The second 2007 installment of my Copeland Institute posts about Hillary has taken awhile to get to because every time I tried to start it, I had to duck from incoming sniper fire. Excuse me: I misspoke. There wasn't any sniper fire. My bad. If you missed the January through April 2007 post, click here. If you missed the 2006 installment, click here.
No, she hasn't officially swapped Rodham for Nothing-But-Ambition, but she is leaving it out of her presidential campaign. I guess she's afraid that her maiden name might put off people who were never going to vote for her anyway.
According to today's Washington Post, Michael Moore says Harvey Weinstein begged him to cut a scene out of Sicko concerning Hillary Nothing-But-Ambition Clinton.
"This is getting kind of silly. You know, I've been called a lot of things in my life, but I've never been called George Bush or Dick Cheney, certainly."
Hillary Nothing-But-Ambition Clinton
She hasn't been listening very closely to those of us out here who fear she'll cost the Democrats an easy election victory. What Hillary Nothing-But-Ambition Clinton thought would be an easy jab at Obama has turned on her as Barack shows he can take a shot and give as good as he gets, leaving Hillary henchmen such as the devilish Howard Wolfson flailing about and looking more malevolent than ever as they try to take offense at being compared to Dubya. If the flawed personality fits...
"When people say experience, what they're really saying is -- do you have good judgment? Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney have a lot of experience, but they didn't have a lot of good judgment when it came to foreign policy. Part of what I offer is good judgment."
Sen. Barack Obama
I hope Howard Wolfson keeps being the public hatchet man for Hillary Nothing-But-Ambition Clinton. Every time this devilish man appears, I think he hurts Shrillary and helps the mission to stop her. Karl Rove keeps pumping Hillary up as the nominee while admitting she is fatally flawed because the GOP literally is salivating for her to be the Democratic nominee, knowing she is the best hope the GOP has for winning in 2008. Prove Rove wrong and nominate someone with a real chance at victory in the general such as Barack Obama.
Occasional fugitive fundraiser Norman Hsu faces new charges of financial improprieties involving political campaigns and even though the Hillary Nothing-But-Ambition Clinton campaign has tried to divest of the largesse he raised for them, the law has frozen those funds to prevent them from getting rid of them for the time being.
Most of Hillary's rivals for the Democratic nomination go after her in yet-another debate over her new health care plan, given her past record on the issue.
Sen. Hillary Nothing-But-Ambition Clinton lives up to her reputation as a female Dubya with a brain once again by killing a potentially negative story in GQ by dangling an exclusive with Bill out as a prize.
Andrew Sullivan had a great column yesterday, pointing out how many more people are noticing that Hillary Nothing-But-Ambition Clinton is turning herself into a Bush Democrat, with no plans to abandon his disastrous policies in Iraq (and reportedly even getting advice from him).
The conservative Washington Establishment is swooning for Hillary for a reason. The reason is an accommodation with what they see as the next source of power (surprise!); and the desire to see George W. Bush's invasion and occupation of Iraq legitimated and extended by a Democratic president (genuine surprise). Hillary is Bush's ticket to posterity. On Iraq, she will be his legacy. They are not that dissimilar after all: both come from royal families, who have divvied up the White House for the past couple of decades. They may oppose one another; but they respect each other as equals in the neo-monarchy that is the current presidency.
The Senate backed a resolution urging Dubya to declare Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group, co-sponsored by none other than Censorin' Joe Lieberman. While Democratic presidential candidates Biden and Dodd voted against it, seeing it for what it is, an attempt to lay the groundwork for war, Hillary Nothing-But-Ambition Clinton backed the measure. Of course, you wouldn't know it by reading MSM stories, since they are covering for her again, but here is the Senate's official roll call vote. Obama didn't vote at all, something he shared with McCain. Meanwhile, the Senate also passed a resolution endorsing Biden's long-sought plan to encourage the partition of Iraq along sectarian lines.
It's no surprise to see politicians try to answer direct questions by spewing things they'd rather talk about, but Hillary Nothing-But-Ambition Clinton is getting really sloppy at it. Check out these nonanswers from Wednesday night's debate:
MR. RUSSERT: Senator Clinton, in 1981 the Israelis took out a nuclear reactor in Iraq. On September 6th, to the best of our information, Israel attacked Syria because there was suspicion that perhaps North Korea had put some nuclear materials in Syria. If Israel concluded that Iran's nuclear capability threatened Israel's security, would Israel be justified in launching an attack on Iran?
SENATOR CLINTON: Tim, I think that's one of those hypotheticals that --
MR. RUSSERT: It is not a hypothetical, Senator. It's real life.
SENATOR CLINTON: -- that is better not addressed at this time.
