March 25, 2008...9:37 am
Hillary can offer many good things
I love how the media can make a snow hill out of global warming a snowflake. Hot Air recently commented on the Hillary/Tuzla controversy. For those not keeping track, it’s about Hillary lying/misspeaking on how she arrived in Tuzla.
So after discussing the impact of that mistake, here is the conclusion:
And now the admission that she misrepresented the Tuzla trip in both danger and importance undermines what little credibility she had left after insisting that she should receive credit for all of the foreign-policy initiatives during her husband’s administration. Without experience or credibility, just what can she offer?
It’s amazing. With Tuzla, she went for a 2-3 to a 0-1. First, before Tuzla, Hot air thought she had 2-3 credibility (little?), and now it’s a 1-0 (without). (number representation mine!).
And of course, now that experience and credibility are gone, per Hotair, what’s left? Nothing!
First, experience is not just the 3AM phone call stuff. Experience is working on particular subjects that matter to Americans. Experience is dealing with other dignitaries. Experience is dealing with the healthcare issue. Experience is dealing with the right wing noise machine. Experience can be about knowing who you can trust and who you can’t trust. Experience comes in many shapes. I think to say that Hillary has no experience left is really wrong.
Also, let’s say Hillary is really without experience or credibility. What does she have to offer? She can offer a great platform. She can offer a great set of advisors. She can push the boundaries in different directions. She can work hard. She can exercise good judgment. She can bring Bill back in the picture.
I am not saying she will do all these things, but to reduce what she can bring to only those two things is missing a bigger picture.
I am tempted to ask, what about McCain, but I will try to resist. I will at least say that the Iran/Al Qaeda mistake and the immigration flip flop should worry you as much if not more if that kind of experience and credibility is so important on your list.
I think the problem is that this campaign is dragging on too long and every little story is magnified like crazy for no valid reason. Reverend Wright, Tuzla, Iran/Al Quaeda, the hair cut, all those things are relatively minor compared to what is at stake here. None of these issues are about policy.
A few days ago, Hotair was commenting on TMZ giving out an opinion on some political topic, and making fun of the type of issues they usually cover. But honestly, these types of incident are nearly as important as what TMZ covers.
Honestly, the right lost a perfectly valid candidate in Mitt Romney because of these empty metrics. I think the left has so far being spared such a loss, but can we decide if we like Obama or Hillary on some other criteria than Wright/Tulsa?
16 Comments
March 25, 2008 at 4:05 pm
I might agree in principle but this little “blip” as it has been described is so much more. How do you confuse the difference between bullets flying over your head and attending a little girls poetry recital? I mean come on! If you are going to lie you should do a better job than that! For Hillary to try to shug this off implies she has a diminished appreciation for honesty. I just watched 7 years of that kind of governance and can’t sit through any more.
March 25, 2008 at 4:59 pm
I agree she made a mistake. I just don’t think that it’s that consequential. I think if you are worried about voting for Hillary, this wouldn’t be your top concern.
But again, I agree, her ‘Sinbad is a comedian’ response and her current response leave much to be desired.
March 25, 2008 at 6:48 pm
What is wrong with this country? The media and republican buffs take Hillary to task for a (lie?) that has no consequence. Yet, Bush and the neocon administation can lie about weapons of mass destruction in order to start a war. Can lie about outing a CIA agent, which amounts to treason. And as a result of these lies, kill 4,000 americans, and several hundred thousands of Iraquis. Not to mention spend nearly a trillion dollars of American tax money. And the media, and millions of americans think this is okay???
Someone please explain this to me? I don’t get it!!!
March 25, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Neither do I.
I was watching something like Dateline a few days ago where they caught this woman lying about being pregnant and telling couples she would give them her baby. They were grilling her, putting her in front of a couple she lied to, etc.
From one perspective, it’s great. She is getting what she deserves. But from another, there are people like Bush that got us into a war for faulty reasons and he doesn’t get grilled anywhere close to that poor woman.
I think it’s the low hanging fruit policy. It’s easy to write pages on Hillary’s story. But when it comes to more serious issues, the effort seem to never be there.
I mean, look at the cavalier attitude the Bush administration had related to the Libby story. First they commented, then gave reasons after reasons for not commenting, and then still never came clean on this story. Whether Libby or Rove were guilty is irrelevant to my point. My point is simply about the Bush administration never coming clean on this issue. We allow them to get away with this.
March 25, 2008 at 8:45 pm
“Someone please explain this to me? I don’t get it!!!”
When your thesis is false, it’s hard to explain.
March 25, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Hilldog (and I call her that affectionately) has placed her primary hopes on the fact that she has “experience” and BO does not. If it turns out that her “experience” is listening to little girls recite poetry and (as Rush likes to say) managing Bill’s bimbo breakouts, then she is running on nothing. BO is all hope and change. Hilldog has said that isn’t enough. That is why this news.
I agree that it’s not that important in the grand scheme of things, but I do think it seriously undercuts her only real advantage over Barry.
March 25, 2008 at 11:10 pm
She has a lot more experience than that, but I think her problem is that, in an effort to beat Obama, she has set the bar so high that her experience isn’t enough to put her above that.
I have to say that while listening to little girls recite poetry (or reading My pet goat I would add
isn’t worth anything, managing Bill’s bimbo breakouts is something really hard! Would you want to do that even for a day?
