Monday, November 19, 2007
Line o' the Day: The Sesame Street Party
Jules Crittenden has the winning entry, commenting on Thomas Friedman's tongue-in-cheek Obama-Cheney ticket:
I'm sure there must be a Sesame Street episode that deals with how much trouble you can get into if you tell [a lie]. But the mullahs don't watch that show and haven't exactly developed a reputation for truthfulness. They've lied about Iraq. They lied about Afghanistan. They lied their support for al Qaeda. They've lied about Lebanon and Gaza. They appear to have lied about involvement in Lockerbie. They've lied about the Beirut barracks bombing. Let's suppose the Iranians … bear with me here … prevaricate about their nuclear program and these other issues, and it is decided the big Tony Soprano bat must be used. Will Friedman have any more stomach for rough stuff than he did last time he advocated a war over nukes? And would President Big Bird ever swing that bat?
This is (one of) the problem(s) with President Big Bird and the rest of the Sesame Street Party's candidates. They cannot be relied on to protect U.S. and world security interests, because they are convinced they can chase the clouds away and make it a sunny day.
I'm a Uniter, not a Divider
I can die happy. I've been linked by the incomparable Rush Limbaugh, The Spectator and Randi Rhodes all on the same day.
Other great lines from CNN's debate meltdown (aside from the easy out of using the phrase Wolf Blitzer as an all-purpose punchline):
* Dan Riehl: "You can't spell Clinton without C-N-N."
* Dinah Lord: "You practically needed a machete, the plants were so thick on the ground in the Dem's Vegas debacle debate."
* Information Dissemination: "This strikes me as business as usual for the Clintons, as I sit and observe entitlement in America in action enabled by the media supposedly intended to protect the citizens from people in power, but has become the vehicle for those in power to do as they please.."
* SnafuBar: "That they would all be Democrats would be unsurprising, that they would all be party operatives just shows you how hollow are the positions espoused by those on the left.."
The United States of America vs. the MSM and Hollywood
Gateway Pundit has the latest numbers:
Violence in Iraq is down by 50%.
Civilian casualties in Iraq are down by 60%.
Baghdad casualties are down by 75%.
Basra violence is down by 90%.
Terrorist attacks in Iraq are down by 80%.
Even AFP is running positive stories on life in Iraq, so you'd think our mainstream media would've started to get the picture. But let's not hurry them.
"Even two or three months ago we would have been afraid to come here at night," said 20-year-old Hussein Salah, an off-duty soldier, slurping a milkshake with his wife, Shihad, at the Mishmesha (apricot) juice bar in Baghdad's relatively safe Karrada suburb.
"Now we sometimes sit outside here till one or two in the morning. It is quite safe. The security situation is vastly improved," said Salah, the orange light from a nearby flashing palm alternatively brightening and dimming his clean-shaven face.
It could be the worst movie I've ever seen ... "[T]he out and out worst, most disgusting, most hateful, most incompetent, most revolting, most loathsome, most reprehensible cinematic work I have ever encountered. ... It portrays the members of our Marine Corps in the most disgusting way imaginable... This film is an atrocity. It is zero stars... I honestly was close to vomiting when I saw the film... It is a slander on the United States of America... Everyone associated with this film ought to be ashamed... Will it inspire future terrorists? Of course it will!
Back in the real world, TigerHawk compares 1864 and 2008:
In 1864 Americans were fed up with the Civil War, in which there were days on which more soldiers were killed than have died in four years of the Iraq war. "Mr. Lincoln is already beaten," wrote Horace Greeley, perhaps the leading journalist. And three months before the election Republican leaders told president Lincoln that he had no hope of reelection. As Peter Wallison of AEI recently recalled, the Democratic platform denounced "four years of failure" in the war effort and Gen. George B. McClellan, the Democratic candidate opposing Lincoln recommended making peace on Southern terms.
