Hillary Clinton is insufficiently strident in her opposition to Bush

[Stevendsmith]

and therefore earns my contempt. Any Democratic lawmaker who chooses the road of risk-aversion and watered-down "opposition" to this gang of lying, torturing, criminal swine is immoral.

I watched Hillary on MTP yesterday and was disgusted by her total lack of outrage that the current occupants of the White House have lied this country into war and have now set their sights on destroying social security. In my opinion, Hillary Clinton is a craven, opportunist retch. Every last Democrat should be in full-throated opposition to the Bush-GOP agenda, a la Robert Byrd.

Piss off, Hillary. You are an enabler of neocons.

The Democratic Party leadership is diseased.

(Edited from the party is diseased)

[trumad]

1. I'm a Democrat and you're telling me my party is deceased!

Piss off!

[wildmanj]

2. hillary

amen bro---u hit the nail smack dab on the head

[Vincardog]

3. Sad to say it but you are right. Hillary had the chance to oppose

the Idiot bu$h and took a pass. She couldn't represent when it came to Rice and Gonzales. She will not represent in 2006 or 2008. We have to have leadership with a spine.

[AlinPA]

4. I agree; sucking up to McCain doesn't help at all.

[democracyindanger]

5. Whose party?

Her party? Our party? Certainly not your party, the way you refer to it. So thanks for the outsider's unrequested diagnosis.

[Old and In the Way]

6. And your party is.........................?

Just remember, my friend, when you make your condemnations, you also, by inference, insult every member of the Party.

But I do so love, righteous, holier-than-thou posts like this.

[Stevendsmith]

8. I am a Democrat that is disgusted with my party leadeship (NT)

[dmkinsey]

9. Hmm,yeah

wasn't sure if this was sarcasm. Decided it's not.

[Stevendsmith]

10. Holier-than-thou?

How does my disgust with corporatist Bush enablers make-me-holier than thou?

[Old and In the Way]

23. Are you doing anything about it or just complaining?

Your post wasn't about Bush, it was about Hillary. Moving the goalposts?

[Stevendsmith]

25. Huh?

Moving the goalposts?

I have not moved away from the subject of my original post.

I am disgusted that Hillary, the corporatist Bush-enabler, is not taking the fight to Bush.

What the hell?

[Old and In the Way]

57. Why not call all New York Democrats losers while you're at it.

They elected her, after-all.

[xiamiam]

7. she lost my support at the senate election hearings..

she can forget running for president...barbara boxer however has my deepest respect..and forget feinstein too...

[cry baby]

11. not constructive....doesn't do anything in getting us to where we need

to go.

[daydreamer]

12. Politician

If you want to be president, you have to appeal to everyone. If she had her way, many Americans would not have to file bankruptcy for the medical bills. I think she learned her lesson. The goal is the end not the means. If she can sweet talk the Rep. idiots into liking her, more power to her. The key is to have your handlers do the barking while you remain graceful all the time. That's how Bush won. We need to learn from that. Remember how Bush said he admired Kerry's service while his handlers attacked Kerry like dogs. That's the way!

[bush_is_wacko]

17. NO president in HISTORY has EVER appealed to EVERYONE. n/t

[daydreamer]

20. try

that's the word.

[bush_is_wacko]

35. Actually, those that were controversial INCLUDING bush were more often

re-elected and are still respected, Lincoln was hated by the south, FDR, Kennedy1,2,3 and 4, Reagan, and Bill Clinton...for chrissake he RAISED taxes but he paid down the debt in an astounding manner...he remains HATED. Ford, Carter, no real accomplishments no real controversy. Pacifist presidents just don't induce much love or hatred.

Clinton doesn't have a chance. I wish this party would realize that and just quit mentioning her possible candidacy. I actually think she realizes this anyway.

I feel the same way about Gore. He has nothing that grabs my attention. That is why so many people didn't fight for his legitimacy for a longer amount of time.

On Edit: Please don't read into this that I in any way support bushitler! I have worked to spread the word about this scum since the day I found out he was running for office!

[daydreamer]

71. Hated by 30% of the population is OK

Bush is hated too. But he bribed everybody in this country (every tax payer, every church) to try to appeal to them. You have to try to appeal to everyone to get the majority of the votes.

