Media Again Misrepresenting Hillary's Record & Positions

by Damozel |  Sigh. Now that she's apparently going to be SoS, all the old discarded slurs are being dragged out and dusted off for recycling.  Thrifty!  Yes, she's baaaack:  eeevil, scheming Hillary Clinton!  Re this delightfully cryptic post from Mike Memoli at Ambinder's blog:

A delightfully cryptic comment issued earlier from Hillary Clinton's Senate office, following the simple headline, "STATEMENT" (On what? one might ask)...

New York Times, among others, says she'll resign her Senate seat to accept Pres-elect Obama's offer to be Secretary of State.

We'll deal with the gossipy bits first.  After that, we'll examine her voting record and the policies she has supported.

HILLARY THE DIVA. So what of Hillary, soon-to-be Secretary of State?  Has she been throwing her weight around, playing the foreign policy diva?  So it is reported.  And since I love Hillary, I say (laughing Britishly) ha bloody ha!  Take that, varlets!  Little did ye wot when you knocked her down and kicked her repeatedly that Lady Hillary would bounce back in the patented Clinton fashion!  

Here comes the British press, full of what looks initially like a thrilling tale of palace intrigue with purges and the screams of traitors.

As usual, the allegations turn out to be disappointingly free of detail or substance or even visible drama. 

Oh, sure it sounds exciting. But that's only till you read the whole piece.

The advisers who helped trash the former First Lady's foreign policy credentials on the campaign trail are being brutally shunted aside, as the price of her accepting the job of being the public face of America to the world. (Independent)

Sadly,  the said "brutal shunting" consists mainly of Hill's requiring assurances that she could appoint her own staff and have direct access to Barry O.  She doesn't want to work with Obama advisers who mocked her during the primaries.  Wow.  How...ruthless.

In negotiations with Mr Obama this week before agreeing to take the job, she demanded and received assurances that she alone should appoint staff to the State Department. She also got assurances that she will have direct access to the President and will not have to go through his foreign policy advisers on the National Security Council, which is where many of her critics in the Obama team are expected to end up.

The first victims of Mrs Clinton's anticipated appointment will be those who defended Mr Obama's flanks on the campaign trail. By mocking Mrs Clinton's claims to have landed under sniper fire in Bosnia or pouring scorn on her much-ballyhooed claim to have visited 80 countries as First Lady they successfully deflected the damaging charge that he is a lightweight on international issues (Independent)

Yeah.  It's not all that clear to me how she could work successfully with the very people who publicly questioned her credentials. 

As to this---""It would be dreadful if only Clinton loyalists worked at State and Obama loyalists at the N.S.C.", as someone said to the reporter---that also sounds distinctly bollocky to me.  They are all Obama loyalists now, presumably---and if it proves otherwise, Barack "Sun Tzu" Obama has not only the upper hand but the lower one as well.  He can give her the push any time he likes. 

HILLARY THE ALLEGED CENTRIST.  But the biggest load of nonsense?  Hillary isn't liberal enough for the people who voted for Obama. 

The transition team has policy as well as personality concerns. Mr Obama's allies on the left, who think themselves responsible for his victories over both Mrs Clinton and John McCain, are in despair at the long line of ex-Clinton administration officials awarded top jobs in the Obama team and rumours that he will keep Bush-appointee Robert Gates as Defence Secretary.

Mr Obama also incurred their wrath for intervening to protect the Senate committee chairmanships of Joe Lieberman, the Democrat who supported his Republican rival John McCain.(The Telegraph)

All during the campaign, anyone who looked into either candidate's platform would have seen that---if anything---Obama's advisers and stance on issues was very slightly more rightward-tilting than Hillary's.  Nobel winning economist Paul Krugman noted that her health care plan was more progressive than his. 

[H]ere’s a modest suggestion for political reporters. Instead of trying to divine the candidates’ characters by scrutinizing their tone of voice and facial expressions, why not pay attention to what they say about economic policy?...

In fact, recent statements by the candidates and their surrogates about the economy are quite revealing....

On the Democratic side, John Edwards, although never the front-runner, has been driving his party’s policy agenda. He’s done it again on economic stimulus: last month, before the economic consensus turned as negative as it now has, he proposed a stimulus package including aid to unemployed workers, aid to cash-strapped state and local governments, public investment in alternative energy, and other measures.

Last week Hillary Clinton offered a broadly similar but somewhat larger proposal. (It also includes aid to families having trouble paying heating bills, which seems like a clever way to put cash in the hands of people likely to spend it.) The Edwards and Clinton proposals both contain provisions for bigger stimulus if the economy worsens.

And you have to say that Mrs. Clinton seems comfortable with and knowledgeable about economic policy. I’m sure the Hillary-haters will find some reason that’s a bad thing, but there’s something to be said for presidents who know what they’re talking about.

The Obama campaign’s initial response to the latest wave of bad economic news was, I’m sorry to say, disreputable: Mr. Obama’s top economic adviser claimed that the long-term tax-cut plan the candidate announced months ago is just what we need to keep the slump from “morphing into a drastic decline in consumer spending.” Hmm: claiming that the candidate is all-seeing, and that a tax cut originally proposed for other reasons is also a recession-fighting measure — doesn’t that sound familiar?

On Sunday Mr. Obama came out with a real stimulus plan. As was the case with his health care plan, which fell short of universal coverage, his stimulus proposal is similar to those of the other Democratic candidates, but tilted to the right.

