For a week now we have been hearing from the Clinton camp that she didn’t really mean things she said in the last debate the way we heard them.

I’ve long since gotten used to the Clintons’ spin machine. This time she’s claiming a gender problem. All those men picking on this little, compassionate woman. How dare they?

I think the thing that really has my head spinning is this story, where she tells the women in her audiences to bring their brooms, mops, vacuums etc. so they can clean out the White House after GWB leaves and she becomes president.

Clinton speaking in West Burlington, IA, told a story about how she is going to clean up the White House. Telling it, Clinton rested her hand on her head and said “oh my goodness I feel like we are going to get into the White House again and we are going to walk around and say where do we start to clean up this mess?” Clinton remembered an audience member who shouted once out when she told this story before - “that’s what women are good at cleaning up the mess.” Clinton said “bring your vacum cleaners bring your brushes bring your brooms bring your mops.”

Of all the outrageous things for her to say, this is the most outrageous. Anyone else might be able to get away with that line, but coming from her it strikes me as a bit stupid.

The vision it brings to my mind is how the White House probably had to physically be disinfected after Clinton left his DNA all over the walls and floors of the Executive office suite. Not to mention a certain blue dress.

I would have had everything cleaned, including the doorknobs, with industrial strength cleaner two or three times before touching anything without rubber gloves on my hands if I were the Bushes.

Every time I see the Clintons, together or separately, all I can remember is the finger wagging, the give ‘em hell self-righteous tone of his voice as he proclaimed he didn’t do what he did do with that woman—Ms. Lewinski, while Hillary stood beside him and nodded her approval.

I remember their hand in hand walk on the White House lawn as they went on vacation after that.

I remember a cat named Socks who is now with Betty Curry and a dog named Buddy who was so loosely supervised he ran into the street and got killed.

I remember how sad they were that Buddy died and they were going to get a replacement dog right away.

I remember him coming down the steps of church each Sunday carrying a Bible probably never opened and big enough to give him a hernia, while biting his lip. Always the lip biting.

I remember they were fakes then and I know they are fakes now.

They tried to make us think they were Ward and June Cleaver when in reality they were Ma and Pa Kettle. At least Ma and Pa Kettle were funny. I wish I could say the same for the Clintons.

I remember our troops wearing blue UN helmets under the command of the UN, which is against our constitution, but Bill got around that by having an inept US general in charge of the troops and he reported to the UN.

Unless you were in a cave someplace during those eight horrid years you should remember all of this too, and ask yourself if you want four or more years of the same old stuff going on in the house you and I own and still pay for the cleaning bills now.

It seems there were more feathers flying during a damage control conference call with the Clinton people than from the NBC peacock Wednesday.

You see, Sen. Clinton didn’t give a good performance at Tuesday’s debate. She had six male candidates and two moderators who ganged up on her and that’s not faaaaaiiiiirrrrrr!

Now the campaign with the most money (legally or illegally, it doesn’t matter now, does it?) is asking for more money to combat these six meanie old male candidates.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) top advisers, doing damage control after the candidate’s debate performance Tuesday, told supporters on a conference call Wednesday that the campaign needed more money to fight back.

Mark Penn, Clinton’s senior strategist and pollster, and Jonathan Mantz, the campaign’s finance director, told the supporters on the call, which The Hill listened to in its entirety, that they expect attacks from Clinton’s rivals to continue, and she will need the financial resources to deflect their attacks.

Clinton came under withering assault in the Philadelphia debate, and some supporters on the call agreed with analysts that she stumbled.

“I wouldn’t say she lost her cool,” one caller said. “But I would say she lost her footing.”

The caller addded that Clinton’s response to questions about records from her time in the White House that have been sealed by the National Archives “made me roll my eyes.”

The criticisms followed Penn’s assertion that Clinton was “unflappable.” He also said criticisms from Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) would backfire and that he was already “detecting some backlash,” particularly among female voters.

Criticism abounded for poor Tim Russert because he didn’t ask her if she’d seen a UFO.

One woman on the call even said Russert should be shot:

He, Mantz and several supporters hinted repeatedly on the call that Clinton was unfairly targeted by Tim Russert, debate moderator and host of NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“Russert made it appear that President Clinton had done something new or unusual,” Penn said, before adding that it “is, in fact, an extremely confusing situation … I think there will be further clarification.”

