Obama Camp Hits Hillary On Licenses: Hillary Would "Rather Plant Questions Than Answer Them"
That was quick. Here's Obama spokesman Bill Burton, on Hillary's announcement earlier that she now opposes giving driver's licenses to illegals:
“When it takes two weeks and six different positions to answer one question on immigration, it’s easier to understand why the Clinton campaign would rather plant their questions than answer them.”
Um, ouch?
Comments (54)
loki wrote on November 14, 2007 5:22 PM:*yawn*
NamelessFaceless wrote on November 14, 2007 5:24 PM:It's a shame to see that Obama continues to abandon the politics of hope . . .
Just getting that out there.
NCSteve wrote on November 14, 2007 5:25 PM:"It is indeed a shame that Senator Obama's campaign has abandoned the politics of hope in favor of immortally burning our collective ass just because we dropped trou and begged for it."
texasdem wrote on November 14, 2007 5:29 PM:Right, loki, meaningless.
She got caught waffling again and that's the best you can do? Not even something like, she thought it over and realizing her mistake, her opinion evolved?
She's keeping all of these [what should be] minor problems alive.
Nameless, that's a good one!
Jeremy wrote on November 14, 2007 5:54 PM:I'm not going to announce a position on Hillary's immortally burned ass until it has been studied by a bipartisan commission.
Anonymous wrote on November 14, 2007 5:57 PM:Yeah, ouch. The truth hurts!
Seth H. wrote on November 14, 2007 5:59 PM:Just to throw it out there, the "politics of hope" are still, ya know, politics. Transcending convention doesn't mean throwing out convention, just improving upon it. One must still employ common sense and frankly that response makes a lot of sense, it's witty, and it works.
steve wrote on November 14, 2007 6:07 PM:I never had a problem with Hillary's answer. Aren't we ready for a president who answers in more than one syllable or offers more than a platitude? I understood that she was answering the question as it was posed -- did she support what Spitzer was doing? She said that she did not think it was an ideal solution, but Spitzer was doing what he could as a governor in the absence of federal reform on the issue. That's what I heard, and I thought, "Makes sense." I also thought," People will carp because it wasn't a one-word simple answer." I'm ready for a president who is not simple. Statements like this from Obama remind me that he doesn't quite fit the bill.
ProfD wrote on November 14, 2007 6:11 PM:I've never thought the "politics of hope" meant opponents' positions wouldn't be criticized. I think the notion was always that the criticism would be fair and not spin. So far, it seems to be.
Is there a difference between supporting Spitzer's plan for New York state and opposing driver's licenses as a federal policy? Greg and others here imply that there is no difference. If that's the case, then Hillary changed her view. If there is a difference, then it becomes almost impossible to make this story into what Obama has made it out to be as well as everyone else here.
From my perspective it couldn't be more clear that Hillary makes a distinction and that her previous and current statements are consistent. But that's just me--I'm not trying to pull a Russert.
Jeremy wrote on November 14, 2007 6:24 PM:steve, that was nice spin. Maybe Hillary's team should hire you because you did a much better job than them. However, I don't think your account is entirely accurate. You say: "She said that she did not think it was an ideal solution, but Spitzer was doing what he could as a governor in the absence of federal reform on the issue." That makes it sound like she said supported it given the non-ideal situation. That's not what she said though. She said there's lots of good reasons for it but that she neither supports nor opposes it. That struck people as trying to have it both ways. Furthermore, it capped a night of weasling, like trying to cut the public out of the conversation on Social Security by deferring to a future bipartisan commission rather than expressing a judgment. There's a big difference between nuance and trying to weasle or have it both ways.
DTM wrote on November 14, 2007 6:33 PM:gqmartinez,
I am interested in getting one of those federal driver's licenses to replace my state-issued driver's license. Where do I apply?
NamelessFaceless wrote on November 14, 2007 6:39 PM:Seth H and ProfD:
Sorry if I wasn't clear--I was mocking the Clinton robotic response team . . .
Keith wrote on November 14, 2007 6:43 PM:Does this count as a four point play? Seriously, what's going inside of HRC's campaign? Why not just let this story die on the vine?
nogo war wrote on November 14, 2007 6:45 PM:"she neither supports nor opposes it."
When the Primary comes to where we reside..
