The Clinton congratulation watch

Barack Obama has had to ride out a few rounds of criticism over a perceived lack of good manners. Today, the Hillary Clinton camp was dealing with similar reproaches.

It did not go unnoticed that in a public appearance Tuesday night, Clinton failed to offer the slightest salute to Obama over his lopsided wins in the "Potomac" primaries. After Clinton spoke at a large rally in El Paso and neglected to give a nod to the results in Maryland, Virginia and D.C., the estimable James Fallows of Atlantic magazine pointed out the omission in this blog posting.

Also after Clinton's speech, CNN posted an item on its Political Ticker that began, "For the second election night in a row, Hillary Clinton failed to acknowledge or congratulate Barack Obama after he won the day in dominating fashion." (She had been similarly silent over the weekend, when Obama thumped her in a series of other contests in the Democratic presidential race.)

The subject was broached today with Clinton's communications chief, Howard Wolfson, during a conference call with reporters. The Times' Peter Nicholas reports that Wolfson replied, "She congratulated him this morning." He did not provide details.

A small matter, these common courtesies. But usually, one ignores them at his or her peril.

-- Don Frederick

UPDATE -- Clinton gave her rival his due today during a press availability in Texas, extending her congratulations and adding that she was ready to do battle with him in that state's March 4 primary. "This is the exciting part of the campaign," she said. "Where you really get down to saying, 'OK, what are the differences? How do we draw the distinctions?' "

Comments

[Lance]

Sore loser, that Hillary. Really bad form. It will come back to haunt her just like the "almost tear" helped her in New Hampshire. It's these little things that can derail a campaign in the face of the voters.

[Gurmeet Hajrah]

Barack Obama Carries the real promise of change and decision making on key issues. While Hillary Clinton promises the old tunes with sophisticated melody composed by those so-called seasoned politicians who know how to get away with decision making by using blame games and keep going into circles.

[Tom J]

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. She's still in denial that Obama won.

Cut her some slack. She still has a long way to go until she reaches acceptance that her future is in the Senate.

[Eleanor A]

Oh, for crying out loud. I'm getting really tired of everyone piling on Hillary, while Obama gets a free pass. Why aren't you pointing out Obama's totally ungracious speech the night Hillary won New Hampshire, in which he mentioned her for about 30 seconds while indulging in the usual arrogance and self-puffery we've come to expect from him? Sick-making.

If we're not careful, the Dems will nominate a totally unelectable candidate in the person of Obama, which all these fairy-tale idealogues will realize is a disaster the moment the Republicans fire up the attack machine. He's unproven, untested, and has no real ideas on how to run government. If nominated, he'll lose by at least 30 points. You can bet on it.

[Mia]

Hillary has never been vetted nor tested as a presidential candidate. Bill's dubious, business matchmaking, international charity activities is being scrutinized and Hillary will be held accountable as well because she was a co-president. She cannot seleltively choose her experience between as a co-president and as an innocent bystander during Bill's presidency.
She is setting up an formidable obstracke for the future female presidential hopefuls with displaying all negative, centruies-long streotypical female behaviors. Now, it is time for her to show us some of her grace but she is piching up baseless negative attacks aginst Obama.

[Jesse]

Eleanor A...umm, in the "30 seconds" you are referring to he congratulated her and said she ran a great campaign. What else do you expect him to do, talk about her for 30 minutes? Give me a break. and RE if Obama gets a free pass, why is it that all we heard about for a week was the so called "snub" at the SotUA? I got news for you, Hillary is the unelectable one. She is the most polarizing person in our party. If Kerry (moderately hated dem) lost to Bush (most hated republican) how is Hillary (most hated dem) going to beat McCain (moderately hated republican)?