“I hope so,” a female caller responded. “To me, it was the most uncomfortable part of the debate.”

Penn turned again to Russert. “The other candidates were asked questions like, ‘Is there life in outer space?’ ”

The object of the call, and a follow-up breakfast Thursday morning with campaign chairman and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) Terry McAuliffe, was apparently to stop whatever bleeding the senator might have sustained during a debate in which Clinton wore a bull’s-eye on her back throughout the evening.

Penn and Mantz said “a new phase” in the campaign had begun with about 65 days to go before the Iowa caucuses. They expect Obama and Edwards to go “negative on TV, and we’re going to need the resources to fight that front.”

While one supporter voiced his concern that the Clinton campaign is not devoting enough money and staff to Iowa, lagging behind Obama, most supporters who commented on the call expressed their displeasure with what they saw as the moderators’ focus on Clinton.

One caller from Oklahoma City said that “the questions … were designed to incite a brawl,” and that Russert’s and Brian Williams’s moderating was “an abdication of journalistic responsibility.”

Another said Russert “should be shot,” before quickly adding that she shouldn’t say that on a conference call.

She has more money than Carter has liver pills and they want more to combat this negative campaigning?

Personally, instead of the Q&A for soundbites at every “debate” I’d like to see a real brawl. Not the physical kind, mind you, but one in which the candidates do all the question asking and the moderators are there simply to keep time.

As for all the negative campaign ads expected and the lack of money to counter them (if you believe that I have a bridge to sell you in the Arizona desert), it’s not negative if it’s the truth.

The story broke a couple of months ago about former First Lady Hillary Clinton’s records not being released from the National Archives until, at the very earliest, after the 2008 election.

At this evenings Democratic Debate in Philadelphia, Tim Russert questioned Mrs. Clinton about these records and her answer was less than forthcoming so he approached the question again. Watch as the Senator attempts to answer and the rebuttal to her answer from Senator Obama.

Mrs. Clinton seems uncomfortable with the question and appeared not prepared to answer with her usual ease. If there is nothing to hide in these records, release them. There has been ample time especially given the case that she is running for the most powerful office in the world.

HT: ian schwartz

Update:

Another one of those “have it both ways” moments for Mrs. Clinton. This time it is Chris Dodd who calls her on her inconsistency.

Perhaps the questions were more difficult at this debate than those in the past, but it does appear that the Senator struggled to define her answers to these questions clearly. Very interesting.

I ran into an interesting piece in Slate today and thought I’d share it with you:

Politicians don’t call it dissembling, deceiving, or lying. They call it media management, and no administration has practiced this black art better in recent times than that of President Bill Clinton. In his 1998 book, Spin Cycle: Inside the Clinton Propaganda Machine, Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post describes how, after the disastrous first half of the first term, the Clintonites learned how to stage and contain the news by “alternately seducing, misleading, and sometimes intimidating the press.” …

…These lessons weren’t lost on Hillary Clinton, in part because she taught many of them after having endured what she considered two years of press hell. As “co-president,” she already held a “distrust of the press … even deeper than her husband’s” when she arrived in Washington, Kurtz writes. And she acted on it. Shortly after Clinton took office, she proposed evicting the White House press corps from the West Wing and resettling them in the Old Executive Office Building, he reports.

She nursed grudges against specific publications, freezing them out. When the press criticized her—inevitable given her centrality in the White House—she withdrew even more. She thought that the Whitewater affair “had turned her into red meat” and that the Washington Post and its editor, Leonard Downie Jr., were out to get her.

The Clintons learned the importance of knowing how to take a punch, but more essentially, they learned how to change the subject and how to selectively use the White House megaphone to drown out negative stories. Clinton chucked mini-initiatives into the media air, where they worked like chaff to flummox the news radar of the press corps. He and his spokesmen stayed on message to control the agenda, sidetracking unwanted questions with quick, disdainful responses. The goal was to “manage the news, to package the presidency in a way that people would buy the product,” Kurtz writes.

Does he have her pegged, or what?

A little off-topic, but Wednesday I was at the allergist’s office for my allergy shot.

One of the patients in the waiting area started talking about co-pays etc. and then stated if Hillary is elected we won’t be able to afford health care.

