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Hillary's Chutzpah on "This Week"
Hillary Clinton appeared for the full hour on ABC this morning in a "Town Hall" format with former (?) Clintonite George Stephanopoulos. Probably the biggest news is that she doubled down on the Gas Tax Holiday, in the face of a mountain of criticism. She shamelessly tried to co-opt her host, portraying them as allies in the Glorious Retroactive War on NAFTA of '93. But despite for me the moment of real chutzpah was her response to a question from Stephanopoulos about the funding of the Clinton Library:
GS: There's still some suspicion of you though on free trade, in part because President Clinton continues to advocate free trade. He's taken since leaving the White House, more than a million dollars in speaking fees from interests representing China and others, and also contributions to the library. Because of that, why shouldn't his library release all the contributors, so people can decide whether there's a conflict.
HC: Well first let me say that I don't know any married couple who agrees on everything, and we have a disagreement on some of our positions, and our policies.
GS: But shouldn't the voters have a right to decide?
HC: Well, absolutely. Now, with respect to his foundation, which is doing wonderful work around the world on HIV Aids and climate change, and poverty alleviation, he has said and I am in 100% agreement that if I am so fortunate as to be elected President, all of that will be released.
GS: But why wait, why shouldn't voters have the chance to decide?
HC: Well, but George, it's a national foundation and like most national foundations the rules were set up, people contributed under those rules, so going forward if I am President we'll change the rules.
GS: Yet the foundation sold the donor list -- 38,000 names.
HC: Well I don't know anything about that, you'll have to ask the foundation.
GS: But you're saying now it will not come out during the campaign.
HC: No.
--
So her argument is what? That she doesn't have a right to change the foundation's disclosure rules, unless and until she decides that she does? By suggesting that she can change the rules in the future, what's her justification for not changing them today, and giving voters the opportunity to judge whether the sources and amounts of those donations are appropriate, or are evidence of large deposits to Bill's Favor Bank.
"Fully vetted." Yeah, right...
Comments (54)
Hillary looked particularly bad on "This Week" today. George was clearly trying to make up for his atrocious behavior during the last debate by pressing her. And press her he did. And tap dance she did. Her lack of honesty is a real concern.
May 4, 2008 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
He pressed her well and (in general) with actual issues. I was impressed.
May 4, 2008 10:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Conversely, Barack was awesome on Meet The Press, had Tim stumped like a chump. I think this Sunday will have a huge impact on Tuesday's race. That is political prime-time for many primary voters.
May 5, 2008 7:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
My wife is as honest as my foundation and I are well-endowed. Don't question our truthfulness.
Vote for my wife, or else!
May 4, 2008 6:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
When you say "well-endowed" you are referring to the three testicles thing I take it?
May 5, 2008 6:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Gotawife? LOL707LOL707LOL707
...you guys are funny!
May 5, 2008 10:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
She pulled the same stunt with the tax returns, saying she'd release them once she got the nomination. I mean, c'mon. This kind of behavior is a clue as to what her administration would be like. Not something I want.
May 4, 2008 7:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Transparency" used to be a big theme for Obama. Perhaps it's time to bring it up again.
May 4, 2008 10:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hmmm and when she released her tax returns no big revelations. despite all those SHE MUST BE HIDING SOMETHING all caps posts on TPM. It's a bogus non-issue and the Obama campaign should know better than to raise this again.
Unless you have evidence that Hillary tried to put in a $1,000,000 earmark for the employer of Bill Clinton (like Barack Obama did for Michelle Obama's employer University of Chicago Hospitals right after she got a $200,000 160% raise), then I wouldn't be throwing stones from a glass house. Especially given all the good works done by the Clinton Global Initiative.
http://www.clintonglobalinitiative.org/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?pid=1399&srcid=-2
May 5, 2008 10:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
From: After Mining Deal, Financier Donated to Clinton
Is that a "bogus non-issue?"
May 5, 2008 11:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
We are all eager for Bill to get back to work on the Initiative, trust me.
May 5, 2008 1:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hillary is so transparent we can see right through her and stories.
May 4, 2008 11:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah. And before the show, this was going to be softball with George for Hillary. No tough questions. What happened to all that BS? About 95% of the time you people are hysterical. Get a grip. She doesn't run the foundation. The names aren't hers to provide. You want the names, buy a list from the foundation.
