Revising Living History.
Hillary's memoirs have been selling briskly in Communist China, but the success of her book has been a mixed blessing. Censors have removed almost all passages critical of the ChiComs from the Chinese version, outraging Hillary and prompting her publisher, Simon & Schuster, to demand an immediate recall of republication of the Chinese edition "with a faithful and accurate translation." The deleted segments include references to the government's detention of Chinese-American activist Harry Wu in 1995, the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, several references to the lack of freedom of speech in China, and what Sen. Clinton calls China's "dismal record on human rights and its barbaric policy of condoning forced abortions as a means of imposing its 'one child' policy." Hillary says that she is "amazed and just outraged" that the totalitarian regime would redact sections of her book, even though she admitted that she should have known better, seeing that the Communists had censored her back in 1995, when as First Lady she spoke at the UN Conference on Women in Beijing. No word yet whether Hillary mentioned in Living History how the Chinese government and its agents contributed millions of dollars to her husband's 1996 presidential campaign.
Americorpse.
Hillary recently blasted President Bush for not spending enough money on AmeriCorps, her husband's pet project as President. Why doesn't George W. Bush fight for more funding for AmeriCorps, she yelled at an event for the program, when Bill Clinton worked so hard to maintain his father's "Thousand Points of Light"? Hillary also bellowed that "When my husband spoke with President Bush as they were changing the leadership of our country, the only thing my husband asked President Bush was to take care of AmeriCorps and national service." Soon after Sen. Clinton publicly criticized the President, the administration announced it was supporting full funding for AmeriCorps, but the GOP-controlled Congress recently voted against giving AmeriCorps the extra money Hillary and the President had requested.
Queen of Denial.
Hillary has once again flatly ruled out running for President in 2004. At an appearance at a breakfast forum with national political reporters that she had not attended since she and her husband appeared there on the eve of his 1992 campaign, she told the reporters, "I am not running." When asked if there were any circumstances that could pull her into the race, Hillary shook her head and said, "No." Sen. Clinton also said that it is "an absurd feat of imagination" to suggest that Gen. Wesley Clark entered the Democratic presidential campaign to pave the way for her to ultimately join the race, even implying that a 2008 run was not being considered. "That is not what I think about," she said. "I think about the job I have." At this point, her official line is that she and her husband will support whoever is the eventual Democratic nominee. "We have been supportive of all of the candidates running in any way. . . . I think it is extremely important for every issue that I can imagine to have a change in the White House."
Intel Failure?
Hillary continues to support President Bush in claiming that Saddam Hussein's Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. But she also says that the failure to find these WMD raises serious questions about the accuracy of the intelligence relied on by the last three administrations. Said Hill: "If we were so misled, so wrong that we cannot justify the intelligence on which we took action, that has serious implications for any President's policy." She noted that when formulating her decision to support the resolution authorizing force in Iraq, she exercised "due diligence" by consulting military and intelligence officials from her husband's administration as well as attending briefings from the current administration. "To a person, they all agreed with the consensus of the intelligence" that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons and was making an effort to develop nuclear weapons, she said, adding: "From my perspective, that raises a series of questions that we still don't have adequate answers for." Sen. Clinton declined to agree with Sen. Ted Kennedy's assertion that the war against Iraq was "made up in Texas" and a "fraud," but said she respected his "very strong feelings" on the issue. Hillary also used the opportunity to criticize the administration's failure to enlist more international support for the war against Iraq, declaring : "We're paying something of a price in lives and ongoing financial commitment because we didn't bring the rest of the world along."