But on September 1 the news reached Washington that Atlanta had fallen to the Union army, and on election day it appeared as if the North was on the way to victory. Lincoln was decisively reelected. And, according to historian Allan Nevins, "The damage done to the Democratic Party by the platform could not be undone. Its … stigmatization of the heroic war effort as worthless gave the Northern millions an image of the Democratic Party they could never forget….and would cost the party votes for a generation."
Remember Senator Harry Reid's infamous proclamation declaring that "the war is lost"?
Cartoon: Ramirez. A Texas-sized tip o' the hat to Larwyn
Sunday, November 18, 2007
CNN's purges its "Protect CliNtoN" debate transcript
CNN's Democratic debate last week -- hosted by Wolf Blitzer -- appears to be nothing more than an infomercial designed to shield Hillary Clinton from tough questions. All six of the "ordinary people, undecided voters" who were selected by CNN to ask questions appear to be Democratic operatives.
Update: Received an anonymous message that deserves attention:
I guess in a city of almost 2 million, CNN couldn't find just one stay-at-home minivan mom, a cocktail waitress, an insurance salesman, a plumber, a bank manager, or even a librarian in the audience to ask their scripted questions.
What a sham. This was nothing more than an over-produced infomercial. No genuine exchange of political ideas.
Line o' the Day: Giving white trash a bad name
Don Surber:
"Agents of Sen. Hillary Clinton are spreading the word in Democratic circles that she has scandalous information about her principal opponent for the party's presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, but has decided not to use it..."...The reality is that the Clintons are so dirty, so sweaty from the sewer that they are the last people in the nation who can sling mud... What possibly dirt can they have that is worse than their dirt?
Is Obama having affairs with staffers, groping widows or sending state troopers to procure women?
Has Obama lied under oath?
Has Obama taken money from agents of communist governments?
Is one of Obama's top fund-raisers a convicted felony and fugitive from justice?
Has Obama accepted money in exchange for presidential pardons?
Are Buddhist monks and nuns being used to launder campaign money from friends in Hollywood?
Has Obama dug up any 40-year-old affairs to leak to the press?
Is he hiding 3 million pages of public record from the public?
The problem with the Clintons is that they give white trash a bad name.
And that's the problem with Surber: he's so guarded and circumspect that it's hard to tell what he's driving at.
Oh, about the picture. I have no idea how that got in there.
Blogosphere highlights you can't afford to miss!
The Dema Sutra explains all of Hillary's many positions
* Chapter 2: On immigration.
* Chapter 3: On Iran.
* Chapter 4: On the solvency of Social Security.
* Chapter 5: On NAFTA.
If you can keep all of these positions straight, you may have a future in Pro Chess.
The Contenders: Pickens vs. Kerry for $1 million
Sen. John Kerry, whose 2004 presidential campaign was shredded by critics of his Vietnam War record, said Friday he has personally accepted Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens' offer of $1 million to anyone who can disprove even a single charge of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
In addition, Pickens proposed a counter-challenge: "If you cannot prove anything in the Swift Boat ads to be untrue, that you will make a $1 million gift to the charity I am choosing -- the (Congressional) Medal of Honor Foundation."
I'm looking forward to seeing Kerry's magic hat from his tippity-top secret "Christmas in Cambodia" mission.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
All six of CNN's "undecided voters" were Democratic operatives
UPDATES BELOW - CNN hits bottom and digs: All six debate questioners appear to be Democratic Party operatives. So much for "ordinary people, undecided voters". To paraphrase Junior Soprano, CNN is so far up the DNC's hind end, Howard Dean can taste hair gel.In a nutshell, CNN's six "undecided voters" were:
A Democratic Party bigwig
An antiwar activist
A Union official
An Islamic leader
A Harry Reid staffer
A radical Chicano separatist
Wow. This looks "rather" like a scandal. Hot Air:...You’d think the network’s audience might want to know who among the questioners has had a paid, formal relationship with the party.
...I went back to the beginning of the debate to see how Blitzer introduced the format. Did he offer any details on who’d be doing the questioning? Why, yes. After mentioning that the debate was sponsored by the national party — something likely understood by most viewers as a mere formality — he described them as “ordinary people, undecided voters.” Note: not even “undecided Democrats.” Just undecided.
