Hillary screws the pooch with her assassination remark

SICK. Disgusting. And yet revealing. Hillary Clinton is staying in the race in the event some nut kills Barack Obama.

It could happen, but what definitely has happened is that Clinton has killed her own chances of being vice president. She doesn’t deserve to be elected dog catcher anywhere now.

Her shocking comment to a South Dakota newspaper might qualify as the dumbest thing ever said in American politics.

Hillary campaign hits bottom… reaches for shovel

… not to dig herself in deeper, but hopefully to dig up dirt on Obama.

With Barack Obama having the Democratic presidential nomination all but wrapped up, Hillary Clinton backers are hoping that a devastating revelation about Obama could derail his candidacy — and they’re desperately seeking to find it.

That’s the inside story from veteran newsman Carl Bernstein, who writes in his CNN column:

“The Clinton campaign’s search for damaging information and its hope that such information exists continues, according to knowledgeable sources.”

Top Clinton adviser Harold Ickes warned on the eve of the North Carolina and Indian primaries that Obama could be vulnerable to an “October surprise” by the John McCain campaign, notes Bernstein, whose latest book is “A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton.”

He adds: “Several Clinton associates say there is still a ray of hope among some in her campaign that a ‘catastrophic’ revelation about Obama might make it possible for her to win the presidential nomination.”

But there is also a strong chance that Clinton will try to maneuver her way into the vice presidential slot on the Obama ticket, according to Bernstein, even though Obama “won’t want to take her on the ticket.”

Hillary is becoming psycho stalker-ish

Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn, an Obama supporter, compared Clinton to the Glenn Close character in “Fatal Attraction” — a spurned woman turned stalker who was apparently drowned in a bathtub only to jump up one more time to be shot dead.

“Glenn Close should have stayed in that tub, and Sen. Clinton has had a remarkable career and needs to move to the next step, which is helping elect the Democratic nominee,” Cohen said during a local TV interview. He later apologized for his comments.

Sore Loser

A must-see opening skit on SNL mocking Hillary.

The original YouTube link was removed due to copyright infringement. It can still be found HERE, at least for the moment.

She Hasn’t Pumped Her Own Gas In Years

Barack Obama wouldn’t debate Hillary Clinton in a flat bed truck. But there she was today, sitting shotgun in one, driving home the argument that her rival doesn’t share her concern about the average Joe Six-pack when it comes to fuel prices.

When Clinton’s traveling press corps was told late last night that the candidate would be “commuting” to work with a “typical” Hoosier, the questions came rapid-fire. When was the last time Clinton pumped her own gas? When’s the last time she even drove? And, most to the point, what was a stunt like this going to prove?

Read the rest.

hillary, the pork star

Senator Hillary Clinton has requested nearly $2.3 billion in federal earmarks for the next fiscal year. That’s almost three times the largest amount received by a single senator during this current fiscal year. Earmarks are funding requests for those so-called pet projects that lawmakers usually award to their own constituency.

And while Clinton has asked for $750,000 for a Homeland Security grant program and another $125 million for an urban security initiative, it is not clear what exactly those grants would pay for.

hillary voted for the gas tax before she voted against it

Hillary Clinton is calling for a holiday on the 18.4-cent gasoline tax, and she says she’d make up the funding from that (which funds transportation infrastructure) by taxing oil company’s “windfall” profits.

But it’s worth pointing out that Clinton OPPOSED efforts to cut or repeal gas taxes during her 2000 Senate contest against Rick Lazio.

right outta the Clinton fundraising playbook

Hillary’s ties to terrorists

What you don’t know might really hurt you. Read up.

In this week’s debate, Hillary Clinton said all of her “baggage” has been “rummaged through” for years. But important features of her close relationship with known terrorist sympathizers and Hamas supporters are still opaque to the public view.

Her relationship with terrorists began in the mid-1980s when she served on the Board of the New World Foundation, which gave funds to the Palestine Liberation Organization, at a time when the PLO was officially recognized by the US government as a terrorist organization.

In 1996, the First Lady initiated an outreach program to bring Muslim leaders to the White House. But, as terrorism expert Steve Emerson noted in the Wall Street Journal “Curiously, nearly all of the leaders with whom Mrs. Clinton elected to meet came from Islamic fundamentalist organizations. A review of the statements, publications, and conferences of the groups Mrs. Clinton embraced shows unambiguously that they have long advocated or justified violence. By meeting with these groups, the first lady lent them legitimacy as ‘mainstream’ and ‘moderate.’”

Among these radical groups was the American Muslim Alliance (AMA) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, both groups that support Hamas, who attended a White House reception hosted by Hillary in February, 1996. Emerson says that its leaders “have sanctioned terrorism, published anti-Semitic statements, and repeatedly hosted conferences that were forums for denunciations of Jews and exhortations to wage jihad.”

The American Muslim Alliance was headed in the 90s by Abdulrahman Alamoudi who met with Clinton and Gore in 1995. Emerson notes that “Mrs. Clinton [allowed] the American Muslim Alliance to draw up the Muslim guest list for the first lady’s…White House reception.”

Alamoudi, Emerson says was “the primary defender of Musa Abu Marzug, the Hamas political bureau chief responsible for creating the group’s death squads.” Marzug took “credit” when Hamas brigades sprayed machine gun fire into a crowded Jerusalem mall. But less than three days after Marzug was arrested by the FBI in July of 1995, Alamoudi said that Marzug “had never been involved in terrorism” and called his arrest “an insult to the Muslim community. Emerson reports that he “elicited contributions fro Marzug’s defense fund” and called him a “political prisoner.”

Then, Hillary ran for Senate on her own and suddenly it was payback time. On June 13, 2000, the American Muslim Alliance’s Massachusetts Chapter held a very successful fundraiser for her candidacy. Tahir Ali, the chairman of the chapter, said “we must support all who have [Muslim] interests at heart.”

Perhaps conscious of how controversial the contribution would be, Hillary or someone on her staff, tried to pull a fast one, recording the donation on federal filing forms as being from the “American Museum Alliance.” But alert observers weren’t fooled and Senate candidate Clinton was forced to acknowledge who the real donor was and, four months after getting the money, she returned it.

like her mother, Chelsea Clinton doesn’t constrain herself with truths

For the first time, she is facing the kind of scrutiny that has bedeviled the candidates and their surrogates along the campaign trail.

During a long day of campaigning in Oregon on Saturday, she mentioned at two different stops that during the course of the campaign a 7-year-old and an 11-year-old had separately asked her “with terror in their eyes” what will become of the Social Security system. It’s possible they were precocious, or that their parents put them up to it, but one skeptical blogger wrote afterward that the story was “stunning in its absurdity.”

(When asked for details, such as where and when Clinton met the children, the campaign could not provide them.)

Hillary Rodham Clinton has recently stopped telling the story of a pregnant Ohio woman who lost her baby then died because she lacked health insurance and proper prenatal care. The New York senator had recounted the story as it was told to her, but the account turned out to be oversimplified and wrong on some key details, according to news reports.

Still, Chelsea Clinton continued to tell it, even getting the woman’s age wrong. (She was 35, not “younger than me,” as Chelsea Clinton reported Saturday.)

“There was some talk in the media about whether it was true or whether it was not true,” she said. “Her family has said it’s true in the interim, but what matters to me in the following story is that no one ever doubted that it could be true in our country. So here’s the story we heard . . . .”

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, said Chelsea Clinton should be held accountable for her stories. This story, she said, was plausible, so the telling of it, with Chelsea’s caveat, was acceptable.

Hillary says one thing.. the money says another

As Chinese authorities have clamped down on unrest in Tibet and jailed dissidents in advance of the 2008 Olympics, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has taken a strong public stance, calling for restraint in Tibet and urging President Bush to boycott the Olympics opening ceremonies in Beijing.

But her recent stern comments on China’s internal crackdown collide with former President Bill Clinton’s fundraising relationship with a Chinese Internet company accused of collaborating with the mainland government’s censorship of the Web. Last month, the firm, Alibaba Inc., carried a government-issued “most wanted” posting on its Yahoo China homepage, urging viewers to provide information on Tibetan activists suspected of stirring recent riots.

Alibaba, which took over Yahoo’s China operation in 2005 as part of a billion-dollar deal with the U.S.-based search engine, arranged for the former president to speak to a conference of Internet executives in Hangzhou in September 2005. Instead of taking his standard speaking fees, which have ranged from $100,000 to $400,000, Clinton accepted an unspecified private donation from Alibaba to his international charity, the William J. Clinton Foundation.

Hillary is the candidate for everyone!

Hillary Portrays Herself as a Pro-Gun Churchgoer

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton managed to co-opt Mr. Obama’s message of hope and optimism, beginning a speech in Valparaiso, Ind., by talking about how positive and “fundamentally optimistic” Americans are.

“We don’t get bogged down and looking back – we’re always looking forward,” she said, as heavy applause nearly drowned out her words. “Whatever obstacle we see, we get over it. Whatever challenge we have, we meet it. We’re the problem-solvers, we’re the innovators, we’re the people who make the better future.”

For the third time since Mr. Obama’s remarks were made public Friday night, Mrs. Clinton criticized him at length, saying his comments seemed “kind of elitist and out of touch.”

“I disagree with Senator Obama’s assertion that people in our country cling to guns and have certain attitudes about immigration or trade simply out of frustration,” she said.

She described herself as a pro-gun churchgoer, recalling that her father taught her how to shoot a gun when she was a young girl and said that her faith “is the faith of my parents and my grandparents.”

Hillary Appeals For Gun Control Lobbying

Stepping up the Clinton Administration’s campaign against gun violence, Hillary Rodham Clinton used an emotional White House ceremony today to call on Americans to press Congress to ”buck the gun lobby” and pass several gun control measures.

Today’s event, pegged to Mother’s Day, which is Sunday, was held in the formal East Room of the White House and featured three parents of children killed or wounded by gunfire. They included Tom Mauser, whose son Daniel was killed last month in the shooting rampage in Littleton, Colo. His story of waiting for word about his son’s fate brought Mrs. Clinton nearly to tears as she took the podium and gravely addressed an audience of other parents who had lost their children in shootings.

The Senate is to begin debate next week on a number of gun control measures, some of which mirror proposals offered recently by President Clinton. ”The senators need to hear from all of us,” Mrs. Clinton said. She urged voters ”to give them the encouragement to do what they know is right and to remind them that there are many, many millions of American voters and citizens who will stand behind political leaders who are brave enough to buck the gun lobby, wherever that may take us, so that they will vote for the measures that we know will save lives.”

A long long time ago in a galaxy not so far away

Hillary’s history of lying goes back a long way. It was documented in the national media as far back as this 1996 article by William Safire, Essay: Blizzard of Lies

Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad realization that our First Lady — a woman of undoubted talents who was a role model for many in her generation — is a congenital liar.

Drip by drip, like Whitewater torture, the case is being made that she is compelled to mislead, and to ensnare her subordinates and friends in a web of deceit.

1. Remember the story she told about studying The Wall Street Journal to explain her 10,000 percent profit in 1979 commodity trading? We now know that was a lie told to turn aside accusations that as the Governor’s wife she profited corruptly, her account being run by a lawyer for state poultry interests through a disreputable broker.

She lied for good reason: To admit otherwise would be to confess taking, and paying taxes on, what some think amounted to a $100,000 bribe.

2. The abuse of Presidential power known as Travelgate elicited another series of lies. She induced a White House lawyer to assert flatly to investigators that Mrs. Clinton did not order the firing of White House travel aides, who were then harassed by the F.B.I. and Justice Department to justify patronage replacement by Mrs. Clinton’s cronies.

Now we know, from a memo long concealed from investigators, that there would be “hell to pay” if the furious First Lady’s desires were scorned. The career of the lawyer who transmitted Hillary’s lie to authorities is now in jeopardy. Again, she lied with good reason: to avoid being identified as a vindictive political power player who used the F.B.I. to ruin the lives of people standing in the way of juicy patronage.

3. In the aftermath of the apparent suicide of her former partner and closest confidant, White House Deputy Counsel Vincent Foster, she ordered the overturn of an agreement to allow the Justice Department to examine the files in the dead man’s office. Her closest friends and aides, under oath, have been blatantly disremembering this likely obstruction of justice, and may have to pay for supporting Hillary’s lie with jail terms.

Again, the lying was not irrational. Investigators believe that damning records from the Rose Law Firm, wrongfully kept in Vincent Foster’s White House office, were spirited out in the dead of night and hidden from the law for two years — in Hillary’s closet, in Web Hubbell’s basement before his felony conviction, in the President’s secretary’s personal files — before some were forced out last week.

Why the White House concealment? For good reason: The records show Hillary Clinton was lying when she denied actively representing a criminal enterprise known as the Madison S.& L., and indicate she may have conspired with Web Hubbell’s father-in-law to make a sham land deal that cost taxpayers $3 million.

Why the belated release of some of the incriminating evidence? Not because it mysteriously turned up in offices previously searched. Certainly not because Hillary Clinton and her new hang-tough White House counsel want to respond fully to lawful subpoenas.

One reason for the Friday-night dribble of evidence from the White House is the discovery by the F.B.I. of copies of some of those records elsewhere. When Clinton witnesses are asked about specific items in “lost” records — which investigators have — the White House “finds” its copy and releases it. By concealing the Madison billing records two days beyond the statute of limitations, Hillary evaded a civil suit by bamboozled bank regulators.

Another reason for recent revelations is the imminent turning of former aides and partners of Hillary against her; they were willing to cover her lying when it advanced their careers, but are inclined to listen to their own lawyers when faced with perjury indictments.

Therefore, ask not “Why didn’t she just come clean at the beginning?” She had good reasons to lie; she is in the longtime habit of lying; and she has never been called to account for lying herself or in suborning lying in her aides and friends.

No wonder the President is fearful of holding a prime-time press conference. Having been separately deposed by the independent counsel at least twice, the President and First Lady would be well advised to retain separate defense counsel.

Hillary laughs off another question about her ethics

Hillary Clinton used her trademark laugh Thursday to deflect a question about the $800,000 her husband earned in 2005 giving speeches for a Bogota-based group that supports the Colombia free trade agreement — the same trade deal she currently opposes.

Asked by CNN if those earnings represented a conflict of interest given that she has dipped into her family’s pocketbook to pay campaign bills, Clinton threw up her hands and laughed loudly for several seconds.

“How many angels dance on the head of the pin?,” she responded, continuing to giggle. “I have really, uh, nothing to … I mean, how do you answer that?”

The New York senator explained there are different sides to the argument over trade, and re-emphasized her own opposition to the trade deal, assailing the Colombian government’s “outrageous” record of “targeting labor leaders.”

“I am against the Colombia free trade deal,” she said. “It doesn’t matter who talks to me. It doesn’t matter any circumstances. I have been against it. I am against it. I will be against it absent the kind of changes in behavior that I have been calling for from the Colombian government.”

Earlier in the press conference, describing her husband’s advocacy for the trade deal, Clinton said: “Everyone is free to express their opinion.”

Clinton Pay Comes to $30 Per Lie

Bill and Hillary Clinton’s tax returns for the last seven years reveal that since leaving the White House the couple has earned nearly $30 per lie.

“If you break their income down, you see that on average they earned $42,661 a day, or $1,777 an hour, which comes to $29.61 a minute,” said political analyst Pim Peeny. “And, this being the Clintons, that amounts to $29.61 per lie told.”

Clinton Under Fire Over False Story Of Health Care Horror

Over the last five weeks, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has featured in her campaign stump speeches the story of a health care horror: an uninsured pregnant woman who lost her baby and died herself after being denied care by an Ohio hospital because she could not come up with a $100 fee.

The woman, Trina Bachtel, did die last August, two weeks after her baby boy was stillborn at O’Bleness Memorial Hospital in Athens, Ohio. But hospital administrators said Friday that Ms. Bachtel was under the care of an obstetrics practice affiliated with the hospital, that she was never refused treatment and that she was, in fact, insured.

Clintons give $10.2M to their favorite charity.. themselves

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and former President Bill Clinton released tax data Friday showing they earned $109 million over the last eight years, an ascent into the uppermost tier of American taxpayers that seemed unimaginable in 2001, when they left the White House with little money and facing millions in legal bills.

The bulk of their wealth has come from speaking and book-writing, which together account for almost $92 million, including a $15 million advance — larger than previously thought — from Mr. Clinton’s 2004 autobiography, “My Life.” The former president’s vigorous lecture schedule, where his speeches command upwards of $250,000, brought in almost $52 million.

During that time, the Clintons paid $33.8 million in federal taxes and claimed deductions for $10.2 million in charitable contributions. The contributions went to a family foundation run by the Clintons that has given away only about half of the money they put into it, and most of that was last year, after Mrs. Clinton declared her candidacy.

Another Clinton contributor accused of fraud

A Texas oilman who’s accused of defrauding the Nigerian government by illegally pumping and exporting 10 million barrels of oil is a major fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Kase Lawal of Houston is at least the fourth person accused or convicted of criminal wrongdoing to help finance Clinton’s political ambitions since 2000 and the second in her quest for the White House. The list also includes Chinese and Pakistani fugitives and a former Miami lawyer who was convicted of defrauding Cuba.

There’s no indication that Clinton’s campaign was aware of Lawal’s legal problems when it accepted his help in raising more than $100,000, but a McClatchy Newspapers investigation in the U.S. and Nigeria suggests that her campaign did little to scrutinize the background of one of its top fundraisers.

Hillary Clinton: “I Fought Muhammed Ali for the Heavyweight Championship”

At a campaign stop in Philadelphia, PA, Hillary Clinton furthered her identification with Rocky, recalling how she once stepped into the ring against Muhammed Ali.

