Clinton's 'experience:' Exactly what is it?

[babylonsister]

http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Clinton%27s+%27experience%3a%27+Exactly+what+is+it%3f&articleId=0d7ca376-f7f5-445d-9ab7-993be0893015

Clinton's 'experience:' Exactly what is it?


Sen. Hillary Clinton expects New Hampshire voters to believe her when she says she was a member of her husband's "White House team" who played an integral role in shaping policy during his eight years as President. Well, we'd like some proof, Mrs. Clinton.

"I was a member of the White House team that was involved with trying to make a lot of changes . . . I think that people who are running for President should lay out for Americans their record, their experiences, their qualifications, their vision, their plan, and their understanding of how to make it all happen, and that's what I'm doing," Clinton told Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi during a recent stop in Manchester.

A candidate with White House experience who really believes that would let voters examine the records from the period during which she claims she was such a vital part of "the White House team." But Mrs. Clinton's actions show that she does not believe what she says.

Her husband is keeping secret many of those records -- 2,600 pages worth, a National Archives official told The New York Sun. The Clintons have claimed that the National Archives won't release the records, but the Archives official in charge says Bill Clinton has not authorized their release.

This is not a trivial issue. Among those records is Mrs. Clinton's schedule, which would help show just how involved she really was in her husband's administration.

Because she has made her "experience" her primary qualification for the presidency, the people deserve to see exactly what experience she really has. Which policies did she help shape? Which did she oppose? Did she serve as a de facto staff member or did her role primarily consist of whispering suggestions into her husband's ear? That history is blackened out, and she is keeping it that way. Why?

She has said that releasing the records is Bill's decision, not hers. But if she cannot convince her husband to release some White House documents for public scrutiny, how does she expect us to believe she will be able to convince Congress or foreign heads of state to follow her lead?

If Mrs. Clinton cannot prevail upon her husband to release the records, there is another option. She could parade his former Cabinet members and staff members to vouch for her. If she were as involved as she claims, surely they would happily share stories of how she helped shape policy and get things done. But she has not done that. We wonder why not.

Sen. Barack Obama is right when he says Mrs. Clinton is simultaneously laying claim to her husband's successes as President while keeping the public in the dark about just how much credit she really deserves.

That's not going to work, Mrs. Clinton.

Either prove you were truly a part of "the White House team" or stop making the claim.

[Bitwit1234]

1. Obama's experience "Just what exactly is it"...

hell he doesn't even have experience in the senate he has missed more time, not voted, and is stupid enought to want to bomb Iran. Seems like he should be at home learning how to be a senator, and forget about anything else.

We ought to ask for our money back on this salary.

[madrchsod]

9. thanks for pointing out

that we made a grave error in judgement concerning barrack obama. we actually thought he was a better candidate than alan keyes.so now we will collectively hang our heads in shame for electing such a man to represent us. we will take your advice and demand he gives us our money back.

the democrats in illinois want to thank you for your concern

[ThomWV]

18. In truth Clinton, Obama, and Edwards share about the same level of inexperience.

[madrchsod]

2. don`t ask-don`t tell--->

but never fear- her "steady hand" of 35 years of experience will guide us through the terrible times that lay ahead...

[jefferson_dem]

3. Why do you hate tea?

:shrug:

[babylonsister]

4. Because it leaves stains?

:shrug:

[Adelante]

31. Zing nt

[haroldgiowa]

5. Good point On HRC

It is like going to see my Dr's husband, yes I actually have a female Dr. She may know her medicine, but I wouldn't want her husband to prescribe my cures. In time her husband through education could be a good Dr, but not by sitting in the waiting room.

In turn, I wouldn't depend on an intern. Yes Obama is a good man and some day will achieve greatness. I just don't think that time is now. I say this liking Ubama and what he is saying. But there are others who are more prepared.

Yes, both want to be president, but it takes more then just wanting to be president, to turn this country around. There is a man in the White House now who wants to be President and look at the mess he has made of it.

The shame of it all, is there are great people who should have been or should be considered to be president that are sitting on the side lines.