Word on the street is that Hillary's staffers are extremely pleased with CNN's Wolf Blitzer for his softball questioning of Sen. Clinton during Thursday's Las Vegas debate. Blitzer "was outstanding, and did not gang up like Russert did in Philadelphia. He avoided personal attacks, remained professional and ran the best debate so far."
Who were the questioners upon whom Blitzer called? According to CNN, they were "ordinary people, undecided voters.” Like these folks:
Plant #2: Khalid Kahn, who expressed concern about profiling and the Patriot Act, asked "[m]y question is that -- our civil liberties have been taken away from us. What are you going to do to protect Americans from this kind of harassment?" Classical Values notes that Mr. Kahn is the president of the Islamic Society of Nevada, who has hosted conferences like this one (with guest speakers like Muzzamil Siddiqi). In fact, Kahn in no stranger to CNN, appearing on a show called Keeping the Faith in Sin City.
This spring she will serve as the political communications intern for Senator Harry Reid in Washington, D.C. Currently a junior at UNLV, Maria is... is an immigrant on a quest to become a United States citizen.
In other words, she's not even eligible to vote, unless the Democrats changed the rules when I wasn't looking (Added later: Commenter wjb states that "Maria Parra-Sandoval was sworn in as U.S. a citizen in Las Vegas by Magistrate Judge Lawrence R. Leavitt in March 2006." So presumably she really is eligible to vote).
Update II: rumors are flying of a fifth plant. An anonymous commenter at Gateway Pundit writes that the "50-ish lady who 'asked" her memorized question was a union offical. Gee, lucky she got in!" Judy Bagley, a 27-year cashier at Fitzgerald's was quoted in RGT Online (a gaming magazine) in an article about Culinary Workers Union Local 226's collective bargaining agreement.
Update III: Judy Bagley was definitely a fifth plant. An anonymous email alerts me to this portion of the debate transcript:
Obama: Well, first of all, Judy, thank you for the question, and thanks for the great work you do on behalf of the culinary workers, a great union here.
Update IV: an anonymous email alerts me to a possible sixth and final plant. George Ambriz is an Executive Director of the ¡SÃ Se Puede! Foundation and is a recruiter at UNLV. His bio states:
George joins our team from Douglas, Arizona, having earned his associate’s degree in administration of justice from Cochise College in 2000. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in political science and criminal justice from Western New Mexico University. He is currently completing a master’s degree in ethics and policy studies at UNLV. He plans to pursue doctorate and law degrees, practice corporate law, and become active in politics.
Care to guess which party's politics George is active in?
Jeannie Jackson wrote a supportive note on the Mother Jones website. She's active on the site of Soros front group Americans United for Change and hangs out at Dem site Think Progress. She also had a harsh antiwar letter published in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Andy's snarky question: "Just another undecided voter I guess. Right?"
Update VI: A commenter at LGF provides an insightful summary:
Wow this is a scandal.
A Dem activist from Ark
An anti-war activist
A union activist
An Islamic leader
A Harry Reid staffer
All being presented by CNN as undecided voters.
Update VII: An anonymous email alerts us to Kahn's background as a heavy Democratic contributor (e.g., $2000 to Harry Reid earlier this year):
Update VIII: Another helpful email points us to lefty blogger Live from Silver City:
Ambriz was just before my time at WNMU, but I later met him in Las Vegas at a model United Nations conference. Like me, Ambriz was heavily involved in student government and other clubs while at WNMU — he served as president of MEChA...
What ic MEChA?
From all appearances, MEChA wants to overthrow the United States government. The American Patrol has more.
In a discussion board post, George Ambriz states "my name is George R. Ambriz, former student of Western New Mexico University, more importantly, a former M.E.Ch.A. President... we worked in sync... with the local and state Democratic Party to inform many people about the importance of voting..."