[Placebo]

13. Hillary '08

:)

[LiberallyInclined]

65. NO. FUCKING. WAY.

I will NEVER vote for her.

condi wins.

[bush_is_wacko]

14. I feel the same about her. She reserves her piss and vinegar

for her tenure in the White House and ,quite frankly, I think she has lost any chance she ever had of residing there again because of it.

There must be another skeleton in the Clinton closet she can't shake. I suspect there are quite a few Democrat's in the DC with the same skeletons. There sure are an awful lot of uncontroversial, quiet spoken, enablers, averting their eyes from the disaster this president has created and they reside on both sides of the aisle.

[LosinIt]

68. Oh, for Christ's sake, here we go, Looking for Clinton dirt again??

haven't enough millions of dollars been spent trying to bring down Bill and Hillary? I don't agree with he cow-towing to Bush either, but like was said above, she will have to keep the middle happy if she wants to have a chance at the Presidency. Let others take their pot-shots at Bush and let her remain above the fray.

I am just finishing Bill's book and it makes me so sick to realize all that he did for this country and how this illegitimate administration has torn so much of it down. Maybe Hillary can bring us back to sanity. It's a long time till 2008. If we live that long so much will have happened that the entire political landscape may have changed.

[leftyandproud]

70. This doesn't explain one thing. JOHN KERRY is also supporting Bush!!!!

I heard Kerry say the other day he is proud to support another $86 billion for Bu$h's plans...ALL OF OUR DAMN LEADERS have caved...They have all been bought by the corporate DLC and I agree with some others in this post...We no longer have a real party.

[bush_is_wacko]

74. No, I think they are all TERRIFIED of the Gannon/Guckert scandal

reaching it's full conclusion. MSM should be all over it but they are ALSO involved in it. There is probably some SERIOUS talks going on about the future of this country if all those implicated in all the different twists to this story are exposed. I think it is possible that Kerry and Clinton are either implicated or holding evidence about this scandal over the bush families heads!

[Sanity Claws]

15. I agree

I'm pissed at her latest statement about not setting a time table and her reasons. Why doesn't she say that Iraq is a mess because the Bush administration is a bunch of fuck-ups? That's the truth.

[oasis]

16. Hated by the far left, hated by the far right. Hillary's smack dab in

the middle. Those who have been paying attention know that "the middle" is where America is.

[Stevendsmith]

19. There is NEVER an excuse to not be truthful

To restrain the HORRIBLE truth about the Bush/GOP agenda in service of politics is immoral.

[oasis]

22. "Insufficiently strident in her opposition to Bush" was your complaint.

She handles herself with decorum and diplomacy. Admirable qualities.

In order to be "truthful" is it necessary to get in Bush's face?

[Stevendsmith]

24. Does she have to go WWF on Bush?

Of course not. But she has to tell the truth. It is a verifiable truth that this administration and its allies are criminal liars.

Enough mincing words.

The Dem leadership needs to STAND UP AND FIGHT.

Barbara Boxer knows this.

[oasis]

29. when did Boxer call the Bush Administration "criminal liars"? I must've

missed it. Seems it would have been all over Fox and CNN tha Boxer was a kook had she said that.

[Stevendsmith]

34. I don't expect the Dems to commit political suicide

But I expect them to use their powers of office to spell out in no uncertain terms that Bush and the GOP corrupt liars.

And fuck FOX and the MSM. We can't mute our voices for fear of the propaganda organs of the White House.

Look, I understand the need for an effective delivery of a political message, but there is a time to get angry--that can be done in an articlulate manner. Hence my example of Robert Byrd.

[oasis]

36. Hillary won't be committing political suicide so don't worry. Byrd, Boxer

and Durbin can speak out more because they are in position to do so (if you're voted out of office who's going to listen?)Hillary and other Dems have to moderate their criticism.

[dameocrat]

62. ehem the war isn't popular and she isn't a red state democrat.

.

[dameocrat]

26. She is hated by her own dlcers for god sakes

Look at Chris Matthews. Why in the world does she want to make those fuckers happy? I don't hate her, but she isn't smart, when she sucks up to habitual haters like the DLC dems, and I don't want her to be the Presidential nominee.