Correct spelling error, sorry

[Uben]

7. Okay, but what if.....

....you had the choice of having a person whose spouse was a doctor to treat you as opposed to one who had a plumber as a spouse treat you? Who would you choose? One has been exposed to the profession while the other has no clue of how things are done.
You could be walking around with a nice bandage on your wound, or a pipe sticking out of your butt!

[The Ghost]

11. 'Ubama'?

Real nice. Sigh.

[BeyondGeography]

6. Doesn't matter

She's just standing by her man and runnin' for President.

Problems in the job? Got Bill.

[MGKrebs]

8. I don't think it's necessary to get to that level of detail.

I mean really, are we going to argue about which meetings she was in or not in and the relevancy of each of them? That gets to be reductio ad absurdum in my opinion. And how can we really even know anyway.

The experience that is relevant is that with a Clinton administration, we pretty much know what we will get. There isn't a lot of mystery there. We likely know a lot of the people, and we pretty much know the policies and direction; a turn- maybe not a dramatic turn, but a turn towards progressivism. There will be a lot of competency. We may not all agree with all of the policies- economics will be pretty conventional- but what they are able to do, they will do competently.

With Obama, there is a bit more of an unknown quality. We don't really know who his people are. Who would be in that administration? How much influence will all the players have? How good will he be at organizing and delegating and establishing lines of communication and authority levels? Will lawmakers give him more or less support because of their perception of his abilities?

Edwards is basically calling for a revolution. If he wins, he will meet with a lot of resistance from a lot of powerful forces if he tries to follow his rhetoric. So then the relevant "experience" is how capable will he be in implementing this agenda. My personal opinion is that he has a snowballs chance in hell of winning anyway, but if he did win, there would certainly be some kind of mandate for change because he will have won by overcoming a huge deficit in funding, so he might be able to get some change done. All the experience issues with Obama apply here too. Since he was only a one-term Senator as his only elected experience, we don't really know who would be pulling his strings (if anyone). His frequency of changing his mind is bothersome too. It could indicate that he is more easily manipulated than would be preferable. Maybe not so bad for a legislator, but an undesirable quality for an executive.

[Yuugal]

13. What a load of crap

"we don't really know who would be pulling his strings"

Thats because he isn't taking corporate money so common sense should tell you he will be working for us.

"His frequency of changing his mind is bothersome too."

He made a change from southern conservative to southern populist. Good for him. The decider never changes his mind and neither does Hillary, Pelosi or Reid. I'm done with people who pretend they can't learn because they need another excuse to do their corporate master's bidding.

An "undesirable quality for an executive" is being bought out by over a 100 million corporate dollars like Hillary.


"I mean really, are we going to argue about which meetings she was in or not in and the relevancy of each of them? That gets to be reductio ad absurdum in my opinion. And how can we really even know anyway."

Try releasing the records and we will know what she did soon enough. She's been blaming the govt for not releasing them and nw we find out its Bill - she is lying again.

"The experience that is relevant is that with a Clinton administration, we pretty much know what we will get."

More NAFTA, more Patriot Act, more wars, more selling out and blurring the distinction between a Dem and a Rep; basically everything corporate amerika could want.

"There isn't a lot of mystery there. We likely know a lot of the people, and we pretty much know the policies and direction; a turn- maybe not a dramatic turn, but a turn towards progressivism."

She didn't just vote for every war that came down the pipe, she wants new wars and to keep the nuclear option on the table. She is for clusterbombing innocent civilians if there is even a small chance of getting 1 bad guy. Yeah, thats real progressive.


"There will be a lot of competency. We may not all agree with all of the policies- economics will be pretty conventional- but what they are able to do, they will do competently. "

Same old DLC, corporate kool-aid, AIPAC bullshit! I'm sure Hillary will be very competent at getting our corporate masters anything they need.

[MGKrebs]

25. Is it something about the internet that impedes civilized discussion?

Or is it just a cultural phenomenon in general?

Does anonymity breed animosity?
Or is the conservative Manichean duality model still gaining effectiveness?
Can we learn as much from slogans as we can from complete ideas?
Isn't indiscriminate usage of small bits of rumor, innuendo, half-truths, and exaggerations kind of like a verbal cluster bomb?

[niceypoo]

33. Anonymity brings out the worst in people

There are no consequences

[Yuugal]

34. I'll answer them in order:

"Is it something about the internet that impedes civilized discussion?"