Update IX: An alert reader notes that Catherine Jackson and Jeannie Jackson -- both Mothers of Iraq War vets -- may have been mistaken for each other by several bloggers, yours truly included. More info to come.
Update X: A pro-Obama blog links to this story and offers some additional insights:
A conservative blogger reports that the “Diamonds vs. Pearls” questioner was a former staffer for Nevada Democratic Party Chair, Harry Reid. Reid’s son heads Hillary Clinton’s Nevada campaign.
LaShannon Spencer, the woman who asked about court judges, is a high-level staffer for the Arkansas Democratic Party and has been so since the 1990s. Bill and Hillary hail from Arkansas.
Update XI: It appears CNN has removed Ms. Spencer from their copy of the transcript!
Dan Riehl also notes that of 1,000 tickets given to UNLV, a measly one hundred made it to students.
I'm glad CNN randomly selected ordinary people like you and me. We wouldn't want anyone to think that Hillary was shielded from all of the tough, grueling questions that Tim Russert asked.
Seriously, it looks like CNN and Hillary's staffers (but I repeat myself) really had this thing rigged from the get-go to avoid a Russert-esque browbeating.
Hat tip: Larywn. Instapundit, Gateway Pundit and Jammie Wearing Fool were on this from the very start. And even the New York Times is criticizing CNN's Hillary bias.
Linked by Instapundit, Ace of Spades, American Thinker, Captain's Quarters, Dan Riehl ("you can't spell Clinton without CNN"), Dr. Sanity, Ed Driscoll, Gateway Pundit, Jammie Wearing Fool, Jawa Report, National Review's Campaign Spot, Patterico's Pontifications and Polipundit. Thanks!
Notes: Captain's Quarters and the NRO are somewhat underwhelmed with the magnitude of the controversy. Frequent commenter jpm100 put it best when he said:
It isn't that they are Democrats.
It's that their careers are either with the Democratic Party or need a good Relationship with the Democratic Party.
They basically could be counted upon to softball Hillary because their careers depended on it.
Axis of Idiots
Now that the Democratic primary is heating up, J. D. Pendry's post from 2006 is worth revisiting (hat tips: Sgt. Kirk and Larwyn).
Jimmy Carter, you’re the father of the Islamic Nazi movement. You threw the Shah under the bus, welcomed the Ayatollah home and then lacked the spine to confront the terrorists when they took our embassy and our people hostage. You’re the runner-in-chief.
Bill Clinton, you played ring around the Lewinsky while the terrorists were at war with us. You got us into a fight with them in Somalia, and then you ran from it. Your weak-willed responses emboldened the killers. Each time you failed to respond adequately they grew bolder, until 9/11.
John Kerry, dishonesty is your most prominent attribute. You lied about American Soldiers in Vietnam. Your military service, like your life, is more fiction than fact. You’ve accused our Soldiers of terrorizing women and children in Iraq. You called Iraq the wrong war, wrong place, wrong time, the same words you used to describe Vietnam. You’re a fake. You want to run from Iraq and abandon the Iraqis to murderers just as you did the Vietnamese. Iraq, like Vietnam is another war that you were for, before you were against it.
John Murtha, you said our military was broken. You said we can’t win militarily in Iraq. You accused United States Marines of cold-blooded murder without proof. And said we should redeploy to Okinawa. Okinawa John? And the Democrats call you their military expert. Are you sure you didn’t suffer a traumatic brain injury while you were off building your war hero resume? You’re a sad, pitiable, corrupt and washed up politician. You’re not a Marine sir. You wouldn’t amount to a pimple on a real Marines butt. You’re a phony and a disgrace. Run away John.
Dick Durbin, you accused our Soldiers at Guantanimo of being Nazis, tenders of Soviet style gulags and as bad as the regime of Pol Pot who murdered two million of his own people after your party abandoned South East Asia to the Communists. Now you want to abandon the Iraqis to the same fate. History was not a good teacher for you, was it? See Dick run.
