Hillary on Meet the Press

[JoeChalupa]

She's on this Sunday for the full hour so I'll be watching. Will there be another tear drop moment? Will she come across as the most think she is? I must admit that her thinking she had this in the bag from the start rubs me the wrong way.

Try to put aside your feelings about her and give a listen.

[JoeChalupa]

Russert did a good job and so did Hillary but I didn't buy all her answers.

[AFBlue]

I think it was a mixed bag for Hillary on this morning's show...

She did her best to defend the comments made by her campaign and her husband regarding Obama, that there was no motivation to personally slander him but that they felt his record deserved scrutiny just as everyone elses. I think whether that resonated should be up to individual viewers, but FWIW I bought it....don't think she's racist.

Still, while I think she won that part of the interview, I think the rest of it was flat and filled with the same 'ol political rhetoric. I especially enjoyed the piece where she credited the political progress in Iraq (de-bathification, etc.) to the Iraqi gov't anticipating a democratic (Hillary) win in Nov and "no blank checks" from that point on. That, to put it succintly, requires a "suspension of disbelief" on my part.

However, I think you couldn't have scripted a better end to the show. She was asked the perfect question and gave the perfect answer....and it was heartfelt. It was a question about facing adversity and she responded "Well I think you know...we all lived through it." She came off as very genuine and I think that'll help her image.

Overall, I think it took guts to sit down for an entire hour and get grilled on all the issues, on her fued with Obama, and on her personal life. I still didn't like her politic answers on most of the issues...but IMO she did well enough.

[PixelPusher]

She ed about being taken out of context, then repeated the out-of-context blast about Obama views being close to Bush's (referring to funding troops).

[SouthernFried]

She gonna do something new on Meet the Press?

I mean, if you haven't figured out Hillary in the last 15 yrs...

[Mr. Peabody]

This is an interesting article from NYT, because on Meet the Press, Clinton repeatedly referenced Chuck Hagel in defending herself.

In Defending War Vote, Clintons Contradict Record
By ERIC LIPTON

WASHINGTON — Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton have repeatedly invoked the name of Senator Chuck Hagel, a longtime critic of the Iraq war, as they defend Mrs. Clinton’s 2002 vote to authorize the war.

In interviews and at a recent campaign event, they have said that Mr. Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, helped draft the resolution, which they said was proof that the measure was more about urging Saddam Hussein to comply with weapons inspections, instead of authorizing combat.

Mrs. Clinton repeated the claim Sunday during an interview on “Meet the Press,” saying “Chuck Hagel, who helped to draft the resolution, said it was not a vote for war.”

“It was a vote to use the threat of force against Saddam Hussein, who never did anything without being made to do so,” Mrs. Clinton said.

But the talking point appears to misconstrue the facts.

In October 2002, Mr. Hagel had in fact been working with Senators Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, and Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana, on drafting a resolution that would have authorized the war.

But while those negotiations were under way, to the disappointment of some Congressional Democrats, the Bush administration cir vented their effort and reached a separate agreement with Representative Richard A. Gephardt, Democrat of Missouri, then the House minority leader.

That agreement resulted in a bill, sponsored in the Senate by Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, now an independent, which was slightly less restrictive than the proposal that Mr. Hagel had been helping to develop.

In the original proposal Mr. Hagel had backed, force was authorized only to secure the destruction of Iraq’s unconventional weapons, not to enforce “all relevant” United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq, which was the language in the version that ultimately passed.

It was the White House proposal, not Mr. Hagel’s, that Mrs. Clinton supported, explaining in an Oct. 10, 2002, speech on the Senate floor that it was time to tell Saddam Hussein that “this is your last chance — disarm or be disarmed.”

The repeated references to Mr. Hagel by the Clintons make it clear that they are trying to distance her from the Bush administration’s handling of Iraq, by associating her with a persistent critic of the war.

Bill Clinton has raised the claim at least twice, including in an April 2007 interview on “Larry King Live” and, most recently, at a campaign event in New Hampshire just before the Democratic primary there.

“Chuck Hagel was one of the co-authors of that resolution, the only Republican Senator that always opposed the war, every day, from the get-go,” Mr. Clinton said on Jan. 7. “He authored the resolution to say that Bush could go to war only if they didn’t cooperate with the inspectors.”

A spokesman for Mr. Hagel declined on Sunday to comment about the matter.

In an interview published in GQ magazine in January 2007, Mr. Hagel said that he helped shape the course of the debate — even if it was not his resolution that ultimately passed. He said he helped convince the White House to narrow its request for authorization to go to war just to Iraq. Initially, the administration wanted Congress to approve a broad measure that would not have necessarily specified Iraq as the only target, potentially allowing action elsewhere in the Middle East.

Phil Singer, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, said Sunday that the statements by the senator and Mr. Clinton accurately reflected the role that Mr. Hagel played in the overall negotiations, even if it was not his bill that Congress voted on.

“Senator Hagel not only played a key role in drafting the 2002 authorization,” Mr. Singer said, “but has spoken about those efforts at length.”

[JoeChalupa]

Good takes.

[Yonivore]

I think it's hilarious the Democrats are getting mired down in a tiff over race and sex.

Big tent party and all that...

This is what all that hyphenated-Americanism and activism has gotten them?

[PixelPusher]

I think it's hilarious the Democrats are getting mired down in a tiff over race and sex.

Big tent party and all that...

This is what all that hyphenated-Americanism and activism has gotten them?

If you are racist or sexist, then you would see Clinton v. Obama that way, wouldn't you?