NYT article puts Hillary Clinton's First Lady "experience" under scrutiny

[zulchzulu]

I've been questioning just what experience Hillary Clinton has claimed while being First Lady. Yes, she visited many countries and did, like many First Ladies do, good things for children and the impoverished.

This article takes razor-sharp pinpoint aim at exactly what voters are supposed to grant her with when she says "experience" is what she has:

...during those two terms in the White House, Mrs. Clinton did not hold a security clearance. She did not attend National Security Council meetings. She was not given a copy of the president’s daily intelligence briefing. She did not assert herself on the crises in Somalia, Haiti and Rwanda.

And during one of President Bill Clinton’s major tests on terrorism, whether to bomb Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998, Mrs. Clinton was barely speaking to her husband, let alone advising him, as the Lewinsky scandal sizzled.

In seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, Mrs. Clinton lays claim to two traits nearly every day: strength and experience. But as the junior senator from New York, she has few significant legislative accomplishments to her name. She has cast herself, instead, as a first lady like no other: a full partner to her husband in his administration, and, she says, all the stronger and more experienced for her “eight years with a front-row seat on history.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/26/us/politics/26clinton.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

The article continues:

Mrs. Clinton’s role in her most high-profile assignment as first lady, the failed health care initiative of the early 1990s, has been well documented. Yet little has been made public about her involvement in foreign policy and national security as first lady. Documents about her work remain classified at the National Archives. Mrs. Clinton has declined to divulge the private advice she gave her husband.

(snip)

Associates from that time said that she was aware of Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden and what her husband has in recent years characterized as his intense focus on them, but that she made no aggressive independent effort to shape policy or gather information about the threat of terrorism.

The article is a fantastic read into just what exactly Hillary Clinton is bragging about when she, in my view, borrows her husband's resume to puff up her "experience".

[maximusveritas]

1. It's the only thing she has an advantage

over Obama and Edwards, so she's got to brag about it.

I'm more concerned about her lack of judgment than her lack of experience.

[Bitwit1234]

19. Oh gee you mean she wasn't a first lady.

and who in the hell can have lest judgement that OBAMA he wants to bomb Iran for goodness sake. Hell none of the other candidates, want to do that.

[K Gardner]

27. Obama was the ONLY one in the debates who said he wanted to have TALKS with Iran... WTF do you get

that he wants to Bomb Iran?? Or did you just pull that out of your *** Good lord, provide a link where he said that if you're going to mouth it out. HRC is the one who voted for Kyl/Lieberman, or do you know what that is??

[papau]

28. she does have the experience despite Pat Healy's mis-information hit job

Using an aid to Albright who is now working full time for Obama, rather than the Secretary of State herself - never mentioning that Albright has supported Hillary's assertion of an active role - is a typical NYT/main stream media corporate/rich fear of Hillary response.

I wonder why they fear Hillary so much - but do not fear Obama (I assume they don't fear the others due to their lower chance of winning the nomination).

Your comment on judgment is something folks can debate - and even deny that she has learned from her mistakes in the past.

Personally I find all the candidates to be folks having good judgment.

[zulchzulu]

29. The article basically shows how Hillary is puffing up her resume for the gig

Everybody does it, right?

:sarcasm:

[papau]

30. Secretary of State Albright says she is simply telling the truth - but the writer forgot to include

that :sarcasm:

[Faux pas]

2. Great article, thanks for posting. n/t

[Perry Logan]

3. Let it go, guys. Hillary has the experience--period. Check this out...

HILLARY'S EXPERIENCE ON THE WORLD STAGE:

Her historic speech at the UN Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 not only galvanized women around the world, it helped spawn a movement that led to advances politically, legally, economically, and socially for women in many countries over the next decade. Among other initiatives, she spearheaded the Clinton Administration's efforts to combat the global crisis of human trafficking. She persuaded the First Ladies of the Americas to use their collective power to eradicate measles and improve girls' education throughout the western Hemisphere. And she is widely credited with helping women in Kuwait finally win the right to vote.