"For example, the Obama plan appears to contain none of the alternative energy initiatives that are in both the Edwards and Clinton proposals, and emphasizes across-the-board tax cuts over both aid to the hardest-hit families and help for state and local governments. I know that Mr. Obama’s supporters hate to hear this, but he really is less progressive than his rivals on matters of domestic policy. (New York Times)

Want more?  Hillary promised action on NAFTA; after following her lead, Obama backed off.  Here's an excerpt from Fortune:

Obama's tone stands in marked contrast to his primary campaign's anti-NAFTA fusillades. The pact creating a North American free-trade zone was President Bill Clinton's signature accomplishment; but NAFTA is also the bugaboo of union leaders, grassroots activists and Midwesterners who blame free trade for the factory closings they see in their hometowns.

The Democratic candidates fought hard to win over those factions of their party, with Obama generally following Hillary Clinton's lead in setting a protectionist tone.

In February, as the campaign moved into the Rust Belt, both candidates vowed to invoke a six-month opt-out clause ("as a hammer," in Obama's words) to pressure Canada and Mexico to make concessions.  (Fortune)

She voted against telecom immunity; he voted for it.  

The vote in favor of the new FISA bill was 69-28. Barack Obama joined every Senate Republican (and every House Republican other than one) by voting in favor of it, while his now-vanquished primary rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, voted against it. John McCain wasn't present for any of the votes, but shared Obama's support for the bill. The bill will now be sent to an extremely happy George Bush, who already announced that he enthusiastically supports it, and he will sign it into law very shortly. (Glenn Greenwald)

HILLARY'S VOTING RECORD. In fact, here is a list of some of her votes (from Project Vote Smart) [via]

Some of Sen. Clinton's Votes (from Project Vote Smart)

Military, Wars & Contractor Fraud

• - Voted for rest periods for troops in Iraq & Afghanistan (Sep '07)
• - Voted to set up time lines for troop withdrawal from Iraq (Mar '07)
• - Voted to investigate contractor fraud in Iraq & Afghanistan (Nov '05)
• - Voted to increase veterans' health care funding (Nov '05)
• - Voted for habeas corpus for Guantanamo detainees (Nov '05)

Homeland Security:

• - Voted to implement 9/11 Commission recommendations (Jul '07)
• - Voted to restore Homeland Security grants that Bush cut (Mar '05)

Executive Branch Appointees

• - Voted for "No Confidence" re: Attorney General Gonzales (Jun '07)
• - Voted against confirming Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito (Jan '06)
• - Voted against confirming Supreme Court Justice John Roberts (Sep '05)
• - Voted against confirming Gonzales as Attorney General (Feb '05)
• - Voted against confirming Ashcroft as Attorney General (Feb '01)
• - Voted against confirming Gale Norton as Energy Sec. (Jan '01)

Energy & Climate:

• - Voted for alternative-energy funding (Jun '07)
• - Voted against EPA's loose standards on mercury emissions (Sep '05)
• - Voted to decrease dependence on foreign oil (Jun '05)
• - Voted for research on hydrogen cars (Jun '03)
• - Voted to prevent oil drilling at ANWR (Mar '03)

Jobs & Benefits:

• - Voted to increase minimum wage (Jun '06)
• - Voted to stop tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas (Mar '05)
• - Voted to protect workers' pensions (Apr '04)

National Debt:

- Voted against increasing limit of national debt (Mar '06)

Health Care:

• -Voted to expand SCHIP (Sep '07)
• -Voted to fund stem-cell research (Jul '06)
• -Voted against Medicare prescription drug act (Senate Roll call) (Nov '03)

Investor Protection & Corporate Fraud:

- Voted to increase SEC funding (Jul '02)

HILLARY THE LIBERAL.  Yep.  She looks like one of them dang ol' libruls to me.  Or even one of them crazy left-wing progressive types.

Or, as Jerome Armstrong says:

I got some interesting feedback from Obama supporters in the primary, earlier this year, over why they were supporting Obama over Clinton. My opinion, blogged much throughout the year, was that they were basically the same, as far as policy goes, and my only reason for choosing Clinton was because I was pretty sure she'd win, and Obama, not so much. Of course, when the markets melted down in September, and 90% of Americans said the nation was heading in the wrong direction by October, there was really very little that Obama could have done to lose the election, or for McCain to win the election.

Now, throughout the year, I was told that I didn't understand how Obama was different-- that he was really progressive and would change our foreign policy radically... and so on. It amazed me that, despite every indication from how Obama had voted and said about Iraq, Afghanistan and the mid-east, anti-war progressives believed differently. Well, reality is emerging...

My expecations of Obama are pretty much just what he is delivering....Despite campaign projection from a lot of progressives that Obama was different in regards to foreign policy, these are centrist Democrats on such matters that are going to be in the White House. Anyone that didn't realize that was deceiving themselves:

That's got the hallmark on it. 

But expect to hear the same old anti-Clinton rhetoric dragged out and dusted and put into operation again. Brilliant move by Obama:  we'll have another Clinton to kick around!

But one thing is clear:  Barack Obama thinks she's up to the job and wants to keep her close.  (Else he's setting her up to knock her down, which would make him way more Machiavellian than she ever was the longest day she lived.)

Seriously though.  Can't we all just shut up and let Obama get on with it before we start whinging that he's letting us down?  Nah.  What's political blogging for, if not to let politicos know we've got our eye on them?

Heh.  The GTL ain't happy.  We love the GTL and are sorry that Hillary keeps bouncing back up in his face like one of those clowns they make for kids to punch, all "Yah yah yaaaaah!"

Memeorandum:  they gots more.

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