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This is Hillary. Brace yourselves, or at least try to stay awake.

By Mark Kilmer Posted in Special Features — Comments (14) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Hillary said a lot of things on Meet the Press and elsewhere. On MTP, she noted that her campaign took action as soon as they had learned that Norm Hsu had been a criminal on the lam. She added that none of this would have happened if political campaigns were financed with our tax dollars.

Alan Greenspan took his book tour to MTP.

On FOX News Sunday, Hillary talked about ideas and what is best for the country and "debate on the substance."

On FNS, Newt said that he'd run if we promised to give him $30-million to do so.

On ABC's This Week, Hillary laughed at Fred Thompson and pledged to protect the Kurds in northern Iraq from themselves.

On CBS's Face the Nation, when told by host Bob Schieffer that Republicans have called her health care plan a step toward socialism, Hillary gave us one of the phoniest extended laughs in the history of politics. She even apologized to Schieffer for laughing, but the host ignored her antics and kept reading his question.

She also pledged that her husband would have no policy role in her Administration.

On CNN's Late Edition, Chuck Hagel rocked the political world by tentatively announcing that he would probably support Mike Johanns in Nebraska's Senate race to succeed him over his "good friend," Democrat Bob Kerrey.

There was some other stuff – the French foreign minister, Bill Maher's candidate assessment, and then Hillary came on and went through the same spiel again. Bill Maher said that of the Republican candidates, he could support only Ron Paul, though he cannot be looking beyond Paul's superficial but inherent zaniness to his fiscal platform.

Read on for the show-by-show review…

HILLARY ON MTP. On NBC's Meet the Press, host Tim Russert talked to Hillary. It was established that Hillary had voted for the Iraq war and had voted to fund it ten times. Was she now saying that she would not vote another cent to the war? Hillary responded: "Tim, I am saying that." She wants the Administration to "change course" in the war.

Russert played old clips of Hillary holding forth on the Senate floor about the dangers of Saddam Hussein. Russert posited that Saddam did not want to rebuild his nuclear program and was not harboring al Qaeda, so would Hillary admit that none of this was true? Hillary said that she was sincere based on what she had been told at the time.

Hillary does not approve of a United Nations veto on Presidential actions. Russert demanded again that she admit that her vote for the Iraq war was wrong, and Hillary took the best political way out: She blamed Bush for mismanagement and said that it is time to move forward, not to look back.

Russert showed that MoveOn.org ad and asked Hillary of General Petraeus had betrayed the American people. Hillary said that he hadn't, and that she condemned the ad along with those used against Cleland and Kerry. [She actually voted not to condemn the Moveon.org ad, though Senator Cornyn's amendment passed without her vote. This was after she'd voted for the Boxer amendment, which condemned nothing specifically said or done about General Petraeus. Boxer's was a miserable failure, despite Hillary's support. Hillary did not vote to condemn the ad.]

However, she added, the ad was being used to distract people from the President's failed Iraq policy.

Russert asked Hillary about Norm Hsu. Hillary said that her campaign "took action" as soon as they learned what Hsu was all about. Such situations could be avoided in the future, she added, if the United States were to adopt a taxpayer-funded scheme for future elections. She called it "public financing," but it is essentially the theft of some of the money you earn daily doing your life's work to pay for those obnoxious political ads you might mute the second time through or thereafter. That is Hillary's solution to her own campaign's corruption.

Russert asked Hillary about the nay-sayers who dare to claim that she could never be elected because of her high negatives. Hillary laughed that off and pointed to the face that she had been victorious in New York State, which she placed atop a hill as a political microcosm of America.

ALAN GREENSPAN ON MTP. Book tour. If you're curious, buy it: The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, which has about 500 pages in hardcover.

HILLARY ON FNS. Host Chris Wallace interviewed Hillary on FOX News Sunday, and Hillary had some very unattractive forced laughs about Wallace's interview with her husband Bill a year ago. (That was the one in which Bill threatened to beat Chris silly.)

Hillary talked about ideas and what is best for the country and "debate on the substance."

Wallace repeated some of her anti-conservative rhetoric and asked Hillary if America wants a candidate who will widen the left/right divide. Hillary said that she can find common ground, "get back to the center," and unite people.

Asked about her health care plan, Hillary boasted that several experts are "favorably disposed" to her latest scheme.

On the MoveOn.org ad, Hillary said that we should focus on Iraq, not some political ad. Those who oppose the ad, she said, are those who can't get us out of Iraq.

NEWT GINGRICH ON FNS. Newt said that Hillary makes good health care points and bad ones, but at least she's started a dialogue. He called her scheme, a "big government plan," even if it is not the '93 atrocity.

Newt talked about his American Solutions conference, this Thursday and Saturday.

Newt said that he will run for President if people promised to give him $30-million. His platform, he said, would include English as an official language and "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.