[oasis]

31. Name one person in leadership of the Democratic Party that has even

criticized Hillary. Haters??? can you offer any proof of that.:shrug:

[dameocrat]

37. The DLC not the DNC

Al From/TNR types that make up most of the punditocracy like Johathan Chait, and the other TNR people that get on all the chat shows, and make up most of the Washington establishment! Why embrace their politics when they are Hillary Haters?

[oasis]

38. Al From said what about Hillary?

[dameocrat]

40. The majority of pro dlc centrists in the media are Hillary

haters who will never ever like her, so it makes not sense to pander to them. They are From's mouth peices. If she can't win them over why fucking bother with her?

[oasis]

42. Are you going to provide us with specific quotes or links? So far it's

just your opinion with nothing to back up your claim.

[dameocrat]

54. OK

OK beginning with Johathan Chait, dlc to the core.

Why would this be such a disaster? Because, remember, the Dean campaign advanced two novel theories about national politics. The first was that Democrats paid too much attention to winning over the center. What they really needed to do was mobilize the base by nominating a candidate like Dean who'd fire up liberals. This turned out to be doubly wrong. Democrats were fired up enough that they didn't need a Howard Dean to inspire them to unprecedented enthusiasm. And a fired-up Democratic base, volunteering and donating at unprecedented levels, was not enough to win.

Second, Dean argued that Democrats didn't really need to engage the cultural issues that Republicans had long used to win white, working-class voters. Instead, Dean argued, it would be better to persuade culturally traditional whites to vote their economic self-interest. But of course, a candidate can't always decide for the voters what issues they should pay attention to. Economics is complicated. Cultural issues are visceral. The presidential election showed pretty decisively that Democrats can't get a hearing on their more popular economic platform if voters don't think their values are in the right place. A secular Yankee like Dean is about the worst possible candidate.

Unless, of course, the alternative is Hillary Clinton. OK, maybe she wouldn't be worse than Dean. But she surely would go down in flames if she won the nomination in 2008. President Bush owed his victory in large part to cultural division. If there's anybody who incites cultural divisions, it's Hillary Clinton...............

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-chait26nov26,0,6898890.column?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

There is one thing Chait is spot on with.

Clinton's supporters like to note that she's not as liberal as people think. That's exactly the problem. I can see the logic behind nominating a liberal whom voters see as moderate. Nominating a moderate whom voters see as liberal is kind of backward, isn't it?

Basically the exact same liabilities as Kerry. She is a moderate so lefties won't like her, and she is thought to be a liberal so moderates don't like her. Moderates are generally speaking more intuned with the punditocracy. They certainly aren't better informed for it however. They still think Saddam had WMD.

Here is Chris Mathews and co from this weekend as relayed by Digby.

Did anyone happen to catch the happy little hen party on Chris Matthews week-end show tonight in which Chris, Clarence Page, Kathleen Parker, Andrew Sullivan and Gloria Borger ripped Hillary for being a "castrating Bitch" and "Nurse Ratchet" replete with a full-on harpy imitation by Borger? I've never seen anything like this (at least where Ann Coulter and Nancy Grace weren't involved.) Then they sharpened their claws on Martha Stewart, Gloria saying that people will find her interesting because the less they see of her the more they like her. Everyone cackled wickedly as she went on to mock her potential good works on behalf of women prisoners. Andy snorted delicately.

Then they all pitched in on the Stalinists at PCU who are allegedly persecuting Larry Summers. Clarence tried valiently to make an argument but both Andy and Gloria were eyerolling and smirking to such a degree that Chris couldn't really keep a straight face. He told Gloria he liked the fact that she turned up her nose at this "PC nonsense." She lowered her eyes flirtatiosly, batted her lashes and veritably glowed with his praise.

I'm not exaggerating about the castrating bitch line either. Borger said that as the jews gave Joe Lieberman a lot of trouble so will the women give Hillary problems. (I don't remember the jewish community's Lieberman rebellion, do you?) And Chris agreed that the men sitting in their chairs watching television are all thinking "I'll never vote for this woman." He does admit, though, that women become less threatening when they get old.

What in the hell is wrong with these people? Are they regularly appearing on television drunk now? It was like watching a sketch on The Daily Show. Can we get Soros or somebody to pitch in and just pay them to stop? I'll donate....

