Clintons' Squabbles: Not Funny

Fri, Apr. 11, 2008

Opinion

HILLARY CLINTON'S "Bill Clinton Problem" is a joke that has become not so funny. In a debate earlier this year, Mitt Romney got a huge laugh line when he said, "The idea of Bill Clinton back in the White House with nothing to do is something I can't imagine." Hillary Clinton answered with a joke of her own when she assured David Letterman, "Well, look, you know, in my White House, we will know who wears the pantsuits."

Yet, it was reported this week that Bill Clinton has worked hard to promote the Colombia Free Trade deal, while Sen. Clinton says she has worked to oppose it. Yes, this is the same Colombia pact that cost her top campaign adviser his job when it was revealed that he was working on the side for the Colombian government.

According to the Huffington Post, Bill Clinton received $800,000 to take part in a speaking tour sponsored by Gold Service International, a Colombian outfit that supports the free trade deal. Just after, his Clinton Global Initiative announced millions of dollars of investment, including in Colombia. Just last year, Clinton participated in an event for, and received an award from, Colombian President Uribe - a man whose human and labor rights record is so odious that Al Gore backed out of an environmental event when he found out Uribe would be there. The award Clinton received was described as ABC News as part of a PR effort to "counter [Colombia's] negative image among Washington Democrats."

The Clinton campaign's press secretary, Jay Carson, offered a petulant response, telling Ben Smith of The Politico, "Yawn."

Excuse me if this problem doesn't make me as drowsy as Sen. Clinton's spokesperson. I would expect, and even welcome, Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton arguing about policy behind closed doors. It can only help the senator form a more informed, wise position on critical issues. But, this is not a marital squabble.

At some point, when Sen. Clinton claims she was trying to defeat the Colombian Free Trade Deal, Bill Clinton must have told her that he was planning on making some money to promote the deal, and helping the Colombian President deflect attention from his offensive record. What did Sen. Clinton tell the former president at that point?

Either she told him that it was OK, and she didn't mind him working to pass the trade deal, which calls into question just how opposed to this policy proposal she really is. Or, she told Bill Clinton that she didn't want him doing that, and he did it anyway. Certainly, during this campaign, Bill Clinton seems to have gone off on his own, saying and doing things that Hillary Clinton later had to apologize for. The former president's crass comparison of Barack Obama and Jesse Jackson, in South Carolina, comes to mind.

Whatever the case, this is problematic. In this critical time, we cannot afford to have a president who says one thing, while the first spouse publicly works towards an opposite end. Sen. Clinton must better explain to voters why the former president goes off on his own like this, and how she will better control him if she should find herself in the Oval Office.

This is now serious, and answering this question with jokes won't cut it anymore.

Flavia Colgan is a member of the Daily News editorial board. Check out her blog, CitizenHunter, at www.citizenhunter.com.

"It's Not Because She is a Woman..."

According to a new NBC/WSJ poll, Hillary Clinton now has a 37 percent positive rating, 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.

Countless American men and women are growing weary of the misogyny card played by Hillary supporters. Over and over again. They claim Hillary is not liked because she is a woman (Even Hillary herself referred this week to two United States Senators calling for her to leave the race as an act of men bullying a woman - gee, I wonder what it was when people called for Romney and Huckabee to withdraw?)

'They' can't face the possibility that an awful lot of people just don't like Hillary, not because she is a woman, but because of who she is as a human being. They don't like her dishonesty, her sense of entitlement, her belittling tone, her smear campaign tactics of race and fear mongering - just to name a few.

I am the father of three magnificent daughters. I want them to see a woman president elected in their lifetime. I want them to believe and know they can reach for anything and achieve it - that they too might one day sit in the oval office.

I also want them to know that accomplishments and success mean nothing if you lack good character and human decency at the core of your being.

zjm

Clinton’s Plan B: the Tonya Harding Option

by Paul Hogarth‚ Mar. 26‚ 2008

In case Rush Limbaugh doesn’t bring down Barack Obama with “Operation Chaos,” Hillary Clinton has another plan for her presidential prospects. With no realistic chance at winning the nomination, Clinton will tear down Obama until he’s an unacceptable choice – leaving superdelegates no choice but to pick her at the National Convention. It’s what one Democratic Party official calls the Tonya Harding option, which explains why Clinton yesterday tried to get political mileage out of Obama's Pastor Wright controversy. In 1994, the U.S. Figure Skating Association banned Tonya Harding for life from participating in any sanctioned events – due to a “clear disregard for fairness, good sportsmanship and ethical behavior.” In 2008, who’s going to sanction an out-of-control Democratic candidate who doesn’t seem to care that she’s helping to elect John McCain?

