Heading south, will Hillary Clinton bring her adopted southern accent?

April 26, 2007

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton is heading south and the question is: Will she use her occasional Dixie drawl?

The New York senator added a Southern lilt to her voice last week when addressing a civil rights group headed by the Rev. Al Sharpton. On Monday, dealing with a microphone glitch at a fundraiser for young donors, she quoted former slave and underground railroad leader Harriet Tubman.

The two episodes prompted some ribbing in the media and hatched more than a few humorous YouTube video clips.

Now, with the party’s 2008 presidential contenders set to meet Thursday in their first debate in South Carolina, a national television audience could get its first introduction to Clinton’s drawl.

Written by Hillary · Filed Under 2008, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Make Overs, Hillary Clinton in the News, News

â€˜Smoking gunâ€™ tape of Hillary previewed

April 25, 2007

A portion of a videotape alleged to be “smoking-gun evidence” of Sen. Hillary Clinton’s commission of a series of felonies has been released by a business mogul who says he was the New York Democrat’s biggest donor in her 2000 campaign.

As WND reported over the weekend, the five-minute videotape indicates Clinton â€“ despite denials throughout six years of investigation â€“ was directly involved with Peter Franklin Paul in producing a lavish Hollywood fund-raiser in August 2000 that eventually cost Paul nearly $2 million.

Paul told WND he is releasing a 40-second portion of the tape, covering the end of a July 2000 telephone conversation, to demonstrate the tape’s “bona fides.” He plans to release the full tape in a few weeks as the focal point of a documentary on Sen. Clinton.

“The three branches of government were thwarted, for lack of evidence, in their efforts to hold Hillary accountable,” Paul said. “The evidence, albeit belatedly, is now available for the public to be judge and jury.”

The excerpt can be viewed here: http://www.hillcap.org

Clinton’s participation in the planning of the event would make Paul’s substantial contributions a direct donation to her Senate campaign rather than her joint fundraising committee, violating federal statutes that limit “hard money” contributions to a candidate to $2,000 per person. Furthermore, knowingly accepting or soliciting $25,000 or more in a calendar year is a felony carrying a prison sentence of up to five years.

In the 30-second excerpt â€“ the end of the conversation â€“ Clinton is heard via speakerphone thanking Paul, business partner Stan Lee and other colleagues for their efforts in putting together the fund-raiser.

Written by Hillary · Filed Under 2008, Campaign Finance, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton in the News, Scandals

Hillaryâ€™s tough row to hoe - Democratic consultants just plain don’t like her

April 25, 2007

By: David Hill

I keep having this recurring experience. Iâ€™m on an airplane and the corporate road-warrior seated next to me asks what business Iâ€™m in. At first, I try to give as little information as possible: â€œIâ€™m a political consultant.â€ But then the passenger probes this terse reply. â€œIs that with one particular party?â€ Quite often, before I can reply, this is followed by, â€œI hope itâ€™s the Republicans.â€ (Seriously, no one ever says, â€œI hope youâ€™re a Democrat.â€)

Anyway, once I confess my Republican affiliation, the businessman seated next to me will say, â€œI hope you guys are doing something about Hillary Clinton. Iâ€™m afraid sheâ€™s going to win because my wife seems ready to vote for her. Her friends are going to vote for her.â€

Youâ€™ve heard about Desperate Housewives. These gentlemen are Hopeless Husbands. Even after I try to provide a few reassuring predictions about Hillaryâ€™s coming swan dive, they sniff with an air of disbelief at everything I just said and go back to reading their Wall Street Journals. They seem hopelessly resigned to having a new Clinton in the White House.

Iâ€™m not saying that Clinton wonâ€™t eventually prevail, but saying that sheâ€™s an overwhelming favorite before 2007 is half over is just way too pessimistic.

My first inkling that Hillaryâ€™s candidacy might not be all that it portends came during several academic-type conferences I have attended since the 2006 elections. These are the type of conclaves where Republicans and Democrats are invited to reflect on the last election and look ahead to the future.

Written by Hillary · Filed Under 2008, Editorials/Opinion, Hillary Clinton, News, Polls & Surveys

Hillary Clinton: Queen of Cringe

April 25, 2007

IN 1992, Bill Clinton hit a po litical home run with his “Sister Souljah” moment. In 2007, Hillary suffered a reverse “Sister Souljah” strikeout. If it’s not the end of her presidential aspirations, it should be.

Allow me to explain. Fifteen years ago, then-Gov. Clinton was looking to solidify his centrist credentials. An obscure quote by an obscure radical rapper provided the perfect exploitable opportunity. Interviewed by The Washington Post in the wake of the Los Angeles riots, Souljah had wondered aloud: “If Black people kill Black people every day, . . . “why not have a week and kill white people?”

Bill Clinton took to the bully pulpit at the Rainbow Coalition and denounced Sister Souljah. “If you took the words ‘white’ and ‘black’ and you reversed them,” he lectured sternly, “you might think David Duke was giving that speech.”

Political cheerleaders framed this as an act of political bravery - publicly repudiating an extremist racial separatist’s rhetoric to demonstrate independence from minority grievance-mongers in the Democrat Party.

Sen. Clinton - whom conventional wisdom mistakenly casts as the smarter, more disciplined politician of the household - didn’t learn from her hubby’s Sister Souljah triumph. She turned it on its head: Instead of dissociation with racial extremists, she has chosen ingratiation.

And the results are comedy bordering on political suicide.

Strike One came last January, standing at the pulpit at the Canaan Baptist Church with racial racketeer Al Sharpton in Harlem. Affecting a strange Southern-spiced-with-street twang during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration, Sen. Clinton sassed:

“For the last five years, we’ve had No. Power. At. All. And that makes a big difference, because when you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation. And you know what I’m talkin’ about.”

“We”? “Plantation”? Whatchu talkin’ ’bout, H-dawg?

Written by Hillary · Filed Under 2008, Editorials/Opinion, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Make Overs, Hillary Clinton in the News, News

Hillaryâ€™s Best Game Face: Survivor

April 25, 2007

By: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann

Polls suggest that the leading attribute attracting voters to Hillary’s presidential candidacy is her “experience,” a virtue which contrasts, presumably, with the lack of it in Sen. Barack Obama, her chief rival. But a close examination of her record as first lady and as New York senator suggests that her experience is largely in the avoidance of death by scandal.

Were it to be captured in a television series, it would certainly not rise to the level of “Commander In Chief” and probably not even to that of “West Wing.”

It would find its televised metaphor in the reality series “Survivor.”

Consider what her experience has been. She burst forth on the national stage with two tasks in her husband’s administration: The selection of the nation’s first female attorney general and the design and adoption of a comprehensive program of health-care reform.

Her efforts to designate an attorney general hamstrung the new administration for months as two nominees, in succession, had to withdraw their names from consideration.

Finally, at the eleventh hour, she urged her husband to appoint Florida’s Janet Reno, a selection Bill Clinton would come to describe as “my worst mistake.” In the bargain, she suggested the appointment of Lani Guanier as head of the civil rights division, a job she was shortly forced to relinquish when her radical views became known, another embarrassment for the new administration.

Her other selections for the Justice Department, the White House staff and the Treasury were her three law partners: Web Hubbell, Vince Foster, and William Kennedy, appointments which culminated in one imprisonment, one suicide, and one forced resignation.

Written by Hillary · Filed Under 2008, Dick Morris, Editorials/Opinion, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Make Overs, News

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