Captain America

The Clinton Sunday Show Blitz

By Patrick Healy
September 23, 2007, 2:20 pm

Hillary Rodham Clinton on “Meet the Press” (Photo: Alex Wong/”Meet the Press”)

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton rarely does the Sunday morning talk show circuit, but she barnstormed all five of the major programs today to try to capitalize on the mostly positive reviews of her new health care plan – and to address some of the controversies in her campaign, such as her recently exposed fugitive fund-raiser.

The timing of her appearances was no accident: Mrs. Clinton and her advisers believe that she has entered the fall campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in a position of unusual strength. Today, therefore, seemed like a good moment to run the gantlet of the Sunday shows – a gauntlet that can be withering, and where Mrs. Clinton knew she would face strict scrutiny of her sharply changed positions on Iraq.

Mrs. Clinton generally did fine – there were no major gaffes, no flashes of a chilly or combative side. When Republican attacks were mentioned, she stuck to her trademark belly-laugh – though she overdid it a tad on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

There was no major news committed, but she did offer some illuminating details on a range of issues –- health care for illegal immigrants, Iraq and the Moveon.org controversy, public financing for political campaigns, Bill Clinton’s role in her administration, and the ugliness and dirty tricks she will not tolerate in her political camp.

Senator Clinton appeared on “This Week,” “Fox News Sunday”, “Face the Nation and “Meet the Press” this morning. She was also on CNN’s “Late Edition.” (Photos: ABCNews.com, Fox, via AFP/Getty Images, CBS.com, Alex Wong/”Meet the Press”)
Conservatives are going to have to do the same go gung ho on getting on just as many programs as she did.

Her comments about one of her top campaign fund-raising bundlers, Norman Hsu, a ’90s-era fugitive who now faces new fraud charges, only repeated the talking points that her advisers have offered: She did not know he was a con man, he fooled dozens of campaigns, she has instituted criminal background checks for major donors, etc.

She did say, on ABC News’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” that she might co-sponsor a bill introduced by a rival for the Democratic nomination, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, to provide public financing for campaigns.

“I’m going to co-sponsor anything that looks like it can move us in that direction, because my view on this is we’re not going to get anything done at this point with the president, with, unfortunately, a Republican minority that engages in filibustering, but we’re going to try to build a commitment to doing it,” she said.

She also said that, if she were president of Columbia University, she would not have extended an invitation to the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to speak there on Monday as part of a World Leaders Forum on campus.

“Well, if I were a president of the university, I would not have invited him. He’s a Holocaust denier. He’s a supporter of terrorism. But I also respect the right in our country to make different decisions,” she said on CNN’s “Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer.”

And she also disavowed the political shot at her Republican rival, Rudolph W. Giuliani, that one of her supporters, former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, took when he said recently that Americans beyond New York would soon learn about his three marriages and his wobbly relationships with his two children.

“Governor Vilsack has said that he was wrong in saying that and I agree, he was — we are not running a campaign that goes down that road,” Mrs. Clinton said on ABC. “We’re trying to stay focused on the issues, stay focused on the differences between me and the Republicans.”

Now, as for the aforementioned illuminating details, here are the highlights for those of you who were not planted on your couch and DVR-ing madly this morning:

On Iraq, Mrs. Clinton refused to pledge to withdraw all troops from Iraq within her first term. Appearing on “This Week” – the first of the five that she taped, shortly after 8 a.m. – Mrs. Clinton said of a withdrawal pledge:

“You know, I’m not going to get into hypotheticals and make pledges, because I don’t know what I’m going to inherit, George. I don’t know and neither do any of us know what will be the situation in the region. How much more aggressive will Iran have become? What will be happening in the Middle East? How much more of an influence will the chaos in Iraq have in terms of what’s going on in the greater region? Will we have pushed Al Qaeda in Iraq out of their stronghold with our new partnership with some of the tribal sheikhs or will they have regrouped and retrenched? I don’t know and I think it’s not appropriate to be speculating.”

