I admit upfront that the title of my piece is obscure except for the most ardent film buffs. What does Donna Brazil have to do with "Sofia?" My Sofia refers to the character Oprah Winfrey played in the Steven Spielberg movie, The Color Purple. Sofia was a bad ass black woman who would not take a beating, willfully, from anyone, especially men.
Sofia is the type of assertive woman that Celie is not. She won’t back down from a fight and if anybody picks on her, she beats them twice as hard as they give it to her. Celie admires this quality, but often times it just causes Sofia trouble. Her assertive nature tends to rub white people the wrong way.
In addition to her assertiveness, Sofia is also extremely honest and willing to act on her emotions. When she struggles, she says so. When somebody hurts her, she says so. When she’s mad, she acts on it. This is also, of course, what gets her in trouble. Celie never emulates Sofia, but Sofia serves as a visible reminder that Celie doesn’t have to take everything lying down, she can learn to stand up and fight.
In light of Donna Brazil's verbal and written assault on the Clinton Empire, I can think of no better character example of her actions than that of Sofia. First, Donna and Sofia look alike. Here's Oprah as Sofia:
And here's Donna:
Something certainly has riled Ms. Donna up and steeled her for brawling with the Clinton machine. She does not appear willing to back down. She is trashing Hillary as an absentee candidate who, per Donna/Sofia, operated on cruise control and she also takes shots at President Too Cool for School Obama for his complete disinterest in raising money for the DNC. She, Ms. Donna, paints a picture of a dysfunctional clown show pretending to be a national political party with a purpose and sense of mission.
If you did not get a chance to see Donna today with George Stephanopoulos, here is the transcript. The Democrats, believe it or not, are accusing Donna of collaborating with the Russians. Yep, she's now just another puppet of Putin:
STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's get some facts on the table first.
As DNC chair, you didn't have the power on your own to replace Hillary on the ticket?
BRAZILE: No. But as you well know, the charter of the DNC as well as the convention rules say that the chairperson, shall, in consultation with the leadership in congress and others, and so I had to put in on the the table, George, because I was under tremendous pressure after Secretary Clinton fainted to have a quote, unquote, plan B.
I didn't want a plan B. Plan A was great for me. I supported Hillary and I wanted her to win. But we were under pressure.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So how serious was this? You write that you got a call from Vice President Biden at the time. Did you mention this to the vice president?
BRAZILE: No, I did not.
I mean, look, everybody was called in to see, do you know anything? How is she doing? And of course my job at the time, George, was to reassure people, not just the vice president, but also reassure the Democratic Party, the members of party, that Hillary was doing fine and that she would resume her campaign the following week.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you still think that Biden and Booker would have won?
BRAZILE: Well, you know, I had a lot of other combinations. This was something you play out in your mind. But at the time, I was sitting next to Charlie Baker, who was her chief...
STEPHANOPOULOS: Clinton's campaign.
BRAZILE: That's right. And Charlie and I put down -- we had a lot of rumors coming -- I had the former chair of the DNC call me, Donald Fowler Jr. -- I mean Senior -- what are you doing?
Look, the bottom line is she -- she resumed campaigning. I went on TV to say that the campaign was back on track.
STEPHANOPOULOS: As you can imagine, there's been quite a reaction to this, including this open letter from the Hillary for America 2016 team signed by about 100 people. They say they are shocked to learn that you were considering this. And they go on to say, "it is particularly troubling and puzzling that she would seemingly buy into false Russian fueled propaganda spread by the Russians and our opponent about our candidate's health.
BRAZILE: Well, George, at the time -- like I said, I talked with Charlie Baker. But as it relates to that...
STEPHANOPOULOS: Did you mention this idea to him?
BRAZILE: No. I kept my own counsel. I'm the chair of the party, George, and I decided I wanted to be up front with someone inside the campaign. And Charlie was there sitting across from me.
But let me just address what my former colleagues, I wasn't a staff person. I did not work for the Hillary Clinton campaign. I was not on their daily strategy calls. I had nothing to do with their data analytics. I was the chair of Democratic National Committee. I was concerned about the entire party, not just the presidential, but the senatorial, congressional, and all of the other candidates.
STEPHANOPOULOS: From the sound of it, it sounds like you had a pretty dysfunctional relationship with the high command in Hillary's campaign. You even talk about telling them at some point I'm not patsy the slave?
