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Setting The Record Straight

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Yesterday, TPM dedicated two posts to whether or not the Obama campaign will attack Clinton on 90s scandals such as Whitewater and Cattle Futures. 
 
David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, assured TPM this:


"We're not gonna do that," Plouffe said. "We have not talked about those issues in the campaign, and won't."
Unfortunately, this is not true.  The Obama campaign has already brought up the issues of cattle futures in a memo they released during the call for Clinton's tax returns:

But they steadfastly refused to release their returns for prior years, and only later did we learn that 1978 and 1979 were the tax years when Mrs. Clinton reported her 10,000% cattle-futures trading profit.

link

I sent this correction to TPM.  Unfortunately, I did not see an update on this story.  Now, I'm not alleging bias because I think for the most part this site does a good job of cutting through spin.  However, I just wanted to set the record straight.  The Obama campaign cannot claim they have not talked about this issue.  They have. 

Please recommend this if you believe in cutting through campaign spin to get to the truth.


Comments (6)

Duly noted.

TPM should absolutely run this correction. The cattle futures story was mentioned in an Obama memo, where they pointed out that the Clintons have not released their tax forms for the tax years in which Hillary made a 10,000% profit trading cattle futures.

In case anyone is unfamiliar with the story, here's a link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/whitewater/stories/wwtr940527.htm

Hillary Rodham Clinton was allowed to order 10 cattle futures contracts, normally a $12,000 investment, in her first commodity trade in 1978 although she had only $1,000 in her account at the time, according to trade records the White House released yesterday.

The computerized records of her trades, which the White House obtained from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, show for the first time how she was able to turn her initial investment into $6,300 overnight. In about 10 months of trading, she made nearly $100,000, relying heavily on advice from her friend James B. Blair, an experienced futures trader.

The new records also raise the possibility that some of her profits -- as much as $40,000 – came from larger trades ordered by someone else and then shifted to her account, Leo Melamed, a former chairman of the Merc who reviewed the records for the White House, said in an interview. He said the discrepancies in Clinton's records also could have been caused by human error.

As part of a brave, new echo chamber—recommend. o_0

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brave, new echo chamber

Nice.

"But they steadfastly refused to release their returns for prior years, and only later did we learn that 1978 and 1979 were the tax years when Mrs. Clinton reported her 10,000% cattle-futures trading profit."

This quote, while in Obama's memo, is actually taken from the Wall Street Journal on Feb 22, 2008.

I'm not sure that using a quote from the Wall Street Journal in a memo equates to attacking Senator Clinton with scandals from the 90s.


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Due to the tone of the memo, it is an attack. In fact, the memo is entitled "What is she hiding?". Yes, they're quoting the journal, but it's listed under the history of what the Clinton's have had to "hide" in the past.

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