Clinton said that she was sent to fight Ali when no one else would. “They used to say in the White House, if the ring were too small, or the venue too unimportant, or the opponent too fast, send Hillary.”

Recounting the championship bout against Ali, Senator Clinton recalled how she “ducked under a flurry of fists, crouched down and sought refuge on the ropes.” Asked about how difficult it was to staunch the bleeding between rounds, cutman Chelsea Clinton said, “none of your business.”

Responding to a question as to who won the heavyweight championship bout, Clinton called Ali “inept and irrelevant.”

“If he’s a heavyweight, he should have stood there and punched. If he dances and jabs, then he’s a lightweight…..and, he’s also a Muslim, so far as I know.”

Clinton, campaigning for the critical Pennsylvania vote, was criticized for not fighting Joe Frazier, the local hero. “I’m dedicated to health care reform,” said Clinton, “so I was not going to fight a guy called smokin’ Joe.” Asked, then, why she hired Mark Penn, who has done work for the tobacco industry, Clinton said, “ask Chelsea.”

if you think healthcare is expensive now, wait until it’s ‘free’

A healthcare reform expert says it’s difficult to figure out how Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s universal healthcare policy could cover millions of Americans for less money.

Former President Bill Clinton boasted recently on the campaign trail that his wife was the only presidential candidate helping to get healthcare costs under control. The Clintons claim that the presidential candidate’s proposed universal plan would cap health insurance premiums at 5 to 10 percent of Americans’ income.

Healthcare reform expert Gracie Marie Turner of the Galen Institute says although adding 47 million more people to the nation’s healthcare system is a laudable goal, the way Senator Clinton (D-New York) is proposing to achieve that objective will not bring down costs.

“The plan that she is proposing would first of all mandate that everyone have health insurance, and she — under pressure from Tim Russert — acknowledged that one of the ways to enforce that may be garnishing people’s wages and really forcing them to pay,” she warns. “But the policy that they would require is a very generous health insurance policy — in some ways, more generous than [the policy] members of Congress receive.”

Turner says the Clintons may be promising they would make sure no one pays more than ten percent of their income in health insurance premiums, but a lot of Americans are scratching their heads as to where that 10 percent would come from in the first place.

The healthcare reform expert also notes that the average price of a family policy offered through the workplace is $12,000 a year. So she argues that to afford that type of coverage under Clinton, one would have to make a yearly wage of $120,000.

it’s official.. Hillary is f*cking Obama

Hillary began her career with lies.. will she end it that way, too?

Neal Boortz summarizes how Hillary was fired from a committee that investigated a president who was indicted for lying under oath. The reason… obstructing justice and potentially committing perjury.

* Hillary Rodham gets a spot on the legal staff of the House Judiciary Committee upon the recommendation of a lawyer pal of Ted Kennedy.

* The man who hires Hillary is Jerry Zeifman, a lifelong Democrat.

* The House Judiciary Committee is investigating Richard Nixon with an eye on impeachment.

* A question arises as to whether or not Nixon is legally entitled to counsel during the investigation. If so, his council would be allowed to cross examine witnesses appearing before the panel.

* The concern about having counsel for Nixon cross examine witnesses centered on E. Howard Hunt. Democrats on the committee feared that Nixon’s counsel would elicit information from Hunt that would be very damaging to the Kennedys.

* Zeifman tells Hillary that Nixon is entitled to counsel. He cites documents in the committee’s public file referencing the fact that Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas had representation four years earlier while he was being investigated.

* Hillary removes the documents from the committees public file and places them under lock and key in her office where they are not available for media or public scrutiny.

* Hillary then prepares a brief for filing with a federal judge which falsely states that there is no precedent for an official being investigated by the committee to have legal representation during that investigation.

* Nixon resigns before Hillary has a chance to submit the brief in which she makes knowingly false claims.

* Zeifman then fires Hillary. Hillary asks for a letter of recommendation. Zeifman says no. This was only the third time in Zeifman’s 17 years with the committee that he had refused a letter of recommendation.

Zeifman told Dan Calabrese that if Hillary had actually submitted the brief she most likely would have been disbarred.

Why exactly was she fired? In the words of the man who fired her…

“Because she was a liar,” Zeifman said in an interview last week. “She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality.”

bowling for votes

Following a speech before hundreds of labor union members, the press was told Hillary Clinton would hold a press conference. The press sat patiently for Clinton to finish shaking hands with supporters in the other room. Within minutes, a somber looking Clinton approached the podium, her equally morose looking staff stood nearby.

“I want to take a moment to say that this has been a very hard fought race. Each of us is drawing enormous support. We clearly need to do something so that our party and the people can make the right decision,” Clinton said. At this point many in the press thought Clinton might drop the bomb that she is calling it quits in the race. But it soon became clear that Clinton was only joking.

“Today I am challenging Senator Obama to a bowl off, a bowling night, right here in Pennsylvania winner take all,” said Clinton as the press chuckled.

“I will even spot him 2 frames. It’s time for his campaign to get out of the gutter and allow all of the pins to be counted. I am prepared to play this game all the way to 10th frame. And when this game is over the America people will know when that phone rings at 3am they will have a president who will be able to bowl on day one so let’s strike a deal and go bowling for delegates. We don’t have a moment to spare, because it’s already April Fools Day, so happy April Fools Day everybody.”

Knowing that a little humor will go a long way, and understanding that she has very little of it to give, Hillary reserves her human side for the darkest hour, when nothing else will tip the scales in her direction. Viva la Hillary!

the Hillary Deathwatch at 9.7%

Hillary Clinton campaign stiffs her high school $3,161

Hillary Clinton’s campaign has been in the news several times this election season for being, shall we say, somewhat tardy in paying its bills. New York and Des Moines companies complained to the media. And when a New Hampshire landlord went public with his Clinton debt of $500, other companies cried out. (He eventually got paid his $500 and publicly donated it right away to Barack Obama’s campaign.)

Now, it looks from new Federal Election Commission filings that Clinton’s campaign had $8.7 million in outstanding debt at the end of last month. Ouch! And that included $3,361 owed to Maine South High School in Park Ridge, Ill., for renting the Watson Auditorium and for catering.

Hillary Rodham graduated from there in 1965.

On the eve of Super Tuesday on Feb. 5, Clinton staged a big town hall meeting from the Maine South High School auditorium that was broadcast nationally on the Hallmark Channel, allowing supporters across the country to ask questions live. Maybe you saw it. Millions did.

But campaigns move on. And her alma mater is still awaiting its money.

The FEC form lists only a “Dr. Rose” as the school contact. A switchboard operator at Maine South said no one was available to discuss the debt, and that the only Dr. Rose at the school was Dr. Rose Garlasco, who is assistant principal. Voice-mail messages for her and the Clinton campaign have gone unanswered.

Hillary’s reaction to WTC bombing… go to a photoshoot and attend a play

Hillary loves to talk about her ‘experience’ in the Oval Office. Well, here are a couple examples from some very noteworthy days during the Clinton administration.

When the World Trade Center was attacked in February 1993, President Bill Clinton flew to New York to be briefed on the attack and the response by city, state and federal authorities. According to newly released White House calendars of Hillary Clinton’’s time as first lady, she remained in Washington to attend a photo shoot with Parade magazine and a performance of “Jesus Christ Superstar.”

Seven years later, in October 2000, the Clintons were enjoying a quiet weekend at their new home in Chappaqua, N.Y., when word came that the Cole, a U.S. destroyer, had been attacked in a Yemen port. Bill Clinton rushed back to the White House to deal with the crisis. Hillary Clinton returned to the campaign trail in her run for the Senate.

Hillary’s health care plan isn’t paying for her own employees

The self-professed champion for ‘universal health care’ hasn’t been paying the health care bills for her own employees.

Among the debts reported this month by Hillary Rodham Clinton’s struggling presidential campaign, the $292,000 in unpaid health insurance premiums for her campaign staff stands out.

Clinton, who is being pressured to end her campaign against Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination, has made her plan for universal health care a centerpiece of her agenda.

The campaign provides health insurance to all its employees, their spouses, partners and children — and that wasn’t interrupted by any lag in payments to insurance providers, said Jay Carson, a Clinton campaign spokesman.

He said the campaign this month paid off all outstanding bills to Aetna Healthcare and CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield. Those payments will be reflected on a report the campaign will file this month with the Federal Election Commission, which Carson said will show “zero debt owed to both vendors.”

“Sometimes invoices are not paid immediately because we need additional information for our records, or to verify expenses,” Carson said in a statement e-mailed to Politico. “Sometimes invoices arrive at the very end of the month at the cutoff of the reporting period, which means that we are required to report them as a debt on the current FEC report, even where they are paid in regular course during the next month.”

But the unpaid bills to Aetna were at least two months old, according to FEC filings.

They show the campaign ended last year owing Aetna more than $213,000 for “employee benefits.”

During the first two months of the year, the campaign did not pay down any of that debt. In fact, it accrued another $16,000 in unpaid bills last month, and it finished the month owing Aetna $229,000.

Top 10 Myths Keeping Hillary In The Race

Chip Collis gives an excellent analysis…

I have noted a number of myths amongst the comments here as to why Hillary should stay in the race. Here are ten enduring, kudzu-like myths, with the debunking they sorely need.

Myth: This race is tied.

No, actually, it’s not. Obama has the lead in number of states won, in pledged delegates and in overall delegates. Nothing will happen in the remaining primaries to substantially change that. As to the one thing Hillary does lead in, superdelegates, her quickly shrinking margin is among DNC personnel only. When you look at the elected superdelegates, Congressman, Senators and Governors (i.e. people who actually work with both Obama and Clinton) Obama leads there, too.

Myth: Okay, the popular vote is tied.

There are people who claim that because of the 3% separation, that Obama’s lead in the popular vote is a “statistical tie.” This is a myth because, when you can actually count things, there’s no need of statistics and no such thing as a margin of error. The popular vote is not an estimate based on a sampling, like a poll. Like the general election, there are winners and losers and, so far, Obama is the winner.

Myth: Fine, but what if we count electoral votes? NOW Hillary is ahead!

Not so much. The proportions of electoral votes to population versus delegates to population are pretty comparable. So if you allocated electors proportionally in the same manner that you allocate delegates, Obama is still ahead. If you allocate them on a winner-take-all basis, then that would be the same as allocating the delegates on a winner-take-all basis, so why bring electors into it?

Myth: But if we did do it like the Electoral College, that proves Hillary is more electable than Obama, because of states like California.

This is perhaps the saddest little myth of all. It’s ridiculous to suggest that Obama will lose New York and California to McCain because Clinton won them in the primaries. No, come November, those states will join with Obama’s Illinois to provide 40% of the electors necessary for him to win.

Myth: Very well, then, Mr. Smarty-Math. But if we counted Michigan and Florida, THEN Hillary would be winning!

Nooo, she wouldn’t. The margin would depend on how you allocate the delegates, but Obama would still be ahead. And he’d still be about 100,000 ahead in the popular vote, too, despite not even being on the ballot in Michigan. However, it would enhance Hillary’s chances of catching up in the remaining races.

Myth: Ah HA! So Dean is keeping them out just to help Obama! And Obama is keeping them out.

That’s two myths, but I’ll treat it like one. The only people who can come up with a solution to this problem are the states themselves, to be presented to the Rules and Regulations Committee of the DNC for ratification. It was Rules and Regs, not Howard Dean, who ruled that Florida and Michigan were breaking the rules when they presented their original primary plans. If the two states cannot come up with a plan to reselect delegates, they can try to seat whatever delegates were chosen in the discounted primaries by appealing to the Democratic Convention’s Credentialing Committee, which includes many members from Rules and Bylaws.

Myth: If they don’t get seated until the convention but a nominee is selected before these poor people get counted then these states are disenfranchised.

There are two ways to debunk this myth: semantically and practically. The first is based on the word “disenfranchised:” these people have not been deprived of their right to vote. Through the actions of their states, their votes don’t impact the outcome. Now, you may say that that is specious semantics (Myth: I do say that!) but practically speaking, this is the usual effect of the nominating process, anyway. All of the Republican primaries since McCain clinched the nomination have been meaningless, but those voters are not disenfranchised.

Florida and Michigan tried to become more relevant in the process by breaking the rules. They risked becoming irrelevant instead.

Myth: Well, I say they are disenfranchised, and Hillary Clinton is their champion.

Only when it suits her. Last fall, when the decision was first made to flush 100% of Michigan and Florida delegates, Clinton firmly ratified it. That was because the typical punishment of only 50% representation also kept the candidates from raising money in those states. Figuring that she would wrap up the nomination handily anyway, the clear front-runner agreed with all the other candidates – including Obama – to completely “disenfranchise” those two states.

Myth: Well, never mind 2007. She’s doing more now to bring them in.

Not really. Recent stories in the St. Petersburg Times political blog said that 1) the Obama camp has reached out to the Florida Democratic party about a compromise and that 2) the Clinton camp will discuss nothing else but re-votes, which are legally, practically and politically dead.

Myth: Whatever! Hillary can still win! I know she can! She and her 37% positive rating will sweep through the remaining primaries and Michigan and Florida, winning 70% of everything and superdelegates will flock to her banner and Barack Obama will personally nominate her at the Convention and John McCain will give up and George Bush will even quit early so she can take over and… and… and… can I have a glass of water?

Yes, and you should lie down, too.

Clinton Pushes Housing Market Fixes As Campaign Manager Sits on Board of Bankrupt Lender

Hillary Clinton spends considerable time on the campaign trail bemoaning unscrupulous lenders who have left millions of Americans scrambling to keep their homes but all the while her campaign manager, Margaret “Maggie” Williams, has sat on the board of one of the nation’s once-largest and now-bankrupt sub-prime mortgage lenders.

Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson told FOXNews.com late Sunday that Williams, a longtime Clinton ally, didn’t join Clinton’s Democratic presidential campaign as a volunteer until after Delta Financial Corporation — for which Williams is a director — went bankrupt in December 2007.

That’s more than seven years after Williams joined New York-based Delta Financial in 2000. She became a director one month after a federal settlement was reached with the lender over discriminatory lending practices. More recently, Delta has been accused by consumer advocates of pursuing predatory practices throughout the housing boom and bust.

As of September 2007, Williams owned 12,500 shares of Delta’s common stock, and by 2007 had earned at least $175,000 for her board obligations, according to company filings available in the Securities & Exchange Commission online database.

…
Intently focused on the nation’s housing crisis in recent appearances, Clinton has been clear that sub-prime mortgage lenders, particularly in poor, working class urban neighborhoods shoulder much of the blame for the credit crunch.

…

But as it turns out, Clinton’s top aide is on the board of what had been — until its bankruptcy — the ninth-leading sub-prime lender in the nation, handling almost $800 million worth of sub-prime lending in the third quarter of 2007 alone, according to National Mortgage News.

Hillary the next governor of New York?

Terrified that their bloody primary campaign will doom them in the November presidential elections in the US, some Democrats are floating a consolation prize for Hillary Clinton – Governor of New York State, according to a media report.

The travails of New York Governor David Paterson have opened up a new potential career path for Clinton, ‘Newsweek’ says quoting unidentified well-informed Democratic Party insiders.

They want Clinton, a New York Senator, to consider the option if she concludes after the April 22 Pennsylvania primary that she cannot overtake Barack Obama for the party’s presidential nomination.

Hillary Clinton, while fully committed to continuing her presidential campaign, was said to be open to discussing the idea, while her husband and former president Bill Clinton rejected it out of hand, the magazine says in its upcoming issue.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to see Hillary in a role where she is actually accountable for her decisions? The fact that Bill automatically opposed the idea is very telling.

Hillary stiffs the working people

There is something seriously ironic about a woman that will tell a bunch of rich people at a 2004 San Francisco fundraiser that she is going to “take things away from you on behalf of the common good”, referring to taking from the rich to give to the working class, and then proceed to stiff that same working class when she owes them monies for services rendered.

The Hillary Clinton campaign has avoided paying hundreds of bills and vendors and service providers are warning people to get paid up front before rendering any services to the Clinton campaign or they may not get paid at all.

Hillary campaign leaves trail of unpaid bills behind her

Hillary Clinton’s determination to remain in the presidential race may spell bad news for small businesses in the states that have yet to vote.

Staff have left a trail of unpaid bills and trashed offices across America in the past three months, raising fresh doubts about the viability of her run for the Democratic nomination. A property manager who let rooms to the campaign last summer in Clinton, Iowa, said that he found rubbish, rotting food, holes drilled in the walls and permanent stains on the carpet. He did not receive unpaid rent until last month — but kept the $500 deposit to cover clean-up expenses.

In Portsmouth, New Hampshire, landlord Terry Bennett went to the media to complain about late payment from Clinton campaign tenants who, he said, “left enough trash for a small army” — but no rent. When he eventually got his cheque, he donated it to Barack Obama.

Ohio event management companies owed money by Mrs Clinton were quoted yesterday warning others to ask for money up front. Jim Phillips, the owner of Show Tyme Exhibits, said that he needed a $607 invoice settled. “I’m a small guy,” he said. “I could use that.”

The delayed payments may reflect her straitened circumstances after the most expensive battle for the Democratic nomination in history, in which she has recently been heavily outspent on advertising by Mr Obama.

Bill Clinton, in a weekend e-mail to supporters, underlined the urgent need for money before the end of March. “Our opponents and the media will scrutinise our fundraising reports and look for any sign of weakness,” he said.

Although February was her best month yet in fundraising, documents filed last week with the Federal Elections Commission show that at the end of that month Mrs Clinton’s total of $38 million in the bank was mostly money that can be spent only if she wins the nomination.