BRAZILE: Oh, George, let me tell you something, I could not control the -- the purse string of the Democratic Party. And I had to figure out what was going on within the party that the chair of the party -- and remember, I wasn't just the chair, I'm also a vice chair. I was an officer for eight years, eight years under President Obama. I knew what was going on within the party.
I become chair and I'm trying to write a check for something. I raised the the money and they're like, you have got to get signed off from Brooklyn. I said Brooklyn? This wasn't a standard joint fundraising agreement. They had a memorandum of understanding. And I needed to break that, but in order to break it, I would cause a great commotion.
So, yeah, I'm not patsy the slave because I got sick and tired of people telling me how to spend the money when all I was trying to do -- I wasn't getting a salary. I was basically volunteering my time. And what I was trying to do, George, was to increase the level of enthusiasm and passion for Hillary Clinton and the rest of the ticket all across the country.
STEPHANOPOULOS: They also take exception to your description of the campaign right now as an anti-septic, sterile campaign inside the headquarters. A lot of people saying that is not the campaign they knew.
BRAZILE: Well, you know what, they should take a page from Hillary's book. Take a look inside of what they did last year and then they should write their own book. Hillary wrote a book, which I enjoyed reading. It was part memoir, it was a history book. I loved reading her book. If they don't like my book, don't buy it.
But let me say this, I have every right as a former chair of the party -- next year, I'll celebrate almost 50 years in American politics. The Democratic Party is 170 years old.
STEPHANOPOULOS: I get that. But how do you respond, it's not just the Clinton campaign. There's a lot of traffic on Twitter right now. I have gotten emails from Democrats.
BRAZILE: I bet.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Passionate Democrats who say they feel betrayed by all this. Any regrets?
BRAZILE: Do I regret taking on a job the second time in my life as chair of the party, cleaning up everyone's mess, taking all of the incoming, being unable to spend funds that I raised? Do I regret being on the road 100 percent of the time, being hacked by the Russians, being -- being harassed, getting death threats? Do I regret any of that? George, was worse than Hurricane Katrina in terms of the emotional toll. But do I regret stranding up for what is right, helping Hillary Clinton, helping the Democratic Party?
And let me just say this, as somebody who went through the hacking experience, being able to tell the truth about what happened with the Russians, the attack on our government do I regret any of that? No. I wish I could have done more, George.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But do you think this helps for the book to come out?
BRAZILE: Well, George, I mean this is a lesson of 2016. If I released it next year, they would say, Donna, you're impacting our 2018. If I released it the following -- Donna, you're impacting. George, for those who are telling the me to shut up, they told Hillary that a couple of months ago. You know what I tell them, go to hell. I'm going to tell my story. I'm going the tell my story, George.
Because this is a story of a young girl who started in American politics at the age of 9, who continues to fight each and every week of her life. I went down to Virginia last week, to kick off the canvassing campaign. Nobody paid me to do that. Nobody -- I'm not on the payroll, George. I care about my country. I care about our democracy.
And I say go the hell because, why am I supposed to be the only person that is unable to tell my story?
Now, if -- I have heard a lot of people tell me various things as well. But here's what they don't know. They don't know what it was like to be over at the DNC during this hacking. They don't know what it's like to bury a child. I did, Seth Rich. They don't know what it's like to protect a staff from further harassment. They don't know what it's like because they're -- the high command of Brooklyn. The people who were making the decisions, even for the DNC, they didn't come and work with us. They told us to shut up and basically let them win the election. And when we tried to intervene, we had to spend money we raised to try to help them win. And that was my job as chair of the party.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Pretty clear you have no regrets at all right there.
I suppose Donna, deep in her soul, is ashamed of the role/roles she played in enabling the dysfunction that was Hillary Clinton. Passing her debate questions was wrong and probably helped Hillary a tad in besting Bernie the Socialist. But don't let the Clinton/Democrat establishment counter attack fool you. Hillary ran a crappy campaign. She clearly felt entitled to the title of President. All she had to do was show up. Donna's critique highlights the troubling fact that the Hillary campaign was a facade and a charade. There was no there there other than her claim, "I ain't Donald Trump."
One of the key takeaways from this latest episode of the Donna Brazil show is that the Democrats are still flogging the anti-Russian hysteria rather than accept the reality that the only person responsible for Hillary losing the Presidency is Hillary. As long as this state of denial persists the Democrats will continue to fail to adopt the reforms that would put them into a position to regain their political footing as a national force. They will remain divided and unfocused. That is good news for Trump. If the economy keeps growing and he stays out of new wars, the road for a second term should be smooth.