We will all have the option of what is real or what we want to be real...
as for myself...having the courage to force my govt to arrest me for non-violent civil resistance..I'm lookin' for a candidate with some passion. Yeah Dennis K most reps me...but as the term electible is the buzzword...if you trust Clinton over Edwards fine...
Have you demonstrated the courage of your convictions? (outside of support of the President's wife?)
At what in time are you willing to sacrifice?
Did not think so....
See ya all Denver next year..
If no one has 50%...
Buckle up!
http://www.votenic.com
Results Posted Every Tuesday Evening. terry hallinan wrote on November 14, 2007 7:00 PM:
As I understand it, the current position by all candidates is that Mexicans and other person who are illegal are free to fetch and carry, do the dirty and heavy work but aren't allowed to drive to the job.
Am I missing something?
Best, Terry
Seth H. wrote on November 14, 2007 7:00 PM:Nameless~
Thanks for the clarification. There are far too many on this site blindly supporting Clinton. I still can't figure out what they're not seeing in Obama, or are seeing in Clinton that I'm missing. Anyway, becomes easy to assume that the most absurd Hillary-bent comments are honest.
Superba wrote on November 14, 2007 7:01 PM:What I like is Obama is playing tough but he's playing fair and not making accusations up. His raising the charge of Clinton being too calculating speaks for me -- I'm not sold on any one candidate yet, especially her.
hwc wrote on November 14, 2007 7:07 PM:Hillary never supported Spitzer's plan. That was a mispresentation by Russert.
Be that as it may, Obama better be very careful here. He is unequivocable on record, from the debate, of supporting Spitzer's plan to give drivers licenses to illegal immigrants.
That is a radioactive position. He will either have to flip-flop or get beat over the head with his position in Iowa, where they don't take kindly to Mexicans.
hwc wrote on November 14, 2007 7:11 PM:"I still can't figure out what they're not seeing in Obama"
We are not seeing the experience, just three years removed from a job as a part-time state legislator, to be President of the United States.
This is an unprecedented lack of big league experience, at least dating back a century in Presidential politics.
Jimmy Carter is probably the next least experienced major Presidential candidate, but he had at least served a full term as governor of a significant state.
thac0 wrote on November 14, 2007 7:20 PM:It's a complicated world out there, and the next President is in fact going to need to do a ton of compromising and politicking to make any progress in restoring America's position.
I don't understand why people bring up Clinton's triangulation as a weakness. She does, indeed, seem ruthless, and in a world of Putins and Musharrafs, *nothing less is ruthless is going to cut it.*
bob wrote on November 14, 2007 7:23 PM:More pre-debate spin from Camp Clinton:
November 14, 2007
Letter
When Hillary Clinton Faced Down Sexism
To the Editor:
A Nov. 9 letter regarding my comments that sexism was a major player in the Democratic debate two weeks ago suggests that the Clinton campaign discourage me from “any more counterproductive comments about ‘sexism.’ ”
I’ve endorsed Hillary Rodham Clinton for president, but I’ve never worked for her campaign. But when The Times (and other papers) asked for my opinion of the debate, as the only American woman ever to run for national office on a major-party ticket, I called it as I saw it.
I’ve had some experience with sexism, during the 1984 campaign and in decades in public life before and since, and I’ve always spoken out about it. If I had shut my mouth and simply promoted myself, my life would have been much easier, but my daughters and my granddaughters would have it much harder today.
Watching this debate, I saw two hours of Senator Clinton being bombarded with personal attacks, not only by her opponents but also by the moderator Tim Russert. Yes, she’s the Democratic front-runner, and that makes her fair game for challenges on the issues. But when it got so personal that even Bill Richardson, one of her opponents, had to say “Enough,” I had to agree.
Barack Obama has said that, when he was attacked for 15 minutes in a prior debate, he didn’t raise his race as an issue. Fifteen minutes is not two hours, though, and I feel sure that, if Senator Obama had been subjected to so sustained an attack, plenty of other people would be talking about racism, even if he wasn’t. But then, as I’ve said before, in this country it’s still O.K. to be sexist, but not to be racist.
I’ll be watching the coming candidate debates on CNN, and if the Republican front-runner, Rudolph W. Giuliani, is the sole subject of two hours of personal attacks, I’ll rethink my position.
It will help if, next time out, John Edwards and Senator Obama stick to substantive policy disagreements with Senator Clinton. If they can’t, they’ll only prove themselves unworthy of our party’s nomination.
