The PUMAs in the Plastic Bubble

Last night (26 August), Sen. Hillary Clinton gave a very inspiring speech at the Democratic National Convention. She called for change and leadership, and called for her followers to rally behind Sen. Barack Obama. It was very powerful, very inspiring, very moving. All 2276 words of it, according to the transcript at "RealClearPolitics".

Or, in PUMAland, 1878 words. Because over at the PUMA litterbox "HillaryIs44", they posted a transcript of Sen. Clinton's speech that was interesting in that every reference to Sen. Obama or party unity was edited out. And, except for an occasional "snip", nothing to note it was an edited.....well, censored version.

Here are Sen. Clinton's exact words. The sections that "HillaryIs44" removed are in boldface.

I am honored to be here tonight. A proud mother. A proud Democrat. A proud American. And a proud supporter of Barack Obama.

My friends, it is time to take back the country we love.

Whether you voted for me, or voted for Barack, the time is now to unite as a single party with a single purpose. We are on the same team, and none of us can sit on the sidelines.

This is a fight for the future. And it's a fight we must win.

I haven't spent the past 35 years in the trenches advocating for children, campaigning for universal health care, helping parents balance work and family, and fighting for women's rights at home and around the world . . . to see another Republican in the White House squander the promise of our country and the hopes of our people.

And you haven't worked so hard over the last 18 months, or endured the last eight years, to suffer through more failed leadership.

No way. No how. No McCain.

Barack Obama is my candidate. And he must be our President.

Tonight we need to remember what a Presidential election is really about. When the polls have closed, and the ads are finally off the air, it comes down to you -- the American people, your lives, and your children's futures.

For me, it's been a privilege to meet you in your homes, your workplaces, and your communities. Your stories reminded me everyday that America's greatness is bound up in the lives of the American people -- your hard work, your devotion to duty, your love for your children, and your determination to keep going, often in the face of enormous obstacles.

You taught me so much, you made me laugh, and . . . you even made me cry. You allowed me to become part of your lives. And you became part of mine.

I will always remember the single mom who had adopted two kids with autism, didn't have health insurance and discovered she had cancer. But she greeted me with her bald head painted with my name on it and asked me to fight for health care.

I will always remember the young man in a Marine Corps t-shirt who waited months for medical care and said to me: "Take care of my buddies; a lot of them are still over there....and then will you please help take care of me?"

I will always remember the boy who told me his mom worked for the minimum wage and that her employer had cut her hours. He said he just didn't know what his family was going to do.

I will always be grateful to everyone from all fifty states, Puerto Rico and the territories, who joined our campaign on behalf of all those people left out and left behind by the Bush Administrtation.

To my supporters, my champions -- my sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits - from the bottom of my heart: Thank you.

You never gave in. You never gave up. And together we made history.

Along the way, America lost two great Democratic champions who would have been here with us tonight. One of our finest young leaders, Arkansas Democratic Party Chair, Bill Gwatney, who believed with all his heart that America and the South could be and should be Democratic from top to bottom.

And Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones, a dear friend to many of us, a loving mother and courageous leader who never gave up her quest to make America fairer and smarter, stronger and better. Steadfast in her beliefs, a fighter of uncommon grace, she was an inspiration to me and to us all.

Our heart goes out to Stephanie's son, Mervyn, Jr, and Bill's wife, Rebecca, who traveled to Denver to join us at our convention.

Bill and Stephanie knew that after eight years of George Bush, people are hurting at home, and our standing has eroded around the world. We have a lot of work ahead.

Jobs lost, houses gone, falling wages, rising prices. The Supreme Court in a right-wing headlock and our government in partisan gridlock. The biggest deficit in our nation's history. Money borrowed from the Chinese to buy oil from the Saudis.

Putin and Georgia, Iraq and Iran.

I ran for President to renew the promise of America. To rebuild the middle class and sustain the American Dream, to provide the opportunity to work hard and have that work rewarded, to save for college, a home and retirement, to afford the gas and groceries and still have a little left over each month.

