NYT article DEBUNKS Hillary's claims of experience!!!

[futureliveshere]

This great article from NYT (how did this happen) completely shatters any claims that Clinton had about her great experience dealing with global issues of any importance.

Excerpts:

On supporting her claims on experience:

The documents offer no support for her claims, made during the presidential campaign, that she helped to negotiate the Irish peace accords or facilitated the flow of refugees in the Balkans. Neither is there evidence in them to back up her claim that she helped pass the Family and Medical Leave Act, the first legislation Mr. Clinton signed as president. The legislation, sponsored by Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, sailed through Congress and landed on Mr. Clinton’s desk 10 days after he was inaugurated. Indeed, on the day Mr. Clinton signed the bill into law, Feb. 5, 1993, there is no indication on that day’s calendar that she attended.

On her 80 country passport-filling visits where she dealt with snipers, major foreign policy issues etc:

They show Mrs. Clinton representing the nation at ceremonial functions in dozens of foreign visits, attending formal White House functions and sitting to be photographed for magazines.

On some of her claims regarding the most important"speech" of her life:

In her autobiography, Mrs. Clinton writes that she received intelligence briefings prior to going to China in September 1995 to deliver her landmark women’s rights speech. But no such meetings appear on the calendars released on Wednesday.

Well, what more can I say when the paper that endorsed HRC comes out and throws cold water on her claims of vast experience preparing her for the most un-preparable job in the world.

edited to add the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/us/politics/19cnd-archives.html?ref=politics

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. I'm reminded of every affirmative action argument I've ever heard.

Involving a white applicant, and a black applicant, essentially equally qualified.

[futureliveshere]

10. Equally qualified!!!

Please take a look at the legislation passed and bills sponsored by the 2 candidates and you will see the profoundly unequal qualifications right away.

[roguevalley]

33. do I have to look at the imaginary stuff too?

[Johnny__Motown]

46. True, Sen. Obama has held elected office longer than Hillary, he does have a much more impressive

list of accomplishments

[niceypoo]

73. Why doesn't Obama run on his accomplishments instead of running a negative campaign?

All he ever talks about is Hillary.

[goletian]

27. affirmative action, historically, has aided more white women than any other minority...

...but to address your flawed suggestion, you have to consider the positions these two politicians have taken. hillary has chosen to run on experience, an argument mccain wins without question - even hillary has made the mistake of placing mccain above herself in this context. obama has chosen to run on moving forward, cutting ties with the old. theres just no comparing the two stances - obamas leads to long term victory, hillarys does not. hillary could have done a lot better, but when she chose the experience argument, she did herself in.

[krkaufman]

47. Hey, do you know Barack Obama personally?

'cause he spent some time talking about you on Tuesday.

[hisownpetard]

68. !!!

:hi:

[NNN0LHI]

2. And Saddams Drones Of Death are on the way here too

[Hawkeye-X]

3. This needs to be shouted far and wide - SO much for her "35 years of experience"

Thank you NYT - K&R!

[roguevalley]

34. and the NYT is now dead to a lot of people here, hawkeyeX

LOL!

[bicentennial_baby]

4. Huh...how about that...

:)

[JVS]

5. I'm glad that Obama has enough class not to talk about himself and McCain bringing lifetimes of...

experience to the table, while Hillary is a n00b

[krkaufman]

49. Well, Obama has the judgment to know McCain needs to be kept away from the White House ...

... and the decision to go to war, and also the judgment to recognize that either of the Democratic nominees would be preferable to McCain.

[zulchzulu]

6. "Mrs. Clinton writes that she received intelligence briefings"

She has ZERO security clearances for the NSA or otherwise while First Lady. So if she was briefed on intelligence with China, it's ILLEGAL.

Maybe someone can ask her that little teensy weensy question...

[bunnies]

7. And perhaps Bill should answer that too.

hmmm.

[Divernan]

23. But White House interns (Monica) have to get security clearances!

Google White House Intern Program and "security clearance" and you'll find that upon being accepted into the program interns must get security clearances. Hillary was evidently the only person in the White House (other than visitors) who did not get a security clearance.

Here is an excerpt of a piece in the The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar /19/hillaryclinton.uselections20081

On the day that dozens of US cruise missiles rained down on Serbia in an attempt to punish Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic for the country's onslaught against ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo, first lady Hillary Clinton was far from the White House war room: instead she was touring ancient Egyptian ruins, including King Tut's tomb and the temple of Hatshepsut. And on the day before the signing of the Good Friday agreement in Belfast she was at an event called "Hats on for Bella" in Washington. The Clinton campaign claimed on Wednesday that the release of the papers would show Clinton to have been an influential advocate at home and around the world on behalf of the US. But the documents from her office in the White House threaten to undermine her claim to have played a major role in Clinton's foreign policy decisions.