The Politico.com website reported that if she had paid off the $8.7 million in unpaid bills and not loaned her campaign $5 million, she would have had less than $2 million available for this month. Mr Obama would still have had $31 million cash-in-hand even if he had paid off the $625,000 owed to creditors.

Mrs Clinton’s biggest debts are to her pollsters, strategists and advertising consultants. She also has hundreds of outstanding bills for catering, security, printing and hiring venues. By the end of February, her campaign had not, for instance, reimbursed the Hy-Vee chain for making thousands of sandwiches on the night of the Iowa caucuses.

boys are bullies

Faced with a growing chorus to abandon the uphill battle against Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton is falling back on what she sees as her trump card – her gender.

At other perilous junctures like the eve of the New Hampshire primary and the eve of Super Tuesday, the former First Lady highlighted her femininity during televised tearful moments. Now she is portraying the calls for her to quit as male chauvinism.

In comments leaked to the New York Times, Mrs Clinton is said to have told aides that she would not be “bullied out” of the White House race and in a conversation with two allies compared her plight to “big boys” trying to bully a woman.

Of course, this in no way impunes Hillary’s ability to act as Commander in Chief. As long as any international leaders aren’t bullies, too!

Democrats Get Their Groove On

Bill appears to praise McCain, actually lays groundwork for Hillary’s Second Chance

For the second time in a week, Bill Clinton offered high praise for Republican presidential nominee John McCain — the candidate who could end up squaring off against Clinton’s wife Hillary.

At a stop in rural Pennsylvania on Thursday, Bill told the gathering that McCain is a “moderate” who “has given all you can give for this country without dying for it.”

He said McCain is on the right side in opposing the torture of enemy combatants and on the global warming issue, which “just about crosses the bridge for [Republicans].”

Clinton also told the audience that the race should not about the past, but about who is going to do more for the country in the future, ABC News reported. That person, he said, is Hillary.

One week ago Clinton expressed similar sentiments at a gathering in North Carolina, calling McCain a war hero who had demonstrated his love for his country.

Clinton noted that McCain supported campaign finance reform and “he doesn’t think global warming is a myth … so it is not going to be all that easy to beat him.”

Bill is clearly setting up the stage for the inevitable democrat nominee to lose to John McCain. Bill knows that Hillary currently has a snowball’s chance in Hades, and Barack Obama will be McCain’s challenger. Bill also knows that if Obama manages to take the prize from McCain, Hillary will be shut out for 2012. BUT, if McCain wins in November, Hillary can take him on in four years, when he’ll be an even weaker opponent due to four years of media bashing by the democrat hand-holders (known as the MSM).

there’s gotta be a way…

And Only Count the Votes of Left-Handed People! And Only Count People Who Lettered in a Sport in High School! And…

Bill Clinton on a call yesterday with supporters of his wife’s in Texas.

“Right now, among all the primary states, believe it or not, Hillary’s only 16 votes behind in pledged delegates,” said the former president, “and she’s gonna wind up with the lead in the popular vote in the primary states. She’s gonna wind up with the lead in the delegates [from primary states].”

There are 40 primary states and territories; 18 caucuses.

“It’s the caucuses that have been killing us,” Bill Clinton said. “We can still win this thing. We’re gonna have a big victory in Pennsylvania. It’s gonna change the psychology even further, but we need your help.”

Other ways Sen. Hillary Clinton could be the nominee through creative math:

* Only count Arkansas and the states that border it (except for Mississippi, Louisiana and Missouri);
* Only count the votes of people who have heard Chelsea speak in person;
* Ballots en espanol only;
* Nomination determined by who does better in NCAA pool.

Ronald Reagan’s son claims more ‘presidential experience’ than Hillary

“I’m indebted to Hillary Clinton for the revelation that my global wanderings when my dad was president qualify me to run for the presidency myself.

Mrs. Clinton has been insisting that her global junkets as first lady, and her meetings with foreign leaders, qualify her to be president of these United States.

I never thought of it that way, but if she is correct then I am eminently qualified to follow my father’s footsteps and take up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., not merely as a member of the president’s family, but as president in my own right.

Hillary, who even the media now admit will say or do anything to win election, is using her past as first lady to attempt to sell the American people on her expertise in foreign policy, a claim largely based on her travels during her husband’s administration and the fact that she met with world leaders while junketing abroad.

Well I’ll match my global travels and meetings with world leaders against hers any time, and I’ll come out on top.

As a member of the president’s immediate family I traveled far and wide, accompanied by an entourage of Secret Service agents, as are all members of a president’s family. And because I was the son of a sitting president, my presence in their country — no matter what the reason for my visit — was treated by their leaders as an official visit and I was accorded the treatment given to such official guests.

Moreover, I was present during times of crisis when momentous decisions were made affecting foreign policy. For example, I was in a suite in the Century Plaza Hotel when my father gave Attorney General Ed Meese the authority to order our military to shoot down Moammar Gadhafi’s aircraft in the Gulf of Sidra.

Following Hillary’s reasoning, that experience qualifies me as an expert of military matters relating to foreign affairs capable of knowing what to do in a moment of crisis.

Hillary’s widely-touted experience is not at all unique. Any member of any presidential family has had similar experiences but not one of them ever even suggested that their travel and meetings with foreign leaders qualified them to be president of the United States.

Nancy Reagan, for example, had far more experience than Hillary, but she was content to be the loving wife of a president instead of crowing about the famous world leaders she met in her eight years as first lady and claiming it qualified her to be president. Unlike Hillary, Nancy tells the truth.

Hillary has connection to Obama’s passport breach

A State Department official in charge of the department during two of the three breaches into the passport files of Sen. Barack Obama has a direct tie to Bill and Hillary Clinton and department officials are investigating whether she furnished information to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Maura Harty was in charge of the Bureau Of Consular Affairs during the first two breaches of Obama’s passport. Former President Bill Clinton appointed her to an ambassadorship during his Presidency.

Harty retired last month from the State Department. She joined the State Department in 2002 after serving as ambassador to Paraguay for two years of Bill Clinton’s Presidential term. Sources within the State Department told Capitol Hill Blue this morning that revelations of the first two passport breaches surfaced only after Harty left her State Department job.

The reports of Hillary’s campaign death are no longer greatly exaggerated

Kimberley A. Strassel, at the Wall Street Journal, has an excellent summary of why Hillary’s campaign is over.

Hillary Clinton’s been all the news this week, after she “misspoke” about Whitewater, Travelgate, missing files, suspicious pardons, Johnny Chung and cattle futures. Oh wait, after she “misspoke” about Bosnia. Oh wait, same thing.

That’s one way to make sense of the unrelenting, unforgiving, 24/7 news coverage of Mrs. Clinton’s fictional telling of Bosnian sniper fire and the subsequent debunking of her every word. In a nasty primary battle that has already featured racial slurs and Chicago slum lords, missing tax documents, and a “monster,” you might expect this slip-up to have been yet another blip in the media cycle.
[Hillary Clinton]

But that would have been to deny the press, the pundits, Democrats, and even Barack Obama, the catharsis of finally — finally! — getting a chance to confront the Clintons’ questionable mores. Hillary’s and Bill’s scandals have been the elephant in the primary room ever since she first signaled a run. Yet up to now everyone has been too scared, or too loyal, or too weary to touch the ugly past. Her Bosnia misspeak is now serving as proxy for all the truths about the Clintons’ non-truths, allowing even liberals to break free from their Clinton dependence.

And how liberating it is! The video of Mrs. Clinton’s speech about Bosnian sniper fire, twinned with real footage of calmly strolling down the Tuzla tarmac, has been running on one continuous TV loop. Reporters have dug up every last person who accompanied her on the sedate trip to pour a little more salt in the wound. “The Audacity of Hoax,” yelled a blog posting in the liberal Nation magazine, which innocently asked: “What else is she fibbing about?” Bill Burton, Barack Obama’s spokesman, gleefully noted that Mrs. Clinton’s recent attacks on his candidate were designed to deflect attention away from her “made up” Bosnia story. Heavy emphasis on the “made up” part. No need to mention Vince Foster, Red Bone, Marc Rich or Webster Hubbell. All this will do.

Read the rest here.

Hillary’s Experience: Helping Iraqi Spies

A Michigan man facing federal criminal charges of illegally working for Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi Intelligence Service says he met with Hillary Clinton at the White House in May 1996.

In a 1997 interview with this reporter, Muthanna Hanooti said that at the meeting, Mrs. Clinton was “very receptive” to his request for an easing of the American sanctions on Iraq that were in place at the time. He said Mrs. Clinton “passed a message to the State Department” about the need to implement the oil-for-food deal, which was intended to allow Saddam to sell billions of dollars’ worth of oil to pay for food for Iraqi citizens.

Hillary, why doth thy media foresaketh thee?

Hillary is being “swiftboated”!

She claimed that she came under sniper fire when she visited in Bosnia in 1996, but was contradicted by videotape showing her sauntering off the plane and stopping on the tarmac to listen to a little girl read her a poem.

Similarly, John Kerry’s claim to heroism in Vietnam was contradicted by 264 Swift Boat Veterans who served with him. His claim to having been on a secret mission to Cambodia for President Nixon on Christmas 1968 was contradicted not only by all of his commanders — who said he would have been court-martialed if he had gone anywhere near Cambodia — but also the simple fact that Nixon wasn’t president on Christmas 1968.

In Hillary’s defense, she probably deserves a Purple Heart about as much as Kerry did for his service in Vietnam.

Also, unlike Kerry, Hillary acknowledged her error, telling the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: “I was sleep-deprived, and I misspoke.” (What if she’s sleep-deprived when she gets that call on the red phone at 3 a.m., imagines a Russian nuclear attack and responds with mutual assured destruction? Oops. “It proves I’m human.”)

The reason no one claims Hillary is being “swiftboated” is that the definition of “swiftboating” is: “producing irrefutable evidence that a Democrat is lying.” And for purposes of her race against matinee idol B. Hussein Obama, Hillary has become the media’s honorary Republican.

In liberal-speak, only a Democrat can be swiftboated. Democrats are “swiftboated”; Republicans are “guilty.” So as an honorary Republican, Hillary isn’t being swiftboated; she’s just lying.

Indeed, instead of attacking the people who produced a video of Hillary’s uneventful landing in Bosnia, the mainstream media are the people who discovered that video.

I’ve always wondered how a Democrat would fare being treated like a Republican by the media. Now we know.

Hillary hits a new low.. in her approval rating

Hillary Clinton is sporting the lowest personal ratings of the campaign. Moreover, her 37 percent positive rating is the lowest the NBC/WSJ poll has recorded since March 2001, two months after she was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York.

Chelsea Clinton, stumping for Mom, gets the Monica question

Back in 1992 when candidate Bill Clinton had the opportunity to tell intrusive questioners where to go when they asked about his underpants, he chickened out. And answered.

Not so, Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea.

The only child of the former president and Sen. Hillary Clinton has been out on her own impressing crowds across the country in recent weeks stumping for her mom. Presumably, the question had to come at some point. And presumably Chelsea was ready.

Tuesday it came. The Monica Lewinsky question. (Please note, it was not the media that inquired.)

There she was in Indianapolis talking to a crowd of maybe 200 students at Butler University, seeking votes for the state’s May 6 primary. It was near the end of the session when some guy asked Chelsea if her mother’s credibility had been injured by the infamous sexual relationship her father had with the White House intern.

“Wow,” said Chelsea, “you’re the first person actually that’s ever asked me that question in the, I don’t know, maybe 70 college campuses I’ve now been to.”

Then, she fired: “And I do not think that is any of your business.”

So, Chelsea has been to 70 college campuses and has never been asked the most obvious question on everyone’s mind? That, in itself, points out the intellectual collusion among our institutes of higher learning. Rather than being an environment where people are encouraged to consider many sides to issues, universities use the shield of political correctness to avoid dealing with uncomfortable issues.

And you’re wrong, Chelsea. It is our business to consider how a person who is now attempting to get elected President of the United States handled an issue that caused the impeachment of our country’s commander in chief. The fact that the impeached president was her husband has no bearing on the situation. And by never admitting, to this day, that she was wrong, Hillary showed that her allegiance was, as is still, with her husband (or rather, her political future) rather than with facts and law of the land.

Also telling, is the insertion in the story that it was not the media who asked the longed for question. This being the same media who has never questioned Bill Clinton in the rape of Juanita Broaddrick.

For Hillary, lying ain’t no big deal

Hillary Clinton got caught in a lie recently, a whopper about being under fire in a so-called combat zone, a well-rehearsed lie she has been telling on the campaign trail for months.

When the truth came out, as it so often does in the microscopic world of politics, she shrugged her shoulders and dismissed it by saying:

I made a mistake. That happens. It proves I’m human, which you know, for some people, is a revelation.

Calling her tall tales of running and ducking for a cover a “mistake” is massive understatement. Her claim about being human leaves an opening that’s ripe for comment but we won’t go there.

Clinton’s campaign for President is built on a mountain of lies. She says she brokered peace in Northern Island. The man who did broker the peace — and who won a Nobel Prize for his honest efforts — says her claims are a crock.

Ron Fournier of The Associated Press writes an excellent analysis of Clinton’s vague association with the truth:

During a speech last week on Iraq, Clinton stretched the truth to the breaking point. “I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia and … there was a saying around the White House that if a place was too small, too poor, or too dangerous, the president couldn’t go, so send the first lady. That’s where we went. I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”

Hogwash. The truth is:

– There was no sniper fire.

– Nobody ducked for cover.

– Bad weather, not security concerns, kept her husband from making the same trip a few months earlier.

Clinton and her aides stood behind the story — which she has told more than once — until video surfaced showing the former first lady, her daughter, Chelsea, and their entourage strolling off the plane and walking calmly across the tarmac.

What makes Clinton’s situation unique — and the Bosnia embellishments so damaging — is the fact that the New York senator has built her candidacy on the illusion of experience. Any attack on her credentials is a potential Achilles heel.

As first lady, she did not attend National Security Council meetings, did not receive the presidential daily briefing on terrorism and other threats and did not have a top level security clearance. Her foreign trips were glorified goodwill tours, a collection of photo opportunities and sightseeing trips.

Yet her lies about being under fire, used as a questionable way to justify her claim of being qualified “from day one” to be commander-in-chief are an insult to every man and woman who served their nation and actually came under fire. Anyone who has been under fire in a combat situation will tell you that it’s not something you forget and it’s certainly not something that you simply “misspeak” about.

To accept Clinton’s ludicrous claims that she “misspoke” means accepting the fact that she misspoke at least three times during the campaign. Each time, she added more embellishment to the story. When challenged with the facts, her first claim was that she was “sleep deprived” and because of lack of sleep she wasn’t in full control of her memory or faculties.

This from the woman who wants us to believe that she will be the best person to answer that ringing phone at 3 in the morning.

Are destructive Clintons plotting a McCain win?

Pat Murphy asks a question that I’ve been pondering, as well.

Perhaps it’s not so baffling that the House of Clinton is eager to demonize Barack Obama as too inexperienced to be president, and that it slyly stokes suspicions about his patriotism and allegiance to the United States, belittles his uplifting speeches as hot air and continues the ugly, destructive fight for the Democratic nomination against steepening odds.

Indisputably, the Clinton machine is providing grist for Republican John McCain to use against Obama if he’s the Democratic presidential nominee—certified charges from no less than Democrats Hillary and Bill that Obama’s too inexperienced, lacking sufficient patriotism, a man of ready talk but no solutions.

Could this be the final Clinton strategy as her chances appear bleaker every day—helping McCain win the White House so Hilary could run for president in 2012? (McCain would be too old for a second term.)

This notion would be considered unthinkable, almost the delusions of a psychotic. Would any Democrat dare purposely sabotage another Democrat to pave the way for a Republican president?

The Clintons, mind you, are not ordinary or rational Democrats. The Clintons are megalomaniacal in their hunger for power. What has long been suspected has been confirmed by a few Clinton staffers bitter about Obama’s rise in popularity—they believe Hillary is “entitled” to be president. The nation owes her. The nation cannot survive without her.

Two facts support the notion of a self-destructive last stand by Hillary and Bill.

First, their tactics haven’t increased her lead over Obama or won any superdelegate support. She’s lost 60 superdelegates in the past month, according to Politico.com.

Second, Obama was leading McCain in double digits—and now McCain is leading and approved by 67 percent of Americans, since the Clintons unleashed their wreck-and-ruin tactics.

Experts in these matters calculate Hillary Clinton has a 10 percent or less chance of the nomination. That percentage is bound to shrivel as the self-destruction continues. Her claim of visiting Bosnia under sniper fire as proof of her “experience” has been exposed as fiction. Her believability is bound to suffer, increasing doubts about her character to be commander-in-chief.

Whatever else the Clinton legacy, their most outstanding feature is a proclivity for shaming themselves and their nation.

Bill did it with his cheap peccadillo with Monica Lewinsky in an anteroom just outside the Oval Office and his lies thereafter.

Now Hillary, overcome by peevishness, would destroy her party’s chances for the presidency by sabotaging her Democratic rival to aid the fortunes of a Republican. She seems indifferent to the personal cost of being banished to the political graveyard.

Hillary’s pants are on fire

liar, liar...

more gutter politics by the Clinton gang

Bill Richardson came out swinging Easter Sunday, slamming the “gutter” politics which he says is “typical of many of the people around Senator Clinton.”

The New Mexico governor made the searing remarks appearing on “Fox News Sunday” with Chris Wallace.