To promote a clean energy economy that will create millions of green collar jobs.

To create a health care system that is universal, high quality, and affordable so that parents no longer have to choose between care for themselves or their children or be stuck in dead end jobs simply to keep their insurance.

To create a world class education system and make college affordable again.

To fight for an America defined by deep and meaningful equality - from civil rights to labor rights, from women's rights to gay rights, from ending discrimination to promoting unionization to providing help for the most important job there is: caring for our families. To help every child live up to his or her God-given potential.

To make America once again a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws.

To bring fiscal sanity back to Washington and make our government an instrument of the public good, not of private plunder.

To restore America's standing in the world, to end the war in Iraq, bring our troops home and honor their service by caring for our veterans.

And to join with our allies to confront our shared challenges, from poverty and genocide to terrorism and global warming.

Most of all, I ran to stand up for all those who have been invisible to their government for eight long years.

Those are the reasons I ran for President. Those are the reasons I support Barack Obama. And those are the reasons you should too.

I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me? Or were you in it for that young Marine and others like him? Were you in it for that mom struggling with cancer while raising her kids? Were you in it for that boy and his mom surviving on the minimum wage? Were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible?

We need leaders once again who can tap into that special blend of American confidence and optimism that has enabled generations before us to meet our toughest challenges. Leaders who can help us show ourselves and the world that with our ingenuity, creativity, and innovative spirit, there are no limits to what is possible in America.

This won't be easy. Progress never is. But it will be impossible if we don't fight to put a Democrat in the White House.

We need to elect Barack Obama because we need a President who understands that America can't compete in a global economy by padding the pockets of energy speculators, while ignoring the workers whose jobs have been shipped overseas. We need a President who understands that we can't solve the problems of global warming by giving windfall profits to the oil companies while ignoring opportunities to invest in new technologies that will build a green economy.

We need a President who understands that the genius of America has always depended on the strength and vitality of the middle class.

Barack Obama began his career fighting for workers displaced by the global economy. He built his campaign on a fundamental belief that change in this country must start from the ground up, not the top down. He knows government must be about "We the people" not "We the favored few."

And when Barack Obama is in the White House, he'll revitalize our economy, defend the working people of America, and meet the global challenges of our time. Democrats know how to do this. As I recall, President Clinton and the Democrats did it before. And President Obama and the Democrats will do it again.

He'll transform our energy agenda by creating millions of green jobs and building a new, clean energy future. He'll make sure that middle class families get the tax relief they deserve. And I can't wait to watch Barack Obama sign a health care plan into law that covers every single American.

Barack Obama will end the war in Iraq responsibly and bring our troops home - a first step to repairing our alliances around the world.

And he will have with him a terrific partner in Michelle Obama. Anyone who saw Michelle's speech last night knows she will be a great First Lady for America.

Americans are also fortunate that Joe Biden will be at Barack Obama's side. He is a strong leader and a good man. He understands both the economic stresses here at home and the strategic challenges abroad. He is pragmatic, tough, and wise. And, of course, Joe will be supported by his wonderful wife, Jill.
They will be a great team for our country.

Now, John McCain is my colleague and my friend.

He has served our country with honor and courage.

But we don't need four more years . . . of the last eight years.

More economic stagnation ...and less affordable health care.

More high gas prices ...and less alternative energy.

More jobs getting shipped overseas ...and fewer jobs created here.

More skyrocketing debt ...home foreclosures ...and mounting bills that are crushing our middle class families.

More war . . . less diplomacy.

More of a government where the privileged come first ...and everyone else comes last.

John McCain says the economy is fundamentally sound. John McCain doesn't think that 47 million people without health insurance is a crisis. John McCain wants to privatize Social Security. And in 2008, he still thinks it's okay when women don't earn equal pay for equal work.

With an agenda like that, it makes sense that George Bush and John McCain will be together next week in the Twin Cities. Because these days they're awfully hard to tell apart.

America is still around after 232 years because we have risen to the challenge of every new time, changing to be faithful to our values of equal opportunity for all and the common good.