As First Lady and now as a two-term senator who represents the most ethnically diverse state in the nation and who sits on the Armed Services Committee, Hillary Clinton has become a fixture on international issues over the past 15 years. She has traveled to more than 80 countries, going from barrios to rural villages to meetings with heads of state. She has consulted with dozens of world leaders - Nelson Mandela, King Abdullah, Tony Blair among them -- on matters as diverse as America and NATO's roles in Kosovo, eradicating poverty in the Third World, and the plight of women living under the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Today, she is one of the most influential voices in the world on human rights, democracy, and the promotion of a "new internationalism" in foreign affairs that calls for a balanced use of military force, diplomacy, and social development to strengthen American interests and security globally.

While American First Ladies historically have made great (and often overlooked) contributions to our nation, Hillary Clinton's wide-ranging experience on international issues as First Lady is unprecedented. Indeed, she is the only First Lady to have delivered foreign policy addresses at major gatherings of the United Nations, the World Bank, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the World Economic Forum.

Hillary Clinton has been fighting for the rights of children for special needs for decades. In her first job out of law school working for the Children's Defense Fund, she conducted research that led to Congress passing the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, the landmark bill mandating that all children with disabilities be educated in the public school system. later, she helped improve the education of children with special needs by working to reauthorize the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act. In 2005, she sponsored an amendment to increase funding for the act by $4 billion dollars. She also cosponsored the Personal Excellence for Children with Disabilities Act, a bill that promised to help schools recruit and retain new special education teachers, and better prepare general education teachers and staff to work with children with special needs.

Most recently, she has called for greatly expanded funding to the National Institute for Health to investigate treatments for children with disabilities. And she has put forth a comprehensive and detailed plan to help children and families affected by autism, with numerous elements that correspond very closely to what families in the autism community have been demanding for years.

[asdjrocky]

14. This crap doesn't surprise me.

Considering it comes from someone that said this:

"Unions are as useless as tits on a bull."

[Cha]

18. Yeah, if you're a corporatewhore

A$$hole. In reference to your quote:)

[sallyseven]

15. You will notice that Laura

Bush did jack s t while living in the white house. She didn't even keep george from getting smashed. Nothing for the country nothing at all.

[defendandprotect]

23. Hillary has a Republican outlook --- and deep with DLC ---

A Republican outlook --- a DLC point of view --- in making policy will further harm
America.

[creeksneakers2]

4. Yesterday, Newsweek ran an article

that said Hillary was a manipulator who put herself in charge of everything.

The critics want to have it both ways.

[KittyWampus]

8. the article to which you refer didn't say or imply "in charge of everything".

[fed-up]

5. thanks, went to view source to learn how to highlight from this yellow journalism article

< span style="background-color: #FFFF00" > then to close < /span >

without the spaces near < >

but did you use brackets or the less than, greater than symbols to do this?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow
Journalism


The Yellow Kid
"Yellow journalism" was sensationalist journalism that distorts, exaggerates, or exploits news to maximize profit. The term came from Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal American, who engaged in sensational reporting during the late 19th and early 20th century, most famously during the Spanish-American War. The term was derived from the color comic strip The Yellow Kid, which appeared in both papers.

[zulchzulu]

6. Besides you almost figuring out how CSS works, anything to refute the NYT article?

How are facts "yellow journalism"?

[jefferson_dem]

7. Hillary as a "sounding board" rather than a "policy maker"

"An interview with Mrs. Clinton, conversations with 35 Clinton administration officials and a review of books about her White House years suggest that she was more of a sounding board than a policy maker," the paper reports, "who learned through osmosis rather than decision-making, and who grew gradually more comfortable with the use of military power."

So there! She does have "experience"...as a sounding board.

[BeyondGeography]

10. Except when she was angry at Bill and not talking to him

which happened to be during what turned out to be the most important foreign policy action of his presidency.

[wyldwolf]

9. ... and still shows she has a wealth of experience in the WH...

Beside the fact the Newsweek article yesterday gave her a great review in regards to her White House experience, the NYT article you are quoting isn't all doom and gloom like you're spinning it.

As first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton jaw-boned the authoritarian president of Uzbekistan to leave his car and shake hands with people.

Has Obama ever done anything like that?

She argued with the Czech prime minister about democracy.

Has Obama ever done anything like that?

She cajoled Roman Catholic and Protestant women to talk to one another in Northern Ireland.

How about Obama?

She traveled to 79 countries in total, little of it leisure; one meeting with mutilated Rwandan refugees so unsettled her that she threw up afterward.

...and Obama?