Oh man, Hillary falls on her face in the street and gets ignominiously loaded into a van like a sack of potatoes - and we all see the video - and it's all Russian lies that there's something wrong with her health? It wasn't even the first time she'd fallen - and not the last. Recently she fell and appeared with a cast on her lower leg. Do the Democrats not understand how much they insult those of us still capable of objective analysis?
BTW, I still say with conviction that if she had won the election she'd be dead by now. The pressure would have finished her off. I digress....
Only a fully indoctrinated zombie can really believe that an old woman that falls on her face in the street could be POTUS. Agree that Brazile must feel guilty for her role in continuing the charade that Hillary could be a good fit for the office; a charade that was obvious to a lot of us and that obviousness of which helped elect Trump.
Posted by: Eric Newhill | 05 November 2017 at 05:34 PM
I don't think we should get carried away writing a hagiography for Donna Brazil. She wouldn't be leaking had Hillary won. Zero chance! But because she lost, the DNC has to cut off the Clinton tumour for good...enter Donna Brazil to draw first blood. She and the DNC realize how their interests have shifted.
This won't be the first left-wing circular firing squad we'll see. With a reinvigorated right ascendant, the dysfunction which affects people on the 'wrong side of history' is beginning to migrate from the right to the left.
Posted by: Lemur | 05 November 2017 at 05:36 PM
Tacitus,
For what it is worth, I am under the impression that Donna Brazile has suddenly come around to her position because she and others (so far unnamed) in the Democratic Party are beginning to realize that the Obama years were a completely wasted opportunity for the advancement of the party's honestly left wing leaning members, and that to continue on the same path with the likes of Hillary Clinton would be suicidal. I believe she and others are embarking on a course to finally put a nail in the coffin of the Clinton machine.
Personally, I long ago gave up expecting anything constructive to emerge from the Clinton or Obama political machines. So I am overjoyed with her attack (assuming full well, that like other members of the political establishment her actions have probably been motivated by a personal quest for power).
Nevertheless, good riddance to Hillary and Bill. Just please do not give us Biden.
Posted by: David E. Solomon | 05 November 2017 at 05:57 PM
The whole "Putin puppet" thing has spun off into self parody. Brazile's response to the accusation was weak. It kind of reminds me of the stories of the Moscow show trials where the object of the trial remained a zealous adherent to the party line as they went off to the gulag - no injustice could shake their faith or their willingness to denounce others undergoing the same injustice.
Posted by: Thirdeye | 05 November 2017 at 06:18 PM
Tacitus, I would further like to add that before we get carried away with worrying about Russian meddling conspiracies we (the body politic) need to take responsibility for what we have wrought over the last fifty years.
I am not just thinking about Clinton, Obama and Trump.
We all (Left and Right) have a responsibility to tone down the rhetoric and start working for the common good (not just the good of one group over another).
Posted by: David E. Solomon | 05 November 2017 at 06:34 PM
So George Stephanopoulos is interviewing the DNC Chair who says she felt under pressure to initiate a process to replace Clinton as their candidate, and he doesn't ask "from where" she was feeling such pressure, or just WHO else was talking about the need to have a Plan B, or even the nature of her medical condition that was causing (at least for Brazile, among other persons) such cause for concern? Just what WAS going on with Hillary Clinton? This would seem to be such an obvious question for an ostensible "journalist" to ask. But instead of probing for an answer in real time, the Clintonistas respond, later, that Brazile's brain must have been infected by The Russians.
"Clown show" is correct, and the circus clearly runs wide and deep.
Posted by: DC | 05 November 2017 at 06:43 PM
"she also takes shots at President Too Cool for School Obama for his complete disinterest in raising money for the DNC."
I thought it was pretty widely known that Obama saw the DNC as a tool for the Clintons. That is why he ran his own separate organization.
Steve
Posted by: steve | 05 November 2017 at 07:15 PM
I agree completely with your analysis here. I very much doubt that Brazile would be writing what she has in recent days without some significant encouragement from some major power players in the Dem Party.
Many inside the Dem Party know that Hillary lost because Hillary is one of the worse national candidates ever. She has that unique ability to give a pep talk to 1000 people including 500 supporters and afterwards there are only 480 who support her. That is why the Dem pros didn't let her campaign in Michigan and Wisconsin late in the campaign -- they could see every time she addressed a crowd her support shrunk.