May 4, 2008 11:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Billy, you're making a losing argument on this one. Everything is up for sale, no?
May 5, 2008 12:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
If we're going to hear about foundations, how about the Chicago Annenberg Foundation, the $50 million educational one Obama was Chairman of the Board (1995-2003?) for that showed absolutely no results. How come this is dropped off his resume? How come the MSM ignores this one? (Slate only addresses a portion). A $50 million initiative for poor children in Chicago - should be right up his alley. What happened? We know all about Barry's 4 years in Indonesia - why not 8 years chairing an educational board?
May 5, 2008 12:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
That article was a piece of crap with innuendo and supposition presented as if it were fact.
I know a couple "chairmen" of non-profit boards and one from a foundation - they have zero control over actual operational control. Boards help craft the strategic plan to implement a mission that was dictated long before Obama got there. The executive director or equivalent is responsible for day-to-day operations and tactics to attain those Board-managed goals.
In the case of Foundations, Obama would have had very little control over how they distributed the $50 million fund or how those relationships were managed. Additionally, the Foundation would have very little direct control over how the non-profits they funded were managed day-to-day.
As a state senator, he would have likewise had very little direct control over any educational decisions made at the local level. Once implemented, the councils would have long been outside his direct control.
His big issue for education has always been rewarding teachers with great pay for outstanding performance. Closely followed by pre-K education. What he is able to do as the president in charge of the Department of Education is vastly different that what he was capable of as a young state senator and community organizer.
That article and your comment are vastly over simplified and under reasoned.
May 5, 2008 8:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
So the Chairman of the Board has no power and does nothing, so he kept it for 8 years. Typical disappointing answer. And $50 million isn't huge, but it could provide an interesting prototype for education reform. Was Obama interested? Did he care about the results?
May 5, 2008 8:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Do you even know what a Foundation is? It is an endowment that funds non-profits to accomplish a specific mission. I didn't say he had no power. I said boards guide strategic development that is implemented by the executive director. That control would have been even more diffuse once it got to the individual organizations the Foundation funded. You are spinning controversy out of mistaken assumptions or misunderstanding of what these types of organizations do and how they are run.
May 5, 2008 8:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
How about read up on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge then - it was created to receive $50 million of $500 million nationwide to achieve a specific result. It didn't achieve that result. What is Obama's role in that as Chairman of the Board?
May 5, 2008 9:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
I did read up on it and provided plenty of links for you below. You took a very thin slice of a complex nationwide project that had mixed results everywhere. Why not read all the available evidence before making up your mind?
You draw a conclusion and then look for an opinions that support it. You cited a single opinion article that draws simplistic and sophomoric conclusions based on a very narrow view of the subject.
I could write a more comprehensive and unbiased article in my sleep.
May 5, 2008 9:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Did you have a problem with the "Final Technical Report of the Chicago Annenberg Research Project"? Am I required to read every footnote of the nationwide Annenberg project to ask what Obama was doing in Chicago and whether he carried out his role effectively? Looking at the final report I cited, it looked like some of the shortcomings were areas that Obama should be good in - arranging external resources, promoting buy-in, etc. Was he shut out of improving on the "broad goals and vague strategies" mentioned?
Obama is promoting educational reform in his run for President (Michelle says get back to things that help her kids), and I think it's reasonable to look at his job as Chairman of the Board of one such initiative if indeed he did do anything there and had any effect. Or was it simply ceremonial?
May 5, 2008 10:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
I notice you didn't respond to anything I actually wrote, nor did you respond to the quote from the report you cited that said there was some modest success.
When a school system is completely broken around the entire country, a project like the Annenberg Challenge is to distribute money across many solutions to see which ones work and which ones don't.
Chairman of the board is the dude that runs the meetings where the full board decides, as a quorum, how to implement the organizational charter, which Obama did not write. They also have an obligation to the Annenberg Foundation's overall goals.
You act as though Obama should have been a dictatorial force in a situation where such a stance is patently impossible.
May 5, 2008 10:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
"You act as though..." No, I didn't. I asked questions. What did he do? Oh, he presided over meetings and passed out money. Okay, thanks, he didn't do shit. I'll scratch education off as one of his strong points. At least he called the meetings together.