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/

Gloria Borger recently chastised the Dems for their radical right turn in electing Dean to be DNC chair, labeling us as the party of "no"! and pimping DLC favorites Evan Bayh and Will Marshall as having the answers to the dilemma.

All well and good. But can't the Democrats walk and chew gum at the same time? Last I checked, voters in the 2004 election weren't sure what the party stood for. Given that problem, the old "give 'em enough rope" strategy to hang Republicans won't work--particularly if voters have no idea what a Democratic agenda looks like. "We're murky, obtuse, and ambivalent," says Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, a Democratic think tank. "The danger is that we let the tactical imperatives of opposing Bush lead us to the point of view that that's all we need to do."

Exactly. After all, since the Democrats have spent much of the past 30 years talking about saving an endangered Social Security system, how can they now say there is no problem? "If we become the do-nothing party, we become the default party," says Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, a "red state" Democrat. "We only win leadership when the other guys fail if we stand for nothing." Sure, he asks, "should the president be required to put forward a program first? Absolutely. But then should we have an alternative? Yes."

Eyeing the exits? But this isn't about solutions; it's about getting even. Democrats point to the success of Newt Gingrich and his revolutionaries, who opposed Hillary Clinton's healthcare reform plan--riding their opposition to a congressional House takeover. But they conveniently forget some important differences between 1992 and 2005: that Bill Clinton won with only 43 percent of the vote, that Gingrich also proposed an agenda-setting "Contract With America," that conservatives had already made progress with disaffected Democrats. Today, Democrats are losing support with working-class voters--most of whom trusted the president more than John Kerry to handle both terrorism and the economy. "They knew what Bush stood for," says Bayh. "We run the risk of losing our credibility if people don't know what we are for."

And it's not just on domestic policy, either. It's tempting for Democrats to say "I told you so" when CIA Director Porter Goss testifies, as he did last week, that the U.S. occupation in Iraq has become a handy recruiting tool for al Qaeda. Or to complain that a successful Iraqi election doesn't guarantee a defeat of the insurgents. But do the Democrats really want to rally behind the Ted Kennedy "bring the troops home now" refrain? "This is not the time for casting anxious glances towards the exits," writes Marshall in an open letter to Democrats.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/050228/opinion/28glo.htm

Clearly Borger and most of the other centrists that party with Cokie Roberts are a hopeless cause for Hillary, but her politics are designed to appeal to this type of centrist pundit.

Here is more notorious Chris Mathews Hillary hate.

http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/matthews.htm

It is a historical pattern on his part.


I could go on and on with centrist pro dlc pundits bashing Hillary but I don't have that much time. An entire website could be dedicated to it.

[oasis]

58. I'll agree only that Chris Matthews hates Hillary. Is Chris DLC??? I'm not

entirely convinced. Thanks for providing the links. :thumbsup:

[dameocrat]

60. He defends them all the time

so do all the other Hillary haters, like the TNR crowd that Sullivan and Chait represent. The centrists will never like Hillary as a group so why piss off progressives. Centrists are the least independently minded when it comes to bucking the pundits. That is why we ended up with Kerry. Pundits suck.

[forgethell]

18. Hillary is

positioning herself as a centrist for a run at the White HOuse. Only thus, she thinks, can she be elected in the general election. But first she has to get throught the primaries. Which she won't, as a centrist. Once again the Democratic party eats its own.

[dameocrat]

30. and since Chris Mathews is the ultimate dem centrist

how is sucking up to him and the other dlcers paying off, given the fact that they are the ones that hate her? She is not a good political strategists.

[forgethell]

39. I disagree.

I think she is a great strategist, but a lousy tactician. And while tactical superiority can sometimes win with a lousy strategy, lousy tactics will almost always screw up a great strategy.

In any event, she doesn't have many cards in her hand. She has to position herself to run as a moderate. I don't think she can do it, because there's too much videotape out there, and it will be seen in the election. But the base will think she's betrayed them, which either she will have, or she has to lie to the American voter. Either way, I don't think anyone will trust her in 2008.

But she may be better than I think. However, just for the record, Hillary is not my first choice for the nomination. I don't know who is, right now, but I know who's not.