Geraldine A. Ferraro
New York, Nov. 13, 2007
thac0,
Interestingly, the world has always been full of such "ruthless" dictators, and in the end the United States rose to preeminence on the strength of a constitutional democracy with checks and balances and regular transitions in power.
It is almost as if having a "ruthless" person in charge of your country is not actually good for your country.
NCSteve wrote on November 14, 2007 7:31 PM:Let's see, poli sci/international relations major at Columbia. Harvard Law, magna cum laude. Con law instructor at the University of Chicago, eight years in the Senate of a major state. Yeah, I can definitely see how that is useless compared to Hillary's experiance hurling lamps at the President of the United States. I can definitely see where that would be valuable experience in negotiating with Kim Jong Il.
Jeff Cohen wrote on November 14, 2007 7:38 PM:Her candidacy is imploding. Good. Better we do it than the GOP.
She is toast.
First Lady is a great qualification. Mamie Eisenhower!!!! Florence Harding! Mary Todd Lincoln!
Hillary rates up there with them.
All she is is some guy's wife. That's it.
"The politics of hope"= The Clinton camp's hope that the other candidates will never, ever say anything to disagree with her or point out something that a prospective president shouldn't have said or done. Hm?
ArchPundit wrote on November 14, 2007 7:49 PM:==That is a radioactive position. He will either have to flip-flop or get beat over the head with his position in Iowa, where they don't take kindly to Mexicans.
He won election in Illinois with that position. It's an unpopular position, but not a terribly salient one.
More important, it's the right position.
archpundit wrote on November 14, 2007 7:50 PM:===That is a radioactive position. He will either have to flip-flop or get beat over the head with his position in Iowa, where they don't take kindly to Mexicans.
He ran on it in Illinois for both the primary and the general election and it didn't have any traction. It's not a popular position, but it's also not terribly salient for most people.
It's also the right position.
AlwaysTiptheWaitress wrote on November 14, 2007 7:54 PM:Senator Clinton appears to have no core.
Will she govern by polls if elected? Senator Obama appears to have grasped why eight states have passed laws granting drivers licenses to illegal immigrants. Sometimes you have to actually take an unpol;ular stand.
Actually, the important thing is that he took a position and hasn't changed it three times.
Contrary to the politics of cringing precribed by DC Democratic consultants, people who aren't single issue voters just want to know a candidate stands for something--(you know as long as its not some crazy-ass thing like implementing Leninist economics or killing puppies or banning doughnuts or something totally off the wall like that.) Even if they disagree with you on particular issues, they'll cut you slack when you act accordingly after the election because, well, they knew what they were buying when the pulled the lever. Hell, most of the people who voted for Reagan disagreed with him on most of the stuff they knew he was for.
Hillary, by contrast, tries mightily to lead each individual voter into thinking that she believes whatever it is that that the voter believes. If she's elected, she'll have to start making making decisions and the ones who find out they were had are going to be furious. That's how presidents end up with approval ratings lower than 50% and lose the capacity to govern effectively.
swisha wrote on November 14, 2007 8:31 PM:hahahaha. Burton with a stiff left and a hard right hook.
pl wrote on November 14, 2007 9:03 PM:This is nauseating. If people elect her then they can wallow in their own crap for 4 years.
You want to throw experience out there?
I'll throw these out there for you.
PUPPET
LIAR
DISHONEST
SECRETIVE
BLAND
UNORIGINAL
Ill take Obamas PASSION, HONESTY, INTEGRITY, CREATIVENESS, FORWARD-THINKING over any of her qualities any day of the week.
You can stick Hillary's experience up your polls.
Mike wrote on November 14, 2007 9:07 PM:2 things. First of all, lets remember what happened. Even though the President has no say on how and to whom states issue driver's licenses, Hillary was not asked what she would do so as President. She was asked whether she supported Spitzer's plan to issue them. At first she said it made sense, then she she clarified and said she didn't mean it actually made sense, and she wasn't going to support it. The day after the debate, her campaign said she supported it. 2 weeks later, her campaign says she opposes it. This is clearly a candidate who is afraid to take a position on the issue. If Mitt Romney were doing this all the Clinton supporters would be joining in the fun of taking him to task.
Second thing- Clinton is FOR SURE going to have a canned line at tomorrow's debate about this. Can anyone guess what it is going to be?