Ted Kennedy, for days on end you held poster sized pictures from Abu Grhaib in front of any available television camera. Al Jazeera quoted you saying that Iraq’s torture chambers were open under new management. Did you see the news this week Teddy? The Islamic Nazis demonstrated real torture for you again. If you truly supported our troops, you’d show the world poster-sized pictures of that atrocity and demand the annihilation of the perpetrators of it. Your legislation stripping support from the South Vietnamese led to a communist victory there. You’re a bloated fool bent on repeating the same historical blunder that turned freedom-seeking people over to homicidal, genocidal maniacs. To paraphrase John Murtha, all while sitting on your wide, gin-soaked rear-end in Washington.
Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Carl Levine, Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein, Russ Feingold, Hillary Clinton, Pat Leahy, Chuck Schumer et al ad nauseam. Every time you stand in front of television cameras and broadcast to the Islamic Nazis that we went to war because our President lied. That the war is wrong and our Soldiers are torturers. That we should leave Iraq, you give the Islamic butchers – the same ones that tortured and mutilated American Soldiers - cause to think that we’ll run away again and all they have to do is hang on a little longer.
American news media, the New York Times particularly. Each time you publish stories about national defense secrets and our intelligence gathering methods, you become one with the sub-human pieces of camel dung that torture and mutilate the bodies of American Soldiers. You can’t strike up the courage to publish cartoons, but you can help Al Qaeda destroy my country. Actually, you are more dangerous to us than Al Qaeda is. Think about that each time you face Mecca to admire your Pulitzer.
You are America’s axis of idiots. Your Collective Stupidity will destroy us. Self-serving politics and terrorist abetting news scoops are more important to you than our national security or the lives of innocent civilians and Soldiers. It bothers you that defending ourselves gets in the way of your elitist sport of politics and your ignorant editorializing. There is as much blood on your hands as is on the hands of murdering terrorists. Don’t ever doubt that. Your frolics will only serve to extend this war as they extended Vietnam. If you want our Soldiers home, as you claim, knock off the crap and try supporting your country ahead of supporting your silly political aims and aiding our enemies. Yes, I’m questioning your patriotism. Your loyalty ends with self. I’m also questioning why you’re stealing air that decent Americans could be breathing. You don’t deserve the protection of our men and women in uniform. You need to run away from this war – this country. Leave the war to the people who have the will to see it through and the country to people who are willing to defend it.No Commander in Chief, you don’t get off the hook either. Our country has two enemies. Those who want to destroy us from the outside and those who attempt it from within. Your Soldiers are dealing with the outside force. It’s your obligation to support them by confronting the axis of idiots. America must hear it from you that these people are harming our country, abetting the enemy and endangering our safety. Well up a little anger please, and channel it toward the appropriate target. You must prosecute those who leak national security secrets to the media. You must prosecute those in the media who knowingly publish those secrets. Our Soldiers need you to confront the enemy that they cannot.
They need you to do it now.
J.D., apologies for quoting the whole thing, but it's too good to cut into soundbites.
Eliot ("I'm a f****ing steamroller") Spitzer gets flattened
Eliot ("I'm a f***ing steamroller") Spitzer was just pounded flatter than a tater-tot stashed under Michael Moore's mattress. The Washington Post reports that Spitzer has (ahem) reconsidered his plan to issue drivers licenses to illegal aliens ("Spitzer Drops License Plan, But Damage to Democrats is Done"):
After all the hoopla, N.Y. Gov. Eliot Spitzer is dropping his plan to provide driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. But the damage to the Democratic presidential candidates - and, overwhelmingly, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton - is done.Clinton waffled on the question of whether she supported the Spitzer proposal during an Oct. 30 debate that has haunted her in the weeks since. In her answer that night, Clinton both defended and objected to the idea of giving permits to undocumented residents...
Word has it that Hillary's staffers were madder than hornets at Spitzer and forced his hand. Why? Because any issue where she is forced to explain her true position is certain to upset the vast majority of American people. And this issue can't be triangulated: it's either "Yes, I support drivers licenses for illegals" or "No, I don't."