[Tyler Durden]

21. I do not consider Hilary Clinton a "Democrat."

I'm not sure what she is, but when you start "enabling" the supporters of Republican Party Planks, I consider you suspect.

I have "converted" from the "get elected at any cost" wing of the Democratic Party, and have re-embraced my Socialist roots. I look forward to my immigration to Canada, where you can be a "Liberated" Conservative (like the owner of "Everything Grows" in Stratford, Ontario I met this past weekend: HI FRIEND!), to a "Low Key Liberal" but you don't have to trash your values.

When Sen. Clinton starts courting the "anti-choicers," the Republican non-Bush supporters, and the Neocon Social Security thieves, I'm sorry, but I call her the same as you do: an opportunist, NOT a Democrat.

[Karenina]

27. Would you refer to Byrd as

"strident?" Just curious. :shrug:

[Stevendsmith]

33. Good point

Maybe I should have used the word "aggressive." or "strong."

Byrd is not strident, but he is powerfully eloquent.

[TyeDye75]

28. Is it just me or is anyone else

disturbed by the prospect of the white house being controlled by two families for between 24 and 28 years (if Hillary becomes president of course)

[Avalux]

32. Hillary needs to be speaking out like this -

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1613620&mesg_id=1613620

She won't though. ALL the Dems who sit back and keep their mouths shut to preserve the status quo are on my shit list. You're right - they are enablers.

[oasis]

41. Nothing will "enable" Bush more than Democrats being voted out of office

because of making unsubstantiated charges.

The Repukes that will take their places will surely shake up the "status quo".

[Mark E. Smith]

43. Note To Nouveau Hillary Haters

Let me be among the first to break it to you fellows: I seriously doubt that Hillary Clinton would be all that upset should the fringe left quickly become as vehement in its criticism of her as the Freepie right.

It should now be obvious to all that the Clintons have figured the road back to the White House runs straight down the middle of the road. A loss of the perhaps 1% of the vote that exists on the left end of the political spectrum would be a small price to pay when your aim is to win centrist credibility with the vast vote rich middle.

[oasis]

44. Bingo, Mark E. Smith. Go to the head of the class. (eom)

[shance]

45. Mark, may I call you Mark?

If telling the truth is now defined as "liberal fringe",
and selling one's soul to the Republican privatize everything regime is called "middle of the road", then we must truly be nearing the apocalypse.

Your classist remarks are transparent as well, and you may be surprised that some individuals here at DU are actually high dollar contributors to Democratic candidates and to the DNC than what you probably consider 'non-rich middle'.

Not that it matters, particularly to the Democratic party, which last time i checked was the PARTY OF THE PEOPLE, however what is evident in your post (rich middle??) is that money is indeed what increasingly seems to matter most of all to Hillary, and perhaps Billary too.

[Mark E. Smith]

47. Um, I Said "Vast Vote Rich Middle"

Not "rich middle" as you have misquoted me here. And to base your entire refutation of my remarks on something so obviously (and absurdly) taken out of context is kinda sad.

Whatever, dude.

[dameocrat]

56. Fringe left my ass

It is the middle that hates her. See post 54.

I supported the women all the way through impeachment and she rewards us by sucking up to the most habitual Hillary haters on the planet. The dlcers!

[Tomee450]

46. I am very disappointed in Hillary.

She is behaving much differently than I expected. I thought she would really be out there leading the opposition.

[KharmaTrain]

48. Freeper Email Solicitors Thank You...

Nothing raises more money for the wingnuts like the Bobby Eberles than a good Hillary bash...and nothing supplies it better than something Hillary actually does that riles up the wingnut base.

Hillary knows when to pick her fights and where. This wasn't one to fight. If she'd put up Boxer-like opposition, the corporate media would crank this up and hate radio would go into spasms and the money would flow into the GOOP coffers. She's smart enough not to give them that kind of ammo. Right now all they have are the old stuff that's 6 years and getting older by the day...it doesn't generate the checks like it used to.

Also, Senator Clinton represents the State of New York first, then the country, then the party, then whatever interest or cause she is fighting for...or that's the way it should be. I expect she's saving her voice for when it's really necessary...like a Supreme Court appointment.