Asked about James Carville’s comments, as reported in the New York Times Saturday, that Richardson’s endorsement of Barack Obama was comparable to “when Judas sold out [Jesus] for 30 pieces of silver,” an angry Richardson told Wallace, “I’m not going to get in the gutter like that.”

Then he followed with a blistering attack on the Clinton’s inner circle.

“And you know, that’s typical of many of the people around Senator Clinton. They think they have a sense of entitlement to the presidency.”

Heavy Hitter? Not Hillary

Now that Hillary Clinton’s schedule as first lady has been released, her near-total lack of serious involvement in the real inner workings of the government is bluntly apparent.

There are few, if any, meetings with Cabinet members, congressional leaders, the National Security Council, the National Economic Council, leaders of the Irish peace process, players in the Bosnian crisis or representatives from Rwanda. All of her so-called experience is absent from her daily schedule. What’s there, for us all to see, is one soft event after another, a schedule far more typical of such first ladies as Mamie Eisenhower or Lady Bird Johnson than of a future presidential candidate.

This near-total paucity of participation in policy-making dovetails with our recollection of her White House role. In 1995 and 1996, she largely toured the country, speaking at ceremonial events, wrote a book (“It Takes A Village”) and toured the world. During her international travels, there was no serious diplomacy, just a virtually endless round of meetings with women, visiting arts-and-crafts centers, watching native industries and photo opportunities for the local media.

President Clinton’s memoirs reflect this absence of substance. The book contains only a handful of mentions of his wife that aren’t related to their joint travel, her health care-reform program or her ceremonial duties. The Hillary she now claims to be was nowhere evident.

Hillary Clinton was deeply involved in the White House’s inner workings only from the time of Bill’s election through the Democratic defeat in the congressional elections of 1994. She played a key role in choosing the Cabinet and staff, in crafting the health care-reform legislation and in relations with the Democratic Congress.

But Bill Clinton saw his loss of Congress as owing to Hillary’s policies and ideas. He felt that his presidency had been captured by a liberal phalanx that included the first lady and such staffers as George Stephanopoulos and Harold Ickes. He realized the need to move to the center and exiled Hillary from the White House, asking her to mix the largely ceremonial duties of her “job” with writing, speaking and policy advocacy. Her key role in the White House was a thing of the past – and remained so through all of 1995, 1996 and 1997.

Only in January 1998 did Hillary come back to real power – in order to lead the defense to the Monica Lewinsky scandal and prevent Bill’s impeachment. Of course, after April 1999, she was consumed with her New York Senate race.

So Hillary’s experience, real enough in 1993-94, led to a total disaster, the first loss of the House for the Democrats in 40 years. Her experience in 1998-99 was focused almost exclusively on defending against impeachment, hardly relevant for the future. But her schedule shows the vacuity of her experience in the years in between – the key years of the Clinton presidency – when the budget was balanced, the economy turned around, welfare reformed, Bosnia transformed and Kosovo freed.

let it be

the math doesn’t add up for Hillary

A funny thing is happening. While Hillary and Bill Clinton appeal to superdelegates to override the will of the voters and back Hillary, the superdelegates are doing just the opposite.

The latest delegate count posted on realclearpolitics.com shows that Hillary’s lead among superdelegates, once a comfortable 60 votes, has now been cut almost in half, to 36 delegates. The latest tally has Hillary leading among superdelegates by 247 to 211. So, with 57 percent of the superdelegates decided, Hillary’s lead is shrinking.

In fact, Barack Obama’s total delegate lead has swelled to 163 votes among elected delegates and 127 among all delegates. With 1,614 votes, he isn’t far from the 2,025 he would need, without Florida or Michigan, to win the nomination.

Of the remaining 566 delegates to be selected, Hillary should enjoy a slight edge. She’ll probably win Pennsylvania (158 delegates), Indiana (72), Kentucky (51), West Virginia (28), and Puerto Rico (55). Obama will likely win North Carolina (115), Oregon (52), Montana (16), South Dakota (15) and Guam (4). If this turns out to be so, Hillary would lead in states with 364 delegates, while Obama would prevail in states with 202. But even if we assume 10-point wins for each candidate in each state (and the margin will likely be much tighter), all Hillary would get from her states is 36 more delegates while Obama would get 20 from his — still leaving Obama with a lead of 147 in elected delegates.

At that point, Obama would have about 1,900 votes, within spitting distance of the 2,025 he’d need to win. Hillary would have to win the remaining superdelegates by a top-heavy margin of 2:1 in order to win (steal) the nomination from Obama, who will have won the most elected delegates.

Even if we factor in possible do-over primaries in Florida and Michigan, the nature of the proportional representation process is not likely to change this outcome significantly. Hillary might get an extra 20 delegates if she wins both states, but she’s not likely to get more.

Can Hillary carry the remaining super delegates by 2:1 when she is carrying the ones who have committed by only 247 to 211? Not very likely. The pressure on these delegates to vote as their states voted will be very intense and few are likely to stand up to it.

Remember that these superdelegates are either elected officials in their own right, which means that they need to get re-elected, or party officials in the various states whose ears are very close to the ground. Particularly in caucus states that Obama carried heavily, they are not about to antagonize the party activists who backed Obama by undercutting their will and switching to Hillary.

In fact, the track record of the super delegates so far indicates that they are abandoning Hillary and signing up with Obama as his delegate lead mounts.

So even if the Clintons try as hard as they can (and they will) to steal his election, their chances of doing so are getting increasingly remote.

Hillary: The New Comeback Kid… or rather, not

A little more than a week ago front pages across the country joined 24-hour news networks and the World Wide Web in declaring that Sen. Hillary Clinton had forged a dramatic comeback against Sen. Barack Obama in the race for the Democratic nomination.

I contend that’s not what happened.

But how could that be? Didn’t Clinton take three of the four states voting for nominees on March 4, including the two biggies, Texas and Ohio? Well, yes and no.

Clinton did win Ohio by a significant margin and as a result received 74 delegates to Obama’s 65. But in Texas, while Clinton did indeed win the primary, Obama handily won the caucuses which that state also uses to determine allocation of delegates. They finally ended up counting the caucus votes on Tuesday. When all was said and done, Obama had captured 99 delegates in Texas to Clinton’s 95. And, as the political analysts keep telling us, it’s all about the delegates.

In the other March 4 contests the pair split the small states, Obama taking Vermont. while Clinton won in Rhode Island. Add up all the delegates from the four races and Clinton walked away with 187 to Obama’s 181. That’s right, for all the hoopla and breathless talk of a Clinton revival, she gained only six delegates, according to figures compiled by CNN.

Since then Obama has won two more states — Wyoming and Mississippi — capturing 17 of the 28 delegates up for grabs. Put it all together and you find that since Clinton began her “comeback,” Obama has increased his committed delegate lead by two. There was no comeback.

Newsflash: Hillary is now from Pennsylvania

Remember when Hillary Clinton moved to New York and adopted it as her home by idiotically putting on a Yankees hat? And remember how Hillary Clinton tried to head into Illinois and claim that no, no, she’s from there too? And then remember how she implied that her Wellsley and Yale roots meant she was from Massachusetts and Connecticut in the lead up to those states’ primaries? And then remember during the Texas primary she claimed she also had deep roots in south Texas?

Well, now she’s claiming she’s actually from Pennsylvania – a convenient announcement just a few weeks ahead of Pennsylvania’s primary.

* davidsirota’s diary *

I just got this from her campaign in my email box:

Dear David,

Hillary has always had deep family roots in Pennsylvania and lifelong memories of her time spent there as a child. Her grandparents came to Pennsylvania over a century ago, and her father, Hugh Rodham, was born and raised in Scranton — and then went on to play football for the Penn State Nittany Lions. Hillary has always been connected to Pennsylvania and that’s why she has always carried with her the images and voices of the people she came to know. Coming back to Pennsylvania this week has been more like a homecoming…

Yes, she cares so much about Scranton that she spent the last decade championing the same NAFTA that has destroyed that part of Northeastern Pennsylvania.

Why do the Clintons always treat the public like we are just drop-dead stupid?

Hillary’s Commander-In-Chief Test

Monday Howard Wolfson, the supreme spokesman for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, issued a pronouncement by telephone conference call: “We do not believe,” he said, “that Sen. Obama has passed that key commander in chief test.”

This point was apparently made to disqualify Barack Obama from the No. 2 vice president job that he says he would never want and Hillary Clinton herself brought up last week and has talked about several times along with her husband but now they’ve decided the Illinois senator hasn’t passed the commander in chief test that he’s never taken and no one knows what it is anyway.

Which got us to thinking. What do you suppose a commander in chief test looks like? What do you have to know how to do to become commander in chief? And how, by the way, do we know whether Sen. Clinton has passed or even taken the commander in chief test?

Her campaign has not released Clinton’s commander in chief test, which….

fits because she hasn’t released her recent years’ income taxes either or the vast volume of documents from her first lady days that she says constitute so many of those 35 years of valuable experience that qualify her to be commander in chief.

So the entire world is left to guess what exactly is on Hillary Clinton’s commander in chief test. Which may be what her campaign wants. Because, in point of fact, if you think about it, Obama and John McCain are actually a tad bit closer to being the commander in chief since Obama leads in popular votes, states and Democratic delegates and McCain has already locked up the Republican nomination, unless Ron Paul really turns it on here in the next few weeks.

Hillary: Billary has sunk you

Diary entry by Richard Volaar

I was listening to Randi Rhodes during the commute this afternoon and she mentioned an intriguing possibility.

Bill doesn’t want Hillary to win. Sure, he’ll look like he’s giving it his best, but the facts on the ground tell a different tale. A tale of an unhappy husband and a frustrated former President.

For example, these verbal gaffes he engages in from time to time while stumping for his wife — do they sound like a caring husband who really wants his wife’s dream to come true, or do they sound more like an unhappy husband doing his umpteenth penance for finding some pathetic solace outside his barren, purely convenient, marriage?

I really do not believe Bill Clinton wants Hillary to be President of the United States. I could say that this is because he is a selfish cad who wants to be the only Commander and Chief of his broken little family. But I think — no, I feel — that Bill knows the stresses of the job and at some point during this campaign it has occurred even to him that his wife is completely incapable of being the Commander in Chief of a dying superpower. He found himself out of his element on more than one occasion — one being painstakingly documented by the lurid and sadistic Kenneth Starr — and those times, while not the best in world history, certainly were not as far gone as they are now. The US Treasury has been bankrupted, the real estate market is tanking, the stock market is beginning its death rattle and every punk on every street corner throughout the world is going to introduce themselves to a beaten and abused military machine. Bill knows what he had to go through to get Reagan’s largesse under control. I think Bill clearly sees, as anyone with a head for numbers sees, that there is no way out of this mess we are in. The Bush Crime Family has all of us in a box canyon at high noon.

Bill knows, deep down, that Hillary and her temperment are not a good mix for a job that has quickly become a trip into the hottest, darkest most sulfur-smoldering parts of hell on Earth. No one in their right mind would want to become a person whose very nervous system would become the private property of the Federal Reserve system and, as such, would be tossed onto the ashheap of history when all was said and done.

And how do we know that Hillary is cratering under the pressure of this campaign and the disintegration of her marriage? I think former Senator Gary Hart captured it best in his most recent entry over at Huffington Post when he said, “She has essentially said that the Democratic party deserves to lose unless it nominates her.” And in so doing Hillary Clinton has broken the “final rule” of politics. I couldn’t agree more.

Ladies and gentlemen, Hillary Clinton is a monster and she hasn’t even darkened the door of the Oval Office. The stimulation is too great even for a woman of Hillary’s former caliber. Like all addicts who must “shoot the Moon” every so often to capture that ultimate experience that seems to have eluded them years ago, Hillary is now spiking herself like a scorpion running out of a bonfire. She is stinging herself repeatedly to kill the pain of the burn because the numbing effect of the toxin feels better than the sting and ache of burning flesh. One sting too many, one last hit from the crack pipe, and life as it was known before is no more. Self destruction feels better than facing the reality of the facts as put before you.

Anti-semite among Hillary’s top fundraisers

Earlier this week, there was renewed reporting in the blogosphere about Mehmet Celebi, a film executive whose company, BMH Worldwide, produced the movie Valley of the Wolves. Here’s how the Jerusalem Post describes the movie: “American actor Gary Busey portrays a Jewish doctor in the American army who cuts out the organs of Iraqis at the Abu Ghraib prison and sells them to wealthy clients in New York, London, and Tel Aviv.”

Celebi is listed as a “Hillraiser” on the Clinton website, meaning he has raised more than $100,000 for her campaign.

When the New York Post first reported on the movie last month, the newspaper said a Clinton campaign official did not get back to them for comment. Renewed questions in the blogosphere, including postings on the political websites of ABC News and The Atlantic Magazine, produced this answer from Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson: “He will no longer be raising money for the campaign.”

Sinbad: Less scared than Hillary

In her efforts to establish tough foreign policy cred, Sen. Clinton has cited a harrowing flight into Bosnia during fighting there, with the “threat of sniper fire” forcing a “corkscrew” landing. “If the place was too small, too dangerous or too poor, send Hillary,” she said while describing the trip in Iowa.

The effectiveness of the Bosnia credential has been undercut a bit by disclosure that she was accompanied on her harrowing flight by Chelsea, Sheryl Crow and the entertainer Sinbad. Now, Sinbad has spoken out, and scoffed at Hillary’s claims, describing it as nothing more than a standard USO trip to entertain troops:

“What kind of president would say, ‘Hey, man, I can’t go ’cause I might get shot so I’m going to send my wife…oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you.’”

He apparently didn’t find it as harrowing as Hillary: “I think the only ‘red-phone’ moment was: ‘Do we eat here or at the next place.’”

And he never heard anything about sniper fire: “I never felt that I was in a dangerous position. I never felt being in a sense of peril, or ‘Oh, God, I hope I’m going to be OK when I get out of this helicopter or when I get out of his tank.’”

Bill Clinton invests in Brazilian sweatshop.. slave labor next?

A team from Brazil’s Labor Ministry found “degrading” living conditions for 133 sugarcane workers employed by an ethanol company whose investors include former President Clinton and other high-profile financial players.

At five sites inspected, workers “complained they were suffering from hunger and cold, and all of the locations were overcrowded and with terrible sanitary conditions,” according to a statement issued Friday by Jaqueline Carrijo, who led the inspections last month.

The target of the probe, Brazil Renewable Energy Co., known as Brenco, apologized over the weekend and said it is fixing the problems at its rural operations, which turn sugarcane into ethanol.

Clinton’s connection is via an investment in Brenco by The Yucaipa Cos., a U.S.-based fund in which Clinton was a senior advisor until last year. His investment in Brenco is valued between $15,001 and $50,000, according to a financial dislosure report submitted last year by his wife, presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Bill Clinton makes appearance on Rush Limbaugh show

Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton’s efforts to reunite the Democratic Party — and get the votes of some independent voters — could become tougher than ever with news that former President target=”_blank”Bill Clinton appeared on conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh’s show…on the day of the Texas primary.

If the story catches on, it will likely strike a decidedly sour note with many Democrats — and adds to the increasing instances in this campaign that anything will be done to get votes.

Why? Because Limbaugh is considered the quintessential demonizer of Democrats by Democrats and this means the former President was trying to help the conservative talk show host’s efforts to get Republicans to cross over in the Texas primary to vote for Hillary Clinton.

There is an irony here since Bill Clinton helped Limbaugh become quite a wealthy man over the years. But here it seems to be “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

The “crime” is made worse by the fact that the avowed purpose of Limbaugh and those talkers who joined him in this effort to get GOP crossovers was to a) throw a monkey wrench into Obama’s string of victories and break his momentum b) help force the Democratic battle for the nomination to go on longer and become more bitter in order to weaken the Democrats and help Republican chances c) get Senator Clinton as candidate because some Republicans perceived her as the weaker candidate.

Even worse: the Clinton’s have not been easily accessible to some PROGRESSIVE talk show hosts such as Ed Schultz.

But it turns out as if there apparently was a mutual overlap of interests here — the desire of Limbaugh, his fill-in host that day and other conservatives to influence the race and the former President to do whatever it took to get every single vote for Hillary Clinton, even if it meant crossover votes from Republicans who wanted to weaken the Democrats. Crossover, schmossover, weaken Obama, schmeaken Obama — as long as it’s a vote for Hillary…

Hillary urges Obama to help her screw him

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton today called on Barack Obama to “join me” in ensuring that Michigan and Florida delegates are seated.

“If you are a voter from Florida or Michigan, you know that we should count your vote,” Clinton said during a speech to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Washington.

“The nearly 2.5 million Americans in those two states who participated in the primary elections are in danger of being excluded from our democratic process — and I think that’s wrong.”

Clinton repeated her campaign’s proposed solution: Either honor the votes as cast in the two states’ primaries, or hold new primaries.

Obama’s spokesperson was not immediately available to respond to Clinton’s remarks.

Clinton won the Michigan and Florida primaries, but the Democratic National Committee is not honoring the results because the states broke party rules and held their contests early. Neither candidate campaigned in the states and Obama took his name off the Michigan ballot.

Obama’s campaign has said that the states’ delegates should be evenly divided between the candidates because the states broke the rules.

Aussie feminist Greer brands Hillary ‘cold, bossy’

Outspoken feminist Germaine Greer has rounded on US presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, branding her as “cold,” “bossy” and “manipulative” while questioning her credentials for the top job.

Australian-born Greer, here to promote her new book, launched into the candidate, saying she was unappealing to feminists as her political reputation was largely due to her marriage to former US president Bill Clinton.

“I don’t like Hillary because she’s so bossy and cold and manipulative and stuff, and I don’t think having her in power is going to make any difference, basically, because she will have the same set of advisers,” Greer said.