She also said flatly on “Fox News Sunday” that she would not vote for any future Iraq war spending bill that does not include plans to withdraw troops.

As for her own plans to keep at least some troops in Iraq for narrowly tailored missions, she continued to be vague about the number of troops who would remain in country, but did say on CBS that her missions would require fewer than 100,000 troops.

On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Tim Russert confronted Mrs. Clinton over her full-throated support for a military threat to Iraq in 2002; her comments in support of the war during its first two years; and her old view, two years ago, that setting a hard deadline for withdrawing troops would be irresponsible and be a boon to terrorists.

Mrs. Clinton defended her support for a hard deadline now, saying that one was needed to force a policy change in the Bush administration and to protect the troops. Mr. Russert’s rundown of contradictory Clinton statements made Mrs. Clinton look like a changeling on Iraq, as has been widely documented before. But she mostly kept the focus on the future, and refused to give in and tell Tim that her ’02 vote authorizing military action in Iraq was a mistake.

“You know, we can talk about 2002 or we can look forward to what is a continuing involvement in a sectarian civil war with no end in sight, and I believe its imperative that we try to create a political consensus to move the president and the Republicans in Congress to extricating us from this civil war,” she told Mr. Russert.

Her views about the top American commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, came up on two fronts.

She said on CNN that she agreed with General Petraeus that Iran was supplying weapons to allies in Iraq that end up killing American soldiers – a point that she then turned against the Bush administration.

“I believe that Iran is playing a very dangerous game in Iraq in supporting all kinds of groups, to attack our forces, to destabilize the Iraqi government, to further their goals in Iraq,” she said. “So this is one of the results of the policies that have been pursued by the Bush administration, that Iran is in a much stronger position today than it was, and we’ve got to have a united international front against Iran, and most especially against Iran acquiring the capacity for nuclear weapons.”

She was also asked, on several shows, if she condoned or condemned the recent advertisement by Moveon.org in the New York Times that called General Petraeus “General Betray Us.”

She was pointedly asked on Fox if she repudiated the Moveon.org ad; she refused to use that language, but she criticized the ad on multiple shows and noted on CNN that she voted to condemn it – a vote she took on a Democratic resolution that criticized the Moveon.org ad and other attacks on uniformed soldiers, officers, and veterans. A Republican alternative resolution, which she voted against, passed overwhelmingly.

“I don’t condone it; I voted to condemn it,” she said on CNN.

On health care, Mrs. Clinton said that illegal immigrants would not be covered under the universal health insurance proposal that she unveiled last week. Her advisers had said last week that they were not sure illegal immigrants would be covered, but Mrs. Clinton has said in the past that her plan would not provide full benefits to illegal immigrants.

“No, they would not be covered,” Mrs. Clinton said on “This Week.” “I will continue to have a safety net, which I think is in the best traditions of our country and, also, for public health reasons, absolutely necessary.”

She also said, more plainly than usual, that former President Bill Clinton would not have the sort of policy-making role in her White House that she had in his during their health care reform effort in 1993-94.

“No, no,” she said when asked, on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” whether her husband would have any policy-making role in her White House. “And among the many lessons that I have learned, we want to be sure that the president, my husband, does whatever he can, just as I tried to do whatever I could, and I think he has a very special and important role in reaching out to the rest of the world.”

Back over on Fox – where, about a year ago, See Video President Clinton tussled notably with his interviewer, Chris Wallace – Mr. Wallace recalled that interview and asked Mrs. Clinton, “why do you and the president have such a hyperpartisan view of politics?”

Mrs. Clinton gave that chuckle of hers again and said, “Oh, Chris, if you had walked even a day in our shoes over the last 15 years, I’m sure you’d understand. But, you know, the real goal for our country right now is to get beyond partisanship.”

Asked on NBC if she was too polarizing to win the presidency, Mrs. Clinton gave a rote response – recalling the Republicans and independents who supported her in her 2006 Senate re-election race – and then added:

“Anyone who gets the Democratic nomination is going to be subjected to the withering attacks that come from the other side. I think I’ve proven that I not only can survive them but surpass them,” she said.