May 5, 2008 11:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
You clearly have no idea how non-profits work or what the role of a board of director plays in their organizational make-up. I have explained it many ways and you still don't understand. I am one trying to explain this one to you.
May 5, 2008 11:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
You're telling me he convened meetings and everyone on the board decided, and most of it was already rules from the parent organization so he had little power to do anything. Got it. No blame.
May 5, 2008 12:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
PS: Obama's proposals for school reform are very different than the ones implemented during the Anneberg Challenge. Do you think the guy just might have learned something from the experience and used that to tailor better solutions?
Too bad your candidate doesn't seem to share the same trait. She is still pushing for insurance mandates that sunk her first effort before it even got started. Just like it failed in Massachusetts.
I prefer the guy who learns from both his own mistakes and the mistakes of others. Like the stupid Gas Tax Holiday idea McCain and Hillary are floating. Tried and failed, which any decent presidential candidate should know.
The only decent one left certainly does.
May 5, 2008 11:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
So wait, did he make mistakes or didn't he, or did he just chair meetings but learned from the organization's mistakes?
May 5, 2008 11:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
First, he wasn't chair of the Board for 8 years, only about 3 years (although he remained on the board until 2001).
Second, the Board's role was just as Jason described it. Not only was there an executive director and staff, but the structure of the group that won the grant (a structure created in the application to the Annenberg Foundation, before Obama's involvement) included, in addition to the Board, an awkward "Collaborative" that actively shaped the Challenge's grantmaking priorities.
Third, the Annenberg report cites lots of reasons the Challenge wasn't very effective; let us know which ones you think were Obama's fault. Among other things the Challenge had to deal with were changes in the direction of school reforms at the state level and a CPS CEO who was antagonistic to the Challenge's decentralized approach to reform.
Fourth, see what the executive director of the Woods Fund had to say in 1995 about the approach Obama took to being a board member of that organization:
"He is among the most hard-nosed board members in wanting to see results. He wants to see our grants make change happen--not just pay salaries."
http://www.chicagoreader.com/obama/951208/
Fifth, you forgot to mention that Bill Ayers was one of founders of the Challenge, who put together the application to Annenberg and got the $50 million. You don't want to miss a golden opportunity at innuendo like that.
May 5, 2008 9:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, I wanted to skip the Ayers part and focus on his performance since it's hard to get specific info on how Obama would run a government.
"He is among the most hard-nosed board members in wanting to see results. He wants to see our grants make change happen--not just pay salaries."
Okay, so he couldn't do the same with Annenberg? Any lessons learned? After all, if he's proposing change in Federal Government, he's going to meet resistance there as well. Hillary's been beaten all around the court for her Healthcare failure. Does Obama just get a "it was too tough" pass, or do we see some limitations to change?
May 5, 2008 10:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
You know, I don't really see Hillary "beaten around the court" for her healthcare failure, at least not in the MSM. One of the issues I have with her is that I don't see any evidence that she learned anything from that whole episode. It seems to me that she's still prone to too much secrecy and the need to overrun opposition rather than figure out how to work with, or even co-opt, others.
What "specific info" do you have about how Hillary would run a government? Would she do it better than she has run her campaign?
May 5, 2008 10:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
You're repeating the same stuff I've heard about Hillary and Hillarycare for years.
I thought I'd ask about Obama and his efforts at herding cats for a change.
May 5, 2008 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, the dude doesn't say it will be easy.
May 5, 2008 12:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Desidero;
Do not let yourself get caught trying to defend an indefensible position.
Obama is not perfect-no one says he is. But that he favors transparency comapred to the Clintons (both of them) is beyond argument.
You cannot win an argument comparing Clinton's pathological story telling to Obama.
Instead, you should push back on YOUR candidate to be more forthright unless of course you think it is ok.
Obama's has stated more than once that he learned something from an effort or mistake, and thus changed a position. Can you site examples of Clinton doing the same?
May 5, 2008 1:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't want a more forthright candidate - I want a more competent one. I expect my politicians to lie to me. If I go to a hooker, I don't expect virtue.
May 5, 2008 3:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
So sad that you think this way, and so sad that you think Hillary is the more competent choice.
May 5, 2008 3:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
The tag team returns!
May 5, 2008 10:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, if it only mattered!
