, should know the deleterious effects of foreign influence in our electoral system? Ignore her at your peril.
3
Am I the only one who would prefer not to hear from Hillary Clinton on any topic whatsoever? PS I voted for her, but times have changed drastically. In with the new.
5
No... Hillary claimed that Tulsi Gabbard is a Russian asset, not just "groomed". (She stated that Jill Stein was ALSO an asset.)
The entire premise of this article is that Tulsi Gabbard's views are misguided and should be examined, but not her improbable association with the Russian government. But isn't Dr. Wu doing what he is rightly criticizing Hillary for - an unfounded attack? He provides ZERO evidence that Tulsi's policy positions or any of her views are bad. Yet he suggests that Tulsi's antiwar views would be dismissed on their merits if weren't for Hillary's unfounded, Russia influence claims. Isn't this irony?
I've always wondered to what degree do those who spout lines of the orthodoxy, like this author, KNOW that they are spouting these lines. Nearly everyone spouts lines. But those within the establishment seem to embrace dogma more readily. Dr. Wu's article follow convention here and mischaracterizes Hillary's PERSONAL email SERVERS as just private emails (from a private email account, like gmail) or as just a private (enterprise) server, like from google... BIG differences to anyone conducting a Freedom of Information Act request. For instance, we apparently needed, according to Dr. Wu, 'US Cyber Command to knock out Russian troll farm servers' (under high drama importance... again presumed). While Hillary, on the other hand, only needed a little bleach.
2
The only fault I find with Clinton's comments about Stein in 2016 and Gabbard today is that Clinton did not remind her audience of the distinction between someone who is a Russian asset in the full sense that they are literally working with or for the Russians (for gain, or because blackmailed, or both), and someone who is an asset to Russia because they are helping to push Putin's agenda as what the Russian's call "a useful idiot."
If we say nothing about Russia's support of certain candidates in public, the Russian's get the full benefit of their efforts. But if we do call out the blatantly Russian-slanted, AND Russian-favored, AND Russian-supported candidacy of a Trump, a Stein, or a Gabbard, we are accused of tarnishing the reputation of a patriotic American.
But Russian interference is once again happening before our eyes. Given the Russian's record from 2016, supporting a third party candidate, I think Hillary Clinton is on target to warn about the likelihood they will try it again.
Russian interference in our elections is not going away, and it is not limited to interference in one party. In 2016 the Russians did support both Trump, among the Republican primary candidates, and the third party candidate, Stein.
So far, in the 2020 elections, they are supporting Trump, and also Gabbard. For the problems with Gabbard, see the NYT article "What, Exactly, Is Tulsi Gabbard Up To?" There isn't going to be proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
1
"An error has occurred and we cannot save your comment. Please copy what you’ve written and refresh the page to try again."
WHY do I suddenly get that irritating message several times a week? doesn't say what the error is. And it is in post that are under the character limit, and are just written in plain text for no weird punctuation or anything. And refreshing the page never does anything but produce the same error message.
Reaching the point where it almost isn't worth it to try to put thought into comments.
A moment of sanity, thanks Mr Wu. In a way Hillary Clinton's latest conspiracy theory is the lie that illuminates a larger truth: she started the first Russiagate conspiracy theory and like this one we know it was bunk. No Russia did not determine the catastrophic result of the 2016 election.
Three Harvard professors who analyzed the media landscape of the US also came to the same conclusion (Network Propaganda).
Russia is not a model and is an authoritarian society but it is much, much weaker than the US in many fields, including cyberwarfare where Israel, Britain and the US are stronger powers. Accusing Russia is a way not to look in the mirror: electoral college, voter purges affecting the minorities, devastating effects of neoliberal policies.
Tulsi Gabbard, who is not far right, might not be perfect but she is a consistent antiwar voice and therefore her core message is of value now.
Also think about what Hillary Clinton the supposed feminist did: she smeared two women, Gabbard and Stein, one of them from a minority and the usual denouncers of Sanders's supposed sexism were not there to condemn this! On top of this we learn that she tried to lean on Ronan Farrow so that he would not reveal Weinstein's terrible deeds. And she consorted with Epstein. Enough already.
The Democrats need to have a clean honest candidate to oppose the racist incoherent conman and win. And win at the ballot box for this is the way out of the terrible pass the US is in.
8
If former Secretary of State Clinton, who was targeted by Russia, Trump and his Republican lackeys pretty much nonstop for the last three years says Gabbard may be a Russian asset, then I am all ears.
3
"We came, we saw, he died". Sorry folks, but Hillary is a warmonger. It is the reason I could not vote for her. I support Tulsi because she recognizes this bullying behavior, and is offering a better path forward.
11
@Garry Gabbard supports a genocidal despot and you consider her to be a pacifist? She embraces a bloody past, yet you argue she knows the way forward.
It's very, very unlikely Clinton expressed her views based on her "views alone."
Dear Secretary Clinton:
Thank you for your service to our country, but it’s time to get off the stage. Now. You’re giving ammunition to Trump and you’re ruining your legacy.
3
Hillary Clinton needs to just stop.
Yes, she should have won the election. Okay. We got it.
Now, she’s just giving the GOP back their most effective target since Communists under the bed.
There are times in your life when being right is way down on the list after getting the job done, and this is one of them.
4
When Lenin established the Soviet government after the revolution, the KGB created a department for causing trouble and influencing countries which the Russians saw as important and worthy of the KGB's interference. So all this is nothing new, and to think otherwise is naive and ignorant. The clever part in the work of the current successor to the KGB is that they do their work effectively and cheaply. So for the last three years the Dems have pushed the US government with a very willing deep state to all kinds of "my-hair-is-on-fire" investigations. The biggest joke, seldom reported by the NYT, is that Mrs. Clinton and the DNC paid $11,000,000 for the fantasy dossier and then we taxpayers
were stuck with a $40,000,0000 bill to pay for the Meuller report. We're our own best enemy.
7
I can't believe the comments on this article. Come up with real evidence or shut up; that's not an accusation to throw at someone lightly. I voted for Clinton, she lost. At this point, unless she has convincing evidence, she should keep it to herself and give us a good long break and stop injecting herself into this election.
7
Clinton cant replace tulsi with herself this time around.
3
@Jobs
I'd gladly vote for Tulsi, unlike Clinton who has no credibility.
Maybe the New York Times should engage in some public self reflection about how they treated Hillary Clinton in 2016 (see Rachel Maddow show on 10/21) before starting in again before the next election. Maybe our former Secretary of State knows a few things you don't know. And why did Tulsi Gabbard have a such a vile response to Mrs. Clinton's remarks? Wasn't Gabbard curious as to why someone might pose such a possibility?
5
Hillary, who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, should go away.
7
All I want or expect from Hillary Clinton is an apology.
8
Honestly.. I question Gabbard's motives as well.
She supports Syria and is against US policy there.
Besides.... Russia's only interest in Gabbard is if they feel she can be supported by bots such that she peels some votes off the Democrat candidate.. just like they did with Jill Stein.
All Hillary did was point this out and call it straight as it is.
3
@Chuck
"Honestly.. I question Gabbard's motives as well.
She supports Syria and is against US policy there"
Interesting reasoning: if someone disagrees with you their motives are questionable.
This article is so naive as to be laughable. Have you not been paying attention? Motivations matter.
2
Stupid remarks like this from Mrs. Clinton in 2016 made just enough people in a few key stakes queasy enough about her to either not vote at all, or vote for Donald Benedict Arnold Trump.
The only thing I want to hear from Mrs Clinton right now, in regard to any of the Democratic candidates, is "X has some interesting views and we should consider them honestly and carefully."
3
Gabbard said to Hillary, "You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain,”
By comparison, Trump sounds like a sweet, gentle soul.
3
@George Jochnowitz
Gabbards comments are verifiable and true. Most of the comments here reflect what is despicable about DNC corporate democrats and why we have Trump today..
1
@George Jochnowitz Gabbard the pacifist might have have to move to Russia after that vicious display.
Total nonsense - another Stein in the making. Why dispute the obvious?
4
Amazing how small Hilliary can be
5
Remembering Putin's "useful idiot" one does not have to have to be knowingly in league with the Russians to be an asset. Many people are used. While Trump may or may not be an useful idiot asset for the Russians he is clearly a FOX News/Hannity/Coulter asset.
1
It's possible for one to be a Russian asset without realizing or even wanting to be a Russian asset; a so called, "useful idiot."
I would have taken Hilary's accusation as nonsense, except, Tulsi Gabbard responded in the exact way a Russian asset would respond. And, strangely, she is being promoted on RT.
1
I think Hillary Clinton did us all a favor -- she should have mentioned this when Jill Stein, so clearly a Russian favorite to be a spoiler (they tend to go with the Green Party - knowing they will never win, but hoping they will spoil the election, which is exactly what happened -- count the votes int he states that HRC lost. Yes, she should have gone to those states more, but did Jill Stein go to those states? In the Russian bot world -- yes, many more times. And Gabbard's comments about Hillary Clinton were not only disgusting, "me thinks thou dost protest too much"...
3
Hillary Clinton Never mentioned Tulsi
3
Stay away, Hillary. You had your chance. Don't jinx anyone.
9
Unbecoming of a democrat Hillary Clinton.
4
Unfortunately for the writer, the Russian media is absolutely awash with pro-Gabbard coverage right now. Many of my friends here are Russian emigres, read multiple papers in Russian emigres, aghast at the Gabbard Wave going on in Russia media. In case it needs repeating: the Russian State controls the media there, and the Gabbard "crush" is on the part of the Russian State. The term "grooming", which Clinton used does necessarily not imply Ms. Gabbard is willing or complicit. We should take these facts as they are, and not dismiss Clinton's statement on the basis of - do I understand this? - as "un-politic". On the contrary, I thank Mrs .Clinton for bringing these facts to the national attention. As for Jill Stein, I've been calling her a Russian Asset since 2015: I was first, blame me.
4
Hillary's bizarre accusations against Gabbard and Stein fall right into justifying Republican complaints that the Democrats are bent on nullifying the 2016 election.
Rather than looking at how her grating personality, neo-liberal policies and lack of heartland outreach lost the election, she chooses to babble about "Russian assets".
I voted for Stein in 2012 and 2016. Living in deep-blue California, my vote was merely a protest against the status quo.
If Hillary really wanted to make a positive difference, she would work to eliminate the Electoral College. Otherwise she should go back to tending her flowers and save the whining for the garden pests.
5
I no longer get shocked easily, but Hillary Clinton's comments about Ms. Gabbard were shocking to me. Because Mrs. Clinton does not strike me as a conspiracy theorist I reasoned that she must have irrefutably evidence about what she speaks.
Based on our knowledge of Russian interference in the 2016 and 2018 elections, Mrs. Clinton's comments should give us all serious cause for concern. Ms. Gabbard should watch her back and not fall prey to the machinations of the wily Russians.
2
I think Hillary Clinton should crawl back under her rock and not cast aspersions on others. She lost an election she should have won against someone so clearly unfit for office, had she only done a better job of running. Gabbard is right to call her a "queen of warmongers". I never thought I would vote for someone who voted for the Iraq war, but I held my nose and did anyway, because as bad a HC is, she would have been far better than Trump. But I'd much rather have a Tulsi Gabbard, who is not so enamored of American exceptionalism.
5
Russia interfering in our elections is NOT a conspiracy theory. It is fact - confirmed by bipartisan Congressional study of 2016. This opinion piece is irresponsible.
Clinton rightfully highlighted a reality that Russia is backing (through trolls, bots, etc) a Democratic candidate that they hope will generate 3rd party votes in the general election. That is what Russia did with Jill Stein. As a result of Russia's disinformation campaign, Jill Stein pulled enough votes to throw the election to Trump.
Wake up.
6
Fine. Ms. Gabbard can unequivocally condemn Putin and Assad and put this all to rest. Until then, I’m in no mood to replace one president who’s a Russian asset with another one.
6
The level of interest being applied to Clinton's comments regarding a very unorthodox Democrat from a strong Democratic state leads one to believe that something is definitely not right in Denmark. Clinton knows Russia and Putin very, very well. She was right about Trump being Putin's puppet. Oh, boy was she right. Today we learned that Trump discussed Ukraine with Russia and Hungary, both of whom trashed the country looking to add its territory to their homelands at the same time Giuliani was over there trying to bribe the Ukraine government for dirt on Biden. A double whammy for Ukraine.
Gabbard has been causing headaches at home for sometime with her very frequent Fox news interviews, her debate tantrums and her opening antagonist views against other elected Democratic officials from her home state. People do not chose Russia, Russia chooses them and Gabbard has shown that she is an outlier looking lost, lonely and confused.
3
Actually, it's time we started listening to Hillary.. She was right about the interference last time, and she's probably right about this.
5
As De Gaulle said of Pétain, under whom he served during WWI, “Old age is a shipwreck” and I fear that Mrs. Clinton, for whom I voted in 2016, is experiencing an early decline of her previously brilliant brain. A 74 year old staunch Democrat.
3
I think a [hopefully] unwitting pawn of Russian propaganda would have been a better term than “Russian asset.” And, Ms. Gabbard has to understand that while tempting to reach for the apple offered by the snake, it is never wise to accept it. Perception becomes reality today.... The expression “balance of power” is one to keep in mind when Russian controlled media and social media trolls laud the idea of the United States staying out of the affairs of other countries, because they will certainly be thrilled to fill the void and do some “regime changing” of their own..... to the detriment of many innocent people.
Hillary has been right about Russia's influence in elections.
In 2016 after Trump "attacked Clinton during the third and final presidential debate, saying Putin had "no respect" for her or President Barack Obama,
the Democratic nominee shot back, "Well, that's because he'd rather have a puppet as president of the United States."
3
From the moment I watched Tulsi, I was suspicious, as I was of Stein. Many women have a six sense this opinion writer may not be aware of. Tim, you mention McCarthyism while trying to shut down Clinton. An odd and poor choice to support your argument here. Let Hillary speak while we figure out how to remove a Russian asset and his family from the WH.
3
Disclaimer: I am not a Hillary-hater. I voted for her and have always appreciated her intellect. That said, it is way past time for her to gracefully exit center stage. She has obviously succumbed to the dangerous DC virus that makes victims sure that they must be relevant forever, that the world breathlessly awaits their pronouncements. I am embarrassed for her.
4
Why would HRC make such a charge which is being universally condemned and mocked? Because she believes it? Hardly. There are two plausible explanations: 1. Her venomous dislike of Gabbard who endorsed Bernie in 2016. 2. To stay before the public eye to sell books and just maybe be the compromise nominee in a deadlocked convention. She never gives up.
2
@alan brown
Why?
She is doing what she always has done.
Raking in the cash, and stuffing it into the pockets of her pantsuit as fast as she can.
I'm waiting for the final installment in her "Why I Lost, and Who's to Blame" Trilogy.
2
Mrs. Clinton should not be attacking members of her own party. It sounds like she is wanting to sabotage everyone so she can run again. Her running again would guarantee trump re-election & future dictatorship. She is disliked & should get out of politics & just write books.
2
It seems likely the Russians began grooming Donald Trump without his knowledge, going all the way back to his "Obama wasn't born in USA" accusations. Why is it not possible, thanks to Hillary's warning and highly qualified observations, that this is strategy may be in play from the same Russian playbook?
The accusation that Hillary is participating in conspiracy theory sounds, frankly, a little naive, and a little 'knee-jerk' .
3
Sorry, Prof Wu. You need to do more research on Congresswoman Gabbard before you comment on what she is up to. A suggestion: interview former members of her staff, many of whom have long been troubled about the opaque sources of her views.
3
So anyone who votes to lower the US military budget is a Russian asset because it directly benefits Putin's foreign policy goals. Oh and its also 'handing ISIS their biggest victory in years'
2
In one of her signature dumb moves she's alienated Tulsi Gabbard supporters, Green Party voters, anti-war Independents and Trump supporters disgusted with Trump.
Expect more brainless but noteworthy statements from Clinton all the way up to and through the 2020 election.
6
Hillary Clinton is not in the business of dealing in conspiracy theories and if she said I am sure there is a good basis for it. You may not like Hillary and you probably don't but she is very credible.
1
I cannot believe most of the comments here which are sympathetic to HRC's paranoid ideation. I am old enough to remember when Senator Joe McCarthy in the 1950's accused every political opponent of being a Russian agent - consciously or unconsciously. That included great patriots who fought in World War 2 and Korea. Now we have exactly the same situation here where Tulsi Gabbard who has served this country in uniform is being accused of near treason by Hillary Clinton who has only sought personal power and enrichment for herself. Yet, many people are infected with paranoid ideas about Russia now exactly as in 1950. The once great Democratic Party has lost its mind and moral compass.
5
Clinton's attack on Gabbard is expected, but I think it is very hard to change the discourse on America's forever wars regardless of party, see the virtual agreement on the Kurds these past weeks. Clinton is a great example of a warmongering Democrat who never questions the 20 odd conflicts the US is fighting in without public debate or knowledge. In fact Dems have been adept at keeping these wars secret as much as Bush. At the same time, Gabbard reflects some of the problems on the left, namely, she fell for the false choice between secular dictator (Asad) and Islamic fundamentalists (ISIS) that Asad himself has peddled. In other words, the progressive left needs to think hard about what a progressive foreign policy should be without falling into the traps left by autocrats. This will take some real soul searching and hard work.
3
Most of us are so fearful that Trump will win a 2nd term that any comment or criticism that could potentially benefit his chances is met with panic and outrage. It is time to step back, take a collective deep breath, and listen to what is being said. The only way that Trump could win in 2020 is if a third party candidate entered the race. If Gabbard runs as a spoiler, Cllinton will be proven correct. If she doesn't, Gabbard is due an apology. I have a feeling that if Trump is impeached in a timely fashion, the Republican controlled senate may surprise us with their verdict, allowing Mitt Romney to run and quite possibly win the presidency.
1
Maybe Clinton should have run on policies that people, not the plutocracy, wanted to vote for.
But, Clinton’s have all done quite enough damage. It’s time for them to give up the notion of political dynasty. We founded our country on better.
3
@Lilly
Actually she did. But the Republicans, as is their specialty, defined the chanting slogans and the marketing memes and people never heard her policies for investing in people and the future.
"We founded our country on better."
And yet we have Trump. Proof that we aren't better than the founders.
@Lilly I would bet my life that you didn't visit her website or listen to any of her speeches, and have no idea what her policies were.
It's ironic that the Russian conspiracy theories coming from the Democrats echo those from the John Birch Society and others on the far-Right during the Cold War that had us looking for Communists inside our closets and under our beds.
5
Thank you. I’ve always thought the Democrats hatred of the Green Party was stupid. Clinton, the corporate Democrat, really should back off.
5
Perhaps it's time for Hilary Clinton to find a new hobby away from politics
3
I don't need Hillary to pillory Tulsi. She has done that to herself.