“I can’t see that Hillary would appeal to feminists because, why is she there? She is there because she is Bill’s wife, and it’s a bit useless to pretend, ‘Oh, it’s because of her wonderful job as a senator,’” she told Australia’s Nine Network late Monday.

“I just don’t think it’s true. When she had a big job in government, she blew it,” said the British-based Greer, referring to Hillary Clinton’s work on health issues during her husband’s administration.

Greer, who has made headlines with provocative attacks on the likes of Diana, Princess of Wales and the late Australian “crocodile hunter” Steve Irwin, said she knew the Clintons personally.

She attacked the former first couple’s marital style, saying the pair enjoyed a “confederacy” or business partnership, rather than an emotional relationship.

“They give me the creeps, from that point of view,” Greer said.

Hillary Clinton Is No Victim And Barack Obama Is No Ken Starr

“Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign compared rival Sen. Barack Obama on Thursday to independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr, the Clintons’ chief nemesis of the 1990s.

Clinton herself declined to comment on the comparison, made by her chief spokesman in a conference call with reporters and also in a memo distributed by the campaign.

Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said Obama’s statement that he plans to be more critical of Clinton’s record is reminiscent of the attacks the Clintons endured during the investigations in the 1990s.”

The worst insult that a Democrat can lob against a fellow Democrat is to compare him to Ken Starr, the independent counsel who was obsessed with uncovering Bill Clinton’s sex life.

Obama has waged a tenacious but circumspect campaign that is beyond reproach. Hillary has more scandals than a dog has fleas, but Obama has refrained from using any of them against her. If Obama was a sex-obsessed misfit like Starr, he would have questioned Hillary’s sexual orientation. But Obama is a gentlemen, who would never play the gay card against his opponent.

Barack is not mining the mud that the Clinton’s wallow in, he is simply asking Hillary to release her tax records.

You would think that Hillary was a paragon of virtue, but she is the opposite: A politician who will do anything to gain power. In the last few weeks she has thrown everything, including the kitchen sink, at Barack Obama.

By comparing Obama to Starr Hillary is attempting to portray herself as a victim. A bully always paints himself as a victim: Everyone hates me, that’s why I took that kid’s lunch money.

Hillary is not a victim and Obama is not Ken Starr. Hillary’s machinations are so transparent; I hope voters are not deceived. A Hillary administration will plunge this country into scandals and malaise.

Bradley knocks Clintons for – (as if you couldn’t guess) – lying!

Geraldine Ferraro isn’t the only former Democratic candidate taking sides in the Obama/Clinton battle: Bill Bradley, who ran for president against Al Gore in 2000, has accused the Clintons of “lying” in Hillary Clinton’s pursuit of the presidency.

“The bigger the lie, the better the chance they think they’ve got. That’s been their whole approach,” the Obama backer told The Sunday Times. “She’s going to lose a whole generation of people who got involved in politics believing it could be something different.”

Bradley, the former New Jersey whose presidential candidacy has drawn comparisons with Obama’s run, also slammed Bill Clinton on “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” Wednesday, as the Christian Science Monitor reports.

“Are there favors attached to $500,000 or $1 million contributions?” Bradley said in reference to Clinton’s decision not to disclose contributors to his presidential library. “And what do I mean by favors? I mean, pardons that are granted, investigations that are squelched, contracts that are awarded, regulations that are delayed.”

Shamelessly Hillary

She will stop at nothing to win the nomination.

Back on public display are Hillary’s marvelous shape-shifting abilities. Since the beginning of the campaign, we have seen shifts from the Commander-in-Chief Hillary to the teary Victim Hillary. But in just the last ten days, we’ve watched:

Hillary gracious: “I am so honored to be sitting on this stage with Barack Obama.”

Hillary resigned: “And you know, whatever happens, we’ll be fine.”

Hillary school-marmish: “Shame on you, Barack Obama!”

Hillary feisty: “I am in the solution business, my opponent is in the promises business.”

And Hillary exultant: “We’re going on, we’re going strong, and we’re going all the way.”

So in just a couple of weeks she’s traversed, far and wide, the emotional and behavioral map — even flirting with the notion of a highly unlikely Clinton-Obama ticket. In her Mississippi speeches, even her accent seemed to change, as she morphed from the blue-collar Ohio worker to the wife of the kind of guy who can host a fish-fry in Tupelo. (Wonder if Big Bill did his Elvis imitation for the hometown folks.)

Obama mocks Hillary

Barack Obama headed into Tuesday’s primary in Mississippi, a state he is tipped to win, mocking talk of a “dream ticket” headed by his rival Hillary Clinton.

Obama, who leads by about 100 delegates after 45 Democratic contests, ridiculed the Hillary camp for arguing that he is not ready to be commander-in-chief, but could be her number two. “If I’m not ready, how is it that you think I should be such a great vice president?” he said, drawing laughter from supporters at a rally on Monday in Columbus, Mississippi.

Obama said Hillary’s team was “trying to hoodwink you.” “With all due respect, I’ve won twice as many states as Hillary. I’ve won more of the popular vote than senator Clinton. I have more delegates than senator Clinton,” he said. “So I don’t know how somebody who is in second place is offering the vice presidency to the person who’s in first place.”

another loss for Hillary

Barack Obama won overwhelming support from black voters today to crush Hillary Clinton in Mississippi’s Democratic presidential primary, the last time the two rivals will compete for six weeks.

Geraldine Ferraro points out that Obama is… black!

US presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s camp has called on his rival Hillary Clinton to fire history-blazing supporter Geraldine Ferraro, after she put the Illinois Senator’s stunning rise down to his race.

The latest controversy comes as primary voters in Mississippi cast their ballots in the latest instalment of the dramatic Democratic White House race, with Senator Obama tipped for another victory.

Ms Ferraro, who sits on Senator Clinton’s finance committee and has spoken at her rallies, sparked the firestorm when she was quoted by a California newspaper as saying:

“I think what America feels about a woman becoming president takes a very secondary place to Obama’s campaign – to a kind of campaign that it would be hard for anyone to run against.

“For one thing, you have the press, which has been uniquely hard on her. It’s been a very sexist media. Some just don’t like her. The others have gotten caught up in the Obama campaign.

“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position.

“And if he was a woman he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”

another Clinton ally caught with his pants down

US Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton sidestepped questions on Monday about the sex scandal engulfing Eliot Spitzer, her home state governor and political ally.

“I don’t have any comment on that. Obviously I am sending my best wishes and thoughts to the governor and to his family,” Clinton said, opening her first campaign swing through Pennsylvania, which holds its presidential primary on April 22.

Spitzer apologized on Monday after he was accused of paying for sex with a call girl. Authorities say he was caught on a federal wiretap arranging a tryst with the woman at a Washington hotel room.

It was a blow to Clinton, who recently intensified her criticism of rival Barack Obama’s relationship with Antoin Rezko, a political patron on trial in federal court in Obama’s hometown of Chicago for alleged fraud and corruption.

While not personally close, Clinton and Spitzer have been friendly colleagues ever since the former first lady first ran for a US Senate in New York in 2000.

Her aides said Clinton deeply respected Spitzer’s work during his two terms as state attorney general, during which he became a national crusader against corporate corruption and Wall Street investment excesses.

Spitzer faced pressure to resign yesterday as well as questions about whether he would be prosecuted.

A New York Times report said he hired a US$1,000-an-hour prostitute and was caught on a wiretap at least six times on Feb. 12 and Feb. 13 arranging to meet her.

Spitzer, a married 48-year-old who investigated prostitution as attorney general, apologized for what he described as a “private matter,” but said nothing about resigning.

Hmm… a high ranking politician caught having sex with another woman. Now what other politician was impeached because of the same thing? Maybe Hillary could answer that.

The Clintons, a horror film that never ends

The Clintons have always had a touch of the zombies about them: unkillable, they move relentlessly forward, propelled by a bloodlust for Republicans or uppity Democrats who dare to question their supremacy. You can’t escape; you can’t hide; and you can’t win. And these days, in the kinetic pace of the YouTube campaign, they are like the new 28 Days Later zombies. They come at you really quickly, like bats out of hell. Or Ohio, anyway.

When you look at the electoral map if the Clintons run again, you also see a reversion to the old patterns of the 1990s – the patterns that cynical political strategists such as Karl Rove and Dick Morris have been exploiting for two decades. The country – scrambled by the post-baby-boomer pragmatism of Obama – snaps back into classic red-blue mode, with the blue areas denoting Democratic-leaning states around the edge and true red Republican states in the heartlands.

The Clintons are comfortable with this polarisation. They need it. Even when running against a fellow Democrat, they instinctively reach for it. Last week, in response to the Obama camp’s request that they release their tax returns, Clinton’s spokesman called Obama a new Ken Starr. For the Clintons, all Democrats who oppose them are . . . Republicans. And all Republicans are evil.

And evil means that anything the Clintons do in self-defence is excusable – even playing the race card, and the Muslim card, and the gender card, and every sleazy gambit that the politics of fear can come up with. This is how they have arrested the Obama juggernaut. It’s the only game they know how to play.

Hillary caught padding her resume… again

Clinton has previously described her role in the Northern Ireland peace process as meeting with women’s groups to encourage them to build a political climate for peace.

Former Sen. George Mitchell, who was the lead U.S. negotiator, said Clinton’s visits were “very helpful.”

“She was especially involved in encouraging women to get involved in the peace process,” which was a “significant factor” in the agreement, Mitchell said in an interview.

But Tim Pat Coogan, an Irish historian who has written extensively on the conflict in Northern Ireland, said the first lady’s visits were not decisive in the negotiating breakthroughs in Northern Ireland.

“It was a nice thing to see her there, with the women’s groups. It helped, I suppose,” Coogan said. “But it was ancillary to the main thing. It was part of the stage effects, the optics.

“There were all kinds of peace movements, women’s movements throughout the ‘Troubles.’ But it was more about the clout of Bill Clinton,” added Coogan, who said Clinton administration decisions to grant visas to leaders of the Irish Republican Army’s political wing and appoint a U.S. negotiator were the keys to changing the political climate.

Beijing speech

One of Clinton’s most noteworthy forays onto the foreign stage came in 1995, when she delivered a speech at the United Nations’ women’s conference in Beijing. That speech was widely noted and hailed as a bold call for women’s rights, especially because Clinton explicitly spoke out against forced abortion and other practices of the host country.

“In the years since, I have met many women from many places who tell me they were at Beijing, or had friends who were, or who were inspired by the conference to launch initiatives,” Albright wrote in her 2003 memoir.

The speech might never have happened if the first lady had not pressed for it, said one former Clinton administration official sympathetic to her candidacy who traveled with her and Albright to Beijing. The administration was conflicted about whether Hillary Clinton should go to Beijing at all because of the regime’s record on human rights.

“Yet she was determined to go and was convinced that her going would send a very strong signal of support for human rights,” said the official, who spoke on the condition that he not be named. “Everyone at the end of the process almost certainly would have said, ‘How could we be so foolish to question the wisdom of the trip?’”

Still, Rice questioned whether that trip amounted to the kind of preparation for a global crisis that Clinton has claimed.

“How does going to Beijing and giving a speech show crisis management? There was no crisis. And there was nothing to manage,” Rice said.

Hillary Clinton Is No Victim And Barack Obama Is No Ken Starr

“Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign compared rival Sen. Barack Obama on Thursday to independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr, the Clintons’ chief nemesis of the 1990s.

Clinton herself declined to comment on the comparison, made by her chief spokesman in a conference call with reporters and also in a memo distributed by the campaign.

Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said Obama’s statement that he plans to be more critical of Clinton’s record is reminiscent of the attacks the Clintons endured during the investigations in the 1990s.”

The worst insult that a Democrat can lob against a fellow Democrat is to compare him to Ken Starr, the independent counsel who was obsessed with uncovering Bill Clinton’s sex life.

Obama has waged a tenacious but circumspect campaign that is beyond reproach. Hillary has more scandals than a dog has fleas, but Obama has refrained from using any of them against her. If Obama was a sex-obsessed misfit like Starr, he would have questioned Hillary’s sexual orientation. But Obama is a gentlemen, who would never play the gay card against his opponent.

Barack is not mining the mud that the Clinton’s wallow in, he is simply asking Hillary to release her tax records.

You would think that Hillary was a paragon of virtue, but she is the opposite: A politician who will do anything to gain power. In the last few weeks she has thrown everything, including the kitchen sink, at Barack Obama.

By comparing Obama to Starr Hillary is attempting to portray herself as a victim. A bully always paints himself as a victim: Everyone hates me, that’s why I took that kid’s lunch money.

Hillary is not a victim and Obama is not Ken Starr. Hillary’s machinations are so transparent; I hope voters are not deceived. A Hillary administration will plunge this country into scandals and malaise.

Obama tells Hillary ‘you can’t afford me’

“You won’t see me as a vice presidential candidate — you know, I’m running for president,” the Illinois Senator said in an interview with CBS. “We have won twice as many states as Senator Clinton, and have a higher popular vote, and I think we can maintain our delegate count.”

Former President Bill Clinton echoed his wife on Saturday in a campaign rally in Mississippi whose primary is set on Tuesday, saying a joint ticket pairing the two would be “almost unstoppable.”

“I know that she has always been open to it, because she believes that if you can unite the energy and the new people that he’s brought in and the people in these vast swaths of small town and rural America that she’s carried overwhelmingly, if had those two things together she thinks it’d be hard to beat,” he said.

So far, Obama has won 28 Democratic primaries and caucuses while Clinton won 17, including Florida and Michigan primaries that have been stripped all delegates who would vote at the nomination convention for violating the party’s rule.

Fortunately for the American people, Obama is smart enough to know that he can do much better for himself and our country than to drape around his neck the corrupt political machine of Hillary Clinton that is about to become a massive boat anchor.

Hillary busy rewriting history again

Democratic presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton tried to backpedal Friday from comments she made in October suggesting Mississippi was a backward place for women’s progress.

Speaking to radio station WJZD-FM in Gulfport, Miss., the former first lady said the comments she made about the state in the run up to the Iowa caucuses “were not exactly what I said,” even though they came directly from an interview she gave to the Des Moines Register in October.

Obama supporter in Hillary tv ad




The political ad that sparked nationwide controversy turns out to have a surprising local connection.

One of the actors in the Hillary Clinton ad was shocked to see herself, especially because she's a fierce supporter of Barack Obama.

The so-called "red-phone ad" played a big role in Clinton's win in Texas, suggesting Barack Obama is too inexperienced to handle a national crisis.

But the young girl starring in the ad will actually be voting age next month and says she's no fan of Hillary Clinton.

Hillary’s claim of bringing peace to Ireland is full of blarney

Hillary Clinton had no direct role in bringing peace to Northern Ireland and is a “wee bit silly” for exaggerating the part she played, according to Lord Trimble of Lisnagarvey, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and former First Minister of the province.

“I don’t know there was much she did apart from accompanying Bill [Clinton] going around,” he said. Her recent statements about being deeply involved were merely “the sort of thing people put in their canvassing leaflets” during elections. “She visited when things were happening, saw what was going on, she can certainly say it was part of her experience. I don’t want to rain on the thing for her but being a cheerleader for something is slightly different from being a principal player.”

more obfuscation by the “most ethical administration in history”

Federal archivists at the Clinton Presidential Library are blocking the release of hundreds of pages of White House papers on pardons that the former president approved, including clemency for fugitive commodities trader Marc Rich.

The archivists’ decision, based on guidance provided by Bill Clinton that restricts the disclosure of advice he received from aides, prevents public scrutiny of documents that would shed light on how he decided which pardons to approve from among hundreds of requests.

Clinton’s legal agent declined the option of reviewing and releasing the documents that were withheld, said the archivists, who work for the federal government, not the Clintons.

The decision to withhold the records could provide fodder for critics who say that the former president and his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, now seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, have been unwilling to fully release documents to public scrutiny.

Officials with the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., criticized Hillary Clinton this week for not doing more to see that records from her husband’s administration are made public. “She’s been reluctant to disclose information,” Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, told reporters in a conference call in which he specifically cited the slow release records from the Clinton library. “If she’s not willing to be open with (voters) on these issues now, why would she be open as president?”

life is full of trials

While Obama has seen a dip in his popularity due to the recent news surrounding the Tony Rezko scandal, let’s not forget about Hillbilly and Peter Paul.

While Hillary Clinton battles Barack Obama on the campaign trail, a judge in Los Angeles is quietly preparing to set a trial date in a $17 million fraud suit that aims to expose an alleged culture of widespread corruption by the Clintons and the Democratic Party.

At the conclusion of a hearing tomorrow morning before California Superior Court Judge Aurelio N. Munoz, lawyers for Hollywood mogul Peter F. Paul will begin seeking sworn testimony from all three Clintons – Bill, Hillary and Chelsea – along with top Democratic Party leaders and A-list celebrities, including Barbra Streisand, John Travolta, Brad Pitt and Cher.

Paul’s team hopes for a trial in October. The Clintons’ longtime lawyer David Kendall, who will attend the hearing, has declined comment on the suit.

The Clintons have tried to dismiss the case, but the California Supreme Court, in 2004, upheld a lower-court decision to deny the motion.

Bill Clinton, according to the complaint, promised to promote Paul’s Internet entertainment company, Stan Lee Media, in exchange for stock, cash options and massive contributions to his wife’s 2000 Senate campaign. Paul contends he was directed by the Clintons and Democratic Party leaders to produce, pay for and then join them in lying about footing the bill for a Hollywood gala and fundraiser.