For instance, Clinton has said she helped negotiate the April 1998 Good Friday agreement between warring factions in Northern Ireland. But while Catholic and Protestant figures hashed out last-minute details of a power-sharing agreement in Belfast, Clinton was at the National Press Club in Washington at a party honouring Bella Abzug, a congresswoman from New York City who had died recently. While President Clinton phoned major participants in the peace talks, she met with Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and joined a farewell party for Democratic operative Karen Finney. On the day the agreement was actually signed, she met with Philippine first lady Amelita Ramos.


There are other key foreign policy dates when the record is not so clear: on the day the presidents of three Balkan states signed a peace agreement in Dayton, Ohio, in November 1995, ending years of ethnic violence in the former Yugoslavia, Clinton's file lists no public schedule for that day, but indicates she was in Washington.


Bruce Lindsey, a Little Rock attorney and long time Clinton confidant, vetted the pages prior their release. He and national archives staff checked the documents for information sensitive to national security and law enforcement matters. Nearly a third of the pages have redactions, most of which the archives said were made to protect the privacy of Clinton's associates. The redacted material includes home addresses, telephone numbers and social security numbers, the archives said.

Christopher Farrell, director of investigations and research with Judicial Watch, the organisation behind the two-year-long legal effort to win the documents' release, said he doesn't anticipate finding any "smoking gun" within the reams of pages. He said Lindsey "has enormous discretion" to redact information potentially damaging to Clinton's White House bid. "My expectations are quite low."

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

8. she's FAKE FAKE FAKE

AND SHE FAILED TO STAND UP AND STOP BUSH FROM SENDING US INTO A WAR
THAT KILLED MILLIONS OF INNOCENT PEOPLE, MEN WOMEN AND CHILDREN.

[Life Long Dem]

56. A fake, phoney, lier, dishonest donut eater all rolled into one!

Kickity kick kick

[Cali_Democrat]

9. Hopefully the media will finally see Hillary for the fraud that she is

Riding the coattails of her cheating husband. They don't have a loving and true marriage, its a marriage of convenience, a business partnership so to speak.

They will do anything to get the White House, including tearing the Democratic party apart. They know they can't win the nomination through the will of the people and they don't care. Their lust for power is insatiable.

[DearAbby]

16. Her Marriage has nothing to do with this conversation

that being said...What experience does she have? 35 yrs she claims. I dont see it.

[Cali_Democrat]

19. Her marriage with Bill Clinton has everything to do with why she's pursuing the nomination

She is claiming Bill Clinton's experience as her own experience.

[DearAbby]

31. I conceed that...but I dont care what

arrangements were for their marriage...that is their business. To claim success of another person, is valid, it has nothing to do with CHEATING HUSBANDS or why they remained married, or got married in the first place. That has nothing to do with the conversation.

[delt664]

64. Fixed.

To claim (the) success(es) of another person, is dishonest,

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

71. so she can finally divorce his butt ?

cause I think that's what they were waiting for.

[JeanGrey]

11. Of course, why do you think they stalled?

But now she is saying "I did it under cover" ROTFLMAO

[futureliveshere]

12. Undercover my ass!!!

Can you imagine HRC doing anything undercover?? Thats more Bubba's style. :rofl:

[Tom Rinaldo]

13. Then again you can believe this story instead

"Hillary Clinton Schedules Show Drop in Policy Role"
James Rowley and Edwin Chen
1 hour, 54 minutes ago

March 19 (Bloomberg)

...During 1993 and much of 1994, Clinton met almost every weekday with health-care advisers or key lawmakers. Her schedules document a grueling itinerary of trips to hospitals and health- care conferences around the U.S. where she met with elected officials and spoke with patients and doctors....

...To be sure, Clinton carried out an important foreign-policy mission for her husband in 1995 when she traveled to the Chinese capital of Beijing to speak to an international conference on women. She used the occasion to speak out forcefully on human rights, cataloguing a litany of abuse that has harmed women around the world and criticizing China for trying to limit an open discussion on women's issues.

Private Meetings

During a March 1996 trip to Europe, Clinton met privately with the acting president of Bosnia, Ejup Ganic; Turkish President Suleyman Demirel; Turkish Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz; Greek President Konstantinos Stephanopoulos and Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis.

