There’s this myth that the press has been “hard” on Hillary Clinton. While I do agree that they’ve been easier on Obama, it doesn’t mean they’ve been hard on Clinton. These things aren’t mutually exclusive. You can let one candidate go off light (e.g. the McCain/Hagee story) without being too harsh on another candidate. So, I think Josh Marshall has a good point in the linked article:
I guess these things run in cycles. But let’s get real and admit that Hillary Clinton is getting the free ride of all free rides on her repeated invocations of foreign policy experience. As part of her foreign policy experience Clinton claims “I helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland.”
[quotes from Clinton and stuff about how these claims are silly, read the article] …
These are the sorts of puffed up claims that get other candidates held up to mockery and derision. But Clinton is using them as cudgels in her effort to portray Obama as a lightweight with no experience dealing with foreign policy crises. And basically she’s getting a pass. I guess it speaks to the advantages of staying on offense, which can never be gainsaid. But she’s still getting a big pass on this and a lot else.
Al Gore said something truthful but less than clear and the GOP turned it into “He says he invented the Internet” and Leno and the news repeated it for years. Hell, they still do, even though the source was a GOP press release. Sen. Clinton claims to have been involved in key diplomatic work in Ireland, Kosovo, and Bosnia but no one is making fun of her about this. These statements are boldly untrue. Where is the press on this stuff? And, more importantly, what in the world is the Clinton campaign thinking? Are they nuts?
March 8th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
CNN reports as follows:
A Washington Post blogger accused Clinton in January of exaggerating her involvement in Northern Ireland.
But former Democratic Senate majority leader George Mitchell, who was a U.S. special envoy to Northern Ireland, told CNN that while Clinton was not directly involved in negotiations, she did play a helpful role in bringing in women’s groups that made a difference.
Mitchell is a Democratic superdelegate and has not publicly endorsed Clinton or Obama.
Rep. Peter King, a Republican from New York, was also involved in the process. He recalls one late-night meeting with former President Bill Clinton, Sen. Clinton and Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams.
“There was a discussion of how the IRA would decommission its weapons. And I know that Sen. Clinton was part of that meeting,” King said.
March 8th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Hi Phil, welcome to FatMixx. Thanks for the info. I don’t doubt that she was “in the room,” so to speak, for meetings like this, and even a participant in conversations like that. It’s quite different, though, than having a portfolio responsibility or some formal role in the process. That’s the claim she’s making, which is much stronger than, “I was at a meeting or two with the leader of Sinn Fein.”
Also, understand that this is part of a larger point I’ve been making over a series of posts, that her attempt to tear down Obama is damaging to the party because of how she’s doing it. She is setting up November to help John McCain rather than her own party if she isn’t the nominee. Claims like this are borderline enough that they make ready ads to defeat her in November if she’s the nominee. This isn’t good for the nation if you believe that Republicans need a timeout from leading the government.