Superdelegates, listen to this one: Obama was head of a Charitable Board that didn't accomplish a hell of a lot! HOLY SHIT! I can't vote for that guy!
May 5, 2008 1:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Buy a list from the foundation?? I can barely afford to fill my gas tank! (If only I could find a sympathetic politician with the courage to propose a short-term Gas Tax Holiday and give me some relief!)
May 5, 2008 8:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Are you listening to yourself? The stated rationale for not releasing the donor list was that the donors were promised confidentiality. If it is okay to break that promise if she is elected, why isn't it okay to break it now?
May 5, 2008 1:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd like to know if former presidents George H. W. Bush and William Jefferson Clinton have registered as agents of a foreign government when in their open and self-serving influence-peddling they lobby for non-American interests using classified information available to ex-presidents and not to the American taxpayer and investing public generally. Just wondering ... It doesn't seem like the fawning and fatuous George Staphylococcus got around to asking.
As for Senator You-Know-Her and her hysterical genocidal threats to "obliterate" 70 million Iranians who have not attacked or threatened to attack America -- typically reckless and irresponsible Clintonian psychobabble -- I can think of little else that so disqualifies her for the high office she claims as her own by right of dynastic spousal inheritance. Senator Obama, on the other hand, continues to beat You-Know-Her with both rhetorical hands tied behind his back, so to speak, as he demonstrates admirable restraint and forebearance in his choice of language while You-Knbow-Her rails at hypothetical windmills and gnashes her "all tough and stuff" teeth in desperate, doomed frustration.
Thank goodness that Deputy Dubya Bush will soon leave the office he has disgraced and You-Know-Her will never get the opportunity to disgrace it even further. Monkey-on-a-stick militarists, both of them, and the ruination of several countries, at home and abroad, with their terminally adolescent playground posturing. They missed out on a lot by not joining me and others of our generation in the Nixon-Kissinger Fig Leaf Contingent (Vietnam 1970-72). Their self-serving absence from coerced, unnecessary quagmire duty has now come home to roost in their disastrous ignorance of war and the enormous waste and tragedy it always entails to no good purpose whatsoever. Very soon now, the American nation can rejoice and cheer as one: "Good riddance to bad rubbish -- both petulant, puerile pieces of it."
May 5, 2008 6:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Desidero, your post isn't very informative, and neither is the Slate article. What particular mismanagement are you referring to? There's a comment to the Slate article that takes an opposite view, linking to a study with an apparently opposite view, so apparently there isn't any unanimous consensus on the view of the Slate blogger.
May 5, 2008 7:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Not to mention anything that resembles thoughtful analysis or actual reporting. The whole thing was an opinion piece masquerading as journalism. My journalism teachers would have kicked my ass for writing such garbage.
May 5, 2008 8:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
I didn't say "mismanagement", I said his Chicago Annenberg Challenge showed no results over 6 or 7 years, typically a bad thing, and in the case of the Slate article, it showed Obama as indecisive and just letting the arguments run their course.
May 5, 2008 8:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Showed no results?
Here is everything you could ever want to know about the Annenberg Challenge, which was actually managed from the Annenberg Foundation.
Most of us understand initiatives like the Annenberg Challenge will have mixed results and actually encompass the efforts of hundreds of people, not just one man. Boards of directors for these efforts aren't dictatorships. They are collaborations.
I understand wanting to stand by your candidate, but dragging Barack down isn't the best way to do that.
May 5, 2008 9:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, schools were asked to apply to be one of the best 18 "Breakthrough Schools", at which point funding for all the others was cut, the Breakthrough Schools got more money than they'd ever gotten, and there was various mentoring that went on to improve their performance. Selecting the best performers to show that things had improved is a classic private school trick, though if it's simply to get better information on what works and to develop a more sustainable type of interaction that would actually work across more schools, then it's not tricky.
Of course Obama is just one man, as is the President, but will he always get credit for successes and spread out his failures to others, or can anyone evaluate what things he's good at and what he's bad at? We'll find out soon enough if he gets the job, so it might be nice to better understand these points earlier.
May 5, 2008 10:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Again, you act as though these efforts are monolithic when they are in fact very fluid and organic. They are reinventing the wheel constantly.
There is nothing in any study that you cited that points the finger at Obama as being the reason teh effort failed. Nothing says that Obamas stewardship was a failure.
