The victim card, the female card, and the media bias card have all been played to cover HRC’s poor debate performance, the first two in the immediate aftermath of the debate.
Ms. Clinton has touted her “35 years of experience” as a major qualification to be the Democrat nominee. Like other Democrat candidates, she has decried the “stunning record of secrecy” of the Bush administration; her campaign Web site vows to bring a “return to transparency” to government. But Clinton’s appointment calendar as First Lady, her notes at strategy meetings, what advice she gave her husband and his advisers, what policy memos she wrote, even some key papers from her health-care task force—all of this, and much more documenting her years as First Lady, remain locked away. source
So, what happens when she is asked about this by Tim Russert?
MR. RUSSERT: Senator Clinton, I’d like to follow up because, in terms of your experience as first lady, in order to give the American people an opportunity to make a judgment about your experience, would you allow the National Archives to release the documents about your communications with the president, the advice you gave, because, as you well know, President Clinton has asked the National Archives not to do anything until 2012?
SEN. CLINTON: Well, actually, Tim, the Archives is moving as rapidly as the Archives moves. There’s about 20 million pieces of paper there and they are moving, and they are releasing as they do their process. And I am fully in favor of that.
Now, all of the records, as far as I know, about what we did with health care, those are already available. Others are becoming available. And I think that, you know, the Archives will continue to move as rapidly as the circumstances and processes demand.
MR. RUSSERT: But there was a letter written by President Clinton specifically asking that any communication between you and the president not be made available to the public until 2012. Would you lift that ban?
SEN. CLINTON: Well, that’s not my decision to make. And I don’t believe that any president or first lady has. But certainly we’ll move as quickly as our circumstances and the processes of the National Archives permits.
According to Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff, “Nearly three years after the Clinton Library opened—and more than 21 months after its trove of records became subject to the Freedom of Information Act— barely one half of 1 percent of the 78 million pages of documents and 20 million e-mail messages at the federally funded facility are public.”
Today, the Big Dawg, himself, weighed in, and threw down the media bias card…..
The AP is reporting Bill Clinton said Friday that a letter he wrote to the National Archives was to expedite release of his papers, not slow the process or hide anything as rivals are suggesting in criticism of his wife.
Russert’s question “was breathtakingly misleading,” Bill Clinton said.
“Tim’s question was entirely on the mark.”, Barbara L. Levin, spokeswoman for NBC, said.
Both of them cannot be telling the truth. It is linguistically impossible, UNLESS, in ClintonWorld, it depends upon the meaning of “was.”
Like any good sleight of hand artist, HRC’s protests conveniently change the subject, and distract the audience long enough for the illusion to work. They also completely miss the point. The fact remains that the Clinton campaign is unwilling to provide the evidence, other than her own word, that her years as First Lady provided her with the experience which qualifies her to be President of the United States of America.
With her already high negatives, Mrs. Clinton’s refusal to provide transparency is likely to have the effect of more people agreeing with Mike Huckabee’s assessment, “There is nothing funny about Hillary Clinton being President.”
What say you? This is the Friday Free Speech Zone, aka The World Famous Friday Open Thread.
WFFOT: Because a Star Trek film without William Shatner is like an Open Thread without a music video.
Byron York says, Hillary wants you to see those papers. Really
Sources:
Debate transcript
Video of Russert asking HRC about releasing the records
Newsweek, “Papers, I don’t see any papers”
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