At the start of her husband's second term in January 1997, schedules show her attending programs honoring the arts and humanities. In early February of that year, she led a White House conference on extending so-called microcredit to women trying to start small businesses in poor nations. The summit was attended by leaders from underdeveloped nations."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20080319/pl_bloomberg/apxk2pxqjqgo

[tabasco]

14. Failed health care effort.

- A speech in China.
- Grip and grins with some Turks and Greeks.
- Cutting the ribbon at some museums.

WOW! That's some ENORMOUS 35 years of experience there!

[OzarkDem]

20. You oppose health care reform?

Interesting, but not surprising coming from an Obama supporter.

[Drachasor]

35. I oppose trying to get health care reform in a boneheaded manner

Hillary's attempt to get it was atrocious. Closed doors, no debate and work with democratic leaders, and many other mistakes ruined her effort.

You need to do it up front, have all interested parties and the American people participate as much as possible. Have all meetings both in the congress and elsewhere public (both on tv and recorded and available on the internet). Have public forums for people to discuss the problem and various aspects of proposed legislation. Have everyone come together and WORK on a solution without secrets. (Btw, that's Obama's plan).

[roguevalley]

37. you amaze me that you can extrapolate 'opposing health care

reform' from his remark about the obvious: her health care initiative failed. It failed.

[Name removed]

44. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[CoffeeCat]

52. Interesting that you bring up health care reform...

The plan that she spearheaded, completely failed, on so many levels.

This was her pet project, and instead of bringing many people into the fold, she
clenched her fingers around the plan and insisted on controlling everything. She
held most of the health care strategy meetings in secret, behaving like a little
elitist who didn't need anyone but the select few that she had chosen.

She crafted much of the plan in secret, and she left out key Democrats who could have
helped her leverage and sell the plan.

Ultimately, her plan was demonized and positioned as "socialized medicine" by the right-wing
hate, radio media. Her secrecy and lack of transparency enabled those "Harry and Louise"
to take root.

Pretty soon, the public turned against Hillary's idea, and she didn't have enough support
on Capitol Hill to get the plan off of life support--because she didn't coalesce a real
team around the idea.

Hillary Clinton had some good ideas. However, she threw it all away because she was
myopic, self-centered, secretive and she was too impressed by herself to see that she
was setting herself up to fail.

She may have had some good ideas. However, that failed health care plan--which didn't even
make it out of the starting gate--demonstrated Hillary's poor leadership, an inability to inspire
others, a lack of transparency, sub-par organizational/communication skills and gross
negligence when it comes to understanding the consequences of really bad planning decisions.

Geez. Sounds exactly like she's run her campaign.

[acmavm]

67. You know all this from personal experience? Wow, I'm impressed!

[Recursion]

54. I oppose failing at health care reform so disastrously...

...that the cause is set back for decades. I oppose coming up with a health care plan after close door meetings with insurance companies and presenting a massive giveaway to them to Congress as a fait accompli and then being shocked -- SHOCKED -- that they aren't on board.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

21. she had 8 years and failed, in fact set the Health Care issue backwards

she made things worse by her fumbling.

[OzarkDem]

26. and you would be wrong about that

Clinton was attacked by a $300 million advertising campaign launched by insurance and pharma companies. Her actual plan was good.

But I suspect you already know that.

I have first hand knowledge of working with her on health care issues after that, up until the end of Bill's second term. As the article states, after being vilified by the right wing media and the insurance industry's ad campaign, Clinton took a lower profile in her work in Bill's administration. She knew her public profile in any project would immediately bring it under attack.

She worked behind the scenes on many of these programs. I know, I and many others saw her do it.

[Drachasor]

38. She failed, you admit it

She couldn't win against an advertising campaign because he strategy to get health care was wretched.

In any case, if you think her public profile on any project brings it under attack, how do you think she'll be able to handle health care reform as President? How has she proposed accomplishing this goal that will overcome the problems she faced earlier?

[roguevalley]

39. so, she tried. but it failed.

[wileedog]

59. So what?

"Clinton was attacked by a $300 million advertising campaign launched by insurance and pharma companies. Her actual plan was good. "

And you think this won't happen again? I thought she was a "fighter"?

[odelisk8]

62. how about this?

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/03/20/7798/

[futureliveshere]

24. She has some experience

Come on, I am not saying she has NO experience. Its just that the mega, mountain-moving, president-in-waiting experience that she claims to have gathered when she was first lady is proven incorrect. No wonder she waited so long before releasing these docs.

