Clinton: scrutinizing that experience
Posted: Friday, March 21, 2008 9:09 AM by Mark Murray
Filed Under:
2008, Clinton
The Washington Post uses the release of Clinton's White House schedules to look at her experience claims. "On March 22, 1999, Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived at the Itihadiya Palace in Egypt for what her schedule said was a ‘courtesy call with President Mubarak.’ Aides blocked out 9 a.m. to 9:15 a.m. Then she embarked on visits to a mosque, museum, clinic, bazaar, youth center, groundwater project, university and the Temple of Luxor. Almost exactly nine years later to the day, Clinton's trip to Egypt offers a case study of her foreign policy role during her husband's presidency. While traveling across North Africa, she devoted little time to heads of state and negotiated no agreements, but instead met community leaders, explored local issues and culture, hit major tourist sites and gave speeches on women's rights and other topics important to her.”
“Whether that has made her ‘tested and ready’ to be president from the first day, as she now claims, is a burning issue on the campaign trail." More: "While Clinton's advertisements have boasted that she is best prepared for a 3 a.m. crisis phone call, the schedules contain no evidence that Clinton was at the table during major national security decisions. They do not list her as attending National Security Council meetings or joining briefings in the Situation Room. She did not have a national security clearance. And the documents make clear that at moments of major crisis, Clinton was often busy with her own agenda."
The Obama camp seized on the NAFTA campaigning Clinton did during her husband's push for the trade pact's passage in '93. The news was revealed in her White House schedules released on Wednesday.
The New York Times reports, "[T]his week, Mrs. Clinton’s electability argument has taken on a new dimension that for her and her advisers is both discomfiting and unpredictable, but also potentially helpful. Some Democrats are now looking at the racially incendiary and anti-American remarks of Mr. Obama’s longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., and wondering if that association could weaken Mr. Obama as a nominee. Clinton advisers have asked their allies not to talk openly about the issue, for fear it could create a voter backlash and alienate black Democrats. They also say Mr. Obama, of Illinois, is in enough trouble over Mr. Wright that they do not need to foment more — and, besides, cable television is keeping the issue alive."
More: "Despite the complications and risks of engaging on the issue, some allies of Mrs. Clinton said they were privately pushing the issue with key party members to lift her candidacy. And at least one prominent surrogate of hers has gone off message: Lanny Davis, a former Clinton White House lawyer, has publicly challenged Mr. Obama to answer questions about his views on racist speech and Mr. Wright."
Both Clintons have been barnstorming Indiana this week.
The Obama campaign released a photo of Rev. Wright and Bill Clinton. Why? Here's the campaign back-and-forths on the photo... "Less than 48 hours after calling for a high-minded conversation on race, the Obama campaign is peddling photos of an occasion when President Clinton shook hands with Rev. Wright," a Clinton campaign spokesman said.
"To be clear, President Clinton took tens of thousands of photos during his eight years as president."
The Obama campaign shot back, accusing the Clinton team of pushing the Wright story to knock Obama's lead in the race to become the Democratic presidential nominee. "After their top surrogates pushed this storyline, and Senator Clinton's campaign outlined this as a central strategy in her plan to overturn the will of Democratic voters, I can see why they wouldn't want a photo out there that shows the kind of hypocrisy we've all come to expect from their campaign," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in an e-mail."