MR. RUSSERT: It's real --
SENATOR CLINTON: What is real life is what apparently happened in Syria, so let's take that one step at a time. MR. RUSSERT: But my question --
SENATOR CLINTON: I know what the question is.
MR. RUSSERT: The question is --
SENATOR CLINTON: But I think it's important to lay out what we know about Syria.
MR. RUSSERT: Would Israel -- my question is --
SEN. CLINTON: Because we don't have as much information as we wish we did. But what we think we know is that with North Korean help, both financial and technical and material, the Syrians apparently were putting together, and perhaps over some period of years, a nuclear facility, and the Israelis took it out. I strongly support that. We don't have any more information than what I have just described. It is highly classified; it is not being shared. But I don't want to go a step further and talk about what might or might not happen down the road with Iran.
MR. RUSSERT: My question was --
SEN. CLINTON: But I think it is fair to say what happened in Syria, so far as we know, I support.
MR. RUSSERT: My question is, would the Israelis be justified if they felt their security was being threatened by the presence of a nuclear presence in Iran , and they decided to take military action? Would they be justified?
SENATOR CLINTON: Well, Tim, I'm not going to answer that because what I understand is that --
MR. RUSSERT: Senator Clinton, would you be in favor of saying to the American people, "I'm going to tax your income. I'm not going to cap at $97,500. Everyone, even if you're a millionaire, is going to pay Social Security tax on every cent they make"?
SEN. CLINTON: Well, Tim, let me tell you what I think about this because I know this is a particular concern of yours, but I want to make three points very briefly. First, I do think that it's important to talk about fiscal responsibility. You know, when my husband left office after moving us toward a balanced budget and a surplus, we had a plan to make Social Security solvent until 2055. Now, because of the return to deficits, we've lost 14 years of solvency. It's now projected to be solvent until 2041. Getting back on a path of fiscal responsibility is absolutely essential. Number two, I think we do need another bipartisan process. You described what happened in '83. It took presidential leadership, and it took the relationship between the White House and Capitol Hill to reach the kind of resolution that was discussed. And I think that has to be what happens again, but with a president who is dedicated to Social Security, unlike our current president, who has never liked Social Security. You can go back and see when he first ran for Congress he was dissing Social Security. So when I'm president, I will do everything to protect and preserve Social Security so we can have that kind of bipartisanship. And finally, then you can look in the context of fiscal responsibility and of a bipartisan compromise what else might be done. But I think if you don't put fiscal responsibility first, you're going to really make a big mistake, because we demonstrated in the '90s it had a lot to do with moving us toward solvency.
MR. RUSSERT: But you would not take lifting the cap at 97.5 off the table.
SENATOR CLINTON: Well, I take everything off the table until we move toward fiscal responsibility and before we have a bipartisan process. I don't think I should be negotiating about what I would do as president. You know, I want to see what other people come to the table with.
MR. RUSSERT: But Senator Biden said you can't grow your way out of this. And for the record, when the Clinton administration left office, Social Security was only guaranteed to 2038, not 2055.
SENATOR CLINTON: There was a plan, on the basis of the balanced budget and the surplus, to take it all the way to 2055.
MR. RUSSERT: A plan --
SENATOR CLINTON: And we know what happened. George Bush came in, went back to deficits, and has basically used the Social Security trust fund and borrowing from China --
MR. RUSSERT: But Senator --
SENATOR CLINTON: -- and other countries to pay for the war.
MR. RUSSERT: -- a simple question. A simple question. What do you put on the table? What are you willing to look at to say, "We're not going to double the taxes, we're not going to cut benefits in half; I'm willing to put everything on the table, some things on the table, nothing on the table"?
SENATOR CLINTON: I'm not putting anything on the proverbial table until we move toward fiscal responsibility. I think it's a mistake to do that.
RUSSERT: I want to turn to politics and money. Senator Clinton, as you all know, you had to turn back $850,000 in contributions from Norman Hsu because of his rather checkered past.
Again, President Clinton said this, Now, we don't have to publish all our donors for the Clinton Foundation, but if Hillary became president, I think there would questions about whether people would try to win favor by giving money to me. In light of that, do you believe that the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton library should publish all the donors who give contributions to those two entities?
CLINTON: Well, Tim, I actually co-sponsored legislation that would have sitting presidents reveal any donation to their presidential library, and I think that's a good policy.
RUSSERT: And the foundation?
CLINTON: Well, it would be the same, because that's where the library comes from.
RUSSERT: Until such legislation, would they voluntarily, the Clinton library and Clinton Foundation, make their donors public?
CLINTON: Well, you'll have to ask them.
RUSSERT: What's your recommendation?