There were about ten people in there and everyone started talking and agreeing. Not one–black, white or purple plans to vote for Hillary Clinton. We also agreed we are very disappointed in Lindsay Graham.

Food for thought.

Self-proclaimed liberal and probably Democrat (I can’t remember) Camille Paglia has told an interviewer Hillary can’t win the election.

Firebrand writer Camille Paglia says Hillary Clinton “has no vision” and can’t win the general election against any of the leading Republican presidential candidates.

In an interview with Canada’s Globe and Mail, Paglia – who came into the public eye in the early 1990s with her denunciation of “political correctness” – declared:

“I don’t know where people are getting the idea that the Democrats are a shoo-in. I don’t see them gaining the White House unless there’s a third-party spin-off, like Ross Perot.

“I listen to conservative talk radio, because the callers really do give one a sense of where popular sentiment is at the moment. And I just don’t see how any of the Democratic candidates is going to be able to present the national-security credentials that will be crucial in this election.

“The Republicans have [Mitt] Romney, [Rudy] Giuliani, [Fred] Thompson, even [Mike] Huckabee - a series of candidates who would be way more credible than Hillary, if only because of the projection of strength they give.”

Paglia even doubts that Clinton will get the Democratic nomination.

“She has a powerful machine,” the author of “Sexual Personae” told the Globe and Mail. “But many, many other candidates will be draining off support … The Democrats around me don’t want to go backward into the Clinton years.”

Not only does Paglia – who now teaches at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts – believe that Hillary can’t win, she also asserts that Clinton shouldn’t win.

“There’s an over-clever, over-conceptualized political personality there who has trouble being an ordinary person.

“For someone with so much international exposure, she’s not great on the stage. She’s well prepared with her sound bites. But when she has to play outside her sphere of preparation, she seems taken by surprise…

“She’s essentially a policy wonk. She has no vision.

Sounds to me like she has her pegged. We’ll see if she’s right soon enough.

When the Republican nomination is sewn up we’ll all come together and support our candidate in the end. The alternative is to horrifying to imagine.

In probably one of the most stupid statements I’ve heard or read I think the one by Charlie Rangel, Democratic Representative of NY, and a big Hillary supporter takes a lot of chutzpah.

In a cover story on Giuliani in this week’s New York Observer, Rangel went after Giuliani in unusually personal ways, expressing confidence that Giuliani’s frontrunning status will fade either because of the former mayor’s liberal positions on social issues or the operatic drama of his personal life.

“Referring to Andrew Giuliani’s reportedly distant relationship with his father since the ugly bust-up of Mr. Giuliani’s marriage with Donna Hanover,” the article says, “Mr. Rangel said it was because ’sons respect and admire their fathers, but they love their mothers against cheating gxxdxxn husbands.’ … Rangel said he regretted that all the personal problems surfaced so soon in the electoral process. ‘I’m sorry this damned thing turned out so early because, really, just like [embattled former Giuliani aide Bernard] Kerik, it would have bombed his ass out.’”

Mrs. Clinton responded there is no room for personal attacks, as well she should, but none of these things get said without campaign approval.

Do the Clinton campaign or the Clinton supporters really want to talk about someone else’s personal lives? I mean really?

Opposing candidates don’t even have to focus on her own marital problems brought on by her own cheating husband to get down and dirty with Hillary.

All they have to do is repeat her record since she was in Arkansas with a list that is too long to print.

Lost billing records, fired travel office employees, funny money from Chinese donors who can’t afford it and from some who are not even legal residents, using FBI files to spy on political enemies, listening to illegally recorded telephone calls from political opponents and on and on ad nauseum.

Go ahead and open up this can of worms, but I’ll bet you won’t like the things that come out of the cans.

The LA Times seems to be checking on Hillary Clinton’s donors in a way no other major newspaper is doing.

Friday’s story tells of people in New York’s Chinatown “donating” to the Clinton campaign. Again, it seems hard to imagine how dishwashers, waiters and chefs can pony up thousands of dollars to elect Clinton.

At this point in the presidential campaign cycle, Clinton has raised more money than any candidate in history. Those dishwashers, waiters and street stall hawkers are part of the reason. And Clinton’s success in gathering money from Chinatown’s least-affluent residents stems from a two-pronged strategy: mutually beneficial alliances with powerful groups, and appeals to the hopes and dreams of people now consigned to the margins.

