Hillary Clinton Flips, Then Flops
Posted on October 31, 2007
Hat tip to Hot Air for the video of Hillary Clinton flip flopping on the stage like a fish out of water.
Portion of the MSNBC transcript where this exchange happened is on pages 20-21.
What is not seen on that video but follows in the transcript is where Obama and Edwards call her out on her flip flopping.
From Wake up America
Edwards: For children? To try to protect children — using technology to protect children, I would.
I want to add something that Chris Dodd just said a minute ago, because I don’t want it to go unnoticed. Unless I missed something, Senator Clinton said two different things in the course of about two minutes just a few minutes ago.
And I think this is a real issue for the country. I mean, America is looking for a president who will say the same thing, who will be consistent, who will be straight with them. Because what we’ve had for seven years is double-talk from Bush and from Cheney, and I think America deserves us to be straight.
Williams: Senator Obama, why are you nodding your head?
Obama: Well, I was confused on Senator Clinton’s answer. I can’t tell whether she was for it or against it. And I do think that is important. One of the things that we have to do in this country is to be honest about the challenges that we face.
Immigration is a difficult issue. But part of leadership is not just looking backwards and seeing what’s popular or trying to gauge popular sentiment. It’s about setting a direction for the country. And that’s what I intend to do as president.
Some reactions from around the blogosphere about the debate last night, include but are not limited to:
Screw Politically Correct B.S.
Leading in the polls, the darling of the media, Hillary Clinton faced her toughest bitch slapping last night and failed to deliver.
“….she continued her strategy of avoiding direct answers to questions: She wouldn’t say how she would address Social Security; she declined to pledge whether she would stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, or say whether she supports giving driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.
Instead she tried to tried to turn every issue into an argument against President Bush. She said Bush’s name 25 times, more than all six of her rivals combined.”
It came about because Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) had the courage to defy the uni-speak of the Democratic debates, where everybody agrees with everybody else, and spoke out against the proposal to give licenses to illegal immigrants. Hillary, suddenly realizing how exposed she was by her seeming endorsement of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s plan on illegals, backtracked and pointed out that she had not explicitly endorsed the plan. It was her equivalent of Bill saying that it depended on what the definition of “is†is. It was a Hillary moment, and her parsing and mincing of the vocabulary to have it both ways was on full public display. Caught, she retreated to the claim that everybody was playing “gotcha†— but, indeed, she had been got!
I doubt that this will keep her from winning the Democratic nomination. I’m equally certain that that night’s performance will show up in the GOP’s candidate’s ad campaign. Hillary’s panderfest on the stage at Drexel last night will offer a stark contrast to Rudy Giuliani’s forthrightness. You can disagree with Rudy on certain issues. It’s even fair to say that he’s had a few missteps.
This wasn’t a policy disgreement with Hillary and it wasn’t that she misstated what she meant to say. She said what she meant to say. Unfortunately for her, someone caught her doing what she’s done consistently. Hillary’s tried being all things to all people in the hopes of maximizing her vote totals.
That’s the wrong thing to do this year. People are looking for a leader who’s straight with them, who won’t talk out of both sides of their mouth. That won’t be good for Hillary because she’s nothing if not a panderer.
We’re talking about a woman who has had one single goal her entire life and endured marrying a hack like Bill Clinton to get there. She’s a robot who will say anything, do anything, to get in that Oval Office. Consequences be damned.
She was not prepared for this question, incredibly, and showed her true self. An indecisive, cranky, unlikable person.
MYDD:
The consistent thread throughout the debate was clearly Clinton’s “double talk.” Both Obama and Edwards attacked her on it early on and she exhibited signs of it in a couple of answers, but she might have escaped unscathed if not for her response to the illegal immigrant driver’s license question. There, she basically proved the criticisms true. I agree with dday that it was just a horrible answer and probably should hurt her, but will it? Is it her version of “I voted for it before I voted against it?” I don’t know but I will say this is the first time I’ve left watching a debate feeling like Clinton is vulnerable. At the very least she was thrown off her game tonight, especially in the beginning.
Advantage Obama here. Dodd took a position. Clinton doubletalked. Edwards did not even state his position, just attacked.
Oops. She said the plan makes a lot of sense, and defended Spitzer’s efforts, but then isn’t sure if the idea is any good? Clinton supports the policy, but won’t endorse the policy?
The winner was clearly Edwards. He was concise, aggressive, completely right about Clinton and always on point. He seemed unafraid to take her on, while Obama was still playing a too-careful defense. If I were to give an instant sum-up of the debate - and I’m a blogger so it’s my job - it would be that Clinton’s profound weakness as a general election candidate was pretty badly exposed. And the main alternative just about survived as a credible presidential candidate.
In other words: a great night for the GOP.
The laugh of the day mindset, that the Democratic Candidates shouldn’t go after Clinton on her flip flopping, on her beating around the Bush and on her countless other faults because it just isn’t “progressive politics” and it is just so, so, so, so…. REPUBLICAN (ick)….LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL.
If one of the cardinal rules of progressive politics is that you never repeat the talking points by which your opponents beat up on your own party, then what are we to think of last night’s Democratic debate, in which a principal tactic used by some of the non-Clintons was to repeat Republican talking points about Hillary Clinton?
I am laughing so hard at that one.
[Update] Hillary flip flopped again and now is for Spitzer’s program. So she flipped, then she flopped and now, within 24 hours, she has done a backflip.
A day after she appeared to struggle to give her views on the subject, Hillary Rodham Clinton offered support today for Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s effort to award New York driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, as her campaign sought to contain potentially damaging fallout from a what her own supporters saw as a tense and listless debate performance.
As I said over at my blog:
Flip flopping like a fish out of water and Hillary Clinton is starting to stink just as badly.
» Filed Under News, Politics As Usual, Video
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Well, saying whatever you want to hear got Bill elected, so Shillary’s just following his lead. No one will care and no one will not vote for her because she’s a liar.
The Dems are never going to figure out how to beat Hilary. They don’t have the gall to really go after her.
I read a great commentary on Hilary, it is a good thing that none of the other dems have seen this. If they take the author’s advice they may actually win.
Here is the link:
http://joeleonardi.wordpress.com/2007/10/28/how-to-halt-hillary/
I Love it, I support it but I never said I did.
Maybe the FEC complaint filed against her will help with that.
http://www.blogsforbush.com/mt/archives/2007/10/fec_complaint_f.html
Will al Qaeda members in the USA get their own cards under the Clinton/Spitzer plan ? Proper identification would clearly entitle them to Geneva Convention status that is currently denied.
What about Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah ?
For that matter will there be vanity cards for Sandinistas, Black Panthers, Tupamaros, Basque separatists, Viet Minh, Bosnians, Bohemians, Nihilists, Tamil Tigers, Ulster Unionists, Nazis, neo-Nazis, Dominionists, Communists, Boxers, Janjaweed, Fedayeen, Underground Railroaders, Vegans, Dead Heads, and Earth First-ers ?
Since the comprehensive dhimmifacation package hasn’t been passed by the Congress, the states must step in and take up the matter on their own.