And I know what that can mean for every man, woman, and child in America. I'm a United States Senator because in 1848 a group of courageous women and a few brave men gathered in Seneca Falls, New York, many traveling for days and nights, to participate in the first convention on women's rights in our history.

And so dawned a struggle for the right to vote that would last 72 years, handed down by mother to daughter to granddaughter - and a few sons and grandsons along the way.

These women and men looked into their daughters' eyes, imagined a fairer and freer world, and found the strength to fight. To rally and picket. To endure ridicule and harassment. To brave violence and jail.

And after so many decades - 88 years ago on this very day - the 19th amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote would be forever enshrined in our Constitution.

My mother was born before women could vote. But in this election my daughter got to vote for her mother for President.

This is the story of America. Of women and men who defy the odds and never give up.

How do we give this country back to them?

By following the example of a brave New Yorker , a woman who risked her life to shepherd slaves along the Underground Railroad.

And on that path to freedom, Harriett Tubman had one piece of advice.

If you hear the dogs, keep going.

If you see the torches in the woods, keep going.

If they're shouting after you, keep going.

Don't ever stop. Keep going.

If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.

Even in the darkest of moments, ordinary Americans have found the faith to keep going.

I've seen it in you. I've seen it in our teachers and firefighters, nurses and police officers, small business owners and union workers, the men and women of our military - you always keep going.

We are Americans. We're not big on quitting.

But remember, before we can keep going, we have to get going by electing Barack Obama president.

We don't have a moment to lose or a vote to spare.

Nothing less than the fate of our nation and the future of our children hang in the balance.

I want you to think about your children and grandchildren come election day. And think about the choices your parents and grandparents made that had such a big impact on your life and on the life of our nation.

We've got to ensure that the choice we make in this election honors the sacrifices of all who came before us, and will fill the lives of our children with possibility and hope.

That is our duty, to build that bright future, and to teach our children that in America there is no chasm too deep, no barrier too great - and no ceiling too high - for all who work hard, never back down, always keep going, have faith in God, in our country, and in each other.

Thank you so much. God bless America and Godspeed to you all.

There you have it, the speech from Sen. Clinton that "HillaryIs44" felt was too disturbing to poor delicate PUMA sensibilities, that the Readers Digest Condensed version had to be posted instead.

The comments are all full of claims of "subliminal messages", and other attempts by PUMAs to try and explain away Sen. Clinton's words, to claim that she didn't really say what she did, that she was sending out coded messages to her loyal PUMA followers. (There's also a Fox News video interview with the infamous Harriet Christian). And not just there, the people at "Riverdaughter" were even making claims that Sen. Clinton's pantsuit colour was "sorta PUMAish", among other attempts to convince themselves she didn't just tell her followers to vote for Sen. Obama. "ladyboomernyc" also posted a thread about the speech that carefully ignored the icky "party unity" parts. And comments where people who are actually considering following Sen. Clinton's leads are being chastised for daring to express an opinion outside of the herd. "PUMA PAC" is doing the same thing as "RiverDaughter" and "HillaryIs44", people are using anything they can think of to convince themselves that the parts of the speech where she endorsed Sen. Obama simply don't exist.

Anything to convince themselves and the PUMA faithful that she didn't really say "Barack Obama is my candidate. And he must be our President".

Comments

[yikes]

That's totally awesome. It reminds me of that woman who wrote an entire book claiming that Elvis was still alive -- and went into great detail about how the weight of the coffin at his funeral PROVED that it was filled with a non-Elvis substance.

Or the Catholic priests in Japan who are dead certain that Jesus traveled there in his youth, bringing Christianity to the East.

On an academic level, as someone who loves studying conspiracy theorizing, this is priceless stuff.

On a political level, as someone who loves democracy and believes in the importance of an informed populace, not so much.

[Seamus Artaud]

The Ministry of Truth in Orwell's 1984 used to revise the news this way too. They'd usually, however, do it after the fact in response to circumstance.

With the improvements in technology, workers at the Ministry of Truth can instantly change not only the past, but the present as well.