These kinds of questions are the ones that Hillary despises because they force her to take a stand. And taking a stand is certain to result in the Queen Triangulator's defeat.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Michael Yon: Come Home
This generation's Ernie Pyle is Michael Yon. He describes a stunning scene in Baghdad that you will never, ever, ever see reported in today's mainstream media.
Today, Muslims mostly filled the front pews of St John’s. Muslims who want their Christian friends and neighbors to come home. The Christians who might see these photos likely will recognize their friends here. The Muslims in this neighborhood worry that other people will take the homes of their Christian neighbors, and that the Christians will never come back. And so they came to St John’s today in force, and they showed their faces, and they said, “Come back to Iraq. Come home.” They wanted the cameras to catch it. They wanted to spread the word: Come home. Muslims keep telling me to get it on the news. “Tell the Christians to come home to their country Iraq."
If you don't start to tear up reading his report, well, I'm not sure you're human.
Go to Michael's site and give him a couple of bucks. He has absolutely no support from the mainstream media, so it's up to you and I to fund his incredible reporting.
Reid goes Commando on the troops
Whether it's trying to cut off funding for the troops... or declaring the "war is lost" just weeks before the war was won... or simply demoralizing the U.S. military, Harry Reid's mission is clear:
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Hillary's Pardons-for-Cash
Jammie Wearing Fool points us to a troubling ABC report ("Hillary Clinton Takes Cash From Recipients of Husband's Controversial Pardons"):
Three recipients of controversial 11th-hour pardons issued by former President Bill Clinton in January 2001 have donated thousands of dollars to the presidential campaign of his wife, Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., according to campaign finance records examined by ABC News, in what some good government groups said created an appearance of impropriety...
Of course, word has it that debate moderator Wolf Blitzer was warned not to 'pull a Russert' (ask Hillary tough questions). So I'm imagining the following scene at tonight's debate.
Hat tip: Larwyn
Rather: CBS execs covered up for Bush
If you need additional proof that Dan Rather is 100% bat-s**t crazy, I think it's arrived in a gift-wrapped box. The Democracy Project notes:
CBS says it takes an absence from reality to take Dan Rather’s lawsuit against CBS seriously... [his assertion] that he was dismissed in a widespread conspiracy to cover up for Bush among CBS’ liberal management. In CBS’s response to New York’s Supreme Court, the network says as much:The Complaint is predicated on allegations of a bizarre 'scheme' extending from the White House to an array of CBS executives including Sumner Redstone, CBS's Executive Chairman, Leslie Moonves, CBS's Chief Executive Officer, and Andrew Heyward, formerly president of CBS News, all of whom, according to Rather, colluded to harm Rather's reputation and keep him off the air," add CBS lawyers. "Of course, there was no such nefarious scheme, and Rather's allegations bear no resemblance to reality. CBS and its executives are not now, and never have been, out to get Dan Rather."
CBS also says, "If we are required to proceed beyond this point, we will defend the case vigorously and demonstrate that the lawsuit is wholly without merit, and that the bizarre allegations by Mr. Rather are untrue."
...The Silicon Alley Insider, a NY digital business blog, comments: “The company took the predictable stance: Dan Rather was once a great man and a valued colleague. It's too bad he has since gone insane.”
LGF's classic animated memo that ended Rather's employment at CBS told us that long ago.
Rather believes that a typewriter from the seventies could produce a document precisely matching one created in Microsoft Word. Oh, and that CBS is pro-Bush. Both assertions should be enough to have the poor soul committed.
Tim Russert's Devastating "Character Attack" on Hillary
After Hillary's disastrous debate performance in the last debate, the Clinton machine went on the warpath:
“This campaign is about issues, not on who we can bring down and destroy,” a senior Clinton aide told cyberjournalist Matt Drudge. “Blitzer should not go down to the levels of character attack and pull ‘a Russert.’ ”
"Pull a Russert"?
