Salon.com > Debbie Wasserman-Schultz

Obama wants Wasserman Schultz to stay on at DNC

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 15:55:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama wants Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz to stay on as his party's chairwoman, a Democratic official said Monday.

Wasserman Schultz has overseen the Democratic National Committee since early 2011. Party officials credit her in part with helping the president carry her home state of Florida, as well as leading the party to an expanded majority in the Senate and more seats in the House.

Obama is asking DNC members to back Wasserman Schultz when they meet in January, just after the president's inauguration, said the official, who requested anonymity because this person was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

A mother of three and a breast cancer survivor, Wasserman Schultz, 46, has represented a reliably Democratic Fort Lauderdale-area district since 2005. Along the way she has earned a reputation as a workhorse and as an outspoken liberal happy to duke it out on television with her Republican counterparts.

Throughout the presidential election, Wasserman Shultz was a particularly prominent spokeswoman for Obama in Florida, the critical swing state where the president eked out a close win in the November election. As a Jew and a strong advocate for Israel, she also provided a bulwark for Obama against Republican efforts to paint him as anti-Israel.

Kill lists? Dems don’t want to know

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 16:29:00 +0000

Ignorance is a diverse trait; it comes in many forms and emanates from many different phenomena. There is sheer stupidity: a lack of knowledge of something for which there's no genuine excuse. There's willful ignorance: a head-in-the-sand, nah-nah-nah-can't-hear you aversion to truths, often times in pursuit of plausible deniability. And then there's the most rare form: a bizarre mix of the former two that inadvertently highlights how a deliberately narrow political discourse can make otherwise intelligent people uninformed about what should be the most important political issues.

This kind of bewilderment is arguably the most dangerous when it expresses itself at the highest reaches of the government. Case in point is Democratic National Committee Chairwoman U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla.

In a stunning post-debate interview by the nonprofit We Are Change, and flagged by the Guardian's Glenn Greenwald, Wasserman Schultz is asked a series of direct question about why President Obama now asserts the unprecedented right to execute American citizens without charge, judge, jury or trial. The sequence of responses is revealing.

Wasserman Schultz fires back at Huckabee

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 02:41:00 +0000

Mike Huckabee started his speech Wednesday night at the Republican National Convention not with a shot at Barack Obama, but, oddly, a shot at Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

"Tampa has been such a wonderful and hospitable city to us," Huckabee said. "The only hitch in an otherwise perfect week was the awful noise coming from the hotel room next door to mine. Turns out it was just Debbie Wasserman Schultz practicing her speech for the DNC in Charlotte next week. Bless her heart."

In a statement, Wasserman Schultz's national press secretary, Melanie Roussell, replied to the former Arkansas governor and Fox News host's insult:

Perhaps Mr. Huckabee should pay more attention to the company he keeps, such as Todd Akin, instead of taking potshots at the Chairwoman for applause lines. While Huckabee continues to promote the extreme Akin plank, the Chair will defend women's rights to reproductive health free from dictation by men who don't know fundamental biology.