Her rivals scoff at the idea that her background gives her any special qualifications for the presidency. Senator Barack Obama has especially questioned “what experiences she’s claiming” as first lady, noting that the job is not the same as being a cabinet member, much less president.

"She's very smart ... people rightly give her credit for having been a participant in the Clinton administration and for doing some heavy lifting on issues." Barack Obama, speaking of Hillary Clinton's White House experience and contradicting Obama supporters - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart 8/22/07

And late last week, Mr. Obama suggested that more foreign policy experts from the Clinton administration were supporting his candidacy than hers; his campaign released a list naming about 45 of them, and said that others were not ready to go public. Mrs. Clinton quickly put out a list of 80 who were supporting her, and plans to release another 75 names on Wednesday.

...so Obama... lied?

The entire article is a prime example of someone who watched, learned, was an apprentice of sorts. That's why she's ready and Obama is not.

[Inuca]

11. The Newsweek article - a great review?!?!

That's some outstanding selective reading...

[wyldwolf]

12. it was certainly even-handed, despite the negative cherry picking the TigerBeat "progressives" did.

[zulchzulu]

13. Bragging about foreign policy experience with a security clearance or other basic access...

...while First Lady is not legitimate.

Sure, as the article noted, she travelled to Rwanda and other countries...and came back and did NOTHING about what she saw.

As for insinuating that Obama hasn't been anywhere, he's been to Moscow, the Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Kuwait, many parts of Africa with security clearances and with other members of the Senate Foreign Intelligence Committee as well as other committees that allow him classified intelligence to work with toward policy.

Clinton released a list of former Clinton advisors, yet where is that list? Is Sandy Berger on the list? Why did Richard Clarke decide to go with Obama instead of Clinton? Obama grabbed the cream of the crop from the Clinton administration and she's gotten the second stringers who know what it's like to have to work with her.

[wyldwolf]

17. ..but bragging 'bout FP experience because you lived overseas when you were a kid is.

:rofl:

[emilyg]

21. That still makes me giggle.

[niceypoo]

16. So your saying that she wasnt the co-president?

LOL...............................hand full of straws yet?

[Catchawave]

20. Love Hill, but can she keep the dog on the porch?

Not sure what I'm most upset about....

Dragging Bubba through the Primary vetting, again ...or...

Dragging Bubba through the next 4-8 years ?

My candidate is Edwards, but would like to keep my good memories of Bill's administration intact.

[defendandprotect]

22. The excellent chance we had for single payer national health care was blown by HRC ---

probably with the help of the DLC ---

In fact, maybe the DLC set HRC up for the Repug demand for information about her meetings --- ?

Whatever happened -- it was a mess --- with the insurance companies right in there with Hillary ---and we Americans ended up with nothing but embarrassment.

Sure, maybe the Repugs carried that off all on their own --- ?
Maybe they got some help from the corporate-DLC?


Meanwhile, Bill was certainly an adorable scoundrel --- but a scoundrel he is!
And, HRC needs to rethink that alliance.

[Evergreen Emerald]

24. BS. The Republican senate did everything they could to sabatoge the Clintons

It is not Clinton's fault that her healthcare plan did not pass. The republicans spent billions making sure the Clintons' would loose.

[defendandprotect]

25. I agree with you -- however, Hillary INCLUDED insurance companies ---

and handled the business of creating even a system that included insurance companies in a very naive way --- because she above all should have understood the GOP- corporate venom coming their way ---

Yes -- propaganda works --- "Harry & Louise" ---

The nation wanted single payer universal health care --- Hillary was trying to give us
something else --- something which included insurance companies!

And, the Clinton's folded --- finally ending 60 years of Welfare Guarantees !!!

[madrchsod]

26. "Mrs. Clinton declined to comment on Rwanda".

she does`t want to comment that her husband and his advisor's did nothing to stop the murder of 800,000 people in rwanda because the country was of no interest to the usa? or that the government of the usa worked against the un and anyone else to protect or even stop the murders before it raged out of control?

i understand why she would not want to comment. i hope the decisions of your husband and his advisor's haunt you for the rest of your life

[LittleClarkie]

31. If I'm looking for experience, I'm going with Biden or Richardson.

I understand what Obama was getting at. Standing next to the president doesn't mean you've had the same experience AS the president.