The Clintons’ legal counsel has denied the former president made any deal with Paul. But Paul attorney Colette Wilson told WND there are witnesses who say it was common knowledge at Stan Lee Media that Bill Clinton was preparing to be a rainmaker for the company after he left office.

Paul claims former Vice President Al Gore, former Democratic Party chairman Ed Rendell and Clinton presidential campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe also are among the people who can confirm Paul engaged in the deal.

Hillary’s disrespect of Mississippi might bite her

In an interview with the Des Moines Register’s David Yepsen, she said she was surprised that Iowa, like Mississippi, had never elected a woman governor, senator or member of Congress.

“I was shocked when I learned Iowa and Mississippi have never elected a woman governor, senator or member of Congress. There has got to be something at work here,” she said.

“How can Iowa be ranked with Mississippi?” she asked, suggesting that Iowa is too good for that. “That’s not the quality. That’s not the communitarianism, that’s not the openness I see in Iowa.”

How do the politicos in Mississippi feel about what she had to say?

“Our official comment is, we decline to comment,’’ said Terry Cassreino, spokesman for the Mississippi Democratic Party.

The state Republican chairman, however, was not nearly as reticent.

“I think that her statements about Mississippi are probably an acknowledgement that she has no chance of carrying this state in a general election,’’ said Jim Herring, the Republican chairman.

Herring was echoing a common refrain from the John Edwards’ campaign – that Clinton would not do well in the South in November of 2008. Of course, few Democratic candidates for president have performed well in Mississippi in recent history. In 2004, President Bush beat Sen. John Kerry by 20 percentage points.

And Herring pointed out that Mississippi currently employs a woman lieutenant governor, Amy Tuck. Tuck, who is the second woman to serve as Mississippi’s lieutenant governor, has held that office since she was first elected as a Democrat in 1999 before changing parties.

“I don’t know if she doesn’t think that’s not a high-ranking office, but it’s the second highest-ranking office in Mississippi,’’ he said.

Mississippi will be holding their primary vote on Tuesday, March 11th.

Hillary, ‘Most Secretive Politician in America’?

The Obama campaign is stepping up the rhetoric. Campaign Manager David Plouffe went so far as to call Hillary Clinton the “most secretive politician in America today.”

The tough talk underscored not only the negative shift in tone of the Obama campaign in the past 24 hours, but just how contentious this fight for the nomination is becoming.

Part of what the Obama campaign would like the focus to be on is ethics — something adviser David Axelrod said they would be glad to have a debate over. But the Obama campaign may be a victim of time, since an argument on ethics could be tough to steer with the ongoing Rezko trial.

“I think that you know Sen. Clinton has talked a lot about disclosure in the last few days,” Plouffe told reporters. “Sen. Clinton is the most secretive politician in America today. This has been a pattern throughout her career of the lack of disclosure.”

Echoing Axelrod, Plouffe said the campaign would be more than willing to tangle with the Clintons, appearing to suggest that if needed they would raise issues like Whitewater that plagued the Clintons in the 90s.

“As it relates to ethics and transparency,” Plouffe said, “we’re surprised that they would want to have an extended conversation about contributors and land deals and ethics issues. I don’t think that’s a lengthy conversation that’s probably going to work out very well for them.

“So we are obviously not going to allow these attacks to go unanswered, and we think things like who has the strongest ethics, who has the chance to really bring about reform, who’s going to be the most open with the American people that that’s a real distinction,” he said.

He added that because the Clinton campaign couldn’t win on pledged delegates, it would try to devise “alternative nomination strategies.” He added that the Obama campaign would fight back and “raise questions on things like disclosure, like ethics, like foreign policy.”

He added that Clinton “exaggerated her experience and can’t name anything she’s done.”

“The only thing she talks about, by the way, is a speech she gave in China,” Plouffe said. “She criticizes us for giving a speech. There’s an exaggeration there. Her experience, they believe, is just conferred on her; we have to prove ours somehow. She is not a candidate with deep experience on these matters.”

Hillary: Stand by some other man

Ann Coulter is trying to do what Hillary Clinton can’t… help her win the nomination.

The mainstream media said she was finished, but our brave Hillary soldiered on to wallop B. Hussein Obama in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island Tuesday night. I don’t know what the MSM is so upset about– we let them pick the Republican nominee. Did they want to pick the Democratic nominee, too?

Not only that, but after some toothsome appearances on various madcap comedy shows this past week — “Saturday Night Live,” “Late Night With David Letterman,” “Hardball With Chris Matthews” — Hillary’s “likability” quotient is soaring! According to the latest CNN/CBS News poll, she’s just been upgraded from “Utterly Loathsome” to “Execrable.”

The percentage of registered voters who would rather disembowel themselves with a wooden spoon than vote for Hillary has just slipped below the magical 50 percent mark. We’re surging, Hillary! If you want to be even more likable, you should go on “The View.” Next to those four harpies, you seem almost agreeable.

Clinton Wins, Obama’s Still Ahead; What’s Next?

On the heels of three victories in Ohio, Texas, and Rhode Island, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., turned back a surging Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., who came into Tuesday with 11 straight victories and picked up another win in Vermont.

So, what’s next?

1. If Clinton and Obama basically tie in the remaining 12 contests, Obama would need 164 superdelegates to come his way to put him over the magic number of 2,024

2. Assuming no currently committed superdelegates switched and no uncommitted superdelegates jumped off the fence. . .

Clinton would need to win 59% of the delegates in the remaining 12 contests in order to overtake Sen. Obama’s delegate lede.

If the upcoming 611 delegates at stake split 59/41 for Clinton — 360 would go to Clinton and 251 would go to Obama — netting Sen. Clinton 109 delegates. . . which would be enough to overcome Obama’s current 106 delegate lead.

3. There are 611 delegates up for grabs in the remaining 12 contests.

ABC News’ current delegate estimate has Obama at 1,555.

That means he would need to win 77% of all the remaining pledged delegates to hit the magic number of 2,024 to secure the nomination. That is highly unlikely due to the proportional delegate allocation rules in the Democratic Party.

Clinton would need to win 94% of all the remaining pledged delegates to hit the magic number of 2,024. (ABC News currently has her at 1449.)

So, clearly they both are going to be relying on superdelegates to secure the nomination.

Stay tuned…

Hillary proposes to Obama.. heads she wins, tails he loses

The morning after reviving her candidacy with two big primary wins, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) hinted Wednesday that she and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) may wind up as ticket mates.

“That may, you know, be where this is headed, but of course we have to decide who’s on the top of ticket,” Clinton said with a laugh on the CBS’s “The Early Show.” “I think that the people of Ohio very clearly said that it should be me.”

And people in the other 40-plus states have other thoughts.

Clinton has little chance of closing the gap because Democrats allocate most of their delegates proportionally, meaning the loser of a close contest earns nearly as many delegates as the winner. Even as she declared victory in Ohio, Clinton knew that Tuesday’s results were unlikely to draw her much closer to Obama.

It doesn’t get any better for Clinton after Tuesday. Just for kicks, pencil the New York senator in for landslide victories in Wyoming, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky plus narrow victories in Guam, Indiana, North Carolina, Montana and South Dakota — scenarios that give her a hefty benefit of the doubt and then some. And what happens?

She still trails Obama.

Hillary’s math problem

Forget tonight. She could win 16 straight and still lose.

big friend of big business

Hillary Rodham Clinton likes to portray herself as a friend of the middle class and working people, but Business Week says “she’s hardly an enemy of American business interests.”

The magazine says Clinton is being backed some some major Wall Street names, such as Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack and Steve Rattner, managing principal of the Quadrangle Group. She also:

Has more maxed-out, executive-level donors than any other candidate.

Has received $3.9 million infrom donors associated with the health-care industry, the most of any candidate.

Has attracted large support from donors affiliated with Goldman Sachs, and they are her top contributors.

catfight!

Two columnists at the Boston Globe seem to have very different opinions about what is fair media coverage of a woman running for President.

Caryl Rivers explains how any uncomplimentary media coverage is inherently sexist.

The media coverage of the Clinton campaign will be, for years to come, a textbook case of how the coverage of female candidates differs from that of males. Women have to walk a very thin line when they run for high office. On the one hand, they have to appear tough, nothing at all like a sniveling female, and when they do talk tough, they are called “shrill.”

The media loved Hillary when she put her hand on Obama’s and said it was a privilege to be on the same podium; they hated her when she slammed him for giving out what she called misleading information on her healthcare plan. (After googling “shrill” and “Hillary” after that encounter, I stopped at 20 pages.)

At the same time, the news media have gone into a deep swoon over Barack. Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz said, “Look, I haven’t seen a politician get this kind of walk-on-water coverage since Colin Powell a dozen years ago flirted with making a run for the White House. I mean, it is amazing.”

I guess the moral there is that the media can’t give Obama any sort of preference.. after all, he’s a man! (Notice how Caryl dodges the race issue, tho.. after all, he’s black!)

Then there is the Elinor Lipman, also at the Boston Globe. She seems to think that Hillary might not be the perfect candidate.. even though she’s a woman.. but because her personality throws up huge red flags.

Questioning a woman’s tone and delivery evokes charges of sexism, of biased preoccupations with niceness – as if no one ever complained about the Bob Dole snarl or the Dick Cheney sneer. How many times do we have to hear that when women get forceful, they are called shrill and angry, while bellicose males are lauded as strong and presidential? We get it. No one has questioned Senator Clinton’s toughness, or her readiness to be commander in chief. I hope “hectoring” isn’t a word that is more feminine than masculine, because I would like to employ it now.

My e-mailing friends took great and irretrievable offense when Senator Clinton rapped on our candidate’s knuckles with “So shame on you, Barack Obama!” for campaign mailers criticizing her healthcare plan. Paired up with her Providence soliloquy (“The sky will open. The light will come down. Celestial choirs will be singing. Then everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect!”), she crossed some line in our maternal hearts. “Hillary off the deep end?” two friends wrote in near-simultaneous e-mails. “Off her meds?” wrote another. I wondered if these double rhetorical whammies might be a paler version of Howard Dean’s unintentional valedictory in Iowa in 2004.

Clinton tax returns to be available.. after it becomes irrelevant

en. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., is poised to release her tax returns “on or around April 15,” Clinton’s communications director Howard Wolfson said in an exclusive “This Week” debate Sunday morning with David Axelrod, senior campaign adviser to her opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.

When pressed by Axelrod as to why “Clinton continues to refuse to release her tax returns, as all the other candidates have,” Wolfson asserted that “the tax returns are going to be released around tax time.”

blah blah blah

Hillary’s crisis management experience




It was, in this reporter's opinion, the most interesting moment in today's Clinton campaign phoner with reporters. Responding to the release of HRC's new TX TV ad, which asserts in no subtle terms that only she has the experience to deal with a major world crisis, and, relatedly, to keep your children safe, Slate's John Dickerson asked the obvious question:

"What foreign policy moment would you point to in Hillary's career where she's been tested by crisis?" he said.

Silence on the call. You could've knit a sweater in the time it took the usually verbose team of Mark Penn, Howard Wolfson and Lee Feinstein, Clinton's national security director, to find a cogent answer. And what they came up with was weak -- that she's been endorsed by many high ranking members of the uniformed military.

Take a listen ...

Oops! Diebold Voting Machines announce November election early


Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

The Hillary Clinton Myth Unravels At Last

Dan Calabrese at the North Star Writers Group sums up Hillary’s experience better than I ever could.

There are people who scheme to protect their own political viability because they have earned the right to. Hillary was not one of these. For her, the viability was for its own sake. So was her candidacy.

What was its rationale? What has she ever accomplished? You can’t cite much in her Senate career, but even if you could, you’d have to acknowledge that she decided she should be president before she ever got there.

The spectacular failure of Hillary’s campaign is not that big a surprise. Puffed up well beyond what she deserved, protected from any serious competition or criticism, how could she possibly be expected to be prepared the first time she had to deal with the real political world?

She resorts to whining, shrill outrage and the release of unflattering pictures of Barack Obama because she has nothing else. The whole Hillary mythology was empty. She’s not smart. She’s not tough. She’s not capable. She’s not even formidable enough to make it as a second-rate county politician, let alone presidential material.

Read the rest HERE.

Clinton: Hire me, please

Hillary Clinton is urging Ohio voters tonight to think of the election more as a hiring decision than a vote, saying the country cannot afford someone unprepared in the White House if crisis strikes.

“We don’t know what will happen,” she said to hundreds of supporters gathered in a gym here near the Ohio-West Virginia border. “That’s why we have to think about this decision more like a hiring choice than a voting choice. You know, you can vote for somebody or against somebody for whatever reason you want.”

The implication is clear: Barack Obama may excite voters, she’s suggesting, but should excitement be the reason you hire someone to be president? It’s a variation of the Obama-as-risk argument that Clinton and her husband have used on and off during the campaign, to evidently little effect.

“I hope you will decide you want to hire me for the toughest job in the world,” she said.

Considering the ineptitude of her campaign, she should consider finding out what a Senator actually does when not preparing for a presidential election. She’ll be stuck in her ‘dead-end’ job for as long as New York can put up with her.

Texas two-step could trip up Clinton

As if things were going bad enough for Hillary’s campaign, a review of the Texas delegate allocation procedures appear to favor Obama.

Bubba says, “If you elect me…”

Make no mistake about it.. Bill Clinton believes he is running for office again..

See his speech here.

Let’s send him back to the golf courses where he can help OJ look for the real killer.

secretly recorded phone conversations with Bubba up for sale

Gennifer Flowers is putting the tapes of her recorded conversations with Bill Clinton during their 12-year affair on the auction block, Vegas Confidential learned Monday.

Flowers, who came forward during Clinton’s 1992 Presidential election campaign with details of the relationship, said she decided to part with the tapes after renewed interest surfaced. She was offered $5 million by a Japanese collector in the 1990s, she said.

Asked about the timing of her announcement coming out as Hillary Clinton continues to slide in her presidential bid, “I don’t need to hurt Hillary. She is doing a fine job of that herself, along with her idiot husband. Karma is an interesting thing. If these two don’t get elected, and they are a team, it will be karma coming back to visit them. It’s about time.”

When President Clinton denied the relationship during his presidential campaign, Flowers called a press conference played what she said were secretly recorded phone conversations.

“These are the tapes I brought forth as proof,” she said.

Flowers, who lives in Las Vegas, sued Hillary Rodham Clinton, George Stephanopoulos, James Carville and other, accusing them of orchestrating a campaign to discredit her. Carville and Stephanopolous claimed Flowers doctored the tapes.

Flowers, 58, said she has kept the tapes “very safe all these years and I just recently received more interest and I said ‘why not?’

“I certainly would enjoy the money for my future security. I don’t have any guarantee what might be coming,” she said.

Flowers is also exploring a new book with “explosive story additions to the Clinton affair,” her publicist Bruce Merrin said in a release. The book “ill contain a special item which must remain a protected secret until the book is published.”

still trying to ‘win’ Michigan

Hillary seems to have the annoying comediene vote wrapped up, but she’s still desperate to get votes from normal people. She can’t even remember which primaries are still pending and which disqualified delegates she needs to ‘requalify’ by changing the rules after the fact.

[Ellen Degeneres asked] Clinton how she could change the momentum in her campaign after 11 straight losses to Democratic rival Barack Obama.

“We’re going to win Ohio and Michigan,” Clinton said, then acknowledged she misspoke. “We’re going to win Ohio and Texas! I already won Michigan.”

Clinton has pinned the future of her candidacy on Ohio and Texas, both of which hold primaries March 4.

The New York senator was the only Democratic contender to leave her name on the ballot in Michigan after the Democratic National Committee sanctioned the state for violating party rules by holding its primary in mid-January.

The DNC stripped the state of all its delegates, rendering the primary outcome meaningless. But Clinton has pushed to have them seated at the party’s national convention in late summer.

Newsweek calls for Hillary to drop out

If Hillary Clinton wanted a graceful exit, she’d drop out now — before the March 4 Texas and Ohio primaries—and endorse Barack Obama. This would be terrible for people like me who have been dreaming of a brokered convention for decades. For selfish reasons, I want the story to stay compelling for as long as possible, which means I’m hoping for a battle into June for every last delegate and a bloody floor fight in late August in Denver. But to withdraw this week would be the best thing imaginable for Hillary’s political career. She won’t, of course, and for reasons that help explain why she’s in so much trouble in the first place.

Withdrawing would be stupid if Hillary had a reasonable chance to win the nomination, but she doesn’t. To win, she would have to do more than reverse the tide in Texas and Ohio, where polls show Obama already even or closing fast. She would have to hold off his surge, then establish her own powerful momentum within three or four days. Without a victory of 20 points or more in both states, the delegate math is forbidding. In Pennsylvania, which votes on April 22, the Clinton campaign did not even file full delegate slates. That’s how sure they were of putting Obama away on Super Tuesday.

The much-ballyhooed race for superdelegates is now nearly irrelevant. Some will be needed in Denver to put Obama over the top, just as Walter Mondale had to round up a couple dozen in 1984. But these party leaders won’t determine the result. At the Austin, Texas, debate last week, Hillary agreed that the process would “sort itself out” so that the will of the people would not be reversed by superdelegates. Even if you include Michigan (where Obama’s name wasn’t on the ballot) and Florida, Obama has a lead of 925,000 in the popular vote. Closing that gap would require Hillary to win all the remaining contests by crushing margins. Any takers on her chances of doing so in, say, Mississippi and North Carolina, where African-Americans play a big role?

Onward Clinton Soldiers…

There is a widespread feeling among donors and some advisers, though, that a comeback this time may be improbable. Her advisers said internal polls showed a very tough race to win the Texas primary — a contest that no less than Mr. Clinton has said is a “must win.” And while advisers are drawing some hope from Mrs. Clinton’s indefatigable nature, some are burning out.