March 25, 2008 at 11:52 pm
I stand corrected.
March 26, 2008 at 4:13 am
“But from another, there are people like Bush that got us into a war for faulty reasons and he doesn’t get grilled anywhere close to that poor woman.”
Could we please stop with this meme? I mean, if you want to continue it, then ask all these people about it when you ask Bush.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLRAdLdUBOI&hl=en]
March 26, 2008 at 8:22 am
I would gladly ask Bill, Madeleine or anyone else if they were really involved with the decision making process to go to war.
It’s not that they don’t get a share of the responsability. It’s that they aren’t the ones who pushed for this to happen.
Still, I think that Hillary shares part of the blame for signing off on the war. Part of me says that it’s possible she was misled, or that she voted because it was important to send a message to the world we meant business. On the other hand, I am sure she knew where this was headed and her vote was not an act of courage. That story is one reason why I prefer Obama: he comes with cleaner hands on this topic. I think this will give him more freedom to make (drastic?) changes.
But let’s reverse the question. Let’s say Iraq becomes this terrific democracy, with no fighting and a great economy. Will you give credit to Bill Clinton for that? I sure won’t.
March 26, 2008 at 7:47 pm
The point is that many people and agencies around the world believed Saddam had WMD’s. The UN’s weapons inspectors weren’t prancing around in Denmark, after all. How about all the Dems beyond Hillary who vigorously supported the war? You apparently initially supported John Edwards in this election, yet Edwards repeatedly talked about the threat Iraq posed, and he sat on the Intelligence Committee. As did Hillary.
I just want to know if you believe all these people–from different parties and even different nations–were lying like Bush supposedly was?
March 27, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Believing and leading the war effort are two different things. I think Edwards and Hillary were sheep in that matter.
They followed polls and election strategy.
Do I think they lied? Like Bush? No… but when they explain their decision to go to war, I think they are most likely lying. Like telling us they didn’t know that Bush was really going to war.
I don’t think they should be proud of themselves, but their mistakes/actions are not comparable. At best they are secondary enablers.
But, Edwards has profusely apologised for his decision. Yes, it is partially an opportunistic strategy, but at least he had the guts to do that.
March 28, 2008 at 12:40 am
You’re insinuating Edwards and Clinton cynically put their political careers ahead of the lives of American soldiers. And, thus, they had to have lied to do so. Edwards repeatedly went into lengthy detail of the threat of Saddam’s weapons, and even later claimed he wasn’t misled about the situation.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3131295/
EDWARDS: Well, the first thing I should say is I take responsibility for my vote. Period. And I did what I did based upon a belief, Chris, that Saddam Hussein’s potential for getting nuclear capability was what created the threat. That was always the focus of my concern. Still is the focus of my concern.
So did I get misled? No. I didn’t get misled.
–
MATTHEWS: If you knew last October when you had to cast an aye or nay vote for this war, that we would be unable to find weapons of mass destruction after all these months there, would you still have supported the war?
EDWARDS: It wouldn’t change my views. I said before, I think that the threat here was a unique threat. It was Saddam Hussein, the potential for Saddam getting nuclear weapons, given his history and the fact that he started the war before.
March 28, 2008 at 8:37 am
I think it’s important to separate what politicians say and actually do. Sometimes they only pay lip service to specific causes.
I don’t think the logic was “You’re insinuating Edwards and Clinton cynically put their political careers ahead of the lives of American soldiers. ”
I am saying they
- looked at Saddam (clearly not a good guy),
- looked at where Bush was headed (war),
- looked at what it would mean for the political careers if they voted against the war (coward, not strong on security, blah blah)
- looked at poll numbers
- etc
and decided to jump on board.
I think they care about soldiers, but soldiers are just one parameter in a series of parameters.
I endorsed John Edwards because I thought moving forward, he was pushing for ideas I agreed with. If you ask me who had the cleanest sheet, it had to be Obama simply because he didn’t get too much time to accumulate these types of decisions.
March 28, 2008 at 9:51 pm
looked at where Bush was headed (war),
Had two big names like Clinton and Edwards opposed the war from the beginning, and gotten others with them, then Bush may not have had the votes from Congress to go to war.
*
looked at what it would mean for the political careers if they voted against the war (coward, not strong on security, blah blah)
- looked at poll numbers
If you believe this, I don’t know how you can call it anything other than cynical. They supposedly knew Iraq was no threat yet vehemently supported a war that would surely cost lives for their political careers? I personally don’t believe that, but if you do, how is that any better than what you accuse Bush of?
If they knew that Bush was making the whole thing up, they would’ve screamed it from the hilltops, not made the case for war.
March 28, 2008 at 10:16 pm
I don’t think it was ‘no threat’, I think it was an overrated threat.
Bush wasn’t making everything up. Some of what he said (or the underlying message) had some truth in there. For example, while this wasn’t the biggest selling point, Saddam was portrayed as a bad guy. That is something I can definitely agree with.
I think the picture is very muddy. I don’t think all politicians look at many criterias, and yes, some are very selfserving. I put Bush in a different category because he was in the driver seat.
Also, a lot of the problem I have with the invasion has to do with the way it was mismanaged. Honesly, had Bush actually pulled it off, I think liberals would have been way more lenient.
Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened, so…
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