Clinton has enlisted the aid of Chinese neighborhood associations, especially those representing recent immigrants from Fujian province. The organizations, at least one of which is a descendant of Chinatown criminal enterprises that engaged in gambling and human trafficking, exert enormous influence over immigrants. The associations help them with everything from protection against crime to obtaining green cards.

Many of Clinton’s Chinatown donors said they had contributed because leaders in neighborhood associations told them to. In some cases, donors said they felt pressure to give.

The other piece of the strategy involves holding out hope that, if Clinton becomes president, she will move quickly to reunite families and help illegal residents move toward citizenship. As New York’s junior senator, Clinton has expressed support for immigrants and greater family reunification. She is also benefiting from Chinese donors’ naive notions of what she could do in the White House.

Of 74 residents of New York’s Chinatown, Flushing, the Bronx or Brooklyn that The Times called or visited, only 24 could be reached for comment.

Many said they gave to Clinton because they were instructed to do so by local association leaders. Some said they wanted help on immigration concerns. And several spoke of the pride they felt by being associated with a powerful figure such as Clinton.

New take, old game

Beyond what it reveals about present-day campaign fundraising, Chinatown’s newfound role in the 2008 election cycle marks another chapter in the centuries-old American saga of marginalized ethnic groups and newly arrived immigrants turning to politics to improve their lot.

In earlier times, New York politicians from William “Boss” Tweed to Fiorello LaGuardia gained power with the support of immigrants. So did politicians in Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago and other big cities.

Like many who traveled this path, most of the Chinese reported as contributing to Clinton’s campaign have never voted. Many speak little or no English. Some seem to lead such ephemeral lives that neighbors say they’ve never heard of them.

If they don’t vote, can’t speak English and are concerned about the issue of illegal immigration, are they eligible to even contribute money to anyone’s campaign?

When donating to a political campaign the donor must certify he or she is an American citizen.

Where are these people getting their money with their minimum wage jobs? Maybe they are better at saving so they can bring a family member here.

We just have such a history with both Clintons now with the Chinese. Bill Clinton sold them technology for campaign contributions. The money is suspected of coming from the Chinese government itself and then trickled down to the immigrants to give to the Clintons. Probably immigrants who are afraid for their families’ lives.

We complained about the Dubai Ports deal until it was derailed, and yet we turn a blind eye to the influence being bought by the Chinese Communist government.

I’d like to hear a valid explanation of the closeness they enjoy with the Chinese and not some cock and bull story about how they saved and gave because they believed in her. I want the truth and nothing but and I want it before the election so the American people can at least make an informed decision as to whether or not they want to be messed over the way we were before.

Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal has a wonderful article about Hillary Clinton in Friday’s edition.

In it she says people who know Clinton (and she knows a lot of the ones who do) do not have doubts about her toughness, but qualms about it instead.

In New York this week she told a women’s lunch that “we face a new question–a lot of people are asking whether America is ready to elect a woman to the highest office in our land.” She suggested her campaign will “prove that America is indeed ready.” She also quoted Eleanor Roosevelt: “Women are like tea bags–you never know how strong they are until they get in hot water.”

Mrs. Clinton is the tea bag that brings the boiling water with her. It’s always high drama with her, always a cauldron–secret Web sites put up by unnamed operatives smearing Barack Obama in the tones of Tokyo Rose, Chinese businessmen having breakdowns on trains after the campaign cash is traced back, secret deals. It’s always flying monkeys. One always wants to ask: Why? What is this?
The question, actually, is not whether America is “ready” for a woman. It’s whether it’s ready for Hillary. And surely as savvy a campaign vet as Mrs. Clinton knows this.

Who, of all the powerful women in American politics right now, has inspired the unease, dismay and frank dislike that she has? Condi Rice, Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein? These are serious women who are making crucial decisions about our national life every day. They inspire agreement and disagreement; they fight and are fought with. But they do not inspire repugnance. Nobody hates Barbara Mikulski, Elizabeth Dole or Kay Bailey Hutchison; everyone respects Ms. Rice and Ms. Feinstein.

Hillary’s problem is not that she’s a woman; it’s that unlike these women–all of whom have come under intense scrutiny, each of whom has real partisan foes–she has a history that lends itself to the kind of doubts that end in fearfulness. It is an unease and dismay based not on gender stereotypes but on personal history.