[anti-Rocinante]

It's interesting that this so-called "moononpluto" is happily posting from Thomas Lifson's American Thinker blog. Lifson is far from liberal in his thought, and has regularly contributed to other like conservative 'zines.

[AltHippo]

Following on Seamus' comment, there is a good deal about the "Confluence" that reminds me of Orwell. The morning post by riverdaughter (I still prefer rivermalkin) reminds me of the 3 minute hate in 1984. I would say that Obama is their version of Immanuel Goldstein.

So, here's my question. Why do the folks at, for example, Talk Left and Corrente allow the "Conflucians" to comment at their sites without pointing out the Orwellian behavior they exhibit? Lambert at Corrente in particular has been lamenting the breakdown of the blogosphere during the primaries. Why are the rhetorical fallacies and malicious language of the PUMAs acceptable in what used to be respectable corners of the political blogosphere?

[anti-Rocinante]

That is, moononpluto is posting on the Hillaryis44 blog. This would indicate to me that it is a GOP-favoring blog, NOT a Hillary-supporter.

[TDJ]

Last night (26 August), Sen. Hillary Clinton gave a very inspiring speech at the Democratic National Convention. She called for change and leadership, and called for her followers to rally behind (SNIP) PUMA.

(SNIP) Because (SNIP) Sen. Clinton's speech (SNIP) was (SNIP) that (SNIP) Sen. Obama or party unity was (SNIP) nothing (SNIP).

[Kmuzu]

I guess I would be amused at the silly antics of these self-delusional idiots. But their useless temper tantrum is risking my access to health care. I have a very serious illness and I need universal coverage and I need it like now.

It's like some kind of mental masturbation for these hags. And let me say one last thing .. If HRC thinks for one moment that blacks and the young are going to forget about this in 2012, watch the convention floor go suddenly white and smell of Gold Bond Powder.

[Sadie Baker]

Pathetic!

TDJ your take was spot on.

[polo]

They are deleting Hillary's words.

I posted a Hillary quote from her speech last night, that's all, just her words.

Poof, deleted.

[GrandCougar]

PUMA08.com, the 'official' PUMA site, doesn't even mention the Hillary speech. Methinks they are too busy focusing on rich old white guys.

[anita]

My husband called me on his walk over to the Convention Center and he says, " Anita PUMAS! "
In the background I can hear this screaming and screeching and he's laughing and says " there are only three of them and they're wearing Hillary Masks..."

He was still laughing when he hung up.

a.m.

[Christina]

anita- hahahaha, he should have gotten a picture!

[Abroadsider]

Awesome blog you've got there, Anita! -

http://animar.wordpress.com/

[Douglas]

1984 indeed!
How utterly...utterly bizzare.

[polo]

#1629 deenj on 08.27.08 at 6:21 pm

If this appears a few times = sorry - keep getting messages I am posting too fast.

What was Illinois passing all about? I swear if NY does what Arkansas did, I will never spend another penny in NY, no Broadway plays, no shopping, not one cent.
------

Darragh is awol, and this poster here wants to punish all New Yorkers. For what I'm not sure exactly.

[Lynx]

deenj, it's a symbolic gesture. Reconciliation. Since Illinois is Obama's state they passed and when it came to them again (after New Mexico ceded to them) they ceded to New York, Clinton's state, where she PERSONALLY asked for the suspension of the vote and the nomination of Obama by acclamation (and did a good job of it, if I do say so myself). This was all planned to the letter beforehand.

Well, almost everything, the tedious stuttering of random facts about every state seemed planned by 9th grader.

[democratista]

Thank you for this site. I was just pointed here by a friend. Heard my favorite person (NOT), Will Bower on NPR today talking about his own selfish interests and trying to sound like he's doing our country a favor. Sure....while women wait for equal pay or abortion rights are taken away because some hurt Dems allow a Repub to win and appoint Justices, they will really be making a point about how much they care. How self centered. You're not happy with the process? You've got four years to work on it or would you prefer to leave us all a lasting legacy?