But in the short term Brazile will have to face the wrath of the Hillary fanatics. Stephanopoulos is one. It will be unpleasant for her but I do believe there are some very powerful back room players that are supporting her one way or the other. Their only goal is to make Hillary go away -- Hillary's recent book tour has convinced them that Hillary thinks she can win the Dem Party nomination in 2020. And the fact that there are 20 million women in the Dem party who are fanatical Hillary supporters it might even be true that she could win. That would be a disaster that would take decades, if at all, to recover from.
Posted by: ToivoS | 05 November 2017 at 07:53 PM
It was not widely known that the DNC was a Hillary tool in 2009 because it most certainly was not. Howard Dean was DNC chair until Obama won and then fired him and dismantled his efforts to build the Dem party in all 50 states and to contest down ballot races. Between 2009 and 2016 Bill and Hillary worked full time to take over the DNC. They finally succeeded once DWS became chair. It was never clear to me why Obama allowed this to happen. Probably because he really did not care about the Dem Party other than seeing it as a tool to gain power. As other narcissists Obama doesn't care about principles that do not include themselves directly.
Posted by: ToivoS | 05 November 2017 at 08:12 PM
I might jump out the window if I believed that was in the cards !
Posted by: FourthAndLong | 05 November 2017 at 08:57 PM
Obama cared only about Obama and that was very clear to anyone who chose to look.
Posted by: David E. Solomon | 05 November 2017 at 11:03 PM
PT,
Thanks for a great read on a night when I could not sleep because of events in TX.
The comment thread has been great, too.
I wonder if the Democratic Party has finally reached the point that my front yard landscaping has reached: it was time to take it out and create something new. The bushes were so overgrown and ugly, the 80's style lava rock and railroad ties were just too ugly and had never been as cool as everyone thought at the time.
But back to the Dems. The 1988 primaries and then the 1992 primaries were so very strange, if you ask me. It was not until Obama won that I finally realized I was no longer a Democrat. But even back then, I remember writing in Bullwinkle the Moose as my candidate on the primary ticket for 1992.
There is just no clear economic position that the Democrats want to promote. Bernie's surprising run as a Socialist frightens me. It's just too junior high school thinking.
Hillary and Obama with their One World Government ideas are even more idiotic.
Poor Donna Brazile--she's clinging to her nine-year-old self and thinking the issues and the times have not changed. She's experiencing cognitive dissonance.
But I thank her for coming forward with her truth, as she sees it. And I'm so very happy that her truth has shed light on the clown show that is not only the Clinton Machine but also includes the Obama shadow puppet show.
The Democrats need to do some serious soul-searching, just as the Republicans are being forced to do with their Trump Presidency.
I hope the mess is all cleaned up and rearranged and functioning for my grandchildren when they are old enough to vote. My fear is that when they reach that age, the world will be a far different place for them than it was for us in our ealy adult lives.
Posted by: DianaLC | 06 November 2017 at 12:56 AM
"If the economy keeps growing and he stays out of new wars, the road for a second term should be smooth."
This is the catch 22 for the US. To stay the superpower, the US must initiate wars (if destabilization does not succeed) against countries that use currency other than the US$ for international trade, otherwise the trickle becomes a flood.
Posted by: Peter AU | 06 November 2017 at 03:52 AM
That the Clintonists are so loud in their complaints against Brazile suggests to me that they're hoping that the blessed Ms Hillary will run again in 2020 (with the same result), but if you say that the Clintonists accuse you of being a nutter. So, it looks to me that Brazile is trying to kill off Ms Hillary's presidential dreams for 2020 without suggesting Ms Hillary'll stand in 2020. I hope Brazile succeeds.
Posted by: blowback | 06 November 2017 at 06:04 AM
"Go to Hell."
Truman couldn't have said it better.
Posted by: Morongobill | 06 November 2017 at 09:34 AM
So I looked up this Bullwinkle character on Wiki. He and his pal had "a shared sense of optimism, persistence and traditional ethics and moral standards."
Not carping, but I think that was quite a lot to ask a voting machine for back in 1992. Still, all's well that ends well, though it must have been a long wait for you until Trump came along.
Posted by: English Outsider | 06 November 2017 at 09:39 AM
SST;
re: " They don't know what it's like to bury a child. I did, Seth Rich."
Could somebody enlighten me; just what the hell is this sentence supposed to mean?
Many thanks
Ishmael Zechariah
(and God does love the Infantryman-he made so many of them).