She has demonstrated her “toughness” when she fired the White House Travel team, brought in an unsavory character to check FBI files on “enemies”, invented the “War Room” and threw a few lamps around in the White House. Not to mention she thumbed her nose at the justice system about her Rose Law Firm billing records. They just suddenly appeared on a White House table, out of nowhere, with her fingerprints all over them. But it was after the statute of limitations had expired. How convenient.

No, we don’t question her toughness. We worry about the way she uses it.

There have been two posts recently at Suitably Flip which detail the Clinton campaign’s attempt to refund monies garnered through Norman Hsu.

Not only does it appear that the campaign may have understated the amount taken in by the disgraced bundler, it seems as though there are donors who have received little or no refund to date.

If you have followed this story, (Clinton and Hsu) the above blog is the place to be. It has been nothing short of tremendous both in following the story and presenting facts.

Part One: “Hillary’s 3rd Quarter Refunds: Large but Lacking”may be found here.

“Hillary’s 3Q Refunds Part II: Return to Sender” here.

Back in July Sen. Clinton took Sen. Obama to task for saying he would negotiate with Iran.

The question that sparked the controversy at Monday’s debate seemed simple enough: Would the candidates for president be willing to meet, within their first year in office, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea?

Obama said yes, while Clinton said no, arguing that the president should only meet with world leaders who are hostile to the United States after lower-level diplomatic contacts are conducted. In an interview today with the Quad City Times, Clinton more directly criticized Obama’s answer.

“I thought that was irresponsible and frankly naive,” Clinton said, according to a story posted on the newspaper’s Web site.

Now she’s hit the ball somewhere but I’m not sure where it landed. She’s changed her mind about negotiations with Iran.

“True statesmanship requires that we engage with our adversaries, not for the sake of talking but because robust diplomacy is a prerequisite to achieving our aims.”

She says she would even consider offering incentives to Iran in return for a pledge to disarm. However, she sets out a series of stringent conditions that are virtually identical to current White House policy.

“If Iran is in fact willing to end its nuclear weapons programme, renounce sponsorship of terrorism, support Middle East peace, and play a constructive role in stabilising Iraq, the United States should be prepared to offer Iran a carefully calibrated package of incentives,” Ms Clinton wrote.

Er, no, not really.

“If Iran does not comply with its own commitments and the will of the international community, all options must remain on the table,” Ms Clinton said.

Well, that last quote certainly sounds decisive, doesn’t it? If Iran doesn’t comply we’ll make sure the international community concurs before we do anything to them.

How about if we pass 17 Security Council resolutions against Iran saying serious consequences will result if they don’t behave themselves? That should work.

I’m not advocating war with Iran by any means, but just what do you use for negotiations when you keep saying “pretty please”?

I guess we’ll be saying “pretty please” as the rockets are heading our way.

I’m getting whiplash trying to keep track of her daily positions on the same topic.

In a few months voters in Iowa will go to their caucus meetings and voters in New Hampshire will go to the primary voting booths.

In the meantime, you will see more of Hillary Clinton than Bill does.

Will someone do me the kind favor of asking Hillary about the following, which I found in The Hill?

Republicans plan to seize on an allegation from the 1992 presidential campaign to tarnish Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) on the red-hot issue of government surveillance.

Government surveillance will be at the forefront of the political debate this fall as congressional Democrats and President Bush square off over legislation allowing electronic spying on U.S. soil without a warrant.

Republicans are focusing on an allegation in a recent book by two Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters, which suggests Clinton listened to a secretly recorded conversation between political opponents.

In their book about Clinton’s rise to power, Her Way, Don Van Natta Jr., an investigative reporter at The New York Times, and Jeff Gerth, who spent 30 years as an investigative reporter at the paper, wrote: “Hillary’s defense activities ranged from the inspirational to the microscopic to the down and dirty. She received memos about the status of various press inquiries; she vetted senior campaign aides; and she listened to a secretly recorded audiotape of a phone conversation of Clinton critics plotting their next attack.

“The tape contained discussions of another woman who might surface with allegations about an affair with Bill,” Gerth and Van Natta wrote in reference to Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton. “Bill’s supporters monitored frequencies used by cell phones, and the tape was made during one of those monitoring sessions.”