Let's examine Russert's devastating character attack in more detail. Here, from the official MSNBC transcript, are all of Russert's questions to Clinton:
Tim Russert: Senator Clinton, rebuttal?
Russert: Senator Clinton?Russert: We're going to get to Social Security in a little bit, but I want to stay on Iran, Senator Clinton... As you know, you voted for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, the only member of the stage here who did that...
Senator, Jim Webb of Virginia said it is for all practical purposes mandating the military option, that it is a clearly worded sense of Congress that could be interpreted as a declaration of war... Why did you vote for that amendment which would -- calls upon the president to structure our military forces in Iraq with regard to the capability of Iran?
Russert: I want to ask each of you the same question. Senator Clinton, would you pledge to the American people that Iran will not develop a nuclear bomb while you are president?
Russert: But you won't pledge?
Russert: But, they may.
Russert: Senator Clinton, elsewhere in the region, let's talk about Iraq. One of your military advisers, retired Lieutenant General Claudia Kennedy, while campaigning for you in New Hampshire, was recently quoted saying, quote, "I don't oppose the war. I have never heard Senator Clinton say 'I oppose the war.'" Senator Clinton, do you oppose the war in Iraq?Russert: Senator Clinton, I'd like to follow up, because in terms of your experience as first lady, in order to give the American people an opportunity to make a judgment about your experience, would you allow the National Archives to release the documents about your communications with the president, the advice you gave? Because, as you well know, President Clinton has asked the National Archives not to do anything until 2012.
Russert: But there was a letter written by President Clinton specifically asking that any communication between you and the president not be made available to the public until 2012. Would you lift that ban?
Clinton: Well, that's not my decision to make, and I don't believe that any president or first lady ever has. But, certainly, we're move as quickly as our circumstances and the processes of the National Archives permits.Russert: Senator Clinton, please.
Russert: Senator Clinton, I want to clear something up which goes to the issue of credibility. You were asked at the AARP debate whether or not you would consider taxing, lifting the cap from $97,500, taxing that, raising more money for Social Security. You said, quote, "It's a no." I asked you the same question in New Hampshire, and you said "no." Then you went to Iowa and you went up to Tod Bowman, a teacher, and had a conversation with him saying, "I would consider lifting the cap perhaps above $200,000." You were overheard by an Associated Press reporter saying that. Why do you have one public position and one private position?
Russert: But you did raise it as a possibility with Tod Bowman?Russert: You call it a Republican talking point. Georgetown University, February 9, 1998: "We are in a -- heading to a looming fiscal crisis in Social Security. If nothing is done, it will require a huge tax increase in the payroll tax or a 25 percent in Social Security benefits," Bill Clinton, 1998.
That's recent history. Only two years to go in his term. Is that a Republican talking point?
Russert: I'd like to talk about taxes. Senator Clinton, I'd like to start with you. Because the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Charlie Rangel, is a strong supporter of your campaign. He wants to repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax. But he also wants to have a 4 percent surtax on a single $150,000 income or $200,000 married couple. You went to Harlem with your husband, with Charlie Rangel. And the former president said, quote, "Charlie Rangel wants me to pay more taxes so you can pay less and I think that's a good idea." Is that also your view?
Russert: So in principle, you would be in favor of looking at a 4 percent surtax?Russert: But you will not campaign on the Rangel plan?
Russert: Thank you, Brian. Senator Clinton, Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer has proposed giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. He told the Nashua, New Hampshire, Editorial Board it makes a lot of sense. Why does it make a lot of sense to give an illegal immigrant a driver's license?
Russert: Senator Clinton, I just want to make sure of what I heard. Do you, the New York senator, Hillary Clinton, support the New York governor's plan to give illegal immigrants a driver's license? You told the New Hampshire paper that it made a lot of sense. Do you support his plan?
Russert asked the same questions that would be asked of any other candidate.
That's what the Clinton Machine calls a "character attack."
Come to think of it, that's about as accurate as everything else related to her campaign.
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