HRC Votes Against Goss.
Former House member and longtime CIA employee Porter Goss was recently confirmed by the Senate to be the new Director of Central Intelligence by a 77-17 vote. Among the handful of senators who voted against Goss was Hillary Clinton. She said that she voted against him because the United States has "seen too often in the last three and a half years in this administration the misuse and manipulation of intelligence, and we cannot afford that." She also ripped Goss personally in a statement, saying that "he has been a partisan on intelligence issues in the recent past" and that the CIA was "too important to risk" with a partisan director. Hillary differed in her vote from that of New York's senior senator, Chuck Schumer.
Working Women.
Hillary recently appeared before a meeting of Women Impacting Public Policy, ostensibly to talk about economic issues, but the talk soon turned partisan. She told the businesswomen that another term for President Bush would leave a stagnate economy, and that they were being squeezed by the rising costs of expenses such as health care and dwindling access to federal assistance or contracts.
"If you add up what is happening, all of the economic indicators, I think we are headed for stagnation at best, and I think we need to get back to economic policies that help the entire economy," she said.
Hillary also remarked that women have a greater stake in the economy, since they are typically the ones who do much of the consumer purchasing that drives the economy. "If you check where we're headed economically, it is not a rosy picture for small businesses or anyone else," she said. "Incomes are down, but the cost of everything else is going up."
The remedy? Voting for John Kerry, naturally, who offers "exactly what we need." But while the chicks in power suits may have been listening intently to Hillary, women across America are thinking differently, as a recent poll showed that President Bush is leading Kerry among likely female voters. Kevin Madden, a spokesman for the Bush campaign, said, "It's as if Sen. Clinton is calling plays from John Kerry's economic pessimism playbook. That type of negative rhetoric is always the result of an absence of new ideas and strong leadership."
Hillary Gets Plagiarized?
Speaking of John Kerry, the Washington Post's "Reliable Source" noted that while the senator from Massachusetts may be consulting Bill Clinton for campaign advice, he might me ripping off political anecdotes from Hillary. When Kerry appeared on "The Late Show" with David Letterman, he reminisced about a "quite extraordinary" scene he recently glimpsed from his campaign train: "We came through a little town. . . and these folks were out there at midnight, 12:30, with kids, thousands of them, waiting with signs and everything. . . . And I saw one sign that said, 'John, give us eight minutes, we'll give you eight years.'"
Sounds good, right? Well, on page 114 of Hillary's Living History, she writes about traveling during the 1992 campaign: "One evening in the rural Ohio River Valley, we stopped at the farm of Gene Branstool for a barbeque and a meeting with local farmers. As we were getting ready to leave, Branstool said some folks had gathered at a crossroads a few miles away and we should stop. It was a lovely summer night, and people were sitting on their tractors waving flags while children stood at the edge of fields holding signs and welcoming us. My favorite said, 'Give us eight minutes and we'll give you eight years!'" The Kerry campaign claimed the similar story was pure coincidence.
Everyone Loves Bill.
When Hillary was recently asked how her husband was doing following his open-heart surgery, she replied that he is "making real progress" at home in Chappaqua, N.Y. She said that "He and I went for long walks on Friday and Sunday. He's walking 45 minutes to an hour." She also claimed that during these walks, "People are so happy to see him, they really are. Little kids come up and throw their arms around him and say, 'Oh, Mr. President, we're so glad you're here!'" She added: "That's a good tonic. I think it speeds the healing process."
