What, Hillary Classy? Hillary recently spoke at the Aspen Ideas Institute, where she mocked President Bush by comparing him to a cartoon character. “I sometimes feel that Alfred E. Neuman is in charge in Washington,” said Hill, as the crowd erupted in laughter. Hillary’s description of the President as the Mad magazine goofball, with the catch-phrase “What, me worry?” prompted strong reaction from the GOP. New York Republican Chairman Stephen Minarik said, “At a time when President Bush and most elected officials are focused on the security of our nation, Mrs. Clinton seems focused on taking partisan jabs and promoting her presidential campaign. Her priorities are clearly out of whack.” And RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt said, “Hillary Clinton’s opportunistic attempt to market herself as a centrist is like a wolf dressing up in sheep’s clothing. Such thinly veiled rhetoric doesn’t change the fact she is part of today’s angry and adrift Democrat Party.” In addition to comparing Bush to Neuman, Sen. Clinton, according to the Aspen Times, also blasted the administration for supposedly destabilizing the economy with deficit spending and “huge tax cuts for the wealthy,” calling the United States the “largest debtor nation the world has ever known,” and “endangering U.S. soldiers by not giving them the proper equipment to fight the war in Iraq.” She also slammed an allegedly tepid job market: “There has not yet been one net job created in the last four years,” she claimed, despite statistics from the Department of Labor showing that employment is up nearly 3 million since November 2001. She also didn’t mention that the millions of jobs created under her husband’s administration were based on an economic house of cards, vanishing after the dot-com bust and recession that began in 2000.
Going for the Gold. When New York City recently made a bid to host the 2012 Olympics, officials got Hillary to shill for the city. During the final presentation before the International Olympic Committee, Clinton was greeted “like a rock star,” as IOC delegates tried to get their photograph taken with her and get an autograph. It was also observed that while many of the IOC delegates had been late for their meetings with other representatives of the five cities in contention, everyone showed up early for HRC. Even Republican Mayor Mike Bloomberg admitted to Clinton, “I don’t know whether I should be pleased or disappointed, senator. You got more press than the rest of us combined.” The New York Times reported that New York’s representatives were eager to point out Hillary’s potential race for the White House in 2008 to Olympic committee members, noting that “if Mrs. Clinton is elected President in 2008, she will be in office when the 2012 Games begin.” In all, it was widely assumed that Hillary’s intervention on NYC’s behalf would give it an edge over cities like Paris, London, Madrid and Moscow. But despite Hillary’s efforts, London was awarded the 2012 Olympics.
New Website. Hillary’s 2006 re-election campaign just started its new website, www.HillaryClinton.com. It is carefully tailored to emphasize her stands on broad issues such as national defense, homeland security, health care, education and the economy. Even the section on women’s issues plays down her strong support for abortion rights, emphasizing instead her recent, widely proclaimed infatuation with reducing the number of abortions. In general, her website appears to be yet another effort to cast herself as a moderate who can appeal to even Republican voters.
Big Brother? In the aftermath of the London terrorist bombings, Hillary blasted President Bush for allegedly failing to provide critical railroad and subway security to deter a similar attack on commuters. She complained that the Department of Homeland Security has been slow to distribute most of the $150 million voted by Congress for rail and transit protection. “I’m absolutely outraged by the failure of the administration to release the funding that Congress approved last year,” said Clinton. “I just don’t understand what the holdup is.” She insisted that more money go to buying security cameras: “We are woefully behind where London and other subway systems are because London does have the video surveillance,” she noted, adding that the cameras “at least will get good evidence to go after the people who did this.” She also joined with eight other Democratic senators in sending a letter to DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, urging him to release these funds quickly.