1
This op-ed would have more credibility if our representative here in Hawaii, Tulsi Gabbard, had not already proven herself a puppet for the war criminal Bashar al-Assad. We can criticize Hillary Clinton for alleging, without evidence, that the Russians are grooming Gabbard. But the fact that Assad used Gabbard as a tool for his propaganda is not in dispute. Assad paid for her four-day trip to Syria in January 2017, and she returned to be his mouthpiece and spray his regime's toxic lies all over the news media and Internet. And when journalists traced the money trail to catch her red-handed, she was forced to return the cash, as CNN reported, thus tacitly admitting to her career as puppet. Like Tim Wu writes in this op-ed: You're a conspiracy theorist only if there isn't a conspiracy.
2
My goodness, are we not done with Clinton’s yet???
5
Saying, or even implying, that Stein and Gabbard are Russian "assets" (read stooges) is taking us right back to Joe McCarthy's 1950's. Look, there's Vladimir Putin inside every smart phone!!
What is distressing is that it's the Democrats who are McCarthy's legatees.
5
When you’re running as a Democrat but you have Trump and White Nationalists defending you, something’s not right with *this* picture.
2
Thank you!
Sorry, but Hilary Clinton is right and Mr. Wu is wrong. Whether or not Gabbard is a knowing Russian asset (which would not surprise me) or a useful idiot (and she is at least that), the effect is pretty much the same. Although she is polling barely above zero (no surprise since there is virtually no constituency for her strange views among Democratic voters and little if any more among the general electorate) she somehow has plenty of money, she is regularly boosted by Russian-controlled media as well as right wing media in the US who share the Russian desire to reelect He Who Must Not Be Named. She parrots a pro-Putin (and his Syrian ally Assad) line on many issues. It does not help her cause that when she tried to refute these charges in last week's debate, and in her online tiff with Clinton, she robotically repeated Putin-approved talking points like a St. Petersburg-based internet bot. We are at an existential crossroads for American democracy. If, to quote a Clinton aide, the nesting doll fits we should not hesitate in the name of overly polite fairness to call it out.
4
Hillary Clinton hobnobs with, and takes foreign policy advice from, Henry Kissinger. Enough said.
3
Ms. Gabbard made condoning comments about the murderous ruler of Syria who kills his own people....Clinton is correct.
3
Hillary knows a Russian asset when she sees one. When will the Times stop piling on her? She was right, you were wrong about emails, Donald Trump et. al. Enough.
4
For a professor you sure don't seem to have a great definition of a "conspiracy theory." Her opinion is not a conspiracy theory and she has a right to them. Her opinion is also built on years of experience in the White House and in the world. A person who has sat in on meetings with leaders around the globe might actually be somebody you WANT to listen to.
Or maybe we can just be lectured by somebody who has done none of that and instead uses his intellect to wag his finger at his betters.
4
To paraphrase Joseph Welch: "[Madam Clinton], may we not drop this? ... You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, [Madam]? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
5
The heading of Wu’s article should be:
Hillary Clinton sites example of how Russia manipulates U.S. elections.
5
Yes Hillary there are many factors you could point to for why you lost. One of the main ones being your abysmal no-show campaign strategy allowing Donald Trump to bash you night after night on national TV while you ran scared and hid in your safe space, not demanding equal time, only emerging to make asinine comments ("put coal miners out of work", "I short circuited", "basket of deplorables"). And that is the one factor that you having total control over you have no one to blame for but yourself. Please go away Hillary. You have done enough damage.
4
When can we ever get over the canard that Mrs. Clinton lost the election, or that sentiment was decisively tilted against her, because of Russian trolls and propagandists on the internet? Negative sentiments about Mrs. Clinton didn't need the Russians. The Republican Party, its trolls and operatives, had been bad-mouthing Mrs. Clinton for decades. I suppose it is comforting for Mrs. Clinton to blame external agents for her loss, but it might be helpful and healing for her to acknowledge that much of the responsibility for her failure rests with herself and her own attitudes and miscalculations. Trying to brand Ms. Gabbard an agent of Russian influence because of her foreign policy views, refuses to acknowledge any legitimate critique of America's disastrous foreign policy and misguided interventionism. This kind of labelling and smear tactics harks back to the age of McCarthyism - a black spot on our democracy.
4
We already have a political party for those who prefer to base their political decisions on unsubstantiated conspiracy theories instead of facts.
Thanks, Ms. Clinton, but we don't need a second one.
2
I agree with Mr. Wu's assertion that Mrs. Clinton should stay away from conspiracy theories. She's far too intelligent, and it's beneath her. But there is something incredibly disingenuous about Tulsi Gabbard and her view on foreign policy.
I've seen interviews with her. On the surface, I agree with much of what she says. However, what she's done in her past versus her views of today don't match.
For example, she claims that she's against regime change. She has said that the United States have engaged in wars that are immoral. She used the last Iraq war as an example.
Yet, she volunteered for it. Even back then, it was no secret what George Bush was trying to do. He wanted to get rid of the Saddam Hussein regime and replace it with a democracy. He used "weapons of mass destruction" as an excuse to wage the war. It was his big idea.
I protested against the war, despite the fact that my brother volunteered to serve. I thought we were stretching the truth about weapons of mass destruction, and nothing but bad would come out of it.
Yet at the time, Tulsi must have agreed with the idea because she served in that war. In fact, she served in the military for 16 years. I can't help but believe that the basic premise of war was a good idea to Tulsi. Now that she's out, it's suddenly immoral.
How does one connect the dots with this obvious contradiction?
Hillary Clinton should never have done what she did. First, if she had information about foreign interference in a US election, then she should have gone to the FBI and kept her mouth shut. How else could the FBI conduct a counter-intelligence investigation?
She has Trumpified herself. As a recent book states "Everything Trump Touches Dies."
Who would have thought his reach extended this far?
2
HRC needs to be quiet. If she doesn't realize she is toxic to the efforts of defeating Trump, then she shows herself to be just as much of a narcissist as the "stable genius" currently in office.
4
99% of American politicians are "assets" of our country's Military-Industrial Complex, "groomed" to serve & service The Defense Industry before they get anywhere close to positions of power in Washington (Remember our 22 trillion dollar National Debt? America doesn't even bother to pay for being the world's policeman/bully; let our grandchildren handle the bill). Tulsi Gabbard dares to challenge this hideous status quo so of course every cannon in corporate America's arsenal will be dragged out to bring her down. Any & all discussion of the parasite Pentagon's horrendous expense must be kept out of every presidential campaign !
3
HRC said that Gabbard's possible run as a 3rd-party candidate would make her a Russian asset -- i.e., it would *play into the Russians' hands*. It would play into their hands by siphoning votes from the Democratic nominee, as happened with Johnson's and Stein's (and others') candidacies, which resulted in a total of 5% votes "lost" in 2016. As had happened previously with other 3rd-party candidates. That is fact. Labeling it a "conspiracy theory" is idiotic and insulting to the intelligence of the readership of this publication.
3
@S. Arbiter it appears most of the readership deserve the insult.
HRC should just go away. Her credibility is close to zero.
I want one person to explain to me why she would pick on a candidate whose chances of becoming the nominee are zero.
3
If Russia is utilizing Gabbard as an asset why shouldn't people who are aware of this talk about it directly?
We bend over backwards in this country to protect those who mean us harm. It is foolish.
Hillary Clinton was correct in her assessment of Russian activity in 2016.
What is it that makes it impossible for some people to see the truth she describes?
2
“If”...
This despicable announcement from Hillary Clinton smearing Tulsi Gabbard and Jill Stein makes me feel even better about voting for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primary and Jill Stein in the general election. Never Hillary - and this is one more example of why this was, and is, so.
5
I felt like Rumpelstitskin when reading abut Hillary Clinton's
accusation of let's call it what it is-treason against Tulsi
and Jill Stein. Jumping up and down,with steam coming out of my ears is how I must have appeared to my family. This Russian
problem with interference in our election has tipped over into
trying to destroy legitimate critics of our foreign policy. I'm
not a Tulsi supporter, but if she's a Russian agent for calling out, the Military Industrial Complex,then I am too. Tulsi defied
the Clintons with her support of Bernie. I have been a life long Democrat and over the years have seen the betrayal
of the working/middle class by the Clintons and their ilk.
How dare she,with no proof and a lot of venom accuse Tulsi
who is a two time Iraq vet of being aligned with the Russians.
I notice that all the wars Hillary promoted never had her
child fighting in them. No, they never do. I am appalled that
the architect ,with her husband ,of the demise of the working/middle class has the gall to perpetrate this garbage.
Welcome to the New McCarthy era.
6
Everything Mrs. Clinton warned us about in 2016 have been verified as true. Her warnings here should be taken very seriously.
2
It is unusual for me to defend Mrs. Clinton. Mrs. Clinton was actually saying that troll farms do anything and everything, including promoting a third party. I did not take away her accusing either Stein or Gabbard as being agents. Of course, she could have been clearer.
For those interested, if you trust occrp.org, there is an interesting online account from a reporter who joined a troll farm in Ukraine and reported thereon. This was the election Zelensky. To me, it is interesting that President Zelensky has granted autonomy to the occupied areas (by Russian black ops) in Eastern Ukraine. This is what Russia wanted. So I don't know.
see https://www.occrp.org/en/investigations/inside-a-ukrainian-troll-farm
I wish everyone would reread The Crucible by Arthur Miller --
Written on paper.
Hillary mentioned no one’s name, but everyone knew who she was talking about because (a) they have experienced the pro-Tulsi bot army and (b) her positions and her past had them wondering as well.
But all Tulsi has to do to prove she wasn’t being groomed to run as a third-party spoiler candidate is to not run as a third-party spoiler candidate. Easy-peasy way to prove Hillary wrong this time.
2
Bad idea, of course, for Clinton to engage in mudslinging like this. On the other hand, maybe she questions Gabbard's motive because those motives are suspect. To the commenter who says "but she's a veteran...", so am I. And i think Tulsi FriendofDictators doesn't pass the smell test.
"Even so, it is a terrible thing to label candidates as “Russian assets” " precedes a discussion of Gabbard's views. But Hillary did not characterize her as a "Russian asset" - that was said of Jill Stein, whose views and actions were not discussed.
Please be accurate in your criticism! Gabbard was not called a Russian asset!
Has the former Secretary of State no shame? She is Red Baiting, without real evidence presented, a sitting member of Congress AND a member of the military. This is however democracy dies. What a time to be alive! It's like the fall of Rome, with WiFi.
4
Hillary Clinton still cannot let her election loss go and move on with her life. Why people care what she says is beyond all belief. Accusing another candidate of being a Russian agent shows how delusional she has become. She needs help and is crying out for it.
6
We shouldn't interfere? Look at Guatemala in the fifties. It all started then.
1
I agree with Wu's opinion. The unfortunate likelihood is that Clinton based her information on Lisa Lerer's conspiratorial articles in this very newspaper. There was a time when the Times knew the difference between facts and innuendo, journalism and a blog.
3
Miss Gabbard, as you call her, is not appreciated by Progressive Democrats in Hawai'i. She runs as a Democrat in order to win here. We are BLUE! She is RED! GOP I mean.
2
I couldn’t agree with you more. I’m not a Gabbard fan, but Clinton’s comments struck me as strange and inappropriate. It made me wonder what the heck is going on with her.
4
The comments are here are telling.
Pushes me more to believe Hillary is spot on, again.
2
To Mrs. Clinton I ask, as the old commercial said, “ where’s the beef”? To make unsubstantiated claims sounds like the current resident of the White House. Please, Mrs. Clinton, go away.
3
It’s a fact that Russian and right wing media are elevating Gabbard and Yang as candidates. These two have their messaging in lock step. Why is that? Is they are not working together then they should stop acting like they are.
1
Tulsi Gabbard voted against the Magnitsky Act in 2016. She cannot be trusted.
2
Prof. Wu is right. Hillary Clinton is, at best, conservative. She's a negative in the Democratic Party.
3
#Why I would not vote for Hillary Clinton nor DJT.
IMO it's fine to vote for a third party candidate, even in Ohio, and frankly, I wish HRC would just go away already. "I'm not one of those women who just stands by her man!" except I do because...
HRC should NOT have run a second time for president, probably not even a first time (she had spent 8 years in the White House already - unsuccessfully working on a medical care plan, she had voted for a bogus war from which we have not extricated ourselves, helped start one in Syria, destabilized Libya -- what good did the woman do?? (Her husband's regime was more repressive than progressive.)
I wish she'd go away. Tulsi Gabbard is young and dumb as we like to say --too clever by halr - bye.
2
Hillary Clinton is smarter than you are. In fact, I'm smarter than you are. I listened to every minute of the debate, and I have been a life-long Democrat, probably for more than twice your years, and I have never heard a "Democrat" sound less like a Democrat than Gabbard. She seemed completely clueless about the Democratic agenda. I can imagine her staring up starry-eyed at Donald Trump as he gave his Inaugural Address proclaiming the imminent Apocalypse . Her head appears to be wrapped in a cloud of other-directed conspiracy theories, as though she had been raised among members of the oblivious Tea Party groomed by the Russians. Her words were nonsense to most, but are probably understood by some like-minded initiated. How could she be running for President in the first place? She was not just the odd duck in the white suit, she is not suited to the role and should be put out on the curb as shiny ersatz trash sponsored by a foreign government, which is just what Clinton did.
3
Hillary:
Did you not cheer-lead the invasion of Iraq?
Did you not supervise, as Secretary of State, the bombings of Libya and Syria?
Did you not receive $ 25 million from the Saudis? (Some would call it Blood Money)
Weren't you the reason Trump is President?
Shouldn't you retire quietly and enjoy the spoils of war, rather than try and divide your party? Or is this part of a Russian plan?!?
5
I think Tim Wu should have addressed that Mrs. Clinton as a presidential candidate will have had insight in Trump's Russian connection and how he was being supported by Russia uncommon to the 'average' candidate. She may still be well connected and know more than most. Her loss deserves empathy for the way it has come about (every campaign makes mistakes!). But that being acknowledged, Mrs. Clinton has done herself no favours by her allegations without backing them up. The common reaction to that would be to pity her. That that is not Tulsi Gabbard's response makes me wonder a little, but not enough to believe in the conspiracy!
Lost in the media frenzy over Clinton's comment: the Russians are documented to have interfered in 2016, 2018, and 2020. The Russians are involved in the democratic primary attacking Biden and promoting candidates with less chance of defeating Trump in a general election. Russian operations are documented to have promoted Jill Stein and Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primary. They are at work in the 2020 primary largely unchecked. After the Democrats nominate someone, Russian operations will try to launch a 3rd candidate on the left in support of Trump's re-election. Clinton is correct. And as a former candidate defeated by Russian operations and a former Secretary of State, she deserves credit for having a deeper knowledge of these things than the average citizen.
5
@Marc
Oh, yeah, „the most qualified presidential candidate ever“ that lost to the Donald „deserves credit for having a deeper knowledge of these things than the average citizen.“
Please.
Tulsi is justly questioning Hillary’s disastrous record as SOS, so she must be a Russian asset, like anybody else that questions the false Syria narrative peddled by Hillary.
4
There are too many candidates. Some will fall by the wayside, but a lot of damage is possible between now and November. Bernie's vicious attacks on Clinton during the primary gave the Republicans quotable ammo before the election. The Russians would like nothing better than to see the Democrats fall into splinter groups, losing power as they support their own partisan interests. Gore lost to Bush for many reasons, dangling chads, Governor brother, but most damaging was the third party candidate who siphoned votes.
6
The only vicious attacks from Bernie are in your mind. Bernie, the politician with the most integrity, who never ‘attacks’ personally, unlike spiteful, bitter Clinton, who infamously lost to the worst candidate in history, attacked 63 million fellow Americans with her Basket of Deplorables, because they didn’t agree it was Her Turn, which it darn well is not in any sense. Bernie had every reason to answer back her coordinated attacks on him and his agenda, which is now the national agenda, in spite of all her efforts. Instead, he campaigned as hard for her, entreated all of us to vote for her, which made a large number of us feel betrayed, yet he still did it. Bernie2020
3
After reading the column again I would prefer to direct my response more to the author than the issue of HRC;
The author should be aware, considering he’s a law professor, that any argument that fails to anticipate and properly address the counter argument is fatally flawed.
Many of the commentators have noted that HRC was privileged to the highest levels of national intelligence both as the sec state and a major party nominee, therefore we must assume that she has information we (the public) aren’t privy to and if she does have classified information then she is obviously not at liberty to discuss it on a podcast, or anywhere else. HRC is not stupid, she might be out of touch but I doubt she’s going to throw around accusations without having her facts straight.
And if you believe that she’s making baseless claims that only exist in her paranoid head, then you have every right to disregard or disagree but you aren’t right to disrespect her.
Maybe if we had listened to the people who subtly rang the bell in 2016 we have spared ourselves the last 3 years.
Or maybe if people, like HRC, went on a limb and told the public the national intelligence community knew russia was helping trump and undermining the Democrats we would’ve seen the clues that laid in plain sight, as they do today.
Whichever way, with respect I would give his argument a C- .
6
Let's see. We have 200,000 troops in over 150 countries and anyone who thinks maybe this is overdoing is called out as Russian asset? Tulso resigned as vice chair of the Democratic party in 2016, perhaos forced out because she started campaigning for Bernie. HRC seems to hold a special dislike for Tulsi. I wonder why. She ex[ected loyalty in 2016:, she supports the war machine?; or both?
4
Can't you see what's happening? Your nation is splitting apart. The center isn't holding any more.
You're succumbing to conspiracy theories and dark innuendo, espoused from the leading political figures of your nation.
Either you get your act together or America is no more.
3
Mr Wu , you are a fool or foolishly unaware of Russian intelligence ops , that we all are effected by.
This 2% or 5% candidates did not exist before easily dupped social media 5th column activities could be done on the cheap. The KGB has bought itself a network, on the cheap. Putin has taken down American for a couple hundred million? Maybe it was only 10? How much is a Facebook ad and a few Macedonian bogglers? Finance third party Ralph Nader type candidates to bleed the front runner.
Why are these people in the race , still, to begin with? It is unnatural that this is happening , Again!
Secretary Clinton is right. She was right about Trump and everything else.
4
Why shouldn't Hillary be expected to trade in conspiracy theories about Gabbard but also Jill Stein? She has been doing such attacks for her entire career. Remember most prominently her vicious attacks on the women who made allegations about Bill Clinton's inappropriate behavior towards them, including physical assault.
But even more telling is the fervor of the whole Democrat Party to get Trump for something. He was cited for treason by Dem House Committee chairpersons on the basis of the still unverified Steele document. The Steele episode is the embodiment of a criminal violation of US election law by sophisticated DNC/election law firms to use foreign nationals to influence the 2016 presidential election. But Hillary did not know about it? The Mueller document reported that collusion could not be shown. The Mueller document made no judgment on obstruction. I would argue that if you were told by the head of the FBI that you were not under investigation, and believe there was no collusion, then you should strongly resist the loaded opposition actions to take you down. To highlight their hypocrisy, the Dems have taken a last fling at Trump with the Ukraine. The Democrat press reported Trump had spoken with Putin and the Hungarian President before making the Ukraine decision. They fail to mention that Hungary is a NATO member and very wary of Russia. Trump also speaks with the Red Chinese, the North Koreans, and anyone he wants. Hillary and her press are embarrassing.
