by digby
Kevin Drum flags this quote from Jonah Goldberg in which he "explains" why Hillary Clinton supporters might be attacking Jim Webb without her instructions:
She’s created an infrastructure. The incentives are in place. The culture exists. It’s a bit analogous to Lois Lerner at the IRS. She didn’t need to be told by the White House to target conservative groups. She simply knew what she had to do.I have no idea what he's talking about with either Clinton or Lerner. I have seen very little evidence that the White House has a culture of political revenge that allows subordinates to act on their own volition. And sure, Clinton supporters may attack her rivals. It's a political campaign. It's what they do. I don't think there's anything corrupt or even unusual about that.
But I can think of a certain super macho conservative leader who takes pride in ruling with an iron fist whose closest staff members were revealed explicitly instructing people to use the power of the governor's office to exact revenge on political enemies. That would be Chris Christie, of course, the bullying alpha-male who managed to fend off accusations of being a bullying alpha-male by pleading that he didn't know nothin' about birthing no babies and that his staff hurt his feelings by doing exactly what anyone would have expected Chris Christie to want them to do.
Political leaders throwing their staff members into oncoming traffic to get themselves off the hook is nothing new, of course. In fact, it's pretty much the norm. But when someone whose entire reputation rests on his take-charge attitude and tough guy image pleads that his closet advisors were out of control and he had no idea what was going on, it should make you wonder just what in the hell the guy brings to the table besides his big mouth.
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