A GOP official said, “Hillary Clinton’s campaign hypocrisy continues to know no bounds. It is rather unbelievable that Clinton would listen in to conversations being conducted by political opponents, but refuse to allow our intelligence agencies to listen in to conversations being conducted by terrorists as they plot and plan to kill us. Team Clinton can expect to see and hear this over and over again over the course of the next year.”

Gerth told The Hill that he learned of the incident in 2006 when he interviewed a former campaign aide present at the tape playing. He has not revealed the aide’s identity. Clinton’s campaign has not disputed any facts reported in the final version of his book, which became public this spring, he said.

“It hasn’t been challenged,” said Gerth. “There hasn’t been one fact in the book that’s been challenged.”

I’d really like to hear the answer as to why it’s OK to monitor cell phone frequencies illegally for political gain and it’s not OK to monitor terrorists legally.

I’m sure she must have an excellent response already ready. She always does and she excels in pulling the wool over people’s eyes.

Try to surprise her with the question and let us know what she says.

Betsy is skeptical anyone will cover this story.

Does this woman ever admit to causing some of her own problems?

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton pushed back against criticism from fellow Democrats that she is too polarizing to unite the country as president, arguing that the political battles she has been through make her uniquely equipped to bring the nation together and build a centrist governing coalition.

In an interview aboard her campaign bus, Clinton (N.Y.) acknowledged that she has contributed to the divisive politics of the past decade but said she has learned from those experiences. She said that if she becomes president, she will attempt to assemble a broad, centrist coalition on such key issues as health care, energy independence and national security.

The former first lady called President Bush’s political and governing strategy of concentrating primarily on his party’s base for support “a tragedy” for the country’s politics.

“I actually think that in a way, the fact that I’ve been through so much incoming fire all these years is an advantage,” she said, adding: “It’s been my observation that when you’re attacked continually in American politics, you either give up or get disoriented or you either lose or leave — or you persevere and show your resilience.”

Who was it who went on the Today Show and told Matt Lauer there was a “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy”?

Who was it who stood beside her husband the day he was impeached and listened as he called the atmosphere in politics, “the politics of personal destruction” while being the chief personal destroyer in town?

A lot of the incoming fire she speaks about has come from shooting herself.

I don’t play victim to anyone and own up to my mistakes. I can’t stand for someone to constantly find excuses for why something happened in their life and not take personal responsibility for his or her own actions.

If she should be elected president we’ll have to send her the world’s smallest violin because you can be sure if she wants to run with the big boys she’d better act like one of them.

While speaking to a a Congressional Black Caucus audience two weeks ago Hillary Clinton seems to have made a political boo-boo when she said giving every newborn a $5,000 bond would be a good idea.

Mrs. Clinton said the biggest problem for black Americans is access to wealth and building wealth and that the “baby bond could be a good way to get them started on a lifetime of saving and growing wealth.”

A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 27 percent support the concept, with 60 percent of likely voters opposed to it.

Mrs. Clinton quickly backed down from her initial endorsement of baby bonds, telling reporters shortly after her speech: “It’s just an idea I threw out,” and “I’m looking for a conversation.”

The Wall Street Journal reported her advisers were downplaying the idea as an offhand remark. She made no mention of them in an Iowa speech yesterday on economic prosperity. The speech was part of her “Rebuilding the road to the middle class” Iowa tour.

Now that we know the polls disagree with her, as well as the fact she is not addressing a predominantly black audience she’s singing a different song.

When will African-Americans who are married to the Democratic party “just because” wake up and see it’s the Democrats who want to keep them in a permanent welfare state in order to get their votes?

As more and more become better educated and start to earn a decent income I believe the scales are being lifted from their eyes. It’s just that it’s hard sometimes to break loyalty with someone you have thought was your friend for so long.

It seems to me if candidates are going to give the same speech everywhere they appear they should be prepared for some of the same questions being asked of them instead of accusing the questioner being a plant.

Case in point:

Randall Rolph said he came to New Hampton, Iowa, on Sunday to see Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) with an open mind about whether to support her candidacy. After a tough exchange over Iran, he left saying he had ruled her out.

Rolph was one of several hundred people who turned out in this small town in northern Iowa for Clinton’s appearance. When she called on him for a question, he pulled out a piece of paper and read a question about Iran.