[MADem]

25. And then, there's this salient point as well

The schedule is ``only a guide for her service as first lady and is far from an exhaustive compendium of her work,'' Clinton spokesman Jay Carson said today. ``Phone calls, impromptu meetings, conversations with staff or officials, strategy sessions and other events are not a part of the schedules, and much of the work in the White House is done in these ways.''

The schedules contain numerous references to private meetings, and they don't disclose the instances in which she advised her husband.

[monmouth]

15. She didn't even have security clearance did she?....n/t

[MADem]

17. No, the article does not do that. It just says that the doc dump hasn't provided any

elucidation.

That's not the same as "debunking."

Valiant effort, though.

There's "no evidence" that OJ or Robert Blake killed their wives, either.

Oh, if you want to be taken SERIOUSLY, do provide a link when you cite something. That way, it doesn't LOOK like you are "cherry picking" to suit your own purposes.

Here's the link, and some of the context you, er, avoided: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/us/politics/19cnd-archives.html?ex=1363665600&en=6c09eda3eef82c2f&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

There are redactions — blacked-out sections — on more than 4,400 pages, and on many days there is an entry for a “private meeting” that gives no clue as to whom she met or what the meeting was about. ...The dry records carry all the emotional punch of a factory worker’s time card, showing where she was for much of her eight years in the White House but telling nothing about what she was saying, thinking or doing.

....Of course, a public calendar is not necessarily a sound measure of a person’s private influence. But even meetings that she writes about in her book do not appear in the calendar — including several in 1998, for example — and there are numerous fund-raising events that came to light through other means that do not appear in the records.

That suggests the records aren't terribly precise. OR that she kept anything not specifically and directly related to her "First Lady" duties on a PRIVATE calendar (which isn't in the public domain, like it, or not)--if these activities were recorded at all.

[futureliveshere]

22. I did add a link

Guess it took some time to show.

[futureliveshere]

32. Thats BS dude

When you stake your presidential claim on the 3 events that make you the most experienced (or so you claim)
1. Negotiating the Irish peace talks
2. Opening the borders at Kosovo and
3. Giving the speech in China

then one would expect that your presidential records/papers would have SOME mention of that. Besides she is the one who decided what would and wouldn't appear in her records. No one forced her to leave anything out.

Are you trying to tell me that Hillary would leave something that painted her in a positive light and gave substance to her claims of experience OUT of her records. No fucking way man, and if you believe that then I have a riverside property in Arizona I would like to sell you.

[MADem]

40. So you think. I think you're wrong.

You know, when you're trying to be "cool" and make smartass comments like the one you have rather DRAMATICALLY bolded at the end of your post, you really should make an analogy that demonstrates improbablity or impossibility--not something that is pedestrian and likely.

The old "bridge for sale" chestnut is good. But riverside property? ... if you believe that then I have a riverside property in Arizona I would like to sell you.

I'm afraid you made an ass of yourself with that one. You can buy riverside property, along the Colorado, in fact, in Arizona at this realtor: http://www.realestatebhc.com/

There's also a town called "Riverside" in AZ.

So, if you don't have said property, it's not like you're cleverly shopping an impossibility, but simply that you're a prevaricator.

And that is a reflection on YOU.

So, whatever.

:eyes:

[futureliveshere]

58. Hmm.. I partly agree

I concede that point and maybe I spoke too soon about that riverfront property. Apologies for that.

But you really picked on the most irrelevant part of my response. Could you give me an intelligent reason for why there is nothing in her papers to back her 3 most important foreign policy experience claims? And if there was and she blacked it out - Why the hell would she do that?

[MADem]

70. A serious reply

Because I have worked at the highest levels of government, in the Defense Department. I've seen thousands of those "public schedules" for senior military and civilian (to include executive branch) personnel.

And I know full well that a "public schedule" is quite frequently--more often than many realize--a load of crap. The purpose of said schedule isn't to TOUT what you are doing, often as not, it's a handy little smokescreen that you distribute to the press so they THINK--as an example--- you're in a mundane little briefing or staff meeting when you're actually meeting with a delegation of Tawainese military leaders (shhhhhh...can't tell CHINA!!!) who slipped in the side door in civilian clothes.

Ask yourself this question, honestly--if Clinton's schedule, handed out every morning in the WH press room, reflected ANYTHING other than mundane, First Lady-type duties, how long would it have been before Faux Snooze started beating the drum and SCREAMING that this "unelected woman" was "conducting foreign policy" and that "The Clintons" were behaving like royalty?