HILLARY ON TW. On ABC, host George Stephanopoulos used his This Week forum to help his former co-employer Hillary promote her Presidential aspirations. He played a clip of Bill Clinton promising universal health care in 1994 and he asked if a President Hillary would promise the same thing. Hillary chuckled that "we've learned a lot since then."

Steph played a clip of a Fred Thompson vid in which the Republican points out that Hillary's scheme has health insurance as a requirement before one could get a job. Hillary's fake chortle in response was unnerving, and she added: "He has said a lot of things." She pledged to "work with Congress" to make her scheme work. She said that she has no idea what is the best way to do it.

Hillary says she looks forward to "debating whether, when, how we can achieve universal coverage." She thinks the Magaziners have won the first battle, made socialized medicine a legitimate goal in America.

Steph played that Sally Field clip and asked if mothers were less likely to take the world to war. She said it was a mixed bag and changed the subject to withdrawal from Iraq.

Steph posted that after meeting with President Bush last week, he's convinced that the President thinks the next President "will play Eisenhower to his Truman," rejecting the war policies on the campaign trail while continuing them when elected. Hillary spoke of residual forces, "continuing mission," etc. She added, as she had everywhere else, that she wants to protect the Kurds in northern Iraq from foreign nations "and from themselves."

Etc., etc. This morning is grating on me….

HILLARY ON FTN. At CBS, host Bob Schieffer of Face the Nation grilled Hillary, who said that she supports a timeline to end the Iraq war because it is "the only way to send a message of strong disapproval" of President Bush's policy. There is not military solution, she said, and she voted against funding. Hillary said that she voted for a date certain at which to have most of our troops out, but she realizes that there must be some forces in Iraq to take care of various things, including fighting insurgents and "taking care of the Kurds in the North."

Hillary said that "we're going to inherit whatever we're left with." First day in office, Hillary will demand a briefing on what is going on. She wants to bring the troops home then "take stock of where we are." She added that it is difficult to speculate on what she will do, as "fifteen months is a long time," but she will bring the troops home.

Hillary thinks the "Bush policies" have "emboldened our enemies." She mentioned specifically Iran and Syria. Because Bush won't engage in diplomacy, they are further emboldened, she averred. She said that we can be "both smart and strong in our foreign policy," echoing John Kerry from 2004 and Dems more recently.

She said that North Korea must be "reigned in," and we need to have a presence there to see what they are doing.

He asked her about health care, and he said that Republicans had predicted that it would lead to "socialized medicine." Hillary gave us one of the phoniest extended laughs in the history of politics. She even apologized to Schieffer for laughing, but the host ignored her antics and kept reading his question.

Schieffer asked her about "indicted swindler" Norm Hsu, and does she just take huge sums of cash no matter who is giving it? She pleaded ignorance and said that her campaign "took action" as soon as they found out. They were not the only ones guilty of this, but she's now conducting background criminal checks of all of her fundraisers and potential fundraisers. She called again for public financing of political campaigns.

What role for Bill? She would not put Bill in a policy-making role in her Administration, but she wants to send him as far away from her presence as possible, as an Ambassador to travel around the world and tell them that "the era of cowboy diplomacy is over."

CHUCK HAGEL ON LE. Wolf Blitzer, host of CNN's Late Edition, opened by speaking to Chuck Hagel. Wolf told Chuck that his supporters say that "he's the voice they really need in the Senate." Why is he quitting. He said that he's been there for long enough and he wants to do other stuff. He said he doesn't "see any circumstance" in which he'll be a candidate for any office next year, including President. He said that neither he nor Mike Bloomberg have thought at all about running on a ticket together, but things were uncertain and Bloomberg could "emerge as a credible alternative" to the two main parties.

Among the Presidential candidates, Hagel thinks Hillary will be the Dem nominee and "my party is much more confused." He is a "friend of all our candidates," and he is holding off on his endorsement. Blitzer asked him about his friend, John McCain, and asked if Hagel would support him despite his take on the war. Hagel said "he'd wait and see how this all played out."

Hagel said that the future of Iraq will depend on the Iraqi people. He said that the President has been trying to give the Iraqis "room for reconciliation," and we're failing. He accused the President of "going into a Stay the Course, Part II, phase of strategy."

Hagel criticized those who say that anyone is arguing for "CUT AND RUN" or a precipitous withdrawal. The war's opponents, he said, were arguing for a well-planned withdrawal.

Hagel promised to help whichever Republican wins the party's nomination for to succeed him in the Senate from Nebraska. Bob Kerrey is his friend, he said, but he would support Mike Johanns if he is the GOP nominee. He added that either would be an excellent replacement for him.

HILLARY ON LE. Blitzer chatted with Hillary. She was wearing the same outfit, dark green on light green, with the same goofy beads on the necklace, seated in front of several shelves of unread books. She said the same things here which she'd said elsewhere.

Does what this woman has to say have such import as to merit this sort of saturation? It seems that they believe in the inevitability of Hillary.
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That's all for this week. Have at it.