CLINTON: Well, I don't talk about my private conversations with my husband, but I'm sure he'd be happy to consider that.
RUSSERT: Senator Clinton, what about a World Series -- Yankees and Cubs?
CLINTON: Well, you know, I've worried about that because I think, given the Cubs' record, which of course, I hope it happens, but it could very well be a sign of the coming apocalypse, were that to ever occur. It would be so out of history that you would have the Cubs versus the Yanks. Then I'd be really in trouble.
RUSSERT: But who would you be for?
CLINTON: Well, I would probably have to alternate sides.
The great Frank Rich, now free from the shackles of TimesSelect, is back where everyone can read his wisdom and his Sunday piece is a true keeper: Defying the "conventional wisdom" and making the case that Hillary Nothing-But-Ambition Clinton is following the same path of Al Gore 2000, a path that could help the hapless GOP keep the White House next year.
Barely a month after Hillary Nothing-But-Ambition Clinton proposed $5,000 savings bonds for every child born in the U.S. only to get slapped around by the GOP, she has dropped the idea and claims that it was always an idea, not a proposal, and that it is off the table now.
Michael Dobbs' Fact Checker column in The Washington Post has an excellent post about Hillary Clinton's bald-faced exaggerations to crowds about her intentions concerning Iraq. "If this president does not get us out of Iraq, when I am president, I will," Clinton declared at the Democratic debate in South Carolina on April 26. Come September, her words had been revised a bit at another debate.
"I will immediately move to begin bringing our troops home when I am inaugurated...[But there] may be a continuing counter-terrorism mission, which, if it still exists, will be aimed al Qaeda in Iraq. It may require combat, Special Operations Forces or some other form of that, but the vast majority of our combat troops should be out."
The column details her back-and-forth on the issue and contradictions within her own statements and on her own Web site. Dobbs then spells out in great detail all the caveats Hillary gives for needing to possibly stay in Iraq, including Iraq "is right in the heart of the oil region." Finally, Dobbs employs what he calls "The Pinocchio Test" concluding:
(H)er bold 'I will end the war' promise is an obvious exaggeration. A truer description of her position would be, 'I will do my best to end a war that I now believe to have been deeply mistaken, but the United States has many interests in the Middle East that must be protected.'
Iraq isn't the only foreign policy issue where Hillary has been trying to please all sides, as evidenced by her maneuvering in Iraq, which Maureen Dowd in The New York Times reports today led to one of the few public instances of Hillary exhibiting a Dubya-like loss of her composure when an Iowa voter questioned her about her moves, and no one is supposed to question Hillary.
Barack Obama and John Edwards (who really has been doing it for awhile) finally are coming out swinging. They've been doing it for awhile, though most of the MSM have tried to downplay or ignore it since they are so in the tank for Hillary Nothing-But-Ambition Clinton.
Former Sen. John Edwards has stepped up his criticism of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton this week, aiming it about her character and truthfulness as well as her substantive policies. This represents a marked change for Edwards, who, even though he has been the attack dog among the top-tier candidates, has gone after her mainly on the question of electability (as he is doing again this week, on a four-day electability tour).
Sen. Barack Obama is taking a sharper edge toward Clinton -- and her husband -- as well. Appearing on The Tonight Show on Wednesday night, Obama joined in mocking Clinton for her strategy of presenting herself as the inevitable nominee.
"Hillary is not the first politician in Washington to declare mission accomplished a little too soon," Obama said, to applause. "So we're -- we've got a long way to go before the first vote is cast, but we do this every year, every election. Four years ago, you know, President Howard Dean was coronated, and that didn't work out. And so really until those folks start going into the polling place, these races end up being very fluid."
...
Edwards, meanwhile, has been pursuing Clinton on the question of her honesty and sincerity. During a stop earlier this week, Edwards criticized Clinton for her seeming fluidity on the issues in order to win. "Instead of moving from primary mode to general election mode, why don't we have tell-the-truth mode, all the time, and not say something different one time than we say another time?" Edwards said.
The Los Angeles Times had an excellent piece Friday detailing the mysterious circumstances of some of Hillary Nothing-But-Ambition Clinton's top donors. Dishwashers, waiters and other workers in the poorest sections of New York's Chinatown somehow are putting together $2,000 contributions for Hillary's campaign. Can you say straw donors? Is this the kind of politician we want to follow the disaster of Dubya?
"I don't like her. I don't think she's honest."
"I'm not a fan at all. She shifts a lot of her policies depending on what the question is. I don't feel her values are consistent."
"She should have stayed in Arkansas. I just don't care for her. I don't know if she follows through on what she says she's going to do. I would vote for Barack Obama. I just like his style."