Rolph asked Clinton to explain her Senate vote Wednesday for a resolution urging the Bush administration to label the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization. Rolph interpreted that measure as giving Bush authority to use military action against the Iranians.

“Well, let me thank you for the question, but let me tell you that the premise of the question is wrong and I’ll be happy to explain that to you,” Clinton began….

…and then pointedly said to Rolph that her view wasn’t in “what you read to me, that somebody obviously sent to you.”

“I take exception,” Rolph interjected. “This is my own research.”

“Well then, let me finish,” Clinton responded.

Rolph, from nearby Nashua, fired back that no one had sent him the material.

“Well, then, I apologize. It’s just that I’ve been asked the very same question in three other places,” she said….

…Rolph once again challenged her recent vote, suggesting that it amounted to giving Bush a free hand.

“I’m sorry, sir, it does not,” she said, her voice showing her exasperation….

If she stays on the campaign trail long enough her overpowering way of talking and acting will come out for the voters to see what they are really assessing as a possible president.

In an interesting Washington Times article today, written by Donald Lambro, we have a neat package round-up of what liberal writers are saying about Hillary Clinton’s evasive actions in this election.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has been criticized this past week for her evasiveness, dodginess, weasel words and shady connections — not only by her conservative critics but by liberal columnists and reporters.

In pointed political broadsides from some of the major liberal-leaning publications — including the New York Times and The Washington Post — the New York senator has been the target of surprisingly sharp criticism about her refusal to answer policy questions, investigative reporting about her husband’s business dealings and unsavory fundraisers, and even assertions that her candidacy was solely beholden to her husband’s political influence.

When asked by NBC’s Tim Russert in last week’s Democratic presidential debate about whether following in her husband Bill Clinton’s presidential footsteps was creating a dynasty, Mrs. Clinton said, “I’m running on my own. I’m going to the people on my own.”

But that answer didn’t wash with Maureen Dowd, the liberal columnist for the New York Times.

“Without nepotism, Hillary would be running for the president of Vassar,” she said in her column Sunday. “Of course, Hillary is never on her own. From the beginning, her campaign has relied on her husband’s donors, network, strategies and strong-arming.”

Go read the entire article to see what the big shots are writing about her.

On a related note, Bill Clinton has said if Hillary is elected president she will appoint him to restore the image of the USA.

Somehow the image of all their political funny money deals with the Chinese, the missing Rose Law firm records that mysteriously appeared as mysteriously as they vanished (after the statute of limitations had run out) and with Mrs. Clinton’s fingerprints on them, the unsavory characters they keep company with, sleep-overs in the Lincoln bedroom, ash trays and lamps flying in fits of temper, and cooked books are what come to my mind.

I hope they have a better vision than I do when I think of him “restoring” our image.

I pray we never get to find out exactly how either of them would “restore our image” in the world.

We haven’t heard very much talk about Hillary Clinton’s plan to give $5000 to each new baby born in the United States, but she has announced it.

Tuesday’s Chicago Tribune has an editorial about it too.

Vote for me, a candidate might say, and I’ll cut taxes or boost school spending or protect your embattled industry from foreign competition. But Hillary Clinton is taking a more direct approach to parents. Vote for me, she said the other day, and I might just give you $5,000. The proposition, of course, was not so direct as to constitute a bribe, but it proved that in the realm of audacity, Barack Obama has some serious competition. She told an audience at a forum sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus, “I like the idea of giving every baby born in America a $5,000 account that will grown over time, so that when that young person turns 18, if they have finished high school, they will be able to access it to go to college or maybe they will be able to make that down payment on their first home.”

That’s right — a $5,000 bonus just for coming into the world….

…The idea pleased Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio), a Clinton supporter who was there. Said she, “Every child born in the United States today owes $27,000 on the national debt; why not let them come get $5,000 to grow until they’re 18?”

But Jones inadvertently highlighted the big flaw in the concept. It would be expensive — about $20 billion a year — and Clinton offered no way to pay for it. Absent a funding source, the cost would simply be piled on to the existing federal budget deficit, which is another way of saying it would be paid for by future taxpayers.

So instead of owing $27,000 each on the national debt at birth (actually, it’s now above $29,000), newborns would owe even more. They’d ge