Hillary's Heritage Foundation.
According to the Washington Post, Hillary is playing a key role in a behind-the-scenes effort to establish a new political group, funded with soft money, to promote the Democratic agenda in the 2004 elections and beyond. Democratic officials are hoping that Hillary's money and visibility will help this new liberal "activist think tank" crank out policy ideas and disseminate them to voters without violating the new campaign finance laws. Former presidential Chief of Staff John Podesta, who is heading up the think-tank effort, says that Sen. Clinton is "strongly encouraging people, including myself, to get our act together, get out there, generate more ideas [and] market our ideas better." Mrs. Clinton has advised Podesta on the project and contacted donors about helping finance it, two strategists close to her said. For her part, Hillary said in a recent interview, "It would be a tremendous indictment of us" if Democrats do not create new groups to "make sure the point of view we think is needed can be heard."
Hill Demands More Money.
After the New York Times ran an article headlined "White House Concedes That Counterterror Budget is Meager," Hillary slammed the administration for not including enough homeland security funding in the budget and urged the federal government to create a $3-billion fund to help cities pay for the war against terrorism. Accompanied at a press conference by the Democratic mayors of Buffalo, Albany and Syracuse, Sen. Clinton claimed that Washington has shortchanged local governments, which face major costs for equipment to detect biological and chemical agents, as well as gas masks to protect police and emergency workers. "The federal government isn't doing its share," said Hillary. When asked whether she was concerned Congress might allow money to go to states that do not face the same level of threat as New York and Washington, she answered, "I want to see money going primarily to places most at risk."
Attack Iraq?
First Hillary voted in favor of a resolution authorizing the president to go to war to disarm Saddam. Then, a few weeks ago, she gave an interview on Irish TV in which she said she opposed precipitous action against Iraq, and said that President Bush should give the UN weapons inspectors more time. Then she sent a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell charging that the Bush Administration wasn't sharing enough intelligence to support the work of UN weapons inspectors. A few days ago, her office declined to say if she feels whether President Bush has made the case for war. After several media outlets pointed out Hillary's apparent flip-flop, her spokesman told reporters, "Sen. Clinton fully supports the steps the President has taken to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction." (Which begged the question: what steps has he taken so far?) It's been mostly inspectors to this point. How about supporting the steps the President "will be taking?" Hillary cleared things up a little bit the following day, as she visited a military base in New York. After saying that she would prefer the U.S. have as broad a coalition as possible as it tries to disarm Saddam Hussein, she told the press that she ultimately would support disarming Saddam by force even if the UN Security Council does not approve a resolution authorizing war. "It is preferable that we do this in a peaceful manner through coercive inspection . . . but if it's just more of the same equivocation and prevarication we've had from him before, at some point we have to be willing to uphold the United Nations resolutions" on disarmament, she said.
The Road to Wellesley.
In 1969, Hillary was the first student to speak at a Wellesley College graduation. Thirty-four years later, she returned to the campus to accept the college's Alumanae Achievement Award for 2003. "The achievement award is the highest honor Wellesley bestows," said Jessica Minervino, executive director of Wellesley's alumnae association. The ceremony was not open to the public. It will be remembered that when a young Hillary Rodham addressed her 401 fellow seniors at graduation after U.S. Sen. Edward W. Brooke (R.-Mass.) gave the commencement speech, she pontificated that "We feel that for too long our leaders have used politics as the art of the possible. And the challenge now is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible, possible." According to some media accounts, after Hillary finished her challenge to the senator, her classmates gave her a seven-minute standing ovation. The recent award presentation was closed to the press and public. It ends up that Hillary is not even the first graduate of Wellesley to become a senator. Niramol Bulakul Suriyasat, who is also receiving the award this year, served as senator in Thailand's parliament for two terms, during which time a new constitution was passed.