Morale is low. After 13 months of dawn-to-dark seven-day weeks, the staff is exhausted. Some have taken to going home early — 9 p.m. — turning off their BlackBerrys, and polishing off bottles of wine, several senior staff members said.

Some advisers have been heard yelling at close friends and colleagues. In a much-reported incident, Mr. Penn and the campaign advertising chief, Mandy Grunwald, had a screaming match over strategy recently that prompted another senior aide, Guy Cecil, to leave the room. “I have work to do — you’re acting like kids,” Mr. Cecil said, according to three people in the room.

Others have taken several days off, despite it being crunch time. Some have grown depressed, be it over Mr. Obama’s momentum, the attacks on the campaign’s management from outside critics or their view that the news media has been much rougher on Mrs. Clinton than on Mr. Obama.

And some of her major fund-raisers have begun playing down their roles, asking reporters to refer to them simply as “donors,” to try to rein in their image as unfailingly loyal to the Clintons.

The 12 Questions Hillary Wouldn’t Answer

Pravda’s pissed.

The Russian newspaper, once eagerly read by the CIA for hints about the USSR’s Communist leadership, sent the junior senator from New York twelve questions.

They never received any answers.

In fact, they still haven’t received a dah or nyet.

The paper was so peeved it published an editorial a several weeks ago taking Hillary Clinton to task for not even responding to their request a few years back for some answers.

Two years ago, the office of Senator Hillary Clinton was contacted with a polite message requesting an interview. A standard anonymous answer followed. Despite repeated contacts during the election campaign, not even a message of recognition was received, contrary to all the other political parties in the USA, including the office of Vice President Richard (Dick) Cheney. Here are the questions that Hillary Clinton did not answer:

Even Dick Cheney!

Although the Russian newspaper started sending their queries a few years ago, they must have added to their list since then, as the last couple questions pertain to Barack Obama’s campaign, which wasn’t announced until little over a year ago.

What were the questions that Clinton didn’t even acknowledge?

Pravda published them on February 3 2008 along with a couple snide–some would say accurate–observations.

Here they are:

The Twelve Questions Hillary Clinton won’t Answer

1. Senator Clinton, is it true that you insinuated President Putin does not have a soul?

2. You have said you wish to reform the US healthcare system. Could you please tell us how you plan to do this?

3. Why should you succeed where others have failed?

4. How would you comment on your statement that being a Republican and a Christian are difficult to conciliate?

5. Is it true that you have the support of the Jewish Lobby? If so, how will this influence your foreign policy? Will it continue to be controlled by Israel?

6. What is your message to the average American voter? How would you propose to make his/her life better?

7. What are your plans for Iran? Do you stand for a war?

8. How would you improve America’s standing in the international community?

9. Why did you support the war against Iraq?

10. What are the reasons for your having fallen for the lies which were launched against Saddam Hussein?

11. Why does your Candidate website not have an email for the Press, whereas that of Senator Obama has? Would you agree this is a comment on the professionalism or the arrogance of your campaign?

12. Did you hope to gain an advantage over your opponent by announcing your trip to Florida and your support for the seating of Florida delegates just prior to the Florida primary?

After listing the above questions in their editorial, Pravda then followed them with a few obsevations.

The absense of an answer, on a systematic basis, can mean one or all of a number of things: Senator Clinton cannot answer these questions, does not want to answer these questions because she cannot find a credible enough reply, could not care less about the international press (in which case, what a fine candidate for a US President at a time when the USA needs to build bridges) or worse still, never received the messages in the first place, which would indicate a tremendous and shocking degree of lack of professionalism. If she cannot handle a website, how can she be expected to govern a nation of 300 million people?

The reader can decide for himself the wording or validity of Pravda’s questions, especially those in #5.

However, more than a few Americans would agree with the conclusions they reached.

Pravda then fired a parting shot at Clinton’s presidential campaign by noting that, “Indeed, for some reason Barack Obama’s website has a contact for the Press, whereas Senator Clinton’s has none.”

Whatever one thinks of the questions that Clinton declined to decline to answer, one has to admit one thing.

They’re tougher questions than anyone in the American MSM has asked the Democrat candidate to date.

Now Pravda knows how many American voters feel.

They’ve been trying to get some of those answers for years.

happy birthday!

This week we celebrate a special birthday! Monica Lewinsky turned 34. Can you believe it? It seems like only yesterday she was crawling around the White House on her hands and knees, and putting everything in her mouth.

They grow up so fast, don’t they?

If Obama Went 0-for-10 . . .

Sigh. To this day, I’m not sure the Clinton campaign understands that no focus-group-tested slogan is going to have the elemental resonance of “Yes, we can” (Obama’s homage to César Chávez) or “Change the world.” Hasn’t anybody on the Clinton team ever read Joseph Campbell on the power of mythic narrative? And while we’re on the subject of message, what genius decided it was a great idea to demonize hope?

But it’s stunning that the battle-tested Clinton machine allowed itself to be outsmarted and outhustled at the arcane science of winning delegates in caucuses. And it’s even more surprising that the campaign has been so careless with its money that it now is resigned to being outspent anywhere and everywhere.

Most striking of all, to me, is that the campaign still can’t settle on what kind of candidate Hillary Clinton should be. Does she now have to go negative, or should she try to hitchhike on the hope express? Does she project steely resolve or reveal human vulnerability? The campaign wants to convince voters that they don’t know who Obama really is — yet also insists on fitting Clinton with a new persona every week.

Where Did All the Money Go?

Did this campaign have a budget? If not, why not? If it did, was it poorly constructed? Or did people running the campaign simply overspend? Anyway you slice it, the money mess throws into serious question her ready-on-day-one executive ability.

Clinton fired her campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, who was reportedly afraid to tell her boss the bad news about the squandered money. Lesson one for organizational disaster: A boss whose subordinates are scared to give her bad news. See Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam for what can happen.

Why was Doyle campaign manager in the first place? She had been a scheduleer and had never run a major political campaign. The gossip is that Doyle was the nominal campaign manager, not the real boss. Then why fire her?

Doyle has been replaced by Maggie Williams, a long time politico with a background in public relations and Hillary’s major domo during the Clintons’ White House years. Hers is a good resumé, but it does not include running a political campaign. But she is said to be a Hillary loyalist. In Hillaryland, loyalty and secrecy are prized over competence.

more people have been on the summit of Everest

Remember how Hillary claimed she had been named after Sir Edmund Hillary, even though she was 5 years old by the time Edmund Hillary climbed Mt Everest and became famous? Well, now you can learn the true connection between Hillary Rodham and Mt Everest.

Click here.

Why the Democrats Are Kicking the Clintons to the Curb

The ever eloquent Lorie Byrd, who I’ve been reading for years, has an amazingly concise article as to who Hillary Clinton can blame for her demise.

I believe there is a whole group of Democrats out there who are secretly enjoying being able to vote against a Clinton. They can take out their frustrations with the Clintons and still vote for a Democrat. For the first time in 16 years, Democrats can vote against a Clinton without having to vote for a Republican to do it.

Please read the whole story.

and video killed the radio star

According to Rasmussen, Hillary’s popularity in Texas was declining, then peaked the day of the Wisconsin primary. With 8 straight losses going into that primary, it was well known that Hillary needed that win to restore her mortally wounded campaign. Instead of a revival, her campaign now more closely resembles a wake.

It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to see that Wisconsin could very well have been the final nail in the Hillary For President campaign coffin.

Bill puts his ‘campaign skills’ to use

Q. How would Hillary run the country?

A. Straight into bankruptcy.

Clinton Donors Worried by Campaign’s Spending

Nearly $100,000 went for party platters and groceries before the Iowa caucuses, even though the partying mood evaporated quickly. Rooms at the Bellagio luxury hotel in Las Vegas consumed more than $25,000; the Four Seasons, another $5,000. And top consultants collected about $5 million in January, a month of crucial expenses and tough fund-raising.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s latest campaign finance report, published Wednesday night, appeared even to her most stalwart supporters and donors to be a road map of her political and management failings. Several of them, echoing political analysts, expressed concerns that Mrs. Clinton’s spending priorities amounted to costly errors in judgment that have hamstrung her competitiveness against Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.

“We didn’t raise all of this money to keep paying consultants who have pursued basically the wrong strategy for a year now,” said a prominent New York donor. “So much about her campaign needs to change — but it may be too late.”

The high-priced senior consultants to Mrs. Clinton, of New York, have emerged as particular targets of complaints, given that they conceived and executed a political strategy that has thus far proved unsuccessful.

Hillary gets booed again

Clinton also raised Obama’s use in his campaign speeches of words first uttered by his friend, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.

“If your candidacy is going to be about words then they should be your own words,” she said. “…Lifting whole passages from someone else’s speeches is not change you can believe in, it’s change you can Xerox.”

The debate audience booed.

Meanwhile, Hillary might want to review some of her own plagiarisms before she starts throwing stones.

win or lose, Hillary has her own back, financially

Remember that $5 million loan Hillary made to her campaign? Campaign finance documents filed show that she’s charging her campaign an interest rate of 1.26 percent. Guess who will be repaying her loan plus interest! Hurry up and give Hillary some of your hard earned bucks before her campaign savings and loan closes up.

Vote for Hillary: She can’t get any more unpopular

Interesting strategy memo from the Clinton campaign on why Hillary is best poised to beat Barack Obama in a general election campaign against John McCain.

There were some familiar lines: Obama hasn’t been tested against the Republican attack machine, the excitement over his candidacy won’t last, Hillary is stronger on national security etc.

Then this – Hillary’s already so well known that everybody who is going to dislike her, in fact, already does. Whereas Obama can only become less popular.

Read the rest here.

apparently Chelsea is no Halle Berry

A few weeks ago, 21-year-old Wisconsin superdelegate Jason Rae was taken out to breakfast by Chelsea Clinton in the runup to that state’s Democratic primary.

Two days after the vote, the college junior – who will be the youngest superdelegate at this year’s Democratic National Convention — is undecided no longer: he’s backing Barack Obama.

And who can blame him when his supporters include Halle Berry. “I’ll do whatever he says to do,” actress Halle Berry said to the Philadelphia Daily News. “I’ll collect paper cups off the ground to make his pathway clear.”

It’s a tough choice, and I only hope someday I am forced to decide.

the number one issue for voters today

The Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters

Bill Clinton screws with voters heads for a change

In a last-ditch effort to gain public support for his doting wife, convicted felon and former president Bill Clinton threw a bone to Texas and Ohio, hoping they’ll bite.

Bill Clinton told supporters at a rally in Galveston Wednesday that the Texas and Ohio primary elections will decide who the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee will be.

“This whole nomination process has come down to Texas and Ohio,” Clinton told a crowd of about 300 Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton supporters. “If she wins Texas and Ohio I think she will be the nominee. If you don’t deliver for her, I don’t think she can be. It’s all on you.”

Hopefully, Texas and Ohio voters can tell they’re being jerked around, and will let Clinton know he’s barking up the wrong tree.

Clinton’s Spin Machine: Spun Dry

Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton for the ninth and tenth straight time last night, with blowouts in Wisconsin and Hawaii. Needless to say, this means nothing. As Clinton strategist Mark Penn explained yesterday, Wisconsin has a lot of independent voters, so it doesn’t really matter. And Hawaii is practically Obama’s home state, so it obviously doesn’t matter. Anyway, as Penn said recently, “winning Democratic primaries is not a qualification or a sign of who can win the general election.” It’s apparently not even a sign of who can win the Democratic nomination — at least not when the victories are Obama’s.

The Clinton spin machine has been consistent about this. Nebraska, Idaho and Utah didn’t matter because they were deep-red states. South Carolina, Louisiana and Georgia didn’t matter because they had large percentages of black voters. Maine and Washington didn’t matter because caucuses aren’t truly representative. Maryland and Virginia didn’t matter because Obama was expected to win there. For a moment, it looked like Missouri might matter when the networks called it for Hillary — her campaign quickly bragged about winning a “closely contested toss-up state” — but the networks were wrong. On the other hand, it looked like Nevada wasn’t going to matter at all because there were polling stations in casinos, but it ended up huge because Hillary won.

It turns out that the only state Obama won that could have mattered was Illinois, his real home state; unfortunately, home-state victories don’t really count, except when they take place in New York. “Could we possibly have a nominee who hasn’t won any of the significant states outside of Illinois?” Penn recently asked.

remember the alamo?

Hillary loses Emily Post’s vote

For the second week in a row, Hillary Clinton lost big to Barack Obama in a set of Tuesday night primaries. And, for the second week in a row, she pretended it never happened.

Speaking in Youngstown, Ohio on Tuesday night after losing to Obama in Wisconsin, Hillary made no mention of the primary – not acknowledging her rival’s victories or the thousands of her own supporters who voted for her in the Badger State.

Her snub followed a similar one the week before in Texas after she lost the ‘Potomac primaries.’
The Clinton campaign, seeming to realize Hillary was being cast as a sore loser, let reporters know that she did phone Obama later Tuesday night to congratulate him on his wins.

But Obama got his payback, taking the stage at his own rally Tuesday night in Houston while Hillary was still speaking. All the U.S. news networks cut away from Hillary and went straight to Obama, robbing her of precious free air time.

dress Hillary for success

Courtesy of Addictinggames.com.

the S.S. Hillary takes on water

As Hillary’s likelihood of winning the democrat nomination flounders, herpledged superdelegates are bailing like rats in a waterlogged oceanliner.

A second New Jersey superdelegate has changed her allegiance from Sen. Hillary Clinton to Sen. Barack Obama and was joined by nine other southern New Jersey politicians today in endorsing the Illinois senator’s bid for the Democratic nomination for president.

In announcing her switch, Sen. Dana Redd (D-Camden), the vice-chairwoman of the State Democratic Committee, said, “It’s time to unite behind a single candidate and that’s Senator Obama. He will have won, by the end of this contest, more popular votes, more primaries, more caucuses, more delegates elected by the people and deserves to be our nominee.”

Redd is the second New Jersey superdelegate to back Obama after previously supporting Clinton. Last week, Democratic National Committeewoman Christine “Roz” Samuels became the first superdelegate to switch from Clinton’s camp to Obama’s.

Joining Redd in endorsing Obama was another New Jersey superdelegate, Democratic National Committeeman Donald Norcross, who previously was uncommitted.

“The performance of Senator Obama in Wisconsin and the Potomac primaries demonstrated that he has broad appeal across the political spectrum – men and women, young and old, white and blue collars, Asian, white, Latino and African-American,” Norcross said. “We need to seize this momentum, attract a new generation of leaders to our party, while rallying behind the candidate who can best unite the country during these uncertain economic times.”

hillary needs a shot…in the head

After 10 straight losses, many pundits are speculating about what Hillary needs to get her campaign back on track. Some say she needs to be more aggressive. Some say she needs to tone down her rhetoric. I say all she needs is a shot in the head.

Now don’t call the Secret Service to report a potential assassination attempt. I’m merely alluding to the plot of “Regarding Henry”, a 1991 movie starring Harrison Ford.

Ford plays Henry Turner, a despicable and ruthless trial lawyer whose life is turned upside down when he is shot in the head during a robbery. He survives the injury with significant brain damage and must re-learn how to speak, walk, and function normally. More importantly, he has also lost most of the memory of his personal life, and must adjust to life with the family that he does not remember. To the surprise of his wife and daughter, Henry becomes a loving and affectionate man.

Short of undergoing intense psychotherapy, a well-placed shot to the head could be the proverbial shot in the arm for Hillary’s campaign.

I’m just sayin’.

after losing Wisconsin, Hillary thanks… the marching band

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has gotten good over the last few weeks at fleeing a primary state she has just lost and trying to turn the page.

This time around, she did not even wait for the results to come in.

Instead, on Tuesday night, Clinton announced that she would give a “major address” in Manhattan on Wednesday morning and delivered what aides described as a “preview” here. It seemed clearly designed to be a pre-emptive strike against the news that Clinton had lost yet another primary race.

“Tonight I want to talk to you about the choice you have in this election and why that choice matters. It is about picking a president who relies not just on words but on work, on hard work, to get America back to work,” Clinton said. “The best words in the world aren’t enough unless you match them with action.”

Clinton, who has lost more than a half-dozen primaries since Feb. 5, once again did not congratulate her rival as his victory in Wisconsin became official. She did not even acknowledge that voting had taken place that day, instead thanking the high school marching band.

Wisconsin isn’t looking good for Hillbilly

The results are pretty early, but that’s not preventing CBS online from predicting a winner…

another day, another lie

Worried that the sun might rise and set without meeting her quotas of lies, Hillary got this one in just as dusk was settling in… whew!

Clinton Fingerprints on Plagiarism Flap

Hillary Rodham Clinton says reporters, not her campaign, uncovered evidence of Democratic rival Barack Obama sharing speech lines with Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.
She made the claim Tuesday despite the fact her campaign posted video clips on YouTube illustrating similarities in the speeches and has suggested in several instances that the shared lines amount to plagiarism.
THE SPIN: “It’s not us making this charge, it’s the media,” Clinton told Honolulu television station KITV Tuesday. “The media is finally examining my opponent which I think is important. We’re trying to pick a president, someone for the toughest job in the world.”

She added: “I think the media is going to be putting forth whatever facts and information it has for voters to assess on their own.”

In an interview with another Honolulu station, KGMB, Clinton noted that Obama and Patrick share a strategist, David Axelrod, “who is apparently putting words in both of their mouths.”
She added: “I think that’s a serious concern.”