Remember when George "Turkey Boy" Bush turned up in Eye-rack for Thanksgiving? I'm guessing his public schedule said something like "Working Vacation--Crawford White House." Not "Put on baseball caps, hop into SUV with Condi, snuggle like a "regular married couple," head to airport, jump on AF1, and fly through the night to Baghdad." I'm guessing Dick Cheney's little "surprise" side trips in the past several months to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Qatar and so forth weren't on his "public schedule." And I'll bet all those "Iraq Study Group" meetings didn't turn up on his schedule, either.

I can't speak decisively about the redactions--I can't see them, either. But it could be that the "other parties" named in the four thousand plus pages of redacted material requre that 'cover' for national security reasons or even political ones (which can be construed over here as national security--it's important not to interfere in the political landscape of other nations) and they don't want THEIR crews (within government and/or the general population) to know that they were being used as a conduit to the President via the First Lady.

Those schedules ARE just a ballpark guide. They are handy for blocking out a day and not overtasking, but they're also not very accurate as a rule.

[Az_lefty]

18. Hillary's full of it. Why anyone is fooled by her is beyond me.

[BumRushDaShow]

28. As expected. The "experience" is vaporware.

:eyes:

I remember all the news reports about that China trip, which was a cover - all while China's MFN status was being finalized.

[Scurrilous]

29. K & R

:thumbsup:

[futureliveshere]

30. Thank you

[Hepburn]

36. To be perfectly frank, as I read about how Hillary has been proven..

...to again be telling large untruths, two words came to mind: "Lying Bitch."

And...I would post that opinion of her except for the fact that I do not wish to insult lying bitches by stating that Hillary is one of their group.

JHMO

[delt664]

65. People lie. What blows my mind is how poorly she does it.

And how many people buy into it.

And Obama supporters are the ones "Drinking the Kool-Aid"? Yeah, right.

[DeadElephant_ORG]

41. OMG. The bigger you lie the farther you fall . "35 years" MY F--ING ASS !

[Barack_America]

42. More like 3.5 years.

As it turns out. :eyes:

[DeadElephant_ORG]

72. LOL Holy sh#t that's a good meme. Did you invent that? "3.5 years"

[Genevieve]

43. hil-LIAR-y

LIAR.

I don't understand what her supporters think they are supporting. :shrug:

[XemaSab]

45. This article brings a salty tear to my eye....

It's either that or allergies. :crazy:

[Cha]

48. Pat Oliphant doesn't think much of

hilary's claim either.

[Divernan]

50. Joe Paterno to retire! Wife Sue to become new head coach for Nittany Lions!

The opportunities for cartoonists are endless.

[musicblind]

51. ALSO from the New York Times article, TO BE FAIR... they provide support for Mrs. Clin

TO BE FAIR, In the very first paragraph of the article they state: "In some ways, they provide support for Mrs. Clinton’s assertion that she played a central public and private role in the policies of the Clinton Administration."


I feel like your post has a particular agenda in mind in order to persuade other people to see things they way that you do???


The article made points that were both negative AND positive towards Sen. Clinton.

[futureliveshere]

61. That first paragraph is very vague

There is not much clarification of the "some" ways, and this would really be a non-issue if she had refrained from contrasting her experience with Barack's to such a large extent. She even promotes McCain and compares her experience with his. Hanoi hilton vs posing for photographs? Thats a sure way to win I guess?? :sarcasm:

So that makes her papers key to the whole experience claim. She has provided very little proof to back her 35 years of president-in-waiting experience. When you stake your presidential claim on the 3 events that make you the most experienced (or so you claim)
1. Negotiating the Irish peace talks
2. Opening the borders at Kosovo and
3. Giving the speech in China

then one would expect that your presidential records/papers would have SOME mention of that. Besides she is the one who decided what would and wouldn't appear in her records. I will support her if she becomes the nominee but I really don't think she is electable if front of McCain, which is a major reason why I am supporting BO.

[AgadorSparticus]

53. FINALLY her so called experience is questioned.

[futureliveshere]

66. Yes..finally

[Kaotac]

55. Very sad.

Can't help but wonder if there were any Neocons or Republicans involved in the release. It's a Gov't agency, isn't it? And the Bushies like filling every position with their buddies, right?
Just wouldn't put too much faith in them.

[catgirl]

57. The NYT should have done their homework sooner

They could have spared us this drawn out primary.

[hisownpetard]

69. Journalism has reached an all-time low.

[AnarchoFreeThinker]

60. Thanks, NYT, for checking all this out before fucking endorsing her.

[vinylsolution]

63. Hillary's a fraud

Finally, some reality creeps in and the MSM starts to do its job. A shame they've been asleep for the last 8 years....