Donna Brazil Goes "Sofia" on Hillary and Obama by Publius Tacitus

 

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.

 

 

Comments

[Anna]

How about Norway, Fred?

[LeaNder]

David, don't misread this feedback. I am aware of the VIPS technical file transfer argument that suggests leaks versus hacking. I forget the anonymous expert's aka behind it.

*****

But if I may respond from a more personal layer, one of the people that attracted me in the larger early post 9/11 US conspiracy scene, "Bob", he may have attracted me since his diction was the highest linguistic challenge in the larger context. I spent quite a bit of time in deciphering some of his comments.

He claimed to be a resident of Washington DC, which made me take a closer look, based on his comments. He also claimed to be, or was, an early IT geek.

Up to that date, I had admittedly the more general impression it was the US capital, with no doubt a lot of lobbyists around. More arbitrarily: I am aware of a German merchant of arms that after he officially resigned/retired from his job here in Germany spent quite some time there. I suppose as expert of the larger scene ... So to speak unofficially, as far as the firm is concerned. At least it looked like that. Shifting from regular pay to some type of percentage he got for his deals?

But I surely wasn't aware to what extend some of "Bob's" more cryptic statements made a lot of sense in the real Washington DC beyond the P.O.S.H. scene, I had no clue about that. He made me take a closer look in my desire tounderstand.

******
In hindsight, I admit, this might have been a good larger context to stage a murder that may never be resolved. But why? What's the exact time table? Could Donna Basile's publication tell us anything about that? And how could the "Clintoites" and "Obamacrats" cum Crowd Strike have been involved?

Before we let our imagination fly, that is. ;)

[Anna]

Hard to believe: "George W. Bush Receives a Character Award at West Point" http://www.unz.com/article/duty-honor-atrocity/
Who knows, but there are maybe some fearless and influential patriots among the brass who are ready to spill the beans about the deterioration at the West Point. The words "gutting and renovation" are coming to mind.

[Cee]

Norman

She dedicated her book to Seth Rich. Sure shot at HRC, Wasserman and anyond else who tries to come for her.

[Pacifica Advocate]

Or Taiwan, France, Germany, Italy, or....

[different clue]

Pacifica Advocate,

I remember back during the Clinton Administration period when someone was bragging about the millions of new jobs Clinton had created. I remember replying: " yes, and someone I know has three of them."

[different clue]

David E. Solomon,

" Cis-gender straight white males need not apply", eh? From someone within the DNC, eh?

It would be nice to know the names of the people who wrote and sent that memo. I suspect whoever wrote and sent it was part of the Clintonite conspiracy against Sanders.

At least the risk of nuclear war with Russia is lower than it would be under a President Clinton. At least the Clintonites don't get to create a jihadi Islamist Emirate in Syria. And let us remember that it was the Free Trade Clintonites in conspiracy with the Free Trade Republicans who got MFN for China passed, and engineered the mass-transfer of thingmaking from America to China to begin with.

But yes. At some point we will have to begin commenting about the details of what the ongoing Trump damage has been and is.

[Richardstevenhack]

Sy Hersh backtracked for any number of likely reasons:

1) He was caught on tape unbeknownst to himself. Obviously he is not happy.

2) He is working on a "long form journalism" story on the whole Russiagate affair. Obviously he is not happy that the release of the tape may have caused potential media buyers to back off.

3) One of his senior contacts in a US intelligence agency (the FBI or NSA, it's not clear) may have been compromised by being mentioned in the tape. This could jeopardize ALL of his contacts, on which he depends for his articles. Obviously he is not happy.

The audio tape stands on its own. He doesn't need to confirm it. All he has done is hand wave to try to shut it down before it does any more damage to his efforts to find out what really happened. This is consistent with his personality as an impatient curmudgeon and someone who suffers fools badly.

The FACT remains that he said what he said and not in a manner of "gossip".

[Richardstevenhack]

I agree it was unusual for her to bring up Rich. Personally I have no idea whether Rich was deliberately murdered or not.

On the Sy Hersh tape, he admits he doesn't know either and supports the idea that it could have been a mugging gone bad.

Given that Hersh said that according to the FBI report, Rich had told others about his actions "in case anything happens to me, it won't solve their problems", that's pretty clearly a suggestion that he feared for his life over the leak.

So it's natural to immediately suspect deliberate murder based on that alone. But it's not outside the bounds of coincidence that he wasn't.

[DianaLC]

Tell us about Venezuela. I wonder where socialism is working so well. And, I was born in the U.S. instead of in Russia because my great-grandparents, all of them, fled the socialist/communist hordes who were coming into their village and killing people who didn't agree.

And can you explaing why Bernie's own wealth, as well as his wife's, isn't being voluntarily donated to the common good.

[helenk3]

In 2008 when donna was working for backtrack. A young lady that posted on a blog that I went to was e-mailing her. Now we were Hillary fans and not for backtrack. This young lady was planning to vote for the first time. This is an important time in a young person's life. Finally you are grown up to vote for your choice for a president of the USA. Because this young lady was a Hillary supporter Donna told her " stay home". I never forgot that. I have daughters and taught them that it was their job to vote. Too many women over the years fought for women to get that right.

[turcopolier]

helenk3

So, you would vote for any woman rather than a man. This is very sexist. pl

[GeneO]

Donna Brazile is no saint. She threw the 2008 primary to Obama by disqualifying delegates from MI and FL where Hillary was leading.

Plus her political savvy was zero. She was campaign manager for Al Gore. Prior to that she had worked on the campaigns of Jesse Jackson, Walter Mondale, Dick Gephardt. All losers. So why did they give her the post of DNC chair? She was no strategist.

[Publius Tacitus]

Very valid point.

[Fred]

Anna,

A constitutional monarchy.

[Fred]

Pacifica,

You did not answer my question.

[bjondo]

tried to read brazile's "hacks"
but the title says why i only got half way:
she mercilessly kept pounding the russian
hacks BS.

some items why the democrats are worthless: brazile, dean, clintons, obama, biden, debbie shultz, sanders.

the repubs have an equal number why they are equally cesspool material.

only trump, the hated by both parties and the deep blacks, is different.

trump is the change with hope.