FACT CHECK: Any suggestion that the story had a life of its own, apart from the Clinton campaign, is disingenuous.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton said: “Senator Clinton knows full well that her campaign held a conference call with reporters to fan these flames and the fact that she suggested her campaign had nothing to do with it is exactly the kind of evasive tactic voters are rejecting.”

chelsea clinton is a tool

Hillary will even use her own daughter in order to win a few votes.

“We also have to reward work more,” Clinton told a small group of Ohio residents today. “and by that, I mean, I have people in New York working on Wall Street as investment managers, as hedge fund executives. Under the tax code, they can pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes on $50 million dollars, than a teacher, or a nurse, or a truck driver in Parma pays on $50,000. That’s very discouraging to people.”

The former first lady’s daughter, Chelsea Clinton, works for New York-based hedge fund Avenue Capital Group. She previously worked in New York for McKinsey & Company, her first job after graduating with her master’s degree from Oxford University.

Joke of the Day

Clinton issues Obama skeletons warning

Hillary Clinton argues that she’s scandal-proof after all her years in federal politics.

But Republicans, she says, will have a field day with relative newcomer Barack Obama if he becomes the Democratic nominee instead of her.

“We Don’t Need To Have a Beer With the Next President”

During a campaign stop Monday night, Hillary Clinton warned a crowd of several thousand supporters that picking a president should be based more on experience than popularity, pointing out that President George W. Bush is a product of voters choosing based a president based on popularity.

“We need to know as specifically as possible what our next president intends to do. We don’t need a leap of faith, we don’t need to have a beer with the next president, we had that president,” she said.

“I’d be happy to have a beer too we can talk about what we’re going to do to solve our problems.”

Clinton, who stayed on message throughout her remarks focused on the economy, health care and education. But she found moments to take jabs at Barack Obama without naming him saying, “I know that contrasts have been drawn often in this campaign between the soaring rhetoric and the speeches. But I have to say there is a difference between speeches and solutions,” said Clinton drawing loud applause from the crowd.

Clinton also attacked Obama on health care pointing out that she is the only candidate who offers a universal health care plan. Clinton said it is “unconstitutional to discriminate against sick people.”

As she often does at these rallys, Clinton asked the crowd who she should “leave out” of her plan, a subtle dig at Obama whose health care plan, she claims, leaves out 15 million people. At one point, someone in the crowd yelled, “Leave out Obama.”

“I’m not going to leave out anybody. I’m not running for president to put Band-Aids on problems,” she responded.

Clinton’s visit to Madison is her last stop in Wisconsin before voters head to the polls today. Clinton’s daughter Chelsea, who joined her at this event, will be campaigning here today while Sen. Clinton heads to Ohio for campaign events in Cleveland and Youngstown.

Since when does the Constitution mention anything about sick people? But you have to remember that Hillary was referring to her aforementioned (failed) experience.

once again, the Clintons take the low road

“Mine will be the most ethical administration in the history of the republic!” President-Elect Bill Clinton, November 1992

The Clinton campaign has launched a furious spin war in the past few days against Barack Obama, ludicrously accusing Obama of “plagiarism” (even though the original source, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, has endorsed and campaigned for Obama), accusing delegates won in red state caucuses by Obama of being “second-class delegates” and threatening to blow up the party’s rules if the race lasts until the Democratic convention.

It’s too early to know if any of these attacks will stick. More victories tonight by Obama in Wisconsin and Hawaii and the momentum will remain on his side, making Ohio and Texas must-win for Clinton on March 4. Clinton can still rebound from her post-Super Tuesday slide. But if she does, it’s pretty obvious that she’ll capture the nomination by taking the low road.

The Politico’s Ben Smith asked a group of Democratic strategists how Clinton could still win. Their answers were revealing of Clinton’s predicament.

“The best thing she can do is either discredit Obama or raise doubts about him,” said Dan Gerstein, a former top strategist to Joe Lieberman. “I hate to say it, but in certain respects, it’s using the Bush strategy against Kerry against Obama.”

Democracy editor Ken Baer invoked a few similar doomsday scenarios:

1) Obama has a massive gaffe, 2) there is a terrorist attack or other major foreign policy crisis that gets people yearning for a steady hand or 3) there is a revelation of some sort of Obama scandal that gets Democratic voters to take a pause.

This advice begs the question: why can’t Clinton win on her own merits? Why can’t her campaign win caucuses, or highly educated voters, or compete competitively in red states? How have they failed to win a single contest since Super Tuesday? Gallup found that recently Obama has begun eroding Clinton’s advantages among key segments of her base, namely “women, Hispanics, and self-identified Democrats.”

These tracking polls, like all other polls this cycle, tend to be fluid and unreliable. Despite Obama’s string of victories, from a delegate standpoint the race is still very tight. Tonight could go either way. I wouldn’t be surprised if Clinton ends up pulling an upset in Wisconsin. I also wouldn’t be surprised if Obama wins, as expected, and Clinton never recovers. Either way don’t expect her campaign to take the high road from here on out.

did Hillary’s people really say something that insulting?

“Superdelegates are not second-class delegates,” says Joel Ferguson, who will be a superdelegate if Michigan is seated. “The real second-class delegates are the delegates that are picked in red-state caucuses that are never going to vote Democratic.”

Idaho’s governor, Cecil Andrus, who has endorsed Barack Obama’s campaign, shipped out word today that Clinton and Joel Ferguson, the offending Michiganer who dissed on Idaho’s delegates, ought to apologize.

“Senator Clinton’s surrogates are telling Democrats in almost half the states in the country that they don’t matter, and that they are second class,” Andrus said in a prepared statement. “Senator Clinton needs to immediately denounce these comments and tell her campaign surrogates to stop taking cheap pot-shots at committed Democrats across the country.”

how far are the Clinton’s willing to go?

Hillary Clinton, who has built her case for the presidency on her superior “ready on Day One” management skills, burned through almost $130 million of campaign money, had to kick in $5 million from her own murky family funds, and is now pressing her chief financial backers to find creative ways to raise more money.

Some of those financial schemes appear to skirt the law — as some backers consider putting money into “independent” entities that can spend unlimited sums but aren’t supposed to coordinate with the campaign — while other ideas are more traditional, like appealing to wealthy donors involved with the pro-Israel AIPAC lobby.

Sen. Clinton’s new scramble for money — as well as her campaign’s declaration that it is prepared to override the will of the elected Democratic delegates if necessary to secure the nomination — raise the question of just how far Bill and Hillary Clinton are willing to go to achieve their presidential restoration.

Read more here.

hillary’s scarlett o’hara act

Why some of us aren’t falling for it.

Feb. 8, 2008–There’s been a lot of talk about women and their choices since Super Tuesday, when African American women overwhelmingly voted for Sen. Barack Obama, while white women picked Sen. Hillary Clinton. Some pundits automatically concluded that “race trumped gender” among black women. I hate this analysis because it relegates black women to junior-partner status in political struggles. It is not that simple. A lot of people have tried to gently explain the divide, so I’m just going to put this out there: Sister voters have a beef with white women like Clinton that is both racial and gendered. It is not about choosing race; it is about rejecting Hillary’s Scarlett O’Hara act.

Black women voters are rejecting Hillary Clinton because her ascendance is not a liberating symbol. Her tears are not moving. Her voice does not resonate. Throughout history, privileged white women, attached at the hip to their husband’s power and influence, have been complicit in black women’s oppression. Many African American women are simply refusing to play Mammy to Hillary.

Hillary might lose her home state primary!

Barack Obama’s primary-night results were strikingly under recorded in several congressional districts around the city – in some cases leaving him with zero votes when, in fact, he had pulled in hundreds, the Board of Elections said today.

Unofficial primary results gave Obama no votes in nearly 80 districts, including Harlem’s 94th and other historically black areas – but many of those initial tallies proved to be wildly off the mark, the Board of Elections confirmed.

Truth is, in some districts getting a recount, the senator from Illinois is even close to defeating Hillary Clinton.

Initial results in the 94th District, for example, showed a 141-0 sweep for the New York senator, but Board of Elections spokeswoman Valerie Vazquez said today that the ongoing recount had changed the tally to 261-136.

As yet, none of the results has been certified, Vazquez said, adding that the Board of Elections had begun a painstaking ballot-by-ballot canvassing of all voting machines four days after the Feb. 5 election.

“We are doing a recanvass, and we will be counting all paper ballots, including absentee ones,” Vazquez said.

“Some initial tallies had zeros, but it was most likely due to human error. Those were unofficial numbers, and no confirmed results have been released yet.”

In a predominantly black Brooklyn district for which Clinton was given credit for a 118-0 victory on Primary Night, the Board of Elections’ latest figures indicate that she may not even come out the winner – Obama currently has 116 votes to her 118.

those delegates should not count.. unless Hillary needs them

Harold Ickes, a top adviser to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign who voted to strip Michigan and Florida of their delegates last year, now is arguing against the very penalty he helped pass.

In a conference call Saturday, the longtime Democratic Party member contended the DNC should reconsider its tough sanctions on the two states, which held early contests in violation of party rules. He said millions of voters in Michigan and Florida would be otherwise disenfranchised – before acknowledging moments later that he had favored the sanctions.

The Ace of Spades tells us the reason…

The Clinton campaign has made the case that the Michigan and Florida delegates should be seated at the convention. This would give her a bump of over 200 delegates and put her in a safe lead. Over the weekend, Ted Olson called it “splendid theater” and I enthusiastically agree. Various spin machines are in high gear, making multiple–sometimes contradictory–arguments that the Michigan and Florida delegations should be counted. Here are some of them.

Seat the delegates because to do otherwise violates the principles of democracy.

This is the argument made by the Clinton campaign itself. The idea is that people voted and their vote should be counted even though they voted improperly (and were warned about the rules prior to voting). Somehow, Democracy Itself requires that all the circumstances of the vote be ignored. Set aside the fact that Obama and Edwards followed the rules and took their names off the Michigan ballots. Set aside the fact that none of the candidates campaigned in Florida. Under this theory, the fact that voters recorded votes is enough to overcome basic ideas about fairness and process.

This is similar to the theory proposed by Democrats during the Florida recounts in 2000: ballots which could not be counted during the initial count because of some flaw in the marking of the ballot should be added to the recounts and the “clear intent” of the voter upheld. Everyone is directed to ignore the fact that if the intent of the voter had be clear the first time, the ballots would have been counted regularly. It amounts to changing the rules after the fact, and that’s exactly what Clinton is trying to do now.

Seat the delegates because to do otherwise is racially discriminatory.

A variation on the above spin, this one points out that black and Hispanic people voted in the Michigan and Florida primaries. Argued most recently by the NAACP, the spin is that keeping these delegates from counting at the convention brings to mind the “sordid history of racially discriminatory primaries.” (I guess they’re talking about the Democratic White Primary cases!)

It’s a more, ahem, colorful way of saying that once votes are made, they must be counted, rules be damned.

Seat the delegates because the DNC didn’t apply the rules fairly.

This is the ruleslawyer spin. It’s most common among the Democratic “Netroots” who have largely picked Clinton to win, including Kos, Jerome Armstrong, and others. It goes something like this: any state that made their primary date earlier than February 5th without permission was automatically supposed to lose half their delegates. However, the DNC Rules Committee had discretion to take all of the delegates as sanctions for misbehavior. The DNC Rules Committee chose to exercise that discretion and take all of the delegates from Michigan and Florida, but took none of the delegates from Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina which also had primaries earlier than February 5th. Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina had permission to go earlier, but not as early as they did. Therefore, to be fair, all the delegates should be seated.

Like most ruleslawyers, their intent is not to uphold the rules but cajole some benefit from an exasperated gamemaster decisiontaker. For example, if they really want to uphold the rules then all of the early primary states should have their delegations automatically cut in half, not restored in full. Also, they have to ignore the fact that the DNC Rules Committee was entirely within its authority to sanction Michigan and Florida to deter other states from jumping the gun.

Don’t be fooled. These are Clinton supporters desperately looking for some way to claim that it isn’t the Establishment screwing Obama after he won. They want to “reluctantly” claim that they had no choice, that it’s just how the rules work. Again, ignore the fact that the rules say no such thing and that, of the two, Obama was the only candidate who tried to follow the rules.

obama takes the lead

in Wisconsin poll:
Hillary – 42 percent
Obama – 47 percent

in Texas:
Hillary – 42 percent
Obama – 48 percent

down but not out… yet

Hillary stock is waivering between 28 and 30… let’s see where it is after Tuesday’s primaries.

It takes a liar…

While researching material for this blog, I have become overwhelmed by the high percentage of stories that, with just a little extra research.. literally, a few mouse clicks.. reveal flat out lies by Hillary. Sure, all politicians lie, we say. But at what point do we start to be concerned.. maybe when 30 percent of EVERYTHING that person says can be quickly and clearly disproven?

Take this story, for example… I planned to use the headline for Hillary’s famous “It Takes a Village” book to start this post. It is common knowledge that Hillary borrowed a classic african proverb as her title, but I wanted to learn a little more about it, in the same way that I try to learn a little about every Hillary news article before I link to it. While there was nothing unusual about Hillary’s use of the title, save from the socialist theme it presents, I was lead straight to yet another bold-faced Hillary lie.

Ghostwriter controversy

Clinton has been criticized for not giving credit to a ghostwriter in connection with It Takes a Village. The majority of the book was reportedly written by ghostwriter Barbara Feinman. When the book was first announced in April 1995, The New York Times reported publisher Simon & Schuster as saying “The book will actually be written by Barbara Feinman, a journalism professor at Georgetown University in Washington. Ms. Feinman will conduct a series of interviews with Mrs. Clinton, who will help edit the resulting text.”

Feinman spent seven months on the project and was paid $120,000 for her work. Feinman, however, was not mentioned anywhere in the book. Clinton’s acknowledgment section began: “It takes a village to bring a book into the world, as everyone who has written one knows. Many people have helped me to complete this one, sometimes without even knowing it. They are so numerous that I will not even attempt to acknowledge them individually, for fear that I might leave one out.” During her promotional tour for the book, Clinton said, “I actually wrote the book … I had to write my own book because I want to stand by every word.” Clinton stated that Feinman assisted in interviews and did some editorial drafting of “connecting paragraphs”, while Clinton herself wrote the final manuscript in longhand.

This led Feinman to complain at the time to Capitol Style magazine over the lack of acknowledgement. In 2001, The Wall Street Journal reported that “New York literary circles are buzzing with vitriol over Sen. Clinton’s refusal, so far, to share credit with any writer who helps on her book.” Later, in a 2002 article for The Writer’s Chronicle, Barbara Feinman Todd (now using her married name) related that the project with Clinton had gone smoothly, producing drafts in a round-robin style. Feinman agrees that Clinton was involved with the project, but also states that, “Like any first lady, Mrs. Clinton had an extremely hectic schedule and writing a book without assistance would have been logistically impossible.” Feinman reiterates that her only objection to the whole process was the lack of any acknowledgement. A 2005 Georgetown University web page bio for Barbara Feinman Todd states that It Takes a Village was one of “several high-profile books” that she has “assisted, as editor, writer and researcher.”

I personally am ambivalent about the argument that ‘it is about time for America to have a female president.’ I couldn’t care less what the gender is of our Commander in Chief. I am much more concerned that the leader of our nation has a firm and consistent record of integrity.

I also feel that a person’s integrity isn’t shown by large gestures, but rather is apparent in the small everyday occurances that often go unnoticed. An example would be of the diner who is polite to the waitstaff during the meal and tips beyond the prescribed minimum after. Giving credit where credit is due, and humbly stepping aside and allowing an underling to accept praise when it is warranted is something we could use more of in our society.

But lying to steal the credit for another person’s work shows nothing but a maladjusted psyche and an overambitious mind. This is not a person I would recommend for any elected office, much less the highest in our land.

Some black superdelegates reassess Clinton support

In a fresh sign of trouble for Hillary Rodham Clinton, one of the former first lady’s congressional black supporters intends to vote for Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention, and a second, more prominent lawmaker is openly discussing a possible switch.

how much does a superdelegate cost?

Many of the superdelegates who could well decide the Democratic presidential nominee have already been plied with campaign contributions by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, a new study shows.

“While it would be unseemly for the candidates to hand out thousands of dollars to primary voters, or to the delegates pledged to represent the will of those voters, elected officials serving as superdelegates have received about $890,000 from Obama and Clinton in the form of campaign contributions over the last three years,” the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics reported today.

About half the 800 superdelegates — elected officials, party leaders, and others — have committed to either Clinton or Obama, though they can change their minds until the convention.

Obama’s political action committee has doled out more than $694,000 to superdelegates since 2005, the study found, and of the 81 who had announced their support for Obama, 34 had received donations totaling $228,000.

Clinton’s political action committee has distributed about $195,000 to superdelegates, and only 13 of the 109 who had announced for her have received money, totaling about $95,000.

Putin puts Hillary in her place

The former KGB lieutenant colonel appeared to lash out at U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton — a leading Democratic candidate for president — when one reporter quoted her as saying that former KGB officers have no soul:

“At a minimum, a head of state should have a head,” Putin said.

hillary effectively hands obama $500 campaign contribution

A Portsmouth, N.H., landlord says he finally received his check for $500 for a five-day stay by volunteers for Hillary Clinton’s campaign in January.

But the ordeal — which included leaving his warehouse property trashed with campaign signs – left him sore, so he’s donating the cash to Barack Obama’s campaign.

“It was the last straw for Hillary Clinton for me,” Terry Bennett told the Portsmouth Herald.

Bennett’s missing reimbursement wasn’t the only one, the Herald found. An Iowa businessman told the paper he’s owed more than $7,000 by the campaign.