RaymondA wrote on November 14, 2007 9:36 PM:Taking up Mike's challenge: Hillary's canned line: "I have been consistent on this Wolf. I have always supported Governor Spitzer's position. When he proposed it, I supported it; when he withdrew it, I supported that too. Senator Obama, on the other hand, has flip flopped; he used to support Spitzer's proposal but when Spitzer changed his mind, Obama did not, thereby flip-flopping on his support of Elliott."
Joe Lisboa wrote on November 14, 2007 9:46 PM:"It's a shame to see that Obama continues to abandon the politics of hope..."
Shorter HRCese on the politics of hope: "We'd *hoped* that the other candidates would roll over and just give us the nomination we're so damn entitled to." Well, 'hope' may spring eternal but luckily the MSM and its loyal cadre of sycophants are beginning to realize that this thing ain't locked up by a longshot. Not yet.
Katie wrote on November 14, 2007 9:53 PM:Good for him!!! It is about time that she gets called out over her non-answers and the just trust me meme.She chose to run knowing what she would be up against so the whining is tiresome.It's the power baby and racking up all the big guys money as quick as possible.Hope they keep it up cause I can not stand the thought of more years of this crap and it will not ever end as long as she is running or nominated.Yikes!!!!
Ethan wrote on November 14, 2007 9:59 PM:Goddamn. Reading this thread is just depressing. It is distressing enough that this is "another apparent stumble" by Hillary -- on an issue that is clearly HIGHLY nuanced... But half the comments on here are TOTAL BULLSHIT. Really pisses me off. NCSteve with the "Obama is God - all Hillary does is throw lamps", Alan Fine with "All she is is some guy's wife. That's it.", the commenter "AlwaysTiptheWaitress"... pl with "If people elect her then they can wallow in their own crap".......
It would be one thing if you gave reasoned opinions based on evidence, and there may be a couple of those posts on here, but just a couple. Most of ya'll in the Anti-Hillary contingent just seem to troll TPM for any possible way to call her names. YOU folks are a bunch of freakin idiots.
Frankly, I don't care if she DOES change her mind on an issue where a vast majority have a different opinion, especially an issue so difficult and nuanced as this one.
Bush does NOT change his mind on anything b/c he's a stubborn petulant fucking dictator. Hillary hears the majority of public opinion and given the circumstances and evidence that she has no doubt seen regarding this particular program she decides that the majority is correct and so she changes her mind. That's not being a fickle politician, that is bringing in all of the evidence and making a reasoned decision to change her mind. She is NOT a dictator and she does NOT want to ram her opinion down people's throats. Remember folks. We, the Left, are NOT supposed to be the Black vs White - you're with us or against us - crowd of folks. There is nuance. Grey area. Discrepancy. And sometimes it means you are in a no-win situation and you need to decide the best possible outcome. That doesn't mean she is a liar or a waffler, it means she has a brain and she is a strong enough person to admit when she is has changed her mind on a tough issue. But hey, I'm sure Barak has NEVER changed his mind on an issue before, right NCSteve? I wonder if he still thinks doing drugs is a good idea. No. He changed his mind. How about John Edwards? Has he changed his mind on anything? Say, his vote for AUMF Iraq 2002? Of course. BO and JE are grown men, Hillary is a grown woman capable of making hard reasoned decisions. And it's time some people on this board start acting that way too.
holy crap wrote on November 14, 2007 10:59 PM:Just because Bush is a dumb fucking asshole doesn't mean Hillary won't be a disastrous Dem candidate in the general. Wake up people!
RaymondA wrote on November 14, 2007 11:27 PM:Ethan, every single thing you say in defense of Hillary's flip flop -- that it shows she is flexible, capable of nuance, and blah blah blah -- is PRECISELY the type of thing we were all forced to say after we nominated Kerry. I did it, earnestly. Guess what? Virtually no one was convinced. People can sniff out the difference between an honest change of position and a finger-in-the-wind "better not be too far outside the polling data" opportunism. From the beginning I've feared that Hillary will replicate Kerry: most Dems will feel she's the safe choice, but many Independents and of course Repubs will see her as soul-less calculating and a bit weird - not someone you'd want to invite over for barbecue.
Putting that aside, Ethan, if you are right and this statement by Hillary today was an honest change of position, why doesn't she have the courage or intellectual honesty to say, "I opened my mouth too soon about this issue, before fully considering all the arguments pro and con, and my initial observations were, in retrospect, wrong. I made a mistake, and I apologize." Oh that's right, she won't even say that about her WAR vote. She also won't say it, because if you go the transcript, she rather cogently laid out all of the reasons why the licensing proposal "made sense."