Yes.

"Or is it just a cultural phenomenon in general?"

Its both.

"Does anonymity breed animosity?"

No.

"Or is the conservative Manichean duality model still gaining effectiveness?"

Yes. You can't be a little bit pregnant; you either like the dirty corporate money or you don't. People who still think the corporate monster strangling us can be dealt with by working with it don't see yet that these corporations are just machines and you don't negotiate with machines. So right now, between Genx/Geny and Boomers/ancients, there is alot of animosity and us/them attitude. Boomers and ancients have mostly been willing to make their own deal with the corporate devil to protect their own jobs and benefits and retirement at the price of the younger generations getting stuck with the 10 trillion dollar price tag and having to work at Burger King and have no benefits or retirement. Since young people haven't shared in the American dream very much they tend to lump everyone who is poor on their side and put Richie Rich and his enablers on the other side.

Reich wingers and the "wives of orange county", limousine neocons and limousine liberals vs the have-nots.

"Can we learn as much from slogans as we can from complete ideas?"

We can learn the most from actually changing something. The Dem party has done enough talking. They have both houses and have done squat. Actions speak alot louder than words.

"Isn't indiscriminate usage of small bits of rumor, innuendo, half-truths, and exaggerations kind of like a verbal cluster bomb?"

Yeah, I'm sure many posts here have blown the legs and arms off of lots of kids. The difference is people choose to be on DU. That Iraqi kid didn't choose the "corporate democracy" that just scattered his limbs all over the street.

[MGKrebs]

35. "Boomers and ancients have mostly been willing to make their own deal"

whereas it seems some don't want to do the grunt work necessary to make the changes they want. They just want to click a mouse and have it happen. "Let's elect a hero who will fix all of our problems". Or maybe, "we can't build anything until we destroy what already exists" is closer. But one gets the impression that someone else will actually have to do the building (and my guess is that someone else would even have to do the destroying).
Let's hope that the other-than-ancients show up this time.


Voting by Age: 2000
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, November 2000.
(Percent who voted of the voting-age citizen population)

18 to 24.....36.1
25 to 34.....50.5
35 to 44.....60.5
45 to 54.....66.3
55 to 64.....70.1
65 to 74.....72.2
75 and over..66.5

http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/p20-542.pdf

[Yuugal]

41. Gen Xers are used to being called slackers.

"Boomers and ancients have mostly been willing to make their own deal whereas it seems some don't want to do the grunt work necessary to make the changes they want."

That new UAW contract is a good example of what I'm talking about:

http://www.autoblog.com/2007/09/28/uaw-gm-contract-details-revealed-local-leaders-vote-unanimously/

"This morning local UAW leaders that represent plants from around the country unanimously voted to approve the contract offered by General Motors that came at the end of a 40-hour strike by union workers this week. Official details of the contract have been revealed, and we now know that GM's contribution to the Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association (VEBA) will be $29.9 billion, plus another $5.4 billion in what The Detroit News calls "pre-VEBA costs". That's significantly less than the upwards of $50 billion we heard was being offered, but UAW president Ron Gettelfinger insists it should last the union some 80 years.

While the contract was unanimously approved this morning by UAW local leaders, it's the 73,000 union rank and file that still need to vote on the contract. That vote is expected to come by October 10th, and despite a $3,000 signing bonus for those who vote to approve the contract, there are some union members who argue that their leadership has betrayed them. A small but vocal group specifically disagrees with the VEBA and the fact that GM is now off the hook for health care costs. There are many who also dislike the new two-tier wage system that starts off thousands of new hires at a much lower $18/hour rate of between $14 and $16.23/hour. Despite protestations, however, we expect the majority of the UAW's GM workers to fall in line and vote this thing through. "

From the article: "there are some union members who argue that their leadership has betrayed them."

Yeah, I'll bet there are at that, like maybe everyone who gets to be one of these new "tier 2" workers. My generation gets to make less and its all because we are such lazy, no good, slackers............. uh no, it looks like we've been sold out yet again. The older workers at GM are going to get a nice fat check and some security too in exchange for making life harder for their younger brothers and sisters. How cute.

"They just want to click a mouse and have it happen."