[forgethell]

49. "it doesn't generate checks like it used to"

The old stuff will reappear in 2008, count on it. And it will be every bit as cash-rich as it ever was. Plus, Hillary will have to veer back left for the primaries. Then right again for the general election.

Why can't we just have a few leaders who will state their views and take the heat without flinching? We'll never win another election without one.

[UdoKier]

50. What opposition to Bush?

She loved the Iraq war. She and her husband inexplicably bolstered Bush's obvious lies about WMD.

You can't take the Goldwater out of the Goldwater Girl.

[Disturbed]

53. The Clinton team have always been....

opportunistic operators. Bill has the charisma and can charm. Hilliary doesn't have that gift. Bill Clinton wanted to be a great Pres. of History but his mental illness got in the way and provided the gun powder to the RW to derail him. He is still trying to be "the great man". Both have decided after losing the Arkansas Governership to be pleasers and apeasers to the RW. No matter how far Bill Clinton veered to the RW they still hated him and continue to do so. Their ploy is still the same. Appeal to the center. It won't work anymore because the RW has veered toward Fascism and the Dem Party is split with the left of the party being more strident and vocal. The centrist ploy is a loser.

[Malva Zebrina]

51. A lot can happen before '08

If this is the road she chooses to play,( and I emphasize play) to the middle, I intuit that she is not going to make it and will find herself in the same position as Kerry--backed into a corner trying to appeal to "all" by going down the middle.

I think, and hope, with the last bit of "hope" I can muster, that we will have evolved back to real Democrats with a real opposition party that IS grass roots, that IS comprised of the PEOPLE and not the big doner corporations who will run the campaign, without any caucus voting for them.

Is anyone as weary as I am at the "plays" to the middle? Haven't we seen Lieberman et al play? Is that the kind of play we should accept? Is anyone as weary as I am at the hype, the spins, the plays, the pandering to Repbulicans for fear of one's own political career rather than an honest postion that actually means something other than a political ploy to play to get into the White House?

Call me simple--I don't want it and it actually turns my stomach to see it beginning with Hillary's obvious pandering already at this early bid.

I think it is where Hillary is headed and I think the strategy is duplicitious, unnecessary and specious and further, not trustworthy. We will end up NOT knowing our candidate at all if it continues and will end up defending another paper hero or contributing more of our money to another loser if it continues.

my $.02

[Mr.Green93]

52. Could Hillary

seduce bush?

[RBHam]

55. Hillary has ties to "Christian Mafia"...

EXPOSÉ: THE “CHRISTIAN” MAFIA
By Wayne Madsen
http://www.insider-magazine.com/ChristianMafia.htm

excerpt:
Other significant members of the Fellowship are Senators Charles Grassley (R-IA), Pete Domenici (R-NM), Conrad Burns (R-MT), Richard Lugar (R-IN), James Inhofe (R-OK), Bill Nelson (D-FL) (Nelson’s wife Grace serves on the Fellowship Foundation’s Board of Directors), and Rick Santorum (R-PA), Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), and George Allen (R-VA), Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Representatives Frank Wolf (R-VA), Tom DeLay (R-TX), Tom Feeney (R-FL), Curt Weldon (R-PA), Jerry Weller (R-IL), and Joseph Pitts (R-PA).

Friends of the Fellowship, if not outright members, include Senators Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Rick Santorum (R-PA), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO), and former Senator Zell Miller (D-GA).

One of the more interesting affiliates of the Fellowship is Senator and former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY). A former “Goldwater Girl” in the 1964 presidential campaign, Mrs. Clinton seemed to have partially recovered some of her earlier conservative underpinnings. According to her autobiography, Living History, after her husband became president, Clinton paid a visit to a women’s meeting at the Cedars on February 24, 1993. Present were Susan Baker (wife of the first Bush’s Secretary of State, James Baker III), Grace Nelson (wife of Florida’s Bill Nelson), Joanne Kemp (wife of former HUD Secretary Jack Kemp), Linda LeSourd Lader (wife of Clinton ambassador to Britain and founder of the Renaissance Weekend Phil Lader – the Renaissance Weekend in Charleston, South Carolina is billed by Lader as a “spiritual” event<3>), and Holly Leachman of the Falls Church Episcopal Church (one of the churches taken over by the Fellowship). Leachman and her husband Jerry had been involved in 1997 with a Cleveland, Ohio Fellowship adjunct called the Family Forum. The Leachmans were interviewed by ABC’s Nightline on February 25, 2004. They extolled the virtues of Mel Gibson’s controversial film, The Passion of the Christ, along with other evangelicals, including some Jewish converts to Christianity.

