Hillary Clinton: U.S. presidential election, 2008/Controversy

The following relate to controversial matters regarding Hillary Clinton and the 2008 presidential election.

Release of Clinton administration White House papers
In the October 30, 2007, Democratic debate on MSNBC, moderator Tim Russert confronted Hillary Clinton on the issue of records from her husband’s White House. Russert argued, "[A]s you well know, President Clinton has asked the National Archives not to do anything until 2012" about records pertaining to communications between the Clintons."

However, Russert was wrong. The letter that President Bill Clinton sent to the National Archives "was to expedite release of his papers, not slow the process or hide anything as rivals are suggesting in criticism of his wife."

"'She was incidental to the letter, it was done five years ago, it was a letter to speed up presidential releases, not to slow them down,' the former president told reporters [November 2, 2007.] 'And she didn't even, didn't know what he was talking about. And now that I've described to you what the letter said, you can readily understand why she didn't know what he was talking about.'

"Russert's question 'was breathtakingly misleading,' Bill Clinton said."

Unfortunately, Barack Obama is playing Russert's game, eriposte wrote at The Left Coaster.


 * "As Obama was campaigning in South Carolina, two of his leading supporters in Iowa released a letter calling on Clinton to expedite the release of thousands of pages of documents from her husband's presidential library that bear on her activities during his two terms in the White House.


 * "'Throughout this campaign, you have repeatedly emphasized your experience as First Lady,' wrote Tom Miller, the Iowa attorney general, and Lu Barron, a Linn County supervisor. 'However, by refusing to authorize an expedited release of the records from your time in Washington, you are preventing the Iowa voters from thoroughly reviewing that experience.'"

Eriposte comments: "Message to Democrats - don't uncritically believe crap that the media puts out against fellow Democrats."

Related external articles
 * Peter Nichols, "Library holds trove of First Lady Clinton's papers. By law, archivists must examine the records before releasing them to the public. It's going too slowly, some say," Los Angeles Times (Star Tribune), August 18, 2007.
 * Anne E. Kornblut, "No New Light on Clinton Papers," The Trail Blog/Washington Post, October 22, 2007.
 * Michael Isikoff, "Papers? I Don’t See Any Papers. He says he's 'pro-disclosure,' but Bill has kept Hillary's White House files under wraps," Newsweek, October 29, 2007 (issue). See November 6, 2002, letter from Bill Clinton to National Archives (posted at Newsweek).
 * Nedra Pickler, "Q&A: Clintons' White House Papers," Associated Press, November 2, 2007.
 * Ben Smith, "HRC White House papers will go public in '08," The Politico, November 2, 2007.
 * Michael Isikoff, "The Hillary Paper Chase: 3,022,030 Documents To Go," Newsweek, November 3, 2007 (November 12, 2007 (issue).
 * Ben Smith, "Obama and the Clinton Library," The Politico, November 3, 2007.
 * Ben Smith, "More on the Clinton papers," The Politico, November 4, 2007.
 * Steve Benen, "The Clinton records ‘gotcha’," The Carpetbagger Report, November 4, 2007.
 * Digby, "New rules," Hullabaloo Blogspot, November 4, 2007.
 * "Newsweek reported on Clinton documents 'still under lock and key,' but not that 10,000 will likely become public in 2008," Media Matters for America, November 4, 2007.
 * eRiposte, "Tim Russert, Clinton and the National Archives," The Left Coaster, November 4, 2007.
 * Chrish, "FOX Friend Doocy leaves out salient detail in Clinton segment," News Hounds, November 5, 2007. And if you need more on this, see Justin McCarthy, 'Newsweek' Breaks Hillary Document Story; Only FNC Covers It," NewsBusters, November 5, 2007.
 * "Group Sues to Get Clinton Records," Associated Press, November 5, 2007. re Judicial Watch
 * Brian Montopoli, "The Battle Over The Clinton Papers," The Horserace Blog/CBS News, November 5, 2007.
 * "Barack Obama Falsely Claims That Hillary Controls Release Of White House Records," The Fact Hub/Hillary Hub, November 8, 2007.

et tu Obama
Additionally, as the Chicago Sun-Times' Lynn Sweet pointed out November 5, 2007, Obama, "who is making government transparency a centerpiece of the latest phase of his campaign, does not always practice what he preaches when it comes to his own business."

While Obama is accusing Clinton "of being secretive and slowing down the release of her official first lady papers in the Clinton Library, documents that could help buttress -- or erode -- her claim of presidential experience", Sweet wrote, Obama's own record on transparency is lacking, including
 * "where Obama is storing his--not the State of Illinois--state senate records."
 * "earmarks Obama sought in 2006, before he was running for president."
 * other than names, the city and state for his campaign bundlers, "information that is available to his campaign"
 * "Obama, as all major candidates, declines most of the time to disclose details about most fund-raising events."
 * does not post his meeting schedule on the internet

Related external articles
 * Lynn Sweet, "Obama's stealth," The Hill, October 7, 2004.
 * Lynn Sweet, "Living in a glass house. Obama's push for Clinton to disclose her first lady papers raises questions about his own transparency," Chicago Sun-Times, November 5, 2007.
 * "Time's Halperin didn't check with Sun-Times columnist before falsely claiming that column was product of Clinton campaign opposition research," Media Matters for America, November 5, 2007.