It’s been a week since Obama gave the most beautiful speech of his political career – where he bravely refused to let race be another hot potato. His pastor had made inflammatory comments that could derail his candidacy and sap momentum, and Obama had to do something about it to contain the damage.

But Obama could have thrown Reverend Wright under a bus like so many politicians have done under similar circumstances when their strident supporters become a liability. Instead, he remarkably took the opportunity to give a frank talk about race – treating voters like adults, and forcing us to confront unpleasant realities. According to a New York Times poll, 70% of Americans approved of his speech.

To still use the Wright controversy against Obama for political gain – one week later, and after he made such a bold speech – is beyond the pale, and clearly smacks of desperation. John McCain knew better than to go that route, and even Clinton’s former pastor said good things about Wright. Clinton herself kept quiet for a while, knowing full well that attacking him on it would backfire.

But pretty soon, her advisers must have told Clinton that she had to bring it up – because the Wright controversy is still a liability for Obama among working-class whites. “He would not have been my pastor,” said Clinton yesterday in Pennsylvania. “You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend. You have to speak out against that — if not explicitly, then implicitly by getting up and moving.”

Clinton said this while Obama was taking a brief vacation – in what was probably a calculated move when she could own the media spotlight. Ironically, she said it after meeting with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, a right-wing publication owned by Richard Mellon Scaife – the same “vast right-wing conspiracy” that Clinton famously railed against ten years ago.

By calling Wright’s sermons “hate speech” and legitimizing a right-wing rag that gained notoriety by spreading rumors about Vince Foster, Hillary Clinton has become the enemy that she once despised. But that’s what she has reduced herself to. And if there’s one political lesson that she learned from her husband, it’s that you must do “everything” to get elected. Even if it means sinking to the politics of personal destruction.

To say that Clinton is pushing the “Tonya Harding option” is an apt analogy – because Harding never won the Olympic gold medal. Her mission was just to knee-cap her rival, Nancy Kerrigan, in the hopes that she will win the competition by default. At this point, the math does not bode well for Clinton – and Obama will win the nomination unless his campaign faces a monumental meltdown. Only then could she actually have a chance.

The “Tonya Harding option” was predictable – especially if you know the Clintons well. Consider what Dick Morris, Bill’s notorious former consultant, said on the eve of the New Hampshire primary – when we all assumed she was going to lose. He predicted that she could make a “very dirty comeback” that would exploit Obama’s race. If you disregard the fact that it was on Fox News, Morris pretty much laid out what Clinton’s strategy has been in the past few months: watch it yourself.

We don’t hear much from Tonya Harding these days – and her fall from stardom has been pretty depressing. But she was banned from professional figure skating for her unethical behavior, and the sport is better off today without her. In that arena, bad actions have consequences – and we look back on the Tonya Harding saga as a cautionary tale.

Will the Democratic Party stop Hillary Clinton before she inflicts more damage? Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said yesterday that a presidential nominee will be picked before the Democratic Convention. He wouldn’t elaborate on how, but said “it will be done” – and mentioned that he met with DNC Chairman Howard Dean about it.

Howard Dean, a former Presidential candidate himself, knows what it likes to have your campaign fall from grace – and how painful it must be to acknowledge a reality after your hopes have evaporated. For the good of the party, Dean should let Hillary Clinton know that it’s all over and time to move on. Because tearing down the eventual nominee will only help elect John McCain.

EDITOR’S NOTE: In his spare time and outside of regular work hours, Paul Hogarth volunteered on Obama’s field operation in San Francisco.

I used to love Pinocchio when I was a kid...

Hillary Clinton yesterday acknowledged she "misspoke" about the level of danger she was exposed to on a 1996 visit to Bosnia, leading the campaign of her rival, Barack Obama, to accuse her of exaggerating her foreign policy experience.

The Democratic presidential hopeful, who made the trip while she was first lady, said last week she had come under sniper fire when landing at Tuzla airport.

"I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base," she said in a speech last Monday.

But an American comedian who accompanied her on the trip and a contemporaneous news account both contradicted her claims.

The comedian, Sinbad, recently told the Washington Post he had felt no sense of danger.

"I think the only 'red-phone' moment was: 'Do we eat here or at the next place?'" he said. "I never felt I was in a dangerous position."

The Associated Press reported at the time that Clinton "took no extraordinary risks on the trip" and did not mention gunfire.

Clinton yesterday acknowledged to the Philadelphia Daily News that there was what she called a "minor blip" in her account of the visit.

"I went to 80 countries, you know," she told the paper's editorial board. "I gave contemporaneous accounts, I wrote about a lot of this in my book. You know, I think that, a minor blip, you know, if I said something that, you know, I say a lot of things — millions of words a day — so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement."