Progressives “Rat Out” Hillary Clinton’s inner circle
by Ralph Ely | TLB Editor-at-large
Before we present this article there are two items we need to discuss. The first is who is writing it and why. The second is who the article is about and what it exposes.
The article appears in The New Republic which is a self described media outlet that has “championed progressive” ideas since it’s founding in 1914. That covers the who. Now the “why” the article was written. It does not take a critical thinker too long to see the progressive/ socialists are still stinging from the way Bernie Sanders was put on a train with a one-way ticket out of town at the DNC Convention.
We all profit in knowledge from what The New Republic article offers. It gives us a look at the Clinton inner circle, names names and again exposes the lack of moral integrity with anything that has the Clinton Brand on it.
[Just to clarify political ‘labels’ we offer Dickinson’s Spectrum below.]
Spectrum/Reference link
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How Neera Tanden Works
Emails released by WikiLeaks reveal the maneuverings of a liberal think-tank president and member of Hillary Clinton’s inner circle.
By
In 2012, when asked about the Center for American Progress’s role in that year’s election, Neera Tanden, the think tank’s president, told The Washington Post, “Our most fundamental goal is to provide positive ideas and to make those ideas part of a governing agenda.” To fulfill that mandate, she continued, think tanks have to “ensure their credibility over the long term—and people will take a think tank seriously if their ideas are serious.”
This is a conventional depiction of how think tanks work. They generate good ideas—based on grounded, well-researched policy—then go to bat for those ideas in the halls of the federal government and on Capitol Hill. CAP’s own website echoes this idyllic notion, calling itself an “independent nonpartisan policy institute dedicated to improving the lives of all Americans.”
However, it is widely known that the CAP is a Democratic operation, stuffed to the gills with staffers who have either worked in previous Democratic administrations or will go on to work in future ones. Furthermore, it currently identifies with one wing of the Democratic Party in particular—the Clinton wing—to the extent that it has commonly been referred to as Hillary Clinton’s government-in-waiting. Tanden openly acknowledges that she is an informal adviser to the Clinton campaign, and that she has given the campaign political advice in a private capacity. Tanden told The New Republic she sees this as “an entirely distinct role” from her position as the president of CAP. She has been named one of four co-chairs for the Clinton transition team and is expected to take on a senior role in any Clinton administration.
What is less widely understood is the form that advice can take, and how it influences the Democratic Party’s agenda. Bernie Sanders’s surprisingly strong bid for the Democratic nomination exposed divisions between an emboldened left wing of the party and the more centrist Clinton stalwarts. A few glimpses of Tanden the political operative broke through, mainly by way of her social media presence on Twitter. (Earlier this year, GQ named Tanden Clinton’s “secretary of defense” in honor of her frequent Twitter attacks on Clinton’s critics.)
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