"She's nothing but a fraud. She says she's going to do all sorts of things but doesn't do any of them. All she's trying to do is get people's votes."
Four Upstate New York voters
The campaign for Hillary Nothing-But-Ambition Clinton likes to point to her success with Upstate N.Y. voters as proof that those of us who know she can't win nationally are wrong. Unfortunately, if you talk to those in Upstate New York who voted for her for Senate, the presidency is another story.
“Part of the reason that Republicans, I think, are obsessed with you, Hillary, is because that’s a fight they’re very comfortable having. It is the fight that we’ve been through since the ’90s. And part of the job of the next president is to break the gridlock and to get Democrats and independents and Republicans to start working together to solve these big problems.”
Sen. Barack Obama
Hillary Nothing-But-Ambition gets pounded by her competitors for the Democratic nomination and actually starts to lose her composure and stumble over her own inconsistencies in the latest debate.
Pathetic.
By Anne E. Kornblut and Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, November 1, 2007; A01
After a rare night of fumbles by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, her rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination rushed to maximize the damage yesterday, even as her advisers argued that the "piling on" engaged in by an all-male field of opponents will ultimately drive more female voters into her camp.
Following last week's debate where chinks finally pierced Hillary Nothing-But-Ambition Clinton's armor, Obama keeps up the criticism of Hillary for her doubletalk and lack of candor. As expected, Clinton's minions from hell trot out the tired old line that any criticism of her is a "personal attack."
John Edwards continues his battering of Hillary Nothing-But-Ambition Clinton as well while stumping in Iowa.
By JEFF ZELENY and MICHAEL COOPER
... former Senator John Edwards, said he would draw new distinctions with Mrs. Clinton in a speech here on Monday, raising questions with other Democrats over Iraq and Iran.
“Senator Clinton is voting like a hawk in Washington, while talking like a dove in Iowa and New Hampshire,” Mr. Edwards plans to say, according to excerpts of a speech provided by his campaign. “We only need one mode from our president: tell-the-truth mode all the time.”
This John Edwards ad against Hillary Nothing-But-Ambition Clinton is just too good not to share.
Bill Clinton, trying to defend Hillary Nothing-But-Ambition Clinton from attacks on her inability to give a straight answer, has the gall to compare criticism of his wife to the Swift Boat attacks on John Kerry in 2004. Barack Obama laughs and he and Chris Dodd beg to differ.
The campaign for Hillary Nothing-But-Ambition Clinton fesses up when it's caught red-handed planting questions for her to be asked at an Iowa event. She looks more like Dubya with each passing day.
“She hasn’t accomplished anything on her own since getting admitted to Yale Law. She isn’t Dianne Feinstein, who spent years as mayor of San Francisco before becoming a senator, or Nancy Pelosi, who became Madam Speaker on the strength of her political abilities. All Hillary is, is Mrs. Clinton. She became a partner at the Rose Law Firm because of that, senator of New York because of that, and (heaven help us) she could become president because of that.”
Joan Di Cola, a Boston lawyer
If you missed Maureen Dowd's Wednesday column sticking it to Hillary Nothing-But-Ambition Clinton, brighten up your Thanksgiving by reading it now.
The ever-great Frank Rich has an on-the-nose column today detailing why Obama is pulling ahead and why his ascendance poses problems not only for Hillary Nothing-But-Ambition Clinton but by potential GOP opponents as well.
JUST 24 hours after Hillary Clinton mowed down a skeptical Katie Couric with her certitude that she would win the Democratic nomination — “It will be me!” — her husband showed exactly how she could lose it.
By telling an Iowa audience on Tuesday night that he had opposed the Iraq war “from the beginning,” Bill Clinton committed a double pratfall. Not only did he refocus attention on his wife’s most hazardous issue, Iraq, just as it was receding as the nation’s Topic A, but he also revived unhappy memories of the truth-dodging nadirs of the Clinton White House.
Some Democrats in the House who hail from closely fought districts are expressing concerns that their jobs may be in jeopardy if Hillary Nothing-But-Ambition Clinton ends up as the party's standardbearer in 2008.
Ask yourself what Hillary's true "experience" is, as this New York Times story did yesterday. If 8 years as first lady makes someone qualified to be president, does that mean Laura Bush is as experienced as Hillary?
By PATRICK HEALY
As first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton jaw-boned the authoritarian president of Uzbekistan to leave his car and shake hands with people. She argued with the Czech prime minister about democracy. She cajoled Roman Catholic and Protestant women to talk to one another in Northern Ireland. She traveled to 79 countries in total, little of it leisure; one meeting with mutilated Rwandan refugees so unsettled her that she threw up afterward.
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