3
Criticism of HRC in NYT is like stirring a hornet nest. Tulsi in 2016 rightly pointed out that Democratic party and the person I voted for in the general election did snatch it from the Bernie. For HRC to make it a point to comment indirectly about a candidate who barely managed to qualify for primary debates was not called for. I thought we democrats prefer peace over war and is 20 years and 100’s of thousands dead and wounded not enough ?
3
Hillary Clinton is yesterday’s news. No one really cares what she says anymore. I think she made these comments, outrageous as they are, in order to try to be relevant. And I think she made them in the style of Trump, simply because she sees that he knows how to touch a nerve.
6
Having read the statement from Clinton, I believe she was insinuating that the republicans were the groomers, which would make this article a hit piece.
Why is Mr. Wu neglecting the evidence for Russian social media support of Gabbard, as recently reported by The Times itself? Surely that amounts to more than “innuendo.” Surely that information renders Ms Clinton’s assertions plausible. We are not operating without precedent, after all.
3
Just don't report what she says.
3
We are an the juncture of 2020 election and suddenly Tulsi wants some prominance with her one percent support.
Among all Presidential candidated how Tulsi is showing up in all the debates when some other great candidated did not ?
Senator Michael Bennet ring a bell ?
Why are we not talking about him who would make a great President or VP .
Yes Russia interfered in 2006 and why they won`t again in 2020 ?
3
Mr Wu is missing the point entirely. This is not difficult material either. Secretary Clinton never said that Tulsi Gabbard is a Russian asset nor did she say that Representative Gabbard is conspiring or colluding with Russia. In fact she said nothing of the kind. She said the Russians are preparing the way and building support for Gabbard to run as a third-party candidate should Gabbard fall short of achieving the Democratic nomination.
This has entirely to do with Russia's support for Donald Trump and nothing else. The Russians know that Trump needs a liberal third-party candidate to siphon votes from the Democratic nominee. Just as Ralph Nader was responsible for electing George W. Bush in 2000 and Jill Stein was responsible for electing Donald Trump in 2016.
While Secretary Clinton didn't accuse Gabbard of being a Russian asset, she did make the claim about Jill Stein. But this is not really open to dispute. Stein didn't need to conspire with the Russians to do their bidding. She only needed to run for President. I believe the technical term is "useful idiot." Secretary Clinton has issued a vital early warning to Tulsi Gabbard and anyone else who might play the spoiler in 2020 not to be Putin's useful idiot.
A sensible response from Gabbard would have been to reiterate her pledge not to run as a third party candidate. Possibly she missed Clinton's point as thoroughly as Mr Wu did.
3
I held my nose when I voted for Hillary. Now it seems I must plug my ears so I don't hear from her anymore.
8
Just maybe, as in 2016, she knows what she is talking about.
4
Clinton’s remark was strategic genius (as much as I dislike her I have to say). Why? It was preemptive. Who is to say that The Kremlin is not thinking again of a diversion a la Jill Stein (without whose candidacy as a left independent Clinton would be president now: perhaps an uninspiring one, but still far from the historic aberration of a swindling tax cheating incompetent arrogant self-centred lowlife being in the WH). If Gabbard indeed will be tempted on that route later on, Clinton’s early warning could be able to avert it (in other words Gabbard’s moves will be closely checked by the media and political rivals.
4
With all due respect to Dr. Wu, I think Hillary Clinton is better informed than he is. I don't know who wrote the subheadline but whoever it was is spreading innuendo themselves with the "not just paranoia" framing. Shame on them. If you don't think people are out there (still!) actively trying to destroy Hillary Clinton (and American values in general), you must have been born yesterday.
4
Racism comes in all forms. First, one needs to know that every freedom fighter does not need to be supported by USA. They create more trouble and become our next enemy. Also, Tulsi is not of Indian origin if we are continuing to attack brown people for being brown. Also she is not a Hindu if we are getting scared of nonChristians. She practices Hinduism; but one can only be a Hindu if one is born to one. So put away the conspiracy and be happy that you are not going to join the ranks of Giuliani or Welch.
1
Let’s connect the dots. Tulsi Gabbard is a solid friend and apologist of Prime Minister’s Modi’s right-wing government in India. Russia and India have had close ties since India’s independence from Britain. The Trump-Modi-Putin triad of would-be dictators is pretty tight: birds of a feather flock together.
3
No paranoia. The Russians stole the Presidency from her.
3
That is all good and well BUT Hillary Clinton told us during the 2016 debates that Trump was a Russian puppet...and he is! So, you can call it conspiracy theories but I believe her.
4
This is just Hillary's lame attempt to remain in the conversation. Nothing more. nothing less.
2
Clinton was Secretary of State.
Who knows what she knows.
My doctor says I have cancer, I'm going to do everything I can to treat it.
If Flynn is a communist dupe, why not Gabbard?
Gabbard walks the walk and talks the talk.
If Clinton says Gabbard is a Russian asset you bet I am going to treat her like one.
I was burned by the Russian once and it will take more than a Columbia law professor to convince me to take a flyer on Gabbard.
There is a fine line between being politically correct and just plain stupid.
I choose common sense every time.
4
Russia would like the US out of the M.E. so is anyone who is against our presence in the ME a Russian asset?
2
Both women's comments were childish and should never have been made. Isn't it telling that Tim Wu condemned Clinton but not Gabbard? It's still "get Hillary" time.
1
I don't believe that Hilary Clinton is engaging in conspiracy theories. There is sooo much evidence. This country is under attack from Russia. Believe it.
4
‘.......it is a terrible thing to label candidates as “Russian assets” based on their views alone.” To write such a statement without backing it with evidence is doing exactly what the author is accusing Hillary of doing.
2
HRC, please, for the sake of the country, disappear from the public sphere. Go to a cave and talk to the stones.
Why the LIBERAL media people even talk to her? She was bad then, she is worse now.
She is and will be a destruction of any possibility of the Democratic victory in the coming elections.
Mr. Wu, thank you for making an eloquent point in an elegant way.
3
Clinton's biggest mistake is giving publicity to Gabbard, who was barely on the radar screen before.
1
How come nobody ever complains about Gary Johnson running for president in 2016? He got way more votes than Jill Stein.
2
The problem is that it is Hillary being Hillary.
Democrats don't see themselves in that.
The rest of the electorate does. That is the real danger for the next election.
Hillary just highlighted it.
And Tulsi's response was perfect: "the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party."
That's YOU, Democrats. You fell for it, and you've been acting like that.
No matter how disgusted voters are with Trump, they are also disgusted with this. They were disgusted enough that even Trump won last time.
Don't do it again.
That is what "the problem is."
6
Poor Hillary. She's actually started believing her own propaganda. Doesn't she realize that the whole Russia Gate story was concocted as a cover and excuse for her stunning lose to Trump?
It was done to save face. But, you also have to credit the security agencies that created this nonsense. Given Hillary's lose, why not at least seize the moment and use it to promote the security state's agenda?
They've got the cable news shows, the WaPost and the NYTimes and most other news outlets simply play follow the leader. There are some that actually dig a bit and have found gapping holes in the story. But they are not on the news night after night like a Rachel Maddow or Wolf Blitzer.
There could be one problem with the Russia conspiracy story, and that's the courts. Judges require real evidence and allow it to be cross examined. Let's hope those cases don't get too far so this story doesn't unravel. Thank God Hillary won't ever have to take the stand. She would blow the cover as badly as she blew the election.
4
The overwhelming response to Hillary's comments among Democrats in my circles was "I wish she would just shut up." I have to agree. If Hillary really wanted to help she should just go stay in Mar-a-lago and sit outside the conference halls, waving at all the radical hate groups meeting there. That would at least solve the emoluments problem because no-one else would stay there any more.
3
I won't or...shouldn't be the first one to say this, "You don't need to even be aware that you have been targeted as an (hopefully in this case)..'unwitting' asset"
Unwitting or no, you can follow your heart your philosophies, and the Russians will find a way to color your efforts in anyway they think may benefit them, for example..favorably in Kansas yet demonized in Seattle.
On the other hand could Ms. Gabbard be aware..even in on this?..does Hill know somethin' we don't?..hmmm?
Mr. Putin is happily reading through these comments as they are being translated.
Did someone say "former KGB officer"?
1
It seems Hillary Clinton is an asset of Trump’s. Her statements about Gabbard plays right into his hands.
Ms. Clinton, you lost the Presidency to a sociopathic huckster. We really don’t need your help right now.
2
The Clinton/DNC hatred of Rep. Gabbard has its roots in 2016. As a DNC Vice Chair, Gabbard saw the inner workings of the DNC machine as it touted Clinton and beat down Sen. Sanders. Rather than stay complicit in that situation, Gabbard resigned from her DNC post and endorsed Bernie.
Shortly thereafter, Gabbard received an email (made public in the WikiLeaks dump, as John Podesta was cc'd) from a pair of "brand managers" - Joe Biden and Anderson Cooper are among their clients - named Darnell Strom and Michael Kives, expressing "disappointment" at her decision to endorse Sanders and informing her in so many words that she was now persona non grata in the DNC establishment.
The NY Times played along with the HRC/DNC scheme in 2016; the one article that had anything positive to say about Bernie was written by the Senator himself. This year Rep. Gabbard is in the Times's crosshairs, with at least two outrageous smear articles appearing in the last month.
Mrs. Clinton's record as Senator and Secretary of State is drenched in the blood of thousands of Iraqis, Libyans, Hondurans, Syrians and other innocents killed in wars and coups she supported in countries that weren't attacking the United States. As a decorated combat veteran, President Gabbard will keep the US military strong while keeping the maximum number of innocent civilians alive.
7
@Charles, good input, well put.
3
Hillary Clinton is an imbecile. To suggest that Tulsi Gabbard is a Russian agent is laughable. In fact, to infer it during Tulsi’s run for the Presidency is nothing short of insulting.
Normally I’d say any exposure is good exposure for Tulsi but during election time, any presumed connection to Russia is harmful, especially considering that the Republicans have this connection sewed up.
I never cared much for Hillary but she is losing her marbles. I admired Hillary’s health care plan attempt during her husband’s time in office but lately I think she needs to take up a hobby like knitting.
Tulsi should be careful however. Russia, while apparently favoring Tulsi can also damage her. Fake news abounds. There will be 10x more disinformation this election season compared to last, and at least half of America will soak it up no matter how ludicrous.
So Tulsi, my dear, tread carefully. Keep on message. Democracy first, troops home. You may not beat the front runners but you’re a viable Vice President nominee.
I’m rooting for you and Elizabeth. And now, I totally understand Bill’s fascination with Monica.
4
Poor Hillary. She's got a long long way to go to catch up to Trump's conspiracy theories. And trust me, she's smart as a whip and knows what's going on.
I am with Hillary on this. It matters little that Jill Stein knew she was being used by the Russians, or Gabbard is so naive as to think Assad a wonderful person wronged by the US. We should be aware of the misinformation campaign that is planted in candidates minds. So thank you Hillary for your astute deductions.
Gabbard is so naive on Syria that it is laughable she is on a presidential platform. Why does she not also talk about the White Helmets who were a coalition of civilians against Assad? This group was supported by us, Europe, Japan and Israel to name a few nations. Yes there were controversies regarding them and news they were not all they were meant to be.....Russian propoganda? The truth? Who knows, but if you support a nation with a leader viewed as a rogue by almost everyone, then how about you do your homework? As for Stein, she did have dinner with Putin. Why would you be invited to have dinner with the Russian president if you are a nobody? Would it not puzzle you? I think I'd like all the information, fake news, surmises, propoganda, bring them all out, I'd like to chew on it all and make up my own mind. Please don't point fingers at Hillary, she is merely ensuring we get different facets of the picture.
3
Yeah... no.
Stipulating upfront to my biases here--that I find Gabbard's coddling of dictators strategically daft and morally abhorrent, and that her past virulent homophobia and ties to a cult are really worrisome--I also see legitimate grounds for the charge. The activity of bots and online trolls to support Gabbard is documented. Her simpatico with white nationalists like Tucker Carlson can be seen most weekday evenings on basic cable. And other than "non-interventionist" views that coincidentally happen to perfectly align with Russia's strategic interests, she hasn't been out front on a single policy issue.
Certainly it's possible she's nothing more than what the Bolsheviks called a "useful idiot." But that would be some industrial-strength idiocy, and doesn't change the evident fact that whatever her goal is, it's not to defeat Trump next year.
3
Hilary needs to keep her mouth shut about the Democrat primary and its hopefuls. I voted for her in the 2016 election but wasn’t 100% happy about it. Of course she would have made a much better President than Trump, no doubt. But she is making things worse for 2020.
I’m not sure where this came from but we sure don’t need more conspiracy theories out there. Just because someone has a different outlook on issues doesn’t make them “Russian Assets."
1
Clinton is in a unique position to speak out on possible interference in our upcoming election. First and foremost, our president along with 99% of his supporters and half of the Congress of the United States is in denial that something , anything of significance ever happened in the last election. Second, and equally important, she is not a candidate. To suggest that her motives are paranoia on the one hand and vindictiveness on the other does a great disservice to a person who has devoted her life to public service, and not without great cost. She is an honorable and honest observer, not unlike Jimmy Carter. If we fail to listen to her it is at our own peril.
2
I voted for her in 2016, because there was not another choice.She and her husband and daughter need to go away.Thank you for your service.
5
Progressives still think she’s qualified to be President. Let that sink in.
1
And Tulsi should not be trading in conspiracy theories about the democratic party.
She's not catching on. Although that may not be the Russian's fault, neither is it the democratic party's fault.
1
Of course, Tulsi shouldn't have voiced her embrace of GOP-fueled Clinton conspiracies either.
2
I am still not sure what the point is, of all this anti -Russia hysteria ginned up by the Establishment and its media.
It seems like an excuse made to fit an agenda.
If the US citizenry is so dumb as to be influenced by the minuscule amount of social media Russia did.... the US has other problems that are probably unsolvable.
Hillary was a terrible candidate, a Wall Street supporting, war monger, with a sexual predator for a husband.
Under no circumstances would I have ever voted for her.
Free of the Clintons, the Democratic Party is better able to become the party of and for ordinary Americans.
Someone is now going to accuse me of being a Russian agent.
What a country.
Really sad for the world, if it can't come up with better leadership than the US offers.
8
Ms. Gabbard served as the on-site Fox propaganda mouthpiece during the Democratic debate. Hannity should reward her with an in-person interview so she can pick up a few right-wing zealots for her staff.
2
Does anyone else view this as reflecting anti-HRC bias looking for a reason to hang on?
1
Emails hoopla officially buried today. Aside from Toobin, press corps: not even a miserable mea culpa from anyone who milked that story all the way to her loss of the Presidency. The day is not even over, and here's Wu schooling her... You are really a class act, guys...
1
There's just something odd about Gabbard. I can't put my finger on it but usually my instincts are spot on. We will watch and see.
3
@karen We're going to convict people based on your instincts?
3
Hillary Clinton was only talking about the tactics of the Russians and never named Gabbard.
Ms. Gabbard returned the fire by talking about ROT in the Democratic Party.
To me, Ms. Gabbard implicated herself. Cannot stand her now.
2
@Pat
Yeah, many of us feel the same way about appeasers and disingenuous dissemblers.
Smearing a presidential candidate in the midst of an election, one who is a sitting senator with Top Secret security clearance and who is a decorated war veteran...meh, happens all the time. We expect it from Trump and the Republicans. It is their MO. Just as some of us expect it from the Dems and the Clinton machine. They hired David Brock and gave him multi millions of dollars for ONE reason.
https://theintercept.com/2019/02/03/nbc-news-to-claim-russia-supports-tulsi-gabbard-relies-on-firm-just-caught-fabricating-russia-data-for-the-democratic-party/
4
After the Russians attacked our elections, who better to make this statement?
2
Moscow likes any American pushing an isolationist foreign policy that rejects the attempt to weaken Russia as a world player just as the mainstream foreign policy and media here dotes religiously on the Russian opposition to Putin. from Pussy Riot to Alexi Navalny.
The Russians claim all American support for the opposition is part of a sinister conspiracy; Clinton mirrors that charge in classic Cold War symmetry.
Guess what? The heartland stopped caring about any of this three years ago. If the Dems don't stop running Jeremy Corbyn-lite and/or Back to the Future Joe, Trump will win even bigger in 2020. Not everyone takes their cues from Mika's frowns on Morning Joe.
Also noteworthy that Hillary generated free publicity just as she was promoting yet another lame book by her daughter so the family can make yet more money.
2
Liberals are channeling their inner insecurity and hypocrisy against a smart and successful woman --Ms. Gabbard.
Surprisingly, many right here.
Shockingly, more women than men.
Who'd've thunk?
4
It seems to me that Hillary was really the Russians' candidate of choice. They had her in their back pocket.
When the Russians wanted to acquire 20% of America's uranium the Russians gave her and her phony-baloney foundation $32 million and, in exchange, Hillary's State Department readily signed off on that deal. (Where was Obama on this?)
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html
7
So let's talk about Hillary Clinton and the New York Times. The Justice Department after years of investigating HRC for her e-mail problems, have stated that their was nothing to it. I wonder how much it costs us for this investigation. After years of "lock her up" from the Republicans, there was nothing. So Rachel Maddow reminded us that the major newspaper accuser was the New York Times. I think after dozens of front page articles assuming her guilt, I think the New York Times should have a front page apology.
2
There's another reality to both Hillary's audacious conspiracy theories and Dr. Wu's more reasoned mainstream views of Tulsi Gabbard (but which are likewise disparaging). Matt Taibbi's recent Rolling Stone article provides some needed counter-weight.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/clinton-gabbard-russian-asset-jill-stein-901593/
3
The Goldman Sachs asset known as HIllary Clinton has a lot to say about why it's other people's fault she blew the election.
5
I was very disappointed by Hillary's comments. Why she would choose to senselessly slander a fellow democrat is beyond me. Has she learned nothing from her own experience?
2
The root of the conspiracy theory is the presence of a lobbyist for Russia, Chris Cooper, on Gabbard's staff as a 'crisis manager.' In light of the recent experience with Manafort, this should raise a red flag. Hillary Clinton built a conspiracy theory on this fact, but Gabbard herself has some explaining to do. Who is this Chris Cooper?
1
I wish Ms. Clinton would just go away, and take her sour grapes with her.
5
It is only a conspiracy theory if it is not true. Sadley it is true that Russian bots and trolls are very active in the 2020 election. They are promoting Trump and Democrat candidates that they believe Trump can beat. Tulsi is one of the Russian favorites and is benefiting from Russian bots and trolls. You may not like the way Clinton said it, but it is not a conspiracy theory.
3
Remember the overwhelming “outrage” when Trump attackeked MCCain? Where are those people today? Was it just politicians then rather than principle? Where is Kahn? America can see what’s going on with these Democrats.