Feel free to keep calling our generation lazy though because its clear we had nothing to do with those internets you are enjoying right?

""Let's elect a hero who will fix all of our problems". Or maybe, "we can't build anything until we destroy what already exists" is closer. But one gets the impression that someone else will actually have to do the building (and my guess is that someone else would even have to do the destroying)."

Actually I get the impression you are talking out of your ass and blaming the victims of your generation's selfishness. BTW, electing a hero who will work to fix problems is how we do things in America. If by "destroying what already exists" you mean "make it harder for me to sell out younger people" then yeah, I'm ready for some destruction. Old people who shill for the status quo are irrelevant to my generation.

[MGKrebs]

42. You can build all the Internets you want. When are you going to show up and vote?

You seem to be blaming us old farts for everything wrong with Bushco, but if you kids are as pissed off as you want to believe, with a turnout of, say, 50%, you could get the change you want. Just do it! Us liberal old farts welcome your votes!

[Yuugal]

43. When did I miss a vote?

"You seem to be blaming us old farts for everything wrong with Bushco,"

Yikes, not at all. I blame the 52% of America that voted for him in 2004 and people like these UAW people who just passed that contract. The same thing happened in my union(GCIU) in 2002: our local voted to take a nice 25k check but the price was the all too familiar "two tier" system that is crushing my generation. Taking money to screw over the people after you is evil. It happens everywhere.

"if you kids are as pissed off as you want to believe, with a turnout of, say, 50%, you could get the change you want. Just do it!"

Thats what 2006 was all about. Young people did vote in higher percentages than usual, I think most age groups did, but it didn't turn out that well. The Dems ran on one platform and changed it for another when they took power; the classic bait and switch. The clear message Dem candidates sent to us little people was: We will stop the war! We will oppose his crazy appointments! We will fight him tooth and nail! The message Pelosi sent to us little people was also clear: HA HA HA AMERICA!!!! That really turns the already struggling working class off.

Instead of the change we wanted we got the same old corporate turd on a different type of bun.

"Us liberal old farts welcome your votes!"

Yeah, um......... that might be a problem. I'm 42 and have voted Dem my whole life to no avail. Not only do they lose alot, when they win they vote republican anyway. As if that wasn't bad enough, many of the Dems like to drink the DLC poison so more of them can be DOA on election day and the ones that win can go on to fight every progressive initiative........and they're supposed to be "our" people. Thats why we have endless war at the same time we have millions of young children whose parents can't even afford their shots.

If this party is dumb enough to go with the corporate shill as a nominee, a good number of us are going 3rd party or staying home. BTW I'm not a liberal, I'm a working class progressive and I don't see the old liberal view lining up with mine much anymore.

[papau]

17. Actually the Unionleader call for cabinet member support for Hill is met with Albright saying she's

correct in saying she, Hillary, was the face of our diplomacy under Bill.

[dkf]

19. Yes we do know what we would get with the Clintons

More of the same. Status quo. Same old same old.

I want so much more for our country than what they did in the past. I am not willing to settle.

[MGKrebs]

26. "I am not willing to settle." Not only are you not willing to settle,

apparently you're not even willing to wait.
I'm not willing to settle either. I won't stop working until we've convinced enough people that we can do better. But we're not there yet. There are vast amounts of Americans that are still on the fence about whether Dems are dangerous to our country or not. If we try to get too much too soon, we will push them toward our opponents, and therefore take a step backward.

Sometimes, pragmatism is idealism on a different schedule.

[dkf]

40. Well if I think Bloomberg will move us in the right direction

I'm going with him if its Hillary v Bloomberg.

[Enrique]

10. yet another right-wing editorial makes DU's greatest page

:crazy:

[creeksneakers2]

12. OP contains debunked attack

The bottleneck is at the lightly staffed Archives. It of course remains possible that Bill Clinton could yet block the release of any or all communications between himself and the First Lady, but that hasn’t happened yet It remains to be seen whether any of this material will surface before the election.
But Russert was wrong, and so were we Bill Clinton, in Redmond, called Russert’s question “breathtakingly misleading,” and we now agree. Russert did not respond to requests for comment.

Correction from Factcheck.org -down the page

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/hillarys_high-stepping.html

[Yuugal]

14. debunked attack?