She is a person with three times the intelligence of George W Bush but the same level of intellectual honesty -- next to none. Many of us are sick and tired of settling -- especially whensome guy has appeared virtually out of the blue who is (a) brilliant intellectually; (b) charismatic; (c) an outstanding public speaker capable of inspiring and persuading the public rather than just pandering to the public; (d) likable and perceived as likable and fair-minded even by our cranky Republican aunts and uncles who disagree with him; (e) progressive; and (f) while no saint and not free from small amounts of hypocrisy, far more principled than the average politician.
Oh, and he got the single biggest issue in two decades, the Iraq invasion, right and for the right reasons, and he spoke out when it was unpopular, rather than listen to the "majority," which is what you praise Hillary for. You know who counseled "listening to the majority" in 2002 regarding the Iraq war vote? F'in Terry McAulliffe when he was head of the Dem Party. He's now Hillary's campaign chairman, and he strongly urged the Dems in the House and Senate as to how they should vote in 2002 in order to win those midterms: FOR the war. (We lost anyway).
Wise up, Ethan, you seem pretty smart. Hillary's not nearly as bad as some of her detractors here claim, and she might be able to eke out a win in the general, but we've got a better choice.
Tom in Ma wrote on November 14, 2007 11:34 PM:When you raise the level of criticism of Clinton's position to the level of fundamental personal character, you will have to answer the question eventually: if nominated, how can you support her in the general election? Edwards has already fallen into that trap -- no one has yet sprung it by asking, "if Clinton is so much politics as usual, and you are willing to support her in the general, then aren't you an opportunistic flip-flopper, talking big and folding up LIKE EVERY OTHER DEMOCRAT when crunch time comes?"
The criticism of Clinton as evasive, flip-flopping, calculating are all GOP talking points. Democrats don't repeat GOP talking points.
I, for one, am glad that a potential democratic nominee does not fall headfirst into every trap that Tim Russert sets. The question of illegal alien drivers' licenses was the script for a GOP fall commercial. The media and the GOP are furious that Clinton did not read her lines as cued, not giving a tape of her solid unequivocal endorsement of an unpopular position on a distracting question.
The fury of the media at Hilary's calculation and evasiveness is evidence that she is outfoxing them time and time again.
Why democrats want to see their potential nominees trapped into unpopular positions on the issues that the GOP think are winning issues for them eludes me.
NCSteve wrote on November 14, 2007 11:59 PM:Ethan,
What Raymond A said.
And yeah, the lamp throwing thing was a cheap shot but I did have a point, which is that all this "experience" Hillary supposedly has is bogus. She's been married to a governor and a president. BFD. So have 40, more or less, other women. What is it about her that makes her marriage an experience qualifying her to be president when it didn't qualify, say, Rosaland Carter or Bess Truman, not to mention, oh, say Laura Bush? If your answer is "all that other stuff she's done besides sleeping in proximity to the leader of the free world" like serving in the Senate, running the health care train wreck and whatever the hell she did in Arkansas, does it really look all that more significant compared to Obama or Edwards?
This is a big deal. Hillary's supposedly vast "experience" is a creation of her campaign that the media simply swallowed unquestioningly because it confuses "in the public eye in Washington" with "actually doing something."
And honestly, I think experience is overrated compared to brains and historical literacy. That's why the only qualifications in the Constitution were 35 years of age and born here. hat political experience did Washington have? Lincoln had eight years as a state legislator and two years in Congress. FDR had three years in the state senate, a few years as assistant naval secretary and four years as a governor. Woodrow Wilson had two years as governor of New Jersey.
Presidents with a lot of high level federal experience? Well, off the top of my head, there's Nixon and Hoover and Cheney.
Ethan, Brooklyn, NY wrote on November 15, 2007 12:01 AM:Thank you Raymond for a response worthy of this board. Finally!
First off, the comparison to Kerry I don't think is appropriate. He WAS a flip-flopper and a wanna-be. It was obvious. For one thing, I think this particular issue has been an incredibly difficult issue in particular. Another of my favorite politicians has also been tripped up by it, namely Eliot Spitzer. And HE is the antithesis of finger-in-the-wind Kerry-like mentality. Right? He's a bull. Hillary has not handled it well politically, which is surprising to me, but I do not think -- I FAR from think -- that this speaks to her candidacy nor her as a person nor her as a sitting President IN GENERAL. And this is not spin, this is my honest opinion.