2
Hillary Clinton's visceral hatred of her enemies, real and imagined, is just as strong as Trump's. Trump is catastrophic as president, but I cannot for a minute regret Clinton not achieving the presidency. Compared to Trump, she's just a bad horse of a different color. I wish she would take her life private and keep it there. She's no asset to the Democratic party or anyone else.
4
Hillary is absolutely correct, the lady is a Russian communist shill; so is Sanders; and Trump, and Pence; and Bob the Builder; and Smokey the Bear; - and anyone else who might in any way disagree with feeding our kids and our treasure into the Military-Industrial Complex’ profit wheel.
Corporate Democrats will never allow true change to occur. They’ll spend billions to make sure sexually confused folks get to choose their bathroom on a daily basis - but they’ll never interfere with the economic status quo.
4
Just look at the comments on yahoo articles about Tulsi. They
are infested by badly built bot posts claiming to be from conservatives in her favor. Given her polling she couldn't get elected dog catcher, so I don't know what the Russians think they're doing.
2
I'm no huge fan of HRC, but facts are facts. The Russian did in fact create pro Stein social media content as part of their effort to defeat HRC.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/17/russian-propagandists-targeted-african-americans-2016-election
Stein's candidacy was about as purposeful as that of Vermin Supreme (and far less chuckle inducing). While she did not cost HRC the election, she certainly was an asset to Donald Trump.
Was she a witting Russian spy? Almost certainly not. Was her pointless candidacy used as a tool to help elect Trump. Yes.
3
Wow. To hear the Clintonistas defending HRC’s unsubstantiated attacks on Tulsi Gabbard reminded me of . . . Hillary’s attacks on Monica. (Less so the attacks on Paula Jones and Juanita Broaddrick, but still).
True, this attack has more of a “tin foil hat” element to it. But it does have the same win at all cost smell of desperation and dishonesty.
And why? She is not going to win anything now.
6
Tulsi Gabbard is just a flamethrower whose flame is about out. HillaryClinton is a senior statesman who is more than free to speak her mind.
tulsi is doing the Russians biding, plain and simple
2
As a Democrat, the only and I mean the only marginally possibly good thing about Trump's victory was that it meant (so I thought) that we would no longer have have to deal with the dead hand of the Clintonism while making excuses for the Clintons. (Why was Bill on Epstein's plane so often?)
Silly me.
Hillary is corrupt, narcissistic, and dishonest. I voted for her because the Republicans managed to nominate someone even more corrupt, more narcissistic, and more dishonest. He is, in fact, evil: unlike Hillary, Trump takes sadistic delight in hurting people and doing wrong.
Gabbard was entirely right when she described Clinton as the "personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic party for so long."
I had hoped Hillary was gone forever, but no such luck.
6
I'm 73. I've been a Democrat ever since I could vote--on election day 1968, when I voted for Hubert Humphrey. I have never voted for a Republican for President. But I am tired of Democrats who seem to have learned nothing from the Viet Nam War, which I actively opposed. I am tired of Democrats who get elected and reveal themselves to be hawks.
Ms. Gabbard speaks with clarity to those Democrats who believe that the US should not continually sacrifice its soldiers, sailors and airmen and women in service to the idea that the US must be the world's police officer. Opposing that position is not equal to isolationism; it is a position that supports the idea that humanitarian intervention in world affairs and more specifically in the internal affair of sovereign nations should be undertaken after serious consideration and in concert with other nations. Ms. Gabbard's language is in no way a product of anti-American rhetoric but in fact a reflection of home-grown American interventionists' language. Specifically, "regime change" is a descriptor used by American officials for at least a generation. Characterizing Ms. Clinton as a "warmonger" is similarly in bounds, considering her vote for the Iraq War and other such interventions. It may sound heated and disrespectful to some, but it pales in comparison to Ms. Clinton's labelling Rep. Gabbard, a distinguished active member of the US Army, as a Russian "asset." And we know whom she meant--the person who endorsed Sanders in 2016.
6
The debate is legitimate. The amplification of one or other side of the debate by foreign countries looking to influence our elections isn't.
Can we just ignore Hillary and Bill?
3
Let's get rid of the Electoral College. That is what the true interference is in our Election process and what actually keeps us from a real Democratic Election. When you remember why it was put in place in the beginning, our Founding Fathers not wanting any man who was not a Landowner voting, it is clear that they only wanted men of means voting. Not the least bit Democratic is it?
If the Russians and the Alt-right are interfering with Tulsi Gabbard's candidacy they should be stopped immediately.
Gabbard is one of the few who have served in the Military who believe we should not be interfering in foreign wars. What is wrong with that. I would say she has a clear eyed perspective on this particular issue. She has been there.
3
I agree with this column. If there is real evidence that an individual, whether or not a candidate for elective office, is a foreign asset, that should be quietly investigated by the appropriate law enforcement agencies. Unsubstantiated public accusations do not advance our national conversation.
That said, Tulsi Gabbard's response was less than presidential. We really don't need another Tweeter-in-Chief.
3
Excellent analysis! A lifelong Democrat and New Yorker,I remain perplexed with her ill advised timing and actions.I still believe that Sanders did not get a fair shake in the 2016 primaries, but I voted for Clinton in the general election nonetheless.We all have reasons to feel life is not fair;take it up privately in the therapist's office not in the media.To talk despairingly about a woman, a veteran, fellow democrat and to do it in that forum is discouraging to those of us who supported you for many years.
6
She was careful about not mentioning anyone by name, but it was easy to infer who she was talking about. (When I refer to an unnamed person, I'm careful about giving no clues.)
Suspecting an age-related judgment error on Hillary Clinton's part.
2
Can the NYTs or other publications seriously verify or debunk the accusations made by Secretary Clinton?
3
HRC doesn't speak frivolously. If she says something, there's something to it. We may not have all the information that she has about it. Gabbard and Stein's response to her seemed to be straight out of Russian talking points. Gabbard tried to draw her into the Primary. Why? Maybe because Trump has already beaten HRC. Russia, Trump and Co., would like HRC to get in the race to do it all over again. HRC seems to have learned a thing or two from Trump's playbook and is now fighting fire with fire.
3
No opinion piece on her emails being a total media and GOP fabrication?
3
@Alfie
Horrible about how they made up that story about a private server in her house and how she used it for official government business—including classified emails.
3
Tulsi Gabbard is to be admired for her righteous anger and rejection of Hillary Clinton’s absurd innuendo. The former First Lady’s conspiracy theory amounts to a subtle demand that Tulsi drop out of the primary race. Presumably, Tulsi then ought to direct her supporters to back another primary candidate. Of course Clinton doesn’t name the Democratic Primary candidate benefiting from Gabbard’s supporters. And she would denounce Donald Trump for corruption! What a hypocrite! Go Tulsi! She’s bright, honest, articulate, and the best looking Presidential Democratic candidate since JFK. And she’s female.
8
Hillary should stay quiet, she is not helping the democrat party. Tulsi is a nobody with less than 1% of the vote who would merely disappear if ignored.
6
Ok, fine. I’ll go back to vocally discrediting Gabbard because she’s a homophobe and a hack. No conspiracy theories necessary—just look at her record.
4
The reason I had to hold my nose voting for Clinton in 2016. Queen of warmongers is simple truth.
7
1. Clinton never mentioned Gabbard by name. The media flew to that conclusion. 2.Clinton was earning that the Russians will try to divide the Democrats. She did well. Forewarned is forearmed. 3. The media would never have mentioned the bots and take web sites if Clinton hasn't spoken. And finally, Clinton microcomputer Gabbard's motives. She stated that Gabbard was being groomed . If you had been doing your jobs as journalists, wE would have already read the reports. Get off your rocking horses and start working.
3
any dictator that uses chemical weapons on its citizens ( children) deserves regime change
2
Damascus, Syria, April 4th, 2007:
"Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, met here today with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria and discussed a variety of Middle Eastern issues"
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/04/world/middleeast/04cnd-pelosi.html
OMG. Looks like the third-in-line to the US Presidency (Speaker Pelosi) is an Assad apologist/supporter. And Assad and Putin are so-called allies. By default, that makes Pelosi a "Russian Asset" also.
Of course, the above conclusion comes from utilizing my HRC thinking skills...which I have honed by watching the MSNBC comedy channel.
7
Time for Hillary to write a book or two to keep her occupied.
3
Mrs. Clinton: We the people (the rest of us anyway) are perfectly capable of figuring out who is compromised and who has ethics. We don't need you to tell us anything. Please, just disappear from public view for eternity. You have nothing positive to contribute to the society any longer. We don't need you.
7
The shoe that fits Putin's foot does not need to know who wears it
1
Hundreds and hundreds of pro Tulsi and pro Trump bots were activated the day after this news broke.
Should I not question their motivation?
2
"Being in a propaganda war with Russia is not a good reason to become more like Russia ourselves. "
No, Mr. Wu, Hilary Clinton was not acting like Vladimir Putin. She was acting like Joe McCarthy.
5
I agree Hillary is a neocon war-monger, particularly for Israel, but that doesn’t make Gabbard any less a Russian asset.
By the way, if you look at Gabbard’s social media, it is inundated with right-wing bots and trolls lambasting the Democrats. I don’t need Hillary to tell me what I can discern with my own two eyes and common sense.
I thought Gabbard was a Russian asset before it was cool. And yes, Ms. Gabbard knows she is an asset too. If I can figure it out, why can’t she? And if she can’t, she isn’t fit to be President.
2
Hillary accused Tulsi Gabbard of treason. That is defamation of character, and if I were Tulsi I would sue.
7
Tulsi Gabbard is fearless. And the U.S. media is ignoring her & trying to keep her down. In one fell swoop she basically demolished that phony Harris. She slightly went after Warren in the last debate to join her in ending these wasteful wars. That was a swipe at Warren for voting this year for the 735 billion defense bill. To see Tulsi run with Bernie would be like a dream. She is articulately brilliant. There is an interview with her & John Stossel on you tube, check it out. I like Ms Clinton and think she gets a raw deal, but she cant hold a candle to Tulsi Gabbard
7
Hillary Clinton never mentioned Tulsi Gabbard. Ms. Gabbard took the bait.
3
Hillary thank you for your service. Now PLease go away.
8
Trust but verify.
Clinton never named a name and Gabbard just filled herself right in. Really give you something to think about, don't you think?
1
I trust the former Secretary's lifelong experience serving our country over your Ivory Tower conspiracy theory.
3
HRC was red baiting. Plain and simple. This is anti-democratic behavior.
9
On the day this article is published, NYTs have published an article about election interference efforts for the 2020 election by Russia and Iran via Facebook. What is someone supposed to do? Wait for our elected officials to address the issue? Meh.
1
A good time to remember that Hilary said that the sexual accusations against her husband were a vast right wing conspiracy. If she has nothing to prove that Gabbard is working for Russia, she has just made a fool of herself. A
9
Thank you Mr. Wu, finally the Times has an article that accurately reflects the very divisive and unsubstantiated claim of Hillary Clinton who should know better.
5
Jill Stein sat at the same table in Moscow with host Vladimir Putin and fellow "guest" Michael Flynn (Trump security advisor about to go to prison as a secret, paid operative for Turkey, among other felonies).
Stein drained enough votes as a third-party candidate in key states that Trump won by a sliver of the electorate, putting him into office.
Secretly promoting unwitting third-party candidates is an easy method for Russia to keep its useful idiot in power. At least until the day the popular vote replaces the non-democratic winner-take-all electoral college.
Once Trump's financials and tax filings are ouf, it will be obvious why Pelosi observed all Trump's moves lead to (i.e., from) Moscow.
1
I don’t think Gabbard intentionally wants to help the Russians. Clinton did not imply that. I think she is what the CIA and FBI describe as a useful idiot. And Clinton was right about Jill Stein. She was at Putin’s table with Michael Flynn at the Russia Today 10th anniversary dinner in Dec. 2015 in Moscow. Where there’s smoke...
1
Russia is meddling. And they have the gall to meddle in many direct ways, including running propaganda machines to prop up potential third party candidates. That's known. It's not a conspiracy.
Gabbard has some views that comport with my own, but she is out in left field on others. As far as all the candidates running on the Dem side, she's pretty far down there. But she is also getting some weird support from identified Russian propaganda, most of it goading her to run as a third party candidate.
All that is needed to cement a Trump victory is a third party candidacy that splits Dem support. It doesn't matter who it is. The Russians can prop up Big Bird as a third party alternative to the Dem candidate and Trump would win. It's THAT easy. So it's no wonder that Russia is employing it as a strategy.
1
Once again the Clintons show how they just don’t know when to get off the stage.
114
Understand the message.
Don’t get distracted by the messenger.
Otherwise America will get 4 more years of Trump.
Maybe that is what America wants.
4
@doug mclaren
And why should they? Is Biden off of it?
She's probably right, and we would all do well by listening more to her, not trying to shut her up.
9
@doug mclaren
What Clinton said makes some degree of sense. Gabbard has about zero chance to win the Democratic nomination. Her presence is nothing but a distraction from those who do. It would make sense that if the Russians were to attempt sowing seeds of discord and mistrust within the American electorate, Gabbard would be the perfect tool. She's already been yapping about the DNC 'rigging' the '20 election and that very 'rigging' issue with Sanders helped sink the Dem's ship in '16. For anyone hoping for a Trump win in '20, keeping her on the stage for as long as possible is a good thing.
6
I am a lifelong Democrat and Tulsi Gabbard sickens me and I find her views repulsive.
Bashar Assad has sent his warplanes to bomb his own cities. His secret police have tortured children. He has repeatedly used chemical weapons on innocent men, women, and children. He has caused five million of his own people to be displaced and another five million to become refugees, and those refugees fleeing his tyranny and barbarity have caused rightwing governments to take over Hungary, Poland, Italy, and Austria, and helped cause Brexit in England. Assad is responsible for the deaths of over 600,000 people.
Assad should be tried at the Hague for crimes against humanity. Hillary Clinton believed this when she was Secretary of State and along with the head of the CIA, and the Secretary of Defense she pleaded with Obama to have no fly zones where Syrians fleeing the murderous onslaught of Assad could remain in Syria protected from their dictator.
The French, British and other nations agreed to be part of this coalition but Obama refused.
I am not a fan of Ms. Clinton but she got this one right. When she hears Ms. Gabbard defend the butcher of Damascus and make excuses for him and defend Vladimir Putin who has helped murder hundreds of thousands of people in Syria and subverted our elections her blood must boil. I know that mine does.
Tusli Gabbard should not be on the debate stage with any other democrat. She is an anathema to what both political parties and our nation stands for.
2
@Mark Jeffery Koch
"He has caused five million of his own people to be displaced and another five million to become refugees,"
Say what?
Not saying Assad was a saint, but Syria was an imperfect but prosperous, multiethnic and secular sovereign state.
Then Obama, Biden and Hillary decided to overthrow the sovereign, elected, internationally recognized government of Syria, yet another attempted regime change disaster (on the heels of their complete destruction of Libya), betraying the people of Syria in order to support regime change and expand American power.
And you blame Assad for the dead and the refugees?
Ridiculous.
4
Hillary did not attack Gabbard. She attacked the Russians. And Hillary is probably right about what they are doing.
3
Superb article! Unanswerable points! Thank you, Professor Wu. The less I hear from the profoundly uninspired Hillary Clinton, the better for me and the nation.
5
Do Gabbard and Stein accept money and support from Putin or not? Can we at least try to care about the facts? The American people should be the ones to decide whether it matters or not.
At this point I think that Hillary Clinton ought to stay out of the fray. None of this is about her. If she can't resist saying things she should remember this: if you have nothing nice or constructive to say keep it to yourself.
4
Hillary can't get over the 2016 election, so she accuses Gabbard and Jill Stein of being 'Russian assets.' Take a chill, Hillary, this isn't helpful for Democrats, and only reassures the 68 million people who voted for Trump that they did the right thing.
8
I, too, think there's something sort of Jill Stein about both Tulsi and Marianne Williamson. But I haven't voiced it out loud yet. And I really wish Hillary hadn't, either. I have enormous respect for Hillary, but wish she could find that quiet, former statesperson role and stick to it. Then, when the chips are down, she could chime in and her words would carry real weight.
Hillary should do whatever she wants, and other than apologizing profusely to her and to the rest of the country, the press should stay far, far away from commenting on it
1
Oh please.
Spare us any sort of spirited defense of Tulsi Gabbard. So many of the most egregious, dishonest, far right-wing hypocrites have openly lauded her, and there's a reason for it. I make a deliberate effort once a week to listen to portions of the radio shows of some of the most well known Republican trump supporters. Without fail, if there's the occasion for Gabbard's name to come up, they speak highly of her, often describing her as "the only Democrat who makes any sense." Bannon loves her. Fox News loves her. She'd be serving in the WH if trump had offered her a position. She tried to spin her past horrendous comments and actions against gay folks, even gay youth, by stating that her time in the service changed her thinking on that issue, yet in a 2014 interview with OZY, she allegedly claimed that her own personal opinions had really not changed. Once again, it took Hillary Clinton to have the insight and the courage to speak the truth about this Democratic imposter. I'm sickened by these faux progressives, including hordes of Sanders supporters, who defend this woman.
4
Hillary Clinton needs to realize SHE blew the last election. She was a damaged candidate and now she carries her grievance wherever she goes. It is not helping America heal.
6
Mrs. Clinton has no credibility with me. She is bitter and angry and needs to let go after a lousy campaign that was not inevitable because she was unelectable from the start. It is time for her to leave the stage and stop pretending her opinion matters to anybody.
6
Our elections are being manipulated. Hillary Clinton pointed to the obvious point that Tulsi Gabbard, whether she knew it or not, id being groomed by the Russians. Jill Stein was also used by the Russians to help defeat Hillary, and make Trump president. One can argue that this cannot be proven, in which case we have nothing to discuss (meaning we have a difference in opinion). However, if one accepts the contention that Jill Stein cost Hillary the election, and she was propped up by Russian bots, then one can understand how Tulsi can be playing the same role, and she must not allowed to. Two thumbs up for Hillary for outing Tulsi. Tulsi was never a front line contender, and she can only be a spoiler. If she has been dismantled by Hilary's comment, gthe nation owes her a ton of gratitude.
1
@RR
So you are justifying Hillary's new conspiracy theory about Tulsi Gabbard with Hillary's old conspiracy theory about losing because of Russia and Jill Stein.
Brilliant.
2
@RR: I can’t accept the contention that Jill Stein cost Hillary Clinton the Presidential election of 2016, as it (necessarily) presupposes that people who voted for Ms. Stein *could* have cast their votes for Ms. Clinton, instead: a supposition that might be defensible in an alternate universe, where green is red and up is sideways, but not, IMO, in the one we inhabit.
Reading the columns posted so far only reaffirms that some Democrats are as looney as any on the extreme right.
It is also true that just as no matter what Trump does, he will always have people who defend him to the end, so with the Clintons—there is no corruption, nastiness or, like now, lunacy that their true believers won’t clamor to support.
Absurd.
7
@Alberto
I second that.
Clintonism is like a malignant cancer for the Democratic Party that just won't go away.
1
Yes she should. If the government hadn't hidden its head in the sand w/ respect to Russia's aggressive favoring of Trump maybe she would be president now.
Has everyone gone mad?
When did going to war become the reasonable, cautious instinct, and the choice not to go to war become the weird, outrageous idea? How is accepting that the devil we know (Assad) is better than getting into another regime change horror show the same as "supporting" that dictator?
All Hillary continues to prove in her endless Syrian war mongering is that intelligence does not equal wisdom.
Imagine the complexity, danger, cost, misery, foreign policy and human catastrophe which was the Iraq War, and then triple or quadruple that when thinking about how we "must" jump into Syria, as Hillary would have had us do as president. We would not just be facing off with Syria's forces, but Russia's, Iran's, Turkey's and countless militias.
I thank God that President Obama had the strength and wisdom to refuse to get pulled into that bloody morass, while every reflexive, blood-thirsty war monger, including his own Secretary of State, was demanding he get us into another Middle East war.
6
@Livonian
Good points. The disaster in Libya is a case in point.
2
Hillary has already done more than enough damage to this country. Her corrupt DNC ‘deal’ forced herself upon us, whether she was the president we chose or not. Her only, bitter reason for running was ‘My Turn’. She lost to the worst candidate in history. She disdains or destroys anyone she doesn’t have use for. She used ‘public service’ for personal wealth accumulation. And her faux feminism shows again with her treatment of Bill’s victims and most lately, her inappropriate attacks on a woman warrior with integrity, because she dared, unlike Warren, to endorse Bernie. And we are left with a more deeply polarized country. GO AWAY, all Clintons. Predator Bill. Clueless and privileged Chelsea. Go enjoys your millions. We do not need your political dynasty.
7
Right message, wrong messenger.
Suspicions about Gabbard have considerable merit, but Hillary needs to shut up and let someone credible do the talking - someone who isn’t pushing her truckload of personal baggage up Credibility Mountain. Every word she says is merely red meat to Trump’s base. The Clintons would best serve the country and themselves by taking a long slow holiday between now and November 2020, to places far off the grid, preferably both incognito and incommunicado.
2
Clinton needs to stay away from these unfounded Republicanesque conspiracy theories, that she’s been throwing around, by the way this isn’t her first foray into wild conspiracy theories with no basis. During the Investigations into Bill Clinton, Hillary floated the “it’s a deep Republican conspiracy” theory, sound familiar. I listened to the podcast where Hillary makes that accusation, and I about fell out of my chair laughing. Then I wondered, is there something in the air in Washington D.C. that causes both current and expolitican’s to wander the streets of D.C. muttering something about a deep state something or other. But more than that, those kind of unsubstantiated accusations have no place in politics, and it only makes Clinton look like she’s losing her mind, by going down the unfounded conspiracy rabbit hole.
5
Hillary “my turn to be president” Clinton did far more than the Russians to put Trump in office. Perhaps she should get comfy with her place in history and take a vow of silence.
7
Shame on Ms. Clinton. If I had a “Get Over It” tee shirt (I would never purchase one), I’d mail it to her. The Democrats should *never* have nominated her... but they did, she lost *the Electoral Collage* (which, anti-democratic institution that it is, still exists, much to the chagrin of those who treasure the ideal reflected in the phrase, “one person, one vote”), and she ought now to just *get over it.* Ms. Clinton: You already messed up one presidential election; do us a favor, and keep your conspiratorial thoughts (and angry, anti-third party comments) to yourself.
6
Gabbard is clearly no Democrat. Her response to Clinton's accusation was a pure Trump sneer.
Her temperament has been exposed whether or not she's a Russian asset.
3
@David Henry
I don't necessarily agree with Tulsi Gabbard's politics, but I give her credit for recognizing a well-rehearsed DNC putsch to force her out.
2
Hillary Clinton needs to stay out of this election. She is a polarizing figure in the party, and this kind of absurd unfounded allegation against a veteran who just happens to be anti-war is just over the top. This hurts the party, helps Trump and the Republicans, and frankly is further eroding her own reputation. Highly counterproductive at best, and damaging to the Democratic Party and its supporters at worst. Please stop, Mrs. Clinton. Go home and stay home.
4
The word "asset" in this context has nothing to do with intent or motivation. This column is categorically wrong.
2
Mr. Wu,
I was shocked and surprised that:
1. Hillary Clinton is now cannibalising the Democrat party.
2. Hillary Clinton has taken up the Republican approach of trafficking in unproven and not provable conspiracy theories.
But, then, I thought about all I know about Hillary and realized:
There is a reason Hillary lost the election.
Nastiness is recognizable, even when it emits from a woman.
8
Clinton's remarks about Representative Gabbard prove that she will say anything, even about respected members of her own party and no matter how irresponsible, inaccurate and defamatory, to stay relevant and promote her legacy while struggling to keep Bill in the shadows and boost Chelsea's profile as a potential future political candidate. Shameful!
9
I was aghast when Secretary Clinton publicly decried a “vast right wing conspiracy “. Whoops. She was right then and I am having a hard time discrediting her theory about Gabbard. The good woman from Hawai’i should pass on this election and run against a real American Candidate in 2024.
1
Not a Clinton fan here AT ALL but if anyone in this country has earned a right to love out an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory, it'd be someone with Clinton in their last name, given the nearly constant barrage for 30 years of the most ridiculous claims by those opposing the Clintons. I know, I know....2 wrongs don't make a right but 49,256 wrongs, now that just might allow a little space for 1 going in the other direction
2
After trying to understand Tulsi Gabbard's views on a variety of issues, I find it difficult to see what she thinks she is a viable candidate. Someone must be supporting her view of herself, other than the few followers she has. After seeing Jill Stein happily dining with Putin, I wonder as well. The support of RT and Russia for 3rd party candidates & types like this does raise real questions.
1
Tim, I generally agree with your thoughts here. They are restrained and rational. I especially liked your reminder about the McCarthy era and the paranoia associated with it. Many good Americans lives and careers were ruined by Joe McCarthy and his chief counsel and prosecutor, none other than Roy Cohn (Trump's favorite lawyer, until he was disbarred). H. Clinton should have had a lot more to back up her suggestions and innuendos regarding Gabbard. Seems irresponsible, and caused a lot of unwarranted swirl for Gabbard. I really wish H. Clinton would accept that the electoral college spoke about her, TWICE. And for now, we have to live with the electoral college.
4
It's unfortunate that insufficient evidence was found to "lock her up" yet still encouraging to see that the corrupt/entitled Hillary segment of the Democratic party that effectively sold out it's blue collar base, is now in freefall decline. As Joe Biden and son say, nothing unethical here!
4
Hillary needs to stay out of this election. We don’t need the drama and we don’t need her becoming a flashpoint that can be used by the Trump cabal. Tulsi was fading from view and now she has new oxygen. Very bad move.
2
Basic facts about psy-ops:
1] There are witting and unwitting assets.
2] If you have a witting assets [e.g. those who consciously allowing themselves to be "groomed"], the last thing you want to do is publicize it, e.g. by inviting them to public events or publicly praising them.
3] Conversely, a unwitting asset is one who either through indirect manipulation or sheer stupidity, will sow discord and divisiveness among her own ranks, for instance by shrill denunciations of her opponents as "deplorable," or by insisting that they and their supporters are motivated by sexism, or malice, or because they themselves are "assets."
4] The tremendous advantage of this last strategy, is that it deflects attention from the real assets, witting or not.
1
My spidey sense tells me that Gabbard is less a Russian asset and more being groomed to be a third party, GOP supported candidate. More dangerous. Why is it that there aren't any GOP spoiler candidates?
2
Facebook took action to remove the very bots and such Ms. Clinton referred to. It is evidence that Ms. Clintion's comments have support in an event of independent significance.
Ms. Clintion out Trump in real time in debates and drew out the response, "I'm not a puppet, you're the puppet." Trump's response was a tell in "whataboutism" from the Soviet Era, or basically from his Queens neighborhood of "I'm rubber you're glue, whatever you say sticks in you."
I have an anecdote as well, my friend Dave trafficks in conspiracy theories and on one one related to Congressman Schiff I pressed him for seven (7) days to provide the site he copied it from.
He deflected, I persisted, and he finally asked "Why do you care?" Dave also volunteered that he liked Tulsi Gabbard as a candidate but also deflected when asked for the basis of his assertion.
It ain't hard law professor but the zeitgeist in this is beyond the training of a law professor.
1
Perhaps Democrats owe a thank you note to Hillary Clinton .
Hillary was the Secretary of State and have a lot of experience in foreign policy.
Much is unknown about Tulsi Gabbard, with about one percent in the polls she still shows up in Democratic debates ?
Perhaps Tulsi in the Gill Stein of 2020.
In 2016 she was shadowing Senetor Sanders and suddenly we don’t see any pleasant exchanges between them.
Perhaps Bernie was too smart to deal with that ?
Anyways, with Russia’s interference in American elections, this suspicion first started in NYT , then one democrat in CNN might not so far fetched ?
1
Clinton's comments sound more like a republican than a Democrat. OH, that's right, she was a republican and worked for the Goldwater campaign.
1
@Don Roberto
I don't think that matters. Warren was a Republican once upon a time, too.
1
The old trope, I will paraphrase, "Those who ignore histrory are doomed to repeat it." is rubbish.
The human race is by nature tribalist and violent.
We have seen propaganda and have propagated it ourselves.
So often, without objective gates of truth, What is good for you is bad for me and what is good for me is bad for you.
Rational thought is often just a whimsy to be regarded and dismissed when it does not support our received and best loved propaganda.
Tulsi Gabbard is a pro-genocide candidate who met with President Assad, and saw no value in America 's allies, the Kurds, rescuing and giving asylum to thousands of Yadzi women held as ISIS sex slaves (she called it a "regime change war" a dozen times). Hillary didn't question Gabbard's motives, she said Russians were "grooming" a "candidate" for a third party run to help Trump. No one needs to know what Gabbard's motives are, they are irrelevant.
1
If this is true, she might have split the Republican vote?
HRC still does not understand why she was defeated in 2016 by an incompetent like Trump.
Jill Stein and Gary Johnson were not the reasons HRC lost.
Attacking Gabbard today reinforces that HRC does not understand why her campaign of ridiculing displaced workers and calling them deplorables and giving them no hope of having their economic status improved caused her to lose to a joke called Donald Trump.
6
HRC lost the 2016 election what supposedly was hers. One key reason for that was HRC's judgement - in connecting with constituents, showing empathy instead of calling them (constituents) racists...HRC surrounds herself with advisers who in short could be like Michael Moore but aren't. The above points convey one thing. HRC's judgements could be better and accurate but aren't, the same judgements she's deploying to allege TG and JS of being Russian assets without providing any hard evidence.
5
This is Karma - through the years, we have interfered in others’ elections and so why are we surprised to be treated with dose of our medicine.
2
Tim Wu misrepresents what Clinton said.
With characteristic precision that Wu fails to follow, Clinton correctly observed that Gabbard is an asset, if not an agent of Russia. It's naive to think that Putin and Trump do not experience glee every time Gabbard opens her mouth. And any consumer of Twitter or Facebook can see that a significant number of social media accounts use her to divide Democrats, another favorite sport of Putin and Trump.
As to Gabbard's motives, Clinton does not address them directly. She addresses the motives of Russia and the GOP.
"They’re [Republicans] also going to do third party again. And I’m not making any predictions, but I think they’ve got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate. She’s the favorite of the Russians, they have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far. And that’s assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not, because she’s also a Russian asset."
Clinton calls it as she sees it, and she sees it as it is. What a shame she is not our president now. I would feel much safer.
3
Get over it, Hillary Clinton is right.
5
Please keep providing Hillary Clinton public exposure ! Thank you, New York Times.
4
Did Hillary contact Tulsi privately about her concerns?
If not, egregious that she should use the public forum to throw a grenade.
Political dynasties like the Bushes,Kennedys, Clintons, have to end. They smack of monarchy, the privileged.
Is Chelsea our next political queen?
4
The only person who inadvertently sticks her foot in her mouth more than James Comey is Hillary.
3
Gabbard is not to be trusted.
She serves either consciously or naively as an asset to Putin.
1 - She voted against the Magnitsky Act in 2016. That alone should prove she is doing what serves Putin.
2 - She repeatedly refused to condemn Assad after meeting with him.
3 - The support from RT, Russian bots and trolls:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/russia-s-propaganda-machine-discovers-2020-democratic-candidate-tulsi-gabbard-n964261
4 - Gabbard was seeking a position in the Trump cabinet (which she denied):
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/democratic-rep-tulsi-gabbard-consideration-trump-cabinet/story?id=43696303
Tulsi Gabbard is not to be trusted.
Thank you HRC for heading her off at the pass.
5
Congratulations HRC on re-litigating 2016 and dragging us back into it.
5
The truth hurts, don’t it?
Agents are so passé. All that stuff about brush passes and dead letter drops and "meet me where we last had blackberry brandy". Assets are all the rage now. Why bother to recruit and pay an agent? America is so well supplied with useful Idiots that I wouldn't be surprised if the Russians maintain a database to keep track of them. Pick one and turn the bots loose.
This sounds like a throwback to the 1950's when the worst thing you could say politically was that your opponent was a commie.
I'm shocked to hear it coming from her.
And after I voted for her.
You wouldn't hear Obama say something like this.
Disappointed.
3
Russia gains credibility here in the US by being a media watchdog. RT does this very well. For those of you who have not watched RT, please check it out. If you are well informed and do not rely only on Fox or CNN or MSNBC for your news and you read multiple outlets like The Intercept and The Guardian, you will immediately be surprised as to how much time RT devotes to covering issues which our main stream media never does. How many times have you read an article in the NY Times that is critical of Wall Street?
The Clintons are part of this disease where the elites 30 years back decided to serve only the Corporations and no one else. Hillary should find a little decency in that ambitious soul of hers and spare us of this devious meddling. When she lost in 2016, Corporate money lost. It was not Russian meddling that won. Let us not forget that she once hugged on stage that Emperor of War Criminals and foreign meddler Henry Kissinger. Pointing fingers at Russia is like the Pots calling the Kettle black. The CIA spent endless decades overthrowing legally elected leaders in almost every continent in which our Corporations have a vested interest. Kissinger was the master tactician in almost all of these deplorable machinations and Hillary is his pal who continued this game when she headed the State department. We don't need expert advice from Hillary anymore Please go home and count your money.
3
It is raining today in Richmond. I am wondering if Mr. Putin is causing it. Ah, those Russians!
3
How funny. The woman who ran a child sex ring out of a DC pizza parlor and who murdered Vince Foster is being called out for engaging in conspiracy theories.
Gabbard in on stage repeating and repeating and repeating Kremlin talking points, Biden dressed her down for doing so, Hillary calls it like it is, and Hillary, the woman who was right on about everything she said Trump would do if elected president to the point of practically predicting the future, and it is Hillary who is trading in conspiracy theories.
2
If not a Russian Asset, why did Tulsi Assad Gabbard vote against the Magnitsky Act?
3
You mean the woman claiming a “vast right wing conspiracy” is a conspiratorialist and someone is surprised?
2
Yeah, well, Hillary was right about Donald Trump being a puppet. I'll take her seriously this time, too.
3
It’s not just Tulsi Gabbard.
ANY person who opposes the current U.S. military footprint and the Pax Americana global system is accused by neocons and liberals as being not patriotic at best, a Russian asset/troll at worse.
In this very comment section, accusations of being a Russian troll are not uncommon.
Healthy debate and dissent are not only unwelcome, they are vilified. And that is very un-American.
2
Democrat Tulsi Gabbard can't later mount an independent bid, without violating sore loser laws in all but three states - Connecticut, Iowa, and New York - https://ballotpedia.org/Sore_loser_laws_in_the_50_states These statutes are constitutional, surviving Court challenges. Texas represents just one example - https://ballot-access.org/2017/05/31/u-s-district-court-in-texas-upholds-sore-loser-law-as-applied-to-presidential-independent-candidates/
As a former First Lady, Hillary should follow the direction of another F L, Michelle Obama - don't interfere.
Tulsi Gabbard is the queen of conspiracy theories and her supporters love her for it. So what if Hillary threw a bit of shade...
2
Hillary Clinton just reminded us why many Americans held their noses and voted for Trump
2
I had to go back and re-read this piece about Ms. Gabbard being branded a Russian asset to confirm the inconprehensible fact that the author had completely failed to mention that Ms Gabbard served 2 tours of duty in combat zones in Iraq and Kuwait, making Ms. Clinton's attack even more scurrilous.....
4
I recommend that you read the NYT's article By Lisa Lerer Published Oct. 12, 2019 Updated Oct. 18, 2019. Excerpts below:
"What, Exactly, Is Tulsi Gabbard Up To?"
As she injects chaos into the 2020 Democratic primary by accusing her own party of “rigging” the election, an array of alt-right internet stars, white nationalists and Russians have praised her.
On podcasts and online videos, in interviews and Twitter feeds, alt-right internet stars, white nationalists, libertarian activists and some of the biggest boosters of Mr. Trump heap praise on Ms. Gabbard.
Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist, is impressed with her political talent. Richard B. Spencer, the white nationalist leader, says he could vote for her. Former Representative Ron Paul praises her “libertarian instincts,” while Franklin Graham, the influential evangelist, finds her “refreshing.”
...some Democrats wondering what, exactly, she is up to in the race, while others worry about supportive signs from online bot activity and the Russian news media.
Then there is 4chan, the notoriously toxic online message board, where some right-wing trolls and anti-Semites fawn over Ms. Gabbard, calling her “Mommy” and praising her willingness to criticize Israel. In April, the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website, took credit for Ms. Gabbard’s qualification for the first two Democratic primary debates.
3
Why is there such a kurfluffle over an exchange between a non-candidate and one polling 1%? Russian bots at work stirring up controversy?
2
I read the comments in this section and they affirm what I learned a long time ago: you see what you believe. After reading the oped piece, Mrs. Clinton's supporters take the kindest and most constructive view of what the former Secretary said and her philosophical opponents chastise her. It did little to sway opinion, I think.
Mrs. Clinton might be right in that any candidate on either side who is seen as a disruptor of the field of candidates could be seen by Russia (Iran, China, N.K., etc.) as "assets"; assets that, if boosted in the public eye, could cause chaos in the election process. That chaos and the subsequent mistrust in our system that it engenders or enforces is worth every bit of effort to our foes.
But getting to motives and questioning them (sorry, Dr. Wu) Mrs. Secretary is most notably right now, along with her daughter, on a book tour. If it takes some inflammatory comments (and their backlash) to get their book noticed and boost sales, I think she'll take that.
4
Hillary Clinton is a private citizen with a strong resume. She is not running for anything. Silencing her is not possible nor desirable. Gabbard comes from a tiny town on a tiny Island who has used her military credentials to gain enough support to make it this far in the race. Perfectly logical to wonder how she did it. Her reaction to Clinton's words suggests there might be some truth behind her words as does her activities. I like Tulsi, I know Hawaiian and Kauain politics and I remain mystified how she did it. Right now she is considerably behind her challenger for her House seat and has raised precious little from Hawaii, most coming from California. Russian interference is not a fantasy, it's a fact. I'm not suggesting that she sought their help, but more likely is an unwitting tool to to meet their goal, that is getting Trump elected next year. Tulsi's best response to Clinton's words would have been to denounce in the strongest terms that in now way did she seek out or want Russian help. That she did not do. Sorry Tulsi, when you swim with the Sharks, you will likely get bitten.
2
To be fair you should ask Hillary what she means by "asset." Even if Stein had never met a Russian the Russians could still view her as an "asset" in that she could tip the election to Trump. And Hillary didn't even call Gabbard an asset, she just said the Russians are intervening on her behalf. So please let's not jump on the bandwagon of attacking Hillary without understanding the context or meaning. Viewed in this light, Gabbard's overreaction shows, at minimum, poor judgment.
3
Hillary Clinton's comments were about Russia. They were not about Tulsi Gabbard or her character or her motivations.
Russia can game the US presidential elections because we do not have direct elections. The US president is elected by the electoral college based on the popular vote in each state. This is a far cry from a direct election. Several recent presidential candidates have won the popular vote and lost the election.
Promoting a third party candidate in a few key states can be just enough to change the result of those elections leading to a different candidate being elected. It is a proven strategy.
Mrs. Clinton's message is Russia is influencing out 2020 presidential elections.
Stop shooting the messenger.
6
Regardless of Putin's opinion of Tulsi Gabbard's foreign policy positions, Clinton's remarks are inappropriate and unwise for the reasons that Tim Wu presents. Clinton's interventionist record and cynical acceptance of the justification for the disastrous Iraq War are the issue here. It's worth asking, wouldn't the world be better off if we had followed the policies that Gabbard recommends?
6
I pay attention to Tulsi Gabbard because Tulsi supports registered nurses, loud and clear. Tulsi, like anyone who did or is doing military service in combat zones, appreciates the dignity and mercy of professional nursing.
4
If anyone should know better than to expound conspiracy theories, it’s Hillary. The Russians may or may not want Gabbard to be an asset, but there is no evidence what she is. I’m really disappointed in Hillary for indulging in this, particularly since she’s just been cleared on her emails.
2
Ms. Gabbard gets some free publicity for her "also ran" campaign thanks to Hillary. In this case, it might be helpful given the source.
How far this nation has a fallen.
My concern is that any Dem that wants to be a third party could pull the same problem Al Gore had. Split off enough votes to let Trump back. All Dem candidates are good, eligible people but once a candidate is chosen all must back the choice.
1
Unfortunately HRC does not communicate that well, using words and phrases that can be easily misinterpreted. I do recall she spoke with crystal clarity about Putin, and Trump- ie, Putin's Puppet- and she was spot on. I remember at the time it sounded strange and conspiracy - like.
However as we now know she was correct, but NObody listened and look where we are now.
That Gabbard or any other candidate could easily be targeted as a Russian asset should be something we should all pay attention to and beware. Gabbard needs to heed HRCs words as a warning and be fastidious about vetting her support, any kind of Russian influence should be denounced loudly and clearly by Gabbard. Instead she denounces HRC. Strange.
Just because HRC is somewhat of a lightening rod for controversy within our democratic party does not make her any less smart. She figured it out during her campaign, what makes everyone think she hasn't figured it out now? Will it take another 3 year investigation by an ineffective male prosecutor (ie, Mueller) who will then mansplain what we already have heard from HRC, that Russia owns our elections? That Putin has his puppets? Then do absolutely nothing to fix it?
2
Hillary Clinton is also being groomed by an enemy of progress. It’s called nostalgia. And it’s sad that her political career has to end on this note.
3
"What Happened" to Hillary?
Hillary has become the Giuliani of of the Democratic party.
I feel very sad for both of them.
How far into the gutter they have fallen is discouraging.
I'm beginning to think that somehow acquiring millions of dollars from questionable sources does something to the minds of otherwise reasonable people.
I hope her new book tour, and advance money allows her to
get over 'what happened' in 2016, and take a long, long vacation.
6
All the politicizing investigations and accusations that are preoccupying the Democrats and our government legislators is exactly what Russia and China want.Nothing getting done at home or abroad at taxpayers expense while Russia and China advance geopolitically. Time for a 6 year Congressional term limit
1
Listen to this interview with Robin Young on NPR and you will hear a different side of Tulsi Gabbard. I think it unwise for Clinton to elevate Gabbard’s media attention with her suggestion that Tulsi was being groomed by Russia. I agree that she should be tested on her ideas, unless something factual comes out.
The strategy of having a third party candidate siphon off the vote is a technique effectively used by both Russian and U.S. operatives. Jill Stein benefited from the Russian efforts to support her, and from the Russian point of view, an ‘UNWITTING ASSET’ ( not a “RUSSIAN” AGENT or SPY) in their arsenal of “Active Measures”.One can argue what effect that may have had in the 2016 election, but alerting us to the fact that these Active Measures for a third party candidate will be at play in the 2020 election seems obvious. If you listen to the tape of the interview it is clear that the use of “Russian Asset” is used as a descriptive term for a technique of ‘Russian Active Measures’, and NOT TO DESCRIBE AN INDIVIDUAL, ACTUAL ‘SECRET RUSSIAN AGENT’.
3
Tulsi Gabbard is my representative in Congress. She has been ineffective since she got elected. And my assessment is generous. She has no interest in her constituents, no interest whatsoever in helping the 2nd. district of Hawaii. She takes tea with Assad, and yet she cannot hold a town hall meeting anywhere in her district. She has held phone in town hall meetings which are useless. Even those don't happen anymore. The ONE face to face Town Hall she had here on the Big Island was instructional enough for her: she never looked her constituents here on the Big Island in the face again. I am voting for ANYONE who will run against her in the democratic primary. ANYONE. She is useless. Beware. Just saying.
3
Tulsi Gabbard is also a combat veteran of Iraq and now holds the rank of Major in the Hawaii National Guard. She was a member of the Hawaiian House of Representatives when she stepped down and volunteered to put herself in harm's way for her country. Her views on wars need to be respected and listened to.
3
And yet when defending herself Gabbard didn't just address the remarks or Clinton herself. Instead, she made ugly statements about Democrats and the Democratic Party. I was offended by her defense.
7
Who spends a hundred million dollar for a job that pays $500 thousand unless they plan of charging interest. Has anyone ever asked why Hillary wanted the job in the first place? Money. Just like the rest of them. Except Trump, who is the first president in history to actually lose my being in office.
2
And you know this because you’ve seen Trump’s tax returns? If so, you might want to clue the rest of us in about how you managed that trick.
1
@CeeCee Whats does his tax return have to do with money he has lost since becoming president? The tax returns are for before he became president. He had a media career and a great profile. Now all that is gone after years of slander by the democrats and liberal media.
Bernie Sanders just nailed it: "Tulsi Gabbard has put her life on the line to defend this country," the Vermont independent tweeted. "People can disagree on issues, but it is outrageous for anyone to suggest that Tulsi is a foreign asset." Hillary has lost her mind. The Clintons are both national embarrassments and the sooner they disappear into obscurity the better.
4
This might sound mean, but why is Hilary still talking? And why are we listening??
Sorry, but this is not her election, and I am personally not interested in the views of past candidates. Any of them.
We need to start fresh, and Hilary has earned her retirement.
4
@0sugarytreats
Are you recommending silencing other retired government officials - say, Susan Rice, Madeleine Albright, and Jimmy Carter - or just Hillary Clinton? Personally, I appreciate hearing the perspective of someone with tons of experience under their belt, whether I always agree with their position or not.
1
She is sending up a flare. If the Russians can convince her to tun as an independent and support that, she will drain votes.
1
@Rockaway Pete
I do not recall Hillary sending up any flares when Howard Schultz announced 3rdParty candidacy:
“To become better, we must repair our broken two-party system. To those who say a third choice can't succeed, I say that's as un-American as you can get.”
“Becoming better begins by repairing our broken two-party system, which is why I am seriously considering running for president of the United States as a centrist independent. I will spend the next few months deciding by traveling the country, and listening to my fellow Americans.”
“I already believe that the idea of a third choice will resonate.”
Our two parties are not working for most Americans. Sixty-six percent of likely voters say “neither party is really representing my needs or interests,” .
1
It's not a "conspiracy theory" that Russia and Putin supporters in America are backing the candidate. Those are objective facts. It is astonishing that, even after the foreign interference debacle of 2016, people like Mr. Wu can't see the writing on the wall (or the Russian bots on the Internet). Hillary Clinton was speaking the truth. Personally, I welcome a politician (or a retired politician in this case) who has the guts to say what others are hiding from--to their peril and everyone else's too. Just look at Gabbard's response to know what we are dealing with here. It uses every rightwing talking point in the book.
4
The Democrats really have a knack for sabotaging their own party's chances at taking back the White House, whether it be by Hillary Clinton's unsolicited and unfounded damaging theories about Congresswoman Gabbard as a Russian asset or Kamala Harris's attacks on Joe Biden's past record of decades ago regarding school busing or Julian Castro's underhanded insinuation about Biden's age. Clinton's own 2016 campaign of "Stronger Together" should be resuscitated and followed by all Democrats to form a unified front to defeat Trump in 2020.
2
People seem to have a visceral reaction to Clinton. Well OK.
All I know is, she sure called it precisely in the debate with Trump. A Putin puppet, weakening NATO -- all of it came to pass, and worse.
I have no problem with Gabbard, but that doesn't mean Clinton is necessarily incorrect. She could have been a little more delicate about it, that's all.
2
I totally agree! Stay focused on policies, not conspiracies.
I happened to think that Ms. Clinton may be right. Ms. Gabbard has engaged in some questional behavior, especially her 2017 meeting with Assad. Add the fact that she has been endorsed by the likes of David Duke and Richard Spencer, it does make a pretty strange picture. Plus, she's really soft on Putin. None of this makes any sense. And her tweet to Ms. Clinton was outright vicious. At her best, she makes poor judgments as to whom she wants to associate with, at her worst she lashes out with pretty frightening viciousness when she feels cornered. And why is the Hillary bashing starting, yet again? Aren't people getting tired of it? Ms. Clinton may well be right about Ms. Gabbard.
2
I voted for Clinton and think she would have been a good president. However, I wish she’d go somewhere remote and stay quiet until the election is over. She’s a polarizing and distracting figure
I don't know about any conspiracy theory about Tulsi Gabbard but Jill Stein was definitely at a Russian state dinner sitting at the same table with Vladimir Putin and Michael Flynn prior to the 2016 election. That not a theory, it's documented fact so I've always wondered about Jill Stein and her backing.
2
What is not discussed in this article is the odd combination of support that Rep. Gabbard receives from the American right wing and the Russians overseas. I was taken aback when, after the first debate and listening to a nutso rightwing talk show on the radio, that a poll of its listeners gave Gabbard a win of 38%. Really?! Having listened to the debate myself, I wouldn't have given Rep. Gabbard more than 2%.
So, what's going on here? Secrtary Clinton has a right to ask and forewarn. And if Gabbard is not suddenly a mysteriously financed third party candidate, then Secretary Clinton will have been wrong, but if Gabbard is such a candidate, well, we all remember seeing Jill Stein at Putin's party, don't we?
All Secretary Clinton is saying is "watch out!"
2
I totally agree, this is a distraction to democrat presidential candidates raising the profile of candidate with less than 1% popularity. Its all over FOX news feeding the base.
Seeing as how Koch and Soros are teaming up to propagandize for a new Left-Right isolationist consensus, Gabbardian views may soon become the norm. I'm sure Tim Wu -- foreign-policy guru -- will be thrilled. In the meantime, before we talk about what Tulsi Gabbard is or isn't, it might be worth taking a look at what she's said.
When asked if Assad is a torturer, is a murderer, she replied that the question was beside the point. She's claimed multiple times that "we" are criticizing Russia and Syria for killing "terrorists," which to her is absurd because they're doing all the hard work for us. Lucky us! She says that regime change is counterproductive, irrespective of what that regime does. ("Regime change" is one of those terms, like "empire," that the Left uses to scare people -- the latter must be bad because TV always portrays empires as oppressing those weaker, nobler, freedom-loving peoples.)
Gabbard refuses to criticize war crimes committed, over and over again, by Assad and Putin. "Unorthodox" indeed. Why would she do this? Moreover, you can see Russian propaganda outlets echoing and lending support to her already -- though this doesn't mean she holds her views because she's a Russian asset (though it's not clear Clinton was in earnest.) ... Note that if the Left can't blame America for war crimes, they're not a problem. History is replete with centuries-long conflicts; today, 15 years is "endless."
Even if one is a pacifist, Tulsi Gabbard's said disgusting things.
1
The strategy of having a third party candidate siphon off the vote is a technique effectively used by both Russian and U.S. operatives. Jill Stein benefited from the Russian efforts to support her, and from the Russian point of view, an ‘UNWITTING ASSET’ ( not a “RUSSIAN” AGENT or SPY) in their arsenal of “Active Measures”.One can argue what effect that may have had in the 2016 election, but alerting us to the fact that these Active Measures for a third party candidate will be at play in the 2020 election seems obvious. If you listen to the tape of the interview it is clear that the use of “Russian Asset” is used as a descriptive term for a technique of ‘Russian Active Measures’, and "NOT" TO DESCRIBE ANYONE AS A SECRET RUSSIAN AGENT.
1
What I heard from Clinton is that, sans name, it looks like Russia could be using a democratic candidate as an asset, evidenced by increased Russian bot activity on media sites advocating for her. This is true. Fair or not, deserving or not, a large number of bots ARE advocating for Gabbard on various social media sites. I had to leave WaPo's site the night of last week's debate because there were so many disturbing comments from bots/trolls whenever she would speak. There were too many, relative to her support in the polls. Thus, it is not inconceivable that russians might like to see her run as a third party candidate, knowing that she at least in part supports their interests. I find it interesting that everyone appeared to understand who Clinton was referencing in her statements, including Gabbard herself. It's not personal, but I do think it's a legitimate concern, given Russia's prior brazen and unbridled actions.
3
When a "fine person" like David Duke endorses a candidate like Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, I think it is reasonable to question EVERY aspect of who and what she is.
4
If Hillary Clinton has the facts to back this up, she should make this public. She is a fine attorney. It's hard to believe she would suggest Gabbard is being groomed by Putin unless she has evidence to back this up.
Please release the facts.
1
Picture Jill Stein sitting with Putin and Flynn in Moscow. We know more now than we did in 2016 when the facts of Russian influence were kept from us. As a result of this public deception, we got Trump, who is controlled by Putin, and our democracy is in jeopardy.
Because of her past positions, I’m sure Hillary knows what’s going on, and we don’t need another third party candidate in 2020.
2
Sorry but Clinton was merely pointing out the obvious.
She couldn’t say “the sky is blue” without getting pushback.
Don’t underestimate the Russians. They are quite capable of boosting Gabbard to think highly enough of herself to run third party if it serves their interest.
3
Hillary shouldn't trade in conspiracy theories? How about she shouldn't trade in any public discourse at all?
3
Hillary told us in 2016 that Trump was Putin’s puppet. She was right. She told us in 2016 that his business entanglements in Turkey would lead to trouble in Syria with the Kurds. She was right. She’s telling us now that Gabbard is compromised by Russia. Maybe we should listen to her.
2
Poor woman just cannot believe she lost. And now that the Democrats finally have a centrist/moderate running Hillary has to bring on a Russian connection. Admittedly, Gabbard brought up the Russia angle during the debate and hammered NYT and CNN for it. And so Hillary parrots and piles on.
The Russia angle did not work against Trump and won't work against Gabbard. Only in the minds of Hillary and Schiff is there a Russia connection. As a matter of fact, Schiff has, for a couple of years now, stated multiple times that he has evidence/proof, yet has failed to produce it.
Freedom of speech is a wonderful Constitutional Right. But it also comes with responsibility. And consequences.
1
I wish HRC would just take a hint, and go away. Tulsi may be naive (politically) and hired people she didn't fully vet, or she may believe in them, I wouldn't know. But, HRC of all people shouldn't be talking conspiracies, or is it? ("Its a vast right wing conspiracy!")
2
I for one am glad Hillary is shining a light on this disruptive outlier. I think the media should dig deep into her support, which is so based on nothing of substance that there just might be something there.
2
That is right. Hilary Clinton has too much of a tendency to blame others for her own failings. She should retire from public life. Find something else to do with her life. Yes, she would be a lot better than Mr. Trump as President. And she would have been president if not for her own errors.
2
I don't care for Tulsi Gabbard but Hillary smearing her this way is appalling.
Clinton has spent the time since she lost the election publicly blaming everyone else and has cast aspersions on lots of people.
But in the case of calling Gabbard - a sitting member of Congress, a Democrat and most of all a veteran with 2 tours of duty - a "Russian asset," Clinton has clearly lost her way.
Madam Secretary - have you no sense of decency?
3
Hillary has to do the snark thing to mask her Rockefeller Republicanism and establishment crony ways, yes, even establishment feminism. The only silver lining to Trump being President is that Hillary is not.
3
Hillary Clinton is irrelevant to me. It is the media that is publishing what she says that creates the appearance of relevance. Why can't the media quit her?
3
Trafficking in unproven and probably unprovable but emotionally satisfying conspiracy theories is how we got here.
It will not be how we get out, if we get out.
If this sort of unsubstantiated tripe is the best that she has to offer now, then she can’t leave the public eye completely or soon enough.
2
"Ms. Gabbard is an antiwar candidate who holds unorthodox positions on the Syrian conflict. Yet “unorthodox” also describes Senator Bernie Sanders on banking policy, Senator Elizabeth Warren on antitrust policy and former Representative Beto O’Rourke on the free exercise of religion."
Do the unorthodox positions of these other candidates benefit Russia? Do you know the difference between an asset (something of benefit) and an agent? An asset doesn't necessarily know that he or she is one. An agent does.
@Elizabeth
There's nothing unorthodox about Sanders or Warren's positions on the topics you cited. They were American policy during FDR's day.
Gabbard's foreign policy stance has never been practiced in the entire history of the US. That's what makes it unorthodox.
Why isn't the relevant question whether "orthodox" foreign policy positions have benefited the US? Or whether proposed "unorthodox" positions would benefit the US?
Why is the distraction always, "x would benefit Russia"!
The relevant question is would Gabbard's foreign policy benefit the US, and if so how?
As others have repeatedly said here, you're never going to get universal healthcare or affordable education if you spend all your budget on useless weapons having military bases on practically every nation on the planet.
Maybe you forgot that the Afghan war was lost to a bunch of semi-literate religious zealots on a shoestring budget. Their weapons were stuff anybody could buy at the army surplus store and Radio Shack. They didn't need to spend trillions on the latest cutting edge technology to drive out American forces.