The entire, nationwide effort - managed mostly by the Annenberg Foundations strategic focus - had mixed results. I anticipate that Barack, like any educated professional who sits on the boards of non-profits, learned a lot from the experience and incorporated it into what he would try to do as president.
He can do much to guide the conversation, but the utlimate challenge is always on us. Can we demand a government that works? Can we force our representative to do a better job representing us?
You place way too much faith in ANY president to somehow demand change from the top down. These sorts of large-scale social movements for change are always a bottom-up affair.
May 5, 2008 11:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
What did he do to guide the conversation? The Slate article wasn't impressed with his guidance, even though you all dismissed it.
Anyway, I don't think this is going anywhere. Obama's promised top-down change but it will rely on the people and somehow he can't be blamed if things don't work out right, etc., etc.
May 5, 2008 11:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
If it wasn't for the Bush administration's watering down of the Freedom of Information Act, we wouldn't have to ASK her for a damn thing.
But now, just like Bush, she gets to hide behind plausible deniability and suppress information.
YAY!
May 5, 2008 9:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
"If it wasn't for the Bush administration's watering down of the Freedom of Information Act, we wouldn't have to ASK her for a damn thing."
HEAR HEAR...
A point worth pondering. I have always questioned in my own mind why that was allowd to happen in the first place, and why is hasn't changed since the 110th got seated..
No wonder "the powers that be" have done so little to change that problem.
It is their own dirty little secrets they are protecting.
Maybe the 111th will fix the problem.
And BTW, I didn't think those questions were exacxtly hardballs, either, Stephanopolous never hit on more than one hot button issue.
Or did I miss that question "Do you think Bill's past will come back to haunt you if you are the nominee?"
"Why do you feel compelled to reach out to the vast right wing conspiracy that impeached your husband?"
"What is your opinion of the caucus states?"
"Have you paid your unpaid campaign bills yet, and if you lose, will you use your own money to pay the staffers and vendors and suppliers who are currently unpaid?"
At least I would have asked some of these other questions.
May 5, 2008 10:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
This sounds a lot like the Tax Return issue. Opponents kick up a lot of dust, but there is nothing there.
May 5, 2008 11:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
once again i just want to voice my utter disbelief that ABC has apparently decided to give up even trying to appear objective.
It boggles my mind that it didn't occur to anybody that maybe George Snuffaluffagus shouldnt be the one conducting that interview. They could have used Charlie Gibson, or Diane Sawyer, or maybe even Baba WaWa. Any other ABC "journalist" who wasn't on the CLintnon's payroll for four years would have been fine. But no, ABC said, "screw objectivity and journalistic ethics".
Even if there wasn't a conflict of interest, which there was, there was at the very least an appearance of a conflict of interest. ABC should know that journalists, real journalists anyway, go out of their way to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.
So...why the hell was George Snuffuluffagus the one conducting this interview? I mean, he was literally on the Clinton's payroll!
UGH...i'm disgusted.
May 5, 2008 1:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bill Clinton's foundation is the elephant in the living room. What will he do with it once he's in the WH again? Will he be raising money for it by making mining deals with foreign governments? I don't hear anything about this scenario. Am I the only one worried about it? Or have they spelled out all ready how he will handle it?
Somebody, anybody...do you know?
May 5, 2008 2:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Illinois school reform in the late 80s decentralized power. Then in the mid-90s Daley was successful in having the legislature put the schools under his control, centralizing power in the office of Vallas, the CPS CEO. The Slate article is completely uncritical of Vallas and buys his argument that he was just trying to protect good principals, not that he was trying to enhance the power of his office. (Vallas also battled the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, contributing to its ineffectiveness). There are plenty who have different views of Vallas:
http://www.substancenews.com/archive/March02/index.html
But in any event the Slate article simultaneously says "Obama was uniquely well-placed to take the lead in mediating this battle." and "New and unknown to many other Democratic lawmakers, Obama wasn't even on the education committee."
So what it boils down to is that as a junior Illinois legislature he didn't insert himself into a power struggle between Vallas and the advocates of more localized control. (And Slate also credits Obama with not pandering to his political base). BFD.
May 5, 2008 3:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
This should have been a response to Desidero above.
May 5, 2008 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
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