I keep hearing they wanted to be asked for their vote. What speech did you miss...the together we can do this...it's about you not me....what have you been watching? Have you been listening at all? What would you prefer? An engraved invite. A personal audience. Color me confused, BUT HAPPY....

Thanks for letting me vent. Unfortunately, as considerate and diplomatic as Hillary was today, some people just don't get it.

Obama/Biden '08

[Petey Wheatstraw]

Those reTHUGlicans tools over at blog.pumapac are now steering the thoughtless puma fools to donate money to the "grandpa McWar" campaign as a protest "for Hillary."

Yeah, this puma crap has Rove dirty trick written all over it!

It matters not, they are going down HARD!

[anti-Rocinante]

Now this post at mpandgs is very interesting:

http://mpandgs.blogspot.com/2008/08/mccain-money-for-puma-clintons4mccain.html

And "ugh" to the McCain ad with Bartoshevich!

[mpandgs]

Popping by to say THANK YOU to Christina et. al. for being the first, the loudest, and the strongest voice in exposing the PUMAs and their ilk.

Keep being exceptional!

[mpandgs]

(I didn't notice Anti-Rocinante's comment. My following it is purely coincidental...but thanks, Anti-Rocinante!)

[Patrick McKinnion]

Petey Wheatstraw - I suspect we're seeing their true colours now. To the PUMA leadership, it was never about Sen. Clinton.

I expect the story line soon to be anger over Sen. Clinton's closing down the roll call, and throwing her under the bus. And soon the PUMA sites will be spouting off all the various right-wing lies about her. Still others will be throwing their money to McCain in hopes that Sen. Clinton will run in 2012 - not realizing that if Sen. Obama loses, a LOT of the blame will go on Sen. Clinton's shoulders.

[anti-Rocinante]

mpandgs, Christina is an outstanding individual, there is no question about that. Don't underestimate your own prodigious skills, however.

[Christina]

mpandgs- No, THANK YOU for coming to blog, blogrolling us, spreading the word, and helping expose all that is wrong with PUMA!

[Petey Wheatstraw]

Patrick - You are correct. Those reThugs are layering it on too thick now...most posts are emphaticly stating no Obama, no rhyme or reason, just no Obama. Those fools stopped talking about issues months ago! Now their only focus is to stop Obama...they are pathetic! I also notice an increase today of the ramping up of the donate money to granpa McAngry meme. Too obvious, I tell you! Some of the lesser known pu(ke)ma sites show no activity in over a month. These sites were as fake as the fake town of Rockridge in the Blazing Saddles" movie! What will these knuckleheade be up to in two weeks? Will the reTHUGlican funding continue? I predict the activity to all of these echo-chambers will reduce to an almost inaudible whimper!

[mpandgs]

Thank you Chrisitna and Anti-Rocinante. You are very, very kind, and your comments are much valued. Cheers!

[David Schultz]

I want to go over there to the PUMA blog and just say "Wake up!! Wake up!! The Matrix has you!!"

but I know my comment will be deleted by the syste.... **gasp**

::the voice of Agent Smith::
Please, go about your business... nothing to see here.

[David Schultz]

or.. should I say.. Agent Murphy

[Bruce]

Patrick, thanks for posting this. Their censoring Hillary is not surprising. The Hillary they worship like some goddess is not a real person. It's a fantasy they hold in their heads. As you can see when they can't even reprint the real Hillary's words.

They'll say one minute it's all about Hillary and then the next, it has nothing to do with her.

I've come up with the only logical conclusion. They are crazy. Stone cold nuts crazy. As I wrote on my blog "attachment leads to delusion" and in this case, insanity.

The people - majority women - who were the more ardent Hillary supporters have made the move over and are making the move over to Obama because they know Hillary is a democrat and voting McCain is voting against what the democrats need to achieve (not to mention safe-guarding women's rights). Obama stands with these people, McCain wants to lure them in, only to use them, then ultimately throw them aside.

When the PUMAs think Hillary speaks to them in code, you know they should be locked up in the looney bin.