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Hitting All the Sunday Talk Shows, Clinton Says a Lot but Reveals Little

By Anne E. Kornblut
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 24, 2007; Page A04

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton appeared on all five talk shows yesterday morning and demonstrated a particularly senatorial skill: the art of the filibuster.

Asked by ABC's George Stephanopoulos whether she would withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq during a first term as president, Clinton (D-N.Y.) gave a simple answer: She did not know.

But she used more than 225 words to say so. "You know, I'm not going to get into hypotheticals and make pledges, because I don't know what I'm going to inherit, George. I don't know and neither do any of us know what will be the situation in the region. How much more aggressive will Iran have become?" Clinton said. "What will be happening in the Middle East? How much more of an influence will the chaos in Iraq have in terms of what's going on in the greater region? Will we have pushed al-Qaeda in Iraq out of their strongholds with our new partnership with some of the tribal sheiks or will they have regrouped and retrenched?"

She continued: "I don't know, and I think it's not appropriate to be speculating. I can tell you my general principles and my goal. I want to end the war in Iraq. I want to do so carefully, responsibly, with the withdrawal of our troops, also, with the withdrawal of a lot of our civilian employees, the contractors who are there, and the Iraqis who have sided with us.

"We have a huge humanitarian refugee crisis on our hands. We have millions of Iraqis who have been displaced, some internally, some into other countries. The problems we're going to face because of the failed policies and the poor decision-making of this administration are rather extraordinary and difficult, and I don't want to speculate about how we're going to be approaching it until I actually have the facts in my hand and the authority to be able to make some decisions."

Clinton did two hours of interviews by remote from a furnished barn in her back yard in Chappaqua, N.Y., part of an aggressive media blitz in the week after she offered up her plan for universal health-care coverage. Her campaign expressed pride that she had driven the news agenda, forcing even President Bush to talk about health insurance.

Her trip through the Sunday gantlet was designed to solidify the impression that Clinton is strong, indomitable and all but inevitable as the Democratic nominee and next president.

Clinton showed her lighter side, laughing uproariously when asked by Fox News's Chris Wallace why she and her husband have such a "hyperpartisan view of politics."

"Well, Chris, if you had walked even a day in our shoes over the last 15 years, I'm sure you'd understand," Clinton said. Her answer drew swift condemnation from the Republican National Committee, which issued a statement saying that "apparently Hillary Clinton believes the serious issues facing our nation are a laughing matter."

Clinton drew other questions -- about her former donor Norman Hsu, and about remarks her surrogate, former governor Tom Vilsack of Iowa, made about Republican front-runner Rudolph W. Giuliani's three marriages. Clinton distanced herself from Vilsack's comments.

"We are not running a campaign that goes down that road," she said.

Above all, though, in a morning of appearances that yielded virtually no news, Clinton illustrated her ability to talk. And talk. And talk.

"Well, Tim, I'm proud that we tried in '93 and '94," Clinton said, asked by NBC's Tim Russert on "Meet the Press" about her earlier attempts on health care. "We were trying to do the right thing. Obviously, we made a lot of mistakes. But I am proud that we set a goal of trying to provide health care to every American. And I didn't quit. . . . I was very involved in passing the [State] Children's Health Insurance Program and getting vaccines for kids to be immunized and making sure that the drugs that they took were appropriately tested for children. . . . So this has remained a passion of mine. But I've also learned a lot of lessons."

She continued, as if delivering her health-care speech for a second time: "This is not government-run health care; it does not create any new bureaucracy. In fact, it is very clear in saying that if you are satisfied with the health care you have, then you keep it. . . . But if you're one of the 47 million Americans without health insurance, or one of the many millions that have health insurance except when it comes time to get the care that your doctor says you need, and the insurance company refuses payment, then you are going to have access to the same health choices menu that members of Congress do. I proposed that back in '93, '94, and ran into a firestorm of opposition from the Congress. But I think a lot has changed in the last 14 years. A consensus has developed about what we need to do to try to reach quality, affordable health care."