Funny how the Taliban went from a group of terrorists that must be eradicated to a group that now sits at the negotiating table, and has legit Afghan government leadership.
There is absolutely no documented proof that Gabbard is collaborating with the Russians. What is true is that Gabbard's views often align perfectly with Russia's in terms of what they want from the United States. For that reason Troll sites like RT & Sputnik News hype her candidacy, and their bots do the same on social media. That should give voters pause if nothing else.
I can't stand Tulsi and view her as a standard bearer of what I call the 'Alt Left' - left wing populists masquerading as progressives who won't say Russia did interfere in 2016 or that Assad gassed his people. Tulsi seems to be onboard with this approach which gives me the creeps. People on the Alt Right (Bannon, Tucker C, Trump, etc.) seem to sense this massive character flaw in Tulsi, so yes, they're fans.
I like her ending forever war stance and commitment to the environment, but I can get that from others running this race without the creep factor she seems to exude.
As for Hillary, she's got it partly right - there is something seriously 'off' with Gabbard, but her comments helped her not the other way around. I think Clinton got a bad rap and half what people think about her is itself conspiracy theories. That said, her time is past. it's time to truly sit this one out. She's not helping anyone, including herself.
2
Hillary Clinton is yet another old Democrat who needs to get out of the way of history and let the next generation of leaders come forward and take the reins.
Instead her slur against Tulsi Gabbard looks awfully like the “old Democratic guard” who have been responsible for so many political losses trying to knee-cap the next generation.
2
"Accusations of foreign influence should be reserved for those who target the American electoral system or explicitly encourage interference with it." Hasn't Mrs. Clinton done exactly this herself? The Times and other outlets have reported that the Clinton campaign, through the Democratic National Committee and law firm Perkins Coie, hired Fusion GPS to work with Christopher Steele to create the infamous dossier. The dossier is filled with half-truths and outright falsehoods provided to Steel by Russian sources. Ergo, Mrs. Clinton has encouraged Russian influence in the U.S. 2016 election.
1
3rd party (or for that matter 4th or 5th or nth party) candidates wouldn't be a threat if the US voted directly for their president; just another reason to abolish the Electoral College.
3
The Clinton's are well known wall street assets. They've been groomed to push policies that provide their owners with an excellent return on investment at the expense of the majority of citizens of the U.S. just trying to get by.
Trump was a Clinton asset as her campaign and media allies pushed Trump in the primary thinking he would be easy fodder in the general. Low and behold the Clinton machine bungled a layup and lost to an amateur reality show host clown. Clinton just doesn't have it to be the true plutocrat she desires to be. Keep punching down Clinton it only exposes you for the fraud you truly are.
4
Gabbard loses me when it comes to Assad & Syria. Her criticism of America’s interventionist impulses is legitimate, who of us can look at Iraq & Libya and not see where that got us. But meeting with Assad and doubting the evidence of his crimes is unacceptable. Assad like his father is a brutal tyrant and Gabbards interactions with him give his regimes claims legitimacy. After that misjudgment forget it.
1
Clinton's defenders on this one shield her with the argument that at least part of the attack -- "Russian asset" -- is technically true, because an "asset" can be unwitting or even unwilling. But in the same sense, Clinton has become an asset of Donald Trump.
Clinton is smart enough to understand that many if not most Americans who hear her attack will think she's calling Gabbard a traitor or a spy. She's smart enough to understand that people will be offended that she offers attacks and insults without evidence. She's even smart enough to understand, before she opens her mouth, how this will play in Trumpworld.
They are thrilled to have the opportunity to suggest that this sort of smear is all there ever was to Russiagate. That the nothing they have on Gabbard is the same as the nothing they have on Trump. That if you show signs of non-conformism, the witch hunters will target you too. And they're thrilled that their old 2016 punching bag is popping back up.
Clinton said it anyway. She couldn't help it anymore than she could help herself with her basket of deplorables. In both cases the comment was rightly perceived as poorly considered, even though it was "true" in a sense. A particularly empty consolation prize for political losers: the solace that your off-putting insults are accurate, at any rate.
Not as accurate as "queen of the warmongers," of course. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria... who cares if the nesting doll fits, so long as the missile fits the launcher?
1
It’s time for Hillary and all of the Clintons to be out of our lives. Her blind ambition has led us to Trump. If she had real concerns about Tulsi Gabbard, because of her experience and contacts, she knows how to get her allegations investigated appropriately and need not debase us all with her innuendos which do nothing to return civility to our political discourse.
2
Reading these comments and seeing the number of recommendations for bashing Tulsi based on propaganda, shows me the left is as subject to propaganda as is the right. Tulsi has explained her meeting with Assad many times. Tulsi opposes wars that kill people and loot our treasury, things that I thought democrats supported. I have considered myself an independent for years, though registered as a democrat. I will be registering as an independent as I watch the Democratic Party become as tribal and crazy as the Right.
3
Clinton's comments are not based on Gabbard's views. They are based on the fact that Russians are supporting her candidacy. Gabbard may or may not understand this, but it is a fact. They did the same with Jill Stein.
1
What should be added is that Ms. Clinton lost a great deal of her personal credibility with in making this accusation about Ms. Gabbard.
3
Clinton has more paranoia than Richard Nixon at his peak. This most recent expression makes me thankful that she was never elected, and makes me angrier than ever at the DNC of 2015-16 that caused no other viable candidates to enter the primary process. The role of Superdelegates, to break a convention without a winner, was perverted to chill anyone else from running. Who would ever believe that with an election without an incumbent, the only candidate with name recognition was Clinton, and everyone else took a hike?
Tulsi Gabbard is absolutely right. Clinton was a disaster as Secretary of State. Ghaddafi had given up his nuclear program years before, and was putting down a rebellion in his own country. Along comes Hillary (and Obama) who decide to tilt the table so that the "rebels" would win. Rebels who were never properly vetted, turned out of be incapable or unwilling to prevent an Isis foothold, and whose chaos resulted in the death of our Ambassador.
And the double cross of Ghaddafi did not go unnoticed by other dictators. Clinton proved that a dictator gives up his last ditch nuclear defenses at his peril, for without them, the United States will back the rebellion against you. North Korea will never totally disarm itself of nuclear retaliatory capability.
So, for Mrs Clinton, its a Russian behind every corner. What do you expect of a Goldwater Girl?
5
Clinton is correct about where Gabbard's support is coming from.
Clinton is not a dummy. By raising this now she is putting out an alert to be wary of a third party candidate this time.
2
Hillary is correct. It is not some conspiracy, sir. Gabbard is Russia’s chosen Democrat. The Press should be pursuing this not Clinton. Do you job press. This is how we ended up with Trump.
1
If the origin of her opinions is Russian manipulation or influence, that is, in fact, far more salient — and in urgent need of naming and discussing — than the substance of those opinions.
1
It's a theory like gravity is a theory. Gabbard spouts the Kremlin line and has no interesting policy positions on domestic issues. She is Jill Stein 2.0, a hack plant whose sole purpose is to fracture the left vote. We know who she is and where she should go, which is tfoh.
1
Maybe Clinton has inside info on Gabbard. but I doubt it. Her info on Stein is correct. Stein made a deal with the Russians to get help on social media in 2016, mostly in the swing sates, and then she went on RT (Russian Television) and trashed Hillary and the Democrats. I quit subscribing to The Nation, because they have to be pro-Russian, to go along with their support of Stein.
Stein is definitely a Russian asset. She helped Trump win the swing states. Sickening.
1
"It is also, at any rate, the theory of the First Amendment." Except for when Ms. Clinton exercises it!
Gabbard's response to Clinton were accurate. Clinton remains a cancer on the Democratic party and on the body politic. It's time for her to be sidelined by the press, unless they are seriously intent on helping Trump "win" another term. Gabbard is a good candidate and would make an excellent running mate for Sanders -- assuming the neo-cold-warriors of the DNC don't try to tar him as a Russian asset as well . . .
2
Hillary Clinton needs to retreat into the background in order for the Democratic party to attempt to transcend its past and hopefully prevail in the 2020 presidential election.
Instead, she's out on the trail with Chelsea in tow shilling another tome. Enough already.
3
Mueller in his indictment of the thirteen Russians told us that Russia interfered on behalf of St. Bernie. Jill Stein sat between Putin and Flynn at the RT dinner. This administration and its servile Republicans have done nada to protect our elections. Now RT is gushing over Gabbard's candidacy, and Fox is doing the same. Russia has already unleashed their fake accounts and social media bots, in order to assist the Gabbard campaign. Some of Gabbard's policies and statements, whether or not they are conventional, are as pro-Russia as they come. For instance, her peace-at-any-cost isolationism. That isn't, as Wu disingenuously claims, "anti-war." That is 1930s style America-firsting, which makes wars and ethnic cleansing and genocide more rather than less likely. I don't dislike Gabbard. Her answer about abortion at the last debate was very good and could win her a lot of moderate votes (though I myself do not agree with her about abortion). I like the clarity of her views, and I like how she expresses herself. She ought to give just a tiny amount of thought to present context as she frames her policies and plans out her speeches.
2
Hillary is trying to desperately to remain relevant, but it shouldn't be at the expense of a Democratic candidate. Fortunately, Ms. Gabbard did not back down, and gave a response that was necessary. For those who have forgotten, Hillary, when she was Secretary of State, insulted Mr. Putin when he was re-elected questioning the legitimacy of his election and he never forgot. She planted the seed for "Russian interference." Her people gathered a dossier on Trump to ruin him, she did the same with Bernie Sanders. She needs to let go and bow out gracefully and stop looking like the Mad Hatter.
4
I hear you.
But that ain't the game today. As Tulsi showed us all. Turn it up to 11...
Congresswoman Gabbard needs to explain why she voted against the Magnitsky Act. Also how did she vote (if at all) on any legislation regarding Russian Sanctions while in Congress.
Also she needs to appear on CNN (debates do not count) or MSNBC to explain her positions regarding the matters outline above as well as her geo-political views in detail. Seems that she only appears on Fox???
Putin plays the long game, so if true, he can wait.
1
An allure to the Manchurian Candidate is not without falsehoods. I would think that Ms Rodham-Clinton knows more than alluded, afterall having been Sec. of State, she still has ties to info we, the people, do not.
And of all the candidate getting contributions, I would suggest many follow the money (and support) that Ms Gabbard may naively be accepting. Not all fools know they are being used.
Just seems the timing is rather peculiar for Hillary, as she is a calculator, not a happenstance.
1
It's time for Hillary Clintons to fade away. She had her time in the sun now she need to get off the stage. The Bushes have a kept a low profile, now Hillary Rodham Clinton needs to do the same.
If Clinton is so concerned about 3rd party candidacies in presidential elections, she should be talking about eliminating the Electoral College; which keep giving us these minority elected presidents. Has she forgotten her husband never won a majority while being elected POTUS and if she had "won" she's have been a minority president as well.
While I don't agree Tulsi Gabbard, she has every right to run for POTUS and not be accused of being a "Russian cut out."
2
I'm so sick of this. If you aren't somewhere between Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews in your political views, then you're a Russian agent/tool/stooge/whatever. I wonder if the Democrats have any idea how harmful this approach is. I think Trump Inc. is a complete disaster for this country, but this is the absolute wrong way to respond.
3
Hillary Clinton is looking and behaving, increasingly, like a female version of Donald Trump. Who cares about truth or accuracy, when aspersions can be broadcast to a worldwide audience?
Here's a thought experiment. How would you react to the absurd accusations against Gabbard if they were voiced by Donald Trump? Opprobrium? Disgust? Disbelief?
2
Well, she didn’t call her deplorable. I guess that’s something. Now, will somebody help get Hillary’s foot out of her mouth?
4
Hillary Clinton: the gift that keeps on giving...to Republicans.
3
Senator Joe McCarthy claimed in the 1950's that everyone who disagreed with him was a Russian stooge. In 2019, HRC claims that everyone she doesn't like is a Russian stooge.
Joe, meet Hillary.
3
I do not understand why Hillary Clinton felt compelled to swipe at two female politcians. If it's all about Vladimir Putin and "the Russians", she has her own questionable legacy there, as the New York Times itself reported in 2015:
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html
1
Just when the right wing looks like they’re running out of ammo, Hillary hands them a fresh clip.
1
Oh so when it’s Clinton you start talking about standards - and she isn’t even running for office. As if anyone anywhere in the media held Donald Trump to any kind of standard. You are focusing the the WRONG THING again, NYT - a cat following Trump’s (and his minions’) laser pointer toward Hillary.
1
The Clintons and Gabbard should go away. All of them are a mess the DNC doesn’t need.
1
I knew she was a loser 20 years ago although I did hold my nose and vote for her in 2016.
2
So Gabbord gets 2020 endorsement from David Duke and you think Clinton is trading in conspiracy theories? Where have you been? Wait...working for Bernie Sanders, I bet.
2
Hillary, please be quiet. Whether painted unfairly or not, you have lost your voice.
2
If Hillary Clinton keeps up with these crazy conspiracy theories then I’m going to vote Green. We already have an old, creepy gaffe-machine and his worthless son; definitely don’t need any more help from her and her husband.
2
If I recall correctly, Hillary Clinton did not name Tulsi Gabbard as the potential Russian asset. Tulsi Gabbard did that all by herself. Perhaps one of those, if the shoe fits....scenarios?
2
Tulsi Garrard is using Clinton's name to invite publicity which has caused me to lose whatever respect I may have had for her as a candidate.
I completely support Hillary Clinton in her attack on Tulsi Gabbard. I have no idea what Ms. Gabbard is up to or where she gets the money to run a campaign that is going no where. Something “smells” and it is not Hillary’s attack
2
Hillary is a flawed woman, wife and politician. She should stop embarrassing herself. Except for Paul Krugman, anyone who supported her blindly is ashamed of what they did.
2
Why is Hillary Clinton not allowed to express her opinion about a candidate for president but you are?
1
I see her as a Russian asset, for certain.
1
Democrats , work together for the sake of the Country !
I don't at all agree; in fact, I wish both President Obama and Hillary Clinton had shared more of what they knew about foreign interference in our election BEFORE the election. Their failure to do so is the worst failure of President Obama's presidency, since it left us with a stupid and dangerous leader instead of the honorable government we deserve. May we never make that mistake again.
She's walking and quacking like a duck. And all the alt-right cheerleaders and RT fan boys are quacking in her direction. The profile is there. Jill Stein even did a Freudian slip and said that Tulsi was committed to run as a Green '...er, uh Democrat". Look at where the support comes from. Watch her run as an independent spoiler.
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Wow - Hillary lost an unlosable election and now she's giving advice? Please, Mme. Secretary, take the advice of a former fan: Chappaqua is nice this time of year; spend a bunch of time there and away from anyone who might hear your spurious theories and publicize them. And Rep. Gabbard, I take you at your word that you won't be a third-party spoiler. Please keep your promise.
As if we don't have enough bright shiny objects distracting us....
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Please, it all speaks to the nauseating egotism of the Clintons. Both of them only look and sound more foolish and greedy and dated with each unwelcome appearance. She is helping reelect Donald Trump, and far more effectively than any Russian meddling.
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Verged on the conspiratorial?!!! She publicly accused a sitting Congresswoman of being the Manchurian Candidate! Next she'll be coming up with a Z to rival Trump's Q. American politics would be hilarious if it wasn't so terrifying.
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Liberals are channeling their inner insecurity and hypocrisy against a smart and successful woman --Ms. Gabbard.
Surprisingly, many right here.
Shockingly, more women than men.
Old women like Warren, even if lying most of the time, is not a problem, they are not seen as a threat.
If Rep. Gabbard drops out of the race when it is certain she will not win, and if she supports the nominee of the party then this is much ado about nothing.
If she runs a third party challenge to the nominee then there is something to the notion that she might be at best a "useful idiot" much as Jill Stein clearly was in 2016.
We have an executive that thinks Russian interference in our electoral outcomes is no big deal at best, and welcome at worst. I think we all can be forgiven a bit of paranoia.
After all, you're not paranoid if they really are out to get you.
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I thought Hillary Clinton's claim was right on.
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Tulsi Gabbard is a terrible candidate and Democrat in name only. She has no business being on the debate stage. She whined about how unfair the (very clear cut) DNC debate rules were but was happy to make Republican/Russian talking points last week during the debate when it suited her. Go away Tulsi!
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A more honest title for your piece is:
"Why Shouldn't Hillary Clinton Trade in Conspiracy Theories About Tulsi Gabbard ?"
I think what Hillary is saying is that you can be groomed without knowing. You can become a puppet to the puppet masters in Kremlin without thinking you are. The same way Trump ended up winning because of how a lot of people on social media were groomed by Russian troll farms to favor Trump over Hillary. Jill Stein ran as an independent green party candidate and did so out of what she thought was a noble cause, but her decisions were influenced by Russian trolls grooming her to run. She was the green candidate, and by running as she did, she put the worst environmental government in history in power. So grooming in this context is elevating a candidate that will not win the nomination, but feels they now have a moral obligation to run as an independent, even if that will keep Trump in power. So Hillary's harsh words, "Russian assets" refer to the fact that these candidates are inadvertently doing the job of the forces that want to hurt America.
The fact that the news media is reporting it in the way they do, actually confirms that Russia is winning the psychological and sociological warfare.
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@veritatis Let us assume that what "Hillary is saying is that you can be groomed without knowing." is in fact true. Then Hillary must be an agent of the industrial military complex. How else can you explain her strong preference to involving the US and its allies in war at every opportunity. She may also be an agent of the Saudi government. Her state department sided with Islamic movements against secular governments in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Iraq, among others.
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@veritatis
What Hilary was doing was reinforcing her assertion that she didn't lose the election to Trump thru her utter incompetence, but that the Russians put the Donald in office. I guess Hilary has been too busy smearing American veterans to read the Mueller Report.
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@veritatis
I think most of us who came of age during the height of the Cold War tend to think of a "Russian Asset" as a covert individual controlled by and knowingly working for Russian interests. I think part of what you are trying to say, and I agree, is that someone can inadvertently and without that intent, further Russian aims without being a Russian asset in the sense that many of us understand the term. However, I think HRC is plenty old enough and savvy enough to understand the implication of her precise words, and I think what she said is counter productive in the extreme. And yes, its time for her to get off the stage.
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Gabbard fought actively against gay rights, and not in some distant past, either. The "soundness of her views" is an open question.
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Hillary supporters in the comment section still bringing up the popular vote remind me of JEB’s supporters during the Republican primary in 2016. It’s over for DNC establishment and no Democrat will hold the Office of the President of the United States until they realize this.
At least, the Republicans got out of the way of the freight train that is Donald Trump and let him drive it all the way to the Oval Office. Maybe, they’ll get out of the way of the freight train that is Bernie Sanders / Tulsi Gabbard VP and allow us to win again.
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Every Democratic candidate should take an oath right now to support whoever the Democratic nominee is, and promise not to run as a third party candidate. Problem solved.
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These comments by Hillary Clinton are a departure from a more positive and self assured self, which distinguished her during her campaign for the presidency. Surprisingly, it sounds more like a desperate character assassination, such as we have becoming familiar, with the current president.