As for Barak. I'm with you every step of the way on Barak. I think he is incredible. However, the leg up that Hillary has on him in my mind is international diplomacy. Not that he can't hang with the people of the world, I'm sure he can, but Hillary and of course Bill are known factors. Revered around the world. She has been there and done it, and that is precisely what we need. And that goes double, triple, quadruple for her relationship and knowledge about Israel and a Palestinian settlement. That gets forgotten about so easily, and yet it remains one of the -- if not THE -- single most important issues of today if not in our lifetimes. I think she knows this. I KNOW Bill knows this. And I think she will be a driving force on this as Bill was. BUT with the added benefit of not having to deal with Yasser Arafat nor Ariel Sharon.
Couple that international capability with her nearly spot-on record of literally -- as she says -- the last 30 years of domestic policy. For women, for civil rights, for labor, for fiscal policy, etc etc etc.
I am a huge supporter of Bill's obviously, and as a tandem, that certainly carries weight imho. Not that she is any less capable on her own, but the two of them together? With Bill and his absolutely BRILLIANT Clinton Global Initiatives? Man. What a powerful force for good in the world. Bill's AIDS initiative, his sustainable cities initiative are some of the most powerful forces for good in the world today. And with her running the show here with both houses of Congress not only SUPPORTING her but keeping her honest? As much as I love Barak Obama, and I do, I think the sum total of a Hillary Clinton Presidency is precisely what we need.
The only thing on which I really take issue with you Raymond, is this quote:
"She is a person with three times the intelligence of George W Bush but the same level of intellectual honesty -- next to none."
For one thing, I think her intellect is more like 3 hundred or 3 million times GWB's... But really, the 'intellectual honesty' bit is too much for me. She does weigh political calculus too much, that much I will agree on... However, she IS honest. She DOES work hard for progressive ideals. She DOES the right thing. Time and time and time and time again. This is a difficult time for someone like her given the fact that she is not the ideal campaigner. She certainly cant give an oratory performance of Barak Obama and she certainly can't dance like him either! But I have watched her speak on cspan over the yrs as Senator, and especially when nobody is listening she is totally ON. THE. BALL. Progressive to the core. So yes, she is probably too political and I'm sure it doesn't help that she has advisers up the yin yang telling her to do half-a-million things, but when you look at her as a person and as a Senator and as a woman and mother and as an American as well as a politician, you will see that she is far superior a person as the media and the ideologues makes her out to be. And thanks again for letting me explain myself without being pissed off at the sheer level of idiocy of some of the comments on here. I literally expect a lot more from TPM readers. It used to be much better I think. Oh well. Tis the season. :)
Joe Lisboa wrote on November 15, 2007 12:02 AM:Hilary [sic] is not "my ... nominee," sir; so kindly refrain from speaking for me or anyone else for that matter. As much as I'd love to give the NAFTA-lovin', welfare-guttin' Clintons another stab at paralyzing national politics whilst the GOPers go a-hunting for closeted skeletons, it's time for Billary to stand down and let the next generation of Democratic politics and politicians assume the reins. We don't owe them anything, and we certainly don't owe you anything, sir.
Ethan wrote on November 15, 2007 12:05 AM:NCSteve,
If you spent as much time reading about her life or reading details of her plans for what she'd do as President as you did in writing that comment, you'd know that you discredited yourself in the first couple sentences. Sorry, but it's true.
RaymondA wrote on November 15, 2007 3:00 AM:As is often the case, the Hillary folks break off into contradictory factions. In one corner, you see desperate spinning to convince us that she did not in fact change her position a few times on this issue in the last ten days, and that she was not evasive, but was clear and cogent in stating a consistent nuanced view at every opportunity. The trouble is, Corner A people, that we all saw the debate and read the statements coming from her campaign, and we have to believe our own eyes and ears and not your spin. Oh, and the NYT, the day after the debate, reported, based on a statement from her campaign, that Hillary in fact supported states' giving licenses to undocumented aliens.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/31/a-day-later-clinton-embraces-spitzers-license-effort/index.html? hp
So keep parsing away; it's not convincing anyone.