Its been 7 yrs and you are telling me they can't find a copy machine? Whats "breathtakingly misleading" is the Clintons saying that its gonna take 50 yrs to see their goddam notes. None of this stuff is going to be released before the election and thats just fine with her supporters who don't want any of us knowing the truth.

"It remains to be seen whether any of this material will surface before the election."

I just wanna puke. 7 years in search of a goddam copy machine.

[MGKrebs]

28. wtf do you expect to see in those records?

She will have participated in some stuff and not some other stuff. Endless reporters and "investigators" will parse every note and each minute of the schedules, and try to find minute discrepancies or contradictions and claim some huge drama as a result. Team Clinton will respond, a few more newspapers will be sold, the right wing will add a couple more conspiracies to their list, and swing voters will have learned nothing useful.

[Yuugal]

37. I expect to see evidence of what she has said about her vast experience.

"She will have participated in some stuff and not some other stuff."

She can't have it both ways. Right now she wants to claim vast experience for anything people liked about Bill but ignorance of anything the former prez did that sucked. If she was at Bill's side for foreign policy discussions then I'll give her credit for some of the vast experience she is claiming to have. If she was there when Nafta was discussed then she can't claim it wasn't her fault.

"Endless reporters and "investigators" will parse every note and each minute of the schedules, and try to find minute discrepancies or contradictions and claim some huge drama as a result."

Luckily they make up 0% of the people who might vote for her. Meanwhile many in her own party are in revolt and will not come out for her now or on election day and it would be smarter for her to worry about them. Her record as a senator is not progressive and I want to see some of these "notes and minutes" so I can get a better feel on whether she is going to sell me out or not to corporate interests. The idea that the less information the "little people" get, the better things are is repulsive to me.

"Team Clinton will respond, a few more newspapers will be sold, the right wing will add a couple more conspiracies to their list, and swing voters will have learned nothing useful."

Team Clinton needs to get their heads out of their ass and face reality. Many "independents" hate her too. She is refusing to learn the lessons of the last two lost elections: if you make it close and steal-able by ignoring your base, going for imaginary voters and trying to be rep-lite, you will lose. The country lurched left in 2006 and Hillary and other DLC Dems are still trying to push us to the right. We need to provide a clear choice.

[MGKrebs]

32. For the record:

"The Archives has six staffers working through the former president’s 76.8 million pages of documents, trying to fulfill nearly 300 pending Freedom of Information Act requests. The documents must be reviewed not just for the exemptions listed in the Presidential Records Act, but others that are laid out in different laws."

"...there’s no “ban” on releasing Hillary Clinton documents. Bill Clinton’s letter, which dates from 2002, didn’t block access to communications between the President and the First Lady during his presidency. On the contrary, it eased restrictions on access to his documents, which are located at his presidential library in Little Rock and administered by the National Archives."

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/hillarys_high-stepping.html

[creeksneakers2]

39. There are millions of documents

Hillary's records are with all the other records. The Clintons couldn't possibly photocopy them all. Anyway, they have better things to do.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200712030007?f=h_latest

Its unfair that the Clintons are forced to operate under different rules than everybody else. For somebody else, there has to be an accusation and some evidence that it might be true. Then the accusation requires proof.

Under the Clinton rules, the Clintons must permanently prove their innocence against not only accusations but suspicions that they might have done something. Clinton enemies even demand that the Clintons constantly release information so that anybody who hates them can go through it and look for something to accuse the Clintons or or say they might have done. The witch hunt even goes farther, if the Clintons slip up on releasing one of these records they are accused of covering up.

Bill Clinton released everything from his first Bazooka Joe comic to his last E-mail. Nothing incriminating was found.

[indimuse]

15. instead of redundant questions on HRC'S exp..Will someone please answer this...

What do you think of Obama's AGENT OF CHANGE...STAND FOR CHANGE..AND USING HIS CHURCH TO HELP CAMPAIGN FOR HIM...
IS THIS A VALID QUESTION AND SOMETHING THE RW MACHINE WILL MAKE PRIORITY IF HE IS NOMINATED...NOBODY SPEAKS OF THE OBVIOUS...NO! I AM NOT A RACIST..JUST A QUESTION???