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Mrs. Clinton should not be saying much. She has never appeared as astute at politics as Bill Clinton, and this is another example.
We have President Trump because of her. He was elected by voters, despite his very transparent flaws and shortcomings, because too many American's were willing to take a chance on him rather than vote for her and a Presidency that promised not much more than "more of the same."
Sure, the Russian's had a hand in shaping public opinion, but no where near as much as Fox News did. Donald Trump exposed her political weakness, making her uninspiring nature the centerpiece of his attack. And then she ignored a few key mid-western states thinking they were a lock for her. That was bad political strategy.
If she really cares about this country (and secondly, her party) she should work behind the scenes on a very low profile basis to make the (substantial) contributions she can deliver to getting Mr. Trump out of the White House. But being a very public figure isn't one of them. Right or wrong, too many American's don't like her. It might not be fair, but it is what it is.
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the comments on this piece illustrate the fundamental issue facing Democrats in 2020. Almost 3 years after the last Presidential Elections, too many are still in bereavement mode. Instead of looking forward and identifying a platform and candidate that can get Trump out of office, Collusion and the popular vote remain part of the mantra and HRC, the defacto Queen who can do no wrong, even when she surfaces with conspiracy theories that would be ignored or mocked if uttered by anyone else.
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I read the comments and I do not site any “bereavement” as you suggest. Most democrats, and I include myself, want Hillary to stop the backseat driving and be quiet. When we comment on her thoughts it is a groan, not wishful thinking.
If you look at the options on the table, Gabbard would probably have the best chance to defeat Trump. On what basis could he attack her? He considered her for a role in his administration, she shares many of his foreign policy views and she's demonstrably intelligent and patriotic. I can see why she is considered a threat to the establishment because of her anti-interventionist platform, but I don't understand the vitriol toward her among rank-and-file Democrats.
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@Zach
Clear thinking! The best I can figure is that she somehow threatens their tenuous viewpoints provided to them by - and shared with - this source (and other mainstream media outlets). I think NYT readers can pick up on how much NYT despises her - and she them. NYT is like their parents and their family is under attack. So, maybe it's a combination of insecurity and feeling protective.
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I was shocked at Gabbard's venality during the Democrat's debate. Other candidates talked of how they'd make the party and country better, she just trashed the party entirely. But her earliest sneering comment 'reminding' the Democrats that Donald Trump 'did win the election' absolutely floored me in its sweeping simplicity. It's not that he didn't win, but right out of the gate Gabbard was nasty towards her party.
Given her display at the debates, it didn't bother me at all that Clinton would suggest what she did. Was it inappropriate or the warning of a former Secretary of State and the only Democrat to go up against Trump and his Republican/Russian machine in 2016? I prefer the latter explanation - oh, and go ask Mueller, though he wouldn't make the call.
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@Kedi If you recall, during the 2015-2016 Republican debates, Trump basically won them by trashing the Republican party standard-bearers. So it can be an effective strategy, particularly in wooing independents.
It's time for Mrs. Clinton to leave the public arena She had two chinches at the nomination and blew it both times. WE have her to thank for Trump because voters found her even less desirable the Trump. If that is not a resounding rejection, I don't know what is Leave Tulsi Gaabatrd alone unless you have hard evidence. So far there is not even a hint of that. Losing gracefully just is not in her bones. In my opinion she is still recovering fro her loss in 2016 She never was and never will be presidential timber. The voters are tired of Clinton. Find something else to meddle in besides the 2020 election.
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@DRR
Amen!
She was aloof, evasive, cold as ice and impersonal. Her inner circle would have to appear on national TV almost daily to claim, "She's a real great person when you get to know her.."
Being 1 of 335 million Americans I didn't think I ever would've had that chance- so I was left basing my judgment on what I saw.. and what I saw.. I didn't like.
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@DRR Clinton's innuendo about Gabbard was entirely unwelcome and unwise. But to say Clinton was more unpopular than the monstrosity in the Oval flies in the face of the fact that she received 3 million more popular votes. Unfortunately the electoral college -- a hold over from the slavery era -- overruled the verdict of the popular vote. The exit of the electoral college from the public arena will be as welcome as Hillary's.
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@sixmile Guess you weren't paying attention in civics class. We don't use popular vote to elect Presidents. There was no popular vote "verdict" that was "overruled." Trump really did receive more electoral votes than Clinton, thereby winning the election. I agree it is a terrible way to do a Presidential election, but is perfectly in line with our established system. Want to change it? Sign me up.
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When will Clinton and Democrats admit:
1. She was a deeply flawed Presidential candidate. Trump’s victory was a declaration of many Americans’ disgust with the Clinton brand.
2. She is increasingly irrelevant.
3. The sooner her platforms are taken away the better the Democrats’ chance of winning. She is a Trump asset.
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Mrs. Clinton expressed the Russian's interest in using assets unbeknownst to the asset. The fact that Trump or Gabbert express similar foreign policies regarding the size of America's military footprint and ulitimate purpose as policeman or not, is beside the point. Both have foreign policy interests that help our ultimate enemy: Autocratic Russia under Putin. Hence, both are Russian assets.
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Anti-war, anti-interventionist policies are sensible. We are only in the position where these policies seem extreme because we as a nation have embraced our worst expansionist impulses.
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Apart from Hillary Clinton's unsubstantiated charges that Tulsi Gabbard and Jill Stein are "Russian assets", which invite "whataboutism" comments from Trump's defenders to criticism of his cozying up to Putin, doesn't she realize that her interventions into the 2020 presidential campaign are toxic for Democrats trying to appeal to independents and moderate Republicans? Currently, Trump is losing support among white Republican women without a college degree. Is it more important for Hillary Clinton that she remain in the public eye by making provocative remarks (How did the "basket of deplorables" comment work out?) and thus drive those women back into Trump's camp, or is it perhaps more important to consider what is the best strategy for helping the Democratic presidential nominee win the election? This may very well mean keeping her thoughts to herself, especially if they are conspiracy theories without any evidence to back them up.
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@James, Toronto, CANADA
I agree Ms. Clinton is not helping and should pipe down; but when you say she made "unsubstantiated charges that Tulsi Gabbard and Jill Stein are 'Russian assets,'" you are being inaccurate. Ms. Clinton said she believed Stein to be a Russian assist and Gabbard to be "a favorite" of the Russians. She did not say Gabbard was an intelligence asset. Also, "unsubstantiated" is an opinion; I would argue that there is quite a bit f evidence in terms of Jill Stein.
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HRC is perhaps the most qualified person to never be voted into office as POTUS. I certainly voted for her in 2016, but that was mostly due to who she was running against.
Despite all of her qualifications she seems at times to enjoy putting her feet in her mouth. And her comments about Tulsi Gabbard is certainly an excellent example. How could she be so impolitic to strike out at Gabbard, one of the least qualified, and least likely, candidates to win the Democratic presidential nomination. How could she be so ignorant of the fact that her comments only increase Gabbard's influence.
As Lincoln once said, "unless specifically asked for your opinion, it is best to be silent, for it is much more easy to make enemies than friends".
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@Richard Phelps
Best comment on this thread! Thank you.
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By engaging in unsupported and incendiary accusations, HRC ends up helping Russia. Tulsi Gabbard is an antiwar candidate who has been to two wars and is a Major in the U.S. Army. Her experience in being deployed in two wars probably gives her a unique and practical perspective on wastefulness and futility of wars.
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@Chatte Cannelle
I guess that is why she supports Assad and his regime in Syria.
Mystery solved.
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If you look back to 2016, Tulsi Gabbard resigned as Vice Chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, because she saw the lack of fairness to other potential Democratic candidates. Tulsi Gabbard also wanted to endorse Bernie Sanders. How much of this that occurred in 2016, has to do with Hillary's behavior by going against and trying to smear Tulsi Gabbard? I think it has a lot to do with it.
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@Sue M.
I think it is much more about Gabbards supportive views of Syria and Assad... and the fact that Russia it the sponsor who has kept Assad in power in Syria throughout the massive civil war there.
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@Sue M.
"...because she saw the lack of fairness to other potential Democratic candidate..."
Care to back that up? She resigned because he wanted to endorse a candidate (Sanders) and chairs and vice-chairs have to stay publicly neutral. Can you cite any evidence to the contrary?
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@Sue M.
You seem to have forgotten that for all his appeal, Bernie Sanders was never a Democrat and had never worked to support other Democratic candidates. Why should the party have given him a leg up over those who had helped earlier?
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Questioning motives is not only proper, but NECESSARY against certain people, the vile GOP in particular who are generally motivated by greed and hate; but as Wikipedians would say, exceptional claims require exceptional sources, and President Clinton hasn't given her sources or at least said "Based on classified information..." wrt Gabbard.
That's a bad move, by a good person and decent President.
There is much to criticize the winner of the 2016 Presidential elections and therefore some seem to idolize the one that lost (in our constitutional electoral system).
But when it comes to define the real loser, it is clearly the American People that in 2016 had to choose between two highly questionable and deficient candidates.
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Apparently, the Russians have put some effort into promoting Ms. Gabbard, perhaps because of her positions on Syria, or other reasons we could not know at this point. Ms. Gabbard, while saying she would not be a third party candidate has side-stepped obvious opportunities to say "I do not know why the Russians have supported me, but I reject that support. It is the opinion of the American people and their well being that I think about, not what is good for Putin."
Russia's continued efforts to influence our political process and divide Americans is a serious concern. Perhaps the above statement would be a good next step for Gabbard?
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@T. Schultz
Ms. Clinton, side-stepped an obvious opportunity to say:
"I do not know why Wall St. has supported me, but I reject that support, and their speaking fees. It is the opinion of the American people and their well being that I think about, not what is good for Goldman Sachs."
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@ExPDXer You seem to be equating Wall Street with Putin and Russia. One group has interests in our country, the other has an interest in harming our national interests. The problem is that the Russians will continue to pursue their interest by trying to affect the re-election of Trump. Gabbard is significant only in so far as she is a vehicle for splitting the vote against Trump and achieve his re=election.
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@T. Schultz
First word of your post is critical. Apparently? To you it is apparent, but to millions of others not remotely. Gabbard has views you don't like. That doesn't mean they align with Russia, or Putin and even if they did somehow, it doesn't mean she has them for that reason. You just see what you want to see. You also don't see what you don't want to see. Why I will never even think about supporting a democrat again.
Elder statesmen/women can be helpful during campaign and election cycles. That help must be within the context of a winning strategy. Secretary Clinton's loss and her subsequent hovering visible presence is a liability to Democratic candidates. The Secretary's prime political time is over. Her comments now should be carefully parsed and carefully delivered. There are millions of voters who've been encouraged, taught, brainwashed to despise her; while that's a horrendous comment on our country, it's a fact. Today's candidates need to succeed or fail without the Secretary's observations about them or their character.
Since when have a candidates motives not been relevant? If one truly has doubts about morality of a candidates motives, be it Trump or Gabbard, those motives become entirely relevant.
I supported Hillary Clinton and voted for her in 2016. I think she was mistreated and slandered by Republicans. I wish she had become our president, but this commentary by her is disturbing. It is Trump language. I don't like Tulsi Gabbard's positions but Clinton should have gone after those and not stooped to conspiracy theories.
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@Katherine Cagle
Tulsi is a Russian Asset, so is Jill Stein!! Better look quick, is that a Russian Agent that just darted across your back yard? You think we somehow avoided war with Russia by now if we had put her in the Oval Office? You have ( had ) a spot in the Bunker? No? Where would you have gone?
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The amusing thing about this thought from Hillary, had Trump made the same remark little would have been said about it in the media. We've grown callous, not necessairilly impervious, to many of the President's obtuse remarks, especially when it comes to people. Although it is concerning why Mrs. Clinton would lash out at women in her own party as it serves no constructive purpose. It could be construed that Hillary herself is a Russian asset out to undermine the future of the Democratic Party with emphasis on women.
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@Kurt Pickard Or, it could be construed as a clarion call to alert us to how Russia may be trying to get Trump re-elected. If Russian bots are injecting support for Gabbard into electronic media and Gabbard decides to run as a third party candidate we will have been warned. Time will tell.
@raywills
Agreed, but why then didn't Hillary just come out and say that instead of being so cryptic and divisive?
Ms. Clinton has undue influence - she is brilliant, knowledgeable about foreign affairs, but she has also been burned badly in the last election. She must have PTSD - we all do. Her opinions should not become talking points in the conversations about this election. She is not a king maker.
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Ms Clinton's comments are being misread and many of the comments here are off target. Ms Clinton is not suggesting that Ms Gabbard is colluding with the Russians, only that Russia is using it's propaganda machine to build support for Ms Gabbard. The Russians have been and continue to interfere in US elections. They do this not only by spreading lies that are harmful to a candidate. They can attempt to build support for a candidate if it helps divide the electorate.
Our government, lacking support from the the current administration, is not doing enough to prevent Russia from interfering in our democratic process. At the same time, tech companies such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google, have become purveyors of false information and unwitting tools of Russian propagandists and hide behind their 1st amendment rights to profit from the chaos.
Ms Clinton is not fooled by what is happening. She is making astute observations that our federal law enforcement is not.
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@Marc Tulsi Gabbard reintroduced the Securing America’s Elections Act (H.R.1946) earlier this year.The bill would address the extreme vulnerabilities within our nation’s elections infrastructure, leaving voters susceptible to potential hacking and manipulation of votes.
Moreover, the association of her views on American involvement in Syria, Iraq, Iran and Libya with Russian interests remind me of the smears directed at people who were against the Vietnam war.
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@Marc
It's also interesting that Ms Clinton never mentioned Ms Gabbard by name, but Ms Gabbard assumed it was her.
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@Marc Mrs. Clinton says the Russians were grooming a candidate for a third party run. That implies that Tulsi was involved, when nothing could be further from the truth. Don't forget that Tulsi Gabbard quit her Vice-chair post at the Dem. National Committee in 2016 and called them out giving unfair advantage to the warmonger, Hillary Clinton.
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A third candidate is a clear and present danger for the Democrats. I'm glad that the issue is on the table no matter who that third candidate may be.
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@Eric
Exactly.
Last time.. it was not brought up about Jill Stein until too late.
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@Eric
At this point, a monkey that can stand on its own 2 feet and espouse something other than open borders and free ice cream for dinner is a "clear and present danger for the Democrats."
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@Eric
However, a right-leaning third party candidate who would dilute votes for Trump would be very helpful to Democrats.
9
Hillary Clinton is now a private citizen who happens to be making the circuit to promote a book. In this instance her views are entirely her own. I understand the urge to give her comments the weight of a cabinet secretary or senator, but she is neither. In a world where Trump, Graham, Pompeo, and others cite her almost daily in disparagement and are quoted in the media, it is a bit much to be objecting to her conjectures, opinions.
1
I wash shocked by Clinton's assertion.
This author is correct. The first step in outing a conspiracy is to remove the "theory" from it. Clinton should have started by making an effort, hopefully with the help of others, of exposing the facts.
Otherwise, how can the public distinguish crazy theories from a person with inside knowledge?
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@Frank Scully
Tell that to Trump... and every republican politican in Congress.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with presenting a theory or suspcion in a free speech society.
I get it.. Hillary said it.. so it is evil by definition for you, right?
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@Frank Scully
I am not sure what part of Ms. Clinton's "assertions" shocked you. The facts she was talking about are widely known by now. Please see the coverage of the suspiciously enthusiastic support Tulsi Gabbard has been receiving from the Russians here in the NYT:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/us/politics/tulsi-gabbard.html?searchResultPosition=1
Hillary Clinton never questioned Ms. Gabbard "intentions", as the author of this article mistakenly suggests. He did not imply she's receiving instructions from Putin ("no collusion", in other words) - all she pointed out was that her misguided non-interventionism and isolationism come across to people like Putin and Assad as very beneficial to their agenda, so they are going to do what it takes to interfere in the election on her behalf. This is similar to how they were supporting Bernie Sanders during the Dem. primary in 2016 - not because they have anything in common with Mr. Sanders, but just because that was their way to hurt Hillary.
And it goes without saying, that should she decide to mount a 3rd party challenge, it will be an absolute gift to Trump. So, again, expect the Russian influence networks to actively support the idea.
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@Leonid Andreev @ Chuck
"She referred to the former Green Party candidate Jill Stein as “a Russian asset.”
That's a strong statement that needs backing.
I think you are making assumptions about my motivations. I am not anti HRC. Trump and the republican party are setting a terrible president, something I do not want to be the norm by any high-visibility people in government. Including by HRC.
Also from the article. "Mrs. Clinton’s assertions, backed only by innuendo, verged on the conspiratorial."
Yes, the Russians are dangerous but don't go into a panic spiral of anything goes. That any suspicion is proof. Pitchforks and torches. That's what the Russians want, don't you think?
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Oh to be so naive. Clinton is bang on the money when she warns of Russian influence and the potential for candidates to become Russian assets. The question is not why Gabbard met with Assad, but why Assad met with Gabbard - an inexperienced, 35-year old congresswoman of limited influence who's now running for president, boycotting DNC debates in protest against her own party! Similarly, the question is not why Stein dined with Putin, but why Putin and his Chief of Staff could be bothered to dine with Stein, at a table shared with Michael 'lock her up' Flynn. Stein went on to run for president.
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@wfw97
Spot on!
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@wfw97
At the time of their meeting, Tulsi Gabbard was a member of the Foreign Affairs committee of the United States Congress. That's why Assad met w/her. She had been empowered by our American government.
And just what does her age have to do with it? To ask the question shows muddled judgment. Nor do you have your facts straight; Gabbard was hardly "inexperienced"; she was already an experienced legislator when she arrived in Washington. Check out her service in Hawaii.
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@marjorie trifon Not to mention that Gabbard had already been promoted to major in the National Guard by this point.
Doing a thorough investigation before resorting to military strikes is the responsible thing for politicians to do. How different would the Vietnam War have played out had someone bothered to properly investigate the Gulf of Tonkin incident?
1
Sorry, but the reasoning here does not work. Russia can be boosting a candidate for its own purposes even though there is no "collusion" between Russia and that candidate. In such a case it is appropriate to state that. Foreign interference in our elections is real, not a fantasy. Voters need to know if Russia is supporting a candidate so that they can understand what Russia has to gain, and America has to lose, if that candidate is successful.
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@Mrsfenwick What is often missed with the technical language is that an "asset" can be witting or unwitting.
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@Mrsfenwick
The term she used was "grooming" which strongly implies that the accused (Gabbard) is a knowing participant in the Russian efforts.
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@Mrsfenwick
She did not say Gabbard was a willing participant. Only that Russia saw her as a favorite in the list of Democratic candidates.. which is by no means a stretch to realize.
As such.. since she will not win the nomination, it would be natural for Russia to make use of... read again.. "make use of" Gabbard as a pawn to confuse the electorate.. even if Gabbard did not run as a 3rd party candidate.
If you cannot fathom this.. then you undertand little about Russian covert approaches to meddling in other nations.
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