Beholden to corporate interests
On October 21, 2007, the Las Vegas Sun reported that Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) was "seeking to draw a sharp distinction between him and what he called 'a crowd of corporate Democrats' running for president.


 * Jake Tapper, "Edwards Slams Top Clinton Strategist's Ties to Blackwater. Edwards Assails Clinton as 'Corporate Democrat'," ABC News, October 5, 2007.
 * eriposte, "Is Hillary Clinton a 'Corporate Democrat?' - Part 1," The Left Coaster, October 8, 2007; Part II, October 9, 2007; and Part III, October 10, 2007.
 * Video: "Clinton Operates in Corrupt System," Edwards with George Stephanopoulos on ABC News, November 4, 2007.

Bill Clinton on the campaign trail

 * Patrick Healy, "In New Role, Senator Clinton's Strategist in Chief," New York Times, May 13, 2007.
 * Patrick Healy, "A Candidacy That May Test a Friendship’s Ties," New York Times, May 19, 2007.
 * David Shribman, "Bill Brings His Baggage To Hillary's Campaign," RealClearPolitics, May 19, 2007.

Senate attendance, missed votes
Since January 2007, Clinton has only missed 28 votes or 8.3 percent compared to Barack Obama, who "has racked up three times as many missed votes ... according to roll call records," Glenn Thrush reported September 24, 2007, in Newsday.

Obama "missed 23.7 percent of his votes, according to vote-tracking databases" and "has been absent for 82 of his chamber's 346 votes during the current two-year session, a measure of how much time he's been spending in the crucial campaign states of New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina," Thrush wrote.


 * See SW article on Obama's missed votes, including Kyl-Lieberman, here.

Clinton's blind family trust = much OGE about nothing
The Associated Press reported May 18, 2007, that the federal Office of Government Ethics (OGE) (Web) "wants former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, and Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain to open up their blind family trusts because they were not set up under the agency's standards."

However, PoliticalMoneyLine reported May 22, 2007, that Hillary Clinton's was "actually approved by OGE in July 1993 letter, and the Senate in a June 2000 letter, and amended in August 2001, and additional documents filed in November 2003 show a market value of $3.2 million." (Note: There is no permanent link to this citation.)

On June 13, 2007, Hillary Clinton reported to the Senate Select Committee on Ethics the dissolution of her "qualified blind trust", "that held 180 investments in stocks, bonds and other financial assets":


 * "These included investments such as Abbott Labs Inc., GlaxoSmithKline PLC, Johnson & Johnson Inc., Eli Lilly & Co., Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc., Novartis AG, Pfizer Inc., and Wyeth Inc.


 * "They also included investments such as Anadarko Petroleum Corp, BP Amoco, Chevron, Exxon-Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell, and Total SA.


 * "Investments also included News Corp., Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, Federal National Mortgage Assn, Federal Home Loan Mortgage, Microsoft, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Wal-Mart De Mexico SA, among many others."

Wal-Mart

 * Michael Barbaro, "As a Director, Clinton Moved Wal-Mart Board, but Only So Far," New York Times (Boston Globe), May 20, 2007.
 * "Hillary Backed Wal-Mart Efforts," NewsMax, May 20, 2007. Note: Article title and article substance do not relate.
 * Tim Graham, "N.Y. Times Focused On Hillary's Time On the Board of Hated Wal-Mart," NewsBusters, May 20, 2007.

Connections to anti-union PR work
In August 2007, in the lead-up to the AFL-CIO candidate forum in Chicago, labor leaders ratcheted up pressure on top Clinton campaign aide Mark Penn to either dissociate from his PR firm, Burson-Marsteller (B-M), or leave the campaign. Penn has said he hasn't been part of the firm's anti-union work, for such clients as Cintas. Yet Penn's role at B-M is "very, very problematic to the AFL-CIO, as well as to many other unions," said AFL-CIO political director Karen Ackerman. Teamsters president James P. Hoffa agreed, saying, "As long as Mark Penn continues to profit from his company's involvement with anti-union companies, this issue will not go away." 

External articles

 * "Myths and falsehoods about Hillary Rodham Clinton," Media Matters for America, February 13, 2007.
 * Anne E. Kornblut, "Clinton's PowerPointer. With Data and Slides, a Pollster Guides Campaign Strategy," Washington Post, April 30, 2007.
 * Ari Berman "Spinning Hillary Centrist," The Nation, May 16, 2007.
 * Ari Berman, "Hillary Inc.," The Nation, May 17, 2007 (in June 4, 2007 issue).
 * Timothy J. Burger and Kristin Jensen, "Clinton Aide Penn Mixes Campaign Role, Advocacy for Companies," Bloomberg News, May 24, 2007.
 * Steven Greenhouse, "Top Clinton Aide Draws Criticism From Unions", New York Times, June 5, 2007.
 * Joe Conason, "Hillary Clinton's labor problem: One of her top strategists is CEO of a union-busting P.R. firm. Doesn't labor deserve more respect?", Salon, June 16, 2007.
 * "Hillary Rodham Clinton's pollster sued for e-mail eavesdropping", International Herald Tribune, July 3, 2007. (This is an Associated Press story).
 * Peter Nicholas, "Clinton aide's PR firm is under attack: Labor activists say it does anti-union work. They want Mark Penn to quit the company or her presidential campaign," Los Angeles Times, August 7, 2007.


 * Additional external articles