I JUST FOUND THROGH SOMEONE ELSES POST THIS INFO... FROM OBAM'A CHURCH...READ THEIR MISSION STAEMENT ...SEE IF A RED FLAG DOES NOT APPEAR. AND THIS... http://www.independentconservative.com/2007/03/03/


About Us

We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian... Our roots in the Black religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent. We are an African people, and remain "true to our native land," the mother continent, the cradle of civilization. God has superintended our pilgrimage through the days of slavery, the days of segregation, and the long night of racism. It is God who gives us the strength and courage to continuously address injustice as a people, and as a congregation. We constantly affirm our trust in God through cultural expression of a Black worship service and ministries which address the Black Community.

The Pastor as well as the membership of Trinity United Church of Christ is committed to a 10-point Vision:

Mission

Mission Statement: What Trinity Is About

Trinity United Church of Christ has been called by God to be a congregation that is not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ and that does not apologize for its African roots! As a congregation of baptized believers, we are called to be agents of liberation not only for the oppressed, but for all of God’s family. We, as a church family, acknowledge, that we will, building on this affirmation of "who we are" and "whose we are," call men, women, boys and girls to the liberating love of Jesus Christ, inviting them to become a part of the church universal, responding to Jesus’ command that we go into all the world and make disciples!

We are called out to be "a chosen people" that pays no attention to socio-economic or educational backgrounds. We are made up of the highly educated and the uneducated. Our congregation is a combination of the haves and the have-nots; the economically disadvantaged, the under-class, the unemployed and the employable.

The fortunate who are among us combine forces with the less fortunate to become agents of change for God who is not pleased with America’s economic mal-distribution!

W.E.B. DuBois indicated that the problem in the 20th century was going to be the problem of the color line. He was absolutely correct. Our job as servants of God is to address that problem and eradicate it in the name of Him who came for the whole world by calling all men, women, boys and girls to Christ.

THIS WILL BE A HUGE ISSUE...

[papau]

20. He/she may have lost the vote of GOP atheists? If that is your point you are correct.

All the candidates profess a strong belief in God and a strong belief in the tenets of their faith.

[babylonsister]

29. Well, your first big problem is referencing that site; did you lose your way? nt

[Evergreen Emerald]

16. Madeline Albright talked of her experience.

Hillary Clinton has talked of her experience in her world travels and meeting world leaders. This is a disengenious post, because you have read everything on DU that I have and know what her experience is.

It is vastly more than Obama's

[journalist3072]

21. Trying to reform health care, going to places like Africa to empower people and champion

microcredit loans that help women start their own businesses, and championing democracy by going to places like China and saying not only to Beijing but the entire world "Women's rights are human rights, once and for all."

THOSE are just but a sample of the kinds of things she did.

[sniffa]

22. that's sexist

kickity kick kick

[HooptieWagon]

23. If First Lady = experience

then aren't Laura * and Nancy Reagan equally qualified as Hillary? Just sayin'...

[TankLV]

24. Not first lady - try two term senator as opposed to one termer...

Not to mention pandering to homophobic bigots and avoiding a voting record by voting "present" if at all...

but thanks for playing...

[ruggerson]

38. Cut that out!

As any good Obama supporter knows, it's far more important to "reach across the aisle" and have "unity" with Republicans than it is to have unity with our own Democratic GLBT community. Didn't you get the memo? The GLBT bloc is only good for one thing - throwing under the bus to get a larger slice of votes from the bigot community.

[MGKrebs]

27. So your argument is that all First Ladies can only have as much

"experience" as the least involved of them? There can be no differences in their relative levels of involvement?

[opihimoimoi]

30. She experienced Big Dog and das good enough fo me...I vote fo her

[PurityOfEssence]

36. She was instrumental in all of Bill's actions you like and not involved in the ones you don't

Gotta admire her consistency...

[Beacool]

44. And Obama's experience is precisely WHAT???

Oh yeah, talking empty platitudes to a throng of fans who will undoubtedly vote for empty oratory over substance. If I recall, that's how we got Chimp in the first place.

[dailykoff]

45. It seems she had a college internship with Rep. Gerald Ford

and the House Republican Caucus in 1966 or so. Now that's experience.

link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17388372/