Senator Clinton admits to having a continuing close relationship with Susan Baker, through Baker’s visits to Capitol Hill and the letters she and other Fellowship wives wrote her during the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton. Even Bill Clinton seemed to have been taken in by the Fellowship. In his autobiography, My Life, Clinton brags that he never missed a National Prayer Breakfast. In his autobiography, Bill Clinton erroneously writes that it was not until 2000 that Coe invited the first Jew, Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), to speak at the breakfast. However, New York Mayor Ed Koch spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast in 1981 Senator Jacob Javits in 1984, and Arthur Burns in 1986.

Ironically, it was Susan Baker’s husband who served as the political fix-it man for Clinton’s Vice President Al Gore in delivering Florida’s 25 electoral votes to George W. Bush in 2000, costing Gore the White House. In fact, Senator Clinton wrote that all of her relationships with the Fellowship began with the luncheon she attended in 1993. In her biography, Senator Clinton writes of Douglas Coe, “ is a genuinely loving spiritual mentor . . . Doug Coe became a source of strength and friendship.” Of course, Clinton is referring to the period of time when her husband was being harassed by conservative Republicans out for blood – the Whitewater investigation and impeachment hearings brought about by what she called the “vast right-wing conspiracy” against her husband. It is amazing that Mrs. Clinton would have established such a trusting relationship with people who were the “vast right-wing conspiracy” that she complained about so vociferously.

[journalist3072]

59. Senator Clinton

There have been some areas where I have been disappointed in Hillary. For example, I am saddened that she voted to confirm people like Condi Rice.

However, if you want Hillary to go on tv, yelling at the Bushies, what good would that do? Outrage alone has never gotten the job done. I think she's trying to find a third way and offer some common sense solutions.

[dameocrat]

61. How is calling for a long term occupation a common sense solution

when nobody wants one? The only people who agree with her are the true Hillary haters like Borger. I will only support nominating a politically smart person.

[journalist3072]

63. No she didn't....

She DID NOT call for a long term occupation of Iraq. I think it's extremely unfair and disingenuous to misrepresent her views and her comments like that.

On MTP yesterday, she DID NOT call for a long term occcupation of Iraq. When asked about a timetable for withdrawal, like a specific date, she said the Iraqi leadership told her and the rest of the Senate delegration that that would be unwise, b/c they, the Iraqi leadership, felt that the insurgents would do everything to compromise that timetable.

That's all she said. She didn't say she wanted a long term occupation of Iraq.

[oasis]

67. You're correct. Thank you for helping to clear things up on this thread.

Hillary haters will surface and complain about her no matter what she does.

They will twist the facts with more ease than Fox news anchor people.

I just want any potential Democratic candidate for 2008 to be treated fairly with the facts presented acurately.

[journalist3072]

72. You're so right...

I really have a low tolerance for misrepresenting anyone's views on any issue.

I don't think it's fair to a person to misrepresent where they stand on an issue. It's dishonest and disingenuous.

People on here may not like Hillary's stance on Iraq, but they shouldn't distort or exaggerate her stance.

[Andromeda]

64. Here we go again....

BOOO HOOO, that big bad Hillary Clinton.

Could we maybe have a little less "Hillary" bashing and a little more bashing of the people who NEED to be bashed? Hmmmmm?

Like Bush, maybe???

This constant Hillary crap is really getting to me so KNOCK IT OFF!

If you don't like her FINE, but it's getting really redundant here at DU.

Don't vote for her then. Run another candidate for Senator but stop bitching about her.

[moondust]

66. She likes being "in the money."

Remember that old saying: "If you want to live like a Republican vote like a Democrat." Now that she's living like a Republican...

[KnowerOfLogic]

69. Yep; she's representing herself, not us. nt

[kohodog]

73. GOD HELP US ALL

If Hillary is our next President. Bill led us down the wrong path in many ways, and we don't need her to continue where Bush leaves off.