She went on, uninterrupted: "So among the many choices that will now be available to Americans, similar to what are available to members of Congress, we will have a public plan option for people who wish to choose that. If it is outside the reach of people -- because remember, Medicaid will still take care of the very poor, we will still have the Children's Health Insurance Program for children. But if it is out of the reach of affordability, we're going to have health-care tax credits for individuals, and we're going to try to provide some health-care tax credits as well to small businesses."

She continued for several more minutes, saying, among other things, that a consensus had developed, that the automobile industry is now in favor of a health-care overhaul and that her plan "builds on what works in America, but takes aim at what doesn't and comes up with some very common-sense ways of trying to fix our problems."

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Now lets see what the Leftist Lunatics have to say.

Clinton: Cut Iraq Funding To Force Change

Hillary Clinton Says U.S. Troops Can't "Referee" A Civil War In Iraq
Sept. 23, 2007
Clinton on Face The Nation

Clinton On Iraq
Sen. Hillary Clinton tells Bob Schieffer that there is no military solution
in Iraq and that American troops cannot referee the country's sectarian violence.

(CBS) Congress should stop funding the Iraq war to force President Bush and the Iraqi government to "change course," Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., said Sunday on Face The Nation.

"No matter how heroically and dedicated the performance of our young men and women and their officers are in Iraq - which it has been - they cannot referee successfully a sectarian civil war," Clinton told Bob Schieffer. "So I voted against funding last spring. I will vote against funding again in the absence of any change in policy."

President Bush has said that, by setting deadlines for withdrawal and cutting funding, Congress will embolden America's enemies. Clinton, however, said, "The idea that our having a policy that reflects the reality on the ground will embolden enemies, I think is off base. They have been emboldened by the policies pursued by this administration."

The junior Senator from New York pointed to continued nuclear development by Iran and North Korea - and reported cooperation between Syria and North Korea - as evidence of U.S. enemies growing stronger.

Clinton said, if elected president, she would set deadlines for withdrawing the majority of U.S. combat troops from Iraq, but said there would be a continuing American military presence in Iraq.

"I am committed to bringing the vast majority of our troops home, and I will begin to do that as soon as I am president," Clinton, the early front-runner for the Democratic nomination, said.

Clinton said she recognized "there will be remaining missions" for American forces in Iraq, but she said they would not require the roughly 100,000 troops expected to be in Iraq when the next president takes office. She listed counterterrorism, protecting U.S. personnel and training Iraqi forces as the other missions.

"That's the right way to go because that is a much clearer definition of what we're trying to accomplish than what we face today," Clinton said.

Mr. Bush has compared America's future in Iraq to the peacekeeping role U.S. troops play in South Korea, where they have been stationed for some five decades, but Clinton said that she would review the basis for Mr. Bush's plans.

"I'm going to call my secretary of defense, my joint chiefs of staff, my security advisers to give me a full briefing on what is the planning that has gone on in the Pentagon," she said. "You know, planning hasn't exactly been a strong suit of the Bush administration."

John Harris, the Editor in Chief of politico.com, noted that, while Clinton was presenting a strong platform for her presidential campaign, she was leaving herself plenty of wiggle room.

"You can see her preserving her options," Harris told Schieffer. She's not promising figures or saying that we're going to have a complete exit in January of 2009. That's something a future president wants to do: preserve flexibility."

David Sanger, chief Washington correspondent for The New York Times, said that Clinton's plans for Iraq sounded very similar to President Bush's.

"It's a very small difference, and when you tick off the tasks she said the troops would do while she was president - if that happened - counterterrorism, protection of the Kurds, training of the Iraqi army and then protecting us against Iran, that's a big set of tasks," Sanger said. "And it's very hard when you talk to Pentagon people to have them figure out how you do that with fewer than 100,000 troops."

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DownWithTyranny Now that is an Oxymoron if ever I heard of, it is more like they are for Tyranny than against it.