Posted by: Ishmael Zechariah | 06 November 2017 at 10:06 AM
The Democrats are in an odd position. The stock market is soaring and unemployment is plummeting. After years of attributing both to the influence of Obama, they now want to claim they both are in spite of rather than because of Trump. Or, they just try to ignore the stock market and unemployment and hope that no one notices. Or they secretly hope that the stock market plummets and unemployment soars.
Meanwhile they scream about Russia and misogny as a distraction, because Americans care so much more about the Russian threat and how women are treated than they do about their retirement accounts, which consist of stocks, and jobs.
Posted by: Bill H | 06 November 2017 at 10:08 AM
Seth Rich was a young employee murdered, to the extend I recall close to his home in Washington DC, in the larger context of the Russia-hacking gate.
In other words his murder is the basis (not much time to put it better) of the leaks versus hacking theory.
Posted by: LeaNder | 06 November 2017 at 10:22 AM
steve, my last uninformed comment on matters. Or for today. Matters I have to look into.
Could Obama have given her her own highly secured Blackberry?
One of our own German conspiracy theorists seems to assume the fact she didn't get one just like the president did, triggered the whole Hillary, private server, email affair. I have a vague idea about the Obama and his Blackberry meme, although not much basics on the official US procedure in this context.
******
I disliked her campaign against Obama admittedly. Full discovery: the only thing I didn't understand is why he offered her the position of Secretary of State after.
Posted by: LeaNder | 06 November 2017 at 11:00 AM
All:
Ambassador Chas Freeman on Technology, Statecraft, and Unrestricted Warfare
http://chasfreeman.net/technology-statecraft-and-unrestricted-warfare/
Posted by: Babak Makkinejad | 06 November 2017 at 11:26 AM
Countries sell the US their goods in return for USD as long as the selling country needs USD to purchase oil and other goods it needs only sold in USD…or maybe it wants USD as a buffer.
[As the single national reserve currency, the US must run trade deficits to provide the world with this liquidity. It has to, otherwise it’s credibility as the reserve currency breaks down; if it can’t provide USD, then its status as reserve currency will disappear. This doesn’t appear to be anything the current Republican and Democrat poobahs understand.]
At the moment, all USD sales (including Chinese) are for the most part parked in their treasury securities accounts at the Federal Reserve. The selling country can of course exchange its USD profits on the open exchange to their own currency (or another currency) and wire the money home, but not if the selling country wants USD. By law, no USD can leave the US banking system. So if you want to see the profits that a country like China or Japan made selling us stuff in any given year, just google for the Fed’s Foreign Treasury Securities table. They are right there in black and white.
The US does NOT need to “initiate wars…against countries that use currency other than the US$ for international trade.” What it needs to do (1) is ensure by increasing the welfare and prosperity of its own people, (2) increase wages for the middle class so that (3) purchasing imports is a benefit. The massive US purchases of Chinese goods from 1999-2008 was not the result of the increased worker wages, of a rich middle class benefiting from its good fortune and spending its money. It was massive accumulated private debt paying for those products which came crashing down in Sept 2008 and resulted in the Great Recession.
Contrary to popular belief, exports are a cost to a nation. It uses up a nation’s national resources.
The US may lose its reserve currency status by 2030 as China convinces the rest of the world to retain Yuan instead of USD. China will have to replicate the huge treasury securities daily market (currently over $750 billion daily) to nab reserve status.
In the meantime, of course, there will be trillions of treasury securities in foreign Federal Reserve accounts that will have to be liquidated, so it ain’t like the USA is going to suffer for this except for one thing. It’s going to need the new reserve currency itself to pay for foreign wars (food, fuel, logistics, etcetera). Right now it pays for this stuff with a keystroke. Costs the US zip.
Posted by: MRW | 06 November 2017 at 11:42 AM
Ms Brazil needs to watch her six, those who have crossed Hillary and Bill have been Arkancided. If she isn't careful, she will be added to their body count
Posted by: J | 06 November 2017 at 11:47 AM
It may not have been widely known. I didn't claim that. What I said was that Obama believed that, and in retrospect I think it was probably mostly true.
Steve
Posted by: steve | 06 November 2017 at 12:44 PM
Unemployment is decreasing at about the same rate under Trump as it was under Obama. The stock market is also growing at about the same rate. Those are the actual numbers. Trump should get credit for maintaining the rate of improvement.
Steve
Posted by: steve | 06 November 2017 at 12:47 PM