In another corner, you see those who say, yep, she changed position, but it was tactically smart because Dems can never be out on a limb strongly against the polling data on even a single issue. Why the Repubs will kill us if we stay out on that limb, and they will only cripple us if we flip flop!
Then, lastly, in Corner C, there are those who say she evaded and hemmed and hawed but bought time, because Russert was trying to trap her into either taking a position unpopular with general election voters or disagreeing with a supporter and her home state's governor. So it was OK to evade and slither.
Sorry, Corner C, but someone of Hillary's stature should be able to say either: [1] "I have enormous respect for Elliot Spitzer, and I sympathize with what he's trying to do, but I do not think this particular proposal constitutes sound public policy" or [2] "I am sorry but I have not studied the issue enough to offer you my position on this, Tim. It's a complicated issue. It's been debated by state governments, many of which allow licenses, and has not been considered a federal issue."
Either one would have been acceptable, but she tried to signal support for Spitzer and keep him in good -- along with Latino voters in Calif. -- while wording her answer in such a way that she thought she could wiggle and parse her way out of it later if she needed to. Unfortunately, there is a word for that, which was coined before Hillary's candidacy: "Clintonian" And it does not have good connotations.
joshblows wrote on November 15, 2007 6:33 AM:STEVE WROTE: ""I never had a problem with Hillary's answer. Aren't we ready for a president who answers in more than one syllable or offers more than a platitude?""
......uhh McFly, or I mean Steve, the WHOLE POINT of the question to Hillary was to find out if she would advocate giving illegal aliens drivers licenses and other benefits of citizenship IF SHE WERE ELECTED PRESIDENT. Her waffling, undefinitive "answer" gave us ZERO INDICATION of whether she would or not. That is why her answer was BS and NOT ACCEPTABLE. Got it Steve? This ain't "rocket surgery" Geez.
coonsey wrote on November 15, 2007 8:58 AM:Did anybody NOTICE that the OHIO poll (right side of TPM) shows Obama TIED with Giuliani? Edwards actually beats him more then Hillary or OBama.
I think THIS is very telling. I wish more polls would compare Obama and Edwards against the GOP candidates INSTEAD of always using Hillary's name against them.
This could prove that Obama or Edwards COULD win nationally.
Coonsey's View
Political Blog and forum
http://www.freeweb.com/coonsey/
Ethan, what experience does clinton II have in international diplomacy? That's a new one. International diplomacy????
DonnaG wrote on November 15, 2007 9:46 AM:That so much time is spent on these threads to nail down Hillary Clinton's positions .....says it all.
NCSteve wrote on November 15, 2007 10:16 AM:Ethan,
You know absolutely nothing about what I've read and what I haven't read.
If you think I've reached the view that there are four other people running who would be be better nominees, in terms of both margin of victory and down-ticket appeal, and better for the country as a president than her because I'm uninformed, I believe we'll just have to agree to disagree and move along.
Ethan: "[T]he leg up that Hillary has on [Obama] in my mind is international diplomacy." In your mind only, as the reality is that she has zero experiance in "international diplomacy." She was First Lady, not the Secretary of State. (Americans don't, by the way, tend to elect people with experience in "international diplomacy"; indeed, they most often elect former state governors, who, for constitutional reasons, do not engage in international relations.) She held no public office before becoming a Senator. Prior to being First Lady, her legal background was as a fixer and real-estate wheeler-dealer in the very small and not terribly clean pond that is Arkansas.
What evidence do you have that Hillary is "revered around the world" and has "been there and done that" -- the "that, presumably, being acting in an official and efficacious capacity in foreign affairs? Am I missing something. Did she, unbeknownst to any of us, serve in the foreign service, engage in shuttle diplomacy missions, anything other than attend the occasional state dinner?
New Hamphire U.S.A. 2008 Jan.8.Barack line of voters around the block. Hilllary line of voters front of building.Barack votes 102,000./Hillary votes 109,000.???????Som ain't right about this picture.The people turned out in video recorded drowls to see Obama.And you want us to believe they doubled back and voted Clinton? I refuse! give us a break! I refuse not as a sore loser. I refuse because those video pictures of his triumphant support told a true story even the media could not deny. Yet whatever shady you manage to do in every election,you're doing it again . May the brain you used to mastermmind such distortion forever ache in agony for once again destroying such a vision for America! hot ta mighty, remake Rodney King.
